It Wasn't Your Fault. You Know That, Right? / @vihilum (nancy)
it wasn't your fault. you know that, right? / @vihilum (nancy)
the breath chrissy drew in was long and labored.
hawkins’ last three roller coaster years had proved wildly informative. power hungry corporations were allegedly endangering kids left and right, often enough to kill a few. (chrissy still recalled the last time she saw barbara holland in the cafeteria. if memory served, chrissy had been a little jealous of the smile on barb’s face.) there had been monsters at work from the beginning, biding their time below hawkins like spiders twitching, waiting patiently for a fly to clumsily flutter its way into their web.
but what chrissy cunningham had known for longer than the godforsaken upside down existed? it was her fault. it was always her fault. for eating the extra mouthful of protein, for not smiling hard enough, for not kicking high enough, for not willing herself weightless in the air to fly higher, born just unpretty enough to have to make up for that lack everywhere else.
amazing, how one voice could sound like a thousand. and the few outliers that didn’t sound like the one rang so falsely at first.
❝ are we so sure? ❞ i was weak enough to start the disaster. the gates.
she pivoted to look at nancy. hard. it felt monstrous all of a sudden to bore her gaze into the fellow senior’s face. it felt.....like turning the splitting stare of her own mother onto someone innocent of any wrongdoing. all nancy wheeler, good, reasonable, strong, determined nancy wheeler who flouted every high school expectation to stick up her chin and say what i want matters more than what you think of me, had done was ask an absolving question.
from experience, a queen bee’s glare could wither anyone from underclassmen to upperclassmen just as much as her smile could turn eyes to stars. that power came in handy now and again, unearned as it was. but in this moment....
she couldn’t do this. chrissy couldn’t do this to nancy. not even because she wanted honesty without cotton candy fluff and nonsense. to survive all this and to let her fears and worry mold her around constant suspicion? what a waste of time all but lost the night spring break began. she’d already spent enough of her life ruined and pretending.
❝ i’m sorry i’m pushing you. there’s still.... ❞ the smile she tried to push forth flickered true for a moment, then plummeted to bittersweet. no vaseline teeth here. (deep down, something hinted that nancy's the type to say forced optimism is pointless. the impression unwound a hidden knot in the cheerleader’s chest.) ❝ a lot to wrap my head around. have you ever been told something your whole life then all of a sudden the opposite is true? ❞ the words floated a few moments before chrissy huffed a chuckle at her toes, flicking her left pointer nail against the seam in her pants. ❝ like maybe there’s no such thing as a parallel universe. and suddenly there is, right here under our feet. ❞
More Posts from Greenscrunchy and Others
send ❛ ♡ ❜ to suddenly hug my muse !
could be angst , romantic , plationic , etc.
parent-child dynamics are soooo crazy. i love you i resent you i can't stand you i adore you i pity you. and still watching your hair get a little more grey every time i see you makes my stomach feel weird
(in tears) next year i will have so much fun!
It was, in fact, not their year at all, but let's ignore that :' )))
curse stranger things and their accidental symbolism
the air was cold, actually cold in hawkins for december. chrissy could be fooled into thinking that the place where she’d grown up was a place that made sense, where right side up really was the right side, and seasons were as black and white as they were supposed to be. but that illusion couldn’t be anything but fleeting. california fit more like a home for the past five months than hawkins ever had, even though it was fractionally warmer than what she was used to in winter, to the point that the beginning of december hadn’t felt real there until she’d arrived back in hawkins. where all the old, familiar places had shrunk into pitiful, sad imitations of what younger chrissy lived with so willingly.
there was one last place that still managed to make her feel welcome when all else fell through, one place that felt innately warm: the munson stoop. an emphatic middle finger to the blustery chill shooting shards of wracking frigidity through chrissy’s coat. eddie would be proud to know.
he was why she was there in the first place, rocking on her toes after knocking at the door. it had taken a minute to work up enough assurance that this wasn’t a mistake before her knuckles hit metal, but it happened. she knocked. and now she’d wait for the door to open and for just the right greeting to float down from her brain when it did.
except when it did open, chrissy stalled.
five long months of nothing but notes and letters and phone calls since summer ended, and there was eddie munson just a few inches away. in the flesh.
❝ hi? ❞ what a way to sound the opposite of confident, but when chrissy meant so much, almost too much, by her announcement-free arrival, it was hard to know what to say first. ❝ i hope that.... — oh, forget it. merry christmas, eddie. i thought i’d try to surprise you. ❞
SURPRISE! merry christmas, @hellmartyr !
𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙈𝙄𝙉𝘿𝙔 𝙃𝘼𝙂𝘼𝙉 (cheerleadcr)
@greenscrunchy liked this post!
❛ The team here is genuinely so much better than it was in Milford. I mean, like, seriously we never had boys cheering with us there! Plus, it’s way bigger here too. I thought going from one small town to another meant things wouldn’t be too different but, guess I was wrong. ❜
❝ that’s really cool of you to say. ❞ and high compliments from another girl who looked like she lived and breathed the sport as much as chrissy did. ❝ our guys are awesome! we can do so many more formations and routines with them here. but i’m proud of our whole team. ❞ the strawberry blonde couldn’t help but stand up a little straighter with preening glee. ❝ they work super hard, and it shows. have you been able to meet most of them yet? you’ve probably met our coach already, right? i know it’s a lot so soon. ❞
chrissy is at heart a profoundly private person who tires in social situations far quicker than she lets on and will never admit. this becomes especially apparent once she leaves hawkins for college and then for good. (her one exception is cheerleading.)
she’s also the type that will invite friends who don’t have a place to go for the holidays over for thanksgiving and christmas and new years and easter and whatever. you don’t have family or a place to go for the holidays? now you do. you don’t want to deal with your family? come over to her place instead. she gets it.
From one Chrissy mun to another; I want to give you a little reminder that your portrayal is one of a kind! You put so much into the writing and into making her your own version and it shows! (Plus you have great muse taste). I'm rooting for you endlessly and wish you a happy hump day! May the rest of your week go swimmingly!
^^^ me when you
in all seriousness, what a lovely thing to see today!!! it warms my heart so much to know chrissy has such sweet rep in this little community and your positivity in particular is a gift. 🧡 tysm victoria!!! keep on keeping on yourself, and cheers to spectacular muse taste ;)
much love from me to you 🧡💚🤍 team chrissy always
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vihilum reblogged this · 2 years ago -
greenscrunchy reblogged this · 2 years ago
𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐘 𝐂𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐀𝐌 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐬. 𝘢 𝘱𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯.
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