PROLOGUE. WHAT HAPPENED TO CASSIE. C? MENTIONS. SELF HARM 🦴
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1983.
This feels like when the skin under your nail gets pulled away and it just constantly stings for a few days. This is that. There's not another way to describe it. It all just stings.
Wesley is staring at Jim Hopper's stern eyes. He should be intimidated, but he's not. All he can seem to care about is that he's been the only one called in. Not Dallas. Not Briar. No one saw them in the woods. How is he here right now?
"You're familiar with Cassandra Cunningham, correct?"
There's a coffee cup next to Hopper's hand. Wesley doesn't even like coffee but he feels the urge to drink it. He's done nothing wrong. "I mean, yeah. We were together, I guess."
"You guess?" Fuck you.
Wesley sighs and sinks into the hard metal chair a little. "Cass, she's kind of.. I don't know. She's not perfect like people say she is. I wouldn't really say we were together—but we were together.. Don't know if that makes any sense."
Hopper hums, his fingertips tap at the metal table. He use to be a teenager. He gets it. "No one's perfect, kid. Especially kids that are claimed to be perfect. Do you know why I called you in here today?"
Breathe, Wes. He shakes his head gently, "No." Wesley watches Hopper's face fall a little. "No one's told you?"
Shrug. Just shrug. Seem like this is no big deal. Wesley shrugs. "Told me what?"
"You haven't heard from Cassandra?"
"No, but she does that sometimes. Where she stops talking to me for a few days then comes knocking at my door like it was nothing."
"That's what you mean by you're together but not together?"
He gets it. Good. "Yeah, exactly that. Is she okay?"
Hopper rubs at his chin with a hard hand. He's got a small blue elastic on his wrist. It's very out of place for a man like Jim Hopper. "We found her three days ago. She was a few miles out from the back of her house."
Wesley just breathes and stares. Hopper clenches his jaw a little, kids don't die in Hawkins. He feels sick even thinking about it. "She's gone, kid."
Even though Wesley knows this, he seems to be feeling it for the first time since it happened. He doesn't expect it but his eyes water over and he clears his throat. He's a little embarrassed now. He's twenty three. He doesn't cry in front of guys old enough to be his father. He tries to act like he isn't crying right now but someone did say to him that Cassie is dead. She was fucking dead between your feet. She was fucking dead when she was crying and sobbing and had blood all over her as you dragged her out to those—
"She seems to have been intoxicated."
Wesley looks up at Hopper. He did not know this. "What?"
"Toxicology report brought it back. Was pretty bad. I know it was her birthday and all."
"But Cass doesn't drink. She hates drinking." She didn't want to end up like Camille Cunningham. No one wants to be their mother.
Hopper shrugs a little. "She was very drunk. So, I'm asking did you see her that night? Were you at her party? Were you with her at all?"
"I mean, who wasn't there? She invited everyone. I was there for like two hours, I think. I'm not that much into parties. She knows that. I didn't really want to show, but it was her birthday. I said bye to her after the two hours and she seemed fine. Happy. Everyone was there for her. She was smiling."
What a liar.
Hopper nods, he doesn't seem to reach Wesley's eyes. "She was found dead in the trees behind her house. She had large cuts on her wrists. There was blood everywhere. When we found her it was all dried up and rain had washed some what of her clean. It looks... like she'd done it herself."
Wesley stares and stares and stares and stares and stares. "You're telling me Cassandra Cunningham went and fuckin' killed herself in the woods behind her house."
He's sure deep down he knew this when he found her, but he didn't think on it. Cass was Cass. She didn't do things like this.
"Maybe you didn't know her as good as you thought you did."
His chest is pounding. "Can.. Can I go?"
Hopper nods slowly. "Yeah, kid. I'm sorry." Wesley is pushing out of his seat, it scratches against the floor and the noise is horrible. Hopper winces.
When Wesley's out in the hall, eyes red and ready to leak he pauses for a quick glance. Camille Cunningham is yelling at an officer in tears, demanding information on her dead daughter. At her side in a chair back is Chrissy Cunningham, she's only sixteen. She's a baby. Her swollen eyes widen as she meets Wesley's gaze.
But he's gone before she can try to talk to him.
He's got to get to Dallas and Briar. He's got to get away from all of this.
Cassandra Cunningham is dead and he won't be apart of it any longer.
