The house feels different the moment Eddie crosses the threshold with that broken duffel bag hanging off his shoulder.

It shouldn’t. It’s still the same hallway, same faint smell of detergent and dinner spices clinging to the walls. But you feel it anyway—that shift in the air, like the story of your life just turned a page and didn’t ask permission first.

You stand halfway down the hall barefoot, dress brushing your knees, fingers twisting together like you don’t know what to do with them.

Eddie looks at you first.

Of course he does.

Like he always does.

His eyes flick over your face and soften in that way they do when the world gets too loud and he decides you’re the only quiet thing worth listening to.

“Hey,” you say, like your voice isn’t suddenly heavier than usual.

“Hey,” he answers.

And for a second, neither of you moves.

Just two teenagers pretending you’re not standing on the edge of everything you thought your lives were going to be.

Behind him, your mother watches from the kitchen doorway. Arms folded. Calm in a way that used to scare you but now just feels like gravity.

“Eddie,” she says.

Not warm. Not cold. Just real.

He straightens instantly. “Yes, ma’am.”

Your chest tightens at how quickly he folds into respect without losing himself in it.

Your father’s voice comes from the kitchen a moment later, steady and deliberate as always. Rules first. Feelings second. Love somewhere underneath both.

“You’re finishing school.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You help provide.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You respect this house.”

Eddie nods like each word is a nail he’s hammering into something permanent. “Always. I will. I do.”

There’s a pause—thin, tense, not unkind.

Then your father gives a small nod. “Good.”

And somehow, that is the moment Eddie is allowed to stay.

⸻

Later, the house settles into its usual nighttime quiet, but it doesn’t feel usual anymore.

Not with Eddie’s duffel bag in your room.

Not with his boots by your door like they belong there.

Not with the knowledge sitting between you both like a heartbeat you can’t unfeel.

You sit beside him on your bed, knees brushing, the space between you small enough to feel everything.

He stares at your floor like it might explain how life got this complicated this fast.

Then he laughs under his breath.

“We made a whole person,” he says.

You smile before you can stop yourself. “We did.”

“A whole human being,” he repeats, turning toward you now, eyes wide like he’s still trying to catch up to reality. “Like… not metaphorically. Not in a ‘someday maybe’ way. Like—actually.”

You tilt your head. “Eddie.”

“I’m serious,” he insists, then rubs his face with both hands. “I thought I understood responsibility. I had, like, a vague concept of it. This? This is next level. This is boss fight difficulty.”

A laugh slips out of you, soft and helpless.

He hears it and relaxes a little like that was the point—like he just needed to know you weren’t scared of him cracking under the weight of it.

His hand finds yours without thinking.

It always does that.

You let him.

You always do that too.

“We’re gonna be okay,” you say quietly, before you can overthink it.

Eddie looks at you like you just said something sacred.

“Yeah?”

You nod. “Yeah.”

Because you can feel it, even when you’re scared. Even when your life no longer fits neatly into anything you imagined.

You can feel him trying.

You can feel you trying.

And somehow that feels like enough to start with.

⸻

He glances around your room—the records stacked unevenly, your sketchbooks, the stuffed animals lined up like they have their own personalities, your little world of softness and color and carefully named things.

His voice drops. “Your parents are never gonna let me live down the Metallica thing, are they?”

You snort. “Absolutely not.”

“We were celebrating passing exams,” he protests.

“We were loud.. and unintentionally making a baby.”

“We were artistic.”

“You were definitely loud.”

He groans, leaning back on your bed. “I’m never emotionally recovering from this, and you seems pretty into it too.”