Halley's comet | Steve Harrington

iv. grilled cheese

"𝑰 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝑱𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏 𝒈𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒃𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝒖𝒑 𝒃𝒚 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒆𝒏𝒔,"

➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶

Halley waited for Jonathan at their car after school. She laid splayed on the hood, a cigarette, from the pack she had swiped from her mother, dangled closely to her mouth. The girl was transfixed with the small smoke shapes spiraling around her.

Will always hated when she smoked. Because of that, she tried to do it as little as possible. But it was soothing when her nerves were shot, and she needed some sort of anchor after her shit day.

"Thought you gave these up." someone took her cigarette before she could inhale another breath of false emotional control.

Halley groaned, stretching her arms above her head before sitting up. Jonathan stood to her right, arms crossed, and shoed something into the ground. Halley had a sneaking suspicion on what that 'something' was.

"So did I," she said matter-of-factly, jumping off the car. "Today seemed like a 'throw away my progress' kind of day."

The two got into the car, Halley taking the keys. She turned on the radio before beginning to pull out of the parking lot.

"Your English teacher saw me when I passed her class and asked me where you were," Jonathan said, picking up the notebook Halley had put on the floor by his feet. He skimmed the pages, looking at each collage. He stopped at one she had made a few weeks ago, a couple polaroids cut and stuck to the top of the page for reference, and a butterfly created with pictures she had cut out from the myriad of old magazines taken from their mom's work.

"I skipped last period," Halley said, looking over and watching Jonathan's reaction to her art.

Technically, she hadn't planned to ditch, but fear and anxiety crept down her spine whenever she came up with a new theory on Will, and by the end of the day she was ready to combust.

"I talked to Hopper," She said, stopping as she let a car come out of the grocery store lot, "during study hall." She let off the brake a little too quickly and the two teens lurched forward before Halley got the car back under control. They didn't acknowledge the mistake.

Jonathan put down the art book, and turned to look at his sister. "Really? Did he come into the library or something?"

"Uh, more like 'something'," She replied, forcing a laugh as she turned into Mirkwood, smiling slightly as she remembered Hopper's lost face as the boys tried to explain it to him. She kept her eyes out, as if Will would simply be riding alongside the road on his bike. "I went over to the middle school to see if Will was there. He wasn't, by the way, but that's not the main point. Hopper saw me and brought me along to where he questioned the boys."