December 16th, 1990

15 months after The Rightside Up

Having known each other for just under a year, you've been dating Will Byers for the last seven months. The two of you live in New York City and, while you're both in college there, most of his family and friends still live in or near Hawkins, Indiana — a small town you'd never heard of prior to meeting your boyfriend.

Will, for his part, talks about his family like they're saints, which for him they seem to be. They're the most important people in his life, something you'd realized quickly after meeting him. He has an older brother, Jonathan, who you've met a handful of times between him visiting Will in NYC and the two of you visiting him at his university. You met both of his parents — Joyce Byers and Jim Hooper — shortly after getting together at his mother's insistence. It went well and she calls you every week with Will's stepdad, checking in on you and Will. They seem to be protective of him for whatever reason, likely because he's the youngest, so you're just grateful they like you.

He used to have a sister, he mentioned once. She was his 'twin', from what you've picked up, and died the year prior. There are still pictures hung up around the house — her and the Byers brothers smiling, her with Hopper, her with buzzer hair hugging Will. Will's quiet about it, grief clear when her name, Jane in some reports or Eleven in others, is brought up. He's told you about an accident, how she protected people and gave her life in doing so, how she was his best friend for the time he had her, how she's his hero now that he doesn't. You just try not to pry.

Beyond that, you've never met any of his friends — unless you count Lucas and Max, who you're friends with through college classes. So, with the holidays coming up, Will is excited to drag you along with him to Indiana and introduce you to them for the festivities. For that, though, he says he "needs to tell you some things about his past." The statement, admittedly, freaked you out.

Now, the two of you are sitting on the floor of your dorm, Will shuffling through old papers as he tries to make sense of things before telling you them.

"So,"

He begins.