Valerie Archer wasn't sure what she had done the past couple of days that somehow afforded her entrance into Steve Harrington's, the proclaimed king of Hawkins, room.
Yet there she stood, awkwardly looking around at his generic bedroom as she dripped the smallest amount of pool water onto his hardwood floors.
"You're cool with this right?" Steve questioned Charlie as he handed the boy a pile of clothes he had forgotten at Steve's house ages ago along with an extra pair of sweat pants for Valerie to steal.
"You mean you banging my sister?" Charlie questioned the boy, who awkwardly chuckled and nodded as he scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, sure bro. As long as I don't have to hear any of the gory details." Charlie shrugged.
Steve let out a hearty laugh before patting his best friend's back. "Hey." Nancy spoke as she entered the room. "Have fun you two." Charlie snickered as he pulled Valerie towards the door, shooting Steve a wink once he was behind his sister.
Valerie had noticed the boys did that a lot. "Bye, Val." Nancy called out, to which the girl gave her a smile and a small wave.
"There's a bathroom just over here." Charlie spoke as he led the girl down the stairs. "Great, thanks." Valerie smiled before slipping into the guest bathroom. Now that she stood in front of a mirror Valerie was extremely conscious of the way her light blue bra was visible through her top.
Whatever buzz she once had dissolved as she anxiously wiped away any smeared mascara and attempted to pry her hair clips out of her now tangled locks. She hadn't though about the fact her naturally curly hair didn't mix well with chlorine.
Peeling her top off she replaced it with Charlie's sweater, which hung down to the middle of her thigh due to the few inches he had on Valerie. The girl couldn't take her eyes off the mirror as she replaced her soaked jeans with a pair of Steve's sweats.
Maybe mixing her pills with alcohol wasn't the best idea, Valerie thought to herself as the light above her sparked moments before returning to normal. Closing her eyes, Valerie took a deep breath. The last thing she wanted was to lose control.
Control. What a silly concept. Valerie hadn't been in control of anything since before she was even born. Control was a mere social construct to the girl.
Opening her golden brown eyes Valerie felt her breath hitch in the back of her throat. Her head began to pound, as if she was at the bottom of the ocean and the pressure was slowly crushing her from the inside out. She was in that place, the place that haunted her nightmares.
Except this time she wasn't asleep, no, she was wide awake and could feel her heart pound as fear washed over her. As soon as it began it ended, a bang at the bathroom door causing Valerie to almost scream out for her life.
"Everything okay in there?" Charlie questioned softly. "Yeah, yeah." Valerie's voice broke but she coughed in an attempt to stabilize it. "Everything's fine." Valerie tried as she opened the bathroom door, holding her discarded clothes in one hand. There was that word again. Fine.
"It's getting late, I should probably head home soon." Valerie faked a smile. "Yeah, uh, I can walk you home if you'd like." Charlie stood up straight. "I mean, only if you want. It's probably not the safest time to go wandering all alone at night."
"Yeah, I'd like that. Thanks." Valerie chuckled as Charlie's face lit up. "Alright, cool." The boy laughed lightly as the two walked over to the living room so Valerie could retrieve her bag before they began to make their way outside.
"You live on Heritage, right?" Charlie questioned the girl as he slid his hand into her's while they walked down Steve's driveway. "Yeah, why." Valerie spoke as she looked down at their intertwined hands with a small glint in her eyes.
"I know a shortcut." Charlie smirked, pulling the girl across the street. "Charlie, this is trespassing." Valerie whisper shouted as the boy led her through someone's back yard. "Relax, I do this all the time to get to Tommy's house."
Valerie rolled her eyes playfully as the two entered the woods between her street and Steve's street. "Careful." Charlie laughed out as Valerie stumbled in the dark, catching her as she giggled. "This seems more dangerous than if I simply walked home alone." The girl concurred.
"But where's the fun in that?" The boy spoke quietly as he looked down at Valerie, the stars above casting a faint glow on her tanned complexion. Maybe if he wasn't so fixated on the specks of silver in her eyes he would've noticed Will Byers creeping in the shadows.
