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She’s driving to class the first time she hears it.
The radio presenter announces they’re an up-and-coming band on the New York scene and this is their debut record. At first, she tunes out the scratchy opening guitar riff, but her mind picks up the thread of the lyrics and when she hears only eighteen with eyes so kind but what’s making the high school queen lose her mind she abruptly pulls her car over and stares at the radio dial in silent disbelief.
The instruments on the track throb and thrash and clash in that artfully messy rock way but the story it tells is of the high school’s most popular girl’s descent into depression and the singer helplessly wondering how he can make her smile again.
She sits in her second-hand station wagon, haphazardly parked up on the kerb, and lets the noise of it all wash over her.
It’s clever, actually really clever, the melody chasing the lyrics as they paint a tale of adventure through the allegory of journeying into a hellish world as the guys chases the girl and tries to pull her free. Well, she’s guessing most listeners will assume it’s an allegory.
The song ends on a hopeful note, the girl waving across the high school corridor and the singer musing he might have a chance after all.
“That was Corroded Coffin with Wake Up,” The presenter announces. “Weird band name. Great song.”
She’s pretty sure it’s about her, and she doesn’t know whether that makes her want to kill him or kiss him. She stews in the thought as radio jingles tinkle through
It’s irrelevant either way, because she has no idea where he is or how to get hold of him, so she pulls away from the sidewalk and arrives ten minutes late to class, the chorus rolling through her head over and over again.
They were supposed to keep in touch. Really, they’d meant to.
But it’s hard to keep up correspondence when one of you lives in a van with no fixed address on the opposite side of the country. There’d be the occasional letter from him the first few months of freshman year, but she never knew where to send hers back to so eventually stopped writing them altogether; stuffing them in a box under her bed just seemed sad and also not a good use of space in her cramped shared dorm.
She only cried about it once, when her new roommate got her wasted on wine coolers and asked if she could borrow that Whitesnake shirt shoved at the back of your closet that you never wear. Then, the next morning she sternly told herself to grow a backbone and put Eddie Munson in her rear view mirror.
It doesn’t work. She thinks about him a lot, but fondly; wonders what he’d think of this class or that record. She wishes she could play him ‘Heaven Is A Place On Earth’ when it gets released sophomore year and watch his face as he pretends to hate it, like they don’t both remember Cyndi Lauper blasting through his van.
*
There’s a poster on the board in the student bar.
They’re playing a gig in LA and Chrissy talks herself in and out of going to it several times before she finally ends up in a queue for tickets outside the venue on the night of the show.
She thought about asking her roommate, but she feels weirdly possessive about sharing Eddie with her which is weird because a) he’s not hers and b) his band is getting national radio coverage at this point.
She hovers outside for the first hour, sitting in her car, then doing anxious laps of the sidewalk, trying to build up the courage to go back inside. She misses the support act completely before she finally hands her ticket to a bemused and heavily tattooed doorman who has seen her go past at least three times already tonight.
The venue is small for LA, but big for a small-time band just breaking through, damp and underground but with a quality sound system that sends their music ringing up the dark staircase as she carefully treads down. When she steps into the main space, its like being hit with a wall of nostalgia, of nights she snuck out to Corroded Coffin’s gigs, occasionally dragging the other Babysitter’s Club with her, but amped up by a hundred. The floor is marginally less sticky though, which strikes her as a weird thing to notice until she finally looks up at the stage and isn’t noticing anything else anymore.
And he’s just- there. He’s there onstage. Like he’s actually existed outside of her memories for the last four years, hair longer and jaw sharper but otherwise definitely, completely, absolutely Eddie Munson.
She’s mesmerised by the band, floats to the edge of the crowd, still keeping near the back of the decently populated crowd so she’s close to the bar – and the exit, just in case. She’s done plenty of brave things since Hawkins, left home, cut off contact with her mother, built her relationship with food back to a healthy standard with the help of her counsellor, but none of those things made her heart pound like watching her ex-something curl around his guitar with a wicked grin to the crowd.
A guy in a shirt with the venue’s name printed across it brushes past her towards the stage and before she can really register what she’s doing, she’s catching his elbow and offering her most winning smile when he turns to glare at her.
“Hey – I know I probably sound like a crazy groupie and people say this all the time, but if you run into Eddie Munson, would you tell him an old friend from school is at the bar?” She asks in her sunniest tone.
The bouncer looks her up and down suspiciously, taking in her sun dress (listen, LA is hot like all the time and she isn’t going to pretend she fits in here for the sake of slowly melting in this basement bar) and lack of visible tattoos and piercings. “Sure, sweetheart.” He says dubiously, but not unkindly before making his way backstage.
Chrissy plants herself at the bar, orders a beer which she nurses until its lukewarm from being clasped between her sweaty palms and instantly regrets every choice she’s made that’s brought her to this moment. She stares at the rows of liquor bottles so she won’t stare at the stage, lets the music wash over her, a mixture of originals she’s not familiar with and covers she remembers Eddie introducing her to during long summer nights in his trailer.
