Ten Days Until Spring Break, 1986

Chrissy ran as fast as her legs would carry her. She was supposed to be jogging instead of sprinting, but she wasn't really training or trying to build endurance. She was exhausting herself. Pink clouds streaked the blue and purple sky. The sun set early this time of year. She should turn around and go home soon. She wasn't supposed be out after dark, not while she was alone. But Chrissy didn't turn around. She would probably be fine.

Her running route was exclusively suburban streets. Lights were on in kitchen windows where moms were preparing dinner. Kids played in their yards. Dads chatted over fences, beers in hand. Everything is safe here, Chrissy told herself as she ran. Someone would see if anything bad happened to her. If she screamed, someone would hear. Well, maybe not those guys, she thought, speeding past the wailing guitars and smashing drums of a garage band. The music was distorted by the noise of her own breath and blood circling through her ears, already aching with cold.

Trying to ease the overload of sensation, she shook her head. The movement sent an unexpected spike of vertigo through her system. Suddenly worried that she would tip over, she slowed to a jog and stopped. She stood, hands on hips, catching her breath. When the ground steadied beneath her, she paced back and forth a few times.

She really should go home. She was very tired, her legs were sore, and her lungs burned. But would it be enough? Was she tired enough to sleep through the night? It needed to be a deep sleep, a dreamless sleep. She should sprint on her way home, too, as much as she could manage. Turning around to go back the way she came, Chrissy bounced a few times on her toes, took a deep breath, and ran as fast as she could.

By the time she got home, her legs shook badly and her breaths were ragged. Not wanting to risk another dizzy spell, she didn't try to bend over to take off her shoes. Instead, she sat down inside the door and propped her feet up in order to reach the laces.

"There she is." Her father stepped around the corner, smiling. "You're almost late for dinner, Chrissy-cat."

"Ugh, Dad, look at me." She peeled the drenched neck of her sweatshirt away from her wet skin. "I'm a mess. You should start without me while I hop in the shower. You don't mind, do you?"

"Well, check with your mother, first."

"Sure," Chrissy answered, pushing herself to her feet.

"Sweetie!" Dad grabbed her arm with one hand and reached into his pocket with the other. "You're nose is bleeding."

"Hmm?" Chrissy pressed her lips together as Dad pulled out a handkerchief and closed it around her nose.

"Are you you okay?"

"Yeah, I don't feel it." Chrissy took hold of the handkerchief. Pulling it away for a second, she blinked in surprise at the red stains before pinching it over her nostrils. "It's cold outside. My skin must've dried up and cracked. Can you tell Mom I'll be late for dinner? I need to get cleaned up."

"Okay," Dad called after her as she hurried to the stairs, "let us know if you need anything."

After Chrissy's nose stopped bleeding, she rinsed out the handkerchief and her sweaty clothes, showered, washed her hair, and dried it. By the time was done, she knew that dinner must be over. Good. One less meal with Mom keeping track of every piece of food on Chrissy's plate, tallying up calories and eyeing her waistline. If she focused on how tired she was, it was easier to ignore her hunger.

She got into her pjs, wrapped herself in a robe, and sat down at her desk. All of her homework for tomorrow was done, but she needed to review her notes. She hadn't been able to focus in class recently, and had paid for her lapse in concentration with a D on a pop quiz. She'd hidden the red-marked paper in the back of a folder, her neck burning with humiliation, and vowed to snap out of it. That was easier said than done, though.

As she tried to make sense of her vague and messy notes, Chrissy's eyes drifted to the doodles she had drawn in the margins: trails of little, black, eight-pointed stars. If she squinted, they almost looked like spiders crawling over the page. Though she was still warm from the shower, Chrissy shivered.

She studied, or tried to study, until her eyelids grew puffy. When Mom poked her head into the room, Chrissy assured her that she wasn't hungry and would be going to bed soon. A minute later, Dad knocked on the door without opening it, and called his goodnight. Chrissy wasn't sure if she was relieved or disappointed that he hadn't asked if she was going to eat dinner.

