Chapter Text
Having a soulmate wasn’t exactly unusual, but not everyone had one. Meeting your soulmate on the other hand was exceptionally rare. Everyone knew that, almost everyone accepted it. Soulmate’s skin worked like a blank canvas, injuries and trauma to the skin would show the strongest, fading to look like scars after a couple of days. Chrissy’s Mom had always made it clear to her that girls who had soulmates should think of them as an imaginary friend and never anything more. She couldn’t waste her thoughts and energy on a what if, she needed to focus on the things that were in front of her. Act like a lady, not like a fanciful child. There were stories of people spending years looking for their soulmates, and never managing to find them. They were told as cautionary tales, to ignore the unusual quirk that their genetics gave them.
But something about the idea of someone so perfectly connected to her intrigued Chrissy, even as a child. Everything she could find about soulmates, from hours spent hidden away at the Hawkins Public Library pretending to be studying, suggested that yes, injuries on the skin were the way two people knew they were linked together, but for truly bonded soulmates other marks could sometimes show through as well. But there was a darker side as well, reports of people where their marks suddenly disappeared a few days after a larger injury became apparent.
When Chrissy started seeing the marks on her skin a few weeks after her sixteenth birthday, she ignored them. It was easy to pass off the occasional bruise or faint scrape as cheer injuries. After all, as a flyer she was constantly at risk of minor injuries from stunts gone wrong, and would find bruises a couple of days after practice with no memory of where they had come from. It couldn’t be anything other than a passing minor injury. Even if sometimes they didn’t actually hurt. Even if they were in places she knew she hadn’t been injured. A faint shadowing on her lids, like the echo of a black eye. Tiny red lines across the pads of her fingertips. Faint purple marks on her sternum, as if she had been pushed hard. Carefully used makeup and carefully crafted excuses covered up the marks from everyone. Her secret.
Months passed by, and as her world became more complicated with the pressures of High School, she took her Mom's advice to heart, ignoring any thought of meeting her soulmate. Life was hard enough. When Jason Carver had asked her out on a date, she'd only had a brief moment of hesitation before she said yes. After all, on paper he was the perfect boy for her, an up and coming basketball star and tipped to be captain once Harrington had graduated. Her Mom had been ecstatic, enthusing about his family's excellent reputation and how connections like this were invaluable for young ladies like Chrissy.
But as perfect as Jason was, something still gnawed at Chrissy. She looked for marks on his skin to match hers, looking for the bruises that appeared on her after cheer practice on his arms, but they never came. There were faint echoes of a connection to someone else, to something else. To the chance of something deeper and more meaningful than the superficial relationship she shared with Jason. The lack of marks was almost a confirmation that they weren’t destined to be together. But she pushed it down, burying the thoughts of what if deep down with working on keeping her grades high, staying at the top of her game for cheer practice, making sure her Mom was happy. And it worked. Until it didn't.
Chrissy had always thought that 1986 was going to be her year, the year she graduated, the defining number for her life. But as the calendars ticked over to the start of senior year, things only seemed to be getting worse. Her Mom became increasingly critical of her appearance and actions, all under the guise of perfection. The first time her Mom had asked for her Cheer uniform Chrissy thought it was to do some minor repairs where the hem was frayed. But when it came back it was tighter than usual, digging into her waist and leaving red marks where the waistband pinched as she moved. She asked her Mom, but her reply was short. She needed to stay small if she wanted to keep her spot on the squad, because what was she without it? Half finished meals from her anxiety were met with an approving look from her Mom, and before long Jason was complimenting her new smaller stature. Over time Chrissy shrank herself, physically and mentally, reacting to outside pressures by drawing herself in. Her Mom reminded her that being a woman was hard, that now was the time she needed to grow up, start taking on some of the responsibilities that came with being born into a good family.
Her Mom's ‘encouragement’ shifted with time, from comments to weigh-ins, then weekly weigh-ins and measuring sessions. Whenever she had gained weight, or even in weeks where she had maintained, her Mom would pinch at her hips and waist. Grabbing her skin and insisting that 'fat rolls like this aren't ladylike Christine.' Chrissy found almost permanent bruises forming there, hardly enough time for them to heal before the next weigh in and the next round of bruising. She shied away from Jason's touch, feeling ashamed of how she looked, retreating further and further into herself.
That was when she saw the first of the other marks. Waiting for the shower to run warm one evening in November she caught a glimpse of the bruises on her hip in the mirror where her towel didn't quite wrap around. Her mascara streaked down her face from her tears, her Mom had been particularly critical about her appearance in her new cheer uniform. The pinches to her waist had been cruel, and she could feel that these bruises were deeper, and she would need to hide them the best she could. Something looked different this time though. She rubbed the condensation from the mirror and really looked. The faintest outline of leaves and vines in black trailed down her waist and onto her hip, turning the bruises into soft lilac flowers. A deeper connection to her soul mate, the one person she couldn't hide her suffering from. She brushed her fingers across the marks, tracing the swirling patterns as they looped around, feeling the tears she had managed to stop start to fall again. By the next day the marks had disappeared again, but she found herself thinking about them and absent-mindedly doodling the same swirling patterns in the margins of her notebooks at school. Her soulmate might be someone so far removed from her she'd never hope to meet them, but they were at least on her side.
