DISCONTINUED
Alina Fairgrieves-Byers and Gabriel Burton have learned to expect the worst, but that doesn't make things less disappointing.
𝐄𝐗𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄
( 𝐎𝐂 𝐗 𝐋𝐔𝐂𝐀𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐑 )
( 𝐎𝐂 𝐗 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐁𝐘𝐄...
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california dreamin'
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. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧
There were only twenty-four hours before Alina Fairgrieves-Byers would board an early-morning flight and return to Hawkins, Indiana, and she was determined for them to pass by as quickly as possible. Perhaps, if she willed it hard enough, minutes would fall away like grains of sand in an hourglass, one after another after another. Perhaps, if she crossed her fingers, this entire day—the last day of school before spring break—would blur together, as days that were not full of teasing often did. Perhaps, if she just prayed, she would blink, and it would be time to leave Lenora Hills, California.
It had been one-hundred and eighty-five days (not that Alina was counting—El kept track) since Alina had been back in her hometown, and in her humble opinion, that was far too long. Sure, Hawkins, Indiana may have had a majorly white population, one that a Black girl would always stand out in; barely any options for entertainment after the destruction of Starcourt Mall; a constant smell of manure and car exhaust; and many locations in which Alina had experienced the worst events of her fifteen years of life, but it was still home. Not because of the houses she'd resided in here—both of which were their own harrowing memories attached—but because of the people.
Gabriel Burton. Nicole Burton. Dustin Henderson. Mike Wheeler. Max Mayfield. Steve Harrington. Nancy Wheeler. Robin Buckley.
Lucas Sinclair.
Alina hadn't seen her boyfriend in one hundred and eighty-five days, which was completely unacceptable. Sure, they exchanged frequent letters—though hers were always significantly longer than his (not due to him loving her less. Lucas had just never been the writer Alina was)—and sent each other the occasional package in the mail, but there was a difference between reading words on a page and seeing the face of your loved one in-person. If not for the pictures plastered all over her walls and the home videos she had saved on her camera, she might have forgotten the intricacies of his appearance.
