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Chapter Text

It was hard for her to remember the moments between dying and living again. There was simply the pain, blinding and searing, and then there wasn’t.

She woke on the floor of Eddie’s trailer after an indelicate fall. Her hands went to her eyes first, to where she could almost still feel that unbearable agony, lightning sharp in its intensity. It was gone though, and in its place, she felt nothing but the delicate skin of her lids. 

Had it all been another nightmare? Like the clock in the wall.

Tick. Tock.

Tick. Tock.

“Eddie?”

Chrissy felt along the curve of her jawline, the smooth skin of her trembling legs.

“Eddie?” She called his name louder that time, her voice hoarse like she’d been screaming for hours. Maybe she had. Maybe he was hiding somewhere in the trailer because her nightmares had scared him too.

On the verge of falling apart, she ripped off her sweater, remembering her own arms bent akimbo. She was almost ready to accept that none of it had been real at all when she saw it—an ugly pink mess of scarring near her left elbow. Like someone had shoved the bone back inside and sealed her shut again.

It was then that she realized the trailer wasn’t right either—that the walls themselves seemed to have been roughly pushed back together, a seam running right down the carpet. Leaves and sticks littered the floor, a vine of ivy snaking up the wallpaper, barely hiding where someone had painted “murderer” in bright red paint that had long-since dripped and dried.

When she called Eddie’s name again, it came out as a broken scream.

She was surprised when he finally answered, the front door of the trailer banging open, Eddie standing there in a Hellfire tee shredded to ribbons, panting for breath.

“Chrissy.” The disbelief in his eyes told her more than she’d ever wanted to know. Then he laughed, empty and hollow. “Huh. So this is what it’s like to be dead.”

Chrissy shook her head. “I don’t…” Behind him, the sun shone brightly, but the trailer park looked deserted and empty. A few doors hung open on their hinges. Gray dust littered lawns that had overgrown before going brown and shriveled.

She dissolved into sobs before he could get to her, his arms wrapping tightly around her chest.

In the distance, startling them both, sirens began to wail.

Even after a couple of months of being Back, Chrissy wasn’t used to being allowed to sleep in. She wasn’t used to the fridge and pantry being stocked the way they were either. With a variety of foods instead of skim milk and celery sticks that she wasn’t even allowed to dip in anything. 

In the kitchen, Chrissy made herself toast with a generous amount of butter, and it felt like she was committing a crime. She managed to eat half of it before she couldn’t push past the feelings of wrongness anymore. But half was better than she would’ve managed once.

And orange juice—she never ever would’ve had juice. Drinking didn’t feel as daunting as eating. She poured a whole glass and went to sit on the little window seat in the sun room, letting the beams warm her skin while she sipped, never making eye contact with her reflection in the glass where she knew she’d find hollow eyes and a tiny, jagged scar right on the corner of her lips from when Vecna—

A hummingbird stopped at the recovering flower bed out front, and she watched it flit from bloom to bloom as she sucked in deep breaths.

She hadn’t even needed to check the garage or the rest of the house to know that she was alone for the day. Her dad had moved out some time after she died, and she could hear none of the telltale noises of her mother or Sammy moving around the house–no doubt her brother had a weightlifting competition or a track and field meet or any number of other things. 

Since she’d come back, there were times Sammy looked at her like she’d betrayed him by dying. With Chrissy gone, their mother had re-invested all her time into him. The fridge and pantry were stocked with chicken and smoothie ingredients, all there to help him lift more, to throw farther in the shot put.

There was constant talk of wrestling tryouts in the fall when he started high school, and in the basement where there’d once been mats and bars for practicing flips and gymnastics routines, there was now enough weightlifting equipment for the Cunninghams to start their own gym.

Chrissy had opened the door to that space only once and then she’d never looked in there again. For all that she felt some relief to no longer be Laura Cunningham’s star child, it also made her feel hollowed out inside to see how much of her life had been erased so quickly.

And it made her think too much about the blank spaces she couldn’t account for, about the way she sometimes had dreams that made her think she might know where she’d been during all those months.

Not heaven, not hell. But somewhere worse.

Despite her sun-warmed legs and her sweatshirt bordering on stifling, Chrissy shivered.

She was just starting to dig her nails into her thigh when the phone rang in the kitchen.

“Cunningham residence.”

“Chris?”

She felt the tension leach out of her chest at the sound of Eddie’s voice and did her best to sound like she was happy.

“Eddie.” No, not quite there. She pushed her face into a smile that felt more like a grimace. “Hi!”

Better. Her face went slack.

“I was thinking,” Eddie said. “I haven’t been to the arcade in a while. You in?”

She would’ve said yes to anything that meant she wasn’t alone with her thoughts, but she actually did like the arcade. She had a lot of fond memories of playing air hockey with Sammy. Even some of Jason trying to impress her via skee ball. She shut her eyes tight at the thought of him, pushing a tangle of memories and guilt deep into a box labeled ‘Do Not Open.’

“I’ll buy snacks,” Eddie said, taking her long silence to mean she wasn’t sure. That happened a lot lately, her getting lost in thoughts that stretched time into uncomfortable silences.

“Oh, no,” she said softly, the false cheeriness already gone somewhere she couldn’t find it again. “I want to go. You don’t have to buy me anything.”

But he bought snacks anyway, pressing a Diet Coke and a packet of Raisinets into her hands when she slid into the passenger seat of the van.

At the arcade, she was content to stand and watch Eddie try to beat a high score on Buck Rogers. It was nice to just be there, hearing people laugh and squeal with joy. Eddie talking about strategy and about the game itself. The setting, how he religiously watched the TV show when he was 13, the first time he’d seen the console all shiny and new amongst the rest.

A few people gave them strange looks. Then again, a few people still thought he tried to kill her, despite how often she’d willingly spent time with him since her resurrection. Catching a couple of guys murmuring about them in the corner, she popped a Raisinet and stepped closer to Eddie, resting her head against his arm.

“You don’t have to do that, Chris.” He glanced behind them. “I’ve gotten pretty good at avoiding the people who still sort of want me dead.”

“I don’t mind,” she said. Because she didn’t mind. Eddie was her friend. He’d been kind to her when she needed someone. He didn’t deserve… “I don’t want people to think that about you. It’s not…” She chewed on her lip, thinking of a dozen different words she could say before settling on, “right.”

Eddie gave up on his high score attempt for the day to hug her, squeezing her tight in a way that soothed some of the ever-roiling horrors in her chest. She exhaled fully and then breathed in again, catching the faint scents of weed and Farah Fawcett hairspray.

“You know what I’m thinking?” Eddie said. “I’m thinking air hockey.”

They had to wait for a couple of kids to finish up a game, so they leaned on the wall nearby and finished their snacks, Chrissy knocking back the rest of her soda and emptying the bag of Raisinets. Eddie squeezed her wrist after she threw her trash away.

“Table’s free.” He grinned.

“Great.” She then absolutely annihilated him at air hockey. Twice.

When she scored her second winning goal, he pretended to be shot, clutching his chest and falling over backwards onto the floor. 

“Chrissy. Tell Ma and the kids I—” Eddie went limp, poking his tongue out with a soft blegh . It made her giggle, a sound that only got louder when he went to get up and accidentally banged his head on the table, the thump startling an actual “ha!” out of her. 

It was amazing sometimes that she was even still capable of laughter. Let alone the kind that had her doubling over, clutching the edge of an air hockey table with aching abs.

“Oh, I see how it is.” Eddie held his forehead, but he grinned at her and then rounded the table to half-tackle her, grabbing her around the middle and hoisting her into the air. He spun her laughing form in a circle, the bright lights and sounds of the arcade swirling like a carnival on the edges of a merry-go-round.

“All hair the Queen of Air Hockey!” he said, putting on a silly accent like he was one of the knights in Monty Python, the word hockey coming out like ‘hock-ay.”

He sat her down after a couple of spins, gently putting her onto her feet, fixing a strand of loose hair by tucking it behind her ear.

“Are you done with the table?” a kid asked, and Eddie waved them off without even looking away from her.

“Anything else in this Cave of Wonders suit your fancy today, your majesty?” Eddie asked.

Chrissy looked around the arcade. She found the eyes of the same people from earlier, still staring at them, still murmuring. They clearly hadn’t liked their little post-hockey display, the disgust in their gazes so intense that it felt like being struck.

It was so strange how fast she could go from laughing with Eddie–from the safety and love that she felt with him–to feeling overwhelmed and on the verge of vomiting all over her white Reeboks.

“No,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady, to keep a faint smile on her lips and in her eyes. “I think I’m ready to go.”

Back in the van, Eddie drummed a few times on the steering wheel before cranking the engine. “Home?”

“No!” Chrissy subtly dug her nails into her palm, swallowed bile, and then smiled at him. “No. I think just somewhere quieter. You can tell me how things are going with Corroded Coffin and the new campaign and Steve.”

Eddie tilted his head at her, looking at her for a long moment. “Yeah, okay.”

A few minutes later, the van rolled to a stop at a spot overlooking the quarry. Grabbing one of the blankets Eddie always had knocking around the back of the van, she snuggled down into the passenger seat and listened to him speak until long after dark.

For Corroded news, there were new songs and the self-funded regional tour was almost ready to go. In the campaign, he was crafting a ranger NPC he definitely hadn’t modeled after Nancy Wheeler. 

Then there was the news of the first official use of the “L” word and a dedicated drawer in the dresser in Steve’s bedroom.

“Don’t you already steal each others’ clothes all the time?” Chrissy asked.  

“It’s, you know, symbolic.” Eddie shrugged. “And what about Christine Cunningham? Are you sure you don’t have any updates?” It was the third or fourth time he’d asked since they parked the van.

“Not really,” Chrissy said. “I'm just trying to…be alive again.” It was pretty close to the truth. She was trying to figure out how to survive in the cracks of a world that had moved on from her. She was trying to figure out how to laugh more, to be happy, to—God—love. She had Eddie, sure, and he was important. But.

But.

“It’s nice,” Chrissy said. “What you have with Steve. Like he knows what you’ve been through. You don’t have to…” She trailed off, pulling at the ends of the long-sleeve shirt she wore despite the stifling summer air. What she wouldn’t give to have someone who wouldn’t think her scars were hideous because they had their own.

Eddie hummed in agreement, quietly backing the van up. Neither of them said anything about it, but she knew what time it showed on her watch and Eddie seemed to know it too. As much as her mother mostly ignored her, she’d still freak if Chrissy was out past curfew.

It wasn’t long before Eddie pulled up to the curb and wrapped her in a hug. She was halfway out of the van when he spoke.

“For what it’s worth, Chris,” he said, pausing her movement. “I think you’re doing pretty great for a dead girl.”

“Thanks.” She looked down at her feet, tapping the toes of her shoes together and then apart. Together, then apart. She met Eddie’s eyes, the brown so deep and dark in the night. “Sometimes I think that maybe I wish I hadn’t gone out to meet you that day at the picnic table. Because all those things happened to you, and they’re kind of my fault. But then I… I’m glad I have you, Eddie. I don’t think I could do any of this if I didn’t.”

He gave her a pained would-be smile. “I don’t think I could do it without you either. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it too. But then I think about how I have the coolest best friend and a boyfriend who is… Steve . And maybe I wish things had been different and that I, you know, still had all two of my nipples.” Eddie laughed weakly. “But would I give up you and your smile and your kind heart? Would I give up Steve’s face and the way his hair looks in the orange-gold light of a nice morning? Never in a million years, babe.”

He reached fully across the seats just to take her hand, squeezing it and then kissing her knuckles.

“I love you, Chris. And for the record, I’ve never thought any of this shit was your fault. Wrong place, wrong time. That’s all it ever was.”

She squeezed his hand back before letting go. “I love you, Eddie.” Then she got out of the van, a thousand things she wished she knew how to say jammed up behind her lips. She hesitated before closing the door, turning back to look at Eddie. 

“It’s okay,” he said. “Whatever you think you need to say and can’t, I probably already know.” 

She wrung her hands together, lips pinched as she willed the jam to tumble loose. “I just… I’m proud of you too, I guess. Even if you know, you should still get to hear it.” 

He nodded once, and Chrissy shut the door and headed inside. 

After the final showdown between El Hopper and Henry Creel managed to completely raze the Hawkins National Lab to the ground, the government found a small suite of offices near the First National Bank and rented them out.

Allegedly, they intended to leave Hawkins completely at a future date. After they’d finished helping with the recovery and rehabilitation of the town and the select group of people who’d helped save the world (or who had just been caught in the crossfire.)

Either way, it was those rented office suites Chrissy visited once a week for an appointment with the therapist the government had provided for her and Eddie and a bunch of other people. As she waited to be called in, she sat uncomfortably outside of a door with a frosted window. She had taken to putting large thumbholes into the sleeves of all her sweaters and long-sleeves using her mom’s old sewing machine. But that didn’t stop her from tugging at them anyway, fingers playing at the ribbed cotton at the sleeve’s end.

She hadn’t been there the day that El and Henry fought, their combined forces ripping down the walls of the lab as they tried to rip apart each other. She didn’t remember it.

But she did think she could remember other things. Pieces of a house floating in a sea of blood red. Being rendered immobile, her soul fed upon and chipped away piece by piece–but never enough for it all to end. No, not that.

She remembered too the pieces of that house falling, the whole of that place—earth and sky—shaking when they did.

Then a small, even voice. “I have found you. This will fix it.”

“Christine?” Dr. Emily Martinez smiled at her from the door of her office. She was an older woman with a streak of gray in her bobbed hair, and she kept her reading glasses around her neck on a jeweled chain.

In her office, the pervasive dusty odor of years of emptiness lingered, but there were always fresh, brightly-colored roses on her desk, the scent trying its best to beat back the neglect and whip the place into something bordering on pleasant.

“If you’ll turn around and step up.” Dr. Martinez didn’t have staff. It was a bit unorthodox, but the temporary base of operations ran on as few personnel as possible. Even after a massive portion of the town had been damaged or destroyed, everything that had happened in Hawkins was shrouded in secrecy and lies. The fewer people involved, the easier that was.

She held Chrissy’s hand while she stepped up backwards onto a scale, facing away while Dr. Martinez scribbled the number down. They had an agreement that Dr. Martinez had suggested. If she made no comments, Chrissy had nothing to worry about. She was considered healthy for her height and age.

It worked. A policy of no words meant Chrissy didn’t try to read something from the tone of her voice. Chrissy also never looked at Dr. Martinez until they were in the office, seated comfortably. That wasn’t part of the agreement, but it kept her from trying to read her face either, searching it for either pleasure or disgust. 

Inside the office, Chrissy sat in the big, plush armchair and kicked off her shoes, drawing her legs up into the seat. “How’s Mr. Booties doing?”

They always started with a little small talk after the weigh-in, Chrissy asking about the doctor’s cat, about the last movie she watched, about her rose gardens and her attempts to coax them back to life.

“He’s great. Brought me a half-dead spider in bed this morning. As a fully grown adult with a doctorate and a professional career, I absolutely did not scream when it moved.”

“I believe you.” 

Inevitably though, even though the circumstances were special and the sessions were scheduled in hours-long blocks, they had to talk about real things. About death and life. About food and eating. About any external pressures Chrissy felt that might make it harder for her to recover.

“This is the hard part where I ask you the hard questions and ask you to be brave and honest with me.”

Chrissy didn’t have to wait for Dr. Martinez to actually speak the question aloud. She knew what it was. The truth was that it was easier for her to talk about it on some days than others. Today was easier. 

“I’m still having a hard time not feeling guilty when I eat too much by myself. I threw food away a few times this week, but I try to—it’s easier if I drink things. To not think about it.”

Dr. Martinez nodded “Drink things like?”

“Mom has a lot of smoothie stuff around now. Juice.”

Dr. Martinez made a quick note, her eyebrow going up. 

“I actually think smoothies are a really good choice if they’re something that doesn’t trigger all those feelings we talked about. Though I want to emphasize that juice isn’t a ‘bad’ choice.” Dr. Martinez gave her a quick smile over her notebook. “And now that you’ve said a tough thing, tell me a win?”

That was how they did it. Chrissy was honest about her failings—no, not failings. Hurdles. Like in track. Just obstacles, not endings.

She was honest about her hurdles. Then she got to share her victories.

“Eddie and I went to the diner on Monday. I ordered eggs and toast and a milkshake. A milkshake! I finished everything except for a few sips of the shake, but it was because I was full. And I thought about purging after, but I didn’t. Instead I let Eddie show me some lyrics he’s been working on. They’re about Vecna and—” Chrissy clamped her mouth shut and immediately felt the sharpness of her nails zing through her palm. “I mean. They’re not… No one would be able to tell. The lyrics are about, like, the big bad wolf and what it’s like to be one of the pigs.”

“It’s okay, Christine.” Dr. Martinez mimed zipping her lips, though Chrissy was never quite sure if she trusted her when it came to things related to the lab and the cover-ups. Someday she’d maybe get up the nerve to actually ask for a copy of all the paperwork she’d signed, just to be sure.

“Right. Well.” Chrissy inhaled, exhaled. “So that happened. Then we went to the arcade and I ate all my snacks.”

“‘We’ in this case is you and Mr. Munson?”

Chrissy nodded and watched her make a note.

“It honestly sounds like he’s a good, supportive influence for you.”

“I think so. I also…” Chrissy ran her thumb along the buttonhole on her opposite sleeve. “He doesn’t have a ton of money. So when he chooses to spend it on me, I want to… honor that.”

Dr. Martinez hummed.

“Plus Steve bakes sometimes,” Chrissy continued. “I’ve been getting to know him through Eddie, and then they—he and Eddie—always have things Mrs. Henderson sends them. It’s not the same as when it was the school cafeteria or something from home. Wasting things other people made when they made it with, I guess, love.”

Dr. Martinez took a moment before she spoke, tapping her pen on her pad of paper. She finally looked up. “And is that out of respect or out of guilt?”

Chrissy chewed over the question, the words hitting her like a five ton truck. She thought of lying, and when she looked Dr. Martinez in her eyes, she even felt the lie on the tip of her tongue. Instead, she looked down at a single scuff of dirt on the tongue of her shoe. “Both, I guess.”

“Thank you for being honest. We can work on that if you want. The balance. It’s okay to feel respect, even affection, for people in that way. As long as it doesn’t manifest too much in negative feelings that can add a different sort of pressure. Then there’d be a worry of that pressure getting too heavy and you rebounding. Kind of like a rubber band that you stretch and stretch until it breaks and snaps backwards. Does that make sense?”

