𝐁𝐎𝐘𝐈𝐒𝐇// 𝐄𝐃𝐃𝐈𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐗𝐎𝐂

𝐱𝐥𝐢𝐢𝐢. ✭ 𝟏𝟑 𝐀𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐝 '𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐎𝐟 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐁𝐞𝐝

SEPTEMBER 1985-MARCH 1986;
TIBBY

Background Music
——————————————
-Always Forever by Cults-
⇆ㅤ ||◁ㅤ❚❚ㅤ▷||ㅤ ↻

I can't recall the exact moment I fell in love with Chance Stargrove. I suppose it all started on that September day she approached me in the library. But in reality, I had noticed her before our first encounter.

My affection for her collected like mothballs on a soft sweater.

She was new. My brain liked that. There hadn't been anyone new in Hawkins since forever ago. When I first saw her, I picked her apart in a mind-rattling frenzy. I burned to organize her. To place all the little parts of her I paid attention to into a myriad of divided boxes. To collect her words and thoughts and every single possible fact about her.

Chance was interesting. She splintered cracks across my skull. Not only that, but she was also pretty to look at. She wore cowgirl boots, dresses, and girly, pretty clothes. Everything she dressed in flattered her figure.

She wore strawberry Lip-Smackers and cream and strawberry perfume. If you were lucky enough, before she put spritzed on her spray, you would realize that she smelled of pineapple lotion that she had massaged into herself after showering.

What I admired most were her supposed flaws. I liked the faded stretch marks that came in rivets down the backs of her thighs and calves. I liked that she barely had eyebrows. I liked that she had freckles in every place imaginable on her body.

I liked the way her thighs made a light smacking noise when she walked. You had to really listen if you wanted to hear them swish together. I liked the stomach slump that collected itself when she sat.

She was kind to me. She didn't look me over. She listened. She understood me. For once in my damned pathetic life, someone was able to comprehend the person that I was.

I lapped that shit up like a dog.

Chance had an effortless charm to her. She was hardworking and stubbornly goal oriented. We were the same at least in that sense. My friend was a badass. A girl who had a sharp tongue, who wasn't afraid to use it.

She was cool.
Actually, admittedly, cool.
Tibby kind of cool.

I knew I wasn't supposed to like all of those things about her. I knew it was dangerous to hold my stare strong and to let my touch linger for just a few seconds too long.

But Chance was all I had. She was everything I could pour the mass of muscle I called my heart into.

Who else would want me? Who else had shown me a sliver of desire? It's not like there were any lesbians in Hawkin's lining up to date me. Let alone even experiment.

I knew that Chance had been exposed to gayness. She hadn't freaked out when I confessed my sexuality. Thanks to my impeccable memory, I still remember quote for quote what she had said.

"I love you and whether you like boys or girls or both, it ain't gonna matter to me. I ain't no stranger to it myself. Pageant girls have lots of time backstage and-"

"I ain't no stranger to it myself."

She wasn't a stranger to the idea. What did that mean? Was she gay? Partly gay? A bisexual? The other option was that she was a straight girl who had gay friends before I came along.