Halley's comet | Steve Harrington

xii. scatterbrained shit

"𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒅𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕, 𝑯𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒕𝒐𝒏?"

➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶

Halley tried to go to class. She really, really did. But half way into math she felt like she was going to throw up, so she told Atkins she wasn't feeling well, and booked it out of the room. Caroline had tried to stop her, but it was like her body was on autopilot.

She had the keys today, so once she was out of the school, she made a beeline to her car, throwing open the door and getting in. Her hands shook as she put the key into ignition, and she had no idea where she was going, but she knew she needed to get away from the school. It was confining, and too normal with everything going on.

Without so much as a thought as she drove throughout Hawkins, definitely at a speed that would have gotten her pulled over had it not been in the middle of a week day when no one was out, she found herself pulling into the police station.

Fingers tingling, she locked the car as she got out, looking around and waiting for someone to yell at her for being out of school. No one did.

The door wasn't nearly as heavy as she thought it would be, and it nearly crashed into the wall beside it. Flo looked up from her secretary desk. Letting the person she was on the phone with know that she would have to call them back.

"Hey, Honey, what's up?" Flo asked, looking Halley up and down. She knew she was definitely a sight to see, dark circles sitting deep beneath her eyes, and a slightly less red than the day before handprint on her cheek.

Her body shook with nerves as she rocked back and forth on her heels. Had she been anyone else, Flo definitely would have ordered a drug test.

"I, um, is Hopper here?" She asked, stumbling over her words as she tried to look behind the front desk. She saw Ponde, the officer that had been at the middle school, but no one else.

Flo shook her head, "No, Hon, I'm sorry, he left about twenty minutes ago, is everything okay?"

Was everything okay? God, the question made Halley want to laugh. Everything was definitely not okay, and she was one hundred percent sure Flo knew that. Everything was so fucking not okay, but that wasn't why she was here. She needed to get it over with before she lost the balls and backed out.

"Uh, yeah, yeah, it's good. Just, tell Hopper I want the intern job," she said, pausing before adding on, "yeah, I want the job." She let out a breath and nodded. This was what she wanted.

Without waiting for Flo, Halley turned on her heel and marched right back out of the building. Her mind was going a million different directions at the moment, but every single trail all led back to one destination: finding Will.

~

Back at the school now, Halley was growing more and more familiar with the hood of her car. Once again, she splayed out and looking at the sky above her, searching the clouds for shapes, and watching as the shapes blended with the smoke from her cigarette when she squinted her eyes.