“I think so,” Chrissy said. After all, guilt and pressure had already killed her once, hadn’t they?

“I want to be clear though that, overall, you’re doing remarkably well. There will very likely be more hurdles, but I want to make sure you’re also looking at how much ground you’ve already covered, even when you stumble.”

Chrissy blinked several times. “I’ll try to do that. Remember that I’m not starting at the beginning.” Then she shifted in the plush chair, turning sideways and letting her legs drape over the arm.

“Do you want to take a break before we move on?” Dr. Martinez asked. Chrissy took a moment to think about it, eyes on the yellow-pink roses on the desk. They were so fresh the buds were still tight and close. She shook her head.

And so they dove in, talking about Henry and the red world and the way none of her old friends would look at her anymore. Her mom treating her like an inconvenient house guest and not a daughter. Her dad who never even pretended to call. Sammy. Sammy who used to irritate the shit out of her but who had also loved her once. 

She didn’t talk about Jason and how she still missed him even though she knew now that she never loved him. Every time she thought about him, all she felt was like it was wrong to have any feelings about him at all.

“And you’re sure that’s all for today?” Dr. Martinez said. “I’m sure you’re tired, but I can always make a note for next week.”

Chrissy absently touched the scar at the corner of her mouth and thought about how Jason probably wouldn’t even be interested in her anymore, even if she still wanted him to be. Then she thought about Steve Harrington, executing a perfect dive into the pool in his backyard, all his scars on display.

She had seen Eddie’s hands on those same scars, casually tracing the texture of them as though they were nothing but a continuation of Eddie’s own scarred flesh.

“I think…” Chrissy pulled at her sweater sleeves. “I think I might be lonely. Romantically. But I guess a lot of people are.”

Dr. Martinez let out a small chuckle of agreement. “That is very true. Is there a reason this is coming up? Someone you’re interested in? Someone in your past you’re thinking about?”

It was clear Dr. Martinez was angling for her to bring him up, but Chrissy shook her head because she didn’t think this, in particular, had anything to do with Jason anymore. He’d been with her once. She’d thought she was supposed to find him handsome, to like and then love him, and so she’d imagined that she had. The end.

“I guess I feel like there’s so much I would have to hide, so much I wouldn’t be able to say.” A beat. A clock on the wall ticked, tocked. “I guess I feel like they would never understand me, so they could never really love me back.”

Dr. Martinez frowned and gave her a pained look that bordered on personal. She didn’t write anything down, but instead set her notebook in her lap. “I can understand why you’d feel that way. Still, there are plenty of people whose whole jobs are secretive who are happily married with families and children.”

It wasn’t remotely what Chrissy wanted to hear. If anything, the words grated at her insides. She glared at her own lap to keep from glaring at Dr. Martinez. 

To keep from looking at her in the eyes and saying, “I know.”  

When Chrissy finally did speak, she could hear the anger breaking up her words, making them sound tearful. Mournful. 

Covering up the reality that she had no interest in sharing.

“I don’t think I’m one of those types of people,” Chrissy said.

Dr. Martinez made a few more notes before folding her hands atop her pad. “Well, I’m here to help you figure it out someday. How to navigate that if you ever do want to date.”

Digging her fingernails into the side of her thigh where Dr. Martinez couldn’t see, Chrissy hummed her acknowledgement. 

Some time later, Chrissy stumbled out into the setting sun. As always and without her even having to ask, Eddie waited in his van to pick her up.

She could drive herself, legally speaking, but she didn’t have her own car. And her mother wanted so many details and exact times for departures and arrivals that it was almost never worth it to even try to ask her for a ride anywhere.

So Chrissy walked or biked around town instead, including to her therapy appointments.

A few weeks back, Steve had driven by her stumbling home in the rain, tears running down her face. He’d softly helped her into his car and wrapped her up in a dry sweatshirt. After that, Eddie had started showing up. He would come early enough to get her even if she cut her appointment short, and he’d oscillate between reading, writing, smoking, and listening to the radio while he waited.

Then he would accept her into the van whenever she came out, always with water and tissues and her favorite tapes waiting.

“I snagged the new-ish Bonnie Tyler for you.” Eddie tilted his chin toward the tape deck, where Bonnie’s powerful voice already floated out over intense piano and guitar. Chrissy reached forward and turned it down even lower than it already was, leaving the volume on just enough to hear it at all.

“Hard sesh?” Eddie asked. It took her several long moments of staring at the dust on the dash before she could answer. The words felt like rocks in her mouth.

“Yeah,” she said. “But I guess they all are.” It would be kind of ridiculous if they weren’t. For one, there was the dying bit. Then there was the fact that the dying bit was brought on by her recognizing she had an eating disorder and saying something and then being so wrapped up in worry and guilt and self-loathing that Henry…

Chrissy took a trembling sip of water.

“I just picked up some oranges for Steve’s next creation. Had to get a whole bag when he only asked for a few, so...”

“No, that’s…” Chrissy shook her head and took another sip. “Yes actually. I would like an orange.”

Eddie didn’t question her indecisiveness. He simply produced an orange and started peeling it, handing her slices right there in the parking lot. Chrissy was mid-bite when the weirdest concern hit her out of nowhere.

“God, Eddie, I just realized I’ve never even asked you. How do you get here for your…?” She choked, the tears starting up like they always did eventually. She’d yet to find a way to get out of therapy without needing to cry before, during, after, or all of the above.

He didn’t say anything about the crying either. He didn’t try to make her stop. He just set the box of tissues in her lap.

“Steve and I drive each other.” He handed her the last orange slice and then rested his hand nearby, close enough for her to take it if she wanted to. She did, curling her fingers through his, feeling the stickiness clinging to them. The air smelled of citrus.

“What…?” She struggled to choose her next action—to all at once try to eat the orange slice or talk or wipe at her dripping nose. She gave up on all but the first thing. “What do you usually do after? When you feel…?” A hiccup. “When you feel…?”

“Hollowed the fuck out?” Eddie squeezed her hand.

“Yeah.” A laughing sob. “Hollowed the fuck out.”

“Ooh. Second ‘f’ bomb this week, behind ‘This is a really fucking good milkshake.’ They’re right, Chris. I really am a bad influence on you.”

“Stop. I’d… I’d fucking die without you, Eddie Munson.” She finally blew her nose and then laughed. “Again.”

“Mutual, Chrissy Cunningham.” Another squeeze. “And to answer your question, sometimes we just head back to one of our places and the therapy recipient of the day takes a long nap. Steve plays with my hair while I sleep. I sing him metal ballads or old folk songs Wayne taught me. Whatever. Sometimes we go throw rocks at the quarry, maybe get a bite to eat with Robin, or Steve tries to explain the rules of basketball and I nod a lot. Or I try to explain the rules of Dungeons & Dragons and Steve nods a lot.” Eddie smiled. “And I won’t lie to my best friend in the whole world either. Sometimes we have really weird, gross sex about it.”

“Ew,” Chrissy said, slapping Eddie’s knee. He laughed. Bonnie kept crooning.

“I can do… most of that for you too, you know. If that would help.”

“Really?” Chrissy asked, voice raw. “Because I’ve never understood why a layup wasn’t considered traveling.”

Eddie gave her a look but played along. “As far as I understand it, it has to do with the line of scrimmage.”

Chrissy laughed, a single note that only sounded a little like a sob.  Slowly, Eddie untangled their hands and then reached into his back pocket to pull out his bandana, handing it over to her and smoothing her hair. She wet it with water from her bottle and washed her face.

“Where to, Chris?”

She wiped at her face again, the wet cloth cool and soothing on her puffy eyes.

“You know… I think I’d like a milkshake actually.” She grinned at him and reached out to crank the volume up high, raising her voice to talk over Bonnie. “A really fucking good one.”

“A-ha! Ask and ye shall receive, my good lady. Ask and ye shall receive!” Eddie drummed a quick cadence on the steering wheel and peeled out of the parking lot.

It was a Wednesday, summer stretching the day out like Silly Putty. Music filtered up from the basement where Sammy trained with Laura Cunningham. Chrissy doubted either of them even heard the phone ring.

“Cunningham residence.”

“Chris?” Eddie asked. “You up for a party tonight?”

The word ‘party’ made her gut twist, picturing a bunch of guys at least a foot taller than her all drinking too much, talking too much.

“I don’t know,” Chrissy said, wrapping the phone cord around her fingers. “I’m not sure if I’m ready for parties yet.”

“Right. So I should elaborate that by party, I mean me, you, Stevie, and Robin.”

“Oh.” That was different then. Chrissy knew Steve well enough after spending so much time at his house. She hadn’t really met Robin yet officially, but she seemed okay. They’d had a couple classes together over the years, and Robin had stopped by like everyone else In the Know when Chrissy was being poked and prodded by the lab guys in a medical tent outside the United Methodist Church.

“Picture it with me,” Eddie said. “One swelteringly hot summer afternoon. A lovely, cool swimming pool in the safety and sanctuary of Steve’s backyard. Cold, uh—” The little thwip of a fridge door opening. “Cold Coca-Cola and Lemonade.”

“And it’d just be the four of us?” Chrissy asked, weighing the prospect of staying home against the way she usually felt after seeing Steve and Eddie so at peace with one another. Robin was another factor though. A fourth person might even things out and keep Chrissy from getting so overwhelmed, so sulky. 

“Just us,” Eddie said. “Swimming totally optional. Poolside lounging encouraged.”

She thought about it, sitting by the pool with her feet dangling in the water. The warm sun on her back.

“I’ll get dressed.”

Eddie made a soft, celebratory sound. “I’ll be there in a few.”

Twenty minutes later, Chrissy followed Eddie into Steve’s backyard. It wasn’t her first or even fifth time at Steve’s since she came back, but it had only ever been the three of them before. Sometimes even Steve wasn’t there, and she and Eddie would curl up in his living room and watch old cartoons or talk about what they might do someday when Hawkins was far in the rearview.

“Great news, one and all.” Eddie spread his arms wide. “The party can now properly begin.” Eddie stripped off his shirt and tossed it into a pool chair. It was clear from the size and length of his trunks that he’d stolen them from Steve. Chrissy barely had time to dwell on that though. 

Because on a pool chair just a few feet away, Robin Buckley lounged in a pair of trunks, her breasts covered by a simple black sports bra. Even in the shade of a pool umbrella, Chrissy could make out the golden summer highlights in her hair, the butterfly of freckles that had settled across her nose and cheeks. 

Inhaling sharply, Chrissy fixated on the thin, delicate skin of one of Robin’s wrists. She could almost feel it against her lips, soft and silky like—

“So.” Eddie clapped his hands together, and Chrissy jumped at the sound. “I know you’ve probably seen Robin around school, at the sporting games, so on. But. Officially and all, Chrissy, Robin Buckley. Robin, Chrissy Cunningham.” Eddie gestured between them.

Chrissy gave a small wave. “Hi.”

“Hi back.” Robin waved too and oh , there was hair under her arms, a thin, dark thatch that Chrissy barely caught sight of before Robin lowered her hand. It shouldn’t have had any effect at all, but Chrissy’s mind immediately spun into a thousand different directions. If Robin didn’t even shave her underarms…

Chrissy swallowed.

“What are you reading?” Chrissy asked, gesturing to the paperback Robin had steepled over one of her thighs.

 “Oh. El Beso de la Mujer Araña . Kiss of the Spider Woman. It’s an Argentinian novel.”

Chrissy sat down next to her and gave Eddie a smile where he hovered nearby, waving him off toward the pool where Steve was trying (and failing) not to look like he was waiting for him. With a wide grin, Eddie took two big steps backwards and let himself fall sideways into the pool. As fixated on Robin as Chrissy was, she didn’t miss Eddie popping up and immediately spitting a stream of water at Steve.

Snorting quietly, Chrissy kicked off her shoes and flexed her toes in the sun.

“Wasn’t that a movie or something?”

Robin made a face. “Or something.” 

“And you can read that?” Chrissy asked. “Argentinian?”

“Spanish.” Robin combed through her hair with her fingers, her nails short and blunt. “I can. Actually I found this book ages ago to practice reading. Pretty much bought it because it was one of, like, two Spanish books in the store. The other one was the New Testament. So.”

“Wow.” Chrissy craned her neck to see a few of the words on the page, almost none of which looked remotely familiar. “And here I got a C minus in my last semester of English.”

“Yeah, well, you were dead for half the semester, so that’s not exactly a fair assessment, is it?” Robin’s eyes went wide the second the sentence left her mouth and then she cringed, folding herself inward like she was trying to shrink away. “Fuck. I just said that out loud.”

At that, Chrissy let out a surprised note of laughter, the sound startling her into a fit of giggles.

“I’m sorry,” Robin said. “My brain to mouth filter was never great, and then I’m pretty sure the Russian truth serum, like, permanently knocked something loose. Also there was that one demogorgon that threw me into a pillar at the high school during our final stand off or whatever. So basically my brain is New York City at the end of Ghostbusters, and I should really think before I—”

“No, it’s okay.” Chrissy shook her head, still grinning. “It feels nice to laugh about it, actually. Dr. Martinez and I have been working on perspective lately. Laughing about it, I don’t know, makes it all feel less powerful, don’t you think? Like it reminds us that someday we’ll be able to breathe again.”

Robin’s eyebrows went up and then she looked down at her hands. “I guess you’re right.”

“So what’s your book about?” Chrissy asked, pulling a pair of sunglasses from her tote bag and putting them on. The umbrella above them cast shade from pretty much her ankles to the top of her head, but the sun still glared brightly off the pool water and the concrete, making the world feel hazy and dreamlike. “I don’t think I really remember anything about the movie at all, if it’s even the same.”

“I guess a lot of people liked it, but a lot of people never read the book,” Robin said. “The book though… It’s, uh, about these two prisoners in Argentina during this time of political conflict, right? One of them is… just a regular prisoner, and one of them is a political prisoner. It’s, well it’s prison–a dark and dank cell, bad food that makes them sick sometimes–which is actually because it’s poisoned, but you don’t know that for a while or why, so…” Robin shrugged. “Anyway, it’s bad is the point. So one of the prisoners tells the other one about different movies they can remember to kind of help pass the time, or to distract them from when things are at their worst. Some of the movies seem decent. Some are, like, literal Nazi propaganda, which is actually really important because it’s one of the waypoints on the character’s journey to go from being almost deliberately indifferent to politics to choosing to participate and to be brave about it. 

“The title itself comes from a thing one character says to the other, but then there’s of course like a hundred metaphorical interpretations, some good and some bad, and…” Robin inhaled. “I also tend to babble. I’m telling you, Chrissy, it’s pretty much all marshmallows up here. Dogs and cats living together. The whole nine yards.” Robin waved her hand around her head. “Anyway I guess it’s considered pretty interesting too because of how it’s written. Pretty much all dialogue with some stream of consciousness and footnotes. But I’ll babble about all that too if you don’t stop me. Please end this for both of us before it’s too late. It’s not even, like, my favorite book.” 

“I’m best friends with Eddie Munson,” Chrissy said simply. “I like babbling.” A shrug. “It does sound pretty interesting though, the book. Kind of like Eddie and me in a way.”

Robin blinked a couple of times, one of her brows furrowing just enough to be noticeable beneath her sunglasses.  “What do you mean?”

Assembling her thoughts, Chrissy stared at her toes, curling and uncurling them. “Well, we’re both trapped with all these horrible memories, but we do our best to comfort each other. I guess that’s how all of you are though? You and Steve too?”

Robin glanced at the book and opened her mouth but then nodded. “Yeah. It’s kind of like that.”

At the look on her face, Chrissy let out a soft, strained laugh. “I’m so far off, aren’t I?’

Robin’s laugh was louder and less controlled. “Just so off, but it’s okay. I’m the one who brought a political book to a pool party.”

“We can talk about my book if you want.” Chrissy produced the Rolling Stone she’d tucked into her bag. “Pretty high literature.”

Robin craned her neck and waggled her eyebrows teasingly. “Tom Cruise, huh?”

Chrissy took in the cover, emblazoned with Tom’s bronzed skin and closed-lipped smile. She knew what she was supposed to say, what she was expected to say. She could even hear the echoes of old conversations in the locker room. ‘Word is that Jason Carver’s got a thing for you and is going to ask you to Homecoming. God, Chrissy, he’s so…’

Chrissy ground her teeth and focused on the day. Sun on her feet. Her long-sleeved shirt too warm and beginning to feel clammy against her skin. The pool water sloshing as Eddie and Steve tossed a Frisbee across the shallow end, teasing each other and laughing.

Between her fingers, the magazine pages felt smooth and almost tacky.

Objectively, cover boy Tom Cruise was handsome. His face was symmetrical, and his eyes were a nice brown. It would be so easy to pretend, to gush about how she’d had a thing for him since she watched All the Right Moves . Or to say nothing and smile shyly and look away.

“My mom has a subscription,” Chrissy said instead. “Grabbed it off the coffee table when Eddie called. It was Tom or the Yellow Pages.”

“Now hold on. The Yellow Pages are pretty riveting. It’s like you wouldn’t expect Hawkins to be able to support not two, but four! locksmiths because, like, how many locks could there possibly be? But guess how many we have, Chrissy.” Robin held up four fingers and silently mouthed the word.

“The better game is to guess why you needed a locksmith, Robin.”

“Oh, that’s easy. To break into a box we found when we broke into the lab back in May. Lots of breaking. Tons of entering. Saving the world takes, just, so much crime actually.”

“What was in the box?”

“Oh, uh…” Robin broke eye contact. “Nothing important really. So what’s going on in Rolling Stone this month? Is that Belinda Carlisle?”

Chrissy paused on a page. “Do you like her?”

“I mean, the Go-Go’s, right? Her new song isn’t bad.”

“We did a dance to a Go-Go’s song once.”

“Oh!” Robin snaps her fingers a few times, sitting up straight in the pool chair, the metal squeaking a bit at the movement. “I remember that. First pep rally year before last, right? It was We Got the Beat and you all did that thing where you lined up and formed some kind of of pom-pom caterpillar. Then Stacey Wright tossed you about a hundred feet into the air. That was you, right?”

