A NEW AND IMPROVED VERSION
Ryan Fordman has lived next door to Steve Harrington her entire life. Her entire life, he'd always been a window away, occasionally shouting across the space between their houses. They were inseparable... at least, they we...
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It was the final day of their sophomore year, and as usual, Ryan Fordman was walking in between Steve Harrington and Axel Scott through the hallways of Hawkins High. For as long as she could remember, Steve had been her best friend. After all, he was the boy next door. Every time she needed someone, he was always there, her entire life. Axel had come into the story when they were six, making the duo an inseparable trio, but everyone knew Ryan and Steve were the closest.
Yet, despite how close they seemed on the outside, things had been changing between them recently. Somewhere around Halloween that year, Steve started hanging out with Tommy H and Carol Perkins, meaning Ryan and Axel started to hang out with them as well. Truth be told, Ryan couldn't stand them. They brought out the worst in him, he said and did things that made her question their friendship, but just as quickly as the concerns came, they disappeared when he flashed her a grin.
The trio stopped by Axel's locker, laughing loudly at a joke Steve had made about not being able to get detention at the end of the school year when they arrived, putting an end to the laughter. Tommy and Carol forced their way into the group, speaking directly to Steve about some party at the city pool after dark, ignoring Ryan and Axel entirely. It didn't help that Steve seemed to forget their existence as well.
Ryan looked at Axel, rolling her eyes as she quietly mimicked Carol's high pitched voice while he grinned. At this point, she probably could've spoken at a normal volume and gone unnoticed. Carol, Tommy, and Steve were too absorbed in their own pointless conversation anyway.
Out of the corner of her eye, Ryan saw Jonathan Byers walk by, his head low to avoid making eye contact with anyone. Jonathan was a year younger than her, but they worked together on the yearbook. She absolutely adored him and his little brother Will, whom she had the pleasure of meeting around Thanksgiving break as well as their mother, Joyce.
Ryan was one of Jonathan's only friends, Axel being the other, though he seemed to be closer to her than he was to Axel. She considered him and his family to be her own seeing as how much time she had started to spend with them over the past year. Her desk at home was covered in stacks of drawings Will had made for her as well as pictures Jonathan had taken of her hanging out with Axel and the Byers family at their house.
Jonathan was a change of pace than Steve as he was quiet and introverted where Steve was the life of the party anywhere he went. That was the other thing; Steve didn't hang out with Jonathan like her and Axel did. It was actually another one of those problems hidden under the surface. Where Tommy and Carol had latched onto Steve like leeches, Ryan and Axel had found Jonathan, the exact opposite.
Ryan smiled at Jonathan, bouncing the two feet away from the lockers, dragging Axel with her, even though it was his locker everyone was crowded around. Jonathan stopped for her, "Hey, Ry."
"Hi." She grinned. "What are the plans for summer?"
Jonathan shrugged, "Just hanging out with Will and working at the store."
