buddie || eddie study || E || 60k+ || chapter 1/3
in which, over the course of a summer, eddie diaz has several revelations, gets his son back, unpacks a lifetime of shame and guilt, and just maybe manages to find what he’s been looking for all along.
Frank sets his pen down and leans forward slightly, looking straight at Eddie like a butterfly he’s securing behind glass. He fights the urge to squirm as Frank pushes the final pin in place. “But is it what you want?”
The room suddenly seems very quiet, the thrum of Eddie’s blood in his ears very loud. He can almost see himself, in glistening china pieces scattered across the carpet.
“Yes?” He says after a long moment. His voice is wobbly, unsure, testing the ice to see if it can bear his weight.
The word offers no comfort. No rush of certainty floods through him and steels his bones for another try. The ice cracks. If he stays where he is another second, he’ll be plunged into the freezing river.
He starts to form a no that dies premature on his lips, stillborn.
And underneath it, the terrifying truth.
“I don’t know,” Eddie says faintly, staring at his hands. Hands that have pulled a trigger, hands that have pressed the lifeblood back into someone’s body. “I don’t know.”
