Hello, darling, sorry about that.
Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we
lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell
and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud.
Especially that, but I should have known.
You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together
to make a creature that will do what I say
or love me back.

Crush, Richard Siken
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best read, second to smallest size
dark mode ──────── hoefler

Tall, pale boy sat in her Anatomy class.
Back of the room, second last column to the left.
Teenaged boyhood dripped from his intoxicating laugh; smothering, yet sweet as freshly picked cherries in late-May.

Her amber eyes pierced through it: boyhood reeked of stale beer and slut-shamed women. He may have been neck-deep in saccharine fruit, crimson and delectable — but a fat pit embedded itself in the center of each drupe, it rolled in the palm of her hand, and she frowned. Too large to eat around, yet the fruits were not that irresistible; he was not worth a cracked tooth.

She trudged away.

Irene Sinclair longed for a picture-perfect relationship — the kind you see in movies and gush about with your friends, where the guy sweeps the girl off of her feet despite her flaws? He buys her flowers and she massages his shoulders after a long day. She thought it sounded simple enough, she wanted a man, no boys, no disrespectful douchebags.

Unfortunately, the dating pool in her home of Hawkins, Indiana had pee in it.

Every "theorized boyfriend candidate" opened his mouth and all feelings she may have conjured up flung themselves out of the nearest window; they were too mean, or too scummy, or looked weird (She's thinking of you, Tommy Hagan.). Having a high school sweetheart seemed like an unattainable goal for Irene, unlike her best friends, Mallory and Rick, who were very much deeply in love despite denying it whenever they got into one of their stupid spats.

They teased her about her "unbelievably high standards", which really, were the absolute bare minimum to reach for, however, they never relented the fact that: Irene Sinclair pined after love, yet never gave anyone the time of day, not even resident jock-with-a-heart-of-gold Patrick McKinney.

Enter May 4, 1985: the newest "rager" thrown in the Perkins house, down near Loch Nora where only the richest families lived. Irene wouldn't have attended had Mallory not coaxed her into it, but god was she glad she did.

A mishap — spilled scarlet punch down the front of Irene's carefully curated outfit, and Steve Harrington caught red-handed (literally) — sparked a foreign feeling in her heart. A crush. Not one that fizzled out as soon as it came, a real crush, where she doodled "Irene + Steve" in her diary until her wrist ached and she daydreamed about their first date by the quarry under the stars.

Problem one: That would never happen. Never in a million years.

Problem two: summer break reared its poorly-timed head around the corner and he graduated. Irene didn't want a fling that lasted a few weeks until he went off to college and found a better, prettier college girl; so, after a long girl talk with her mom, she learned the valuable lesson of letting things go. And she does, as best as she can do with raging teenage hormones bouncing around in her body.

That is, until she spots the familiar doe-eyed, perfect haired, ex life guard and co-captain of the Hawkins High swimming team slinging ice cream behind the counter of her little sister's favorite store in town, Scoops Ahoy. Then, Irene Sinclair knew —

Summer of '85 was about to be her greatest one yet, maybe in the history of like, ever.

savannah smith,
Irene Sinclair

krysten ritter,
Mallory Barnes

mark mckenna,
Richard Lewinsky

Additional Cast.
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joe keery, Steve Harrington
caleb mclaughlin, Lucas Sinclair
priah ferguson, Erica Sinclair
maya hawke, Robin Buckley
sadie sink, Max Mayfield
karen ceesay, Sue Sinclair
arnell powell, Charles Sinclair

─────────── disclaimer: stranger things isn't mine, duffers don't sue me. warnings: swearing, underage drinking, drug use, vulgarity, allusions/mentions of racism, homophobia, and classism, insensitivity towards mental health issues, violence, body insecurity/appearance insecurity in general, mild sexual content (i'm not writing full on smut).

─────────── not me starting a book in the middle of writing another one... 😝 me and austrxlians  were like, "omg 🤦‍♀️ ugh... sibling fics... so... unoriginal... let's make one!" so we're both making a sinclair sibling fic. you have to check out her books too because we're like the mitosis of wattpad or whatever.

dt to 🫶: austrxlians heywardscupid

i'm actually really excited to write irene, she's in a constant state of slay and i find her issues super relatable, plus i've never written a st story set in season 3 before so i'm stepping a little bit out of my usual agenda to do this. townie is mostly an "unwinding" fic that i can be more relaxed about in terms of writing since pretty sick was burning me out pretty badly, and writing sibling fics are really fun to me, even if it's a little cliche. i really fell in love with irene as i was building her character, and i hope everyone loves her as much as i do.

the title "townie" comes from the mitski song by the same name btw, in case you don't know it. i suggest listening to it since it's really good and correlates to the story really well, it's in the playlist that i attached a picture of by the synopsis.

without further ado...

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Townie / girlpools 2022