“It was.” Chrissy remembered it too. She used to love being thrown, soaring high as hundreds of voices roared and the bright lights of the gym blurred by. She grinned brightly. It was a good memory. Some part of her knew, and would always know, what it felt like to fly. “I don’t know about it being a hundred feet though.”

“Oh no, I’m pretty sure.” Robin nodded. “You really got some height.” She mimed an airplane taking off with one of her hands. “We should probably have them pull the game tapes and give the Guinness people a call.”

Grinning, Chrissy shut her magazine and wiped a bit of sweat from her brow. She’d been hoping the shade of the umbrella would keep her from overheating, but the reality was that she was wearing sleeves as June inched toward July. The reality was that even here, where a few feet away Steve and Eddie swam with bodies covered in angry scars, Chrissy couldn’t bear the thought of anyone looking at the pink stretch of skin on her arm.

Slowly, she rolled up the hem of her shirt several times, deliberately not focusing on her own exposed tummy. She looked to Robin to avoid the temptation to stare at it and pick it apart. She was startled to find Robin was staring at it instead, her eyes locked on that newly-exposed flesh for one quick second before she tore them away. Swallowing several gulps of soda, Robin groped first for the sunscreen and then for her book, which she knocked onto the concrete below.

She sprang up with a nervous giggle.

“You know what. I’m fucking melting out here so I’m gonna dip. Uh.” Robin groped for the book, missing it several times, her nervous giggle pitching higher. “Go for a dip, I mean. In the pool.” She finally managed to grasp Kiss of the Spider Woman , plucking it off the ground and dropping it onto a side table. “In the pool.” Robin pointed at the pool but then hesitated, looking back and forth between the water and Chrissy.

“Oh.” Chrissy ditched her magazine in the chair. “I’ll put my feet in.” Maybe it would help her cool off too.

At the shallow end of the pool, Robin waded down the stairs. Meanwhile, Chrissy found a patch of concrete in the shade of the pool house, dropping her feet in and relishing in the coolness. Like Steve, she had been on the swim team once upon a time, though she hadn’t done as well as he had.

Of all the struggles for a cheerleader to have, she’d found the flips at the end of the lanes particularly tricky. Something about turning over and over, submerged in that churning blue haze, had always disoriented her. But she’d loved the feeling of her arms and legs cutting through the water, so she’d stayed on the team even though she’d never placed at a competition.

She let her feet cut through the water of Steve’s pool, feeling the way it parted around her shins. 

“Having fun, Chris?” Eddie asked, swimming up and giving her ankle a light, friendly tug.

She looked behind him, settling her gaze on Robin where she’d just shoved Steve under the water and was now backing away from potential retribution.

“Yeah, I…” Chrissy started, but the thought fell away as a light breeze danced its way through the backyard, rippling gooseflesh up the damp parts of her legs. That wasn’t why she lost her words though, not really.

It was Robin.

The sports bra wasn’t padded, it seemed. Even from half a pool length away, Chrissy could see the tiny peaks of Robin’s nipples rising up as she twitched from the kiss of the wind.

Chrissy cleared her throat hard and reached down to scoop a handful of pool water, splashing it on her face and the back of her neck. Coming back to herself, she ruffled Eddie’s wet hair.

“Me?” she asked. “I’m having a great time.”

Chapter Text

It was amazing how high life could throw her, and it was amazing how much faster gravity could bring her back down.

The day after the pool party, Eddie kissed her cheek on the doorstep, the Corroded guys hanging out of the van at the end of the driveway. They were headed out for a couple weeks on their cobbled-together regional tour.

“I’ll call when I can,” he said, and after over a week without him, he’d so far kept that promise.

Still, the days were quiet and empty, and the joy and relief she’d found in the company of Eddie, Steve, and Robin had stalled to a screeching halt. She felt like she’d heard the steady click, click, click of a roller coaster pulling her to the top, that she’d crested with an excited scream and her arms flung high in the air; only to realize the car had stalled right there on the cusp with no one around to get it moving again.

Her mother and Sammy had been gone for days too, off to some training camp somewhere that was supposed to get him ready for wrestling season. 

She should’ve been relieved to have the house to herself, but the reality was that sometimes she felt like her death was a hole that had been filled in long before she was brought back by a girl she’d still never met. And having them gone only circled that feeling in bright red ink. 

“You know,” Dr. Martinez said after Chrissy dragged herself in, “something that can really help someone who’s struggling to find their place in life is to do something worthwhile. Volunteering, finding a job—even temporarily—that lets them help people.”

Chrissy hummed.

“Have you considered meeting Jane Hopper when she’s well enough?”

“I don’t know if I can.”

Outside of therapy, Chrissy tried to fill her time with television and old magazines. She fell into old habits once or twice, purging just to prove that she still could, that she was still in control. Then she hated herself for it and struggled her way through the steps Dr. Martinez had given her for when this exact thing happened. It felt like crawling through deep mud. 

“You sure you’re okay, Chris?” Eddie asked, a week and a half after he left town. 

“I’m fine.” 

But at night, she couldn’t sleep, her mind careening through thoughts–self-flagellation for all the ways she was screwing up, anxious fears about the shadows in the dark. Were they alive? Were they hungry? 

Chrissy kept the bedside lamp on from dusk until dawn while she tossed and turned, her dreams flitting between patches of nothingness and the deep, dark red of—

Vines locking her in place, eating the screams that echoed, echoed, echoed in her own ears.

Tick, tock.

She woke up sweating and white-knuckling her pillow, drool soaking the cotton beneath her head. Thankfully, the sun streamed brightly through her window, dust motes dancing in the air.

She immediately went for the shower, flinching at the sight of her naked body in the mirror after she stripped off her pajamas. Maybe she’d been right to purge (no), because she’d definitely put on weight (stop it). She could see it in the soft curvature of her belly, in the thickness of her arms. She stared at the scars—the angry starfish of skin near her elbow, the tiny sunken gash off one corner of her mouth.

In the mirror, tears dampened her cheeks, and she imagined picking up the heavy glass bowl full of potpourri and hurling it at her own reflection, the glass spider-webbing and shattering before falling in sharp shards onto the floor.

She closed her eyes and turned away, stepping into the tub and whipping the shower curtain closed around her.

For a while, she stood unmoving under the spray, grateful for the water pressure that beat against her skin. Around her, the bathroom filled with steam. Soaping her loofah, she scrubbed hard. Sometimes, she thought about all the cells she’d probably scrubbed away since she returned. Someday, maybe she’d succeed in scrubbing away all of it, stripping herself of every tiny piece that had ever been killed and brought back.

Maybe then the nightmares would stop.

Maybe then she’d be pretty again. Someone worthy of living at all.  

“Shit.”

Chrissy shut off the water, noting the angry pink tone of her skin. Sometimes she didn’t feel how hot certain things were. The sun and the air, she usually noticed. But when she showered or did the dishes? Sometimes it was only the reddening of her flesh that alerted her that she was going too far.

Stepping out onto the bathmat, she felt relief at the amorphous shape of herself in the fogged-up mirror. She broke a leaf off her mom’s aloe and slathered it on her chest and shoulders just in case, feeling slightly sticky until it dried in the air. In her bedroom, she was glad she’d taken all the mirrors down. She dressed in an oversized sweatshirt and baggy jeans and stared at the pile of magazines on her nightstand.

Molly Ringwald stared back.

Many weeks ago, Dr. Martinez had given her a list of times she should call her. Chrissy was pretty sure she was checking off two of three items on that list. Still, she didn’t call. Instead she grabbed her purse and slipped on her sneakers, locking the front door on her way out.

She hadn’t been to the Hawkins Public Library in years, not since they’d gone on a short field trip with their fifth grade English teacher, where a man in a mustard sweater vest had told them all about Dewey Decimal before they all applied for their own library cards.

Stepping through the front doors into a squat building with several water-stained ceiling tiles, Chrissy inhaled the dusty smell of hundreds of books.

“Hello dear, first time?”

Chrissy froze, locking eyes with a wispy middle-aged woman at a large semi-circle desk near the doors. She could see the moment recognition dawned on the librarian’s face, her bronze skin paling a bit. The official story regarding Chrissy’s resurrection was that the first body must have been mistakenly identified due to the severe nature of the injuries. They’d even released a new ID after a few weeks, inventing a missing girl from Chicago to name a body that no longer existed.

Of course, the rumor mill churned out all kinds of alternative explanations—government experiments, aliens, Eddie Munson making a pact with the devil for both him and his gal.  

Chrissy crossed one arm over her stomach and took a deep breath.

“I’ve been here,” she said, gripping her side, balling the fabric of her sweater up in her hand. “A long time ago. In, well, fifth grade.”

The woman laughed, relaxing a bit. “Goodness. If you still have your library card from all the way back then, I’ll let you check out any book for free.”

“Aren’t they always free?” Chrissy asked. The librarian winked.

“Looking for anything in particular?”

“No,” Chrissy said. Yes . Because hadn’t she really been looking for the book Robin had? Which was ridiculous because Chrissy hadn’t even taken Spanish. She’d chosen to take French and could barely remember anything past ‘je m'appelle.’

“Romance? Drama?” The librarian tilted her head a little, trying to get a read on her. “Inspirational?”

Chrissy hugged herself tighter. “Is there a foreign language section?”

The librarian looked relieved at Chrissy solving the little puzzle that was herself. “Ah. Dreaming of traveling someday? I’ve always wanted to see Italy.” From somewhere behind the desk, she pulled out a map that had been photocopied so many times there were black smudges all over the page. She circled the desk and then put an X on a spot deeper in the building.

Map clutched in her hand, Chrissy followed the directions. The shelves themselves varied abruptly in some places—lighter wood kissing cherry red, tall shelves butting up against shorter ones. The carpet was worn, and in a couple of areas had been removed completely and covered over with mismatched squares in red and beige. Plush chairs lined the walls, and beanbags took over the children’s nook where a few kids aggressively colored at a tiny table.

Chrissy felt like she was on display the entire time that she walked through the stacks. More than once, she looked back at the librarian near the entrance. Both times, the librarian was busy affixing card pockets to a stack of books piled beside her.

In the foreign language section, Chrissy found a single shelf packed with different books. There were English-to-Everything dictionaries. There were books on linguistics. There was a massive tome on etymology. She found zero works of fiction though. She frowned at her map and sank into the nearest chair.

On the table next to her, someone had left a copy of You Can Heal Your Life by Louise L. Hay. Like a cat, Chrissy gently pushed it off into the chair on the other side and stared at the language section a few feet away, sighing quietly.

She could probably ask the librarian again, be more specific about what she meant by “foreign language.” But the idea of trekking back to the front, of having to talk to her again…

“Can you read?”

Chrissy snapped her head over to a small girl with blonde pigtails and pink overalls. Rocking back and forth onto the balls of her baby pink sneakers, she clutched a book to her chest like it was the most precious thing in the world.

In the face of her wide blue eyes, Chrissy couldn’t do anything but nod.

“Will you read this?” the girl asked, thrusting the book out toward her. It was a Frog and Toad book, the art friendly and familiar. Chrissy smiled slightly, remembering nights tucked up beneath a unicorn comforter, both her parents perched on the foot of her bed, taking turns doing the voices.

It was a nice memory of a nice time. A time before the pressure built up and got heavy, back when her mother would haul her to pageants and they just felt like a fun weekend of playing dress-up instead of something cutthroat and vicious. 

Fumbling a bit with the book, Chrissy opened it to the first page. She cleared her throat.

“Toad woke up,” she read. The little girl immediately waved her hands like an umpire calling a strike.

“No, no.” The girl shook her head and stood up from where she’d parked herself at Chrissy’s feet. “You’re apposed to read it so I can see the pictures. Like this.” Gently, she turned the book around and molded Chrissy’s hands around it before plopping back down into a tiny pretzel.

A wisp of a laugh vibrated in the back of Chrissy’s throat. Then it went tight. She cleared it again. 

“Gosh. How could I forget the most important part of reading?” She took a deep breath and started anew. “Toad woke up.” She paused. “‘Drat,’ he said.”

The little girl rested her elbows on her folded legs, then put her chin in her hands.

Chrissy kept reading, turning the pages, thinking of Eddie wherever he was. He’d be so good at something like this. He’d invent personas for each character, and he’d stand on the chairs. And the librarians would frown at him, but they would be too charmed to actually ask him to stop.

“Christine! I told you to stay where I could see you. Sweetheart, you scared me half to death.”

Chrissy looked up at a woman with a tight blonde perm and wondered for a moment where on Earth she’d been meant to stay or why. Then it quickly became apparent that Chrissy wasn’t the Christine in question.

“We talked about this,” she said to the girl before looking at Chrissy. “I’m so sorry. She just really loves stories, and the person who usually does Story Time moved out of town in the spring, so she’s been doing this a lot.”

“No, it’s fine,” Chrissy said, handing the book back to baby Christine.

“But mommy.” Christine pouted and stomped sadly along as they walked toward the front. Chrissy could hear her high voice carry through the shelves. “No one ever does the stories no more, and I wanted the princess to like me.”

“I’m sure she likes you fine Christine. Now come on. We have to go to grandma’s now. Don’t you want to see grandma?”

A tiny sigh. “Maybe. Will grandma finish reading to me?”

“I’m sure she will.”

Chrissy took advantage of them checking out a book to slip out of the library without having to interact with anyone else.

“A princess, huh?” she heard the librarian ask. “How do you know she was a princess?”

Chrissy paused with her hand on the push bar for the front door.

“Um cause she was really, really nice and read my book to me, and everyone knows princesses are the most nicest in the world,” the girl said. “And, um, cause she was really, really pretty, like Auw-ora in Sleepy Beauty.”

Chrissy hadn’t expected to get the wind knocked out of her by some random child, but there she was–breath caught in her throat. She choked on it, biting her lip until she could get outside and slip into a side alley. Semi-hidden, she buried her face in the sleeve of her sweater and sobbed softly for one second, five seconds, ten.

It took several minutes after that for her to actually pull herself together, to compose herself, to remember to breathe. 

Then she wiped her eyes and stepped back out into the sunshine. As she did, she felt the rollercoaster car give a slight jerk. She could do this. She could learn to rebuild the love for herself that had been stolen away so long ago. She could keep going down the path she’d chosen before Vecna killed her for it. 

She could learn to fucking live.

Even when Eddie couldn’t be there for every single second. Even when the only person she had was Chrissy Cunningham. 

Exhaling, she took the long way home to grab some fruit, vegetables, and yogurt. Later, she recorded the smoothie in her journal as a victory. 

The following Tuesday saw the return of Corroded Coffin and the closeout of their tour with a hometown show at the Hideout.

“It’s the only black shirt I own,” Chrissy said, emerging from her stall-sized closet in a black turtleneck and acid wash jeans. “I look like I’m about to show up at the PTA with cupcakes.”

Eddie threw aside the magazine he’d been reading while hanging upside-down off the side of her bed and got up, almost wiping out when he tried to smoothly roll over and stand at the same time.

“No,” Eddie said, hopping twice on one foot to recover his balance. He stood upright and shook his hair back into place. “What you look like, Chrissy dearest, is a blank slate.”

“That’s so much better, thanks.”

“No, no, what I mean is…” Eddie gently nudged her aside and started looking through her clothes one item at a time, humming to himself before pulling out a black belt and an oversized denim jacket with a few spots of wear and tear. He waited for her to slip on the jacket and belt before taking off his wallet chains and deftly clipping them to her, the metal curving over one of her hips. 

“Better?” Eddie asked, and Chrissy stepped in front of the mirror and turned one way and then the other. 

“Should I do my hair like Debbie Harry?” she asked.

He cocked his head at her and chewed on his lip. 

“If that’s fun for you, hell yeah. Me, I love a good excuse to throw on a costume.” Eddie raised the collar of his leather jacket and peered over it like Dracula before letting it drop. “If you’re doing it because you think you have to though, then no. Half the people we play for at the Hideout show up in their work clothes from the plant. Steve wore a lavender sweater last time. Lavender! It was kinda hot, but anyway, just be the Chrissy you want to be.”

“Is Robin going to be there?” Chrissy asked, fighting the urge to look away from Eddie immediately after finishing the question. It felt silly to hide this from him, but despite the fact that she knew Eddie was with Steve and that he fully had aspirations to go long-term with him, she hadn’t been able to tell him that she was different too.

That she’d realized all those years of crushes and boyfriends had been a lot like wearing someone else as a costume.

That she’d gritted her way through and convinced herself the wrongness she’d felt was just nerves, just fear, just some deep-seated urge to break things before she could turn out like her parents.

Lesbian.

Just thinking it made her heart race. But telling someone, even Eddie, still felt… so hard. 

“Yeah,” Eddie answered. “Robin’s coming. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed her dress any different than usual. Nancy Wheeler though—now there’s someone who also lives for a costume opportunity.”

Chrissy hadn’t thought about much beyond the fact that Steve would obviously go and that she hoped Robin would be there too. She was suddenly very aware of the fact that there were other people in Eddie’s life, people who’d seen the horrors of the Upside Down. Who might even want to talk about it or offer support or ask her the questions she’d been asked by so many of the lab people before they’d cut her loose.

‘What was it like to be dead? What do you remember? Where do we go when we’re gone?’

Red, floating detritus, a clock chiming one-two-three-four, a face like torn muscles, a voice like—

Chrissy sucked in a breath and stumbled backwards. Eddie seized her arms to keep her from falling.

“Chrissy?” Eddie dove in, softly butting his forehead against hers.

“I’m okay.” She inhaled again, resting her forehead against Eddie’s because even though she was trying to learn how to survive his absences, she would never not need him. They were simply like this now, two planetary bodies who survived only within each others’ gravity. 

Outside, she heard the loud rumble of a sports car grating its way down the block. Principal Higgins in the car he’d bought after his wife ran away to one of the Keys. She closed her eyes and saw it as a dot on a timeline.

Basketball finals, Eddie, death, undeath, Eddie, that stupid car...

After.

Higgins had gotten the heinous orange Corvette after Chrissy came back.

She exhaled and took a half step back, meeting Eddie’s eyes again, the deep brown of them an immediate balm. “I’m okay.” She wasn’t that girl in the medical tent anymore, and she wasn’t the girl in that Other Place either. She could handle it if anyone brought it up. Hadn’t she laughed when Robin made that joke?

“You know you can leave tonight, right?” Eddie gently knocked her chin with a couple of his knuckles. “You know I’d never be mad at you. It’s hardly your scene even if life in Hawkins, Indiana was, you know…” Eddie waggled his hand before finishing, “normal-schmormal.”

