When Chrissy wakes up, the first thing she smells is the strong stench of antiseptics.
Her body flails as an unwanted memory creeps to the surface; passing out at cheerleading, being brought in an ambulance, and her hoarse voice telling the doctors she's just fine. She recalled them slipping her some anorexia pamphlets afterward, which in the narrowed-eyed view of her mother, she scoffed and threw in the trash, despite how her fingers wanted to hold onto them tightly.
Chrissy gasps, blinking and thrashing like the fear didn't disappear when she passed out again, but it stayed dormant until now.
The stench.
The coldness.
The pulsing.
The unholy voice.
Chrissy is running through her house.
Her mother is not her mother but is talking like her mother. Whispering venomous taunts, covered in chocolate to seem kind and caring, but filled with pieces of shrapnel when she accepts what she thinks is a gift.
Her father, helpless, scared, screaming.
Her brother; gone.
And that…thing. The voice that has been following her the past week, making her think she is absolutely, certifiably, 100% crazy.
And she's so tired.
Tired of trying to explain to the student counselor why she hasn't slept much or why she skipped lunch again today. She's tired of fearing that every waking moment and every sleeping moment will be filled with the thoughts of this thing, that there's no place she's free from it. Tired of trying to find solutions to a problem that can't be solved because this beast will follow her wherever she wants to go.
When he tells her to join him, it almost seems like a blessing.
No more pain.
No more night terrors.
No more guilt and resentment for a body that will never be perfect to her mother.
No more fear.
Perhaps, for once, just…peace.
She is terrified of him, of course, but she is about to the point of just letting him take her.
She doesn't think of Eddie back in his house, finding drugs, trying to help her. Not at first. Not until it's begun.
It's painless. It's like she's just feeling nothingness. Not the creeping vines of the beast, nor the fear clutching her stomach. It's just absolutely unfeeling and it is delightful and almost addicting.
In the back of her mind is a buzz of recognition. She whimpers and she jerks away from the monster and focuses her mind on a song- Money for Nothing.
A smile forces itself into her subconscious theater in her mind, where she feels her true self lives, reacting to things she can't in the physical world. She remembers just moments ago in Eddie's car, enjoying how gobsmacked he looked that she would even know the name of this band. She likes surprising him. She likes that he looked so pleased with her music knowledge.
She likes the way Eddie acts around her.
She wonders if he put this on for her, and she mourns the fact she'll never get to ask him.
Just behind her, there's a light. She turns and sees Eddie - like through a window - on the ground. Scared.
For her.
She doesn't know how she's breaking out of the beast's grasp. She won't remember; not when every freshman boy on the face of the planet, it seems, comes asking. She just doesn't remember.
She just remembers trying to get back to Eddie.
And then she's waking up and her world is on fire, an onslaught of pain, of agony, of arms, bent ways they should not bend.
Chrissy doesn't realize she's screaming, clawing at her arm and the residual, phantom pain until someone is holding her down.
"Woah, woah, babe, hey-,"
Jason is at her bedside. She's not sure why, but she's disappointed to see him there.
It looks like he hasn't slept well in a few days. When he sees her start to settle, wearily blinking and groaning against the bright fluorescent lights, his smile widens and a visible relief is plucked from his shoulders.
She looks down.
Her arm is in a heavy, clunky cast with half a dozen signatures scraped into the uneven texture already. Looks like her parents, her brother, some of her brother's friends and every Hawkins High Athlete and Cheerleader has made their mark. Seeing this, a physical representation of worry tugs at her heart. It calms her and soothes her.
Because here's the most shocking thing…she's alive.
She's fucking alive and she's pretty sure she was supposed to be dead.
"We weren't sure if you were a goner or not," He says, running his palm over her hair, still pulled back just a bit too tight in a ponytail.
As bits and pieces return, she recalls where she was last, and why she was expecting there to be someone else waiting for her to awaken.
Eddie Munson.
She'd been with him. Trying to buy drugs. Why, of course, would he be here? Most dealers, far as she knew from literature and movies, existed in a 'pay me, I give you things' acquaintance. There was no reason to hope he'd be around. Not when they barely knew each other.
A few passing moments from middle school hardly amounted to any significant connection.
But she felt like he'd seen her for her; not for the perfect cheerleader, not for the perfect girlfriend, not for the perfect student, but as a person…someone struggling, unsure, and most of all scared.
Yeah, she'd seen that reflected in him too.
That's when her eyes catch it; a mop of curly, long hair outside of the hospital room.
"Eddie-," She starts to say, but Jason shushes her, glaring back at the outcast with more venom than Chrissy had ever seen him display in his life. There is something dark in Jason's eyes. Not the sexy sort of way, but something sinister.
It unsettles her.
