Me, Myself, and Her

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Eight: So It Goes...

The next morning, Annie had taken her time getting up. No school? No way was she waking up before eight. Besides, that also guaranteed her parents being at work, and Steve would be at work, so she'd have the house to herself.

It was nice.

Annie got up slowly, not even bothering to change out of her pajamas- a long sleeve yellow shirt and a pair of pink short. Her morning routine went by at a good, slow pace. By the time she made her way to the kitchen to grab breakfast, it was already ten.

Today felt like it was going to be a good day, Annie decided. She made herself a pretty decent breakfast: toast with some jam and a couple poached eggs. Along with that, her father had just gotten a jug of orange juice, so she went ahead and poured herself the first glass.

Everything was going so well.

At least, until there was a knock at the door.

Annie set her fork down, hurrying to munch on her bite of toast she had shoved in her mouth right as the knock sounded. Peering around the door out the window, she saw Max standing there with her backpack. And she looked panicked.

The brunette opened the door. "Hey, what's going on? I thought we were hanging out tonight?" Annie asked.

Max came inside and Annie let the door close behind them. "Yeah, well... have you seen the news yet?" Max asked, setting her bag down on the ground right where she stood.

Eyebrows drawn together, Annie shook her head. "No, I honestly barely started eating my breakfast when you knocked," she answered. She walked back over to her food and decided to try and eat it quickly.

"Yeah, well... I saw Chrissy come over to Eddie's last night," Max started.

She and her mom and moved to a different place after Billy went off to college. She couldn't afford it and didn't need something so big after two people left. Now, she lived across from Eddie Munson's trailer. Annie had seen it a few times whenever she went over to Max's.

Annie swallowed the bite of eggs. "Weird, I wonder why," she thought out loud.

The look on Max's face worried Annie, so she put her fork down. "Max, what happened?" she asked.

"Chrissy's dead."

Annie was glad she put the utensil down, otherwise it would've clattered to the floor. She felt her insides drop at the words. There was a moment where Annie wanted a smile to spread across Max's face, for her to start laughing and say it was some dumb joke.

But Annie knew her girlfriend, and knew this wasn't something Max would ever joke about, not after the events of last year. And especially not after Holly and Meghan being brought up the day before.

"What?"

Max wanted to cry at the sound of her girlfriend's defeated, small voice. She could see the tears in Annie's eyes threatening to spill over and regretted every saying anything.

"Annie, I'm so sorry," Max whispered, immediately going over and pulled Annie into a hug.

The girl was distraught. Chrissy was one of her only other friends at Hawkins. The only one who seemed normal.

"What happened?" Annie asked, pulling away from the hug only to lean her head on Max's shoulder. When the girl hesitated, Annie lifted her head and looked at her face. "What is it?"

Max took a deep breath. "She looked... it wasn't just like a normal murder. I think, somehow, it has to do with the Upside Down."

A chill ran down Annie's spine. She thought of the nightmare that woke her up at three in the morning the previous night. "What makes you say that?" Annie asked, not doubting, but also not wanting it to be true.

"It's just... from what I saw, her arms were snapped in half, her mouth was wide open like she'd been screaming in fear and..." Max trailed off, trying to find courage to finish describing what she saw. "Jesus, Annie, she had no eyes," the redhead whispered.

Annie visibly shivered. "Oh my god. No eyes?"

Max nodded. "And as much as people call Eddie 'freak' and all that shit, we both know he just likes Dungeons and Dragons. If he did that to her, then no way would he hang around kids. Plus, at some point in the night, the lights started going nuts. I assumed it was part of my nightmare so I moved on, but this morning made me think otherwise."

While Max spoke, Annie simply nodded along. Of course she was still listening to what Max had to say, but it hurt. The mention of the word 'freak' didn't exactly help, either.

"What do we do? Our party is basically split in half, how can we go against this when people like Mike, El, and Will aren't here?" Annie asked.

"We start by getting dressed. Go on, I'll clean this stuff up while you change," Max said. She didn't know what they were going to do, but she knew it involved leaving the house.

Annie nodded and hurried up the stairs. She hurried into her closet, grabbing some jeans and a sweater. Throwing those on, Annie tried her hardest not to look at some of the polaroids she had taped up on her wall.

Especially the ones Max took of her with the cheer squad.

Once she had everything on, Annie threw on her Converse and made her way downstairs, where Max had picked her backpack up and was waiting by the door.

"Any thoughts?" Annie asked, grabbing her own bag that was at the end of the stairs. It had some random stuff inside, including her walkman, some tapes, and radio.

Max shrugged. "Dustin? He might know what to do," Max said, nodding as well, as if she was trying to convince herself.

So, Annie nodded. "Sounds perfect. Let's go through the garage so I can grab my bike."

They did just that, and soon, they were off to find Dustin. Max sincerely hoped Eddie was just a fucked up guy.

Annie hoped whatever did happen, the Upside Down stayed out of it.

A/n: both girls were wrong lol