Say Anything | Steve Harrington |

Ch. 40 Confrontation

June 29th, 1985
Downtown Hawkins

After dropping Erica off back home, I spent a great deal of time debating whether or not I should go back home or go and confront my mom about putting our house on the market. 

The walk between home and downtown from the Sinclairs was practically the same distance. And the idea of confronting Mom in front of Will about the whole situation at home was the final push in my decision. 

Maybe it's better to do it now rather than later.

The streets of Downtown Hawkins are like a ghostland these days. 

Even though there's not a person in sight, signs and flyers littered the empty streets. Ranging from 'Everything Half Off' banisters in store windows, to 'Say No to the Mall' posters on the light poles, and lastly the 'Out of Business' signs plastered on most of the small-town stores.

Melvalds, the general store that my mom worked at, luckily wasn't out of business. But it's making its way there. A sign hung in the display window stating that the store's new sale ranged everything on the shelves from fifty to seventy percent off.

Pushing through the stores' glass door, the bell above my head chimed lightly.

My mom sat on the counter of the pharmacy with Chief Hopper, their hands interlocked. Which was somehow both shocking and unsurprising at the same time, but that's something we'd have to talk about later.

"Hey, Nell. I thought you were watching Erica today?" She hopped off of the counter, making her way towards me while Hopper stayed in his place on the counter, his eyes following her every move. "I just dropped her off," I stated simply as she pulled me into a tight hug.

"Oh, okay. So, Hop and I have been working on a speech for him to give to El and Mike, do you wanna hear it? Give us some feedback, I think it's pretty great." The grin on her face was infectious but I quickly shook it off. "No. No offense, Hop. I need to talk to you." I threw an awkward smile in the Chief's direction before he could unfold the small note. 

"What's wrong?" She placed a comforting hand on my shoulder only for me to quickly shrug it off. "Why are you selling the house?" I asked resentfully, her smile instantly falling at the sound of my voice. "What?"

"More importantly why didn't you tell us?" I continued slowly before pulling out the folded letter from my bag. "Where did you get that?" She asked, quickly pulling the letter from my hand. "It was on the counter, I found it this morning."

"I was going to tell you guys." She spoke softly, placing a hand on my shoulder. "When? When the house was already sold?" I asked, furrowing my eyebrows together. "Cause it kind of looks that way."

Shaking her head, she ushered me towards the checkout counter in silence. "Mom, what if Will found this. You know this will break his heart." I sat on the top of the counter while she stood in front of me. "I don't expect you to understand, Nellie. But we have to leave this town. It's what's best for Will, for our family"

Shaking my head, I ignored the tears welling up in my eyes. "How is this what's best? We've spent our whole lives here. Will has friends here, he's about to start high school. And Jonathan just got his dream job here. And it's about to be our senior year. How is this what's best?" I spoke quickly but she only stayed quiet, slowly shaking her head.

"It's not safe here, Nell. I don't want to uproot you guys, trust me. But these last two years have been hell for us, you know that."

"El closed the gate. You got that thing out of Will. It's over, so why do we have to leave?" I struggled to understand her logic over the situation, why couldn't she explain this to us before she put our house on the market?