Losing Your Mind - Eddie Munson x Chrissy Cunningham

Beginnings

NOTE: 

Hello! This is my first time ever writing anything like this and submitting on Wattpad, so please   let me know what you think and give me suggestions, ideas, etc!!

*Also a trigger warning for eating disorders/related issues, emotional abuse from parents*

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"Chrissy! Chrissy Elizabeth!"

Chrissy's eyes slowly opened, adjusting to the bright sunlight streaming through her bedroom windows. She could hear her mother's stomping up their flight of carpeted stairs, and the peacefully blissful first moment of being awake, forgetting who and where she was, completely dissolved. Chrissy's door flew open and her mother stormed in.

"Chrissy, this is the third day this week that you've woken up late. I'm not sure what's wrong with you, but you seriously need to snap out of it." Her mother snapped, tossing a cheer uniform onto Chrissy's bed. "I loosened your uniform for you last night, again. Hopefully that was the last time." At that, Chrissy's mother whipped around and left her room as quickly as she barged in.

Chrissy stared at the crumpled uniform that lay at the foot of her bed. She felt a hot tear stream down the side of her cheek and quickly wiped it away, getting mad at herself for letting her mom get to her like this. She hurriedly shrugged off her nightgown and changed into the slightly wrinkled uniform. Chrissy couldn't tell if she was going crazy again, but she swore her uniform now fit her more snugly than before. Did that bitch really make my uniform tighter? She thought as she stood in front of her full length mirror. Knowing her mom, she probably had. Chrissy was anything but fat, in fact was on the skinny side, but her mother was always critiquing her appearance and not-so-subtlely commenting on how she could lose a few pounds.

After sweeping her hair into her signature ponytail, Chrissy picked up her backpack and went downstairs. Her parents and brothers were animatedly talking about something while enjoying pancakes, and Chrissy's stomach dropped as she noticed a bowl of plain oatmeal in front of her empty place at the table. She sat down without a word and ate it quickly, knowing not to complain about her food. She knew everyone would laugh at the thought of her eating even one pancake, let alone the delicious-looking strips of bacon on her family's plates. As one of the head cheerleaders, girlfriend of the basketball captain, and so-called "Queen of Hawkins High", Chrissy constantly felt pressure from her friends, family, and especially her mother, to look perfect.

A few minutes later, the revving engine of a sports car sounded from the road outside, and Chrissy knew Jason was here to pick her up. The car's horn honked a few times before she opened the front door and mumbled "Bye" to her family. Before she could leave, however, her mom called out to her a final time.

"Oh, Chrissy!" Slowly, Chrissy turned around. "Remember to smile!"  Mrs. Cunningham dragged her forefingers from her lips along her cheeks and grinned. Chrissy wanted to slap that stupid grin right off of her, but instead curtly smiled back before shutting the front door and bounding over to Jason's convertible.

"Good morning, babe," Jason said as Chrissy opened the passenger door. He pecked her cheek affectionately.

"Hi," Chrissy responded sweetly, taking Jason's free hand in hers as they sped off toward school. She gazed out her side of the car as her ponytail whipped in the breeze. 

Chrissy couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief as she settled into the familiar leather passenger seat. She and Jason were coming up on their two year anniversary, and the sense of comfort she felt with him was almost addictive. He was someone who actually liked her, liked being around her. She often escaped the stress of home by imagining the two of them running away together, catching a plane to Europe, and starting a new life free from the pressures of Hawkins and the shoes she felt she had to fill.

 However, Chrissy also barely ever felt completely comfortable around Jason. Although she liked him, loved him even, she always felt as if she was only dipping her toes in. They both were, metaphorically, rather than diving head first into each other. Even though Jason took much of her anxiety away, she never felt she could let her walls completely down with him. She worried what he would think of the real Chrissy, the one so different from the bubbly cheerleader she seemed to show to everybody.

Almost everybody. Chrissy thought back to the previous spring, before she started taking medicine for her hallucinations and paranoia, before the big earthquake that shook Hawkins. She thought about sitting at that picnic table with Eddie Munson and how that was the first time in a while, and the last time since, that she had let out a genuine laugh. She barely knew Eddie, hardly thought of him as more than a freaky loser, before that day. She couldn't help but appreciate his kindness and the care he showed her after her seizure in his trailer. Chrissy almost hoped she and Eddie would interact again during the coming school year, and her mind drifted into the memory of how good it felt to actually be herself in front of someone for once.

"Chrissy, hello?" Chrissy shook her head and realized the car had stopped and she and Jason were now parked in front of Hawkins High. Jason was waving his hand in front of her face and looked mildly concerned.

"Oh, sorry, I totally zoned out. I didn't get much sleep last night." Chrissy quickly lied. Jason never knew about her brief acquaintance with Eddie, and she would prefer to keep it that way. What reason would she have to be hanging around Eddie "The Freak" Munson? She couldn't tell him that she tried turning to substance use to numb the torture of her mental illness and asked Eddie to buy something. Never in a million years.

"Aw, I'm sorry to hear that, Chris." Jason said, turning off the engine and getting out to open the passenger door for her. Chrissy smiled at him and took his hand as they began to walk into school. Jason was trying, and she really believed that, however she never quite felt that he said things like that because he was actually concerned and not because he was supposed to.

Chrissy waved to her and Jason's friends that were standing by the front door and they began to all walk to their lockers before first period. Chrissy didn't want to admit this, but she felt her self scanning the halls for Eddie's signature shoulder-length hair. It wasn't as if she would actually talk to him again, but it felt nice to be reminded that she had once actually been seen by someone, even if it was that weirdo. That nice, charming weirdo.

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Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! Feel free to follow and vote if you like, and I'll be sure to publish the next part soon xx