my favorite color • reddie

d a l a w a m p u ' t w a l o

Eddie ran.

Tears and blood dripped from his face to his shirt as he took short, shallow breaths.

He didn't know how long he'd been running for, time seemed unreal to him in that moment. Everything had happened so fast he felt like he couldn't catch up.

Eddie took off when Henry and his friends had started beating Richie. He got scared and ran.

And he felt guilty.

The boy he loved was on the ground getting kicked and he ran.

Like a coward.

Eddie tried putting himself at ease, telling himself that he was scared and didn't know what else to do, he wasn't thinking. It was an instinct.

But you left him there.

Eddie kept running, feeling the cold wind stab at his chest and nose. His legs were tired and burning from running who knows how long. He wasn't paying attention, everything was a blur and all he could focus on was getting away.

He began wheezing and coughing. He was starting to feel light headed, like he was about to pass out any second now. He stopped and bent down to put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Blood dripped onto the pavement, startling Eddie. He looked down at his white shirt that had black blood drops all over it. He touched his hand up to his nose and felt how wet his face was, wiping his hand on his pants immediately after.

He looked around and realized he was in his neighborhood.

"Fuck." Eddie sniffed. His adrenaline high had come to an end, feeling everything hit him all at once. His nose had started throbbing, a headache slowly began to beat against his skull, getting more painful by the second. The cut on his cheek had started to sting again.

Once he had caught up with reality, Eddie felt like he wasn't ever going to be able to get any of it out of his head. Right before he ran away, he watched Richie spit blood out of his mouth. He couldn't get the feeling of the blade against his skin out of his head.

This was the first time Eddie had ever genuinely feared for his life.

Eddie cried whenever he came across any negative feeling. He was an emotional person and it was something he had always hated about himself.

He felt like a stereotype, an emotional gay boy. 

Usually he was able to control himself, especially if he was in public, but he didn't really care right now. He'd never had anyone try to hurt him because he was gay. He knew people got attacked and sometimes even killed for liking the same gender but having it happen to him made him realize how just how terrifying and real it was.

It scared him to think that there were people in this world that hated him and wanted to hurt him because who he loved made people uncomfortable.

Eddie trudged home, cleaning himself up in the kitchen sink. He washed the blood off his face and took his shirt off, throwing it in the washer hoping the blood would come off. He went out to his room and pulled out a new set of clothes and went into his bathroom to take a shower.

He turned the water on and waited for it to heat up. Eddie looked in the mirror and saw what a mess her looked.

There was still blood smeared on his face and his eyes were red and puffy and the cut on his cheek was bigger than he thought.

He stepped into the shower and washed the rest of the blood off his face.

"Ah-Fuck." Eddie stepped back, feeling the warm water sting against the cut.

After he finished, he got out and dressed himself, walking back into his room.

He laid on his bed, letting himself cry again.

"It's okay," Eddie whispered to himself, rubbing his arm.

Growing up, Eddie had very feminine mannerisms. He liked playing with the girls in school, he loved to play house and dress up and sometimes he sat with his legs crossed which was unusual for boys to do at the time. Being in elementary school, of course the kids would point it out. The other boys would tease him and say he was 'trying to be a girl' and called him names he didn't understand but later found out were 'mean names' thanks to a dictionary he found in the library.

He'd been getting made fun of since he was six and it bothered him to the point where he'd come home crying. When Sonia asked why he was so upset and he told her, she never took his side. She never comforted him and told him he was going to be okay, never went to the school to talk to the principal, nothing. Eddie didn't know where else to find comfort because he knew no one would understand him so he relied on himself.

That interaction with Henry flooded Eddie's head with old memories he was sure he had forgotten about.

At the age of nine Eddie learned to hug himself and assure himself he was going to be okay. By the time he reached middle school he learned to not let people bother him anymore. Names didn't faze him, being tripped or pushed were things he just learned to brush off. He knew that if he spent his time getting angry at people for targeting him, he'd never be happy.

Eddie learned so much, so quickly, at such a young age. He'd learn to do what would take other people years to do; accept himself. His entire life he's heard people around him say that homosexuality was a sin and that people who liked the same sex would go to Hell and rot. And for a while, Eddie believed it.

He'd always had crushes on boys but he didn't start caring until he was seven. Eddie would pray at night for God to help cure him because he wanted to go to Heaven like everybody else. Anytime he caught himself looking at a boy he'd get angry and start crying. He didn't want to be different, he just wanted to be accepted.

fun fact: when i was in like 2nd/3rd grade someone 'told' on my friend because he only ever played with girls so my teacher made him hang out with boys for a few days 😍

they were all just standing there like 🧍🏻🧍🏾🧍🏽🧍🏽

and my friends and i were watching him hoping he'd come back 🕳🏃🏽‍♀️

we were also like 8 so we didn't know this was wrong 🧎🏽‍♀️

anyways stay sexy 😏🙏🏽