Meg McConnel scared the shit out of people, Steve Harrington included. 

She wasn't scary in the obvious way. No mole on her face or large physical scars. Instead, Meg was lithe with long brown hair and a solid build. Her face was classically sculpted with supple cheeks and a petite nose. Her skin didn't have a single blemish. In fact, at first glance, she could be considered pretty. 

Well, she might have been if she didn't scare people first.

It could have been the expression on her face that struck fear into the hearts of people. She'd long mastered the attitude of showing the world that she didn't give a damn what it thought about her. Perhaps the constant scowl and full lips always willing to snarl at people who got in her way. Meg's hazel eyes had a glare that could shoot straight through anyone like a dart. With a wardrobe of flannels and heavy boots, she cut an imposing figure. 

But that wasn't quite it. 

Meg McConnel was the stuff of legends. She drove a large red pick-up that could run any of the small cars in the Hawkins High parking lot over without a scratch. She'd enter the lot every day with her windows down and angry Joan Jett music playing over her speakers at an earsplitting volume. (It's said once that Jason Carver had tried to tell her to turn her music down, and she'd just given him the finger and tried to run him over.) 

You see, Hawkins High School did fear her for a reason. 

It was well documented that Meg's uncle ran the local Hunting and Camping store. She knew how to shoot and old friends of hers claimed that she owned at least three guns, possibly more since that information was over a year old. Carol Perkins and Darbie Sears said that she always carried a knife on her person. They also said that she beat the shit out of her ex-boyfriend so bad that his entire family decided to move to a different state to get away from her.

Yeah. Meg McConnel had a reputation that inspired fear, and her abrasive attitude and general disregard to the social rules of Hawkins High only served to make it worse. 

Whatever the reason it was, the point remained that Meg was not the person that people in Hawkins, Indiana looked to for...well anything. She had no friends and the only people that she talked to were those who did so under the duress of teacher assigned group projects or at the Hawk, the local movie theater and Meg's place of employment. For the most part, she did her thing, Hawkins High did it's thing, and they managed to just co-exist. 

Get the picture yet? 

No you don't. 

Because that still doesn't go far enough to encompass the enigma that was Meg McConnel.

Because, boys and girls, she didn't used to be so scary. 

Within the first few months of freshman year, she'd seemingly reached all the milestones of the beginning a great high school experience. Meg had been fairly normal, if a bit abrasive. She'd been on the dance team, dating a football player, and had a decent amount of friends. She'd even been moderately popular. Not as popular as the "King" Steve Harrington or Chrissy Cunningham, but popular enough. 

Then her mom abandoned her. 

Deb McConnel disappeared from Hawkins in the middle of the night, and no one had heard from her since. Meg and her uncle always said that something had happened to her. She'd just gone for a walk in the woods behind their house, as she'd done hundreds of times, and she hadn't come back. She had to have gotten lost. But police hadn't found a trace of her in those woods. Jim Hopper had told the family that she'd probably gotten overwhelmed and left. Officially Deb McConnel was a missing person, but a year later, Meg was the only one who still looked for her. 

Then came the fall of 1983. Will Byers went missing. The town was in a turmoil and Meg McConnel felt as if she were reliving her worst nightmare all over again...

Then it became a real nightmare of monsters from other dimensions and jocks who might not be as bad as she'd always thought they were. 

And it only went downhill from there.

Yes. Meg McConnel was scary.

So it goes to figure that when there might actually be something between her and Steve Harrington, the popular boy was more than a little terrified at the prospect.