#i love thinking that mike in his early teen years struggling because he didn't see nancy in a rebellious phase

[imthursdaysyme]

nancy wheeler the eldest daughter

Thinking of Nancy always worried over her siblings. Guilty in her choices because she should’ve done more, and angry. Angry that she sees Mike and Holly but can’t see where the line is drawn between sibling and child. Hates that she is unsure whether to laugh or scold when Mike blows bubbles in his milk or sneaks food from their fathers plate. Hates that she tells them to brush their teeth before bed, get to school on time, do their homework, finish their chores and wonder if their chores were given to them by her or their mother. 

She wonders if thats why they hate her. They hate that she’s hot and cold and never lukewarm. That she teases and pulls their ears in one moment and scolds them in the next. Wonders if they hate her because she tells them how to navigate their fathers mood swings, how to please their mother, and how to live in a home where they have two parents but somehow she is both. 

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(they don’t hate their sister, of course, they’re worried. Worried that somehow they are doing this strange thing called growing up wrong, because Nancy didn’t do this at my age, Nancy didn’t feel like she would explode at any second. 

Holly still lives in bliss of loving her sister that’s really her mother. While Mike steadily grows and grows and wonders if he wasn’t growing up wrong, but rather wonders if Nancy ever grew up. Was she ever a child, like him? Was she ever prickly in her own skin and scared of her own emotions and the heart in her chest? Or was she rather something entirely different.)