Eight. Jen and Alex
Hawkins, Nov 1983
She's scared to move. There's a cop outside her door, it's the young one with the glasses too big for his boneyard face. He's always here and always smells like chips. The greasy kind that makes Jen queasy and Alex want to gag.
Jen hides behind the door, she just about peaks through the small glass cutout every now and then. "Jennifer, open the door! We know you're home!" She wishes she wasn't home, because she knows why they're here. They're here for the same reason they're always here for.
(She should sneak off the next time this happens.)
Also, don't call her Jennifer, please. That is not her name.
The girl shuffles gently, she's quiet. She peaks between the blinds now, there's two cop cars. She can see her sister's hanging head in the back of the first one. Her stomach growls. "Jennifer!" She hasn't eaten breakfast, or lunch. "Jennifer Leadison!" She flinches and shakes her head. She's gotten so good at being quiet. At being invisible. But Alex makes that impossible, she sticks out like a sore fucking thumb.
She hears shuffling outside and mumbles of male voices. Callahan moves towards the first cop car, "she ain't coming out, Jim." The driver door then opens and Jen curses when she sees Hopper. She's going to throw up for real now. There's a heavy knock on her door. (She's really fucking hungry.) "Jen, come on now. Just open the damn door. You know you're not the one in trouble."
If Alex is in trouble, Jen is in trouble. There's no in between.
Her fingers drag across her eyes, bringing mascara with them and down her skin. "Jen." She frowns and stands, she messes with the dead lock and then the dead bolt. The doors heavy to pull open, she has to use two hands. Jim Hopper stands there. There's a cigarette behind his ear and his hat is in his hands. "I don't want her back." Jen's voice cracks as she says it and her eyes move around behind Jim.
There's neighbors watching. They always do. Jen wonders if Eddie's watching. He is. She knows deep down he is. He always is.
Jim sighs, "she's not a dog, Jen. I have to bring her back. It's the law. This is her home. She is your guardian. She's your older sister."
Jen hates the law and her older sister.
"She is barely a guardianâor a sister." The girls jaw clenches, and she lets go of the door. She basically folds in on herself and Jim feels bad, he really doesâshe's a good kid who's seen it all. He nods towards Callahan, and the young man gets Alex from the back of the car. Her hairs long and knotty (longer than Jen's), she has two day old makeup on her face. There's a cut on her lip and her waterlines are beat, blood red. Jen gets more sick just looking at her. There's a huge tear in her skirt, and Jen doesn't even want to know what's happened this time.
Jim doesn't explain anyway, he stopped explaining on the eighth time he came around, three months ago.
The cuffs are taken off Alex's wrists.
Jen can see the red marks of restraint on her older sister's skin. (How Alex's hasn't been permanently thrown in jail yet is beyond Jen. She figures Hopper has something to do with that. He was friends with their mother before she went and offed herself.) Callahan gets back in the second car, like he's running away from Alex. Jen doesn't blame him, he is running away from her.
Jim squeezes Jen's elbow. "Maybe you should keep a leash on her."
Jen hums with a lit, "I thought you said she wasn't a dog."
He's the one who hums next before he backtracks down the stone steps and towards his own car. He doesn't even glance at Alex, who's still standing in the grass two feet away from the stone steps like she's been informed her cat has died.
(They don't have a cat. Alex hates cats.)
When Jen and Alex make eye contact, Jen wishes she could slam one of Eddie's whiskey bottles he keeps under his bed over her ridiculous high head.
Alex tries to speak on shaking limbs, but Jen holds up a hand. She shakes her head. "I don't want to hear it." I'm tired of your bullshit, but she doesn't say that. She should, but Alex already knows. They both know.
Jen disappears from the door.
Alex lets out a shaking breath, her palms push into her eyes heavily. When they pull back she sees stars as she looks around the trailer park. There's many olders looking, she's given up on their opinions. But Eddie Munson, his opinion bothers her. They make eye contact, he's on an broken leather couch in front of his trailer. He's smoking a cigarette and he shakes his head disapprovingly. Alex knows it's not for her, but for her little sister. Fuck you, Alex almost spits. She hates him, Lowen hated him. Alex and Lowen hated together, now it's just Alex, hating.
Alex boils as she stomps into her small home.
She may be older, but she is the child. The child who didn't get to see her mother as she was wheeled away in a black body bag. The child who doesn't know how to cook. The child who can't pay the water bill. The child who can't rig wires to keep the lights on when the bills are past due. The child who can't keep her nose clean or her lips sanitized or her legs closed. She is the child who rots among the dolls covered in ash and dirt.
She's horribly human, and Jen is horribly Jen.
"Jen.." She whispers as she closes the door. She winces at its weight, it nearly drags her back with it. (The door is really fucking heavy.) The bathroom light is on and Alex almost gags on the way to the small room. The small room where Jennifer Leadison (mother) took her last breath. Her last blink. Her last cry. Her last yell. Her last curse.
