✓ Her Mixtape, Stranger Things

xliii. invisible string

Eleven gave Rue a hopeful grin. "Try to lighten up today, please. For me." And she paused before glancing at Rue with wide eyes and a cute pout, "Promise you'll be nice."

Rue cursed El as she gave her puppy dog eyes. She rolled her eyes, knowing she could never say no to El. And Eleven smirked, knowing that very well. It was possibly Rue's weakness; Eleven's puppy eyes as she pleads.

Today was important for El and even Will; Mike and Alex were staying for the spring break, something the two of them had all been planning and looking forward to since Christmas. But don't get her wrong, Rue had been looking forward to seeing her old friends, too. It had just been unlucky that Maxine called that same morning, possibly ruining Rue's mood for the whole day. Worse, Max was also meant to come to California for the break.

Nonetheless, Rue tried not to be a Debbie Downer for Will and Eleven. "Okay," she mumbled, "I promise, I'll be nice."

That didn't seem enough for El, and she narrowed her brows with a serious look. "Cross your heart?"

Rue nodded and turned to stare ahead again. She hesitated for a beat and pinched the skin of her arm. When Rue blinked, she saw her dad making promises he couldn't keep. "And hope to die."

Rue's pledge seemed convincing enough for El to let it go and lean back in her seat. She entertained her nerves by chatting with Will, who seemed just as excited or terrified. Rue couldn't tell which he felt more while he practically bounced in his seat.

Rue pulled her headphones over her ears, enjoying the way the whole world turned silent. All of the overlapping voices, all of the overlapping thoughts she could hear, all disappeared as the piano from Queen's Somebody To Love played in her ears.

 　　Ooh, each morning I get up, I die a little 
　　Can barely stand on my feet 
　　Take a look in the mirror and cry.

The short memory of her Bob Newby had evolved into the memory of the lab, then of the Demo-Dogs, and finally into the memory of Hawkins.

That cursed, damned town wouldn't leave her mind. It had taken everything Rue had ever loved away from her. It took away her dad, and it tore out her childhood. Hawkins left scars on her skin that would never go away, where stitches once were that aided in setting her back together again. Hawkins left mental scars that pieced the girl she eventually became.

Despite the fury, Hawkins scared Rue. She was fucking afraid of that town. All the monsters that lurked in the night, the ghosts that crept in the shadows. . . Sometimes Rue liked to think that maybe one of those ghosts was the part of herself she left behind. The missing puzzle piece that Joyce pledges Rue must encounter.

She wondered if that was the reason she felt so detached from reality.

But Rue was still in Hawkins in some way. She never really left. It felt as if there was an invisible string that tied her to the town, forbidding her from ever leaving, forbidding her from moving on. No matter how much Rue claimed she would take a bullet to her head than return to Hawkins, the string tugged and tugged, calling her to go back. Go back. Go home. Come home.

Come home, we can fight here.

Those were the words Max had said to Rue that morning. Home. Home. Home. Could Rue even call Hawkins her home?

Come home.

The invisible string kept her tied to Hawkins. It kept her thinking about it, more than she would like to admit. She shouldn't. She shouldn't. Rue knows she shouldn't. But why does she want to? Why was it calling her?

Come home.

The thought of returning home wouldn't leave her mind. Rue imagined herself stepping back into Hawkins, letting herself return to the girl she once was. Was it possible that Rue wanted to go back? Not for Max, or for whatever Joyce argued, but to return home for herself. She'd return to Hawkins out of her own curiosity, to revisit whatever good memories she had actually made there and confirm that none of it was some fucked up dream.