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Chrissy Cunningham sits fireside.
Warmth paints itself against her skin. Inside, noises filter through a sliding screen door where a bunch of other college kids slosh shitty beer down their throats in celebration of another Friday night.
Chrissy has an open White Claw at her side and Eddie Munson watches her with dark eyes.
He still looks the same as he did in high school, a little. Hair still too long, soft waves falling past his shoulders, leather jacket hanging open to reveal a black t-shirt. The chain clipped to his beltloop scrapes across the concrete bench he's sitting on.
"You're not drinking, queenie," Eddie says, all airy and carefree, but his head tilts to the side, curious. Reminds her of a predator playing with its food. "It's a party. You're supposed to enjoy yourself."
Her eyes track over to the french doors. She can clearly see Jason's hand lingering on Jessica Ratcliff's bare lower back. Jason tilts back his red solo cup before hovering closer to the girl caught in his orbit.
Eddie clears his throat and Chrissy blinks away the sting in her eyes, turns her attention back to him. "He's enjoying himself. You should too."
"What are you doing here?" She asks, flinches right after. How rude, she hears in her mother's voice.
A smile quirks at the corner of his lips. He leans forward, flames dancing over firelit features. "You know what I'm doing here, Cunningham."
"Don't you–" She winces again, cutting herself off.
"Have a real job?" He finishes for her. "I do. Two actually, although one is only part time." He pauses, that sly smirk growing wider, flashing pearly teeth. "I make a lot of money doing this, though. You college kids are a gold mine."
She nervously fiddles with the elastic hem of one of her knee socks. Her clothes will smell like campfire in the morning. She feels Eddie's eyes trail over her fidgeting fingers. "What do you do?"
"Do you really care?"
"Do you?" She counters, backed into a corner, hellfire licking at her throat. She feels a bead of sweat trickle over her exposed collarbone.
"About you, Chrissy Cunningham? Yes."
Goosebumps prickle over her skin, whether as a warning or in invitation, she isn't sure. Another glance inside shows Jason whispering in Jessica's ear. He's tucking back a curl of wispy red hair so his lips can graze against the delicate shell.
Chrissy's stomach drops.
"Forever never quite works out the way you want it to, does it?" Eddie comments, quiet, like it might soften the blow.
"I don't love him," she admits. The words are spoken out loud, impossible to take back. No longer are they condemned to rattle around in the empty place between her ribs, nicking her heart every time they bounce by. "I don't remember if I ever did."
She does remember the rumors that swirled around the man across from her, though. Satanist, cannibal, murderer. She remembers a crowd of students parting like the red sea as he moved through the halls of Hawkins High. Jason always called him a freak when Eddie would pass by and Eddie would split a grin with sharp menace, tongue flicking out with a slithering hiss before Eddie would laugh, a sound warmer than the fire they're both currently sharing. Across that ancient sea, girls like Jessica would twirl their hair as their curious eyes would follow Eddie's every step.
None of those awful rumors were true, but Eddie never did anything to dissuade them. But then again, the devil will never dispel that which entices a fall from grace.
The mood grows more solemn in the crackling silence; Eddie watches her with rapt fascination. Chrissy can feel the blush crawling over her cheeks when she meets his eyes again.
"Does your heart hurt, when you see him doing that?" Eddie nods to the scene behind french doors, Chrissy can't bring herself to look anymore.
"It hurts," she answers, voice nothing but a feathered croak. She clears her throat, tries to remove the cobwebs of a romance long dead. "It hurts when I think of all the time I wasted."
He hums. "You're still young, the pond isn't that small, sweetheart. Plenty of big fish will kill to get a taste of you."
She wants to ask if that's why he looks so hungry. Wonders if there's saliva pooling in the hollow beneath his tongue, wetting the way for him to swallow her up.
"You say that like you're so much older than I am."
He holds up two fingers, wry smirk back on his lips. "Trust me, two years is longer than it seems, Chrissy Cunningham. You can experience so much with a two year head start."
She gnaws on her lower lip, fingertips tucked into the edge of her white-cotton knee highs. "Do you live around here?"
Eddie cocks an eyebrow, leans back in a casual splay, palms atop decorative concrete. "It's maybe a thirty minute drive." His head tilts to the side, never taking his eyes off her. "I don't live in Hawkins anymore, if that's what you're asking."
"Oh," Chrissy murmurs. Her phone is tucked into the waistband of her skirt, it gives a muted chirp. She ignores it.
"I live in an apartment above a flower shop," he provides, only grinning wider as she doesn't move to look at her phone.
"A flower shop? That's cute."
Eddie nods. "Oh yeah, the girls love it."
"And what about the boys?" She gasps as the words escape her lips, hand coming up to cover her mouth, cheeks blanching in mortification. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry–"
Because of all the rumors that circled Eddie Munson, one of the most notorious ones was that he fell between the legs of anything pretty, as long as they would let him.
Eddie looks delighted, halfway feral at the slip. "The cheer queen's got claws." His laugh is a rumble, her thighs tremble with it. "The boys don't notice the flower shop."
"They don't?" Her voice quakes, just a little, enough for Eddie to cut his teeth on, white canines flashing in shadowed-orange.
"No, sweet thing." He leans forward again, casting a net, reeling her in. "The girls, they see the flower shop and think of forever. The boys, well. They see nothing and are a memory by morning."
Chrissy frowns. For some reason, that aches in a way she can't place. Her heart throbs beneath her lacy-cream bralette. She tugs her oversized cardigan tighter around herself, a cocoon of gauzy spun-sugar.
Eddy tsks, shakes his head. The motion draws her swimming eyes back to his. "Didn't mean to hurt your heart, sunshine. Just answering the question."
"I know." She gives a stilted, almost-miserable laugh. Her lungs feel like collapsing into a blackhole. "I didn't mean to be such a–" Wet blanket, Jason's wormy voice supplies. Jesus, Chrissy, stop ruining the fun for everyone. Lighten up.
"As curious as I am to see how pretty you are when you cry, no one on this earth is worth your tears," Eddie murmurs, genuine. Across the fire, he looks so inviting, comforting, handsome in an effortless, strangely elegant way. Chrissy wonders how bad it will hurt if she sticks her hands into the flames.
She sniffs, skirts a finger under perfect lashes. "I'm sorry."
"For what? Being human? Having feelings?"
Chrissy is acutely aware of how she's hunching over, trying to fix her face in the warmth of the early night. Imperfection is a word that Chrissy Cunningham only knows, not one she is allowed to apply to herself.
"It's lonely, at the top, isn't it?" Eddie asks, those dark eyes make her palms sweat in a mess of clammy nerves. It's a heady sense of attraction she hasn't felt since she was a baby of a freshman, tripping over the laces of her junior varsity cheer sneakers. "Getting hard to breathe perched atop the pedestal."
She straightens her spine. "I'm fine. I'm okay." The words waver, get lost in the smother of the fire. She finally looks back inside. Jason and Jessica are gone, replaced by some other flirting couple she can't remember the names of.
Eddie is still watching her when she turns back. Her stomach loops in too many knots. The weight of everyone's expectations lurches on her shoulders. She is Atlas, and she will shrug.
"Come with me, sunshine." As he stands, his features are obscured by roiling heat and smoke. His hand is held over open flame. The leap isn't too far, now.
The White Claw gets bumped by her elbow, sloshes over a concrete ledge where it gurgles its fizzy guts into the edges of the fire.
Chrissy doesn't look back.