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episode i, escape mechanisms
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KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN LOW. Blend in. Don't make a scene.
Eddie Penley lives and breathes these words, hoping for a day where everyone just forgets about her. She could just be a ghost, floating around Hawkins with no purpose. Almost ceasing to exist. Just the way she likes it.
But then again, how could Hawkins Middle thrive without its resident freak girl?
The rumors that surround her are ruthless, all of them varying levels of vile. It disgusts her that people could just take the worst thing that has ever happened to her and turn it into some cruel joke. But she learns to deal with it because that's just how these things work. If she even thought for a second that the kids at her school would suddenly grow hearts, she would be kidding herself.
Her sisters don't really understand (they somehow made it out of middle school alive and well) but they try to, and Eddie's not sure her mother's really aware of what's going on. Anne Penley tries, she really does, but the long shifts at Benny's and the stress of paying the bills get to her mom more than she'd like.
And so there she is, Eddie Penley, just staying afloat throughout her life and trying really, really, hard not to drown.
Her hand curls around her first edition copy of The Haunted Carousel, and the other holds an overly-toasted turkey sandwich. She flips through the pages of the book, although she's practically memorized the novel front-to-back. But it never mattered. The little scribbles and notes her father wrote in the margins never failed to make her feel at home. She still can never understand how he managed to score it, but he never told her. He always said he would take the secret to the grave, with a joking smile etched on his face.