Chrissy nodded, though truthfully she had no idea what her scene even was anymore. “Thanks. You know, I think I will do the Debbie Harry hair. Do you think Steve would…?”

Eddie’s face lit up. “Oh Chrissy, I think it’d make his whole summer.”

Chrissy left Steve Harrington’s house later that evening with two things. The first was lightly-teased, messy blonde hair like Debbie Harry’s old Penthouse cover. The second was another upgrade to her outfit in the form of several strategically-placed safety pins shoved through her jacket.

“You seriously don’t have to sit back there.” Steve glanced at her in the rearview.

“It’s okay,” Chrissy said. “I know Robin will want shotgun. Best friend privileges, you know? Eddie kicks you out of the passenger seat for me all the time.”

“I think that’s more because the back of Eddie’s van is a death trap, and he knows I’ve ridden worse.”

“I really don’t need to hear about your sex life, Steve.”

“I wasn’t…” Steve locked eyes with her as the car rolled to a stop at a corner, and Chrissy couldn’t hold back a laugh, snorting softly through her nose. Steve made a sound somewhere between amusement and disbelief. “Unbelievable.”

“Too far?” Chrissy asked.

“No, I threw that one right over the plate.”

“You really did.” Chrissy leaned back in the seat. “So… What does Steve Harrington listen to when Eddie isn’t hogging the stereo?”

“Uh, well…” Steve scratched the back of his neck. “If I’m being totally honest, probably one of the, like, twenty mixtapes he made me. Because he just keeps making them and, you know, there’s that whole thing where I’m kind of in love with him, so I really do want to hear them.” Steve shrugged. “Even when the music sounds like someone let a pack of toddlers loose in the kitchen section of a JCPenney. But I’ve got the new Madonna if you want? I don’t think I’ve even made it all the way through it since I bought it.”

Chrissy hadn’t heard it either outside of the singles on the radio. She told him as much.

And just like that, they were rolling through the residential streets of Hawkins to Papa Don’t Preach. The song wasn’t even over by the time Steve pulled into Robin’s driveway, beeping the horn twice in a quick staccato.  

“Hey, Steve,” Chrissy said, and he caught her eyes in the mirror again. “I just wanted to say that I’m really glad, you know. That you and Eddie make each other happy.”

He stared at her in silence for several seconds, but the corner of his mouth twitched upward. “Yeah. Me too.” Madonna sang on, and they both waited, eyes flitting between each other and the front door of Robin’s home. After the song ended and the next started, Steve licked his lips. “How are you doing? On the, uh, whole happiness thing?”

“Oh, I…” Chrissy started to form some kind of reply, but the front door of the Buckley residence swung open and Robin emerged. At the sight of her, Chrissy made a tiny noise of distress in the back of her throat. Hearing it, Steve fully turned around in his seat, craning his neck. 

As much as she could’ve stared at Robin all night, she immediately tore her gaze away, her cheeks heating.

“Sorry,” he said. “If that was too personal.”

“No, it’s…” She trailed off. Her thoughts were at war. On one side of the battlefield, there was Robin. Robin–her wavy hair piled into a messy bun atop her head, tendrils falling loose in every direction. Robin, wearing a striped black and white shirt that exposed her collarbones just slightly before the collar of a long men’s blazer swallowed them up again. Robin, her pants slouchy and black, cuffed high to expose red high tops covered in permanent marker.

Then there was the other side of the battlefield, the one populated with all the things that clung to Chrissy like grime–death, living, recovery. Loneliness. 

“You’re probably sick of people asking,” he said.

She met Steve’s eyes in the dimly-lit car and shook her head, meaning it.

“I’m sick of people pretending to give a shit. You—” Chrissy put a strong emphasis on the word. “—are not those people, Steve.”

He nodded his understanding, clocking Robin’s proximity before continuing. “No, we’re not. I know you’re closest with Eds, and like, that makes sense. But we’d all get right back into the ring for you just the same as anyone else in, uh, the Party. That’s what the kids and Eddie call it. Dragons in Dungeons thing.”

He stopped talking as Robin pulled open the door with an exasperated “hi” before sliding into the passenger seat. “God sorry. I changed shirts like six times because, well, I know sh—”

“Don’t even worry about it!” Steve cut her off. “Hey, look who else caught a ride with us.” Steve jerked his thumb toward the backseat.

“Oh!” Robin’s bottom lip moved up and down a few times, and she laughed in surprise. “God, I would’ve totally ridden back there.”

You still can.

“It’s no trouble.” Chrissy shrugged. “Steve was just telling me about the Party.”

It was like she’d lit a match. “Oh yeah,” Robin said, drawing out the words. “You get one shitty summer job slingin’ cream and—”

“Robin.” Steve whipped the car out of the driveway. “We’ve talked about the term ‘slingin’ cream.’”

“No, we haven’t ‘talked about it.’” Robin did air quotes. “We’ve disagreed about it, Dingus.” Rolling her eyes, Robin stuck her feet up on the dash. Steve immediately shoved them off with a small, “nope.”

“Ugh. Fair.” Then Robin kept right on talking about the Party like the interaction had never happened. “One terrible, minimum-wage, cream-slingin’ summer, and all of a sudden the shopping mall is overrun with Russian spies, and oh, wouldn’t you know it? They’re trying to reopen the portal to hell because they’ve never read Dante before. Which, okay, neither have I because Mr. Bernard wanted to do Chaucer instead. But, like, I know portals to hell are a bad idea because it’s a portal to hell. ”

Robin took a gasping inhale. “What were were talking ab— The Party!” She snapped her fingers. “Right. So you face death multiple times, learn that Nancy Wheeler owns a fucking gun , infiltrate a mental asylum, fight a war between universes.” Robin shrugs. “And you become part of a weird little family of people who have all seen too much and are still, for some reason, expected to have another shitty, summer job, suh-lingin’ tapes.”

In the backseat, Chrissy listened with rapt attention, fixated on the line of Robin’s jaw, the simple angular slope of her nose, the delicate curve of her ear. Through the passenger side window, she caught a glimpse of the moon between the buildings of what passed for Downtown Hawkins. It briefly backlit Robin’s hair, highlighting every wild tendril in a blink-and-miss-it flash of silvery glow. 

“Would you rather…?” Chrissy asked, the words instantly throwing her back into a memory of being twelve, laying across from Tanya McKinney, both of them curled deep into their own sleeping bags. She remembered how badly she’d wanted Tanya to keep talking, how she’d been so hung up on having her full attention. Finally realizing why, Chrissy laughed softly to herself. “Gosh, okay. So would you rather spend another summer slingin’ cream? Or eat the Tiger Tuna Surprise every day for a week?”

“Oh God.” Robin recoiled. “You know, when I was in fourth grade, I was convinced there was real tiger in that, and that’s why it tasted so… nothing like tuna.”

“No!” Chrissy covered her mouth. “I thought the same thing after I moved here in third. My old school didn’t do the cute little names on the lunch menu, so I thought it was, you know, literal.”

“I feel so completely validated that someone else thought that. Like, those cute little names really messed with me.” Robin let her head fall to the side, peering at her between the seats. Then her eyes lit up and she pointed. “Squawkin’ Hawkins Chicken Toes! Why did they call them toes? Since when is the toe the appetizing part of anything? Also. Chickens don’t have toes!”

They both laughed.

“And what about the Loch Nora Noodles?” Chrissy met Robin’s nostalgic smile with one of her own. “It was just spaghetti! I didn’t even know what Loch Nora was because we’d just moved here, but I knew about the Loch Ness monster. So I thought the meatballs were monster meat for the longest time, and Mrs. Powell kept trying to force me to—”

Robin rolled her eyes and slipped into a dry, nasally impression. “‘Eat everything on your tray.’”

“Yes! One day she was being really mean, and I started crying. Like really really crying—hiccups, tears, snot. Super gross. So one of the lunch ladies calmly explained to me that, no, the meatballs were not made of dinosaur meat imported from Scotland, and they were actually just made of—this is a direct quote—‘sweet little moo cows.’”

“No!” Robin’s mouth gaped. “And how’d that go?”

“Well, we’d gone on the field trip to the dairy farm a few weeks before that, and I’d been begging my dad for a pet cow ever since. So…”

Robin gasped. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes.”

“That is, and I really mean this,” Robin said, “somehow the best and worst thing I’ve ever heard. Also just absolutely adorable.”

She met Chrissy’s eyes when she said it, and the word ‘adorable’ zinged right up Chrissy’s spine. Somewhere beneath layers of turtleneck and denim, her stomach did several back handsprings. 

“Sorry to interrupt, ladies—and I totally also thought the Tuna Surprise had tiger in it by the way—but we’re here.”

The car rolled to a stop in a gravel parking lot devoid of painted lines, and Steve effortlessly slipped the Beamer between two other cars parked near the door.

Chrissy took in the squat brick building, its dingy windows filled with posters and backlit plastic signs for different brands of beers. She had never been to the Hideout before. The owners had fled town back in the spring, and it had taken a while for them to decide to sell. Then longer still for someone to actually buy it.

Between that and spending a couple months fully dead, this was Eddie’s first show in Hawkins since March.

Getting out of the car, Chrissy let herself fall in next to Steve. At the door, a burly guy in a plain black tee checked IDs with a flashlight. The three of them joined the queue headed in, shuffling along until they’d been marked with big black Xs on the backs of their hands.

Inside, they each forked over $10 in cash, and that was that.

They found Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers over at the end of the bar, both standing a full three feet apart. Eddie had been right about Nancy Wheeler seizing a costume opportunity. She looked like some rock star’s girlfriend, her hair teased extra high, a Loverboy tee and a red belt both hanging over animal print leggings, metal bangles climbing her wrists.

And Chrissy, well, just because she had a crush on someone else didn’t mean she didn’t have eyes.

Nancy Wheeler was, undoubtedly, very hot. With her angular face and the way her expression toed the line between pouty and mischievous, Chrissy could see why Steve had been so hung up on her for so long. And she could see why Jonathan was making subtle eyes at her even now, despite the rift that had clearly grown between them.

“Chrissy.” Nancy jerked her chin in greeting after she’d finished hugging Robin and Steve. Nancy started to raise her hand for a handshake and then shook her head and raised her arms instead. “If it’s okay.”

Stepping closer, Chrissy let Nancy hug her, inhaling a thick whiff of hairspray and roses. Behind Nancy, Jonathan gave her a small wave, his face one of someone who recognized he and Chrissy were both in the same club now, even if neither of them had actually wanted to meet the membership requirements.  

“Ah, there they are.” Eddie appeared, throwing one arm around her and draping the other across Steve’s shoulders. “My sun and my moon, my Siegfried and my Roy, my AM and my FM. Chrissy dearest, you look hot. Steve, Steven, Stevie.” Eddie fluttered his lashes at him. “You look like you’re in trouble later.” Eddie bumped him with his shoulder.

“God, I fucking hope so.”

Robin pretended to gag loudly. “Please. My delicate, virginal sensibilities.”

“Sorry, Robski,” Eddie said. “Didn’t mean to leave you out. You, my friend, are the strawberry to my vanilla and chocolate, all coming together harmoniously in this Neapolitan called life.”

Robin gave him a look. “Did you really have to go with an ice cream reference? After everything Steve and I have been through?” 

“Also, in this scenario,” Steve said, “am I the vanilla or the chocolate?”

Eddie looked back and forth between Steve and Chrissy and then pulled his arms free, clapping once before pointing with both hands. “Anywho! We’ve got a sick fucking show for you tonight. Tour really tightened us up.” Eddie made a fist and slurping sound effect to go with it. “I am truly, sincerely, unequivocally glad you’re all here to witness history in the making on this most auspicious eve. By which I mean the new owners shelled out for a PA system that isn’t half duct tape and all horse shit, so hold onto your foxy little underthings and watch out.”

“Oh, we will be on the highest alert,” Robin said.

Chrissy grinned, jerking her head Robin’s way. “What she said.”

Eddie wasn’t lying. Corroded Coffin did put on a great show, and the chemistry and experience between them was apparent as they wove around one another in the small space. 

Months and a lifetime ago, Eddie had helped her remember the boy with the buzzed hair. She had liked Corroded Coffin back during that talent show. They’d been messy and awkward, but they had also represented something different. Something challenging to the status quo.

Tonight, they were no longer messy or awkward. In the middle of their third song, as Jeff crooned into the mic and harmonized with Gareth, Chrissy let her eyes flutter shut.

“ And the Big Bad Wolf can blow us to bits.
But these Piggies are all coming back from that pit.”

Around her, Chrissy could feel the brush of bodies moving and spinning. The melody swelled inside her chest, and though she only shut her eyes for a few brief moments, when she opened them it felt like waking from a dream within a dream. 

It reminded her of how church used to feel when she was young and her grandma used to take her–hundreds of people all feeling as one, singing as one, breathing as one.

And what was a rock concert really if not worship? Worship of the simple act of being so absolutely alive.

When the song crashed into an ending, Chrissy screamed louder than anyone.

Later, when Eddie came out of the back sweaty and grinning, she rushed to hug him, nearly knocking him over.

“That was amazing!” She squeezed his arms, proud and giddy. “You better remember me when you guys take off, Eddie Munson. Because I have no doubt it’s happening. Not one.”

Absolutely beaming, he grabbed her face and popped a kiss right on her forehead. “There is no universe in this vast and mysterious cosmos where I could ever forget you, Chrissy Cunningham. Not a single one.”

In her periphery, she watched Steve and Robin approach, Nancy and Jonathan trailing behind.

She took a step back to make room for Steve, knocking her shoulder into Robin’s and turning her head to smile at her. So many more tendrils of Robin’s hair had fallen loose, her scrunchie on the verge of giving up the ghost.

As Robin smiled back, Chrissy felt nearly limitless, like she was right on the edge of being bold and the tiniest push would send her flying. Wanna get out of here? She could hear it in her own head, in her own voice. It lingered on the tip of her tongue like sweet peppermint.

But she swallowed it down, settling for letting the group swell into conversation around her as the rest of the Corroded guys came out to mingle.

And even if she wished she could be bold, she found this was enough too. Basking in the afterglow of one truly great night. 

Chrissy sat on the floor just outside of her closet, a cardboard box open at her feet. Inside of it were several of her old books from when she’d been a little girl. Frog and Toad, Strega Nona, Clifford the Big Red Dog , and the Berenstain Bears .

Letting herself revel a bit in the nostalgia of it all, she flipped through a few pages of each. She even found an old movie ticket stub tucked into one book from when her parents had taken her to see The Rescuers .

“Christine! Phone!”

Haphazardly shoving the box back in her closet, Chrissy got up and jogged downstairs.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Debbie Harry,” Eddie said. “I have a question for you.”

“I have an answer, Vivian Campbell.”

“The lady just referenced Vivian Campbell. Watch out, Stevie.” 

“I’ve been listening to some tapes a friend let me borrow, trying new things. What’s your question?” 

“How do you feel about Dungeons & Dragons?” he asked. “About playing?”

“Oh. Uh. Don’t you have to know a lot of stuff?” she asked. “And have dice and the little figurines?”

“Only if you aren’t friends with a master DM and certified dice hoarder. You can very much learn on the job for this one, and I am extremely happy to teach. Unless that was your polite way of saying no, and then I invite you to be impolite. Knock me down a peg or two. Keep me humble.”

Chrissy hummed, taking a moment to think about it. All she knew about Dungeons & Dragons, she’d absorbed from the same Satanic Panic news stories that had started the whole mess with Eddie in the spring. And from Eddie recounting games to her after therapy when she needed him to talk about literally anything.

She was usually in a bit of a haze in those instances, but D&D definitely hadn’t sounded as terrible as 60 Minutes made it out to be.

“If I don’t like it…?”

“I will make an in-case-of-emergency-break-glass for your character. They can go off to live in a faraway city where the rivers are milkshakes and gravity is just a suggestion.”

It really did seem like it might be fun, especially with Eddie and—she assumed—Steve and Robin. Plus, as always, it was another reason to leave the house.

“I’ll give it a shot. Should I—?”

“I’ll be over in twenty unless you need more time?”

“Twenty works.”

“Hell yeah.”

Twenty-five minutes later, she crawled out of Eddie’s van and walked into Steve’s house and into the most chaotic scene she’d witnessed in a long time.

Everyone was there. 

Across the living room, she spotted Robin and Nancy leaning against a wall, chatting. She moved closer to Eddie’s elbow while Steve nudged Dustin and Erica’s feet off his coffee table. Nearby, Max sat in a recliner, Lucas perched on the arm of it, describing the situation with Dustin and Steve while Max giggled. Throughout all of that, Mike wove through the room with a bowl of chips, which Will raided briefly before using the newly-cleared surface of the coffee table to start spreading out a giant map.

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry.” Eddie bumped her shoulder with his own. “Big kids are playing in the dining room.”

Nodding, Chrissy readied herself to move through the chaos. But then the doorbell rang behind her and Eddie called “I got it” at Steve and turned to wrench open the door.

On the porch stood El Hopper, her hair a short and messy brown mop, a backpack slung over one shoulder. All three of them froze. On instinct, Chrissy’s arm shot out, and she grabbed for Eddie’s hand, weaving her fingers through his, grounding herself in the rough calloused skin of his palm, in the brief tight squeeze he gave.

“Hi,” El said, her voice timid and soft. “Eddie and Chrissy.”

They’d never met her, despite everything. Chrissy only knew what she looked like from pictures. In fact, last Chrissy had heard, El was still in a hospital somewhere recovering from the injuries she’d sustained during the end of it all.

Next to her, Eddie whipped his head back at the din. Chrissy didn’t really have the capacity to think about why.

“Yes,” Chrissy said, her brain flashing back to that old memory she’d never been sure was real or not.

‘I have found you. It will be okay now.’

As though he somehow knew what she was thinking, Eddie squeezed her hand again. Or maybe he needed her just as much in that moment as she needed him.

“I don’t know what to say,” Chrissy said, feeling a bit like vomiting, feeling a lot like turning and burying her face in Eddie’s chest until the rest of the world moved on without her.

“Me neither,” El said. She took several more seconds to say something else, and she looked uncertain when she did. “How are you?”

Eddie tightened his grip. “It’s good to see you’re okay,” he said. The words were tight, tighter than she’d ever heard from him.

