It's funny how the brain works, it makes you remember the best moments and the worst moments of your life, or sometimes it erases the worst moments for you so you never have to relive them. My point is: it never remembers the mediocre moments, the brain decides they're not important so all those memories that aren't good enough to be remembered or bad enough to wiped just simply aren't there.

The problem is, my childhood was extremely mediocre, boring even. I can't remember much of it because none of it was important enough to remember.

Another slight problem is that most people form their identity during their early teenage years, I can't remember any of that so... I don't really know who I am.

I guess these past few weeks have given me a rough idea, here's what I'm working with so far:

Valerie Wheeler, freshly recruited part-time nerd who likes to draw sometimes. Also known as "the freak's girlfriend" and commonly referred to as "the skank" by the basketball team.

Neither of those are true, to make that very clear.

In high school you become excruciatingly aware of every name that gets thrown at you, every bitchy comment, those are also memories your brain remembers just to make your life hell.

I'm thinking about all of this and I realise that I really hate my brain.

And now, back to reality.

"I just don't like that you've been staying out late recently, it's dangerous, you're being reckless." Mom sighs, and I sit down on the couch opposite her.

"But when Mike stays out late you let him get away with it because he's just having fun with his friends, right?" I counter.

"Valerie, come on." she frowns.

"What? You constantly treat Mike like he's some golden child but treat me like I'm uncontrollable when I'm doing the exact same stuff as him. He's hanging out with friends, so am I." I laugh in disbelief, she always acts like I'm doing something wrong but then can never explain what I'm actually doing wrong.

She can't come up with any good arguments as to why I can't hang out with Eddie without her slipping some casual misogyny into the discussion. I'm waiting for the day she'll realise she blatantly favourites Mike.

And I was slightly lying because Eddie was a little more than a friend, she didn't need to know that though.

"And I'm 18, Mom. I'm not exactly a child anymore. You can't keep worrying about me, I'll be living by myself the second I graduate anyway, there's no point trying to shelter me from the real world." I tell her.

"... You're right, I'm sorry." Mom apologises for what seems like the first time ever.

This is a refreshing change, am I dreaming?

"Sometimes I just miss when you and Chrissy were friends, whenever you were out late I knew you'd be safe with her. Now you're out with god knows who doing god knows what."

"I'm out with Eddie, we're usually just chilling at his trailer or we're out in town getting something to eat." I tell her honestly.

She still seems a little unsure.

"You've met Eddie so many times, you said he was nice. I'm much safer with him than I was with Chrissy, that's for sure."

Not that Chrissy was a threat or anything, but her boyfriend definitely was.

"I like Eddie's hair." I hear Holly say from the table.

Me too, Holly.

...

"Holy fucking shit." Eddie freezes once we reach the crowd of people huddling in one of the miserable halls of Hawkins High.

There's never a normal day in this school, always some sort of petty drama over boys or whatever. Although, I was half expecting a normal day when I'd woken up this morning.

Whispers stirred in the air, Eddie's hand clutched onto mine tightly as we pushed past a few people to get a better view of what everyone was talking about.

Damn.

'JASON CARVER IS A CHEATER' written messily in black spray paint along a wall.

Well, they're right. I just didn't think anyone actually had the guts to tell everyone though, especially not like this.

"I heard he slept with Shelly." A voice behind me speculated, everyone around me had different theories.

The issue with Jason Carver is that he's a liar and he overcompensates to make sure everyone thinks he's perfect. He does all those speeches about how much he adores Chrissy before basketball games but after these games he's out drinking, and when Jason's drunk he's always finding more girls to hook up with and forget about the next morning.

He's an asshole, Chrissy is just too in love with him to notice.

"This is uh- not good, Wheeler." Eddie seemed to stiffen up a little as he glanced at the writing again, "Jason's gonna think this was me."

I thought back to that day in the cafeteria when Eddie seemed to be blackmailing Jason with something. It must've been that Jason has cheated on Chrissy, it's common knowledge but nobody ever seemed to have confirmation that Jason's a cheater, unless Eddie had something.

"Let's skip today then." I decide without a second thought.

"Little Miss Perfect rebelling once again? I love it, let's get out of here." he slings his arm around my shoulder, and we're already on our way out of school.

"I didn't skip school until I started hanging out with you, you're a terrible influence." I tell him as we shift past more crowds of people.

"Where are you going?" A familiar face stops us, confused. It was Gareth.

"Home." Eddie and I said in unison.

And by home, I meant Eddie's trailer.

☆ ☆ ☆

so apparently joe quinn is back in south west london I LIVE THERE AAAA someone met him like 10 minutes away from me i'm so jealous 😭

i didn't proofread this chapter at all so there's probably a few mistakes feel free to point them out if there are any lmao

if valerie was a teenager in 2022 her fav song would definitely be bags by clairo HMMM i might make a val playlist