Close Your Eyes to See

Edie woke up the next morning with a hangover, drinking so much the night before that she couldn't even remember how she had gotten home – she believed it was Eric. After waking up with a hangover and getting four hours of sleep, she did the morning shift at The Coffee Shop and it was hell on Earth. Her head was pounding so much that she could hardly think let alone take people's orders and make coffee for them all.

After seeing who the party was for last night, Edie wasted no time constantly nursing a drink in her hand – one after the other. She hoped she could drink herself into a coma to numb the pain she was feeling.

“You knew about her and you didn't tell me?!” Edie had been out to lunch with Amber for ten minutes and already things were starting to unfold. Her head was still killing her and she needed sleep, badly.

“I'm sorry, I didn't think it matter. I didn't know you knew John O'Callaghan that well, the dude is never in town!” Edie leaned back in her chair, staring at her friend that was useless to her problems at the moment.

She is perfect. John's girlfriend. She is flawless. For what Edie had gathered last night before everything went fuzzy and this afternoon, her name was Alyson, Aly for short. She was a year younger than John, being twenty three years old, except for she looked like she was still in high school. She wore the typical 'Arizona Girl' apparel – cut off shorts and tank tops. She didn't wear much makeup though, she was too pretty for makeup. Aly was the type of girl that Edie always avoided.

“She was like fucking airbrushed, Amber. She literally came out of the womb photoshopped. There wasn't a single flaw about her.” Edie took a sip of her water, chewing aimlessly on the straw.

“Was she nice?” Edie rolled her eyes at the remark and nodded her head, swallowing any amount of pride she had. She never liked to admit out loud that a girl she was supposed to hate was pretty, but most girls Edie met were prettier than her no matter what.

“She hugged me.” Amber almost spit up her drink when Edie commented on the question, a look of disbelief on her face.

“She hugged you?! You guys didn't even meet up until then!”

“Yeah, she wrapped her tiny little twig arms around me the second we were introduced. She wasn't even drunk. I could have broken both of her arms with one twist.”

Edie White didn't like being touched or showing displays of affection, she blamed it on her parents. She grew up in a household where her parents hardly ever touched each other and they hardly did much with her either. It was sad, obviously, but it was all Edie had ever known. She hated hugging people and cringed with anyone tried to hold her hand, which was rarely.

“Well if you weren't such a prude-”

“Amber!”

She would never admit it to Amber, but she hated the comments Amber made sometimes. Amber grew up in a very privileged life – her parents showered her, and still do, with money and gifts and expensive clothes. They paid for her college, gave her a car and pay for her apartment's rent. Amber was always the pretty girl in the town, the girl that could get however she wanted. Guys always seemed to be drawn to her when she walks into a room, doing everything so effortlessly. There were new guys every week and new stories of sex in the back seat of a car or a bar on the daily. She was the exact opposite of Edie which made her understanding of Edie's life very hard.

Amber would never intentionally say things to hurt Edie's feelings, but every once and while she would talk about Edie's body image or lack in the sex and dating department, not even realizing what she was saying. Edie tried really hard to brush it off, but sometimes she would get so angry with her.

“So when are you seeing him next?” Edie stirred her pink straw around in her water, watching as the ice cubes clanked against the foggy glass.

“I don't know and I don't really care.” Amber didn't understand how hard to was for Edie – whenever she liked a guy, they never liked them back.

“Why is that I start to like every person that gives me the littlest attention,” Edie looked up from her glass and noticed that Amber was no longer even paying attention and was focused on the guy two booths over, “Amber!”

“What? I'm still listening.” Amber had the attention span of a spoon, the second she saw a hot guy, there was no point in even having a conversation with her.

“You should definitely hang out with him soon, Ed. You probably have way more personality than his girlfriend.”

“He has a girlfriend, Amber. I am not going to get involved like that.” Edie grew frustrated when she saw that Amber wasn't listening to her anymore, but paying attention to the boy that was coming over to their table. The brown haired boy leaned against the table, staring at Amber.

“So, what's your name?” Edie leaned against the booth, sipping down the rest of her water while Amber twirled her hair and flirted with the guy in front of her, her laugh causing Edie to want to puke. This always happened.

- - - - - - - - - -

Edie knew her neighbors hated her because of her music. Music was only good when it was loud. When it was causing your ears to bleed or trying to break down the walls that surrounded it. She liked to drown out her thoughts with loud music and just lay in her room with Harley and let the music take over her body.

Was she the only one in the world that automatically grew feelings for guys that gave her the littlest amount of attention. It was pathetic, really pathetic, but she couldn't help it. She felt like she was back in high school and crushing on a guy in her math class. It was sad and she just wanted to forget about everything. All Edie longed for was a relationship, something to fill the void in her heart.

She had seen it in all of the movies and talked about it with all of her friends, having a relationship with someone that was for real. Edie was in her twenties and had never had a boyfriend, she might as well be the forty year old virgin. There were fourteen year olds who had more experience than her.

Harley came over to her and cuddled up next to her side of the bed, her fluffy fur tickling her arm. The sun had finally started to set causing Edie's room to become darker as she stared at the ceiling above her bed, ready to fall asleep.

“Dead Sara, Edie? Are you having a bad day.” Edie groaned and covered her face with a nearby pillow, hoping that Eric would go away.

“I thought I changed the locks.” She felt the weight shift on her bed as Eric sat down next to her, pulling the pillow off of her face.

“The locks only work if you actually lock them. Why are you laying in bed in a dark room listening to Dead Sara? This isn't an angsty John Hughes film.”

“First of all, John Hughes didn't really have any angsty characters and also, my head hurts.” Edie brushed the hair out of her face and continued to look at the ceiling as Eric woke Harley up as she slept and started playing with her.

“Where's Beth at?”

“Working late again. They are having an art show in two weeks so she is hard at work with that.”

“Explains why you are seeing me so much these days.” Eric smacked her in the arm,

“Hey, I like hanging out with you. Does this all have to do with last night?”

Eric wasn't the brightest person in the world, but he sure was observant and could always tell when something was wrong. It was times like these, however, that Edie wished she had Beth or Amber or someone else to listen to her and give her girl advice. She was almost too embarrassed to even tell Eric.

“What about last night?” Edie was playing the 'dumb' card, trying to act like nothing happened last night and that Eric was the one overreacting and coming up with conclusions in his head.

“I don't know. Your mood seemed to change after Aly showed up last night. Did you not like her or did she say something to you?”

“No, she was fine Eric. She was really nice. I guess I just felt awkward because I was at her birthday party and didn't really know her. I shouldn't have gone.” It was a lame excuse but she was sure Eric would buy it. I mean, he didn't exactly know girls the greatest. Eric continued to mess around with Harley, letting him play with the lace on his shoe as he looked over at Edie and rolled his eyes slightly,

“Oh please Ed, you were fine. There were a ton of people that you were friends with there and you finally got to meet Aly. Did you talk to John at all?”

Edie shook her head. It was almost like John was avoiding her and she couldn't think of why. Once she met Aly, she spent the rest of the night with Eric – John was elsewhere and never came over to talk to Eric or even say hi. It disappointed Edie, she made the effort to even look nice for John and he had invited her and couldn't even say hi.

“Can I ask you a question, Eric?” She looked over at him as Harley sat and bit on Eric's hand playfully.

“Of course, Edie.” She thought – how could she tell Eric what she was thinking without sounding completely pathetic? She didn't know if he would understand anything about what she was feeling. Edie avoided talking to Eric about anything relating to relationships or guys or anything because she felt awkward talking about guys to guys.

“Uhh, I was just wondering how you felt about chinese for dinner?”