Sweet Amber (A Stranger Things/Eddie Munson Fanfiction)

Chapter One: Amber Sweetwater

~~~REWRITTEN~~~

(TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of abuse, eating disorders, and artwork depicting eating disorders. If you are someone that is triggered by any of these things, please do not continue or continue with caution. If you find yourself being affected by this story, please take care of yourself and your mental well-being.)

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I was only eight years old when my mother told me that girls were meant to be beautiful...nothing more.

She said that our heads were for hair, to be perfectly styled in order to frame or features, and they were not to be used for thinking. That was a man's domain.

But, if you really had to fill your mind with all of those pesky thoughts and questions, then you, as a girl, were expected to keep them to yourself and not trouble your man with such things. Because lips were for lipstick kisses and kind words. What man would want you if you used them to voice your thoughts and feelings?

I was made to be looked at. My mother and her friends always said so. From the moment that I was born, being shown off at the country club to the very second, I was big enough to wear dresses and flash charming, gap-toothed smiles, my only cherished value was in the way that I looked. It was this upbringing that taught me that I should be used to people calling me beautiful...because that was all that they were ever going to say. 

If my mother didn't do a good enough job encouraging me to be a glorified household appliance, my father certainly filled in the gaps in her teaching. If the fear of smudging my lipstick wasn't enough to keep my mouth shut than an Italian leather belt or a well-practiced backhand certainly did the trick. I was meant to be seen, not heard, and my parents would not settle for anything less than the appearance of perfection.

It is for this very reason that I stand in front of my full-length bedroom mirror with mixed emotions.

Being a Cheerleader, the first time you try on your uniform is supposed to be a momentous occasion. Its supposed to make you want to skip around your room and stare at your reflection and refuse to take it off until you absolutely have to. For the other girls, I'm sure that very first time makes them feel beautiful, powerful, maybe even a little bit sexy and yet...I don't see any of those things.

I don't even really see a girl, I see...a portrait. A statue. My face doesn't move. My eyes are dull and expressionless, and beneath my make-up there are dark circles beneath them that won't go away, no matter how many home remedies my mother forces down my throat. My smile appears fake...practiced. It doesn't quite reach my eyes and yet everyone I've ever met only uses one descriptor: Beautiful. 

What's so confusing to me is that I don't feel beautiful. I don't look in the mirror and see some masterpiece of a girl that the other girls envy and the boys desire. I see a girl on the brink of death...a corpse, floating through life, surrounded by people and wandering eyes and yet not a single one of them can see that I am not actually alive...and that I haven't been for as long as I can remember.

I sigh, my green eyes taking in my appearance one last time. It doesn't really matter if I'm satisfied. If I look anything less than perfect my mom won't even let me near the windows, let alone out the front door and off to school.

I give up, adjusting my newly embroidered jacket over my uniform before grabbing my backpack from the floor. I pause, tightening my long, red ponytail before walking out of my bedroom and down the stairs for breakfast. 

Mornings in the Sweetwater household are almost comforting in their monotony. Every single one is the same; My father sits at the dining room table, the morning paper in his hand. My mother has been up since five, slaving away in the kitchen to make a breakfast that would make even Julia Child jealous, and she would wait on the edge of her seat to see if my father would put down the paper and eat, meaning it was good, or if he would take one bite, rush out the front door and slam it loudly behind him. My older brother, Andrew, would either be hungover and trying to hide it or would be busy rolling cigarettes under the table. Either way he never said much. Then, once the condition of breakfast was assessed, my mother and I would engage in polite small talk, where she would tell me if I looked 'absolutely darling' or if I should go back upstairs and change.