SWEETHEART || STRANGER THINGS

--- CAROLINE MATTHEWS was single-handedly the most awkward person on planet earth. She's an only child who didn't know how to properly interact with other people her age until she met someone equally as awkward, Jonathan Byers.

The two were both too shy to say two words to each other, so for nearly three months they sat at the same bench at recess simply just existing together. That was until Jonathan finally found the courage to ask if she wanted the other half of his sandwich when he realised she had no lunch with her that day. Her mother had been too hungover that morning to bother making her anything.

Since then they've been joint at the hip; Jonathan's younger brother Will joked that they had been fused together. Caroline quickly became a regular at the Byers household whenever her mother decided to get drunk off another bottle of cheap wine.

Her crush on Jonathan became apparent to her after they started high school when he started to stand up to Tommy H and Carol whenever they made comments about her. The effort was futile, but she had never had someone stand up for her in that way before.

She tried to hide it as best she could, but Joyce and Will caught on pretty quickly, Joyce with her knowing stare and Will just outright confronted her when Jonathan had left the room for a minute. The only person who didn't know was Jonathan, and she was fine with keeping it that way; she didn't want to ruin her only friendship since her stuffed teddy bear that she got when she was three.

But when Will goes missing one November night and Jonathan becomes closer with a certain Wheeler sibling, she feels her heart begin to crack slowly and achingly.