BILLIE JEAN ( eddie munson.. ) ✔

010. Brother Barry, Barry, Barry..

Life became soundless and in the depths of the lack of sound, Billie's ears rang with the newfound solitude of helplessness. Her breathing must have stopped, because she heard none of it, even as her nostrils flared and shrunk, the only true feeling in her body as it was a movement happening right beneath her eyes.

Wide, she looked down but saw not the horror, yet the bright memory of a song named happiness.

October, 1985. She could recall, down to the dot, every sense of that day. She had been so nervous she started counting these senses, taking inventory of them. This Physics Test was a life and death type of matter back then. The classroom smelt, for example, more so like a lab than before, but the hallways were tinted in a pumpkin aroma from Darcy Taylor's pies, baked for some charity fair. Particularly in her seat, Billie smelt the disgusting scent of strawberry bubblegum, chewed by the guy behind her. He was going to score an F.

The test had been so difficult that even if it was raining outside and she wanted nothing more but to be grateful for the coziness of her sweater, Billie was sweating. Squirming, she started picking her nails, pulling on their edges, then scratching her pencil, bending the paper corners in her notebooks... Nothing was sufficient to allow her mind to escape the constant nagging of two instruments of torture: the knowledge that the test had been impossibly tough and the damn bubblegum scent.

The teacher passed her the graded paper back and moved on, even though her world had completely stopped.

She was new at Hawkins High and though she wished she cared a lot less about these things, her father's habits and antics were glued to her subconscious, making her well convinced that the first grade she gets in this school will determine just how well she'll handle her whole year here.

There was no room for "I am still adjusting", there was no "I will do better next time".

That paper before her eyes was going to decide her faith and oh, Billie remembered with how much joy she held it when the bell rang and she ran out of the classroom. Her sweaty hand crushed the paper in its fist and waved it up while stopping, carelessly, in the very middle of the busy hallway. Across from her, leaning against the wall, Austin had started smiling. He's been waiting for her there.

"I did it!" Billie exclaimed, making several people on the hallway roll their eyes as they had to go around. "Perfect score," she hit the paper and finally skipped her steps forward, towards Austin who mirrored her excitement in an instant.

He clapped his hands loud enough to temporarily cover the beginning of the break ruckus. Chatter was everywhere but he gave Billie a hug. "Had no doubt!" He laughed.

"Apart from the last bit," Billie did not linger in the hug and as a consequence of her words, Austin immediately took her paper, turning it around and narrowing his eyes shortly to focus. In less than ten seconds, he chuckled and nudged Billie for their walk with the crowd, outside.

"Sneaky, that last bit on the problem. You twisted it well and shortened the obvious answer by half."

"I wasn't going to sit around and write a whole page like he wanted me too," Billie raised her chin proudly then pointed at the paper. "But it worked and he liked it."

"Of course he did," Austin shook his head. "It may have been a bit rebellious in our world, but it was still smart."

She remembered pushing the door open for them before the memory went blank and she blinked. Instead of seeing reality as it was, her mind recalled again, from the depths of her soul where moments collected overtime, sediments to her emotions.

The peacefulness of a friendship was now embracing Billie, inside out on the warm October night she spent with Austin on the best star observation spot. There was supposed to be a meteor shower and they planned to watch for shooting stars until the sun was up. Talking about nothing and everything, all at once, their subjects spanned from what they've eaten in the morning to the vastness of the cosmos showing itself to them as a ghost of the past in the sky.