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"Billy!"

Briar awoke gasping out her dead brother's name, drenched in sweat, her walkman still clipped to the waistband of the loose trousers she had worn to bed, but the headphones sprawled across the covers. James would've killed her if he found out, but listening to music helped her. Just that one song, Everybody Wants to Rule the World, helped her so much. It allowed her to escape.

So Briar, after shooting a cursory glance back at James to check he was really asleep, clamped the headphones back onto her head, and pressed play.

As the familiar melody washed over her and she lay down again, she could feel her heartrate coming down, and even reached up to timidly wipe away her tears.

Welcome to your life

There's no turning back

Briar sighed slightly, closing her eyes and letting the tears on her lashes mingle. She loved this song. But for some reason, she just couldn't relax.

We will find you

Acting on your best behavior

Turn your back on mother nature

Everybody wants to rule the w-

Before the word was finished, Briar felt a splitting headache take over her, causing her to groan slightly and clutch her head.

They were constant. And once they started, they went on for a while.

And then, just as the blonde girl sat up, she felt a small trickle of hot liquid roll down the gap between her nostrils and her upper lip.

As she headed through to the bathroom to get an aspirin, Briar took a second to look in the mirror. Yep, she was right. It was a nosebleed.

So, as she got some tissue to stifle the blood, at the same time reaching down into the pill cabinets, picking out the bottle of aspirin.

She winced as she basically took the pill dry, with only a tiny bit of lukewarm water from the shitty bathroom tap. She didn't want any of this. She didn't want to be in Hawkins, she didn't want to have headaches, and she certainly didn't want Steve Harrington's face cropping up in her mind everytime she closed her eyes.

"Fuck," she whispered as she looked into the mirror, her face a mess of smudged concealer, black eyes, bruises and puffiness.

She had fallen so far. Not a year ago, she was in a happy relationship with a guy she was completely in love with, she was just about to finish high school for good, and she was sure and certain about her future.

Now, her life was in tatters. And it was all her own fault.

Everybody Wants to Rule the World played on in her headphones.

But she was too preoccupied with her mess of a face to listen to it.

Well, more like her mess of a life.

𖹭

She'd burned the bacon.

Her mind had been so taken up by the headaches and the nosebleeds (she'd had three now, and all of them had come on suddenly) that she'd lost control, and next thing she knew half the meat in the pan was burned black.

So now she was sat at the table, sawing through ashy bacon as the perfectly cooked rashers she'd thrown into the pan last minute was eaten by James, across the table. She'd been so afraid, knowing that if she put the burned stuff on her boyfriend's plate she was at least getting a slap.