Long Live ~ Stranger Things

2. Nosy Inez

The morning after Tina's Halloween party Inez noticed that Nancy had made it back home at some point. She figured she should talk to her about the fight her and Steve had and chose this moment to take the chance.

"You know you really messed with his head last night." Inez spoke as she leaned in Nancy's doorway.

"Who's head?" Nancy questioned. "The only head messed with is mine now."

"First off you clearly should never drink that much again. And second, you and Steve got into a fight. Well, more like you got into a fight and left him more confused than anything."

"Steve and I didn't have a fight. What are you talking about?"

"Nancy, what do you remember exactly about last night?"

"I embarrassed you while dancing, then danced with Steve, then spilled punch at some point, after Steve was mad that I was drunk, and then he drove me home."

Inez had to hold in her laughter at the far from the truth response. "I found this all out after I talked to Steve while he was crying in Tina's front yard by the way." Inez began and Nancy was already looking more confused. "Basically from what he told me was that you said he was bullshit, you guys together was bullshit, and everything was bullshit. Oh and you no longer loved him."

"I have absolutely no memory of that."

"Well I guarantee he has a perfect memory so if you didn't mean anything you said, I'd recommend talking to him as soon as possible." Inez suggested. "Or did you mean it?"

Nancy waited a long moment before saying anything, "You know it's none of your business."

Inez leaned off the doorway but kept her arms crossed, "I know it's not my business, but I was just wondering as a cousin and a friend."

"Just go."

Inez put her hands up in surrender as she exited her cousin's room. She kind of felt bad about prying into Nancy's life but she also thought Nancy would actually talk to her. Nancy had tolerated many of Inez's rambles before and so Inez figured it would go the other way around. She guessed that there were just some things that were better left unspoken about.

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"Hey, Mom, I was thinking about staying the night at Stacey's tonight? We were gonna have a girl's night. Romantic comedies, do our nails, gossip..." Nancy asked one morning over breakfast.

"Sure! That sounds like fun." Mrs. Wheeler answered with a smile. "Why don't you invite Inez as well."

"Oh, I was hoping to just have a friend only night." Nancy glanced at her cousin for less than a second.

Inez took a moment to finish eating the piece of toast she just bit into. "It's fine, totally get it."

Nancy just gave her cousin a small smile before going back to her own breakfast. Inez had two different feelings about this that both sounded reasonable. One, Nancy was still upset that Inez had asked her about Steve. Or two, Nancy was up to something. The latter made more sense once Inez saw her cousin leave in Jonathan's car later that morning.

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Nancy never came back home the day Inez saw her leave with Jonathan and she wasn't back in the morning either. Inez decided it was better to just mind her business about it to keep a decent friendship with her cousin. So the next day Inez didn't ask anyone as to where Nancy was and went about things as normal.

Inez's normal was deciding to spend the day, or at least some of it, sitting under the nearest oak tree reading. And so she did until she heard someone on a bike pull into the driveway. And upon peering around the corner of the house she saw Dustin Henderson, one of Mike's friends, running up to the front porch. A few moments later Inez saw Dustin, who was now annoyed, walk back to his bike. She decided to go question as to why he was even there so early.