THE LAST DAY before Spring Break started like every other, with Ana preparing meals for the day as she sipped casually from her coffee mug, Robby's bottle warming gradually on the stove. She was midway through cutting lunch meat and cheeses when Chris stumbled out of the guest bedroom, viciously rubbing his eyes of any remaining sleep.
"Not a restful night, then?" She questioned, briefly looking up from her ministrations to gaze over his rumpled clothes and exhausted appearance as he made his way towards her.
The look she received in response was less than amused, with his lips pursing in affront. "It happened again," he said, pinning her down with a reproachful stare. "Are you sure we shouldn't get him checked out or something?" They'd had this discussion enough times already that Ana was certain he'd eventually stop asking—but he still hadn't.
"It's fine. Dr. Owens checked him out and said everything was regular. I told you, it's fine," the agitation of her words was punctuated by the slamming of a metallic lunchbox, the afternoon's meal firmly locked in place.
The action only elicited a shared huff of indignation from Chris, who swiped her coffee mug and drank from it greedily as though it had been crafted especially for him. "Whatever, I still don't think it's normal," he snipped before draining any remaining caffeine and ambling off towards the bathroom.
It wasn't normal. She knew that, they all knew that, but Dr. Owens had assured her countless times that the newborn was developing as expected, even if his behavior was anything but, and she'd chosen not to question it further. The worry remained, however.
Robby just acted...differently. It wasn't bad, per se, just unusual. There were times, like the night before, when the house was awoken by the sounds of his crooning, his underdeveloped attempts at communicating. This wouldn't have been a problem if, when they went to check, they hadn't always found him alert and alone, babbling to something only his eyes could perceive. It was undoubtedly strange, but why would she have expected anything different? Strange had taken hold of Ana's life in a steel grasp and refused to relinquish its grip.
She and Dr. Owens had discussed it exhaustively, the latter running endless tests with no definitive answer, and it all came out the same. Ultimately, nothing was wrong with Robby, but something wasn't right with him either. They shared secretive whispers about the cause, and her stomach churned with the culminating answer each time. Whatever had made him unique, peculiar, whatever they wanted to call it, had to extend from the Upside Down. It was the only reasonable conclusion, but one that was crushing in its disheartening nature. Neither the doctor nor Ana knew how like Eleven Robby would grow to be, not until he was much older, but it would undoubtedly make raising him more of a challenge than it already promised to be.
Thankfully, her anxious musings were interrupted by Chris' reappearance in the kitchen, and despite the water dripping steadily down his neck from where he'd splashed his face in an effort to wake fully, he still appeared tired and annoyed. "You know, you'll have to tell me the truth eventually, right?" He proposed, leaning his hip against the counter beside her.
Not this again, Ana griped internally. Just like his persistence about Robby's abnormal behavior, the insistence that she was hiding something from him was a topic he stubbornly refused to drop. Even if he was dead on in his assessment, the unwillingness to let it go, even after countless refuting, irked her to no end. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she denied for the thousandth time, turning away from him to check the temperature of the morning bottle on her wrist. It was a smidge too warm, so she set it aside to cool, still unwilling to meet the unrelenting stare boring holes into the back of her skull.
"I've literally known you my whole life," he remarked, pinching her side to elicit a reaction, gain an acknowledgment of some kind. "You think I can't tell when you're lying?" Even if he could recognize a lie, she doubted he could ever register one of this magnitude, couldn't hope to process it through the tiny pea brain rattling around in the seemingly empty space of his skull. Thus, she continued to ignore him.
Yet, he prevailed in pestering her as she moved to pour herself a new cup of coffee, one he hopefully wouldn't commandeer this time. "I'm not actually stupid. I have noticed things," he said, the sentence trailing off in its insinuation. Still, it warranted no response, even if she craved to dispute his intelligence claim, so he blazed forward. "Like how you always avoid talking about Hopper. Plus those weird, random files you've got hiding in the attic that I'm not supposed to know about, and I think it's pretty fucking weird that you didn't tell mom and dad you had an adopted daughter for, like, ages."
When Ana had asked her younger brother to come stay with them instead of her parents, she'd thought she was choosing the lesser of two evils. Now, though, while getting waylaid with unanswerable questions before 8:00 AM, she was starting to believe she'd chosen wrong.
Years prior, when the initial move to Hawkins had happened, Chris was studying abroad in Europe, working on a bachelor's degree in international business. At least, that's how the excursion had been sold. Ana knew he was likely just overseas partying, hooking up, and whatever else men in their twenties got into when they had no real responsibilities. But, after the program had ended, he'd moved back home shortly before Ana had given birth, and it seemed to align at a moment when they both needed an escape from circumstances. She'd offered to house him and feed him if he came and lived with her while attending classes towards his master's degree at the University of Indianapolis. It'd seemed mutually beneficial at the time. Ana acquired an on-call nanny, and Chris could reclaim some of the freedom he'd lost temporarily staying with their parents. And it would've been perfect, if not for his meddling nature.
Too much time had passed, too many things had happened, to just spill her guts now, Ana reasoned. Chris had missed a never-ending saga of unfortunate events while he was away, and he'd never even had the opportunity to meet Hopper. Plus, their sibling relationship hadn't been the closest after moving out of their parent's house and going their separate ways in life. Maybe it was best if she kept quiet, Ana concluded, even if he was there now promising nothing more than a helpful hand.
"What're you so worried about?" Chris pressed again, his voice dropping in an attempt to be soothing, his features taking on a look of sincere concern.
Ana could help but scoff at the question. What wasn't she worried about? The government possibly taking Eleven away, Hopper never returning, Robby growing up just to be treated like another science experiment, the Upside Down making another untimely reappearance—the options were endless, and they all pressed upon her shoulders like the weight of the world, promising to crumple her mind under their force.
She didn't express any of those concerns, though. "Getting sent to the loony bin, probably," Ana joked, aiming to bring some levity into the stilted conversation, and it seemed to work, momentarily, because Chris barked out a laugh.
"I've been trying to convince mom and dad of that for ages, but it was a no-go," he said, feigning a wistful sigh, no doubt imagining what a life of only childness would have afforded him with her locked away. "Still, be real with me. What's going on with you?"
His intentions were good, pure, even, but everyone knows what the road to hell is paved with. Ana understood that they weren't the same kids they had been. Long gone were the days of Chris breaking into her room just to be needy, and past were the times of her scaring him with made-up stories just to see how gullible he could be. Still, though, the horror movie she was a revolving cast member in seemed beyond his capacity to comprehend—blood or not, brother or not. "Can we just talk about this later? I've got to get Eleven and me to school," she commented, brushing him aside for the umpteenth time.
"Fine," he sighed resignedly, "but I'm not letting this go." She honestly hadn't expected him to. Her willful ignorance at the prospect of him abandoning the matter in due time had proven fruitless up to that point.
Moving past him with the intention of heading to her daughter's room to wake El for the day, Ana had nearly made it across the living room before another one of his questions interrupted the usual morning routine.
"Oh, and have you packed for California yet? I know how you like to procrastinate."
Right, at 6:30 AM the following day, Ana, Eleven, and Mike would all be flying to the sunshine state to visit the Byers over Spring Break, leaving Robby in the care of his witless uncle.
Maybe she should let Chris in on the truth before she went away, but they would only be gone a week, and, truly, what was the worst that could happen?
Harry Styles as Chris Thompson