Even though her body ached and her mind was fuzzy, Chrissy forced herself to pack her books and choose an outfit for tomorrow. She considered calling Jason, but couldn't summon the energy. Instead, she swallowed two acetaminophen, crawled under her sheets, and was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

"Five, six, seven, eight! ONE two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight! TWO, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight! THREE, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight!" Chrissy shouted time as she led the drill, hitting each mark and pose with precision. She was in the gym with her girls behind her, their every move in sync with hers. They were in formation, unified and untouchable. This was Chrissy's domain, and she reveled in the power and freedom she had earned with her squad. Everything is safe here.

When practice ended, she didn't follow the girls into the locker room. She wasn't tired at all. She felt great. So great, in fact, that she decided to try some of her old tumbling routines, even though she was alone. With a running start, she took a roundoff back handspring. The happy rush when she landed brought her back to the gymnastics classes she used to love. She'd stopped going a few years ago, telling everyone it was because she needed more time to focus on school and cheerleading. But, really, it was because she'd needed to start wearing a bra, and couldn't take the humiliation of her mother criticizing the inadequate fit and support her leotards.

There was no one to care what she wore or looked like while she was alone in the gym. She could do whatever she wanted here. Centering herself and squatting, she launched into a back handspring back tuck. Halfway through the tuck, upside-down with her legs above her head, she saw the ceiling where the floor should be. Something was wrong – she had miscalculated. Before she could scream, she fell, throwing out her hands to catch herself. She landed hard, much too hard, and a crack jolted through her body. She was on the ground, her legs and arms in a tangled heap. She couldn't move. She tried to scream, but couldn't do that, either. Was she paralyzed? A wave of suffocating panic pressed over her mind.

"Chrissy?" Footsteps ran towards her, and someone knelt at her side.

At last, she could speak. "Jason?"

"Chrissy!" He bent over her. "Don't worry, baby. I'm here."

"Jason, I can't move." As she said it, Jason sat and pulled her into his lap, cradling her head and shoulders in one arm. The movement sent piercing spikes of pain through her body. She shrieked and wanted to pull away, but had no control of her limbs.

"Hush now, Chrissy. I've got you." Jason tightened his grip. She sobbed as the pain grew sharper.

A finger trailed softly down the side of her face.

"Don't cry, Chrissy." His voice was different. Strange.

She blinked at Jason's face hovering above hers. Slowly, but all at once, his hair grew longer and brightened to yellow gold, his eyes stretched and tilted as his cheekbones raised, his mouth became wider and his lips fuller. He was a stranger. A beautiful stranger – the most beautiful person Chrissy had ever seen up close. He was, she thought, what an angel might look like.

"Don't cry," he said again, gently.

"Help me," she choked through her tears.

"I will." He smiled and brushed her hair off of her wet face. "I'll make it all go away. I promise." He touched a finger to the center of her forehead. Her pain faded into soothing warmth. Drawing a long breath, Chrissy pointed and flexed her toes, stretched out her fingers, and sighed with relief. She started to sit up, wanting to thank him, but the arm around her shoulders tightened, holding her in place. He was still smiling at her, but his eyes…There was nothing angelic in his eyes. Frightened, Chrissy tried to pry herself out of his grip.

"Let me go," she whispered, because there was something wrong about the handsome stranger. Something terribly wrong. "Please, let me go."

His expression shifted, and the face that she had thought so beautiful somehow became ugly. The hand caressing her face paused, slid to her neck, grabbed her throat, and squeezed.

Chrissy woke gasping, her fingers scratching at her neck, and her pillow damp with tears.

Spring Break, 1986

Eddie lay on his side, staring at the patterned wallpaper in Rick's bedroom, and thinking about Chrissy. It was what he had been doing since Robin left. It was, more or less, what he had been doing for days. Before the trailer, before she got into his van, before he found her note in his locker, there were hundreds of days when he hadn't thought about Chrissy at all. Weeks when she never stood out from the blurred pack of cheerleaders, months between times he'd lingered on that memory of the talent show. Now, her image hovered constantly in his mind like a silent, watchful ghost. He felt like her death had altered the pattern of his life. Every encounter, every look, every moment touched by Chrissy was now heavy with importance and meaning.

Since leaving the boathouse, he'd tried to keep his thoughts away from her. Now, he didn't bother to fight against the impulse to rake through his memories, find the ones about Chrissy, and sink into them one after the other.

