STATUS: UNKNOWN [stranger things] [2/2]

I - All I Want Is to Be Your Girl

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"Black holes in the skies to the ends of the world,

Put rocks in your pocket take the boat for a whirl,

and all I want is to be your girl"

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Our story opens in a one-bedroom apartment in Washington, Missouri, one with cracked bathroom tiles and a kitchen sink that needs to be fixed every two weeks.

Carina Punt is sat on the sofa with a cup of tea in her shaking hands, and she cannot take her eyes off of the girl opposite her.

Tiff Anderson is sat on the coffee table, Carina Punts feet in her lap, and she is painting her nails a soft baby blue, humming along to Uptown Girl playing on the record player. This is a regular occurrence in their home. When Carina couldn't sleep, or when she tried and she woke up some way or another, Tiff would make her some herbal tea and she would not ask a single question about the nightmares.

When Carina Punt could not, would not, or tried to and failed to sleep, Tiff Anderson would sit with her, every time, without fail. She'd paint her nails a light colour or play with her hair, and if she cried she would hold her, but she never asked.

"I hate this song."

"Everyone hates the rest of the album, Carrie." Tiff says, her voice a lot softer than the other girls. "I didn't buy it for Careless Talk, I bought it for Uptown and Easy Money."

Carina Punt makes a noise of agreement, eyes drifting over to the clock on the wall.  2:45am. It always ran five minutes behind, but neither of them had quite found the will to change it. They figured that if they did, they'd forget, and their lives would run out of sync with the rest of the world. Carina doesn't think it sounds too bad, she likes out of sync. It's what she knows. She knows it very, very well. But Tiff thinks the rest of the world is important, and so that's how Carina keeps herself. She keeps herself in with the rest of the world and she finds that she likes it.

"The plants under the window are dying. I don't know what I'm doing wrong."

"You'll figure it out."

"Mrs Cavanagh downstairs says that if your plants die when you're doing everything right, it's because they're protecting you from bad spells." Tiff shrugs, glancing up at Carina before returning her gaze to the nail polish. A moment of silence passed between them. "I don't know, I just thought it was nice."

She does this a lot. Tiff knows that Carina cares about what she has to say. Knows that she's giving her an encouraging smile and that she was as enthusiastic as she was when she finally bought flowers for the windows. But she can't help but think that her flowers dying is nothing compared to what she went through.

Not that Tiff knows what it really was, or that she would believe it anyhow, but she sees the scars on Carina, and she sees how she looks at her hands and panics because she herself forgets what happened to her.

Tiff doesn't really mind not knowing. She thinks it will hurt Carina more to tell her, so she never asks. They talk about other things - like how work at the boutique is going, and how the new animal at the rescue shelter is holding up, or what to have for dinner, but they never talk about their pasts. Carina says that she misses her mom and Tiff says a wistful 'me too' and they never mention it again.

"It is nice." Carina agrees, finally. "Just keep looking after them. It'll work out if it can."

It is 2:52am (or so the clock reads) in a one-bedroom apartment in Washington, Missouri, and Carina Punt thinks she might be in love. Tiff Anderson knows that she is.

Two states over, it is 3:47am and a girl by the name of Nancy Wheeler is sat at her window, photo in her hand and leather jacket over her shoulders. The foul smell of cigarettes has long since faded and every night she considers setting a Malboro alight right next to it so that she can pretend it hasn't been a year. Pretend the jacket was left there by mistake, that she can hand it over tomorrow morning on the way to school.

The photo, with its curled edges and red nail polish stain in the corner, is of three girls. When Nancy looks in it she sees only herself left. The girl on the left, with the red hair and big glasses, she knows is gone. She's come to live with it, she convinces herself. She mourns again every time she goes to dinner at the girls parents but she's come to accept the cruel way things had gone.

The girl on the right, with the long dark hair and the bloody red lipstick, she thinks she might be gone too. But with no way to know, Nancy lives in the ever so senseless hope of her return. She makes a memorial from the goosebumps on her skin. Stands in the doorway of her bedroom when she visits the girls mum. Speaks into the night what she wants to tell her. She thinks Rosemary would call her selfish for indulging in such feelings. She wishes she would.

Nancy thinks she loved her. She thinks that she would have died for her. 

She thinks she did.