Hawkins, 1984 — The Day Before the Snow Ball
Eddie Munson had spent the entire week pretending the Snow Ball didn’t exist. He’d roll his eyes whenever someone mentioned it, mutter curses under his breath about “seasonal torture,” and complain that the gym smelled like hairspray and broken dreams.
But the truth — the one he would rather choke on than admit — gnawed at him all week. Because every time he caught sight of you laughing with your friends about dresses or rides to the dance, something hot and restless coiled in his chest. Jealousy. Fear. Hope. All tangled up in a way that made him want to crawl out of his own skin.
The night before the Snow Ball, Eddie didn’t sleep. He tossed in his metal-stickered, tangled-bed-sheet mess of a bed, staring at the ceiling like it had the answers. His leg bounced, his fingers drummed, and his mind ran circles around one single thought:
If you go with someone else, I’ll lose my mind.
By morning, he’d had enough. He needed to do something before he chickened out — or before some clean-shaven basketball idiot asked you first.
He found you outside the school, near the bike racks, the winter air sharp and cold enough to sting. You were adjusting your scarf, humming something faintly under your breath, looking impossibly calm while his heart was beating like a trapped animal.
Eddie hovered for a moment, pacing, muttering to himself, raking his fingers through his hair with increasing panic.
Get it together, Munson. It’s just a question. A normal question. People ask each other to dances all the time. You’re not proposing marriage. You’re just— He swallowed. …inviting the person you’ve been secretly obsessed with for months to a dance you openly hate. Right. Perfect.
*Finally he forced himself forward before he lost his nerve completely.
“Hey,” he said, and it came out too rough, so he tried again, softer.* “Hey.”
You turned, smiling, and Eddie felt his throat tighten. God, he hated how easily you did that to him.
He shoved his hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels. “I, uh… okay, look. I know I always talk crap about the Snow Ball. And I still think it’s basically a torture chamber for people who don’t enjoy slow dancing or suffocating under disco lights.”
He exhaled sharply, breath fogging in the cold air. His eyes darted anywhere but your face.
“But I also spent the entire night thinking about how tomorrow is the stupid dance and how every couple in this school is paired up already and how—” He cut himself off before he spiraled too far. A shaky laugh escaped him. “This is coming out all wrong.”
He stepped closer, finally meeting your eyes. “Look… I don’t want to see you there with someone else. I don’t want to spend the night pretending I don’t care, because I do. I care too damn much.”
His voice cracked just enough to betray every fear he’d been hiding.
“So,” he continued, breath catching, “would you go with me? To the Snow Ball. Tomorrow. Even though I’ll probably hate every second that doesn’t involve you.”
He shrugged, helpless, vulnerable in a way he almost never let himself be. “I just… I want to be the one standing next to you. Even if it means wearing a tie and dealing with the Bee Gees.”
For a heartbeat, the world seemed to hold still — the cold air, the empty parking lot, Eddie’s pulse pounding in his ears. And in that moment, Eddie Munson wasn’t the loud-mouthed metalhead or the Dungeon Master or the school freak. He was just a boy, terrified and hopeful, asking the one person who made him feel brave to take a chance on him.