Friday, 26th of October 1984, Somewhere along the road between California and Indiana.
"God this is so stupid." Billy Hargrove said, for what felt like the 20th time during his long and tedious drive, "so fucking stupid", slapping his hand on the top of the steering wheel.
"Wanna say it one more time? Just for good luck?" The sharp bite evident in Jackie Hargrove's tone. Her brother's constant complaining finally taking a toll on her own mood after being stuck with his voice ringing throughout the car for the past 3 days on the road. Without even looking up from the nail file in her hand, she knew that her twin was looking at her with a side glare.
"If you want, I can pull over and you can walk the rest of the way. How does that sound midge?", she heard the jest in his tone but crossed her arms dramatically and set her eyes on the desolate brown landscape they were travelling along.
Billy looked over again and saw her jaw clenching in anger, "oh come on Jack, I'm only joking." She didn't budge. "Jack" he called again, drawing out the sounds of her nickname. Still nothing. After another minute of silence the curly haired boy shook his head, a small smirk appearing on his face.
"Real mature Jackie. The silent treatment, dad would be so proud" Billy said, followed by a small laugh under his breath.
"Can you just shut up and drive faster" she snapped, eyes still focused on the outside. "and I'm changing the music", she began opening the glovebox of her twins car, pulling out her adored copy of Abba's The Visitors that sat in the centre, visibly worn out from it's almost nonstop playing from whenever she sat passenger in this car.
"Nah-ah, for the last time we are not listening to your shit", He grabbed the cassette out of her hand.
"But we've been listening to your shit for the past 5 hours", she retorted, reaching across to grab it out of his hand. The car swerving slighting on the road as Billy moved to keep the cassette out of her reach.
"My car, my rules princess.", his words lost on her as she stretched out her arm again, her attempts in vain. "Jackie! Stop. You're gonna make me crash. Driver chooses music, that's how it is and how it's always been. So pipe down and stay on your side for god sake" His tone a bit harsher as his hand flicked the cassette to the back seat of the car.
"Hey! Don't you dare" she exclaimed, reaching over the centre console to retrieve it. "that's so not fair, you won't even let me drive."
"Yeah that's because you'll kill us both"
She turned her body towards him from the leather passenger seat, raising her hand to make another attempt at changing the music in the player, moving slowly in hopes he wouldn't see her until it was too late.
"Jack. Stop it." With that he grabbed the tape again, this time throwing it underneath his seat.
"Oh please Billy. Please?" Jackie whined, her demeanour changing in the blink of an eye, forgetting that she was angry just seconds earlier. It's not that Jackie hated his music but the thought of enduring another 4 hours of the same Metallica album on repeat made her want to rip it out of the stereo and throw it out the window. She never would, she spent her own money to buy the cassette for her brother on their birthday and in return he gave her the one she currently was begging to play. It was an unspoken tradition for the Hargrove twins to gift each other with a cassette on their birthday. Although neither of them would ever admit it, it was their favourite part of their day.
"Please", she said again dragging out the word.
"No."
"Pretty Please", she asked batting her eyelids and a pout on her lips. Billy scoffed and rolled his eyes, gripping the steering wheel a little bit harder, her charms not working on him like they used to. He knew that the best way to get his sister to shut up was to ignore her. So he did just that, reaching his hand to the volume control and turning it all the way up to the point Jackie could feel the beats of Jump in the fire vibrating her bones. With a growl she turned her body to face away from her brother, arms folded over her chest and eyes returning to the boring scenery outside the car.
…
When their father first told them they would be moving to a place called Hawkins in the far away state of Indiana, the twins had surprisingly contrasting reactions. While Billy immediately jumped to defensive anger, Jackie had remained quiet, stumbled by a rare loss of words. Susan and Neil Hargrove had expected an outpour of attitude from both twins but the darker haired one was almost silent. It was so out of character for the girl that Billy turned to her with disbelief "are you even listening? This is bullshit. I'm not moving".
