Matilda 'Dixie' Green, who gets dragged into the unfathomable events at Starcourt Mall by her hopeless crush on Billy Hargrove and new-found middle-schooler friends. She struggles to cope with the trauma, which gradually costs her, her popular cheer...
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𐬺 Billy 𐮙
Matilda's POV ༒༒October, 1984
It had been like most days recently, mom was giving Rebecca a tough time. The last few years of high school hadn't gone to plan for her in the course of our parent's marriage being completely destroyed which led to their divorce, it went downhill in her senior year.
I didn't need to eavesdrop as I walked past my sister's room to hear that mom was lecturing her about how she needs to work ten times harder, just as she'd done every morning since the term started.
I could picture it, Rebecca sitting on her bed in her extremely pink room filled with Hawkins High paraphernalia, our mom standing over her with daggers in her eyes.
When I ran down the stairs, skipping a few on the way - mom had finished with Rebecca, she must've heard my feet stomping heavily, "No running, Matilda!" She shouted and I immediately slowed myself and muttered, "Yeah, yeah." It's quiet downstairs, I could still picture dad reading the newspaper at the dining table - I could practically hear him now, ranting about the shortage of pumpkins due to them all rotting at the local pumpkin patch.
Rebecca zoomed past me, picking up her lunch in the process before standing by the front door, "We're going to be late, Tillie - quick," she cared way more about everything, almost too much and especially today because there was cheerleading practice to go to, we both were in our outfits.
"I'm coming!" I grab my pink lunchbox and skip towards Rebecca.
Not many words were spoken on the drive to school, mainly small talk that Rebecca wasn't entirely cooperating with. I stared out of the window, watching everything fly by and I suddenly thought of a way to at least annoy her into speaking, manipulative I know.
I always had it on me, a cassette of my favorite album by Black Sabbath... it was one way of keeping Mason with me, in Hawkins.
He introduced me to their music... he'd put this tape in his stereo, we banged our heads to it and danced. It was so different to anything else I'd heard.
He had a wide range of musical knowledge because it was his passion, I admired him for leaving Hawkins early to do what he loved regardless of the consequences... mom would never mention his name, it was basically forbidden, she blamed him for the way I'd turned out because he'd encourage me to be different, to be myself.
He sent letters every month that mom would throw away, I'd sneak out of the house through my window to retrieve the letter from the trash and read them laying on my stomach in bed. He was currently in New York, playing drums for a band called 'Shotguns 'n' Studded Leather' with a part-time job at a record store.