She waited for more, but at first there was nothing unusual. The occasional bruise, a couple of scratches, but never any more drawings. Over the Holidays she found an unusual shaped rash on her right arm. It didn’t itch, and didn’t feel raised, but it didn’t look quite like anything else she had seen before. If she really squinted it almost looked like birds, but she couldn't figure out the outline. It didn't look the same as the swirling drawn on patterns she had seen a few weeks before, this felt and looked more like an injury. It faded over a week or so instead of by the next day. She traced around the shape with one of her pens, drawing a clumsy cloud of stars around the red bird shapes with her left hand, wondering if the person on the other end of the connection could see them too.
There are no more flower drawings, but the next month she finds something on her inner arm that she can’t make out. It has the same impression as the first drawing, but it’s clearly not drawn by the same person. These are crude lines, not the soft swirling design that had snaked down her hip. The line tailed off at an angle, looking like it was only half finished. They had appeared one evening, so she wore a sweater to school the next day to cover them up. Unthinking, she had rolled her sleeves up midway through a conversation at lunch, and Jason had seen the marks, and had insisted on knowing what was on her arm. Caught without an excuse, she lied, said one of the girls had been doodling on her and the ink had stuck.
Something about his face made her know he hadn’t believed her, and when he had grabbed her arm to look at them more closely she pulled away quickly. She had grimaced when his fingers closed tightly around, but not cried out because they were in public, and making a scene would be anything but helpful. She wondered if he had made the link, seeing clearly what her skin was telling him, and she had walked out of the cafeteria rather than face the conversation.
He'd apologized afterwards, but his apology left her feeling like it was somehow her fault. When the bruises appeared the next day, she wasn’t surprised, her arm was still sore. When Jason tried to take her hand in the hallway she shook herself free and walked away. That evening she cried herself to sleep, running her fingers over the soft clouds that had appeared around the marks by bedtime. As she closed her eyes, she tried to imagine who would take the time to turn the ugly marks into something so beautiful just for her to see.
The weeks pass, Chrissy can feel her grip on reality loosening. Even the new marks that appear on her skin aren’t enough to distract her. A dark patch just below her collar bone, a jumble of lines on the inside of her arm. She tried to talk to her Mom about Jason, but was met with stony silence instead, and the reminder that he was a ‘good Christian boy.’ Her refusal to listen combined with her constant criticism and push for Chrissy to be smaller and smaller lead her to skip meals completely, and the anxiety around the consequences when she did eat was enough to cause her to be sick. Her Mom had caught her once, running to the bathroom after dinner and just nodded her silent approval. Jason's behaviour from the outside was protective and loving, but Chrissy felt possessed and suffocated, and completely unable to leave him. There was no way out she could think of, just a single ray of hope in her increasingly dark world that someone out there was listening to her in their own way.
The marks on her hips and waist grew, getting deeper week by week. But so did the beautiful drawings around them. The first time they re-appeared, she almost cried with relief, dreading the day it would fade away. But each time they did, they were replaced with a new design the following day. Soft swirling patterns and designs, turning her shameful bruises into something she cherished.
But as spring break approached, even with her secret, so did her breaking point. Her anxiety was increasing, even Ms Kelly struggled to help anymore. Her thoughts swirled around her head like an angry cloud of bees, stinging headaches were becoming an almost daily occurrence. When she wasn't in class or at cheer, she sat and let the world crash over her like a wave. She just needed a way to try and turn her brain off, even for a few hours. Recently she had been avoiding the cafeteria, finding it all too easy to make excuses to avoid contact with food. Today had been a blur, however, moving from class to class in a trance-like state. Her Mom's parting words and pinches this morning playing on a loop in her head. Jason's possessive arm wrapped around her as he guided her from class to class. It was only when the cool hard plastic of the cafeteria bench made contact with her calves that she made the connection to where she was. She looked around, panic and bile rising, trying to ignore the voices of the jocks around her. That's when she saw her answer.
Eddie Munson was talking animatedly to the rest of his table, rolling his shoulders easily as his hands moved in front of him. While Chrissy shrank and tried to diminish herself, every one of Eddie's actions was the opposite. Even his gestures were loud, demanding attention from across the room. His laugh rang out clearly across the cafeteria, the rest of his table joining in a split second later. Chrissy felt herself jump in response to the noise, not realizing quite how intently she had been watching him.
"Ignore him babe, the Freak is always showboating about something." Jason squeezed her waist, pulling her closer to him. She dropped her eyes to the table top, tracing patterns onto the surface, trying to not look back up. There was something magnetic about Eddie, something that made her want to look at him.
"He's only good for one thing." Jason sneered, talking to the rest of their group as well as Chrissy. "If his weed wasn't as good as it is we'd make sure he knew what his real place in this town is."
There's a few titters of approval around the table, girls pretending to not know what Jason is talking about, guys murmuring in agreement. Eddie was a regular fixture at their parties, arriving late and leaving early. Chrissy had just never made the connection for why he was there. But weed. That might be enough to turn her brain off. Even just for a few hours.
She made her excuses to Jason, disappearing to the bathroom as far as he knew. Instead she went to her locker, took out a piece of paper and wrote a simple note in her perfect cursive. She closed her locker and walked quickly down the hallway, keeping her eyes down and arms folded over her chest as she did. His locker was so obviously his, she's surprised the school allowed it. The same twisted demon face they sometimes wore on their shirts was stuck in the middle of the door, with band stickers and scrawled doodles all around the edges. She held her breath and pushed the folded note into the vent, hoping it was enough.