Alexithymia | STRANGER THINGS [ON HOLD UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE]

eighteen | the mall rats

With a sigh, Valerie sat up on Matthew's bed with a hand pressed against the side of her head the moment she heard Karen Wheeler yell, "Mike! Phone!"

Then she looked over at Matthew, who was still sound asleep, and could faintly hear the sound of Quiet Riot's Metal Health (Bang Your Head) starting to play on his walkman from where his headphones were wrapped around the base of his neck.

With a shake of her head, she pushed herself off of his bed and ran her hand through her hair as she walked out of his bedroom and in the direction of the closest bathroom.

Despite the number of times in which she'd spent the night at Matthew's home ever since school had let out for summer break, Valerie still wasn't quite used to hearing the constant yelling from his family at any time of the day.

Whether it was Karen yelling for Mike because of his girlfriend– El– calling him, Matthew yelling at Mike to keep down the noise, Nancy yelling at Mike whenever she was home and not spending her time at the home of Jonathan Byers, Mike yelling something in response to whatever someone in his family was saying to him, or Karen simply yelling at Ted for something didn't matter.

The Wheeler family as a whole was quite noisy, no matter the time of day it was, which explained a lot for why Matthew was the way he was and constantly had his headphones on and was listening to tapes on his walkman at whatever volume he wanted it to be at.

Other than hanging out with Valerie, music was the only true form of escape from the craziness and insanity that was his family.

But then again, Valerie wouldn't have it any other way.

Because as far as she was concerned, the craziness and insanity that was the Wheeler family was a hell of a lot better than having to be home and hearing Billy and her stepfather– Neil– getting in fights with each other about whatever wrong that Neil had perceived his son to be doing.

The only downside to being at Matthew's home so much was the guilt that Valerie felt for leaving Max to have to continue to live in that environment.

Although she knew that Max could quite honestly take care of herself and Billy hadn't bothered either of them since the night that Max had apparently– according to Matthew– threatened him into leaving them alone with a nailed baseball bat and ordered him to leave them and Max's friends alone from that moment onward, she still couldn't help but feel guilty that Max was still living in that house and Valerie was spending her time sleeping at the Wheeler home.

While Valerie was waking up to the insanity that was the Wheeler home where they constantly yelled at each other for whatever reason any of them had, Max was more than likely waking up to Neil confronting Billy over something stupid and Billy getting mad and driving away from the house.

She didn't want to have to leave her little sister in that sort of environment, but she didn't know how to get her out of it without getting herself into a fight with Neil or even her own mother– even though her mother seemed to do nothing on the matter and only wanted to try and keep the peace between Billy's father and the rest of their supposed family.