Work Text:
She sat on the edge of the Harrington’s pool, she told Barb to go home, she also told Steve she will go home, but she stayed there.
‘This isn’t you..’ Barb was right, tonight she was anything else instead of Nancy Wheeler.
She tried so hard to show a new personality, a new mask of herself, deep down she knew this was her trying to show to Steve, Tommy and Carol someone who wasn’t Nancy Wheeler, her.
Did she want Steve, or did she want to be the kind of girl Steve would want? Did she want to be at that party, or did she want to prove she could be the girl who went to parties?
“Is this real?” she whispered, she was talking about herself to herself, “was I real tonight?”
She knew the answer, they would never liked the girl who avoided late night parties to get ready for PSAT, SAT, ACT, and SAT from now on, in this semester, the girl who refused to have something lower than A in her grades, the girl who wanted to get to a high-class college and live on her own, she just didn’t want a future like her parents, was that too much to ask? She couldn’t ask that so she chose the actions instead of words.
People might know her a girl who is trying her best and will get a bright future, but with those stressful thoughts of ‘what should I wear to impress Steve?’ ‘how Carol would think of me?’ ‘what should I do so Tommy Hagan can’t make fun of me tomorrow at school?’ she realized, she could actually be herself, enjoy the party and absolutely don’t give a shit of what might they think of her!
She will get out of this town, start a life, and none of them will be a tiny part of that.
But tonight she didn’t thought about this and it was too late.
She's not simply at a party because she wants to have fun. She's trying to become someone who belongs there. She has an idea of the person she wants everyone to see, and she's trying to perform that person convincingly enough that nobody notices how uncomfortable she feels underneath the performance.
And Barb can see it. Barb can see her. She's recognizing that Nancy is behaving like someone who's trying desperately to fit a role rather than someone who's comfortable with her own choices.
“You were right, Barb” she looked at her own shaky reflection in the water, “This isn’t me..” she looked at her palms. And she quietly controlled her sob and stood up to finally leave.
But when she looked up, she wan still in Hawkins, but everything was... dark.... and cold!