The oldest and the most treasured memory was the talent show, of course. That was the only time before Friday that he'd really talked with her. It wasn't much of a conversation, but she was the first girl in Hawkins to smile directly at him, and the first also to trade jokes with him. When she laughed, his stomach flipped like he'd missed a step. She didn't seem afraid or suspicious of him at all. Maybe it was just because she didn't know who he was when he'd approached her. Or, maybe–he'd hoped–she did know that he was the kid who came from a group home because father was in prison, and she liked talking to him anyway.

She'd hurried away when they parted at the auditorium doors, and he thought, bitterly, that she was embarrassed to be seen with him. But that night, when he walked on stage with his band, one voice whooped above the perfunctory applause. His eyes moved to the source of the noise and spotted the bouncing ponytail in the audience. It was Chrissy. She wasn't embarrassed, after all. As she clapped and yelled her wordless encouragement again, Eddie grinned, happier than he'd been in a long time, and knew he would never forget that moment.

He didn't cross paths with her much for the remainder of the year. They only ever saw each other in the hallways between classes, but they smiled at each other when they did. He never tried to stop her to talk, because she always seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere, and more often than not she was flanked by other girls. Besides, his reputation wasn't getting any better, and he didn't want to be the bad kid who followed a younger girl around school to bother her. Maybe in a few years, he thought, things might be different.

He saw her once at Melvald's in the summer after eighth grade. He'd turned a corner and there she was, standing in the pharmacy section with a basket hooked over her elbow, examining a shelf of pills and vitamins. Right when he raised a hand to get her attention, a blonde woman appeared at Chrissy's side and dropped something into the basket. Chrissy turned her back to him just as the woman looked in his direction. She swept her gaze over Eddie waving at Chrissy, grabbed the girl's upper arm, and pulled her out of the aisle. Chrissy glanced over her shoulder as she was led away. She saw Eddie, but didn't smile at him. And that's the end of that, he thought.

After Eddie moved up to high school, he didn't think about her much. For about two years she existed in his mind only as an occasional, pleasant memory. His life went on in her absence without much difference. If he saw her around town again, he didn't notice.

The next time he did notice her was their first encounter in a Hawkins High hallway. He nearly walked into her one morning as she was exiting a classroom. Stopping abruptly to avoid a collision, he held up his hands with a mild "whoah," looking down in surprise at the strawberry ponytail under his nose. It took a second for him to recognize her, not because she had changed, but because there was something unreal about seeing her so close after so much time. Only a few inches from his chest, she didn't raise her eyes high enough to meet his, and apologized to his chin before scurrying around him and away down the hall.

He spent the next week trying to make eye contact with her at every opportunity, but not once did she look directly at him. When Eddie asked himself why, he decided that either she had no memory of him at all, or she was intentionally dodging him. He wasn't sure which answer he preferred. Both made him feel different shades of miserable. So, he gave up trying to get her attention and went back to thinking of her only as a memory. It was easier. That's how the next two years passed, with Eddie avoiding Chrissy when he could, and trying to ignore her when he couldn't.

It was hard, though, to ignore the real Chrissy, the flesh-and-blood version, even if he wanted to, even when he tried. The Chrissy of his memory was a cute kid. The Chrissy roaming Hawkins High started out as a pretty freshman and became, over the years, what Wayne would've called "a knockout." She seemed to grow more beautiful by the day, and it was all the more reason for Eddie to keep his distance.

After the first year he was held back, Chrissy started appearing in some of his classes, and he simply couldn't pretend not to notice. There were times when he wasn't able to stop himself from staring at her, longing for her to look at him and smile like she used to. She never did.

In order to comfort himself, he decided that she must be really shallow. If he needed proof, all he had to do was look at her choice of boyfriend. That tool Jason paraded her around campus like he expected to win a ribbon at the county fair. Chrissy must've known that she was better than that, better than him. She probably just liked the attention she got as a basketball star's girlfriend, or was with him only because of his good looks. Either way, it meant she was shallow, and not really worth his time. Eddie nursed that theory for a good while out of self-preservation, and had only let it go earlier this school year, after what he saw her do.

One November day, he parked his van in the high school lot and was walking towards the entrance when he spotted his new batch of Hellfires moving in a group along the side of the building. Before he got anywhere close to them, two brawny dudes flanked the trio, stopping them and crowding Lucas, Dustin, and Mike against the brick wall. Runts of the litter being separated from the herd. Eddie hated guys who did shit like that.

