our last summer. (e.m)

twenty: find a new place to be from.

if there was ever a moment where i wish time would stand still so that i might be able to soak in the splendor,
it would be this very one before me.
watch as eddie leans into his laughter,
seeks for the shape of my knee in his palm,
flourishes under the roaring mirth of my father.
it is simply like he belongs here.
like the wood floors have opened their arms for him,
the pale walls have found breath again in his return,
the lightbulbs are dimmed beneath his heavenly glow.
he's being welcomed like he never quite left.
"you alright?"
eddie asks with his eyes trained to me.
his smile is soft yet still so warm;
like opening an oven to be swept away by the scent of promising sweet treats.
"i'm great."
his thumb sweeps across the edge of my kneecap,
telling me so much without a word leaving his mouth.
i love you,
his caress says.
and only you.
i lay my chin into the palm of my hand in my silence,
simply watching the beauty of my life.
how dreadful it once seemed to open my eyes in the morning.
and now?
i anticipate the next day;
waiting for another wonderful experience.
it is an amazing fix,
to be loved.
it's a simple thing that extends beyond the normalcy of our words or thoughts.
it is simply an experience.
eddie looks at the clock hanging above the kitchen door then leans back into his chair with a sigh.
"what is it?"
i ask him.
he gives me an apologetic smile,
which earns him a narrowed look.
"i have practice soon."
"practice?"
my father and i echo.
there is a certain pride igniting in his homely eyes.
"didn't i tell you?"
i entertain his amusement by leaning into his words and answering with,
"tell me what?"
"i'm in a band."
my father claps his hands together the way he does in recognition.
"that's right!"
"you knew?"
my father shrugs.
"i've seen the posters around town."
"you're full of secrets,"
i tell him with a knowing smile;
a secret meant for us.
remembrance clouds his eyes,
taking him back to the night of my revealed tattoo and his words of praise.
"aren't we all?"
if my father senses this growing language of ours that is nothing but nonsense to him,
he's acknowledges it none.
but i see a sense of understanding glimmer in his eyes,
accompanied with a sense of nostalgia.
i try to swallow my urge for crying out in empathy.
it threatens to makes me fearful that sometime in the near future,
i might look like this;
glancing upon my child and their lover,
feeling the dull ache of what i'd lost.
but why must i worry?
how can i when everything is aligning so perfectly?
what eddie and i have created will never leave us,
no matter how hard we might try.
we will always find our way back to each other.
"well? aren't you going to fill me in?"
eddie threads his hand into mine as he begins to inform,
"corroded coffin."
i exhale a breath through my teeth in admiration.
"edgy,"
i commend.
"i like it."
"it is interesting,"
my father says with a close lipped smile.
"you booked any shows yet?"
eddie throws up a number on his fingers with a look meant to be smugness,
but the fire in his eyes is not to be mistaken for anything less than raw, unadulterated drive;
passion for what he does,
zeal for his creation.
"and? does the girlfriend not get an invite?"
"you kidding? girlfriend gets backstage passes,"
eddie answers with that suave wink,
nudging my foot with his own;
a quiet nudge to his love.
"and what about the old man?"
eddie turns his attention back to this man of my own existence,
giving him a laugh to answer with,
"old man is more than welcome. heard you like your dio."
my father looks to me with a laugh leaving from his lips.
"where is that cool little jacket of yours, clover?"
eddie turns to me with furrowed eyebrows to echo,
"yeah...where is your jacket?"
the emphasis is clear to me,
someone who has traced every inch of eddie's existence in and out,
but falls upon deaf ears to someone like my father.
i have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from pooling over with a giggle.
"somewhere in my room."
"safe and protected, i hope."
my father swats a hand through the air to dismiss eddie's and i antics,
then with a fatherly booming voice says,
"you two, always speaking in riddles. always have. since you were children."
eddie casts a loving gaze towards me at the reminder that it has always been him and i:
eddie munson and y/n l/n.
garlic clove and bunson burner.
two souls sewn together for eternity.
the spell is broken for the moment,
when eddie's nose turns up to smell the scent of my fathers food.
"ready to eat?"
my father asks,
rising to serve us the copious amounts of food he's prepared.
eddie doesn't miss a beat when replying,
"absolutely."
and so i know now,
that this is what my future will detail.
i will not go to sleep with regret darkening my eyes.
i will not wake up and wail in desperation of another day.
instead,
i will live a healthy, beautiful life with eddie by my side.
i will come to the dinner table to meet with him and i will find my fathers smile stretched across my lips.
eddie's lips brush the skin of my cheekbone before he gently lays a kiss there.
"you're my best girl...you know that, right?"
he asks in nothing but a ghost of a whisper.
i find his hand to lace it with mine before i deliver a breath of my own,
"us, forever."
"i like that."
eddie kisses the corner of my lips just in time for my father to return back to us,
where he draws away from me completely all in the name of respect.
though his foot tangles itself with mine beneath the table,
cloaked from my fathers eyes,
all so we are still together.
"us, forever."
i hear him say once more.
they say love heightens your senses to nearly unrecognizable measures.
i've never believed it until now.
food has never tasted as good as it does now.
and maybe that is because my father, himself, is learning to love again:
and in this wakening,
he's remembered what it means to stir the pot,
to sprinkle seasonings,
to sweat over the stove on promise of a hearty meal for the ones you love most.
i realize for the first time since childhood:
i never want this night to end.
