Halley's comet | Steve Harrington

vii. the new girl

"𝑰𝒕'𝒔 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒔𝒉𝒆'𝒔 𝒔𝒕𝒖𝒄𝒌 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒑𝒉𝒊𝒄 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒆𝒄𝒉 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒈𝒆." 

➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶

Wrapped in Halley's jacket, the girl from the forest sat rigidly in the Wheelers' basement.

"Is there a number we can call?" Mike asked, voice cracking slightly. He looked to Halley, the closest thing to an adult in the room. She wanted to tell him that she knew what to do; that finding a random girl looking right out of Will's comic books was totally normal. But they would all know it was a lie.

Dustin and Lucas, about as subtle as the thunder outside, leaned in closer, examining the girl.

"Where's your hair?" Dustin was first to speak, reaching out to touch the buzzcut, but then deciding against it, "do you have cancer?"

Before she could answer, Lucas pushed in front of him, "Did you run away?" He asked, eyes wandering around the room until they landed on a paper mache sword from a past campaign.

"Are you in some kind of trouble? We could-"

"Is that blood?" Lucas said suddenly, cutting Mike off, and pointing a small, dried line of blood coming from the girl's nose.

Mike pushed him away, "Stop it! You're freaking her out."

"She's freaking me out!"

Halley, who fingers craved the stiff hold of a cigarette, put her hand on Mike's shoulder. "Yelling at each other isn't going to help anything, okay?" she took a deep breath, "We need to just stay calm."

Dustin, seeming to completely disregard what had just been said, piped in with a, "I bet she's deaf." He leaned down and clapped in her face. She jumped back in surprise. "Not deaf."

The scoff from Halley was ignored.

"Alright! That's enough, okay? She's just scared and cold." Mike had stepped in front of the girl with his back toward her, glaring harshly at the other boys.

With hesitation, he slowly took a step away from the girl, and over to a basket of folded laundry sitting atop the washing machine. He brought back sweatpants and a hoodie, handing them to the girl.

Behind him, Lucas and Dustin were both looking at Halley, waiting for some sort of responsible idea to come from her. She had nothing.

"Uh, here," Mike said, smiling awkwardly, "these are clean."

The girl examined the clothes; her fingers running slowly over the material. She looked at Mike, her head quirked slightly to the side. He offered a small nod, and she started to pull up her shirt.