"You better watch your tone" Neil responded harshly, "Susan and I have put a lot of thought into it, I would be an idiot not to take the job and it will be a good fresh start, lord knows we need it after all the shit you pulled."
"I'm not going" the younger boy stated.
"You don't have a choice; this isn't up for negotiation Billy."
The father and son continued to bicker in the background, their argument growing more volatile with every word spit out towards one another. Billy would cast his eyes towards his twin every few words, hoping for some form of back up but Jackie remained silent from her spot on the brown couch. She sat with her arms folded, legs crossed and eyes locked on a spot in the distance behind her father's shoulder as he stood in front of them. She felt something stir in her when her father said the word Hawkins, as if it had awoken a memory that she did not have. It wasn't until the loud thud of her father's fist slamming against the wooden coffee table that she flinched out of her own thoughts.
"That's enough. We're leaving in just under three weeks so start packing soon." Neil stated while storming out of the lounge, anger tracing every step he took.
Susan had been so still that the twins almost forgot she was there, "who knows, it could be great fun! A new adventure for the Hargroves" she'd said, trying to relieve some of the tension that lingered in the room. After a few seconds that felt like minutes, Billy scoffed and stood from the couch then in the same manner as his father, he stormed from the lounge and out the front door, slamming it behind him. Jackie and Susan were left in awkward silence, neither one wanting to engage the other in conversation. The younger girl felt like she should've followed after her brother out the door in an attempt to escape Susan's pitiful gaze, but as her own brain caught up with what her father had actually told them, her annoyance took over and she marched towards her own room. Leaving Susan awkwardly sitting alone, unsure which direction she should follow.
The decision to move seemed like a final blow in an almost decade worth of uncomfortable tension brewing in the Hargrove household. Neil, rarely seen without his signature scowl on his rather forgettable face, had always strived to have an uncomfortably tight grip on his children as he attempted to mould them into the all American poster family. The move had completely shattered their façade of mundane life. Billy especially felt a distain towards the town that he had not yet set foot in, feeding into his growing state of agitation that remained unsettled ever since his mother walked out of his life.
Wendy Hargrove was a basic type of beauty. Her hair fell long and wavy with a natural blonde colour that matched the sand that adorned the beaches of her hometown. Her features sharp, eyes a rare sky blue. Her and Neil were in love, for a brief moment of time that flickered away as fast as it came. The passion and spontaneity of their immediate connection saw them married quick. A marriage that rapidly deteriorated the more they truly got to know one another. Wendy learnt that Neil's temperament was often volatile and could turn violent in a heartbeat. While Neil discovered his wife had a particularly cruel side, her words could be laced with a unique venom and she quickly mastered the skill of shutting off from him in an instant. She felt her beloved independence slipping away from her and began promising herself an escape from the harsh reality of her marriage. Her plans to leave her husband interrupted by the discovery of a swell in her stomach in the early weeks of summer 1966, followed by the birth of their beautiful twins in March of 1967. The couple made it work. While not the most loving of marriages, their constant fighting had ceased for the first few years of the twins' lives, both too focused on the children to give as much thought to each other. However, that brief love and happiness that had returned to Wendy's life would begin to deplete again, day by day; week by week until she was back in her loveless marriage with nothing of her own. As Billy and Jackie began to grow in age Wendy came to the sudden realisation that she didn't want it. Didn't want the simple life. Didn't want the dull husband and the white picket fence, didn't want the children that seemed to need each other more than her. She wanted freedom; she wanted her own path away from Neil, and as much as she struggled to admit it, away from her children.
The twins, each a perfect blend of their parents, took after their fathers' stubbornness and their mothers vanity, growing into almost miniature versions of them both in appearance and personality. Any stranger could've picked out the twins from a bunch. Both had the similar heads of curly brunette hair, Billy's slightly lighter than Jackie's, the girl having more frizz and length to her locks rather than her brothers' ringlets. Both inherited their mothers' blue eyes, Billy's more piercing than his sisters, his often carrying the same independence of their mother.
