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༉˚*ೃ ᵒ³. 𝐈'𝐋𝐋 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔!
𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐘 was nine years old, her mother had taken her to the Fourth of July fair. They'd ridden the merry-go-round and then eaten cotton candy until they'd felt sick, and Carrie's dad hadn't come along, of course, but that was okay because when was that anything new? Carrie had forced her mother to go on the spinning teacups and Carrie had won a giant stuffed teddy bear as a prize after Helena had spent a hell of a long time playing darts to give it to her. She still remembered that day—how the scent of candy and butter and corndogs and caramel popcorn had hung so thick in the air you could nearly taste it; how she'd screamed on all the scary ones and laughed on all those that were calmer; they'd eaten their weight in fried food and tornado potato sticks; and Carrie had seen ten-year-old Steve Harrington there and hugged him so hard that her arms hurt.
She remembered it too, because it had one of the biggest crowds she'd ever seen. Walking through the main area was being squashed against strangers, pushing and shoving and trying to get through. It was being unable to see beyond all those taller around you. It was Carrie having her mother hold onto her as to not lose her amongst all the people. For some reason, that always stuck the most. "Don't get lost, okay?" her mother had told Carrie as she made sure to hold her small hand tightly. Carrie would have never let go. Never, ever, ever. "Don't let go. I'll never find you again in this big crowd. Don't let go, Carrie."
That was what Carrie thought about when she woke up. Her mother's voice still seemed alive in her ears. But it wasn't real. It never was. Carrie's brown eyes traced the cracks on her ceiling—the small ones, the sharp ones, the ones that twisted into funny shapes. All the time, she clenched her fists at her side and gripped the sheets in them and tried to stave off the pain squeezing her chest, like usual. She inspected each corner of the roof. Sometimes, Carrie didn't want to wake up at all.
She forced herself out of her bed and got dressed: a simple leather jacket, black jeans, a Ramones t-shirt, and then put on some makeup and did her hair, but she didn't try too much today. All that was on her mind was Will Byers and Joyce. Carrie tapped the giant stuffed bear by her bedroom door on the head as she left, and slammed the door shut behind her. The effort shook the house a little and Carrie jogged down the stairs so she wouldn't be too late for school today, because she wanted to dig more into the case of Will. Her father would be sleeping as usual and so Carrie just quickly ate breakfast and left the house. She slammed that door shut, too. Her life seemed to run in a numb clockwork that never changed. Carrie hated it. It had been that way since the day her mother went missing.
