Me, Myself, and Her

Chapter One

Chapter One: Long Story Short

There has never been any normal in the life of Annie Harrington. That's a very broad statement but a very true one.

Her parents thought their marriage would be miraculously fixed if they had another kid, so that's how she came to be. But that really didn't work, so her father went on 'business trips' to cheat on her mother. After a while, she just started going with him to make sure he'd stop. Sometimes, divorce is the best option.

Steve, Annie's older brother, became a popular kid right away when he got to the age where there were popular kids in school. By association, Annie ended up becoming pretty popular, too. But she never could reach Steve's levels of popular.

Everyone always associates popularity with having friends, but that was her issue for a while. There were plenty of people to say hello to in the halls, but nobody she'd ever hang out with after school until she met Will Byers, who introduced her to Mike Wheeler, Lucas Sinclair, and Dustin Henderson.

They're pretty chill, albeit a bit nerdy, and they taught her how to play Dungeons and Dragons with them. But they usually don't like it when she plays with them since she's still learning so they do other things together like go to the arcade or go see a movie at the theater. It was super fun and she even made some other friends while at these places and school so the boys can play DnD while she hung out with others.

That was, until the fall of 1983. Will went missing and Annie was devastated. He was the one out of the group she was closest to. Dustin was friendly enough, but Lucas and Mike were a bit more cold.

So when Will went missing, Annie was basically shut out from their group. It was painful but she silently suffered while hanging out with her other friends.

Holly James became her best friend. Annie told her everything and in turn she told Annie everything. They became some super girly best friends- something past Annie would cringe so hard at. But that was the girl who used to hang out with guys, so she doesn't get to say anything.

Her other best friend, Meghan Lopez, was the tomboy of the group now; she was only called that because she plays soccer. That's literally it. She matched Holly and Annie in every other way.

They became her safe space while Will was gone, and they were super helpful in making her feel better. Even after Will came back, they were there.

And so she stayed. Will acted so different after he came back, trauma of going missing Annie figured, and it felt like the other three were keeping him away from her and everyone else. It was a whole mess.

So when they started the next year of school, Annie ditched them almost completely (still talked to Will in the halls when she could cause he's so sweet) and tried to fit in even more. It's like she was finally starting to fill her brother's shadow. He was always there for her, of course, except when he had parties at the pool then he'd ask me to go to a friend's house. Those ended after Barb, his girlfriend Nancy's best friend, disappeared and never came back. Not everyone can be as lucky as Will Byers.

~~

Annie was walking down the hall in between Holly and Meghan, lost in her head. She wasn't thinking of anything specifically, just lost in random thoughts of home, school, and anything else.

It was so bad, that Holly had to snap her fingers in front of Annie's face to finally get the girl's attention. "Hey, you lost?" Holly asked with a small laugh.

Annie smiled lightly and shook her head. "I'm good, just zoned for a second. What's going on?" she asked, figuring her input was needed and that's how the finger-snapping came to be.