Chrissy nodded in agreement anyway and let Eddie pull her out of the doorway toward the dining room.

She was halfway there when she stopped, letting go of his hand and turning back. El was already in the process of being welcomed with open arms from all the kids. Chrissy looked on, bewildered. Still, she had to know.

“How did you do it?” she asked, even as she knew she shouldn’t. Even as she thought about all the poking and prodding she’d had to endure and how El had endured it her whole natural life.

From where she’d been admiring Max’s black nail polish, she stood up straight and looked Chrissy in the eyes. She wasn’t upset when she answered, just simple and factual.

“Henry did not know how to fight without taking me to that place. He thought it would hurt me, seeing the people he hurt. And it did. Hurt me. But I knew where to find you all, too.”

Eyes and throat burning, Chrissy nodded and let Eddie gently grip her elbow and pull her away. She made it two steps into the dining room before she had to stumble away, making a beeline for the half bath where she promptly dropped to the floor and dry heaved over the toilet.

She felt a hand gathering up her hair, another rubbing soft circles on her back. She thought it had to be Eddie. Then she spotted a red Converse in her periphery and realized she could hear the soft sound of Robin’s breathing.

When she was sure she wasn’t actually going to puke, she fell back onto her ass on the tile.

“Robin, can…?” Chrissy choked on the knot in her throat and tried again. “Will you…?” Breath broken and heavy, Chrissy opened her arms. Without a word, Robin slid gracelessly onto the floor and gathered her up tight, shoving the bathroom door closed somewhere along the way. As soon as she heard the slam of it falling into the jamb, Chrissy let herself fall apart, crying recklessly into Robin’s button-down.

“Is Eddie…?” The words came out hoarse and pathetic as she sobbed around them.

“He made it about two steps farther than you did, but it’s okay.” Robin started to rock them both. “Steve’s got him.”

“Sorry,” Chrissy croaked out. She had shown up to play a game, to have fun. And yet… “I…” But she couldn’t get anything else out beyond that. She wasn’t even sure what she would say if she could.

Gently, Robin shushed her, and the bathroom fell quiet for several moments save the sound of her crying.

“You know…” Robin sucked in a breath. “My mom and I haven’t always been on the same page. She wants me to be, I don’t know, more like Nancy I guess, at least when she’s not sawing the ends of shotguns—super feminine. And I just want to wear shoes that don’t hurt my feet. We argue sometimes about my clothes and my hair and my extracurriculars. And I worry that there are things about me that might make her not want to be my mom anymore.”

Robin kept rocking. “But after the whole thing with the Russians and the gate and having to fight the Mindflayer. Just…Being drugged and feeling so violated because I said and did things while I was drugged that I couldn’t control, and I said them to people I know, and like, those things worked out because I got really lucky, but they might not have. They might have gone really bad for me. And then on top of all that, I had to turn around and fight this horrifying monster thing after seeing what it had done to people.”

Robin’s voice broke ever-so-slightly. “So when that was over, and I’d signed all the stupid fucking NDAs, I went home. And I walked in and my mom was on the couch embroidering something, and she saw me looking like I’d been underground boxing, and I had to look her in the eye and tell her the mall had burned down. It was the only true thing I was allowed to say. And despite everything, despite how much we fight and how much I’m scared shitless all the time that maybe I’m not actually the daughter she wants, I still crawled onto that couch like I was just this little girl again, getting in my parents’ bed after a nightmare. And I cried until I couldn’t breathe, until my sinuses were stuffed full, until I thought my head was going to literally explode from all the stupid grief I’d packed into it. And then I cried some more.”

Robin pulled back from her then, taking her face in both hands, using her thumbs to swipe the tears off her cheeks.

“I don’t want to play Who Got Upside Downed the Worst? because none of us should have had to deal with anything more complicated than forgetting to study for a math test or maybe getting a rejection letter from a first choice college. But some people would argue you and Eddie had it worse than all of us. All that to say that it’d be pretty fucked up if you weren’t crying, Chrissy.” Robin’s eyes were watery, and her voice deepened as she tried to keep it from cracking. “It would make the rest of us look bad, actually.”

Chrissy made a pathetic sound that might have been a laugh in another time and place. Slowly, she extricated herself from Robin’s arms and sat against the wall with her legs drawn up. Robin got to her feet and found a washcloth in a basket beneath the sink, wetting it and offering it to Chrissy to wipe the salt off her face. It was cool to the touch, soothing her puffy eyes.

“Do you want me to take you home?” Robin leaned against the pedestal sink. “I’m assuming Eddie’s not up for driving, and if he’s not, then Steve’s not. But I made them give me my license in the last round of NDA bribery.”

“I’m not sure that’s something you should tell someone right after you offer to give them a ride somewhere.”

Robin snorted quietly. “In my defense, I made them do it because I had to basically learn to be a stunt driver while saving the world. Like, if you can drive while outrunning demogorgons and trying not to steer directly into one of the ever-appearing rifts between universes, you can totally handle Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System.”

“That is a fair point.” Chrissy wiped her face again as someone knocked softly on the door.

Robin raised her eyebrows and waited for Chrissy to nod before she opened it. El stood on the other side holding a glass of water. She looked visibly upset, though she was clearly trying not to.

“Joyce always tells me to drink water after I cry,” she said, glancing down at the glass.

God, she was just a kid.

Chrissy held out her hand and let El pass the glass to her, taking several sips. “Thank you.”

“I was excited about seeing my friends and did not think about how you and Eddie would be upset. I should have called Steve.”

Chrissy took another sip, and then another, trying to find and measure her words. How was she supposed to explain the complex web of emotions she was dealing with when she didn’t even really understand them herself? She caught Robin’s eyes and was surprised—and grateful—when Robin turned to El.

“Have you ever skinned your knee and then cried really hard but it wasn’t because of the knee? It was because of a lot of other things?”

“Kind of. When I stepped on one of Will’s dice. One of the pointy ones.” El made a triangle with her fingers. “I cried a lot but it was because of Hopper really.”

“Great!” Robin smiled, then frowned. “Well, I mean, not great that you were upset obviously. That was a really crappy thing you went through. Just great that you get what I’m talking about.”

“Am I the pointy dice?”

Robin nodded and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You are the pointy die. She’s not upset at you, not really. Neither is Eddie.”

Chrissy took another long drink, searching for anything she could say that might make it easier. “Sometimes, after I came back, I thought it would have been better if I’d just died. Sometimes, I still…” she admitted. Robin flinched. “But where I was when you found me, I don’t think that was death, not the way death is supposed to be. He had us trapped there—our souls or—” Chrissy swallowed. “Whatever it is that makes us who we are–he kept that locked in his nightmare. You woke me up from that, and I—I really am grateful that you did. It’s just hard trying to…” Chrissy trailed off, unable to keep going.

El let that sink in, then nodded in a way that was wise beyond her years. “I understand. Sometimes a bad thing ends, and you are glad, but it still feels like your life does not fit you anymore.”

Chrissy felt the wind leave her chest.

“When I first met Mike, he gave me one of Nancy’s old dresses. It would be too small now.” El stood uncannily still in the doorway, a deep furrow between her brows. “I think… I think maybe that is how life is. It changes, and things no longer fit. It does not mean you do not fit anywhere, just that you have to find out where you do fit.” El glanced back in the direction of the living room. The kids had clearly quieted down in response to the high emotions running through the house, but Chrissy could still hear the soft murmur of voices. At the sounds, El’s mouth twitched. “You will find it,” El said. “A new dress. Or—” she shrugged. “Jeans? Jeans are pretty cool.”

Chrissy gave her a tired smile. “Jeans are pretty cool,” she said, her voice coming out just barely above a whisper. “Thank you for the water. I hope you have fun with your friends today.”

El seemed to get that was her cue to leave, and she thanked her and retreated from the bathroom. Chrissy handed the water glass off to Robin and pulled herself up off the floor.

“I want to check on Eddie,” she said.

“We can do that.” Robin fell in beside her as they headed for the stairs and Steve’s room.

“Then I want to go somewhere that isn’t home.”

A beat. “We can do that too.”

One soft knock and short conversation with Steve later, Robin had the keys to the Beamer in hand. Chrissy belted herself in while Robin adjusted the seat and then dug around for a tape to shove into the deck. As Robin backed into the street, Joan Jett came filtering out of the speakers.

Robin was, as promised, a decent driver. As they wove through Hawkins in companionable silence, she stopped at the appropriate stop signs and used her turn signal. She even rolled to a very careful stop at the Quarry before putting it into park. 

It was only mid-afternoon when they arrived, and the sun was high and hot. They found a spot tucked up against the side of the rock wall, the shade and the cool stone behind them making the day more tolerable as they sat together, tossing rocks into the water below.

“Tell me something,” Chrissy said. “Something about Robin Buckley that almost no one knows.”

Robin laughed quietly to herself and then hummed as she thought seriously about the question. “Do you ever do that thing where someone asks you a question and it’s like every thought you ever had just falls right out of your head?”

“Yeah,” Chrissy said. “Every week in therapy.”

“God tell me about it.” Robin picked up a rock that looked a bit like the state of Ohio and hurled it hard. “Oh! Okay, I’ve got one. Something almost no one knows.”

“I’m all ears.”

“When I was younger, I used to have nightmares all the time. Kid nightmares like getting to school and finding out I had to do a book report for some giant book I’d never read. Or, like, trying to hide from a dinosaur in my bedroom. I got sick of them, so I started doing this thing where, before bed, I’d write down a dream I wanted to have, and I’d stuff it into my pillowcase. I thought if I kept it close, it’d magically absorb into my head or something.”

“Did it ever work?”

“Sometimes! Probably because I was thinking about those things before I went to sleep. I usually only got one or two things out of everything I wrote down though. Like if I wrote I wanted to start out running through a field of sunflowers and then eat a big bowl of ice cream and then get to fly, I’d maybe just get to walk down the street while eating the ice cream. I think it gave me some feeling of control or something though, and the nightmares slowed way down.”

“That’s kind of awesome.”

Robin hurled another rock. “It is kind of awesome.”

They fell quiet. Toss. Examine the next rock. Toss again. 

“Do I get to ask?” Robin asked softly, so softly Chrissy almost didn’t hear her.

“Ask what? A thing no one really knows?”

“About what you said in the bathroom.”

Chrissy pulled her arm way back and whipped a rock across the quarry, watching it land in the water with a splash they couldn’t hear, the ripples spreading across the surface.

Robin gathered a few rocks in her hand and let them fall back onto the ground one by one. “I just want to know if I—if we—should be worried.”

Chrissy shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“I don’t want to push you, but that doesn’t sound very, uh, reassuring.”

Chrissy drew her knees up, gravel crunching under her feet. There was a version of reality where she dismissed this moment, where she waved Robin away with a few more iterations of ‘I’m fine.’ 

There was a world where, regardless of if she ever got to do anything about her stupid crush, she failed to take the opportunity to let someone else in. To know and be known. 

There was a world where she did the easy thing instead of the brave thing, the hard thing, the fucking terrifying thing. 

“I guess…” Chrissy started, her heart beating so hard that it felt like something was kicking at her neck. “I guess what it really comes down to is that El was right. About not fitting.” One breath in, one breath out. Shaky and stuttery, but a breath nonetheless. “I came back, you know, and my entire life had moved on without me. My mom doesn’t care if I’m there or not. She went from controlling everything that went into my mouth and every second of my day to not caring if I’m—My brother won’t look at me. My old friends think I’m a freak. My boyfriend is fucking dead, and I feel guilty even bringing that up because you guys are the only people I even have anymore, and to you guys and to Eddie, he’s a villain.

“He was never my villain though. He was someone who cared about me, and I cared about him even if I realized I never really loved him like he loved me, but I can’t talk about that either. I can’t talk about how I have to mourn someone all on my own, how I have to mourn the life I thought I wanted with him, even if I realize now that I didn’t want it and never did. Or how I have to mourn the version of him that I knew, and I have to deal with this complicated—I don’t know—situation where I’m grieving him as someone I knew who died. But also questioning my own choices and my ability to judge people because I didn’t realize he was capable of all the things…”

Chrissy sucked air into her lungs and ground her teeth together. “I’m different now, Robin, and nothing fits me anymore. Sometimes literally. And I’m trying so hard to keep breathing and to heal. But yes, there were times when I came back, and I looked around, and I really thought that it might’ve been better for everyone else if I just hadn’t shown up again. And God, I’m about to cry for the second time today when I thought I was going to learn how to play a stupid game.”

Robin listened, silent and patient, and waited for her to finish. After, she opened her mouth a few times to speak and then closed it again. She built a tiny cairn on the ground between them and then thumped it over. 

“I wish I knew how to say the exact one thing that you most need to hear right now,” Robin said, already rebuilding the mini cairn anew. “Maybe it’s just that, putting aside any feelings I have about him, I can handle it or keep my mouth shut if you need to talk about Jason. And I can understand what you mean about having to mourn both him and just, like, who you thought he was. Which, for the record, I think is all extremely normal of you actually.”

Chrissy stared at her own shoes, now covered in a slight film of dust. Robin kept going.

“Maybe it’s me saying that, even if it feels like it would’ve been right for your mom and your brother and your old friends, what about you? What about what’s right for Chrissy Cunningham?” Robin gave her a long look. Chrissy couldn’t look back, but she could see her in her periphery, her hair loose and bit wild, her lips pinched.

“I sort of think what’s best is, you know, being alive. Being here. Getting to feel the sun on your face or hear a truly great song or read a book that maybe hasn’t even been written yet—one of those ones that will pull your heart out and rip it up and then slowly reassemble it again, and you know you’ll never be the same as you were before you picked it up. Or just, love, Chrissy. Being alive to experience, like, all the fucking love coming your way, you know? Love that you already have, love that you’ll have someday. But maybe that’s not what you most need to hear either. Maybe it’s…”

Decimating that new little cairn in the process, Robin twisted onto her knees and dragged her body closer, until Chrissy had no choice but to meet the soft blue of her eyes. The look she found there had her stomach twisting, her lungs feeling too shallow.

“Maybe it’s just that we all care about you, and if we count as ‘everyone else,’ then no, we wouldn’t be better off without you. Obviously Eddie cares about you a ton, and he’d be devastated without you. But Steve has told me he thinks you’re great and he’s glad we’re getting to know you. And he’s right. Every single second I spend with you, I’m more and more glad that you’re here and that I get to know you too. Maybe it’s just that if you’re looking for where you fit, you’ve already found it. We’re just, you know, like a pair of new shoes. You’re breaking us in, but we’re here, Chrissy. We really are.”

Chrissy dug her hands into the gravel, keeping her breathing steady and even. Water gathered on her lids, and every time she blinked, her vision blurred.

“I don’t think…” Chrissy coughed. “I don’t think I’m trying to—that I want to go anywhere else.”

“Good,” Robin said, falling back onto the rocks beside her. “But even if you don’t, if you feel like you said you do, I…” She made a barely-audible noise of frustration in the back of her throat that culminated in her picking up a handful of rocks and throwing them all at once. Then she inhaled deeply and breathed out slow and steady. “No one wants the people they care about to be in pain. We’ve all gone through so fucking much the past few years. Then they made up stories about mall fires and gas leaks and mass fucking hysteria. At the end of the day, all we have is us, you know? We have to be there for each other, but more than that, we want to be. And that includes you.”

Chrissy turned her head, and Robin met her gaze–those blue eyes not unlike the depths of a swimming pool, Chrissy turning over and over, unsure which way was up or down. 

Sniffing, Chrissy reached over and laid her hand on top of Robin’s wrist, wrapping her fingers around and squeezing. She could feel Robin’s heartbeat thumping steadily, and she counted the beats—one, two, three, four. Then she let go and drew her hand back. Robin immediately looked down at the place where she’d just touched her before focusing back out at the landscape. 

Around them, time dragged on. A bug flitted nearby. Sparrows and finches called to one another. Another car rumbled up the quarry.

At that, they both looked up toward where the Beamer was parked. Chrissy wiped her eyes on her shirt sleeve, and Robin used the hem of her button-up to do the same.

“I kind of want to go back,” Chrissy said. “See if Eddie is feeling better and wants to go ahead with the game.”

“Yeah, that might be nice.”

“Or put my feet in the pool. It’s hot.”

“It is.” Robin got up and offered her hand. Chrissy took it and let Robin help her up, dusting off the seat of her pants once she was on her feet.

“I hate being at home now,” Chrissy said, because Robin had just invited her to spill her guts indefinitely. “I can tell they don’t want me there. They mourned me, and now it’s like I’m this ghost they can’t get rid of.”

“If it’s okay with you, I can tell everyone that. No details unless you want me to share those too.” Robin started the short climb back up the road. “Between the five of us, we can probably make sure you’re only ever home to grab clean underwear.”

Chrissy followed her back to the car, thinking over the offer despite the fact that she knew the answer as soon as Robin mentioned it. “Please.”

At the top of the quarry, they found a brown sedan parked some distance from them, the cab of it quickly filling with a cloud of smoke. Chrissy was pretty sure her old middle school science teacher, Mr. Clarke, drove something similar.  Or at least he used to.

“Oh wow,” Robin said. “Someone’s hotboxing the shit out of that car.”

It came out hoarse, but Chrissy still giggled as she opened the door and slid into the passenger seat.

Hours later, she sat at the dining room table at Steve’s while Eddie balanced precariously on one of the chairs. “The figure approaches, and he says to you—” Eddie looked at Chrissy. “‘My my, if it isn’t little Tanyth, all grown up. I haven’t seen you since that day in the forest. Tell me, how is your little sister?’”

Chrissy looked down at the sheet next to her where she’d carefully worked with Eddie to pencil in details. She had no doubt this was meant to be the character who’d poisoned Tanyth’s family. Her sister was the only survivor. 

“What do you say to this guy?” Eddie asked. Chrissy thought about it for a second and then shrugged.

“I don’t say anything.” She met Eddie’s eyes across the table. “I take out my crossbow and shoot him directly in the face. No, wait. Actually, I shoot him directly in the dick.”

Next to her, Robin snorted and muttered “hell yeah” under her breath.

Meanwhile, Eddie cackled and plopped back into the chair, clapping with delight. “By all means, babe. Go ahead and make an attack roll. And seeing as you’re getting the drop on him, I’m gonna go ahead and say that’s with advantage.”