When she hears the lead singer announce they’re taking a short break, her hand tightens around the neck of her bottle until her knuckles turn white.
She’s just planning on downing her beer and then getting the hell out of there, feeling flushed and embarrassed that she’d even thought this was a good idea, when she hears her name drawled in a tone that sends a shiver down her spine.
“Chrissy Cunningham.” Eddie says, grinning broadly. “And here I thought you might have forgotten me. Again.”
*
Chrissy is woken the morning after prom by repetitive footsteps, fading away and growing closer, accompanied by hushed muttering. She opens one bleary eye to the sight of Eddie Munson, very much shirtless, very much pacing up and down the very short length of his bedroom. She watches him rake a hand through his hair restlessly, mumbling under his breath before pressing his fist to his forehead, smacking himself there gently like he used to do when she was tutoring him through English class and he was thinking his way to the answer.
“What are you doing?” She asks, sitting up slowly, still observing his apparent descent into madness.
He freezes when he sees she’s awake, rumpled in the Black Sabbath tee she swiped from his bedroom floor the night before. It’s not exactly clean, but it isn’t gross either, smelling like lived in warmth and very faintly of weed.
“Uh,” He answers eloquently. “Freaking out?”
“Oh.” Chrissy yawns, stretching both hands above her head and purring when her spine clicks satisfyingly. She sees his eyes flick over to her, run down the arch of her back then quickly, guiltily away, and refuses to pretend she didn’t. “Why?”
Eddie blinks at her. “Why?”
She shrugs and nods, rubbing the sleep from one eye with her fist.
“Why?” He repeats with a choked bark of disbelieving laughter. “Because you’re- because we-“ He gestures wildly towards her, sentence trailing off into a high pitched noise as he resumes his pacing.
“Use your words, Eddie.” Chrissy chides, sliding down the bed so she can perch on the end of it. Her prom dress is a pale blue cloud spread across the well-worn carpet and she kicks it out of the way so she can drop her feet to the floor, looking up at him imploringly.
He shakes his head, hair flying.
“Chrissy. You terrify me.”
“Good.” She catches his hand on his next trek past and yanks until he sits down next to her.
He opens his mouth to respond, then thinks better of it and instead lets out a harsh sigh. His head drops to her collarbone, probably heavier than he intended, a sudden weight against her chest.
“You’re moving to LA in the fall.” He says quietly against her sternum.
“Yeah.” She agrees, playing gently with his hair because she knows he won’t come but he also won’t ask her to stay. “But we’ve got the summer.”
*
He slides onto the stool next to hers; she glances at the crowd to see if any of them noticed that a quarter of the band they’ve been screaming for is sat so close to them, but it seems like they’re more focused on smoking and making out with each other to notice.
She turns back on her stool to see Eddie watching her cautiously.
“Can I get you a dr-“ Chrissy is cut off by the bartender putting a fresh beer bottle down in front of them with a brisk nod. “Never mind.”
Eddie, for all his rockstar eyeliner and freshly head-banged hair, looks sheepish. “Perks of the job.” He says awkwardly.
She smiles and taps the neck of her warm beer against his icy one. “And what a job it is.”
He grows even more bashful at that, stupid big doe eyes cast down as he picks at the label on his beer.
“Congratulations. Eddie Munson, corrupting America with his devil music at last.” She says, then adds in a rush. “I’m- I’m really proud of you.”
He glances up at her through his lashes, scanning her face as though trying to decide if she’s messing with him or not.
“Yeah well, never mind that.” He says finally, shrugging off her praise and making her frown because, no actually, she is so impressed and he doesn’t need her validation but she wants to offer it to him anyway and make him see himself through her eyes for once. They’re literally sat in his gig, with a crowd at their back that are here to see him for goodness’ sake. “I’m more interested in what you’ve been up to. When Mark said some chick from high school was out here, I- well, I hoped that it was you.”
She scrunches her nose and he chuckles awkwardly.
“I mean, odds were good since you’re one of, ooh, three girls that I knew in high school?” He laughs self-deprecatingly. “And I can’t imagine Wheeler here, no matter how handy she is with a shotgun.”
The conversation trickles on, stops and starts with awkward pauses as they both try not to overstep in each other’s lives, reminiscing about Hawkins without actually talking about them. She doesn’t regret the last four years without him, is proud of how well she’s doing with college, has much more experience and control over her life and emotions and relationships that she’s not sure would have developed had she hidden in his leather jacket and let him take on the world on her behalf like she knows he would.
But still; he tells her about signing their deal and she feels sad she wasn’t the one he called from their manager’s landline (after Wayne, of course) to celebrate. She says how she quit the college cheer team because it stopped being fun – if it ever had been – and wasn’t sure who she was without it for a bit before finding her way and can see the regret in his eyes that he wasn’t there to support her through it.
There’s still a weird sheen of awkwardness between them, crackling through the safe couple of feet they’re forcing themselves to keep apart, but they’re catching up like old friends are supposed to so there’s that, she guesses. It’s better than nothing which is what she was expecting when she couldn’t even bring herself to enter the venue.
