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I thought she was afraid of me. When we met in the woods, she looked at me like I was a vampire come to drink her dry. She jumped at every noise. At squirrels. Finally I said we could call it off.

Then everything changed. She wasn't afraid of me; I even got a smile from the queen.

But she was afraid of something.

And I should have asked what.

"Found it!" I called out. After searching every box and cubby in my uncle's trailer, I realized two things—first, that we had too many of those for such a small space, and second, that I wasn't supposed to hide the drugs that well.

"Prepare to have your mind blown," I said, and then I said, "Chrissy?"

Because my eyes had been on the Special K while I walked, but she'd been standing there a second ago, and it really was a horrifically small space.

"Chrissy?" I stepped around the edge of what passed as our kitchen counter, and then I saw—

There was so much blood.

"Oh, shit, Chrissy!"

She was lying there in a pool of it, red as the curtains, soaking into the patchy carpet. There was no knife. There was nobody. Just her in her white cheerleading jacket that was no longer white.

"Help!" I shouted, ever the idiot. There was nobody.

I had to call the cops. I couldn't call the cops. I had to run for help. I couldn't run for help. I had to—

"Okay, Chrissy, hang on. Hang on!"

She shouldn't have been that hard to lift, but I wasn't in the practice of lifting pretty girls, so I stumbled us into the TV and knocked over a lamp. Couldn't get the door. Should have opened the door first. Useless, Eddie. She was bleeding through my shirt and my skin was on fire.

If anyone was watching from their trailer, I looked like a murderer—hauling a bleeding cheerleader out of my house, dumping her in my van. Peeling away like the devil was after us.

I didn't believe in the devil, but maybe I should have believed in God. Maybe then I could have prayed for a miracle.

But all I could do was break every speed limit to the hospital.

"What happened?" they all demanded, the ER nurses and the doctors.

"I don't know—I don't. We were talking, and then I was in the other room, and then—"

"What's her name?"

"Chrissy Cunningham."

They wanted my name, too. They wanted her medical history and her allergies and her parents' contact information and a hundred questions I couldn't answer, all while Chrissy was bleeding in another room and I only had one question.

"Will she be okay?"

"We're doing everything we can," they said.

I hated that answer. It set my skin on fire all over again.

I sat in a plastic hallway chair, bouncing my leg in the excruciating wait, craning to look at the clock and always finding it only seconds past where it had been before. And even though I replayed things over and over, they didn't get a bit clearer.

They finally got her mom in. Even though they were both blonde, she was the frown to Chrissy's smile.

And she looked me dead in the eyes and said, "What did you do to Chrissy?"

"Mrs. Cunningham," said the nurse. "If you'll follow me."

I jumped up, but that frown said it all.

Even so, the woman added words: "That devil-worshipper doesn't go anywhere near my daughter. He's the reason she's here—I want him arrested."

I swallowed.

The nurse said, "Ma'am, his quick response may be the only reason your daughter is alive."

"I'm sure that's what he wants you to believe! How have you not called the police already?"

I should have defended myself.

But I had no idea what had happened.

So what could I say?

"Ma'am, the police—"

I should have stood my ground.

But I ran.

If I'd gone home, I would have had to explain the drugs and the blood in the carpet. Maybe Mrs. Cunningham had already called the cops, and they were waiting for me.

Reefer Rick was still in jail, so at his place, there was no one asking questions, no one I had to explain things to.

Was I going to hide forever?

The worst part about Rick's place was that the cops had already raided it, and any of his extra-secret stashes were either depleted or too well hidden for me to find—of course, I couldn't find my own stashes much less anyone else's. Idiot.

When the queen of Hawkins High came to me for drugs, I knew it was too insane to be true. When she remembered my band. When she agreed to come to my house. When she sat next to me in my van and scrunched her face at the loud music but said, "No, I like it! It's intense!" I knew it was too insane to be true. Idiot.

Was Chrissy going to die?

It took me forever to fall asleep, part of that being all the thoughts I couldn't stop and part of it being trying to sleep in a boat in Rick's shed. Not that I hadn't done that before; usually I was just crashing from a high. Anyone can sleep anywhere when they're crashing.

I had a plan. Before I went anywhere, I was going to call the hospital and ask. But when I woke in the morning and thought about them saying something like, "We're so sorry, but—" then I just shifted to get the oar out of my shoulder, and I forced myself back to sleep.

And she woke me up.

"Eddie, are you . . . are you under a tarp?"

I flung it back and got all tangled up between it and the oars.

She laughed, one hand raised to her mouth, her red hair shining in the light from the window. If she was a ghost, she was the realest one ever made.

"You're okay!" I lifted my arms to hug her, then dropped them abruptly and stayed where I was. "You're okay?"

