scared, love? || eddie kaspbrak x oc {1} (COMPLETED!!) ~under editing :)~

~THIRTY-FOUR~

THIRTY-FOUR: Gazebo Bullshit

Words: 993 (including non-story related words such as these)

Author's Note: hii this note is just a thank you to the ppl who r still continuing on reading this tyy soo much and i appreciate youu!
***

~several weeks later~

Eddie clutched onto his cast nervously when he heard the phone ring in the kitchen.

After he had broken his arm from that awful experience on Neibolt Street, his mother forced him into a cast. The cast should have come out days ago but his mother insisted that if he "kept it on longer, his arm would be better healed" or whatever she meant. Eddie knew enough to know her mother's statement was in fact, not factual, but after what happened with him and the losers, he just hadn't enough strength to argue with his mother.

He really wished he could get rid of the cast though. After an encounter with Greta Bowie at the drugstore, his cast was no longer blank. But instead "LOSER" was sprawled across his cast in giant letters written in a bold, black ink.

Now, he gingerly walked toward the kitchen, his hand out reaching for the ringing telephone. He held it to his ear.

"Hello?"

It was Bill on the phone. He sounded exhausted and frantic, he was almost panting.

"Eddie, hello?" Bill said.

"Bill?" Eddie replied nervously. "You know you're not allowed to call me anymore. My mom'll kill-"

"It got Beverly." Bill told him before he could finish.

"What?" Eddie didn't understand what he meant. "Who got Beverly?"

"It." Bill's voice was high and scared. "It got B-beverly. You n-need to go call the o-o-others to N-Neibolt. We need to save her."

Eddie froze.

That clown. That clown got Beverly. It got her.

His future self would have thought better of it and screamed no into the telephone before hanging up and going up to his room to cry, but his now-self was thinking about Beverly. How scared she must be, if she was even still alive, to be with that clown.

And after what he did to them, abandoning them...

He remembered the pain on Ali's face when he left and the hurt he saw on the others' faces. He knew he had to come.

Eddie nodded. "Okay. I'll tell the others and I'll meet you there."

"Thanks, Eddie." Bill was shuddering a bit. "God, I hope she's okay."

With that, Bill hung up and Eddie slowly put the phone down.

He took a shaky breath and gasped into his inhaler before taking another deep breath and walking towards the door, about to exit. But before he could place a hand on the doorknob, his mother came.

She stood by the door, almost glaring at Eddie.

"I heard the name Bill, Eddie." Sonia looked at her son. "Where do you think you're going, Eddie-Bear?"

Eddie felt shame and guilt rising in his throat but he swallowed them away.

"I'm going to help my friends." He said plainly.

"But Eddie-Bear, you're still sick." She told him gently. "Remember your arm? And those pills you have to take? You're still so delicate, Eddie."

"I'm not sick, Mom." Eddie told her.

She looked shocked. There was surprising anger in his voice. Eddie was surprised too but didn't show it.

"What?" She stared at him wide-eyed.

"I said I'm not sick." Eddie said. His voice waivered a bit but his face remained a steely look.

"Maybe you're not, Eddie-Bear." She said, her voice shaking. "Maybe you're not. But those 'friends' of yours certainly are."

"No." Eddie simply shook his head. "They're not. I'm not sick and they aren't either. Now, I have to go."

He reached for the door but his mother blocked him yet again. "Eddie, no. What if you get an asthma attack? You're sick, Eddie, you're sick! Your pills and your medicine, you need to take them! You need to, you need to!"

Eddie went to the counter and took out a random container of vitamin pills his mother had bought in bulk.

He remembered the day Greta had signed that sad word on his cast. She had told him the medicine he took, the medicine his mother had loved so much, were in fact, fake. They were something called kazeboes or some other word Eddie couldn't remember.

"You see these?" Eddie showed his mother the container of half-full vitamin pills. "These aren't real!"

"Eddie-"

"They're gazeboes!" Eddie shrieked. "They're bullshit!"

He threw the container to the ground and was surprised when he saw the lid had cracked on impact. He went for the door.

This time his hand touched the doorknob but it didn't stay there for more than a few seconds before his mother came to block him again.

There were tears running down her cheeks. Eddie recognized them. He used to be afraid of them. Tears were her mother's weapon. She would cry to make him feel guilty and ashamed and feel like a horrible person. One look into those tearful eyes and past-Eddie would have let go of the doorknob and given his big mother a hug.

But now-Eddie saw through those tears. He remembered what Ali had called his mother - Ali, how much he'd missed her - that day. Manipulative. She called Sonia manipulative. And Eddie could see now that Ali was right.

"But Eddie-Bear!" She wailed. "You'll get hurt! And then I'll get hurt!"

"Mom-"

"Don't leave me, Eddie! Don't leave me!"

Eddie left her.

He swung the door open and rushed out of the house, his mother bawling in the back. She could do nothing but. What else could she do? Wrestle Eddie to the ground? If she did, she would have hurt him, by crushing his bones.

And so, knowing his mother couldn't do anything else, Eddie ran for his bike and raced to the library to make some calls.