Blondie Wannabe: A Billy Hargrove Fanfic

Banshee

Sal threw on a red, long-sleeved shirt and sneakers, made me stuff my feet in winter boots, and grabbed our coats on the way out.

"Where are we going?" I asked as he shoved me past my room. "I'm not dressed to be seen; I'm not even wearing a bra."

He rolled his eyes as he dragged me out into the cold. There were about two or three inches of fresh snow on top of the snow that had been here since the last blizzard. I hadn't noticed it before, but it must've really come down last night after I went to sleep. 

"We're not going anywhere you need to wear your pageant clothes to, darling," he said, unlocking his car.

"How did you know about that?" I said with a gasp.

Sal chuckled, starting the engine. "Your mom showed me photos when you weren't around, she knew you wouldn't like it. She would just stare at them for hours when you first went away to college." We turned down a road I'd never taken that lead towards the woods. "Besides, a rich family, with a daughter as pretty as you, in Indiana, it sort of screams beauty pageant, doesn't it?"

"You think I'm pretty?" I asked with faux-innocence.

"Well, I meant, you know, blonde hair, blue eyes. Isn't that what those things look for?"

I giggled at his cobbled together response. He wasn't wrong, beauty competitions went head over heels for the Aryan look. And I had no shame in admitting I was a pretty nine-year-old. I could twirl a baton convincingly and had solid diction, so I won a couple of times. But it was never my mom's dream for me to be Miss America or anything. I stopped doing them as soon as I got my first B in school.

"Where are we going then, where brassieres are not required?"

My question made Sal snort and grin at me. "You make it sound like we're going to an orgy. I'm just taking you to the woods."

"To murder me?"

"No, to work out your shit."

Before I could ask a follow-up question, he parked to the side of the road, a clearing in the trees dead ahead of us, no footprints in the fresh snow. He got out of the car and I followed, tugging my coat closer around me. It was so fucking cold, my nipples had gone hard, and they hurt.

Sal turned to face me, hands on his hips. "Scream," he commanded.

"Excuse me?"

"Scream. Scream about whatever is hurting you, upsetting you, weighing you down. Scream until it doesn't mean anything to you."

I kicked at the snow self-consciously. "What if someone hears me?"

"Who gives a shit?" He took a step closer, having to pick up his foot about two feet to dislodge it from the snow. "No one's around, I promise."

Looking into his eyes, I saw a person I loved, I trusted, who cared about me, and I realized I needed to tell him what I saw, needed to not be alone with it. "Do you know why I'm upset?" I asked carefully.

"No, I have a few guesses, but I don't know for sure."

"It's about my Dad. And Steve."

"Oh, did you find out he knocks him around sometimes and breaks shit when he gets angry?" The words were so devoid of affect that I felt almost insulted by them.

"You knew, you knew this whole time?"

"Yeah, I just assumed you did too."

"Why didn't you do anything?"

"What did you want me to do? Call the police on your dad, my godfather, because he's a little rough when he disciplines his son?" Sal took a breather, rubbing his hands together for warmth. "I'm not saying I'm okay with it, but there isn't much I can do. And, honestly, Norman's never been a good parent. He was always hard on you, but it was more verbal. Of course, when you left, there would need to be a new scapegoat. And, I think, because Steve's a boy, he thought it best to interact with him physically."

My head was spinning so fast, if we weren't in a foot and a half of snow, I would've sat down. "This is all my fault."

"No, it's not, Deb-" He reached out to me, grabbing my arm to help steady me. "None of this is your fault. You are a good-"

"Shut up!" I snapped at him. "Stop making excuses for me, stop coddling me. That's not why you brought me here. You brought me here to scream." I shuffled away from him and looked up at the sky, the whitish blue so bright it hurt my eyes, and I thought about Craig dumping me out of nowhere, Billy manipulating and humiliating me, Steve setting me up to look like an idiot at Hannah's party, Dad abusing Steve for years, and the fact that I had to drop out of college and move back to motherfucking Hawkins and I let out a scream like one that had never been heard before, like a banshee being released from Hell.

Hey guys, I haven't asked this in the past several chapters because I never want to bother you, and I'm just grateful that anyone reads this at all, but if you wouldn't mind voting and commenting, it would mean the world to me, thanks!