But Alex stops. She stops at the kitchen table. Her dark eyes on the red roses. They aren't in a vase. "What is this?" Alex calls out. Jen peaks her head out of the bathroom, following her sisters gaze. She huffs, "they're from a drug dealer, Alex."
The older girls head snaps towards her sister, "excuse me?"
Jen sighs, arms folding over her chest. "You know, for someone who really likes drugs you act like drug dealers are killers. Where do you think you get your drugs from, Alex?"
Alex's jaw clenches, "who sent the fucking flowers, Jen."
Her folded arms fall from her chest. Defeated. "They're from Rick. The last dude that fucked mom. He sends them every month. I'd tell him to stop but I don't know where he lives and there's no information on the card. He's a ghost."
Alex breathes. "Why don't you ask Eddie."
Jen tenses at the name. Her eyes pierce into her sister's gaze. "You can be rude and clean up your own nasty face."
Alex loses her tight face. "Sorry." She's never cleaned herself up after being gone, Jen always does it. Jen wonders if Alex even knows how to disinfect a cut, safely.
Jen just rolls her eyes, she disregards her stinging tear ducts and moves back towards the bathroom. Alex follows, pushing up onto the sinks counter. The room creaks, neither girl is fazed. It's silent between them.
Jen starts the routine.
She starts at her sister's shoes, her actions have care to them despite her girlhood anger. They don't have the money to afford new shoes to toss around carelessly.
Jen grimaces at her sister's white socks with frill edges, the cotton around her big toe is soaked red. "Your toe is bleeding?" Alex just hums, head thrown back against the dirty mirror. Eyes stapled shut. "I know."
"Does it hurt?"
"I can't feel it anymore."
Jen frowns, she leaves the socks on and moves on. It's her sister's scraped knees to her red knuckles to messy makeup to split skin. Alex winces at the rubbing alcohol to her cut. Jen's being harder than usual. Alex figures. "I think Steve Harrington moved into Lowen's trailer."
Jen pauses, mid swipe.
"How the hell do you know that?"
"He had a bunch of boxes with him before I left. His car is still there now."
Jen's lips part but she doesn't know what to say. Though, it doesn't matterâAlex carries on. "Why the hell would he come to a trailer park when he lives in that huge two story mansion."
"He has a baby." Jen whispers.
Alex scoffs, roughly. Her eyes are still screwed shut. "Your point. Mom had two of them and would kill to not be here, and he's here because what? His daddy likes to cheat, his mommy likes too much wine? He misses his ex? That's fucking stupid. A child should not be raised in this fucking ditch. Kids who grow up here die early. You fuckin' remember Melody Roberts. She slammed her car into a tree. Jaxon Maze shot himself last year and Bella Smith four months agoâ"
"What is wrong with you." (Jen doesn't mention that Steve's ex, mother of his child, is Alex's best friend and weird occasional hookupâthe one that ran away.)
Jen says it quick and rough, so not like her. It makes Alex's eyes peel open. "What the fuck is wrong with you. Why would you say shit like that. Trailer park kids don't die early. Stop speaking about Melody, Jaxon, and Bella like that. It's rude. They're gone. And you don't know Steve or his baby. He's young figuring shit out, like mom did." Jen rarely curses.
Alex scoffs, "and look at her now. He's gonna kill himself here too. Everyone does. Lowen might as well have done it too." Jen has no words.
It's silent for a moment before Alex goes again: "Why are you defending him anyway? He's an entitled prick."
(She's just mad Lowen picked him over her.)
Jen almost slaps Alex. Instead she shoves the damp cotton swab of burning alcohol into her sister's bloody skin more. Alex cries, slapping her sister's hand away. Jen drops the swab on Alex's foot, the one with the bleeding toe. "Fuck, Jen!"
Jen doesn't say anything, she silently walks away, seething.
The front door slams heavy behind her as she goes down the stone steps quick. She makes a fiery walk to Eddie's trailer, it's two over. She hits heavy at the door, her hands shake and her eyes finally water. Why was she defending Steve? He's only ever been an asshole, and a kid won't suddenly change that. But still, what gives Alex the right. He's still a person..?
It's all a cycle. Jen hates Steve because Steve had Lowen, who was taken from Alex and that made Alex ugly and that comes back to Jen. Stupid, stupid cycle.
She should hate Steve. I think she does, somewhere.
Jen flinches as Eddie's door opens, easier than her own. Her eyes meet his and he sighs. "I was waiting for you. Figured you'd be over sooner." Her chin wobbles and she looks away from the boy. She can smell him, oddly enoughâthere's no tinge of car grease. It's coconut and cigarettes. His shirt is nonexistent and his tattoos stand out like bright highlighters. "My uncles not home, in case you were wondering."
She was. Silently.
Jen's eyes move back towards the boy, all watery. Eddie frowns, a hand gently held out. "You wanna come inside?"
She takes his hand, his rings are cold against her hot skin.
He's cold everywhere on her hot skin that night, like it always is.