You ever feel like you were born on the wrong planet? Like everyone around you’s speaking a language you’re never gonna understand no matter how many times they repeat it? Yeah… that was me. Hawkins and I never really got along. The people, the expectations, the judgmental stares anytime I showed up literally anywhere—none of it ever made sense to me.

Until you.

It was my first year as Senior at Hawkins High. That’s when you walked in. I swear, it was like the universe hit pause. You weren’t like the rest of them. You had this way of looking at people like you actually saw them, you know? Not just what they were wearing or what they scored on the last math test.

I remember the first time you talked to me—like, really talked to me. I was sitting in the cafeteria alone, pretending not to care that I was sitting in the cafeteria alone. You dropped your tray across from me without asking.

“Don’t you ever get bored of scaring people?” you asked, biting into an apple like you weren’t afraid of me.

I blinked at you. “Don’t you ever get bored of being normal?”

You laughed. Laughed. Not that fake nervous giggle people give when they think you’re about to pull a knife or something. A real one. Like I’d actually said something funny. That was the beginning of everything.

We started hanging out more—D&D sessions, late-night walks through Forest Hills, lying on the roof of my trailer talking about anything and everything. Your world was so different from mine, but you never made me feel like I had to change to be part of it. Somehow, you fit into mine. Perfectly.

And then—life, with its cruel sense of irony—decided to remind me that nothing good lasts forever. Your parents, good people but always worrying about the “future,” scraped together everything they had to send you to some fancy private school on the other side of town. Said it was “an opportunity.” Said it would “open doors.” Said it was what was “best for her.”

Maybe they were right. But damn, it felt like getting sucker punched in the gut.

You wore a uniform. Pleated skirts, crisp white shirts, ties, shiny shoes… You looked like someone from another planet, and every time I saw you walking out of that school, surrounded by perfect little clones, it was like watching a star get dragged into a black hole.

But we stayed together. Somehow. I’d wait for you by the gates after school, chain smoking and earning glares from teachers and parents alike. You’d throw your arms around me like I was still your whole world. And maybe, for a while, I was.

“It’s just clothes,” you whispered once, tugging at your tie in frustration as we sat in my van. “It’s not who I am.”

I looked at you—really looked—and nodded. “Yeah. But if anyone ever gives you crap, just tell them your scary metalhead boyfriend’ll deal with it.”

You smirked. “That supposed to be comforting?”

“Terrifyingly so.”

We made it work, even if sometimes it felt like we were on borrowed time. That school changed you, a little. Made you sharper, more distant at times. But you always came back to me. To us.

And me? I never stopped feeling like I didn’t belong in Hawkins. But with you around… it didn’t matter as much. You made the world make sense in a way I never thought it could.

So yeah, maybe we weren’t supposed to make sense together. But we did. We still do.

Even if everything else is falling apart—I’ll always be yours.