𝖢𝗋𝗎𝖾𝗅 𝖶𝗈𝗋𝗅𝖽 || 𝖲𝖳𝖤𝖵𝖤 𝖧𝖠𝖱𝖱𝖨𝖭𝖦𝖳𝖮𝖭

𝖢𝖧𝖠𝖯𝖳𝖤𝖱 5

February 1977

She was there sitting, trying to understand what had happened. Her mother had arrived about half an hour ago, going straight to her room, without even noticing the presence of the youngest. Without even noticing, too, the absence of her husband in the room.

While she slept peacefully, trying to ward off the effects of alcohol in her body, Leah was in the living room, staring at the apartment door. She wasn't thinking about anything, nor could she move. She was just waiting. Waiting for him to come back. Hoping that Sarah might come with him. Hoping that it was all just a nightmare and that everything would go back to normal when she woke up.

Nothing.

Five hours had passed since Jim Hopper walked through that door. The distance between them was growing longer.

Why was he leaving? Did she misunderstand everything, and would he come back? Would her mother blame her? Had she done something wrong? Was she never as loved as Sarah? Her thoughts raced through her mind. Without mercy. As if searching for her guilt in Jim Hopper's decision. A decision that would change a lot in her life from now on. An impulse that would cost her living daughter dearly.

However, some time later, the sound of a door opening woke her from her thoughts. Her mother was awake and leaving the room. Her face expressed the headache enveloping her, and Leah had noticed over the past few years that this was the translation of a hangover in a person's body. When she asked her teacher why people drank until they felt pain, she explained that often it was to escape the reality they lived in. So logically, the only thing left in Diane Hopper's life was Leah, so Diane was running away from Leah.

Right?

Well, actually, Diane was currently running away from everything. Taking care of and educating Leah was just one of those things. But the little girl couldn't see the big picture that the situation required. She limited herself to receiving all the blame for her parents' escapades.

She felt like the cause of their unhappiness, and, upon reflection, maybe her father's escape was actually the pursuit of his happiness. And the teacher had said that everyone had the right to be happy and pursue their own happiness. And Jim Hopper was seeking his, Leah would have to accept it and be happy for him.

Right?

Maybe. But Diane hadn't been happy at all when she received the news of her husband's voluntary disappearance through her daughter before she could even have her breakfast.

✰ ✰ ✰

A week passed, and nothing improved. On the contrary, everything got worse.

Diane limited herself to speaking only when necessary to her daughter, making it clearer than ever her displeasure in having to take care of Leah. She limited herself to good mornings and good nights, putting the laundered clothes in her room and signing one or two papers that the school sent her. That week, there was no proper meal, the two of them eating only small things they found in the cabinets since Diane didn't feel like cooking or even stocking the kitchen cabinets.

On top of everything, a letter arrived. A letter that Leah couldn't figure out what it was about, but she had seen it was from the hospital where her sister had been cared for all these years. When she opened the letter and read the contents, Diane could have cried or even screamed. It was the hospital bill for her family. An astronomical sum. Something she wouldn't be able to pay even if she worked her whole life without retirement and sold everything she had or didn't have. A nearly three-hundred-thousand-dollar bill. A bill that Jim left her to pay alone.

Diane shared all the resentment she felt toward her future ex-husband with a man who had been visiting her in recent weeks. A man whose name Leah didn't know but whose presence she noticed well.