Eddie sped up, and as he got closer, recognized Evan and Brad. Wannabe tough guys who had nothing better to do, apparently, besides shoving and laughing at people smaller than themselves. Eddie probably wouldn't need to fight – just yell a bit and make faces. Those types were always scared of him when it came down to it. It was the whiff of prison that Eddie had carried in to Hawkins on his arrival. It never went away.

Before he got close enough to be noticed by any of the people he was watching, someone else stepped towards the freshmen, putting herself between Evan and Brad. It took Eddie's brain a second to catch up with his eyes and recognize Chrissy Cunningham in her cheerleader outfit, completely dwarfed by everyone around her except for Dustin.

"Hey!" Her voice was not loud, but it was sharp. Eddie was close enough to hear and kept moving closer, very worried about how this was going to go.

"Hey," she said again as she put herself close to Lucas. "You're Lewis Sinclair?"

"Yes," he replied, "I mean no, I mean, my name's Lucas." Lucas's eyes kept darting from Chrissy up to Brad and Evan, who hadn't moved.

"Oh, sorry! Lucas." Chrissy smiled, and carried on the conversation as if there weren't two hulking dudes glowering at her. "But I got your last name, right?"

"Yeah." Lucas's voice cracked. Evan guffawed.

"Good, I'll remember that, Lucas." Chrissy raised her voice, talking over the obnoxious laughter. "Jason said you were at basketball tryouts." Eddie, stunned, stopped in his tracks as she went on. "He said you showed a lot of potential, and that you have a really good attitude." When Brad shifted position as if he might step closer, she snapped her gaze over to him "Am I interrupting something, Bradley?" The disdain in her voice left no room for an answer. Brad froze, and Chrissy turned her attention back to Lucas. "Are these your friends?"

"Um, yeah," Lucas started to sound more confident, if still confused, as he gestured to Mike. "This is Mike Wheeler."

"Nancy Wheeler's brother? Oh, yeah, you have the same eyes."

While she talked, Evan and Brad skulked away, shoulders around their ears. As Eddie watched them go, he noticed what they must have seen, also. Standing several feet behind Chrissy were five other students: two girls in matching pleated skirts, and three tall boys in letterman jackets. None of them were her boyfriend, but it didn't matter. No one was going to give Chrissy a hard time while they were nearby.

Her cheerleader outfit wasn't just a uniform, it was armor. It cast Protection on her, let her walk into bad situations without fear of harm. It wasn't news, really, that she had that kind of power here at school. What surprised Eddie was that she bothered to go out of her way to use it like that, to cast her Protection over a bunch of weird kids she didn't know.

Stuffing his fists into his jacket pockets, Eddie watched Lucas introduce Dustin. Henderson, who never met an awkward moment he couldn't make more awkward, chose to greet Chrissy by bowing at the waist. Lucas cringed and Mike covered his face with one hand. Chrissy, clearly uncomfortable, gave Dustin a half-smile, waved once at Lucas and Mike, then, without another word, turned and rejoined her group. As they walked towards the doors, Eddie, not really thinking about what he was doing, followed.

He stayed several paces back, generally trying not to draw attention to himself while listening in. It wasn't cool, he knew, to spy. But, as Wayne said, sometimes Eddie just didn't know when to leave well enough alone.

"What was that all about," one of the other cheerleaders asked, looking over her shoulder at the freshman trio. "Do you know them?"

"No," Chrissy replied, shrugging. "Well, Jason pointed that Lucas Sinclair out to me the other day. He was at basketball tryouts, right, Patrick?" She glanced up at the tall kid behind her right shoulder, who nodded in agreement. "And one of them is Nancy Wheeler's brother, actually."

"So, what's the deal?"

Another shrug from Chrissy before she answered. "I'm just sick of Brad and Evan, you know? They're so juvenile. Like, are they really still stealing lunch money from kids? Grow up, already."

"Seriously," the third cheerleader chimed in.

"Right? It's like they think the world is their middle school playground. Sometimes I just…" Chrissy's ponytail wobbled as she shook her head. "Who cares." It wasn't a question, just a conversation-ending statement.

I care! shouted a voice in Eddie's head. I want to know.

