𝑑𝑖𝑟𝑡𝑦 𝑙𝑎𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑟𝑦 ~ 𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐲 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐫

chapter one

chapter one

tw:
child abuse, brief mentions of suicide

Isaac Lincoln was not your typical all-American golden boy. He wasn't on the football team, he didn't have a girlfriend on the cheerleading team (or a girlfriend at all) He wasn't involved with anything inside school, he barely had any friends, if any.

No, Isaac was not your golden boy. He was quite the opposite, actually. He was the boy that parents warned their kids to stay away from.

"He's bad news."

"The only place he's going is back to prison."

"No future!"

"Low-life."

"Disgrace."

"Bad news."

He was sure that he'd heard every insult under the sun. Especially from that stuck-up asshole with the stupid hair, Steve Harrington. He and his friends spent, seemingly, every waking moment of their plain and boring lives to make Isaac's own life hell.

Even so, they were still terrified of the boy. At the slightest twitch of his hand or tilt of his head, Steve and Tommy were running like wolves with their tails tucked between their legs.

Isaac would like to say he would never actually hit them (though he would think about it) but the events of April, 1983 proved differently.

Isaac didn't mean to hurt him that badly, no. No, of course not. Isaac never meant to send him to the emergency room. He really didn't, he just saw red.. he couldn't stop. It felt like he couldn't control himself, even if he tried he couldn't stop. Punch after punch until the boy was a bloody and bruised mess. Teachers tried to pull him off, though they were unsuccessful, students to afraid to move as they didn't want to get caught in the crossfire. In the end, it took three boys on the football team to pull Isaac off of him. Isaac snapped out of it seconds later, nearly breaking down in front of the class. He held it together, refusing to let Steve Harrington, of all people, see him in that state.

The boy, Jason, his parents pressed charges, and within that week he was walking through the doors of Lake County Juvenile Center in cuffs with his head hung low.

"Don't talk to anyone. Don't make friends. Don't take gifts. Don't take favors." Hopper said, sparing him a glance. "Be good."

Isaac spent the remainder of April through the end of summer vacation locked up, doing the same thing every day. He, only by a miracle of God, got released early due to good behavior. No one believed that. Not even Isaac himself, who now saw himself as a monster, believed that.

Isaac was released just days before school started. The car ride back to his house with Hopper was silent and awkward. The only sound coming from the radio and when voices crackled through Hopper's own radio.

The closer they got to arriving at his house, the more anxious Isaac became. His fingers, no longer bruised and bloody, but if he stared hard enough he could see the blood covering his knuckles and fingers.

If Isaac stared for too long, he was right back to April  13th. It was a Wednesday, unusually chilly compared to the rest of the warm weather they'd had due to summer quickly approaching.

It started off normal, Isaac got up, quietly got ready as to not wake the sleeping bear that was his father. He skipped breakfast, it would be too much noise to make something to eat. He decided he'd stop at the cafeteria and beg one of the ladies to slide him something extra before first period.