~~ Introducing Highway to Hell: A Stranger Things Story~~

“I’ve been telling you for years, you'd be surprised about the things Nancy Wheeler can and would do...”

The responding statement would haunt Stella Henderson well after it altered her life forever.

“Says the one that went and ditched us the second she got into high school and landed herself some mystery boyfriend.”

The accusation was a false one, but she hasn't been surprised at how Nancy had twisted it when 'sharing' with Barb because it beat the alternative. That the older Henderson was deemed ‘too wild’ by Nancy’s mother, and ‘not good enough’ for her perfect daughter. Playing wild games instead of studying, and partaking in debaucherous substances while she did so. But that wasn't the worst part about the day Karen Wheeler decided that Stella wasn’t allowed in her home anymore, no. wasn't even the fact that Dustin now went over there constantly to partake in a game she’d introduced the younger siblings to. It wasn't even that the very acceptance of it in the boys versus her seemed to cement some antiquated gender roles in play at the Wheelers. No, it was the fact that Nancy seemed to agree and didn't fight for her.

But of course Barb never learned that. Stella had already lost one friend going down that path, so why lose a second, just because Nancy Wheeler "Grew up"? Instead, she caught betwixt two worlds her sophomore year. The world where she’d garnished a truce with Nancy to stay friends with Barb a grade below her, and her secret life of DnD and freakish delight with her boyfriend a year above.

The same boyfriend that snuck into Barb’s funeral to hold her hand, and stayed by her side as she processed the grief. The same boyfriend that she held close and hidden away from everyone who wasn’t in their little club, and would bring her dinner at the game shop- no matter how bad he was at cooking. The very same boyfriend that was unaware of the dangers that continually cursed her brother and his friends the past two years. The boyfriend she’d broken up with in the name of keeping him safe.

But this wasn’t the story of how she lost Barb anyway, or how she’d legitimately rekindled her friendship with Nancy. No, this was the story of how Stella Henderson stopped running from the love of her life, Eddie Munson, and how it took nearly losing him and the rest of her home forever to realize it. 

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