Jailbird || Stranger Things

eight ➵ special set of skills

Taking Spanish as an elective was perhaps one of the stupidest things Teresa believed she did that year. Hell, it was only April, and she already regretted it.

Her pencil continued to lay sideways between her fingers as she did her best to shade in as much of the drawing she'd made in the morning when she couldn't sleep. Having taken herself off her prescription, her sleeping patterns were back to a disorganized mess that she was only able to manage with copious amounts of caffeine during the day, as well as quiet evenings. The new pattern was somewhat helpful, but she still found herself waking hours before the sun, and sometimes, shaking herself out of a nightmare.

Jim was starting to think he should talk to her, but Joyce had recommended giving her space. However, there were a few other people who, in the months of knowing her, actually started paying attention to her blank stares and excessive yawning as she went through her day.

"Does she seem weird to you?" Nancy asked as she and Jonathan spotted Reese walking by towards her locker.

"It's Reese. Weird is relative," Jonathan replied, but looked up from his locker anyway, his eyes finding Reese as she stifled another yawn. "But yes."

"Steve says she's been like this for a few months, but it got worse lately. He just thought she didn't sleep enough."

"Yeah," Jonathan murmured, "She's like Will was when he got back," he whispered.

"You don't think—" the girl turned to him, clutching her books to her chest. "I mean maybe the chief—"

"He said he didn't tell her anything. And she wasn't there, so it'd be pretty difficult for her to dream about it," he immediately replied, looking back to his locker but taking a few glances at Reese as she looked through her books.

"Maybe she's having a hard time," Nancy thought out loud, looking back to the girl.

"You should talk to her."

Both of them looked up to see Steve standing just beside Nancy, shooting them a small smile as he wound an arm around his girlfriend.

"Me?"

"You're the girl. You're better with that stuff," he shrugged, ignoring the way Jonathan averted his eyes from the two. "She might talk to you."

"She doesn't talk," Jonathan spoke. "Like about anything from California, or home. She just doesn't."

The three of them turned towards the girl they'd become friends with in the short while since she'd returned to Hawkins. Even a few months later, she was still a breath of fresh air.

Reese was unaware of being the topic of conversation with the three teens. Her attention was purely on her locker, where she was looking through her sketchbook. Her sleepy state just about managed to pick out the pattern on each page.

She hadn't realized she was sketching Hawkins landmarks—or what a local would consider landmarks anyway.

Her eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she tried to remember anything about the dreams, but she'd mostly just woken up and immediately started sketching. She had no idea why these images came to her. It was how she'd always dealt with a nightmare, something her mother encouraged, and it was useful once her nightmares became regular occurrences.

But these images were haunting. So much so, that she felt a chill settle in her bones from just taking in the dark shadows and the familiar curve of the roads and the columns and walls of the buildings.

"Gnarly."

Shutting the pad with haste, Reese spun on her heels to come face to face with a familiar face.