it is hard to explain without sounding vain or stupid - but the more attractive others find you, the more you're allowed to do. the easier your life is.
i have been on both sides of this. i am queer and cuban. i grew up poor. for a long time i didn't know "how" to dress - and i still don't. i make my sister pick out any important outfits. i have adhd in spades: i was never "cool and quiet", i was the weird kid who didn't understand how "normal" people behave. i was bullied so hard that the "social outcasts" wouldn't even talk to me.
i got my teeth straightened. i cut my hair and learned how to style it. i got into makeup. it didn't matter, at first, if i actually liked what i was doing - it mattered how people responded to it. like a magic trick; the right dress and winged eyeliner and suddenly i was no longer too weird for all of it. i could wear the ugly pokemon shirt and it was just "ironic" or a "cute interest."
when i am seen as pretty, people listen. they laugh at my jokes. they allow me to be weird and a little spacey. i can trust that if i need something, people will generally help me. privilege suddenly rushes in: pretty does buy things. pretty people get treated more gently.
i am the same ugly little girl, is the thing. still odd. still not-quite-fitting-in. still scrambling. still angry and afraid and full of bad things. of course it became my obsession. of course i stopped eating. i had seen, in real time, the exact way it could change my life - simply always be perfect, and things can be easy. people will "overlook" all the other things. i used to have panic attacks at the idea others would see me without makeup - what would they think? even for a simple friend hangout, i'd spend a few hours getting ready. after all, it seemed so obvious to me: these people liked me because i was pretty.
i worry about how much i'm being a bad activist: i understand that "pretty" is determined by white, het, cis, able-bodied hegemonies. if i was really an ally, wouldn't i rally against all of this? recently there's been a "clean girl" trend which copies latinx aesthetics: dark slicked-back hair, hoop earrings. i almost never wear my hair like that; i can hear the middle school guidance counsellor advising me that i might fare better if i toned it down on the culture.
the problem is that i can take pretty on and off. that i have seen how different my life is on a day where i try and a day where i don't. i told my therapist i want to believe the difference is confidence, but it's not. and when you have seen it, you can't unsee it. it lives inside your brain. it rots there; taunting. i get rewarded for following the rules. i am punished for breaking them. end of story.
pretty people can get what they want. pretty people can feel confident without others asking where they got their nerve from. pretty people can be weird and different. pretty people get to have emotions; it's different when they get aggressive, it's pretty when they cry with frustration.
of course people care about this. of course it has crawled into you. of course you want to be seen as attractive. it's not vanity: it's self-preservation.
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It’s only once everything is okay that Dustin starts thinking there’s something deeply wrong with him.
They’re out of the danger zone, where hospital visits have almost become normal hangouts rather than something to sit through on tenterhooks. Eddie’s getting the all clear to go home soon, and Dustin feels like he’s finally, finally able to take a deep breath, and blow it all the way out.
Steve must feel it, too, because he starts drifting off halfway through one of their last visits, while Dustin’s telling Eddie how Tews got up on the roof last night.
Dustin’s not offended by Steve falling asleep—for one, Steve already heard the story on the ride to the hospital and, more importantly, Dustin’s pretty positive that he’s barely been sleeping, only just enough so he can safely drive his car.
Dustin pats his knee fondly as he gets up.
Even though he’s steadily swaying towards the end of the couch, Steve tries to rouse himself.
“Mm, Dustin, jus’… jus’ need ten minutes, then… give y’ride home…”
“It’s okay,” Dustin says. He gently pushes Steve’s shoulder, snorts when Steve’s head tips right onto the arm of the couch. “I’m gonna go call my mom.”
He knows Steve really must be exhausted when he doesn’t attempt an argument to counter that, just sighs with a murmured, “Hmm? If tha’s… ‘kay.”
From the bed, Eddie looks on with a smile. “Thanks, Henderson,” he says softly. “Wayne’s gonna come later, he can… give him a ride home.”
He yawns through his words, like just looking at Steve is making him sleepy, too.
They’ve been like that a lot recently, Dustin thinks, like their breathing falls into sync without them even trying.
He slips out of the room quietly. There’s something between Steve and Eddie, he can feel it—and although he can’t quite put a name to it yet, he knows it’s something delicate, like spun glass. He’s not going to be the one to disturb it.
When his mom comes to pick him up, it happens.
“Put your coat on, hon, it’s freezing out.”
Dustin rolls his eyes—it’s hardly that cold—but as he steps outside, the air hits his bare skin and—
He’s in The Upside Down, and the cold is in his throat, in his lungs, he can’t stop shaking with it, and Eddie, he’s—he’s not breathing—
“Dustin? The car’s parked this way, baby.”
Dustin breathes in, short and sharp. For a moment, he can still see it all: the lightning, the blue tint, the particles hanging in the air, and then, like blinking away a camera flash, it’s gone.
His mom frowns, steps closer. “Dusty? Oh, you look pale. Hope you’re not coming down with something. Early night tonight, okay?”
“Yeah,” Dustin says. Blinks. “I’m fine. Just tired.”
-
He tells himself it’s a one-off.
Then it happens again—inside the hospital this time.
Steve opens a window in Eddie’s room before heading to the vending machine—just a crack. Barely anything.
But the cold is so intense that it takes Dustin’s breath away.
He hears the bats. Feels the pain in his foot, burning white-hot as he runs, he has to run. Eddie. Screaming. He has to get to him now or he’ll—he’ll—
Dustin shuts the window with such force that the pane rattles.
Eddie glances over from where he’s standing, right in front of the tiny mirror on the wall; he’s been wringing out his still damp hair with a clean T-shirt that Dustin highly suspects belongs to Steve, unless Eddie’s suddenly taken to owning a Hawkins Phys. Ed uniform.
“Woah, that’s the window shut, I guess,” Eddie says lightly. “You cold?”
“A bit,” Dustin says, hopes it comes out normal.
It must do, because Eddie just shrugs and goes back to the mirror, fiddling with his curls, and Dustin would usually give him so much shit for that, but his chest is tight, and although logically, he knows he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, he can still feel the dampness of the ground, the dirt under his nails, Eddie’s blood…
“Did you just close that?” Steve says, jerking his head towards the window with a bemused look.
“I live to piss you off,” Dustin says.
Eddie laughs.
“Yeah, it’s your special talent,” Steve shoots back, monotone, but he’s grinning as he throws a candy bar at Dustin’s head.
3 Musketeers.
Dustin isn’t hungry, not even for nougat.
But he tears the wrapper anyway, takes a sizeable bite just for the sake of appearances.
Steve is catching Eddie’s eye in the mirror, and Eddie’s smiling, looking at Steve’s reflection; and although Dustin can hardly hear what they’re saying through the thud of his own heartbeat, their joy is obvious without words.
Because it’s over. It’s all over.
Dustin’s not gonna be the one to ruin this for them.
He won’t.
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