Hawkins was the perfect place for her; she had the idyllic life - not quite routine, but she was fine with that. Just enough happened in the small town for her to write her weekly journalism columns and normality was certain.
Until a certain chain o...
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Shay kept her distance for the duration of the ride to the Byers home and most of the time they waited in the house.
She had tried to give her condolences to Nancy, but upon realizing the girl was now in a murderous rage towards whatever had killed Barb, she decided to stay silent and help when she was needed. Shay took off some of Jonathan's workload, pouring gasoline on the carpet with his permission and setting small traps, like the nails in the floor with the chain wrapped around it.
After Jonathan ran down the plan with the girls a few times and they had cut their hands to draw the Demogorgon, Shay sat in the corner of the living room and tapped her fingers down the barrels of her shotgun quietly. She had hurriedly wrapped her hand in a rush to vacate herself of the tension between Nancy and Jonathan.
Sure, on a normal day she would be more than happy for the two to get together. But, seeing as Nancy had a boyfriend already, Bonnie's disappearance was making her panic and the other event that had happened yesterday, Shay wasn't too inclined to play the supportive friend.
The silence in the living room gave her a moment to breathe, to think about the day before. About how stupid she had been to let herself be put in that situation. Shay prided herself on being such a smart girl in such a belligerent town. How she defied the odds and refused to let anyone overshadow her - how she wouldn't let the man abuse her like so many people before her were.
She never realized that the monster she hated so much was in her bedroom. Hiding in her family for so many years.
She should have known that he was fucked up in the head, he had family issues and a criminal record since he was 14. But everyone excused it, even her, because a kid who has a controlling father was bound to be affected in some way. She never thought he would inherit those controlling tendencies.
That's all she was to him - a measure of control. Someone younger, naive and easy to manipulate. She knew that now. She just wished that she had known earlier.
She had heard of the trauma caused by sexual assault and abuse. Men who were known creeps always said that "a woman should be proud to draw that attention", and the thought of them saying that to anyone had always pissed her off. Now that it happened to her, she understood why the women that heard it felt defeated when it came to those remarks. Why they opted on silence and self-hatred instead of coming out with what had been done to them.
No man - or anyone, for that matter - would understand what had happened. The sickness in her gut and the heartbeat in her chest before it was done. The physical pain and mental anguish she was experiencing as it was done. The desire for death to swallow her entire being after it was done.
