🅸'🅻🅻 🅱🅴 🆃🅷🅴🆁🅴 🅵🅾🆁 🆈🅾🆄 {ERIC MATTHEWS}

S1 E2: The One With The Late Night

˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚ ⁀➷ERIC MATTHEWS IS SIXTEEN YEARS OLD , in a happy home and surrounded by a loving family. He had support and stability, his problems were trivial, only thinking hard about the next girl he'd ask out on a date. Andy Madden, seemingly also having obtained all of these things. Her parents never fought, and she didn't have to worry about much. Her grades were good and she was happy where she was.

The day her father was fired for reasons he will not elaborate on, she came home to a screaming match between her parents. She'd tried to sneak past them, unknowing where it could possibly lead. This was new territory... should she stay? Should she leave the house until it's calmed back down? How will she even know if it has?

Everything was happening so fast, they went on and on, back and forth. She could immediately pick out the pieces and put together that her father had lost his job, but normally when problems arose in her family, they were talked about peacefully. The yelling and harsh words didn't make any sense to her.

She froze in her spot by the doorway while thinking, and didn't snap out of it until something scared her. A glass bottle had smashed on the wall beside the doorway, and she flinched in her place, letting out a small sound to alert her parents that she was there. She hadn't even meant to, but she couldn't really help it. A bottle being flung across the room under any circumstances would have been unsettling.

She looked down at the broken glass, and back to her parents. There were tears forming, and she had to blink rapidly to keep a straight face. Her mother tried to approach her, but the scene having just unfolded meant the shock was still fresh, and Andy backed away.

"Sweetheart, don't-" the rest of her mother's words were lost on deaf ears.

Andy headed for the front door, feeling like she was unable to breathe until she stepped outside. It felt like something was chasing her. She hoped her mother wouldn't step outside after she had closed the door. She didn't want to have to leave to go anywhere and avoid her parents, she just wanted to sit on the sidewalk and calm down... so that's exactly what she did.

She watched as the sun got lower in the sky until it disappeared completely. When she saw Amy Matthews' car pull into the driveway next door she knew it was probably just Eric, which was normally a good thing, but he'd returned far too early, and if she could recall, he'd scored a date tonight. It must not have gone well.

She looked into the window of the car, and saw her friend banging his head on top of the steering wheel. He looked upset, and she felt upset. They could be upset together, just like they did everything else. Who knows, maybe he'd have a funny story about his date going badly to cheer her up.

She went over and knocked on the window, making him jump in his seat before he saw it was her. He rolled down the window with wide eyes and looked out of breath.

"You scared the hell outta me," he let out, nodding to the passenger side of the car. She walked around and climbed in, taking a moment to look at the surroundings. That being, he must have cleaned the car before his date to impress the girl. Usually, since it was his mother's car, there were all sorts of remnants that her three children left to show they had been there.

"Lemme guess, she decided to take things in a different direction," Andy wanted to feel bad for him, and she mostly did... Mostly. When you date as many girls as Eric, and haven't had one serious relationship to count, it gets to a point where the failures become comedic.

"Yeah, and apparently, I was only a place holder until Jordan Stevens asked her out."

She let the frown once again consume her face. He'd been let down several times on account of there being another guy. Not just some random guy, though. It was always a better guy, better than him. That's what he had been told, anyway.