#I've said it before i'll say it again the tragedy of nancy wheeler is being a survivor!!!

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The thing about your best friend dying young, is that part of you will always be the age you were when you lost her.

A part of you, the part of you that knew her, that lived in the same space as her and breathed the same air through laughter and glee and childlike goofiness, gets stuck there.

It gets stuck, stagnant, unmoving and frozen and painfully so. There's no adjusting the size of it to make room as you grow, as you gain life experiences she will never have, as you become an individual alone when you were supposed to become the two of you together.

The thing about Barb Holland dying when she's a sophomore in high school is that a part of Nancy Wheeler will always be standing at her locker blushing about a boy.

A part of her will always be squealing as she flies into a brightly lit pool, will always be walking up the steps away from the girl waiting for her down below.

This part of her will never die, because if it does then the part of Barb who existed in those moments is lost forever.

Nancy and Barb were a unit, a single life in the little world of Hawkins, Indiana, and so part of Nancy has to remain sixteen years old forever, for as long as forever can last because.

Because she is in charge of carrying so much of Barb's story.

She knows things, was present for little moments of laughter or teasing or sorrow or hope that no one else got to saw. Not even Barb's parents will ever know the extent of who their daughter was in the same way Nancy Wheeler does, and it's not a responsibility she signed up for when she sat down in that ballet studio next to the girl with the red hair when she was only six years old, but it's a responsibility she's aware of now.

Sixteen and killing the thing which took away her best friend.

Sixteen and driving to Illinois to seek out some sort of justice.

Sixteen and still, still, still fighting to be heard when she knows something is wrong, when she knows something is off the same way it was when her best friend's car stayed parked on the road all night.

Sixteen years old and another innocent girl is dead, another one another one always a goddamn other one--

Sixteen.

The thing about your best friend dying young is that you become the protector of their story.

Even when it's your fault she's not here to do it herself.