Halley's comet | Steve Harrington

ii. iv the freakshow trio

"𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒂 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒌."

⇜☾✩☽⇝

There was a second car in the driveway when Halley finally got home. Bob Newby. He was some guy her mother had been seeing for a while. Not bad. Halley didn't completely have an opinion on the man, she had rarely talked to him one on one, and when she did, he seemed bland. But Joyce had just said he's worried about her and her brothers liking him.

For the most part it didn't really matter to Halley. It wasn't Lonnie, and that was good enough for her. If that meant Bob stayed for movie night every once and a while, so what?

"Hi, Sweetie!" Joyce's voice rang out as soon Halley opened the door. Hearing the popcorn on the stove, she winced; last time her mom had tried to make popcorn she had burned it to all holy hell. The house smelled for a good two days afterwards.

She kept out of sight of the camera Bob was holding. "Hey, Mom," she said, dropping her bag at the kitchen table. "I'm gonna find Jonathan and Will." She wasn't totally sure if Joyce had heard her as the woman was back to talking with Bob. It didn't bother Halley though. If her mom was happy, so was she.

It was almost a given that her brothers were in Will's room. It was tradition that Jonathan would pick a few movies and Halley and Will would argue over which one to watch.

Like she expected, she could already hear voices from her younger brother's room. She knocked once, before opening the door.

"Hey," she said, closing the door behind her. She noticed the solemn looks on both boys' faces. "What's up?"

Will was the first to talk, his voice coming out harsher than Halley had heard it in a long time. "Do you think there's something wrong with me?" she flinched at the question, not understanding where it had come from.

"What? No." she said, definitively. "Why? Did someone say something? I'll kick their ass, I swear to God."

He went back to coloring something on his sketchpad. Jonathan tried to mouth something to her, but Halley was always shit at lipreading.

"Exactly." Will said, still not looking up from the paper. "Mom, Dustin, Lucas. They all treat me like I'm gonna break. Like- like I'm some baby. Like I can't handle things on my own."

Halley, still listening, took a step toward Will, finally seeing what was on his paper. 'Zombie boy'.

Oh, fuck that.

"It doesn't help," he continued, "it just makes me feel like more of a freak."

Jonathan practically reeled forward, "you're not a freak." he said. But Will glared at him.

"Yeah. I am." He was angry, and Halley couldn't tell if it was because of something that had happened or because Jonathan wasn't agreeing. "I am." his lips quivered, but he tried to pretend they hadn't, going back to his drawing.