It was no secret that Wendy Hargrove favoured her son over her daughter. Always choosing him to go out outings to the beach, filling his ears with praise and love any chance she got. Neil would often think about how it was lucky their daughter was reasonably simple of mind otherwise her mother's neglect may have worn her down eventually. As the arguments and fighting began slipping their way back into the couple's routine, he would make purposeful comments about how awful a mother she was to the young girl. An argument that did not hurt Wendy in any way, she tried to feel ashamed of it, she really did. Maybe it was because she saw more of Neil in Jackie's eyes, or just because she struggled to communicate with her, not feeling the same ease of love she did with Billy. No matter how many excuses she made for herself it didn't matter, she just couldn't come to feel the same love for her daughter the way she could her son.
It hadn't surprised Neil when his wife eventually left him. What had caught him by off guard however, was she'd taken off with their daughter's hand in her own. The couple had been at each other's throats for months, Wendy's unhappiness unable to be contained any longer. Their fights became longer, more vile; more violent. Her mind clearly elsewhere as her attention drifted further from her family with every day that passed, not even Billy had a place in her thoughts as she sought an out from the nightmare she'd slipped into. It was the end of February 1974 when Neil had heard more than one whisper that his wife had been seen late at night in the passenger seat of a black station wagon, a wide smile on her face as she looked at the driver, an unknown man dressed in a black suit, her eyes noticeably gleaming with an unfamiliar admiration. It was the final push she needed when her husband confronted her about it the next night. Jackie cowered under the dinner table as Billy stepped in to push the screaming couple apart. She'd left that night, running to that same black car she'd been seen in the night before, tugging her daughter along with her. Wendy hadn't even given the twins a chance to say goodbye to each other.
While an already hardened man, Neil became abrasive and somewhat abhorrent in the weeks following his wife's departure. He hammered the police about bringing his daughter back home but with little to no clues as to where the pair had gone, he slowly felt the loss of the grip he held over them. Wendy called once or twice but only to speak to Billy, those few phone calls ending in him begging her to come home and to bring Jackie back with her. It wasn't until Wendy's abrupt death in June of 1975 that the young girl was allowed to return to her brother.
Her father grilled her, borderline interrogated her about where her mother had taken her and what they'd been doing for the past year. Jackie, who'd just turned 9 years old, had little to no answers to give. Unable to find them in any memories she had, a doctor had concluded it was her young brain protecting herself from whatever trauma her being taken away had caused. An explanation that only angered Neil further. The only thing his daughter could hold on to was the fading image of her mother, only seen in her dreams, or rather nightmares. She would see her mother in an unfamiliar room, her freshly dyed black hair contrasting sharply with the white walls. Her bones almost visible under the stretching skin on her thinning frame. Jackie didn't always dream of her mother, but when she did, she would fight desperately to wake up. Not wanting to be with her a second longer.
Time continued moving forward and it was taking the Hargrove family with it. After her returning home, the twins became attached at the hip. With encouragement from his father, Billy swore to Jackie that nothing would take them away from each other ever again. His own resentment building towards his mother for having taken Jackie away, but not as much as he felt towards his father for pushing her to leave.
As they became older, Jackie had become reliant on Billy for almost everything. As they grew into their teens it evolved into a rather unhealthy dynamic. Jackie became spoilt, learning quickly following her arrival back home that a bat of her eyelids and a manipulative twist of words would be sure to get her almost anything she wanted from her twin.
At school she was always protected by him; more importantly to Jackie, her reputation secured as she sat pretty near the top of the food chain. As usual, she'd done little to no work to get there. Billy began to crave his sister's reliance on him, it fed into his greedy, growing ego. Her own thoughts and opinions often swayed with whatever Billy had to say, their only conflict coming from superficial and childish disagreements. Whenever he ever did push the limits of protectiveness, she was unlikely to notice, quickly pulled away from any glimmer of her personal opinion by his own manipulation of words. He would never see it, but he was becoming the younger version of their father – quick to anger and as arrogant as they come. Even though she drove him up the wall more often than not, he would always made sure that Jackie was hidden from anything he deemed harmful that the world could throw her way. The only thing he couldn't protect her from was their father who always had a way of bringing the twins crashing back down to reality.
