Eddy tilts his head. “About what?”
“All of it. The slap. The murder. The forgiveness. It was very much the trash prince redemption arc you obviously needed.”
Eddy pauses, then grins at me. “I didn’t even think it would work. I went into it wanting to make his life a living hell. But he wasn’t the villain after all. Don’t get me wrong, he was an asshole, and if I could do it all again, I would never have let him fuck me. But hindsight is a beautiful thing.”
“So does this mean you’re free?” My voice dips, a little too hopeful.
Eddy glances around the room. “Almost.” He looks contemplative. Like he is plotting something.
I let it hang in the air. It is thick with everything we had not yet said. It’s the silence you only get after a storm, or a séance, or a cosmic therapy session conducted via bodily fluids.
After some time, I break the silence.
“Something that has me wondering…”
“Yes?”
“What happened to… Grumble, was it?”
Eddy smiles and hangs his head down. It is an actual smile, one I can be in front of forever.
“He is now the King of the Rot.”
“…you’re making that up!”
“Nope!” he looks proud of himself. “He earned it too. After Mark’s dog Muffin spotted him, he ran and accidentally fell through into the sewer kingdom, and he defeated the reigning Toad Emperor in a game of Trash Chess.
“Thatalsosounds made up.”
“He sent me the postcard. Invited me to be his right-hand man.”
I raise an eyebrow. “A postcard from the King of the Rot?”
“It was mushy, banana-scented.”
We both snort and, just like that, whatever tension left between us breaks.
He comes to sit beside me. Not touching, just close enough that I can feel the heat from his form.
And for the first time since I’ve met him—since he haunted my bin, since he showed me the worst of himself—he lookedready.
Not to scare. Not to seduce. Not to possess.
Just to leave.
Eddy says nothing at first. Just stares at the closed janitor’s door like it holds the answer to something neither of us were ready to ask.
Then he turns to me, a flicker of concern threading through his expression.
“There’s still your curse.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Right. Yes. The whole reason we’re here. I was kind of enjoying the not-talking-about-it part of this evening.”
He ignores me.
“It’s tethered to a moment,” he says. “A memory. A core imprint of shame, or pleasure, or both, that’s where most bin curses bind. To break it… you need to go back. Deep. Find it. Unlock it.”
I blink. “You want me to… memory dive?”