"How much farther?" Valerie questioned as she tried to make sense of what roots and branches were wedging themselves between her white heeled sandals, grabbing onto Charlie as she struggled to free herself.
"We're almost there." Charlie chuckled before Valerie freed her foot from where it had gotten stuck, the girl consequently slamming into him. Charlie stumbled back into a tree as he stabled the two of them, laugher erupting from the girl once again.
Leaning against Charlie, her head bent into the crook of his neck as she let out a small laugh, Valerie almost forgot about the events of ten minutes ago. That was until they heard it, they heard the same crackling sound that had caused Valerie to wake up in a pool of sweat and a puddle of tears.
It was in that very moment that Charlie Wheeler could have sweared that he saw something truly monstrous lurking in the woods, something that made him freeze in fear, but with a faint flash of light in the distance and the noise of crunching leaves the thought was pushed to the back of his mind.
"What was that?" Valerie tried to pretend like she wasn't fully aware that the monster she once thought only lived in her nightmares was stalking them through the darkness of the night. "Probably the search party, we should get going." Charlie shrugged, convincing himself that the flash of light was simply a flash light.
Valerie nodded before Charlie turned around and offered the girl his back so she wouldn't keep getting stuck on roots or trip over twigs anymore. Valerie let out a snicker before jumping onto the boy, wrapping her hands loosely around his shoulders and her legs tightly around his waist.
It was a lot quicker with Valerie's out of the way and the two were approaching the backyard of Valerie's light green house in mere minutes. The girl carefully slid off of Charlie's back before digging into her tote bag and pulling out her house keys.
"Mom, I'm home!" Valerie called out as she entered the lit house. "Mommy?" The brunette called out again when she didn't receive an answer. "In here, babe." Rachel shouted back after a minute.
"Oh, my god, I love peer pressure. Barb totally sliced her hand open and she just stared at it. It was straight out of a Steven King novel. I felt bad at first, but that girl is just so purposefully lame."
Charlie gave Valerie a curious look as he watched her open the fridge and pull out two coke bottles before offering him one. "Holy shit, chronic smoker. Open a window for god's sake." Valerie ranted as the smell of cigarette smoke attacked her nostrils.
Charlie awkwardly followed after the girl as she made her way into the living room. The two came to a stop as they spotted a man standing in the middle of the Archer's living room, papers sprawled out around him and Rachel. "Huh." Valerie hummed, a smirk taking over her features.
"Val sweetie, This is Hopper. He was Daddy's best friend in high school." Rachel spoke as she stood, introducing the man. Valerie usually would've been thrilled to meet someone who knew her father, but she had more important things in her mind.
"I'm not sure if this is lowkey shade or highkey hypocrisy, but I'm fairly enjoying it." Valerie spoke with a venomous smile upon her plum lips as she referred to her mother's insults from earlier that night. "Valerie." Rachel's eyes rolled.
"Nice badge." The girl noticed as she gave the large man a look over. "He's the sheriff." Charlie whispered from behind her. "Charles." Hopper greeted the boy. "Sir." Charlie nodded awkwardly. "Okay, this little family reunion was- yeah. But Charlie and I are just gonna," Valerie deadpanned.
Rachel took the girl's bag and removed her wet clothes from it. "Your clothes reek of chlorine!" Rachel shouted out at her retreating daughter. "Well, what kind of slutty Sally would I be if I skinny dipped?" Valerie teased the woman before disappearing up the stairs completely.
"You and you're mom have a uh- interesting relationship." Charlie chuckled as he threw himself down onto the girl's pink and white floral bed spread while she freed herself from her painful white heels which looked horrible with the sweats she wore.
"Yeah, well, when a non-maternal child is
raising a baby, it's easier to be a friend than a mom." Valerie shrugged, watching as Charlie glanced at all her items curiously before meeting her gaze. The boy chuckled for the millionth time that night before patting a spot on the edge of her bed.
Maybe it was the way Valerie buckled under the slightest bit of affection given to her by any guy due to her serious daddy issues, or maybe it was the way she tended to self sabotage all things good in her life, maybe even a mix of both, but as soon as her weight settled onto the mattress her lips crashed into Charlie's.
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