Ivy Harrington always hated living in her brothers shadow when they were younger. Steve was the definition of the golden child whilst she was forgotten about by their parents. They loved her too but she was nothing compared to her older brother. As they started growing up she realised that being in Steve's shadow could be a good thing, she had the freedom to go down her own path whilst her big brother did exactly what he was told.
She did the only thing she felt she could do, she rebelled. Ivy had the chance to create her own image to separate herself from the title of 'Steve Harrington's little sister' even though being the town bitch wasn't much better, at least it was of her own making. She loved her brother, she'd never tell him that, but she did.
The girl had never really been great at making her own friends, she had the tendency to put up this fence of dark humour and sarcasm. Her technique worked though, she didn't want to waste time with pointless friendships and only a couple of people could get over her fence.
One boy that had hurdled the fence with flying colours was Leonard White or Leo White which he preferred to be called. They agreed to be best friends when they were four and both of them were sulking over the fact that the kindergarten teacher was refusing to use both of their preferred shortened versions of their names. For three months straight they thought it would be funny to answer to each other's names so anytime 'Ivette' was called Leo would answer and anytime 'Leonard' was called Ivy would answer. The teacher was so annoyed that she finally agreed to use the shorter versions.
Her and Leo were glued to each other from that moment on and suddenly, that one saying about if you spend to much time with someone you turn into them became slightly true. Both of them had the same mannerisms, they used the same words, pulled the same faces. It was quite disturbing and Leo's parents who were avid horror fans had taken too referring to them as 'the shining twins' just after Stephen King came out with the book when they were ten.
After basically exiling themselves in middle school because they only hung out with each other, they vowed in high school that they would try and at least make one friend each. Leo had introduced her to Jonathan Byers a week later clearly he succeeded in the task.
It took Ivy over a month to make her own friend, she debated trying out for cheerleading but took one look into the gym seeing them jump about in their little skirts waving their pom-poms about and she ran in the opposite direction. As she was running away from the gym a guy dressed up in a strange looking costume tried to scare her so she punched him square in the face, that was how she met Eddie Munson.
Eddie was a little bit older and rather odd by regular standards but that's what drew Ivy in, she didn't want to be friends with football players and cheerleaders. She liked being surrounded by misfits and outcasts, it was far more relaxing on her part.
So while her brother was playing his sports, dating half the cheer squad and attending pep rallies, Ivy opted to hang around in the darkened classrooms watching Eddie play some game that she couldn't get the hang off. Leo was actually quite good at D&D which impressed Eddie immediately and he recruited him to his 'party' which Ivy guessed was not an actual party. Leo joined up until his grades were being effected and his parents made him stop playing.
All in all, Ivy Harrington was perfectly fine with her very small circle of friends and her mediocre life because in Hawkins Indiana where nothing exciting ever happens, mediocre was thrilling. But when Jonathan's little brother, Will, disappears and everything turns upside down, Ivy realises that she would take a mediocre life over this kind of excitement any day.