Chapter Text

Chrissy woke to the sound of footsteps, blinking up at the ceiling of Steve’s living room. The game had gone on pretty late, Tanyth’s attack on her parent’s killer leading everyone into a much larger battle that went on for hours. Steve had invited them all to crash after, and Chrissy had promptly crawled onto the couch and passed out.

As she turned her head to see who was trying—and failing—to sneak around in the early morning, she found Robin frozen in the doorway, teeth bared in a grimace.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

Chrissy snuggled deeper into a patchwork quilt someone must have draped over her after she’d fallen asleep. Then she blinked a few times to clear away the bleariness in her eyes. As she did, Robin came into focus. Her hair was a mess of bedhead, and she was wearing an old Hawkins Swim tee that draped loosely over her frame. Under that, she had on green shorts, the hem of which she’d rolled several times to keep them from falling off her hips.

Chrissy felt a strong desire to somehow grab her from across the room and tug her onto the couch. To run her hands over her skin, to…

Chrissy sucked in a deep breath and felt her thighs squeeze together under the blanket as her body forced itself into a stretch. Back arching, she raised her hands above her head and groaned softly as her bones protested.

Across the room, Robin cleared her throat.

“I… I was about to make coffee,” Robin said. “If you want some.”

Chrissy rolled off the couch, pulling the quilt around her and shuffling into the kitchen where she hopped on a bare part of the island and sat cocooned, watching Robin move around the space in the easy way of someone who’d spent a lot of time in it.

“How do you take your coffee?” Chrissy asked as the kitchen filled with a warm aroma. 

“Oh God, I’m such a heathen.” Robin turned around and leaned back against the counter, combing through her hair with her fingers, grimacing at the knots. “It’s pretty much a vehicle for caffeine for me, so I drown it in sugar and cream. How about you?”

“I don’t know.”

Robin’s brows went up. “You’ve never…had coffee?”

“No, I have. It’s just my—I’ve only had it black. I pretty much only drank it when I was desperate.”

Robin gave her a look of complete bewilderment and then reached into a cabinet to pull out two mugs. She found heavy cream in the fridge and poured a healthy splash into both cups, following that by spooning in heaps of sugar.

“Sorry if this is, like, a total sugar overload. Just…” When the pot finished brewing a few seconds later, Robin poured coffee into both mugs and passed one to her. Chrissy took a careful sip, letting the coffee filter across her tongue. 

She coughed. “That is…”

“There’s a whole pot. I can try again. “

“No, that’s okay. You don’t have to—”

Robin set her mug down and reached for Chrissy’s. As she pulled it from her grasp, their fingers met, twining briefly before Robin pulled away. “I can try again,” Robin repeated, more insistent this time. Chrissy pressed her lips together and nodded.

“Half the sugar?” Chrissy suggested.

Robin made her another cup. This time, it was perfect.

“What did…?” Chrissy laughed and then cocked her head at Robin, smiling playfully. “So, Robin, how do I like my coffee?”  

Robin’s eyes glittered over the top of her own mug as she took a sip. “Cream and two sugars.”

“So you like four?”

“Like I said, total heathen.”

“Maybe,” Chrissy closed her eyes as she took another drink. “Or maybe you’re just a woman who knows what she wants.”

At that, Robin let out a strained giggle behind her cup. It was right around then that Eddie stumbled into the kitchen.

“Oh, there’s already coffee. Who is responsible for this?”

Robin raised her hand. “Guilty.”

“Robin, you are a saint, too good for this cruel world.” Eddie poured a cup and made it extra sweet but left out the cream. Then, as he sipped on that, he poured another, carefully measuring out cream and a single teaspoon of sugar.

“We’ll be down momentarily.”

Robin rolled her eyes. “Tell Steve I’ve already seen him in his PJs with bedhead. Many times. Also none of us care.”

“Look, he has one flaw, and it’s a hot one. Who am I to deny a man his humanity? Who am I to not watch, enraptured, lost in my own lust, as—”

“Please go back upstairs now,” Robin said, and Eddie kissed her on the cheek before absconding with both cups of coffee.

“Is it Saturday?” Chrissy asked, trying to remember how many days had passed since the Corroded show.

“It is. Ugh. Steve and I have a shift tonight.” Robin frowned.

“‘Ugh’ sounds right. But do you want to see if the Smurfs are on right now?” Chrissy asked.

“Oh, yes please. Just don’t make me watch that little clowns show. They freak me out.”

“Deal.”

They sat on the couch, not on opposite ends, but still farther apart than Chrissy would have liked. The Smurfs wasn’t on, but The Real Ghostbusters was, and that led right into Bugs and Tweety .

As the cartoons ran together, Chrissy kept her eyes on the TV, but she was really focused on Robin. On every little laugh, on the pale skin of her arm and how she wanted to touch it and catalog the exact downy softness of the baby blonde hairs that grew there.

As Bugs donned his latest disguise, Chrissy saw Robin shiver a bit out of the corner of her eye.

“Do you want to share the blanket?” Chrissy asked, offering Robin part of the quilt, taking the opportunity to scoot closer so it would fit over both of them. That left her pressed shoulder-to-shoulder, hip-to-hip with Robin.

Robin was so, so warm.

When Chrissy moved her socked foot, she felt it collide with Robin’s and drew it back. She remembered a long-ago lunch in the cafeteria, watching Stacey Wright flirt with Chance Galiardo. She remembered how Stacey had delicately slipped her foot from her sneaker and slid it up the ankle of his jeans.

If she did that with Robin, would she let her?

“Are you okay?” Robin asked, her voice hoarse. “You’re all… squirmy.”

“Sorry. It’s the… nerve damage.”

“Oh.”

“I’m okay though.” Chrissy felt a little guilty about the lie, but only a little. After all, she did have nerve damage. And it did cause problems, though for sure not like this. Still, if she had to live with it, then she was allowed to take advantage of it to cover how badly she wanted to find Robin’s hand. To hold it. Or—in her deepest, most indulgent fantasies—to place it over the wet heat between her legs. To look Robin in her pretty blue eyes and softly say, ‘please.’

In those fantasies, Robin would give in, and her fingers would ease away the growing ache of Chrissy’s need. And, as Robin rubbed and thrust those fingers, she would kiss Chrissy and whisper in wonder about how pretty she was, how good she was, how wet.

All for her.

Chrissy gulped and hoped it wasn’t as audible as it had seemed to her own ears.

That Robin couldn’t hear the heavy-shallow labor of her breathing.

As the tension and want grew, Chrissy found herself grateful when Jonathan and Nancy stumbled out of what had been—and technically still was on paper—Steve’s parents’ room.

“Oh, are we watching Animal Crack-Ups? ” Nancy asked. There was a hickey on her neck. 

Chrissy let out a strained “uh-huh.” She hadn’t even realized the cartoons had gone off.

Later on, when everyone started to leave Steve’s for the day, Robin approached her.

“Like I said, Steve and I have a shift later, and I think he and Eddie have plans after that. AKA you do not want to be here. But my parents are visiting my aunt, and I won’t have to work again until Tuesday. So we’re thinking Eddie drops you off at home now, and you pack a bag, and then Steve and I come get you after work before he drops me at mine. You can stay with me for a couple days. If you…”

Chrissy felt like she should say no, that maybe she should ask Nancy or even Jonathan since they were standing right there. 

She could barely handle being normal while sitting with Robin on a couch for a few hours. She was sure being alone with her for a couple days would be so much worse. But it was that same prospect that made it so appealing.

“What time do you get off?” Chrissy asked.

Robin wet her lips. “Ten.”

“I’ll be on the porch.”

A little after ten, Chrissy sat on the front porch sipping a strawberry, banana, and spinach smoothie. The night air was warm, but this far past sunset, especially with an icy drink, she was fairly comfortable in her favorite sweater. She passed the minutes by listening to the cicadas, thinking about the three or four children’s books she’d placed down into the bottom of the backpack at her feet.

She’d started to have an idea, one that didn’t involve Robin or Eddie or any of the others.

One that involved a little girl and the knowledge that the story time reader had moved away. Of course, Chrissy wouldn’t be in Hawkins forever either. Almost all her new friends had either graduated with her or before her. She’d caught snippets of conversation during D&D about everyone’s plans. Eddie had told her his own weeks ago.

Pretty much all of them were holding steady for the rest of the year, feeling like they’d earned a much-needed period of rest and healing. That said, pretty much all of them also had plans to start their lives again come the new year.

There was talk of college, of moving to different cities where they might stand a chance at doing something with their photography/journalism/music/general life skills.

Not yet though, not yet.

When they went though, she knew she’d have to–and want to–go too. Eddie was her family now, and regardless of if she learned to stand on her own or not, she’d want to be close to him. She was starting to feel like that was true of Robin as well. And Steve, but she knew he’d go where Eddie went. The two of them could pretend they weren’t thinking that far ahead, but…

As she thought that, Steve pulled into her driveway, Robin waving at her from the passenger seat. Chrissy snatched up her bag.

At Robin’s house, she got a very quick tour, solely because there wasn’t much to show. Living room, kitchen, the closed door of her parents’ room, and then Robin’s room and the bathroom. Chrissy’s impression was generally that Robin’s mom loved to embroider and do cross-stitch. The couch cushions were covered in flowers, the lamps draped with doilies.

“Sorry for the lack of detail here. I’m just wiped. The world ended and no one wants to rewind their tapes anymore, I guess.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s past my bedtime too.”

In Robin’s room, Chrissy watched her pull a trundle bed out from under her own.

“Oh, I thought I’d be on the couch or something.”

“You can if you want, but I thought this would be more comfortable.” It would. One night on Steve’s couch, for all that it was generally pretty soft, had already given her a dull ache all over, her mended bones stiff.  

“No, this is great,” Chrissy said, worrying that she might have made a mistake after all. She wouldn’t only be alone with Robin; she’d be sleeping two feet from her. Able to hear her breath, the tiny hums and noises she might make in her sleep. And she’d know that it would only take one bold move to reach for her, to see if maybe… 

Maybe.

Chrissy set her things down on Robin’s empty desk chair and laid down on the bed. She’d already put her pajama bottoms on, figuring there was no point in wearing anything real so late at night. Robin had to change though. When she said as much, Chrissy assumed she’d disappear down the hall to the bathroom.

She did not.

With her back to Chrissy, she stripped off her boxy blouse, exposing a swath of light skin and delicate muscle, cut through with the plain nude band of her bra, which she reached around and unhooked.

That wasn’t all though.

On the back of Robin’s right hip, there was a scar. A large, puckered one not unlike the scar on Chrissy’s arm. Robin’s swim shorts must have been too high that day at the pool for Chrissy to see it, but her jeans sat slightly lower on her hips. 

“What happened?” Chrissy asked, before she could think about holding her tongue to hide the fact that she’d looked. That she’d been looking.

Robin swiveled her head around, touching the spot.

“What? This old thing? Vecna mind-tossed me into a broken tree branch.” Robin shrugged. “But, you know, Nancy was out cold, and it was just the two of us in the woods outside the lab. So after El did her thing in the mind world or whatever, I got to pick up Nancy’s gun and take pretty instant revenge.”

Chrissy looked down, picturing it.

“It was really bad, wasn’t it? While we were dead.”

Robin shrugged. “Like I’ve said, we’ve all been through stuff no one should have to go through.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring that all back up. It’s just… I have a scar that’s sort of like that one. It’s nice, knowing there’s someone else.”

“Can I see it?” Robin asked, donning a simple white tank top. Then she shimmied out of her jeans, briefly revealing a pair of white briefs before pulling on red cotton shorts. When she turned around, Chrissy could vaguely see the shape and color of her nipples through the fabric of her shirt. God, it was not the right time or general mood for Chrissy to have to deal with this.

But okay.

Keeping her breath even, Chrissy steeled herself and pulled the sweater up over her head, revealing a sports bra and bare skin beneath. Then she raised up her arm so Robin could see the ugly pink near her elbow. With something akin to fascination, Robin stepped closer, telegraphing the movement as she reached toward it. Chrissy inhaled when the tips of her fingers found that skin, feeling the ridges then tracing along each amorphous edge.

When she finished, Robin stepped back and looked at her, her face so raw that it made Chrissy’s chest ache.  

“You are,” Robin said, slightly breathless, “so beautiful.”

For several heartbeats, they stared at one another, and then Robin seemed to snap out of it. “God.” Robin shook her head and then yawned dramatically. “Sorry for being weird. I’m seriously just so tired.”

“It’s okay,” Chrissy said, but in her ribs, her heart beat like the wings of a bumblebee. She settled back onto the mattress but left the sweater off, feeling exposed but also relieved to finally feel like she could be free around someone, anyone.

She stared up at the ceiling as Robin turned off the light and crawled into her own bed.

“Night,” Robin said softly.

Chrissy curled her fingers into the sheets and squeezed tight. “Good night.”

At around four in the morning, Chrissy woke to Robin whimpering. It was a soft, high-pitched sound, one that tore at Chrissy’s insides. As soon as it registered, Chrissy shot upright, peering over the side of the bed. Robin was still asleep, squirming and twitching under her sheets, her face screwed up in pain or horror or both.

“Robin,” Chrissy said.

“P-p...no.”

“Robin.” Louder this time. Chrissy held her hand up, hovering nearby, unsure if she should reach out and touch her or not. Unsure if it was even safe to do so.

A whine, soft and mournful. “Steve.”

Chrissy decided to risk it, pressing her fingers into Robin’s shoulder.

Robin woke with a deep, guttural gasp, sitting straight up. Chrissy scrambled out of her own bed and nearly tripped on her way to the light switch, groping along the wall until she found it.

The light revealed Robin, hugging her blanket, her face wet with tears.

Trembling, she met Chrissy’s eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” Robin said, mouthing the words more than she spoke them. 

Chrissy shook her head, watching as Robin got up and walked, half-dazed, to her desk, picking up her phone and dialing. It took several rings, but Chrissy could hear the dull sound of someone talking.

“Everything’s fine,” Robin said. “I just… I just had that dream.” More talking on the other end of the line. “Yeah. Thanks, Steve. I love you too.”

Wiping at her eyes, Robin hung up and crawled back under her covers. Nearby, Chrissy stood, feeling a bit useless. She started compiling a mental list of all the things Robin had done for her. After all… Don’t people usually offer the kind of comfort they most want? 

“Can I touch you, or do you want to be left alone?” Chrissy held her arms out.

Bottom lip trembling, Robin moved over on her bed, making room for Chrissy to crawl in, where she draped her arm over Robin’s back, letting her thumb make tiny strokes on Robin’s bicep.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Chrissy asked.

“It’s just a nightmare I have over and over.” Robin sounded tired, hollow. “There was this day, when you were gone, where we went into the Upside Down. Steve went first though, and he had to dive into Lover’s Lake to do it. He made it back to the boat, but then something dragged him back under. When we found him, the bat things had him. Sometimes I dream we were too late. Or that we’re all there but we still can’t… And then all we can do is watch and…” Robin shut her eyes, squeezing them tight together before letting them open again.

Chrissy glanced at a notebook over on Robin’s desk, the ghosts of ripped-out pages built-up in the spiral binding.

In one quick second, she leaned away from Robin and swiped both it and the pen resting on top.

“If you could dream about something else, what would it be?”

Robin turned her head, looking down at the notebook and the pen in Chrissy’s hand. She blinked several times and then closed her eyes, bowing her head.

“I’d dream we were all in a field of sunflowers,” Robin said. “Surrounded on all sides. Me. You. Steve. Eddie. Nance. Jonathan. There would be one clear patch in that field, and we’d set out a picnic blanket. We’d have all our favorite things—pizza from Surfer Boy in Cali—maybe Argyle would even be there too—my grandma’s pea salad, Claudia Henderson’s banana bread.”

“Milkshakes,” Chrissy said.

Robin laughed wetly and nodded. “Milkshakes, yeah.” A breath. “All we’d do is be together, everything peaceful and quiet. The day’d be one of those ones like you get in spring or fall where the weather’s just fully perfect, except it’d stay that way as long as we wanted. And we’d know, and actually believe, that it was all over forever.”

On the paper, Chrissy’s pen moved in quick, scratchy strokes. 

“I’m really rusty, but…” She showed Robin the page, covered in sketchy ballpoint doodles of the six of them and the best approximation she could do of Argyle based on what she’d heard about him. The picnic had everything they’d talked about and more, and the sunflowers towered over all of it like watchful guardians.

“That’s it,” Robin said. “That’s my perfect dream. Just a really peaceful afternoon where nothing goes wrong, and I don’t have to watch anyone die.”

Carefully, Chrissy ripped it out of the notebook, and folded it into halves and then into quarters. Then she grabbed Robin’s pillow and tucked it inside the case.

“There,” Chrissy said. “Maybe we can chase away the nightmares.”

Beside her, Robin tilted sideways and let her head fall onto Chrissy’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

“I can stay up here.” Chrissy smoothed Robin’s hair. “If you want.”

“I should say no,” Robin said, but she reached over and picked up the extra pillows from the trundle, fitting them in next to her own. Without another word, Chrissy got up and turned off the light.

Robin didn’t object when Chrissy wrapped her arms around her from behind, slotting her knees in behind Robin’s and inhaling the simple shampoo scent of her hair.

They slept in late, and when they woke up tangled together, they didn’t address it. Instead Chrissy got up and threw on her sweater before following Robin down to the kitchen. Not long after, Robin handed her a mug of coffee with cream and two sugars.

“I didn’t know you could draw,” Robin said, the two of them sitting at the Buckley’s tiny dining table.

“A little, I guess. Mostly stuff like last night. Rough sketches and doodles. It wasn’t, uh, something my mom encouraged.”

“Being able to do something is, you know, still something.”

“Yes,” Chrissy said. “I guess it is.”

“So I wasn’t sure what we were gonna do today, but now I’m thinking that I’ve had these canvases in my closet for ages because I got them thinking I’d follow along with Bob Ross someday and actually make something cool. Except that was the summer I started working at Scoops and, yeah, I never got around to that.” Robin shrugged. “But do you want to get them out today? Just, you know, see what happens. No pressure if we screw them up since they’ve been gathering dust anyway.”

“Do you have something I can get paint on?” Chrissy asked.

“Oh for sure.”

“Then I’m in. It sounds nice actually.”

And it was nice. Chrissy pulled on an old shirt of Robin’s that already had several paint stains. Together, they covered the dining room table in old newspapers and sales circulars. Then they started painting. Robin immediately went to work on an abstract gradient of colors. Chrissy started with a pencil, sketching on a simple design to paint.

