Lucy Hopper had been obsessed with movies as long as she can remember.
Well, no. She is lying. She started to find comfort in them during the sickness (she doesn't talk about what happened. He doesn't neither. They live in silence). Every time she could, she would lock herself up in her living room all day, thousands of VHS surrounding her and she watched the same films over and over and over, until she knew all of the scenes and dialogues, and she didn't feel real anymore, and she was whoever she wanted, wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted. Summer vacations were a big movie marathon, in which she couldn't really know when the day ended and the night started, and when the weeks passed, and the month was over. Everything was a big blur.
Sometimes when her bones felt too heavy and her skin felt too tight, she would start to recite the dialogues of "Dog Days Afternoon" ("I don't wanna talk to some flunky pig trying to calm me man."), in her mind. She felt as if she's out of her own body for a little while.
The obsession turned into addiction. Some chose drugs, other chose alcohol, young Lucy chose her films to drown herself into.
Her parents pay her no mind, they had bigger things to worry about, hospital bills to pay and orange bottles to pray to, and a little sister to save. Lucy at first felt as if she was forgotten, but once she understood what it implied being forgotten, she didn't care that much.
However, days started to get harder, as she watched her sister become unrecognizable, and her dad was angry all the time, and her mom was sad all the time, and they were never home. School wasn't easy neither, nobody understood why Lucy would burst out crying from times to times, or why she was rambling nonsense about some force during playtime, or why, when the teacher asked her something, she would close her eyes and put her hands in her ears, while mumbling something along the lines of: "Martin hates boats. Martin hates water. Martin sits in his car when we go on the ferry to the mainland. I guess it's a childhood thing. It's there a clinical name for it isn't there? Drowning." over and over as if it was some sick kind of prayer.
So the middle schooler stopped going to school. Stopped going to the hospital. Stopped going out of her house. Stopped going out of the living room. Stopped sleeping. Stopped eating. Stopped drinking. Stopped living- No. That was her sister. Lucy kept on living. Her parents found her passed out on the living room while Apollo Creed wins the fight against Rocky. She hadn't had a proper meal for three whole days, or a good night of sleep.
Saying Jim Hopper felt like shit after finding out what was going on with his other daughter was an understatement.
Then the sickness spread, and Sara never came back. Jim Hopper felt as if he couldn't do one right thing. Everything was slipping out of his fingers. His wife was leaving. His other daughter wasn't right on the mind, saying that she could still hear her sister's voice.
Hopper did what he had to do, he decided to move back to Hawkins. Diane let them go (Yes. Them. Lucy left with Jim. Diane refused to grief another child).
The years passed, and the pain of Sara's departure never really left all of them. Specially Lucy, who still felt as she could hear her sometimes. She kept a diary of all the things she thought Sara was telling her, which were a mixture of film quotes, bad jokes and weird food recipes. She kept it under her bed, next to the stolen pack of cigarettes, her mother's old copy of "Grease", and Ethan Cooke's phone number written in blue with her horrible calligraphy. All of her secrets under a mattress.
Lucy kept her love for films at a normal level, the obsession long gone. She couldn't still be geeking about Rambo and start senior year. She sometimes was scared she would slip back into that blur of days and nights of no reality, but she always remembered that this time she does have control. School is actually bearable. Living with her dad is just like always. She actually does have friends she likes. Life seemed to be worth actually living.
Until, Will Byers disappears one night leaving no trace behind, and Lucy knows it. She knows it even before the news go out.
Because Sara told her.
LUCY HOPPER - ELLA PURNHELL
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ETHAN COOKE - DOMINIC FIKE
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