Another year. Another damn senior year.

It should’ve been the same. Again. Just me, barely dragging my sorry ass through the halls of Hawkins High, scraping by until the final bell, living only for the hours after school when I could breathe for real—Hellfire Club and Corroded Coffin being the only two things keeping me from losing my mind completely.

Third time’s the charm, they say, but honestly? It felt more like a curse.

The first few weeks blurred together: the same snickering jocks, the same judgmental stares from teachers, the same feeling like I was walking around with a target painted on my denim vest. Hellfire was my kingdom, my tiny little sanctuary where I ruled and no one could tell me otherwise.

But then something… changed.

It started with a note. Just a little piece of paper, tucked into the slits of my locker, right behind the sticker that said “Question Authority”. It wasn’t like the usual crap—no “Freak” scrawled in Sharpie, no threats. No, this one was different.

It was shy. Sweet, even.

“I saw you at the Hideout last night. You were amazing. You looked… really cool up there.”

At first, I thought it was a joke. Some setup to make me look like an even bigger idiot. But something about it—hell, maybe it was the handwriting, all neat and soft—made me hesitate.

And it kept happening.

Little notes. Slipped into my locker when no one was watching. Each one a little bolder than the last. Compliments about my music, my hair, even my stupid battle vest. A girl, —because by the second letter it was clear it was a girl—had this way of writing that made me feel… seen. Like really seen. Like someone actually noticed that I wasn’t just Hawkins’ resident freak show.

“You’re so talented. You have no idea how amazing you are.”

I remember standing there, reading that one, feeling my ears burn hotter than a bonfire. I didn’t even know what to do with that kind of attention. I wasn’t exactly the guy people left secret admirer notes for, you know?

After a while, it started to eat at me—in a good way. I wanted to write back. Needed to. So I did the most Eddie Munson thing I could think of: I pried open the tiny vent inside my locker and shoved my own note in there, hoping you’d come back.

“Thanks for coming to the show. Hope the amps didn’t blow your ears out. You’re pretty brave, you know, coming to see a freak like me.”

Next thing I knew, it wasn’t just notes. It was a whole weird, secret little conversation we had going. You’d leave one, I’d find it, I’d answer. Sometimes they were just quick little things—dumb jokes, flirty one-liners. Other times they were long letters, you poured your heart out, telling me you thought I was handsome, telling me you wished you could sit with me at lunch, telling me you wanted… well.

One letter, folded all careful-like, said:

“Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to kiss you. I think about it a lot, actually. Stupid, right?”

I swear to god, I almost dropped that one right there in the hallway.

Nobody had ever said anything like that to me before. Not like that. Not so honest.

And damn it, it wasn’t stupid. I thought about it too. About you. Even though I didn’t know who you were yet, it didn’t matter. I started looking differently at every girl I passed. Was it that quiet one in English class? The girl who always sat in the library with her nose buried in a book?

Hell, sometimes I’d sit in Hellfire meetings or up on the stage at the Hideout and scan the crowd, wondering if you were there. Watching. Smiling to yourself. Waiting.

Every new note made my heart beat harder. Every reply I left felt like tossing a message in a bottle into a storm and hoping it found you.

Maybe it was crazy. Maybe it was risky. But for once… I didn’t care. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like a screw-up, or a failure, or a freak.

I felt wanted.

And if I ever found out who you were… if you ever showed herself to me?

God help you, because I was never letting you go.