“I’m gonna turn on some music. Any preferences?”

“Whatever. I… I’m trying to expand my horizons. Figure out what I really like and who I really am now that I’m allowed to do that.”

Robin took that in and then gave her a subtle smile. “Robin’s Kickass Mix, it is.”

Moments later, the light, airy voice of Daisy Jones filled the house. It was the perfect mood for Chrissy’s little artwork. Daisy led into Stevie and Fleetwood Mac, which then flowed into Bob Dylan. Chrissy kept her canvas propped up at an angle that kept Robin from seeing it. Once or twice, Robin tried to crane her neck and get a look at it, but Chrissy always jerked it away.

“Okay, okay.” Robin put her hands up in defeat. “I’ll wait for the big reveal.”

Chrissy’s stomach had started an earnest rumble by the time she finally put her brush down. She didn’t love it, but she didn’t hate it either. It was good enough, and sometimes that was all something had to be.

“I’m finished,” she said.

“Do I finally get to see?” Robin leaned forward on her elbows, face eager. Chrissy turned the canvas around. On it, she’d painted a sunflower on a simple, deep green background.

“It seems like you really like them,” Chrissy said. “So it’s for you. Put it up over your bed. Or somewhere else that will make you happy. Or hide it in the closet if you hate it, I guess.”

“I would never. The only reason I’m not grabbing at it like a greedy dumpster raccoon is that I know it’s not dry.”

Chrissy smiled and put the painting down on the newspaper. “Can I see yours?”

Robin nodded and turned it around. It was super simple—a gradient of oranges, pinks, and deep maroons. Over the top of that, she’d done the suggestion of a woman’s silhouette in one long, curving white line. Then she’d added a subtle smudge of pink near her arm, so subtle that it almost faded into the background.

Chrissy laughed quietly, blinking, tears blurring into her eyes. “It’s really pretty.”  

“You know,” Robin said, meeting her gaze and holding the contact. “It really, really is.” A beat. “It’s also yours if you want it.”

“I very much do.”

“On that note, I am pretty much beyond completely famished.” Robin stood up. “You want a grilled cheese?”

“Oh my God, yes.”

“Great, because it’s the only thing I can cook without burning the house down. Unless you want toast.”

“I would also eat toast.” But Robin led her into the kitchen and washed the paint from her hands and then made them both sandwiches in a big cast iron skillet. Chrissy groaned when she bit into hers, the toasted bread crunching between her teeth.

“I haven’t had one of these in ages.” Chrissy took another bite. “Then again, Vecna never cooked us anything. Pretty terrible manners, actually.”

Robin snorted in surprise, blowing toast crumbs all over her plate and then making a muffled sound that definitely resembled, “Fuck!” She then chewed a bit too quickly, taking a gulp of water to help her get the bite down. “Jesus, sorry, that was so gross.”

Chrissy pressed her lips together, stifling a smile. “I’ll take it to my grave. The real one I won’t have for 70 or 80 years, hopefully.”

“Bless you for your discretion.”

“And bless you,” Chrissy said, holding up her uneaten triangle, “for this kickass grilled cheese.”

“Yeah?” Robin gave her a smug look. “Well, stick with me, kid, and I’ll keep you in grilled cheeses up to your ears.”

“I’ll remind you that you said that when you realize you can’t get rid of me.”

Robin cocked her head, a little bit challenging. “As if there’s a world where anyone would ever want to be rid of you.”

After lunch, they got comfortable in the living room, each selecting a movie from Robin’s vast collection of tapes, many of which were still covered in old stickers from Family Video.

“We sell the extra copies of the older ones,” Robin had explained, “which is both great for me and a huge problem.”

Neither of their selections were Family Video cast-offs though. Robin chose Boute-en-Train , and Chrissy picked Jane Eyre, an old Hollywood version starring Orson Welles. They watched it first, both of them on opposite ends of the couch, their feet drawn up.

Not touching.

God, why weren’t they touching?

From the communal bowl on the coffee table, Chrissy reached for a refill on her popcorn.

“I used to—” Chrissy cut herself off. “Sorry, is it okay if I talk?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve seen this a hundred times.”

“Actually, never mind, it’s not that important.”

“Oh. Okay.”

God.  

What was wrong with her?

Chrissy flexed her toes, digging them into the cushions. How? How was she supposed to…?

She stretched her legs out, hoping Robin would stretch out too, tangling their limbs together. Then, at least, Chrissy would be able to feel the warmth of her.

She was so obsessed with how she could get them closer, with why they were so far away to begin with, that the full hour and a half of movie passed by in a painful blur of black and white and old Hollywood accents.

“You have to love a young Elizabeth Taylor sneaking into the background.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Chrissy said, but she had missed Elizabeth altogether.

They took a short break and gathered more snacks, reconvening in the living room where Robin  put in Boute-en-Train .

“Sorry if you hate subtitles. I just really love this one.”

Chrissy thought she’d maybe heard references to the movie a couple of times or that she’d seen it mentioned in an article or a book, but she definitely had no clue what it was.

It was all in French, for starters, and Chrissy found herself enthralled by the cinematography and the lyrical French voices.

Then, the lake scene happened.

Then Evelyn Hugo emerged, nude, the tops of her breasts capturing the light right before the scene cut away. Even without actually seeing her nude though, the suggestion had been enough. Chrissy felt heat crawl up her cheeks. Then, she looked at Robin, and she caught it. A subtle squeeze of Robin’s thighs, a slight shift so that one rubbed against the other. A tiny, shallow breath. A tongue wetting pretty lips.

As soon as she’d noticed it, Chrissy started to doubt it.

If she was wrong, if she said something…

And even if she was right, being the only other girl nearby didn’t mean Robin would want her . She might want someone hotter or less broken or even less blonde. 

Chrissy drew her legs back in close and watched the rest of the movie, eyes constantly flitting back and forth between the racier moments of Evelyn’s performance and Robin’s face.

There! Was that another parting of Robin’s lips? 

Was that another squirm?

And did it matter, really, at all?

Chrissy needed to talk to someone.

Eddie came to mind first, but she had this wild fear that even if he knew Robin was like her and could confirm she liked girls, he might also confirm that Robin wasn’t interested.

Plus there was the whole thing where she hadn’t come out to him yet. She would though. She would do that as soon as she was done figuring out what, if anything, was going on with her and Robin. 

But first she had to figure out who to talk to so she could decide what to do. 

Help came in the form of an afternoon snack run and Joyce Byers, standing behind the counter of the nearest convenience store while Chrissy paid for Raisinets and a Diet Coke.

“Movie night?” Joyce asked.

“Maybe.” Chrissy looked back behind her. Robin was far away, mixing different flavors of Icee together and smelling the cup occasionally like some kind of gas station sommelier. “We talked about a puzzle.”

“Oh wow, I don’t think I’ve done a puzzle in ages.”

“Kind of boring to most people, I guess.”

“I don’t know. You get older and sometimes you crave the boring.” Joyce put her items in a little paper bag and then leaned forward. “Plus, after all the shit the past few years, a quiet night in is just fine.”

“I don’t know.” Chrissy glanced at Robin again. “I do like quiet nights, but I think maybe sometimes I want to be a little reckless too. Take a few risks.”

Joyce glanced at Robin as well and then raised one of her eyebrows. She hummed. “Honestly…” She leaned in really close, almost conspiratorial. “Another thing about surviving like I have–like we have. Well, I know some things—some people—are worth a risk or two.”

She passed the bag across the counter with a smile. “Have a nice night. Come by for dinner with me and Hop some time. We’d love to have you”

“Oh.” Chrissy gripped her purchases. “Thank you.”

What Joyce had really given her was the thing she’d wanted all along: permission. Permission to try. Permission to swing high without a safety net, to fuck it all up. It would be worth it in the end if it meant she’d never have to wonder.

Chrissy let the wheels in her head start turning.

The puzzle was only 550 pieces, and they knocked it out before bedtime, quickly figuring out a system that saw them passing different-colored pieces back and forth until they had a fully-formed image of a field of tulips.

“Bed?” Chrissy asked, even though the clock read a little early.

“If you’re tired, sure. Will it bother you if I read?”

“It won’t.”

Chrissy went first in the bathroom, carefully brushing her teeth, washing her face, combing her hair and staring at the way it cascaded down over her shoulders in blonde waves. She’d dressed in her oversized sweater again, the knit slipping off one of her shoulders. She left off the sports bra beneath. Then she stared at the shorts in her hand and contemplated the length of her top, how it barely fell past her hips, just covering her underwear if she stood up straight with her arms down.

She left the shorts off and walked slowly back to Robin’s bedroom.

“All yours,” she said, stepping inside. It was dim, the scarf-draped lamp on the bedside table giving off a faint light that was just bright enough for Robin to read by.

Robin froze a bit at the sight of her but recovered, getting up from her bed and gathering her things before disappearing down the hall.

As soon as she left, Chrissy climbed into Robin’s bed and sat casually atop the comforter, the lamplight and the red of the scarf turning Robin’s simple white sheets into a dusky pink. Chrissy took a deep breath and worked the shoulder of the sweater down her arm, carefully exposing one breast, then covering it, then steeling her nerves and uncovering it again. 

She could do this. She could be Evelyn Hugo emerging from a lake in France, the camera staying on her for Robin and Robin alone.

She draped her hair over that exposed breast and waited, breathing steadily as she mentally bargained with all her butterflies, willing them to still. 

“God, I just spit toothpaste everywh—” Robin skid to a stop in her doorway. Chrissy shifted just enough for her curtain of long blonde hair to fall away. A few short feet from her, Robin made a tiny sound in the back of her throat.

Chrissy held her ground, the excuse already prepared even if it would be a thin one. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t even feel it.’

“Holy shit,” Robin breathed. Then she reached down and pinched herself hard on the arm, flinching at the pain. “Holy shit,” she repeated.

“I…” Chrissy took a deep breath and willed herself to just let go, to fly through the air like she used to–ten feet or maybe a full hundred. “I’ve been thinking a lot about who I am, and I think who I am is a… a le- a lesbian. And I think– I think that you’re kind of the most perfect girl in the world.” 

Robin audibly whimpered, and Chrissy reached out, offering her a hand. Chrissy felt like she might fully shake into pieces when Robin actually took that hand, when Robin didn’t pull away as Chrissy gently drew her closer and placed her palm on her bare breast. 

Exhaling, Robin fell onto the bed. She brought up the other hand too, pressing her thumb right to the imperfect scar at the corner of Chrissy’s mouth. Then, like someone who has realized they’re dreaming and they need to make the most of it before they wake up, Robin replaced that thumb with her lips. The softest kiss, right there on that tiny patch of imperfection. 

It was Chrissy’s turn to whimper, her hands finding the tops of Robin’s thighs. Robin had put on a long silk night shirt that buttoned up the middle. Chrissy pushed it up to feel more skin. More warmth.

More life.

Robin drew her lips away, her hands falling down to softly grip Chrissy’s wrists as she reveled in the touch. Chrissy watched her eyes flutter closed and then back open, her face slack. It was that moment when Chrissy chose to lean forward, feeling hopeful and bold and so very brave.

Her own body heavy with want, she pressed her nose and lips into Robin’s hair, speaking right into her ear.

“Kiss me.”

Making a quiet, desperate sound, Robin took her face in her hands. It was permission enough, and Chrissy surged forward, hungry, needing.

The kiss was terrible, their teeth clacking together, their lips mashing so hard it hurt.

And then they both inhaled together–one synchronized breath–and everything clicked so delicately into place. Robin’s lips moved so softly against her own, crafting a slow and languid symphony. Then came the tongue, tenderly licking the soft inside of her lip. Chrissy moaned and opened her mouth.

Robin tasted like mint toothpaste, and she found Chrissy’s breast again, fumbling a bit, her hand shaking.

“Sorry, I…” Robin blinked at her, her lips red and kissed-dark in the dim lamplight. “…really did not think this would happen.”

“But you wanted it to,” Chrissy said.

Robin nodded, looking down at her hand where she’d pressed her thumb to Chrissy’s nipple, tracing a tiny circle over the tender skin, the touch making Chrissy shudder, bringing on a delicate ache between her thighs. “I really did,” Robin said. 

“How much of me did you want?” Chrissy asked, words breathy as Robin continued to softly caress, her other hand sliding up Chrissy’s leg, gripping her hip.

“Everything,” Robin said. “All of it. All of you.”

“You can have it, you know?”

Robin whimpered again, then slowly leaned her head forward, finding Chrissy’s breast with her mouth, her tongue, the barest scrape of her teeth. Chrissy closed her eyes, sighing sweetly, hands resting on Robin’s shoulders.

“Is it okay if…?” Robin trailed off, apparently lost in her own desire to press kisses to Chrissy’s breastbone, to her bare shoulder. “Can I, you know, see the other one?”

Chrissy laughed, but not unkindly. “You’re different like this than I imagined.”

“Oh.”

“But not in a bad way.” Chrissy raked her fingers through Robin’s hair. “In a really charming way. I am charmed by you, Robin Buckley.”

“Have you ever done this before?” Robin asked. “Because I haven’t. I mean… I’ve seen videos. But they were, you know, porn. Not really…real.”

“I haven’t done this with another girl,” Chrissy said. “And now I’m pretty sure I never really wanted to when I was with guys. But we can figure it out together. I’ll tell you what feels good if you tell me?”

Robin still looked a bit dazed by the whole situation, but she moved her chin up and down ever-so-slightly. “I think I can do that. If I don’t fully pass out first.”

“Then I guess…” Chrissy reached for the hem of her sweater and slowly pulled it up over her body before letting it drop onto the carpet.

“Should I…?” Robin swallowed, reaching for the buttons on her night shirt.

“I’d really like it if you did,” Chrissy said, and then she watched, transfixed, as Robin undid the buttons all the way down before letting the shirt fall off her arms and pool behind her. Chrissy stared openly, hungrily.

It wasn’t like she’d never seen tits before—between cheerleading and dance and swim, she’d spent so much of her life in locker rooms. But she’d never seen tits she was allowed to really, really look at. And she’d never seen Robin’s tits. She’d been imagining what they might be like since the Pool Party, absently sketching them in her mind. 

Now they were real, and she felt like Dorothy stepping out into Oz, the world lit up in technicolor. 

For a long sprawl of moments, it was like all they did was drink each other in, both sitting across from one another, topless in their underwear. Even those seemed to both parallel and contrast, Chrissy in a pair of hi-cut white panties, Robin in simple white briefs, the fabric thin enough to show the dark thatch of hair hiding beneath.

“I still keep thinking I’m dreaming.” Robin laughed. “I also keep thinking of a really unfortunate conversation with Steve last year, and part of me wants to say ‘boobies’ under my breath like I’m a 12-year-old boy, and I’m really sorry for—”

Chrissy pressed a finger to Robin’s lips and slowly pushed it between them, feeling the soft slickness of her tongue. Then she added another, wetting them in the damp heat of Robin’s mouth.

“What…?” Robin looked dazed when Chrissy pulled them out, drawing her hand back and placing those two wet fingers over her panties, slowly rubbing her clit through the cotton. Chrissy’s body twitched at even the mild relief of that touch, her head falling back, exposing her throat.

“Oh. My God.” Robin squeaked, the sound barely-audible, buried within a short gasp.

Chrissy chased the good, rocking against her fingers, moaning quietly.

“Can I help you? With that?” Robin finally asked, and Chrissy stopped, pulling her hand away even though she’d rather do anything else. Then she reached out and slowly curled her fingers around Robin’s wrist, dragging her closer.

With a puppy-like eagerness, Robin followed, leaning too far, too quickly, until she half fell on top of Chrissy. 

“Fuck.” Robin caught herself, but not before partially knocking Chrissy backwards, her face smashing into her sternum.

Chrissy erupted into a fit of laughter, and Robin joined her a few seconds later, shaking against her skin. 

“God,” Robin said, “you spend, like, your whole post-lesbian-awakening imagining having a girl in your bed and how hot and confident you’ll be. How you’ll, like, tell her she’s pretty, that she’s being a good girl, how hot and wet she feels around your fingers.”

Chrissy swallowed.

“And you imagine you’ll be, like, this absolute goddess of going down on women. Just the fucking Wayne Gretzky of eating out.” Robin shook her head against Chrissy’s ribs, the two of them still half-toppled. “And then you actually get the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen into bed, telling you she’s totally into you, offering her body to you on a silver platter, and it turns out you’re still the same clumsy mess of a girl you’ve always been.”

“In the clumsy mess of a girl’s defense,” Chrissy said, “I think this only makes her hotter.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Chrissy raked her fingers through Robin’s hair. “I also think I’d like it if she got on top of me now.” 

Chin resting on Chrissy’s torso, Robin peered up at her and bit her lip. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” Chrissy maneuvered, unfolding her legs from beneath her so that they could both finish falling over, landing in a gentle heap. Her hair fanned out around her head atop Robin’s pillow as Robin gazed down at her from above. 

“Being horizontal does, uh, cut down on fall risks.” Hands on either side of Chrissy’s shoulders, Robin supported most of her weight on her knees, both resting between Chrissy’s thighs. Her eyes kept darting away from Chrissy’s face, looking at her tits, at the rest of her. “Can I steal your moves?” Robin asked. 

“What moves are those?”

Robin put two fingers against Chrissy’s lips. With a soft moan, Chrissy let her push them inside, soaking them with spit. She could feel her heart pounding in her ears as Robin pulled them out, shifting her weight so she could slide her hand down, then under the elastic of Chrissy’s underwear.

In some part of her brain she hadn’t yet acknowledged, Chrissy had known she had to be wet. But it wasn’t until Robin actually touched her—that she felt the easy glide of Robin’s fingers and heard the slicked-up sounds of it all—that Chrissy realized just how wet she actually was.

Robin’s eyes went wide in surprise, her mouth hanging slack. “You. For me?”

Chrissy reached for the back of her neck and pulled her down into a kiss, this one hotter, messier. Against Robin’s lips, she answered, her voice coming out husky and hungered. “For you.”

It was that exact moment that Robin settled two fingers on Chrissy’s clit, pressing down with the lightest pressure, moving them back and forth. Chrissy’s whole body gave a slight, involuntary twitch, and Chrissy moaned quietly.

“How’s that?” Robin asked.

