ripped up my prom dress running through rose thorns

[queenofhawkinshigh]

Occasionally, Chrissy wonders if she should have tried to finish school the way Eddie did. It feels a little pathetic sometimes, having been two and a half months away from graduating and then just giving up. Every time the thought crosses her mind, though, she can't really bring herself to change her mind about it. Starting over so close to the end, even if she wouldn't be doing so for very long, just feels too daunting. There's an odd sort of comfort in the prospect of invisibility, in being no one for a change, having nothing to try to live up to, but there's terror in it, too. If people saw her for who she really is, she doesn't think they would like her at all. They certainly wouldn't think she's good enough.

Most people, anyway. Since that first day out in the woods back in Hawkins, Eddie has seemed different — different from what she expected, but also different from nearly everyone else she knows. She got the sense then that he actually saw her, and that's continued ever since. Strange as she may find it, he actually seems not to mind having her around, too. For her part, she knows there's no one here she's closer to. So while she couldn't bring herself to finish high school, she knows that it's a pretty big deal that he finally did. She can't just let an occasion like that pass without mention.

The idea has been in the back of her head for a while now, since just a little after he first told her that '86 was supposed to be his year. She's pretty sure it's stupid, and she figures the odds are about fifty-fifty that he'll wind up laughing at her, but she hasn't been able to think of anything else. In a small, plain gift box, she's put her gold 86 necklace. It may not technically be 1986 anymore here, but he still finished what he started then. And while it wound up very much not being her year after all, at least she'll have some use for this now.

She hasn't bothered with gift wrap, but she has tied a ribbon around the box, sitting now in the bottom of her purse as she waits to meet up with him. When she does spot him, she smiles, an instinct now that she chooses not to think too much about. "Hey," she says. "How does it feel, officially being a high school graduate?"

Comments

[didntrun]

"It's cool, knowing all these musicians just kept going, kept making music," he says, looking at his phone instead of Chrissy. Everywhere is a great song, but he hadn't really considered the lyrics before playing it and now he wonders if she'll think he's trying to tell her something, if she's going to start thinking of things to say in order to let him down easy.

He tries to think of something else, some other music fact he's learned, in order to make things feel less awkward, as least in his head. The only thing he can come up with kind of sucks.

"But then stuff like... well, Freddie Mercury died. In ninety-one, I think. It sucks."

[queenofhawkinshigh]

For a moment, with Eddie seeming so focused on his phone even as he speaks to her, Chrissy feels strangely awkward. It's hard not to wonder if she's said something wrong, except she hasn't said much at all. Maybe, instead, it's her expression that gives her away. Stupid, really, to be flustered by song lyrics when she knows full well that it doesn't mean anything, when she can't even see why it should matter.

What he says next quickly distracts her from that thought, anyway, her eyes going a bit wide as she draws in a breath. "Wait, what?" she replies. "Oh, my god, that's horrible."

Her mom never wanted her listening to Queen, but she likes them all the same. She's not sure she can bring herself to say that, though, not wanting to be laughed at for it.

[didntrun]

"Complete shit," Eddie agrees. "No one in music had a voice like his, there's just no way anyone could ever be that daring, too. He didn't give a shit what anyone thought of him."

He's a really talented musician, there's absolutely no pretending otherwise, but a big part of what Eddie has always liked about Freddie Mercury was that whole part of his personality. He never cared what others said, he never let it stop him if someone told him something couldn't be done musically or that it might fail. Maybe it would, but he still tried.