"Is everyone ready for the test tomorrow, or should we meet during study hall to review notes?" Chrissy's words faded away from him as she sped up through the school doors and Eddie lagged behind. Making his way to his locker, a new thought occurred to him. This was Chrissy's senior year. Of course she would graduate, but would she stay in Hawkins, or go off to college? Either way, things would be different in six months. He probably wouldn't see her much after that, if ever. It would be a relief, really, even if he was a little sad about it.

Eddie wasn't sure if Chrissy crossed his path more often than usual over the next months, or if it just seemed that way because he was more aware of her than ever. It might simply have been because, in his last-ditch effort to graduate, he attended his classes regularly and even showed his face in the library on occasion, putting him more into her orbit.

On the weekends, from his vantage point in Gareth's garage during band practice, he sometimes spotted her jogging down the street and back again. There was one time, recently, when she paused her run just past Gareth's house. Eddie spent a few giddy seconds imagining that she might walk up the driveway to tell them that she liked the song they were playing, and that she definitely remembered Eddie, even though it had been a long time since they'd talked. Obviously, that didn't happen.

As far as Eddie knew, Chrissy had never actually looked at him while they were in high school until just a couple weeks ago. It was near the end of history class. Eddie's head was bent over his notes as he tried to focus on the lecture and tune out the chord progressions running through his mind when the teacher interrupted herself.

"Yes, Chrissy?"

Eddie raised his eyes but not his head, peering through his hair to the front of the room.

Chrissy lowered her hand and said, in a muffled voice, "May I please be excused?"

There was a pause before the teacher answered. "Yes, but go straight to the nurse's office."

After a hurried shuffle, Chrissy stood with her backpack hanging over one shoulder, notebook and pencil in hand. Her other hand was in front of her face, and as she walked to the back of the room, Eddie saw that she held a wad of tissues to her nose.

The lecture resumed, and Eddie put his eyes back on his notebook as Chrissy passed his desk. Behind him, there was a dull thwack of something hitting linoleum. He turned and saw Chrissy kneeling awkwardly by the door, trying to pick her notebook off the ground with one hand while her backpack slid down her arm. Eddie, who always sat in the back corner so he could be last to arrive and first to leave, was closest to her. Stepping out of his chair and kneeling down, he reached for the notebook, but stopped as she gestured at him.

"No, don't touch it," she murmured behind the tissues. "There's blood."

Sure enough, the notebook and the hand waving him away were stained with drops of red. The sight made Eddie's fingers and toes tingle unpleasantly. He straightened up as Chrissy slung the strap of her bag over her shoulder, scooped her stuff off the floor, and stood.

He was about to return to his seat when she whispered, "Um, could you," and pointed her elbow at the door. Eddie pulled it open and held it as she walked through. "Thank you," she whispered as she passed him, meeting and holding his gaze as she did. His stomach flipped like he had missed a step, like he was a kid again, adolescent and awkward.

"Sure," he whispered back, making sure to keep a straight face. She walked away, and that was it. Those were the first words they said to each other since they had met almost six years ago.

Eddie reached out a hand and pressed his fingertips to the wallpaper against the bed, tracing the outline of a flower. Chrissy had not been a big part of his life. They barely knew each other, had hardly spoken. And she wasn't the only girl he ever looked at, not by a mile. Other girls had even looked back at him, and some had done more than look.

If he didn't exactly carry a torch for Chrissy, there had been a little flame – like a candle, tiny and flickering – that he kept tucked deep in his chest. It could have easily been snuffed out, but he shielded it instead, and let it warm a small corner of his heart.

And all for nothing. Eddie's eyes burned and his throat clenched against a rush of tears.

Enough. Enough, he told himself, swallowing back the tears and drawing a long breath. He couldn't go on like this. Chrissy was dead. He hadn't saved her. No one had. Eddie was in trouble now, and his friends were, too. He had to pull himself together, he just had to. It wouldn't do any good to drown himself in misery, to keep looking backward when there was danger ahead.

Eddie rolled onto his back and closed his eyes. The image of Chrissy was there, as it had been for days, watching him.

"I'm sorry," he said out loud.

She smiled at him. Or, at least, he remembered her smile.

Enough, he thought again, and something within him released. The image faded, but the little flame remained, safe where it had always been.

Eddie slept, and didn't dream.