the shire is burning [eddie munson x OC]

chapter thirty one

Why do the movies always portray heartbreak as something so poetic?

In the movies, there is something always so detrimentally romantic in the way the melancholy is portrayed in the aftermath of a love's demise. Glittering rain speckling sidewalks, paintings of mascara dripping down the cheeks of rose-colored girls and angstful pining from restless boys. The scene is set for tragedy but the roses on the bedside table have yet to wilt. It's contradictory. It's elegiac.

It's wrong .

There is nothing romantic in the way a heart breaks. There is nothing to write home about when you're walking in the dead of night, a soundtrack of silence as you're left to ponder on what went wrong. When you arrive home, the roses will be dead, and he will never call because he was never yours.

Willow should know, as she watches the tree line on either side of her thin out the closer she grows to her side of town. The scene of her, in her broken sobs and hiccups, doesn't belong in cinema - it belongs in the depths of Hell, never to be spoken of again, only to gather dust as she lets each year dull the ache that she knows will never quite leave.

She hadn't expected her night to go so awry, but it did. There's nothing left to say on it. There is nothing left to rehash and re-regret. All there is left to do is put off her mourning until she gets home.

She allows her mind to grow numb in time with her cheeks, still covered in tears that are too stubborn to dry. If she even tries to think about the event that just took place, all she can picture is the dejected face of Steve Harrington as she says hurtful words that tasted wrong on her tongue, even mixed with alcohol. She wishes she could say the fight wasn't a true version of either of them, that it was just inebriation and frustration, but she knows that's a lie - whatever just transpired was pure, painful truth.

She was angry. Steve was angry. It doesn't matter if they both regret it - it happened. It happened and it hurt like Hell. She's not even that drunk anymore - that might be a lie, given the way her balance has failed her multiple times during her short walk thus far - but she is embarrassed. She knows what she looks like.

It is pathetic, embarrassing, humiliating. She's grateful that there hasn't been a single car that's passed her so far.

That is, until she hears it.

It's the familiar engine of a van she's come to memorize, usually a blanket of comfort when it comes rumbling down her street.

She doesn't turn to face him, even when the blinding headlights send her shadow running. She stops in her tracks, back facing him, and just listens for a second.

Maybe it's not him. Maybe it's just some random van that'll speed pass her, and she can continue to make friends with her misery.

But she's not so lucky tonight when the van slows behind her. For a brief moment, she wants to laugh, because it would be awful if it still wasn't Eddie but instead some murderer. She'd be an easy target tonight.

" Red !"

It's Eddie.

She still doesn't turn around. The van crawls a few paces more before it comes to a full stop behind her, but the engine doesn't kill. Instead, she hears his door open before slamming shut, the crunch of his sneakers on the gravel behind her coming down fast and heavy.

"Red, are you okay?"

Now that he's closer, he's no longer yelling, and she's grateful. Her head is preemptively pounding as punishment for her reckless drinking tonight.

She still doesn't face him. Because if she faces him, the castle will crumble for a second time tonight. And God knows she's cried enough in front of Eddie Munson to fill an entire ocean.