"It would have," Chrissy agrees, smiling at what he says. She knows Eddie well enough by now to know that when he calls her a freak, he means it as a compliment, no matter how many times that word was slung at him as a vicious insult. Of course, it's easier for her to say all this with the security of distance. Back in Hawkins, no matter how much she likes to think she would have, she doesn't actually know if she would have been brave enough to act on that thought, to let everyone see who she really is and what a fraud she's always been, to face the hell she knows she would have gotten for it.

She likes to think, though, that she'd have done it. She likes to think, too, that the friendship they've built here isn't just because she died in his trailer. Something changed for her, that day in the woods. She has no idea how she would explain it if she tried, but she feels sure of it all the same.

"But I would have, too." This, she means entirely. He is really cool, far more than she ever realized before they started spending time together. "Honestly... I would have benefited just from having a friend at all. I don't think anyone I was hanging out with back home was. Not really."