***
the breath has been stolen from my lungs.
who is the culprit but eddie munson?
watch as his existence threads itself with mine,
winding us into one.
i cannot remember where he ends and where i begin,
so here we lay as one.
he is bringing me alight with the curve of his lips;
speaking a language only him and i understand.
though he told me goodbye hours ago,
even shook my fathers hand in farewell,
it was mere seconds later that he scaled my wall and entered through my window in that ritualistic way.
it wasn't hard to convince him to skip just one night of band practice.
and how well it is paying off.
now he's carved himself into the shape of my being.
"i love you,"
i admit shamelessly as eddie leaves a reminder of his love against the bare skin of my hip.
i can feel my heart racing in my chest at the mere idea of where this is going.
and for once in my life,
i am not fearful to take it this step further.
who better to share this part of myself with?
i haven't realized it until now:
i practically need eddie.
with his simple kisses that soothe my soul.
what couldn't his passion solve?
"i love you,"
he tells me in return.
there is a gentle tug on my shorts and i give eddie a surprised look,
though the urge came from nobody's hands except my own.
could tonight be the night?
before either of us can answer,
the phone ringing by my bedside does it for us.
the tension shatters as i lean to answer it,
leaving eddie to collapse onto my bed on his backside with dramatic sighs.
i snicker and place a hand to his chest to quiet him,
where he responds by placing his lips to my knuckles.
"hello?"
"y/n! hey...are you okay? my mom said you called and sounded, like, panicked."
nancy wheeler back from her trip.
though i'm dying to hear details,
they'll have to wait until the sun rises and eddie is not clotting my senses.
"yes, all is good. are you okay?"
"yeah, i'm great. you were right...that was what johnathan and i needed."
i smile into the phone while eddie begins to fumble with the strings of my jacket;
an attempt to draw my attention back to him.
"i can't wait to hear all about it. tomorrow?"
nancy giggles into the phone,
simply because she knows without me having said a word.
"tomorrow."
when i hang the phone back up and roll back to find my lovers arms,
i watch the smile grow across his lips at the familiarity of this embrace.
"sorry your seduction got interrupted,"
i tell him with a shy smile;
my teeth sink into the flesh of my bottom lip while my eyes gloss over with nerves.
"nothing i can't continue,"
he teases with a kiss to my forehead.
i roll my eyes despite my hands pulling him further in.
"i'm so glad you came today."
"me, too,"
eddie agrees.
we discuss the nature of his visit in the kitchen of our youth with animated eyes and wistful smiles.
his lips find mine again and what was interrupted slowly picks back up in the way eddie teased might happen.
i don't realize how true it is,
how easy he can bring me in,
until now.
a simple kiss,
a hand run down the length of my torso,
and i am his with no further objection.
take me,
i say in the dragging of my nails against his shoulder blade.
i am yours.
i vow with his ringlets of hair knotted into my knuckles.
nothing can ruin this.
not the sounds of late night cheering outside my window,
not the worries of tomorrow.
the breath tangles in my throat but is soon heaved out by the press of eddie's lips to the edge of my collarbone.
it's then the phone rings again.
eddie tries to muffle the noise by pressing his hands to my ears,
but it only makes me giggle out and reach over.
again,
he collapses by my side though keeping his hand tucked away into my inner thigh.
"can't keep your hands off me, can you?"
i tease before i pick up the phone.
eddie kisses the inside of my wrist when he whispers,
"i can't and why would i?"
i give him a look as i answer,
"hello?"
"y/n? clover? is that you?"
everything is ruined.
the peace i've salvaged is ruined like a knife to the flesh of my beating heart;
the shattering of a mirror.
the burning of an art piece.
my mother lies on the other end,
her voice sweet and southern,
waiting for my reply.
"don't be mad at me, baby. i miss you."
the worst part of this isn't her fake apology nor her desperate attempt at suffocating me again.
the worst part is,
i'm glad for it because i miss her too.
the color rushes from my face;
drains into the unbeknown.
eddie is quick to my side and ask,
"hey...what is it?"
"i love you, clover. come home."
home.
i thought i'd found a new place to be from.
i thought i'd redefined that word.
it's lost all its meaning now that it's fallen from the mouth of my mother.
"i love you. you know that, right?"
"i love you too, mom,"
i hurry to say.
i don't have the strength to speak with her and face eddie.
i don't have the strength to even think the words,
but especially not to speak them aloud to this boy i adore.
how can i voice it?
how can i tell eddie this may be our last summer after all?
my mother is opening her arms for me again.
and like the fool i am,
the eight year old who yearns for her kisses and her laughter,
i am rushing to fall back into them.
i have fallen prey to the memory of my mothers crimson kisses and her wondrous doe-eyes.
"come home, baby. we can make this right. you'll come home, won't you?"
"...yes."
—
an
had to throw in the phoebe lyric 😁
anyhow sorry for the lag my loves!!!
i've been so busy lately but i'm going to try and make enough time for good chapters in the future.
this won't be a long story bc i'm a short story kind of girl butttt it won't end anytime soon dw.
i hope you're safe and well <33
i love you sm !!
-e