“A little more pressure—no not that much—just— oh .” Chrissy’s eyelids fluttered, a breathy sigh escaping from her mouth. “Oh, yes.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She hummed pleasantly, hand finding Robin’s neck, tugging her closer so she could lick sloppily into her mouth. “So good,” Chrissy said.

“Me?” Robin’s voice came out raw, raspy. She pressed her forehead against Chrissy’s, and the air between them grew warm and humid.

“When I saw you at the pool that day, I…” Chrissy pushed her hand up under Robin’s arm, feeling the soft tufts of hair there. Robin gasped. 

“Okay, I need to taste you,” she said, pulling her fingers free of Chrissy’s underwear. “Like right now.”

“I think I’d really like it if you did. How do you want me?”

Robin leaned back just far enough to look at her without going cross-eyed. “God, please sit on my face. I’ve like…” She broke eye contact momentarily, then looked at her again, blushing. “I guess it’s not weird now if I admit to pretty much fingering myself stupid imagining you doing that.”

“How many times?”

“What?” Robin’s voice broke.

“How many times did you touch yourself thinking about me?”

“Chrissy…” Robin bit her lip. “Too many to count?”

“Move.” Chrissy gave her a gentle shove, and Robin rolled off of her and onto her back, pulling the pillow out from under her head and tossing it aside.

Chrissy got off the bed entirely, walking around to the side closest to Robin’s face, traipsing over the trundle to get there. Standing next to her, she put her thumbs under the waistband of her panties and slid them off, revealing a small perfectly-shaped triangle of blonde hair. 

“Wow.”

“Yeah. I might try something different now that I’m learning to, I don’t know–someone asked me what’s best for Chrissy Cunningham and I’ve been trying to figure that out.” Chrissy shrugged. “What would you like though? If, hypothetically speaking, I wanted you to spend a lot of time down there.” 

“I mean… hypothetically speaking, no one really orders their favorite meal for the plate it comes on, right?” 

Chrissy hummed, pleased and honestly so horny she thought she might actually melt. She watched Robin’s face as long as she could, climbing onto the bed and lowering herself down, down, down.

“Whenever, you–” Chrissy swore quietly as Robin’s tongue licked a trail from hole to clit, Robin moaning so sinfully that it made her shudder. 

Chrissy licked her lips in anticipation of what would come. Then she wrapped her hands around Robin’s headboard for support and shut her eyes as Robin let out another long, hungry moan from beneath her. 

Chrissy could feel the moment Robin let go and gave into all of her fantasies. Because she started to focus hard, tongue on Chrissy’s clit, occasionally dipping her tongue inside to taste and feel the warmth. When Robin sucked, it was soft as flower petals.  

In every movement, it was clear Robin was testing the waters, trying different movements, listening and learning. 

“No wait, do that thing you just—” Chrissy’s head fell back, breath coming out in erratic inhales and exhales. “Like that, Robbie. God, please just like that.”

Robin gripped her hips and followed the instruction to a tee, mouth moving on her clit, wet-soft tongue finding that most sensitive spot hidden under its hood.

The sounds that came out of Chrissy’s chest ranged from girlish to guttural. The old wood of Robin’s headboard creaked between her fingers as she gripped it tighter and tighter, ignoring the ache that brought on. 

“You’re gonna make me come,” Chrissy said, practically squealing. “Please just—”

Robin teased at her hole with one finger and, getting no protest, tucked it inside. Rubbing, curling, thrusting. 

Oh God, it was good. It was so goddamned good. 

Chrissy made a noise she was pretty sure she’d never made before in her life—a completely free cry of pleasure that she couldn’t have controlled if she wanted to. Babbling out a stream of consciousness–”Robin, fuck fuck fuck, Robbie just… fuck”–her entire back arched in pleasure as she came, her stomach clenching, her muscles fluttering wildly with her release.

She swore as her orgasm kept going, thighs quaking as Robin tongued her all the way through it. Until her body said “no more” and Chrissy had to pull away, falling onto the bed, panting and trembling with bliss. 

For a long moment, all Chrissy could do was stare at the dimly-lit ceiling as her universe shifted on its axis. Then she heard Robin moan, and it snapped her back to reality, her head swiveling quickly to the right.

Robin had her hand down her panties, rubbing furiously. Chrissy snatched at her wrist and yanked it away.

“Please,” Robin said. “I just need to…”

“Let me?” Chrissy asked, and Robin nodded rapidly. Ravenous, Chrissy crawled between her legs, the musky smell of her heavy in the air. It was obvious without even taking off Robin’s panties just how wet she was, the cotton damp and a little translucent.

She put her mouth on that spot, sucking the taste out of the fabric. She had only ever tasted herself—her own fingers, someone else after they’d been inside of her.

Robin tasted different.

Sweeter and all the more exquisite because she was letting Chrissy do this.

Chrissy moved the fabric of her panties aside and took a moment to stare openly at the sight. Robin had the full bush Chrissy had been hoping for since that day at the pool, thick-soft brown hair growing wildly between her thighs. It framed and accentuated the deep pinks and browns of her, her folds more pronounced than Chrissy’s own.

And between those folds, the thick wetness of her arousal made her look so slick, so beautiful. Chrissy ran her fingers through it and pulled them away, admiring the strings that formed and broke as she teased Robin, watching her hips rock and move with need.

“You’re so pretty here,” Chrissy said, before greedily shoving her slick fingers into her mouth, sucking them clean.

“Please…” Robin softly touched her hair. “Chrissy…”

“I know,” Chrissy said, soothing. “I know.” Pulling Robin’s panties even farther to the side, Chrissy lowered her mouth to all that pretty pink.

“Talk to me,” she said, before covering Robin’s clit with her mouth, trying out what she liked first before trying new directions, new motions, varying levels of pressure. Robin, Chrissy was delighted to find out, got very noisy very quickly.

“Inside me,” Robin said. “Both. I…” A long babble of words followed that, almost none in English. Chrissy thought she heard Russian and Italian, maybe some Spanish too.

Still licking and sucking on Robin’s clit, Chrissy awkwardly tucked one hand up under her own chin and teased Robin’s hole with her index finger, circling it once, twice, before pushing slowly inside.

“Yes,” Robin said, voice breaking. “Now I just—I just—God, words .”

Chrissy stopped, for no other reason than to help Robin concentrate on speaking.

“Tell me what you need,” Chrissy said. “What feels good when you’re ‘fingering yourself stupid,’ huh?” 

“I…”

“Actually, what do you do to yourself when you do that?”  

Robin laughed, strained. “I did admit that, huh?”

“You very did.”

“I do a lot of things, but when I’m really trying to get there? I use both hands. One rubbing my clit, the other one thrusting my fingers in and out of me. Or I… God, how is it embarrassing to say that to someone who is literally eating me out right now?”

Chrissy alternated between looking at Robin’s face and at her own finger softly moving in and out of Robin’s hole, too slow to do anything but tease and make such pretty images for Chrissy to think about for years to come. 

“Or you what?” Chrissy asked.

“Huh?”

“You said ‘Or I…’ Or you what?”

“Oh God, it’s not important.”

Chrissy pulled her finger out and left Robin completely empty, untouched. “It could be.”

Robin squirmed and tried to press her thighs together. Chrissy held them apart. “Please,” Robin said.

“I mean…” Chrissy gave Robin the most innocent doe eyes she could muster. “You could just be a good girl for me and answer the question.”

“ Oh. ” Robin swallowed. She nodded and breathed a heavy breath. “It was my hairbrush, the handle. I guess that’s pretty normal or I’ve heard it—” Her cheeks were so red.

“It’s normal,” Chrissy said, already easing her finger back inside. “That or I used to know a lot of very weird girls on the cheer squad.”

“Please do not tell me, a completely useless lesbian, about how a bunch of former cheerleaders are probably at home at any given time just...”

“Should I be jealous?” Chrissy asked, joking, and then she put her mouth and tongue back to work before Robin could even answer.

Chrissy knew when she had it exactly right. For one, Robin started to fall apart. For another, Robin told her, repeating “like that, like that, oh fuck me just like that” with steady increases in both octave and hoarseness.

Robin’s hips rose up off the mattress, and Chrissy shoved her free arm across, pinning Robin down so she could keep eating her pussy with a voraciousness she’d never felt with another human being until that point.

Chrissy knew it was coming. She could feel Robin growing tighter around her thrusting fingers, and she responded with a deeply-focused relentlessness, meticulously following the pattern that had so far been getting Robin there. One movement and then the another, like it was a routine they’d practiced a hundred times. 

Tighter and tighter and–

“I’m—” Robin got out exactly the one syllable, then she tumbled into glorious oblivion, quivering beneath Chrissy as she alternated between muttering and groaning “fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck” over and over. It was delightful, hearing Robin Buckley come, feeling the slick heat of her erupt into all those beautiful flutters of release.

Chrissy repaid the favor Robin had given her, not letting up until Robin had ridden all the way through pleasure and into overwhelm. 

After it was done, Chrissy made her way back to Robin’s mouth, both of them kissing the tastes from each other’s lips, stroking each other’s hair, softly caressing each other’s breasts and bodies. It was purely admiration at first, enjoying the textures of each other’s skin, the curves, the angles and scars and everything between.

“You’re really pretty here,” Chrissy would tell her, caressing the spot where Robin’s neck curved into her shoulder. “I like the way those freckles sit together on your hip too.”

“Not to be, just, so gay, but I love the shape of your tits,” Robin said. “And I hope you don’t hate me for saying I find your scars really attractive. I also just—they’re part of you being back with us. They’re part of, God, getting to be with you here now. On the best day of my life maybe.”

“I could never hate you.”

In all that admiration, it was inevitable they’d both want more. It wasn’t long before hands started to slip between legs. 

It went all night, off and on. Different positions. Different levels of passion and energy. 

When dawn started to slip indigo-pale through the windows, it found them tangled up together, moaning into one another’s mouths as they worked each other over with hands and fingers. 

Later, much later, they woke up nude in the afternoon sun. Chrissy stretched, aching in so many good places. 

And she knew it probably wasn’t permanent, not yet anyway, but for the first time since she could remember, she didn’t feel self-conscious about her body. Instead she basked in Robin’s open stare. 

“That really all happened,” Robin said.

“It did. It might all happen again later.”

“Do you…?” Robin paused and breathed in and then out. “I know you said all those things before we… But what do you want?”

“You,” Chrissy said. “Us. I mean, if that’s what you want.”

“Like, girlfriends?”

Chrissy grinned at her. “You really are the cutest woman alive.”  

“See and I know that can’t be true,” Robin said. “Because for starters, you exist.”

“Girlfriends sounds really nice though.” Chrissy found her hand atop the mattress between them. “I like girlfriends.”

“Me too.” Robin squeezed her fingers. “Also, what was that about how it might all happen again?” 

Chest bursting with joy, Chrissy pulled Robin’s face to hers. 

Eddie laid on her old bed as she packed for another set of nights away from the Cunningham home, this time with Eddie and Uncle Wayne. 

She pulled one shirt from its hanger and folded it carefully. Then she chose another, giving up mid-fold because her hands were shaking too much. 

She knew he of all people would accept this, so why was it so damn hard? 

Dropping the shirt on the floor, she spun to face him. In typical Eddie fashion, he’d grabbed a magazine and seemed to be half-reading a story on Bruce Willis. 

He glanced at her and then, realizing she was standing there frozen, dropped the mag altogether. 

“Chris?” he asked. “You okay?”

She smiled, blinking as tears rolled down her cheeks. “Eddie, I need to tell you something.”

It was late fall, and it was drizzling outside of the Hawkins Public Library as Chrissy set up small chairs and beanbags in the children’s corner.

As always, little Christine was one of the first in a seat. But more kids filtered in, some of their parents sitting with them, some going to wander the rest of the small library.

Chrissy nodded to Patrick McKinney, who always brought his small niece and sat with her in his lap. He’d been brought Back too, same as her, but his journey toward acceptance and healing had been different than hers. Still, it was nice to have him now. To have someone she could talk about Jason with–the good memories and the worst of him. She and Patrick had even discussed getting everyone together to talk as a group–them, Fred, Max, Eddie. Maybe even Will Byers. 

That would be another day though, another time. 

Soon the chairs were full, and Chrissy made herself comfortable at the front of the group. Somedays, she read books from the library’s collection. Other days, she read something nostalgic pulled from the box of memories that now lived in the former guest room at Steve’s. Her room now, a place where a stylized portrait of a woman hung on the wall, a place where she could walk through the house and not feel like a specter. 

“Someone has been asking for this Frog and Toad book every week since I started,” Chrissy said, cutting her eyes to little Christine. “I guess it’s time.”

After story time, she usually grabbed a smoothie at a place nearby and then biked back to Steve’s or to her own part-time gig at Melvald’s.

Today though, Robin waited for her in the little blue Datsun pickup she’d bought used with some of her savings.

“Well hello,” Chrissy said, climbing into the passenger seat. “What are you doing here?”

“I made Steve cover for me so I could drive you. What kind of girlfriend would I be if I let my girlfriend bike around in the rain?”

“So chivalrous. I can’t wait to ride your face later.”

“God, I love you, just, so much,” Robin said.

“I love you too, Robbie.”

Back at Steve’s, Chrissy grabbed the mail, sorting it at the kitchen counter while she fought the urge to skip lunch. She’d been getting a bit of a tummy, and she’d had to spend almost a whole paycheck on new jeans. She’d spiraled about it more than once, but it was a new day. 

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

“I am beautiful because of who I am. My body keeps me alive and lets me hug my girlfriend and play D&D with my friends and make children happy. I have worth far beyond how my body looks.”

It still felt silly, repeating the affirmations Dr. Martinez had helped her come up with (minus the girlfriend bit that Chrissy had definitely added on her own), but Chrissy did them anyway. And then she picked up an apple from the bowl on the counter and took a bite, still dividing the mail into piles as she chewed.

Halfway through the stack, she froze and set the apple down.

A large, official-looking envelope bearing the seal of Purdue University sat amongst the sales circulars and bills. The name on the address label read Christine Cunningham.

She picked up the phone.

“Go for Eddie.”

“What if I wanted Wayne?” she asked, but something in the tone of her voice gave her away instantly.

“What’s wrong?” Eddie asked.

“Nothing is—it came. From Purdue.”

“And?”

“I haven’t opened it.”

“I’m here. Grab Steve’s dad’s fancy-as-shit letter opener and get the good news.”

“And if it’s bad?”

“What’d Tanyth and her party do when their plan to sneak into Gnash the Unholy’s cave fell apart?” Eddie asked. “You make a new plan, Chris. You get out the atlas and you map a new way.”

Chrissy nodded even though he couldn’t see her and slipped her finger under the edge of the envelope, ripping a seam down the paper.

She hadn’t told Robin she applied to Purdue. Robin had suggested it ages ago since she’d already been accepted and had chosen to delay enrollment. But Chrissy had never actually agreed, and after she’d sent in all the paperwork, she’d been too terrified to say anything. She didn’t want to disappoint her.

To the quiet, distant sound of Eddie breathing, she pulled the pages from the envelope.

It took her several seconds of reading and re-reading for the words to sink in.

Congratulations…

“Still with me, Chris?”

“I got in.” Chrissy blinked, several tears dripping down onto her cheeks. She’d been too late to apply to the spring term, but that was okay. She’d already been north of Indy with Robin and Steve and Eddie to pick out a place for the four of them—a two bedroom apartment with a nice big living room in between for some added privacy.

Chrissy could spend a semester working, save up a little, then get started on school. Short-term, she planned to study child development with a minor in art. Long-term, she planned to get a master’s in library science in hopes of becoming a children’s librarian, or at least being able to work at a library where she could do a great deal of children’s programming.

“So proud of you, my love,” Eddie said. “But I’m going to hang up now because I know who you really want to talk to.”

“Yeah, yeah okay.” 

Except Chrissy didn’t call Robin. Instead she pulled on her raincoat and sprinted out of the door, the letter tucked up against her breast.

Nothing in Hawkins was that far, and Chrissy still had some of the endurance she’d gained in cheer and swim and cross country. The rain made it feel longer, and the barometer made her bones hurt, but her excitement kept her going. 

A few minutes later, she stumbled, dripping wet, across the threshold of the video store.

It was dead, Steve and Robin throwing M&Ms back and forth into one another’s mouths. They both turned, surprised, at the sound of the bell.

“Chrissy?” Robin beheld her fully, the wet-dog state of her and all.

“There’s no one else here?” Chrissy asked, already behind the counter like the idea of a staff-only area was a mere suggestion. 

“Empty as hell,” Steve confirmed. Laughing, Chrissy grabbed Robin’s cheeks and kissed her, spinning them both in a circle.

“What’s going on?” Robin pulled back. “Not that I’m complaining.”

Chrissy yanked the now-damp letter out of her coat and slapped it against Robin’s chest.

“You… applied.”

“I didn’t tell you. I was afraid I’d jinx it or something if I—mmph.” Chrissy made a noise against Robin’s lips as Robin attacked her with a kiss.

Steve, to his credit, turned around and pretended to care very much about getting a stain off the countertop.

“Do I get to ask yet?” he finally said, after they’d finished kissing, after they’d stared at each other watery-eyed for a long, long gay moment, both planning a thousand futures in their heads.

“I got into Purdue,” Chrissy said.

“Oh shit.” Steve raised his eyebrows in a pleasant kind of surprise before smiling, nodding his head slowly. “Damn. Both of you girls off to Purdue, Eds already has that bartending and music gig lined up, and someone finally registered for those community college classes. Not a bad way to start over.”

“Not bad at all for two members of the undead and their extremely beautiful and smart and sexy partners who helped save the world.” Chrissy nudged Robin with her elbow.

“Sexy, you said?” Robin nudged her back.

“You two should go celebrate,” Steve said. “No one’s coming in here anyway. I’ll cover.”

“You sure?” Robin asked, but she already had the vest off.

Outside, they crawled into her pickup, checked for watching eyes, and made out for several minutes before Chrissy’s stomach growled. 

“I haven’t eaten anything yet today. Well, I started on an apple, but then I saw the letter and it sort of took over.”

“Then I think I know the perfect way for us to celebrate.” Robin smoothed some of Chrissy’s hair, combing through the damp strands with her fingers.

“Grilled cheese?” Chrissy suggested.

“Grilled cheese.”

A few moments later, with Chrissy’s hand resting atop hers on the shifter, Robin pulled out onto the road.