Laying Down Some Truth

"Look around Eddie. You're the only one with a scowl on your face. The only person in this group who arrived with a chip on their shoulder and who isn't willing to even glance at the bright side of things. Take one step out of your own hole of self pity and you'll see...

"I mean fuck, Eddie. You have a chance to say fuck it to all of that and reinvent yourself and you're too far up your own ass to see this new beginning as the chance that it is. And if you keep on being so sure that everyone is out to get you then you're going to wind up making that a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you keep on pushing everyone away you won't protect yourself. You'll just make sure that in the end you're alone."

He's still got fire in his eyes, that kind of youthful defiance that masks itself as certainty when in actual fact all it is, is a self defense mechanism. I know what's happening here and I'm sick and tired of not calling him on it.

"You're not angry, you're just afraid. Your shitty parents and your asshole siblings told you that who you are and what you like is wrong and you're just looking for any opportunity to prove them right but that won't make you happy. It'll make you right, in the end, but not happy. But at least you'll be satisfied, once you've proven to yourself that they were right all along, that it never could have happened any other way.

"But you'll be wrong. You'll have made it happen that way. And that doesn't mean that it had to happen that way, it just means you were too damn stubborn to try anything different."

Gesturing with my head in the general direction of Rachel quickly, so as not to make it too obvious that I was talking about her, I continue with my point.

"I didn't know Rachel was into cameras. Neither did you, for that matter. But you found someone who is into something you're into and you found someone who is easily just as much of a nerd about it as you are and for the first time in your life you managed to talk about it without talking down about it.

"The hottest girl in school practically asked you out and asked you to take pictures of her and ten seconds later you're just looking for any excuse to find fault in that. That wasn't a game and it wasn't a set up by me. It was all her and it was all you. You were actually connecting for the first time and now all you can bring yourself to think about is the fact that she might have been with someone else before you.

"Really? You're that vain? You're that selfish? You're that naive? I don't think you are. I just think you're fucking terrified that she showed the littlest bit of interest and that she might have been into you and you hate yourself enough that you're pretty certain no one could approach you that way without some sort of ploy to make you look like an idiot.

"But buddy believe me when I say that Rachel was into you. Not your camera. Not because of some game to make you look like an idiot. For five minutes there while you were talking about something that you love, she saw something in you. Fucking I saw something in you. I saw a side of you that I've never seen before and I'll be damned if it wasn't a little charming.

"Whole thing went over my head, but even I was a bit charmed by it.

"Because the simple fact is that there are few things in this world as interesting as someone who is good at what they do and who wants to share it. And when it's something that you're into too, well that just makes it all the better.

"So take the chance in front of you and take the opportunity that's opening up and maybe you'll learn a bit about yourself in the process. Maybe, just maybe, you'll learn to be a little bit less of a prick."

Join my Patreon for only $3 a month and get early access to new chapters and over a years worth of exclusive content. https://www.patreon.com/SophiePert