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CHAPTER TWENTY | FEEL LIKE I EXIST
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hunted girls grow shells & they call us "hard women."
as if survival could ever be delicate.
-forgive me my salt // brenna twohy
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The Byers house was small but felt like home — excluding the odd, tentacle-like crayon drawings pasted over the walls.
"Can— can I use your bathroom?"
Jonathan looked at her, taking in all the blood and demogorgon chunks, and nodded. He was quiet and a bit skittish. Before this, Jackie had only ever spoken to him a few times and no more than for thirty seconds — all when he was picking up Will while she babysat.
Jackie drew her eyes closed, unable to look at Will's unconscious form on the couch. He looked so small and fragile with his mother pushing his hair back and weeping over him. He didn't deserve this.
"Do you want clean clothes?"
Blinking back tears, Jackie nodded and smiled. Jonathan led her down the hallway where the bedrooms and bathroom were. He disappeared into his room and Jackie stood uncomfortably at the threshold, peering in and looking at his various band posters and teetering stacks of books.
"Are sweatpants and a t-shirt fine?" Jonathan asked in an overly polite tone.
It was the kind of way you talked to a friend of your parents that seemed overly interested in your life. He smiled somewhat awkwardly and handed her the clothes.
"Yes. Thank you."
He gestured to the bathroom, directly across from his room, and pulled a couple towels from the closet next to the bathroom.
"Take your time. You can shower if you'd like but it takes a while to get warm."
Nodding, Jackie thanked him once more and entered the bathroom. Once the door was shut behind her, she locked it and began pulling off her clothes. She stared at herself in the mirror, all bloodied and battered. Sixty seconds, she told herself, sinking to the ground and pulling her knees to her chest. You have sixty seconds to be miserable, but then you gotta lock it up and away. She must have spent much longer than sixty seconds crying, though, because Steve was knocking on the bathroom door.
"Jack, you good in there?"
Biting her lip, Jackie stood and yanked the door open, uncaring of the fact that she was in nothing more than underwear and a bra. Seeing that she was still covered in blood, Steve's eyebrows shot up.
"I thought you were cleaning up?" His eyes were trained on her face, wandering nowhere.
"I started crying instead," Jackie said. Her lips trembled and she looked down. She would not start crying again.