Only 2 years after his daughters return, Neil decided to marry again. He desperately wanted to reinvent his nuclear family that he blamed his ex-wife for exploding. Neil met Susan Mayfield while working at a bank back in California. She was a teller and he the security guard, neither looking for some exciting love affair but rather a household created in stability, whether it was false or not.
Where he was difficult and ill-temped, Susan was timid and a genuinely kind woman. Often too docile for her own good. When she was first introduced to the Hargrove twins, comparisons were quickly made. Her face more rectangular than their mothers and the curly, thick hair that fell to just below her shoulders was a shade of scorching red rather than beachy blonde. Susan was one that never liked to be alone, and after her husband Sam divorced her out of the blue, she had been constantly craving stability for herself and her young daughter Maxine, who was a spitting image of her mother. It wasn't until after her fourth failed relationship after Sam that she met Neil. After barely 3 months of knowing each other, he proposed. Without hesitation, Susan said yes. Another month past and the pair were married.
…
Years went past and the new family struggled to find peace. Where Susan and Neil would say they were happy others would say their union was boring and uneventful. Their children often fell to the backs of their mind as they paid more attention to the upkept of the family reputation than the dynamics playing out before their eyes. It was enough for the two of them, they were content. Neither searching for a passionate life but instead, settling into the one they'd found. All of which built up to this moment they shared, driving down the cracked surface of Cherry lane, their almost 4 day road trip finally coming to an end.
"Just here on our left" Neil said, the young redhead in the back pulling herself forward to get a first look of their new home. The first thing she noticed was the bushes adorned with bright red flowers that sat next to the steps of the front door. They stood out, contrasting with the skeletons of trees that lined the street and backyard. Her eyes stuck on those bushes as Neil drove down the driveway on the side of the house.
"Home sweet home." Neil said, Susan hummed in response from her passenger seat, a docile smile lingering on her lips. With a brief check of his watch, "come on, let's get unloading".
Getting out of the car, Maxine had a moments relief stretching her legs before a bag thrown to her feet, Neil holding the house keys out with his hand towards her as he reached back into the car, "start taking them to the front", He said, not looking in her direction. Rolling her eyes, she took the keys and shuffled back along the concrete path through the broken wooden gate around to where the front door was, back to where the red flowers sat atop the dying bushes.
About an hour later the three of them were still unloading whatever bags and boxes they had in the back of the ute and trailer, slowly moving them inside the house and looking around as they went. Max had taken note of the fact only 2 cars travelled down the street in the time they'd been there, occupants of both staring intently at the family as they drove by.
"Do you know far the kids are?" Susan called out curiously to her husband, "It's just getting quite late". Neil didn't reply but looked at his watch then back up towards the road. Almost on cue, the screeching of tyres along with the bass of an unidentifiable song came racing down the lane.
The car barely came to a stop as the passenger door burst open and the short dark-haired girl jumped out with a scowl on her face, red boots slamming on the road crunching the leaves underneath them. The cool air wrapping around her body quick as her knee length pink and navy floral summer dress did little to protect her. Her brother slowly stepped out, slight smirk on his face after whatever conversation he'd just been having with his twin. Looking around at the barren street his smirk immediately fell. His jaw tight, he walked to join his twin who was currently standing at the bottom of the small steps to the house.
"Still think I'm overreacting?" He asked, turning his head to look down at his sister beside him, her eyes glaring at the house before her. Jackie gave him a small elbow in the side as she saw their father walking around the side of the house to meet them at the front.
"Took your damn time, thought you guys were right behind us." Neil said. Billy just shrugged and began making his way back to the car to grab his bags.
"If you ever make me spend that long with him in a car again, I swear to god", Jackie trailed off, making her way up the path towards the covered front porch, a pointed finger directed back towards the Camero parked by the letterbox.
