By Cat Wyatt

It’s time for another issue of Giant Days! Giant Days #40 brings us, Ed Gemmell, back, finally, but naturally, there’s an adjustment period to be had. It was revealed in the last issue that Ed had been avoiding all forms of contact with Esther, under the crazy belief that this would somehow fix what happened. Let’s hope he does better this time around…

The issue starts out with Esther being the center of attention, as per usual. She’s trying out one of her new roommates VR machines and seems to be enjoying it despite herself. That is until she realizes they had all left the room. The reason they left? Ed has arrived, and they’re all happily escorting him inside.

Ed doesn’t exactly look happy to be back, and really, who can blame him? As far as he knows he’s managed to make a complete fool of himself in front of Esther. And that’s not even considering the ridiculously teeny tiny room he’s been stuck in, because he was bending over backward for Esther. Everything comes back to her, in the end. At least for Ed, it does. Perhaps he’ll use this emotional upheaval as a lesson and try and finally move on?

The way Ed sees it; he did more than just embarrass himself – though there is that to be sure. He ruined his friendship with Esther by blurting out his feelings. Now he feels that they can never get back to normal. Especially not with her looking at him like he’s in an advert for a donkey sanctuary.

On the bright side, though it probably doesn’t sound like it, Ed has finally hit the point where he’s sick of talking to himself. That’s enough to force himself out of his tiny room and interact with the real world once more.

His first stop naturally, had to be with McGraw and Susan. While it’s basically a near guarantee that he won’t get any sympathy from Susan, he’s sure to get a nice chat in with McGraw. You know, if he can get him alone for a bit.

Surprisingly Susan is exceptionally warm and motherly to little Ed. She’s probably just used her quote for the year, but it was totally worth it. He likely needed that more than anything, as Susan babying anyone says quite a lot.

While Ed and McGraw chat, though admittedly it’s mostly about what Ed had been up to while he was gone, the girls are hanging out in Esther’s room. Remember, this room at one point had been designated for Ed, before he gave it up for Esther. So yeah, the girls dealing with a major guilt trip right now. Side note: Susan is back to her normal self, and is currently more concerned with the lovely sunbeam spot than anything else going on.

They did come up with an idea to help with the whole mess at least, though it may end up being more of a gesture than anything else. They can all get together to help spruce up Ed’s room. The place is pathetic, and clearly he agrees since he hasn’t even bothered unpacking. On the bright side that means they won’t have to move any of his crap for the renovation.

You ready for the biggest shock of all though? Esther never told anyone, including Susan and Daisy, what really happened that night. Only Ed and Esther know what he confessed, though technically Ed doesn’t actually remember what he said…so there’s that.

The point is that Esther somehow managed to keep her mouth shut on this matter. That’s huge for her. She actually felt bad enough about the situation to keep it quiet. Plus she sincerely respects Ed and didn’t want to embarrass him further.

Though she does confess to herself that she knew all along how Ed felt, and she liked being fawned over by him. Admittedly that isn’t the nicest thing she could have done, but it could be worse too, right? At least she’s trying to make amends now, and seriously does seem to feel guilty over everything that happened.

Ed’s PT is going well. Actually, it’s only sort of going well. He obviously hates it, but you do what you got to do, right? Oh, and you remember Nina? The girl from the sports house that’s totally crushing on Ed? She’s in PT too (long story) and she’s still totally crushing on the kid, not that he’s even remotely aware of it. She manages him to talk into being PT buddies, which he seems really happy about. He clearly thinks that having a friend with him during this process will be easier, while she’s hoping to spend more time with him and maybe get things to go further…

With any luck Nina will end up winning that battle. The perfect thing for Ed right now is to get over Esther. Even if they repair the damage done to their friendship, as long as he’s pining over her it’s eventually going to loop back around to this point. So here’s rooting for Nina!

Ed gets back from PT to find his tiny room completely remodeled, and it looks pretty fantastic, all things considered. They were even able to put a fake window in and everything. Hopefully it’ll be enough for him to not hate himself whenever he’s in there.

The other good news is that he and Esther finally had the heart to heart they both so desperately needed. Cards are fully out on the table, everyone confessed what they did wrong, and now hopefully they can move on.

Naturally there’s one last cliffhanger to be had, and it gives us a good idea that Daisy will be the focus of the next issue. This is fantastic news, in a way, as it’s been awhile since we’ve gotten a Daisy-centric issue.

This was a great issue. It covered on some real emotions that can crop up between friendships. While Ester was in the wrong for how she treated Ed, Ed also handled the situation poorly. In the end everyone acted like adults, which is a big deal. That’s not something you see every day.

Score: 4/5

Giant Days #40
Boom! Box