The question that’s been on the tip of her tongue all night finally worms its way free, just after a stagehand taps him on the shoulder with a five-minute warning for their second half. She panics, because once he’s back onstage, he’s theirs again, the crowd’s and not hers – not that he is now – but they’ve been talking around each other for ten minutes now and she still hasn’t got the answer she actually came here for.
“Is it about me?” She blurts out, before he can make his apologies for having to leave to get back to the gig. “Your record, the one that’s on the radio. Is it about me?”
Eddie doesn’t seem surprised, taking a slow sip of the dregs of his beer and meeting her gaze over the rim of the bottle. The atmosphere changes, just for a flickering, electric moment when he sets it back down on the bar top, and lets his eyes drag down her body and back up in one long, lazy lick that makes her want to squirm.
But she doesn’t. Because she’s Chrissy fucking Cunningham and she survived her mom and she survived Hawkins and she’s currently surviving LA and it takes a lot more than a pair of big brown eyes to make her melt these days.
He seems to recognise this when said big brown eyes finally make it back to her face which is set in a challenging expression, one eyebrow raised expectantly. She’s not being cutesy, or fishing for compliments that she’s his muse or some shit; she honestly just wants to be sure she’s not losing her mind (again) or misremembering what they were to each other.
Eddie takes this all in, reads it clear off her face like she’s made of sheet music, then gives her his biggest, most manic hyena grin.
“What do you think?”
She doesn’t want to think, she wants to know, because if its what she thinks then it doesn’t explain why she has to ask the second question, the one she’s actually scared to get an answer to.
She takes a deep breath. “Why did you stop writing to me?”
His face falls immediately and then suddenly he’s that nineteen year old in the woods outside school, full of boyish insecurity as he pretends not to be just a tiny bit hurt she doesn’t remember him.
Chrissy swallows down her attempt to take back the words, choosing to take a slug of beer instead.
“Because, prom queen,” He tells her with a sigh as he stands from his barstool. “Heartbreak might be good for song-writing, but it sucks to actually live through.”
*
They didn’t break up, but then they were never really dating.
The day before she moves to LA, they don’t talk about it.
He drops her off, the usual block away from her house so her parents don’t see. The only indicator something is different is his lack of complaint when she puts her music on during the drive; no Cunningham, you’re killing me here or debates about what the anthem of their generation is. He even taps his thumb against the steering wheel along to The Human League and that’s how she knows something is wrong.
When he pulls up, she leans over and kisses his cheek.
“Bye, Eddie.” She says as cheerily as she can, like it’s any other day.
“See you around, Cunningham.” He responds automatically but with no twinkle in his eye as the door slams shut behind her.
*
The band gets back onstage for the second part of their set and Chrissy watches from her spot at the bar as Eddie drags the mic closer to his mouth by the stand, cradling it loosely like a caress. She knows how that feels, the gently wrap of his fingers, has felt it around her hand and arm and thigh and the reminder of the sense memory hits her like a hurricane.
“So, this next one is a song I wrote about a girl I met in high school.” He announces smoothly, looking at the crowd through his wild curls.
There’s a cheer of recognition for their biggest (and so far only) hit and he smirks knowingly.
“Uh, lots of people keep asking me who this girl is,” He continues leadingly, ducking his head with faux-bashfulness; it’s not fooling anyone, least of all Chrissy, who is suddenly gripped with panic that he’s going to draw the crowd’s attention to her.
“Settle down, settle down, I’m not going to tell you.” He chuckles and her gut unclenches. He plays the crowd as easily as he used to play her, batting back and forward, making them feel they have the upper hand then teasingly tugging the power back. “But this girl, she actually asked me herself recently” - five minutes ago - “She was like Eddie- wait-”
He clears his throat then puts on a silly falsetto. “Eddie is Wake Up about me?” He flutters his eyelashes in a terrible impression of her and the crowd is lapping it up.
She’s so glad he’s still playful.
“Anyway, I figured I’d tell her,” He strums an idle chord, and the crowd waits in hushed silence; he has them in the palm of his hand just like he had her that first day in the woods. “That the song is about her.”
A ripple travels through the audience.
Eddie pays it no mind, the consummate showman, nonchalantly plucking random notes from the guitar as he waits for them to settle down. He’s in no rush, has them all eating out of the palm of his hand.
“Truth is…” Eddie says, looking past the crowd to catch Chrissy’s eye where she’s still perched at the bar. He grins slyly, that same annoying, beautiful curl of his mouth that he’d shot her from the driver’s seat of his van whenever he caught her humming along to his music or after making an innuendo in front of the freshmen that she’d smacked his arm for.
She grins back, heart racing, and he glows with it like the day she handed him that glittery penned mixtape.
“The truth is, they’re all about her. Every single one.”
*
She writes her address on a napkin with a scribbled note write to me this time, rockstar which the security guy from earlier promises to pass onto Eddie.
He doesn’t write to her.
He turns up at her door instead.