Chapter Text
Pt. I
“Suddenly I wonder,
‘Where is the girl that I was last year?
Two years ago? What would
she think of me now?’”
– Sylvia Plath
She keeps the door open a crack now, found her old nightlight she had stashed away and plugged it into the outlet nearest her bed. She even checked her closet before bed, just in case. She was sixteen and afraid of the dark.
Nancy Wheeler was paranoid.
Every misstep made her jump and a surprise “tap” on the shoulder was now a threat. She was never much of a flincher, but now any sudden move made her neck snap. At least, she thought, her reflexes were good.
Yet her kisses had become chaste, her hand stiff and cold in his, and Steve was worried that Nancy didn’t like him anymore. Her smiles weren’t genuine anymore, her eyes had lost that warm glow that kindled a fire in his heart every time he looked into them. She wasn’t his Nancy anymore; he didn’t know who she was at all.
“I think we should break up,” Steve says coolly, wrist resting on the steering wheel of his car, eyes set on Nancy sitting in the passenger seat. She stares at him blankly, parts her lips as if to speak, but shuts them and nods instead.
“I understand.”
Steve manages to place his lips against Nancy’s sallow cheek before she slips out his car and disappears into her house, watching her window glow as she turns on the lamps one by one, the one illuminating window sticking out against the dark house. He hopes that this is the right thing to do, because god damn does it hurt to let her go.
If you love her, set her free.
He shifts his car into drive and heads home, lips sealed shut even as his favorite song breaks the airwaves and fills the stale air inside.
Nancy leaves her bedroom door open a sliver, her silhouette faint against her poster plastered wall, shadow outlined by the soft white nightlight shining bright next to her bed. She turns on a few lamps to cast out the darkness and slowly undresses, eyes on her shadowed figure cast against the curtain at her window. Steve would never come through that window again – he was done with her. Nancy knew she should be mad that he didn’t explain why he wanted to break up – he didn’t even try to pull some lame bullshit like “it’s not you, it’s me” or even bitch about her weird behavior – but there was no violent fire in her gut for him, no sadness weighing down her heart.
She just felt numb.
Slipping into a pair of pajamas, Nancy climbs into bed and curls up into herself, eyes wide open and focused on the light bulb burning in the lamp at her bedside table. Her eyes begin to water and she blinks rapidly, focusing her attention to her window, at the soft glow the moon throws at the sheer fabric of the curtain, illuminating a small patch of carpet at the foot of her bed.
Where Jonathan once slept.
That is, until she called him up to lay beside her, to lay awkwardly above the comforter while she was tucked underneath, their breathing contrasting until suddenly they were inhaling and exhaling at the same time. Nancy was awake the whole time while Jonathan dozed off, giving her a moment to actually study him.
When she was sure he was sleeping, Nancy turned on her side and really looked at Jonathan – the soft bump down the length of his nose, his incredibly long lashes, how full his bottom lip was, the dimple on his chin – and it was hard not to touch him, simply run her finger across his flush cheek and feel his cheekbone against the pad of her thumb. Even as he slept Jonathan looked worried, his sharp eyebrows permanently furrowed, but lying next to her, Nancy thought he looked incredibly peaceful.
Even kinda cute.
She was glad he was sleeping, the blush on her cheeks furious, one he would definitely notice. She found herself just staring at Jonathan when they were together – in the dark room, at the cemetery, sitting side by side at the police station as she iced his bruised skull – and it was foolish to deny that her heart would flutter when their eyes met, breath caught in their throats as they came to the same, grizzly realizations involving the whereabouts of their loved ones.
It was if he completed her, was healing the hole in her heart that still stung with the loss of Barb.
No one could ever replace Barb, but it was nice to have someone get it. Steve tried – she couldn't say he didn’t – but he just didn’t understand it fully. He wasn’t there – he wasn’t the one that she screamed for, who she clung to so fiercely she was sure she had bruised his ribs.
She wanted Jonathan.
She stretches her arm out across the space where Jonathan had slept, hand splayed out over the blanket his body rested on, and presses her palm into the comforter, closing her eyes and desperately imagining Jonathan lying next to her again, their chests rising and falling in tandem, sleeping soundly knowing that they were safe because they were together.
It's crazy how she’s thinking like this, how she’s feeling this way about Jonathan Byers. If you had asked her a year ago – two or three, hell even ten – if she would ever think of Jonathan Byers romantically, she’d politely say “no” and explain that she was only familiar with him because of their brothers. They were nothing more than friendly strangers – acquaintances – that smiled and said “hello” when prompted.
Now Nancy wished more than anything that he was lying beside her right now, holding her, keeping her safe from the monsters that preyed on her in the dark.
-end pt. i-