Max was sitting on the ledge of the front door, eagerly waiting for some company other than her mother and step-father, "how was the drive?", she asked, perking up as her step-sister stormed towards her direction.
"Don't even get me started" Jackie said, not evening looking at her sister walking straight through the front door. After her eyes cast around the front end of house, she sighed and placed her hands on her hips. "Well you got a head start, do you know where our room is?", the venom that laced the word 'our' was luckily lost on the small redhead as she nodded, shuffling around her sister to continue through the lounge. Jackie followed the younger girl, passing through the kitchen to a white wooden door that sat beside the back entrance of the house. Upon opening the door and seeing the stained baby pink carpet and walls covered in pealing cream coloured wall paper, Jackie made no effort to hide the growing disappointed look on her face.
"Is it the palace you'd dreamt of princess?" Billy sneered from behind her shoulder, throwing her old cheer sports bag onto the floor, the bag almost splitting at the seams with clothes that Jackie deemed necessary for their road trip to Hawkins.
"Could be worse" Max said, under her breath.
"What was that smartass?" The boy asked in an accusing tone, immediately assuming the small redhead was making a sly comment, "nothing" Max replied defensively, "no it wasn't nothing, what'd you say?". Feeling her own annoyance seeping in at their repetitive bickering already, Jackie shuffled out of the room pushing past Billy and walking into the kitchen where her father had just placed a crusty yellow phone back on its hook.
"Alright, the truck won't be arriving till tomorrow morning so Jackie and Maxine you'll be on the couch tonight. Billy can set up wherever."
"What?" The small brunette spat out, "Dad you can't be serious?"
"Jackie I don't want to hear it. Go help Susan bring in the boxes from the truck." Neil breathed out
"But-"
"Now." He pointed to the door off the side of the kitchen, voice raised slightly.
Knowing not to push her luck, Jackie stormed out the door with arms crossed and a huff as she past through the threshold of the back door. Making her way to the back of her dad's pickup truck with her stepsister following right on her trail, almost as a shadow of the older girl.
Jackie had reached her dads truck just as Susan was pulling out a box of what appeared to be kitchen ware, "could you take this for me please" Susan said without giving Jackie much warning as she put the box into her arms. She whipped around on her heels, almost crashing into the small girl she hadn't even realised was behind her.
"Watch it Red, if I drop this shit I'm blaming you" Jackie stated, which was followed by a meek sorry from Max as she reached to take the next box from her mother's arm, full of board games and decorative ornaments.
"Billy. Help me get the couch off the trailer." Neil yelled from the back door as the girls walked past him, more as a demand rather than a question.
The house itself at 4819 Cherry Lane was not as bad as the girls had envisioned in their heads. It was around 10pm before the family had finished fully unloading their 2 cars and trailer. Jackie had managed to avoid most the work by either pretending to be busy or deliberately ignoring Susan's requests for help. She had saved all her energy to complain about having to share a room while her brother got one of his own. The shrill voice of demanding questioning was falling on deaf ears as even her father was too tired to acknowledge her whining and silently headed to his and Susan's room down the hall where Susan was already sleeping on the single mattress they had set up for the night.
"Stop being a spoilt brat and deal with it" Billy said from his position sitting on the floor, his back leaning against Jackie's legs in front of the couch. He was trying to put together a wooden bedside table for his room, "and would it kill you to shut up for 5 whole minutes".
Instead of replying Jackie gave him a light kick to his back. Max tried to hide her small smile from behind the book in her hands. She was reading Jackie's copy of Carrie, knowing she could only get away with reading it once her mother went to bed. The lounge was almost empty, in it sat a small wooden coffee table, a dozen or so boxes both unpacked and full, and the brown 3-seater couch set up as a makeshift bed that Jackie and Max were currently sat on.