"We'll get that low-life out of here; what's his deal, skulking around." Jason scoffs, "Probably just glad you woke up. A murder charge is what he's worried about I'm sure." He motions to others in the room, the basketball team, and Chrissy suddenly feels very much on display. His perfect little girlfriend woke up from her little coma. An accessory to his achievements. A sob story to cut him some slack for a few weeks. Something impersonal.
"Wait-," She tries to say, but the basketball team is already roughing up to Eddie, and he gives Chrissy one last concerned look before realizing he's not taking on four basketball players and slinks away.
If Jason looks tired, Eddie looks like he's been dragged through hell.
She has no idea how long she's been out, what happened, or what the opinion of this entire incident is, but she knows that Jason has no idea the very most basic idea of it. She feels like maybe Eddie knows. There's a haunted look that you can't get without knowing too much too young. Chrissy knows it. Fred, that journalist that sees the school psych after her knows it, and now, well, somehow, Eddie knows it too.
Jason has lived a privileged life. He's never had to worry about growing up too fast.
It's a flurry of doctors and nurses and pokes and prods after she wakes up. She tells them everything they ask about, and a bit more, because she wants to be 100% crystal clear on what happened and how it went down because she has a bad feeling about the way the doctors are asking the questions about Eddie.
Jason stays next to her, the dedicated boyfriend he is. She assures him that she's fine and offers for him to go get something to eat in the cafeteria, but he resolutely holds her hand, as though he's afraid of looking like he doesn't care in front of her parents.
He's always played the part well; charmed her parents, the school, and her. He is exactly how a good boyfriend should be and for that very reason, it feels wrong. It doesn't feel real. It feels scripted sometimes like they're nothing more than characters in the background of a John Hughes movie.
There was a grittiness at Eddie's house, that realness she'd never felt with Jason. Laughter, teasing, and yes, even a bit of awkwardness, but isn't that how it's supposed to be?
Why does she keep comparing Eddie to Jason?
"Well, there were no drugs in her system, just as Mr. Munson claimed," The doctor was saying.
"And I told you that too."
As soon as the night came back, as much as Chrissy could explain, she did. She didn't want anyone to think that Eddie did this to her.
"I know, but baby, maybe he gave you something to make you forget. Date rape drugs, right?" It's something everyone's heard about on 60 Seconds. Her mother sat her down and gave her an hour of lecture and being careful around boys. Well, except for 'perfect' boys like Jason.
Chrissy made a face, angry for being ignored when she had a voice.
"He just said I didn't have any drugs in my system," Chrissy said, "And I'm also telling you what happened."
"Yeah, but," Jason shrugged, laughing as though affronted she'd be so stubborn about defending Eddie.
He'd made up his mind about Eddie already.
Chrissy would never budge him.
She used to like that about Jason…this sense of stubbornness. His belief was that he could do anything he wanted to do. The gall and the audacity were shocking and almost addictive. People wanted to be around Jason because he believed in things so strongly. Nothing shook his faith. He did what he set out to do. And when it benefited you, it was quite a nice gig.
But now, seeing how he felt, imagining the ways his mind was already unraveling, and thinking of ways to get back at an innocent man, Chrissy felt sick.
And scared.
For Eddie or Jason, she wasn't sure.
"We think that perhaps it was a lack of proper nutrients that caused the bone to snap. It's healing nicely; we expect a full recovery of function," The doctor said, "We'll continue check-ups once she's let home, of course. How is she feeling?"
The question isn't directed to anyone in particular, but very much obviously not to Chrissy, the only one who should be able to answer that.
"Hungry," She huffs, but Jason refuses to get her something and her mother makes a sound in the back of her throat.
"She's just tired," Her father says, entirely ignoring what Chrissy just said.
Her mother sat next to her, taking her hand in her own. At first, Chrissy thought it was a motherly action until her mom examined her hand like an artist critiquing his stone sculpture.
"Well, a week in a medical coma isn't a bad thing. Shaved a few pounds off, at least. We should try to keep it that way."
The embarrassment and anger wash over Chrissy at the same time, battling for how she'll respond.
She ends up looking frantically to the doctor, begging for him to step in. If he says something, it's different. It's not just Chrissy 'mouthing back'.
Say I'm fine the wight I am. Say I'm actually underweight from the coma, please. She implores him, chest stuttering as she wishes so much that someone will stick up for her.
But the doctor coughs and looks away.
"You'll get back in shape for cheerleading soon enough," Jason says, mistaking her despair for worry about her figure.
Jason doesn't know it, and even if she wasn't conscious of it, but this week in the coma was the first time since she turned ten that she had any reprieve from her mother's biting comments.
And what a glorious week that was.
In a very terrible way, Chrissy almost wishes she'd just let that thing take her, and then she'd never have to look back.
But now she's here…surrounded by more people than she thought legally could be stuffed in a hospital room, but still somehow feeling very much alone.