Chrissy's smile fell. She looked at her shoes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make things awful for you."

She had a black turtleneck on, but even so, I didn't get how she was up and walking when she'd been spilling all the life from her throat not twelve hours before. She didn't even look like she was teetering around on one hit point; she had the same glow as ever. Even had her blue eyeshadow on.

"What happened?" I asked. And then the fear in her face was so sharp, I switched to, "How did you find me? Why did you find me?"

"Your friend said you'd be here." She rubbed at the left sleeve of her turtleneck. "Listen, Eddie, I can understand if . . . if you don't want to talk to me after, you know, everything. I just wanted to say thank you. For trying to help me. You didn't have to."

Technically no.

But all the same, looking at her just then, I felt like I'd probably jump off a cliff if it would help her.

A small one at least.

"I still want to talk to you." I smiled. "If my lady still deigns to talk to this peasant."

She ducked her head, smiling in a way that made mine even wider. Then she winced.

"Uh, here." She fished a folded bill out of her pocket.

"Oh, I don't—I don't have any drugs on me. I'd have to go back to—"

"No, it's . . ." She gestured vaguely at my chest. "It's to buy you a new shirt. I'm really sorry."

I hadn't even changed. I still had my Hellfire shirt on, crusted with streaks of her blood. Class act, Eddie.

"I'm sure it'll wash," I said, trying to fake confidence past the little voice in my head that was wailing in mourning over my favorite shirt.

She frowned. "I mean, we can try. Do you have any vinegar?"

That was how I wound up topless on the lake shore. Once she'd made up her mind, Chrissy was surprisingly insistent, which put her several feet out in the lake, dunking my shirt in the water while I wriggled back into my jean jacket and told myself I didn't look scrawny.

I also told myself Chrissy's bare legs didn't look smooth as glass below her mini skirt. She had a boyfriend, so that meant by default, she had troll legs. Troll legs and troll everything else. If trolls caught someone staring, they'd club that idiot over the head, and it would be deserved.

Chrissy splashed her way back to shore, scattering water droplets across the lumpy ground. She shook her feet before she pulled her sandals back on.

"I pinned it there with some rocks," she said. "It needs to soak for a while, and then we can try the vinegar."

"Thanks," I said.

"Don't thank me. I'm the one—" She licked her lips. "Hey, Eddie, while we wait, can you tell me about that game you like to play?"

If I were a cartoon, my eyebrows would have lifted right off my skull.

"Dungeons and Dragons," I said, waiting for her to say no.

"It has monsters, right?"

"It has . . . Well, yes. Dragons, generally in dungeons. Among other things."

I waited for her to laugh, maybe even say the whole question was a joke to begin with, but she nodded with the deadly seriousness of someone actually facing down a dragon. She climbed up the slope a bit and settled on the grass, then looked at me expectantly.

Here I'd been willing to jump off a cliff; this wasn't even a sacrifice. This was just pure enjoyment.

I dropped to the grass next to her, reclined on one elbow, my rings peeking through the grass like dropped relics.

"What do you want to know?"

"Does it have, like . . . vampires?"

"Of course!" I grinned. "Vampires are classic monster. Chaotic evil, lurking in the depths of the dark Castle Ravenloft, waiting for the chance to drain the life from unsuspecting victims."

"And you fight them?"

"Not me. I'm the Dungeon Master, so I'm technically on the vampires' side, doing my best to kill the party—but in a fun way."

Her knit-brow confusion was clear.

"That's how the game works. One of us has to run it."

"I don't understand." She gave a nervous laugh that scrunched her face; the most adorable expression ever invented.

"Here, like this." I sat up and scooted closer, facing her. After I waited for her eyes to meet mine, I spoke slowly and clearly, with a hint of the ominous. "The sun set hours ago, and the light of the moon casts lengthening shadows from every tree. The forest stretches for miles in every direction, but straight ahead, rising above the knotted leaves, you see the black turrets of Castle Ravenloft piercing the clouded sky. Legend has it the castle is full of risen undead that will swallow any who dare enter. But . . . legend also has it . . . the castle is full of treasure, unlike any to be found throughout the rest of the land. Only you can discover if that's true. So." I leaned in with an enticing smile. "Do you enter the forest, or do you leave?"

Throughout my setup, Chrissy had been staring, her blue eyes widening. I'm not sure she even realized she leaned in when I did.

I thought she might say she didn't get it.

What she said was: "I enter the forest."

Only with the greatest of DM restraints did I hold back my grin. "We're going to need some dice."

Note: This story is just me goofing off because I'm still sad about canon Eddissy. Expect fluff and drama and a bunch of hot nonsense because Stranger Things is not at all my usual style or genre. But I couldn't not.