Jackie was trying to prove Billy wrong, that she could in fact be quiet for a longer than 5 minutes, but she was bored and not ready for sleep just yet. The curly haired brunette girl was tapping her foot on the ground and popping her lips and after a solid effort of 1 minute silence she let out a big dramatic sigh and rolled her head back. Suddenly she gasped and stood up abruptly, snatching Billy's car keys that he had left sitting on the fireplace ledge and took off out the front door heading straight for the car. Billy was right on her heels, asking what the hell she was doing. He did not receive an answer but rather Jackie opening the back door frantically searching for something in the backseat. "Where did you put it?" she asked herself, head deep under the front seats of the 79' Camaro. Before he had time to say anything, her hand shot up holding a small pink book with a large purple heart on the front, the girl jumped back out of the car and let out a victorious yelp.
"That couldn't wait for the morning? I thought you were about to take off" Billy's tone was one of annoyance, as he slammed shut the back passenger door that she'd neglected to close as she waltzed back towards the house.
"Shut up" Jackie half yelled, half whispered, throwing his keys back towards him over her shoulder as she crossed back into the house. Max watched curiously as Jackie rummaged through a couple boxes to find something. Finally finding a pencil, she jumped up to her feet with a slight shimmy of her shoulders, quickly making her way back to the couch.
Billy stepped back in the house and rolled his eyes as he saw Jackie already set back up on the couch, tucking herself under the knitted blanket that would be her source of warmth for the night. The effort of the move, and dealing with his sisters' antics, had finally caught up to him. With a sigh, he walked towards the door of his room that came off the lounge, closing it carelessly without saying a word to the girls on the couch. Setting up his own blanket and pillow on the wooden floor, he realised how cold it was in the house. All but two of the rooms had wooden floors, and the house was elevated slightly allowing for a slight draft coming from under the house up into the structure. The dark curtains hanging over his windows were the only protection from the chilly autumn air outside. The brief thought of sleeping where it was considerably warmer on the carpeted floor in the lounge with his sister and Max but decided against it almost as fast as the idea entered his head. His tiredness took over and he was asleep within minutes of his head hitting the pillow.
Out in the lounge it had remained quiet between the two girls, who were top and tailing on the couch each with their own books in hand. Max was reading intently, barely able to take her eyes away from the pages. She looked up once to see her stepsister was equally as focused on scribbling in the pink book before her.
The sight of her sister doodling instantly reminded Max the night a few years earlier where her sister had made an offhand comment about an art contest that she wanted to enter. It was followed by Neil's dismissive remark about how art would get her nowhere, that she needed to start thinking about her future. Max couldn't understand why they'd gotten as angry as he did, but a screaming match had erupted between the Hargrove pair, resulting in a broken flower vase and pages of Jackie's book being ripped up and thrown around the room. Without anyone seeing, the small redhead had grabbed a couple of Jackie's pages that Neil had thrown around the room with the intension of giving them back to her sister. Later that evening when Max tried to give the pieces back, Jackie was unfairly dismissive. Telling her to go away as she slammed the door of her bedroom, the anger from the interaction with her father spilling out in the form of tears falling from her face. Only then the younger girl looked down at the paper in her hands, seeing just how good Jackie actually was. She knew better than to ever bring it up again, not wanting to risk of either Neil and Jackie biting her head off, so instead she kept the drawings and hid them inside hidden nooks in her room.
It was only in moments like these that Jackie felt comfortable to draw, that was something Max didn't want to disturb so she went back to the pages in the book. After not quite 5 minutes of silence, a soft snore was coming from the other end of the couch. Max looked up to see Jackie fast asleep, pencil still in hand and pink book sitting open on her chest. Along with art, the Hargrove girl had a knack for falling asleep anywhere & everywhere, and once asleep it is almost impossible to wake her up again. Knowing this, Max stood and grabbed the book and pencil, then slipped them under her sister's pillow. She turned off the dim yellow light from the other side of the lounge and guided herself back to the couch using the faint light from the street lamps outside. The young girl snuggled back onto the other end of the couch and let out a big yawn.
"Night Jack", the young redhead softly said, and within a minute she too had fallen asleep.