If Only The World Wouldn't Get In The Way
Fucking Hawkins.
Jim Hopper took a final drag on his cigarette and dropped it to the ground, stubbing it out with the toe of his boot. He'd needed a minute before going into town. Before he went to talk to the mayor about a job, before he saw his dad's old cabin, before he had to step foot into the town he'd sworn he'd never go back to. Looking out at it from way up on the hill like this, he could almost think it was nice.
Well, maybe it was nice. Hawkins wasn't such a bad place. It wasn't the town's fault that Jim couldn't see anything nice in anything anymore.
He sighed, glancing at his wrist where Sara's blue hairband rested. Fucking Hawkins.
Across town, another child of Hawkins was cursing the town's very existence. If it weren't for Hawkins, Joyce Byers would never have gotten into this mess. If it weren't for Hawkins, she wouldn't be trying to resist throwing every single dish in the kitchen against the wall. If it weren't for Hawkins, she might have had a chance at a good life for herself.
But that wasn't fair, and she knew it. Because if it weren't for Hawkins, she wouldn't have her kids, and that was the only important thing in the entire world. If having Jonathan and Will meant that Joyce had to suffer Lonnie Byers, she'd go through it again and again and again. Anything for her boys.
But Jesus, Lonnie was a piece of work.
He was home, again, after being away from almost a full week. And Joyce had yelled at him, asking where the hell he'd been. That wasn't the right thing to do, and she knew it. But what did he expect!? A warm welcome? He was out screwing someone half his age again, and he obviously didn't see a problem with that. Well, Joyce certainly did.
The worst part of it wasn't the cheating or the lack of any respect to Joyce but the miserable, hurt look on the boys' faces when their father pulled this kind of shit. Lonnie could do whatever he wanted to Joyce if he was a good dad to their kids. But instead, Jonathan and Will were barely an afterthought to him. And they knew it.
After yet another blowout shouting match, Lonnie had stormed out and slammed the door behind him, leaving Joyce vibrating with rage in the living room. Jonathan shut himself in his room and Will had already escaped to go to the Wheelers'. And that was all for the best. Lonnie was out of the house, God knows where, and Will was safe with his friends and Jonathan was kept out of it. And Joyce was left alone.
There had been a time when Joyce, like Will, could escape home to see her best friend and feel safe. That was a long time ago.
But the thought of it caused her to dig up the old masochism device known as the high school yearbook. She went over to the bookshelf behind the tv and pulled it out. Covered in dust, not unlike most things in this house. Joyce folded herself up on the couch and opened her old yearbook.
It was nice, somehow, to get to see the shining, optimistic faces of youth. Kids with their whole lives ahead of them. Just a little older than Jonathan. God, it felt like yesterday to Joyce, but it also was a distant dream.
She flipped the pages absently, looking at who had signed it and remembering names and faces. So many of them were still in town. But so many had moved away. So many were gone forever.
Joyce wasn't really looking for anything in particular, but she somehow found the page she couldn't deny she'd wanted to see. There she was, Joyce Horowitz, looking young and pretty and awkward. She'd been all of those things when she was eighteen. All of them had faded until just the awkward, scared Joyce Byers remained. No longer young, no longer pretty. At least not pretty like she'd been at eighteen. But who was nowadays.
But Joyce wasn't really as interested in her picture as she was the one right next to hers. Funny that they'd always ended up side by side every year. There never were any other kids in their class with last names starting with H-O.
She sighed sadly to herself. In a lot of ways, she hadn't thought about Jim Hopper in years. But in other ways, deep down, Joyce knew she'd thought about Jim Hopper every single day of her life.
Jim Hopper himself had lit another cigarette to smoke while he drove into town. He needed it to calm his nerves. He wasn't nervous, really, but the memories snuck up on him in a way that gave him the creeps. There was the tree where he'd first felt up what's-her-name. The drugstore where he'd gotten drunk and thrown up in the parking lot. The alley shortcut he'd take on his bike when he went to meet up with…
He couldn't let himself finish that memory. Those were the memories that hurt too much. Life was a son of a bitch like that. He always thought that the worst memories of his life would be of her. The things he couldn't bear to think of or else he'd just be torn apart. The things he pretended were never real. Maybe they weren't.
Only now, he had real horror and tragedy to keep him awake at night, actual heartbreak to torture him every waking moment. But being back here brought back the memories he'd buried for a long time. Memories of Joyce Horowitz and all the regret that he had attached to her ever since he'd left.
Hopper tossed the cigarette butt out the window as he drove down the main road of town. Fucking Hawkins.