Young and Menace the companion book

🔎🖤: Eddie's realizations

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Eddie had convinced himself that he was over his crush on Liza and that he was fine just being her acquaintance. He let her come and go as she pleased, no longer searching for her in the hall, well. . . as much. The first two months of the school year had gone by, their small moments at the picnic table still giving him a reason to finish the school day without wanting to throw himself off the roof. 

Liza seemed to open up just a little more, a small crack in the wall she had put up between them letting information slip past without her being able to stop it. Eddie learned that she had a brother named Dustin, that she preferred rock and Metal to pop and that her only friends were the three boys that her brother hung around. She would blush after revealing something and then move the topic along. Eddie would take in the information and try to use it to guide conversations. 

When November came along something seemed to change in Liza and Eddie knew why. Will Byers, one of the boys she was friends with, had disappeared. Her cold mask had changed to a permanent frown, she was talking to people and handing them flyers with the boy's face on it. She gave one to Eddie, her voice cracking when she asked him to keep an eye out for Will. Eddie wanted to wrap her in his arms and tell her that they would find him but he couldn't, not with the metaphorical wall blocking him. 

Two days later, Liza wasn't at school and word had gone around that Will Byers had been found dead in the quarry. Eddie couldn't even begin to imagine what that must have felt like for the Byers family, for the boy's friends, for Liza. He had slipped another note into the girls locker, hoping she'd find it when she got back to school. All it said was that he was there for her if she needed him to be. 

Eddie went to the funeral with his Uncle, the both of them standing amongst the crowd as they watched the casket be lowered into the ground. His eyes found Liza, he wasn't sure what he had expected from the blonde in terms of emotion but the carefully placed mask wasn't it. She leaned down to hear something that Dustin whispered into her ear and she seemed to bite back a grin and dug her elbow into his side. He supposed everyone grieved in different ways but it felt off to him.

By the end of the week, Will Byers had miraculously came back from the grave and Eddie wondered if Liza had a feeling that he had been alive all along. She had been missing in his life since the funeral, seemingly distracted by something. He could only assume it was her processing but now he thought it was that she didn't give up even after the boy had been buried and somehow she had been right.

Eddie watched as Liza walked down the hallway a few days later, her head held higher, her mask harder than it was before and a bandage wrapped around her hand. She smiled softly at Eddie as she passed him, continuing on until she stopped at the locker of Nancy Wheeler. His brows furrowed as he watched her start to chat with Nancy, the girls laughing at something while the brunette put books in her locker. Eddie wondered if grieving over the loss of their little brother's friends had brought the girls together or if they had always just been friends of some sort and he just never noticed. Eddie expected Liza to turn and leave once Nancy's boyfriend Steve Harrington had shown up because he knew the girl's distaste for the boy. He felt like someone had slapped him when Liza had smiled at Steve and rolled her eyes fondly when he began to speak. 

A month had gone by and each day left Eddie wondering if maybe he had gone about trying to be Liza's friend the wrong way. All his effort and attempts made him feel stupid as he had to watch as Steve seemingly appeared into Liza's life out of nowhere and was immediately rewarded with her letting him in. He would see them walk down the halls, talking or bickering as they swept past him like he was invisible.

Eddie - like the rest of the school - wondered how Nancy felt about this but the girl had joined them one day, holding Steve's hand as they stood around Liza's locker. Liza hadn't completely forgotten about him but it was like he was back at square one. He was left catching her eyes in the hallways, waving to her in the cafeteria as she walked to the table to sit Steve and Nancy.