cigarettes- steve harrington

chapter 4.

Gemma's point of view:

The sky is melts from dark blue to a deep purple.
I turned my record player off an hour ago to listen to the birds waking up.

It's kind of beautiful,
kind of one of my favourite things to watch the sunrise.

Especially watching Nancy all flustered, climbing out of her car.
Fixing her hair up in the side mirror before sneaking through the front door.

All Mike's friends left before 12, but I had to ride with them half way to make sure they got home okay.
Which I expected to tire me out, but it didn't.

Then when we got home, I waited until Mike went to sleep to roll another joint.
And of course I wanted it to make me sleepy, but it didn't.

It's now four thirty seven in the morning, and I have given up on trying to sleep.
I can't stand just laying there with my eyes closed.

There's gentle footsteps outside my door before it's slightly pushed open, Nancy's head poking in.

" You're awake?".

Closing the door behind her, she walks over to the bed.

" Couldn't sleep, how was your night?" I reply, pulling back the duvet, patting the space next to me.

It doesn't take her long to get her shoes off, she climbs into bed next to me.

Sitting up to look out the window, I turn to face her.

" Do you think I'm a bad person?" She sighs.

Ah shit,
is now a good time to tell her so she feels better about herself?
Probably not.

" No, how could you possibly be a bad person?".

" I don't know, just how I dealt with things and Steve, I moved onto Jonathan so fast. I might've had more sympathy if Steve hadn't done what he did".

My throat becomes a little dry, clearing it doesn't help either.

" What did Steve do?".

I know there's a saying 'don't ask questions you don't wanna know the answer to', but you know, whoops.

She glances away, " It doesn't matter".

How am I supposed to sound uninterested but like genuinely interested at the same time?

" Cmon Nance, I feel like we don't tell each other anything anymore".

God what a fucking hypocrite.

" He slept with Jessica Baker" She sighs.

" Wait what? When?".

She blinks at me a few times, " Like a week ago, I found out just before the party".

I wince at the pain near my fingernail, looking down at it to see how badly i've picked at it.

" Jeez, I'm so sorry. That's so shit, you don't deserve that and I hope you know you don't".

" Yeah, I do, thank you" She half smiles.

Far out,
so he's a cheater?

" Are you okay?" I ask.

She nods, " Jonathan makes me really happy".

I'm not sure what to do with this information,
or what the right way to process it would be.