Good to You [Eddie Munson x OFC]

Chapter Six

I had the morning shift at the pool today and Billy had the afternoon shift. Luckily I was only going to have to see him in passing and if I got lucky, I wouldn't have to see him at all. I was sitting in the lifeguard chair watching over the pool. It was fairly empty this morning; mostly just some young moms and their young kids. Sometimes, when I watched the moms at the pool with their kids, I would daydream about what my life will be like when I have my own kids some day.

"Daydreaming up there again?" The sound of John's voice broke my thoughts.

I looked down at John gazing up at me. I smiled down at him. "Hi, John." I said.

"I haven't had a chance to say hi to you since you came back for the summer. How've you been?" He leaned against his broom.

"Um," I let out a little nervous laughter. "Loaded question there, John." Billy started racing through my mind.

"Billy?" He guessed. How did he know? What was it with everyone in my life just knowing things before I even did? Was I really that easy to read? After my father had passed, I really started to confide in John and I ended up telling him what had happened between Billy and I after we finally broke things off for good. He resented Billy for hurting me but had to act cordial to him at work, as did we all unfortunately.

"Am I that transparent?" I joked and John laughed as well.

"Not even close." John smiled. "I just happened to notice you leaving the other day after orientation and I grew worried when I saw Billy following you to the car. But, I know how you are. You're a tough cookie and I knew you could stand up to him for yourself." He paused for a moment. "But I still was watching from the gate just in case." He winked and started walking back over to what he was doing before coming to say hi to me.

I sat back and lost myself in thought again. Despite Billy's treatment of me when we were together, it was still hard for me to let go. For some reason, I was still tied to him. I clung on to the good moments we had and blocked out the bad moments. You attempt to keep what you thought was love in your life. We've all had that one relationship with that one person that, no matter how hard we try, we can't let them go. You realize that they were just there to use you to prop themselves up until they found someone better. You were just an in-between. But you wanted someone to finally, for once, love you back.

Around the time that Billy's shift started, Nancy's mom and a couple of other moms always showed up at the pool. Billy flirted with the moms of Hawkins and they ate it up. I always found it a little gross, especially it being one of my best friend's mom who was becoming yet another Billy victim. I didn't think he would ever act on anything especially because Mrs. Wheeler was married and I felt that Billy at least had some sensibility. I truly believed Billy just flirted with the MILFs of Hawkins simply because he liked the attention.

I looked over at where the locker room doors were and saw Billy emerge from the boy's side. He immediately spotted Mrs. Wheeler and the other moms and I knew that this was my chance to get out of here without him seeing me. I started to descend the steps of the lifeguard chair just as Billy was approaching them.

"Mrs. Wheeler," I heard Billy say. "Is that a new suit?"

Mrs. Wheeler started getting all flustered. It was so hard to watch one of my best friend's moms be so entranced by Billy. "Why, yes, it is." She responded. I couldn't stomach any more of their conversation and slipped by without him noticing me.

I hurried to the locker room to change and get out of there as quickly as possible. When I exited the locker room, John was waiting by the door to escort me out. He walked me to the front gate and I looked back to see Billy glaring at me from across the way. John had noticed too and gave me a little push on my back to hurry me along.

When I got into the car, I wanted to put on a song that would make me forget about Billy. I tried to rack my brain and think of a song that Eddie would like. He was into all that metal music, and while I had never really listened to any of that, I did a quick search to see what I could find. I pulled up Poison by Alice Cooper and I thought maybe that was something he'd listen to. It wasn't really metal, but it was one of those older songs that Eddie usually liked. I imagined myself driving along with him jamming out to the song on my way home.

When I got home, my mom was milling around in the kitchen. "Hi, sweetie." She greeted me when I walked through the door. "How was work?"

"Fine." I replied and tried to get past her to get to my room but she stopped me.

"Do you think I could maybe get more than a one word answer this time, Cassandra?" She pulled out the full name and that was never a good sign.

I threw my hands up in frustration. "What do you want me to say, mom? Work was work. It sucked. Billy sucks. Everything in this stupid town sucks. Is that what you want me to say?" I was starting to get increasingly anxious to leave for school even though I knew I still had three and a half months to go before moving in. I felt like I needed to run away but I didn't know where to go. Did I even have the guts to leave this town?

My mom fell silent and I stormed off to my room. I didn't want to deal with this anymore. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to scream at myself for giving Billy my whole heart when I shouldn't have. I just wanted to have a brain that didn't try to self sabotage itself every time something remotely good happened. But most of all, I wanted to believe that Eddie could actually, truly, have the same feelings for me that I had for him. It was hard to live every single day believing that no one could ever truly love you.

Graduation was coming up in a few days, and I couldn't wait to finally be officially done with high school. Leaving Hawkins High felt like the closing of a chapter in my life and I could not wait to see what adventures awaited in my next chapter. I just hoped that Eddie would continue to be in the next chapter of life. I so desperately wanted to have someone who would love me in the way I thought Billy did.