suıʞʍɐɥ oʇ ǝɯoɔlǝʍ sƃuıɥʇ ɹǝƃuɐɹʇs

Chapter Three: Holly, Jolly

ʎlloɾ 'ʎlloɥ
ǝǝɹɥʇ ɹǝʇdɐɥɔ

November 9, 1983

The next day Dustin was banging on my bedroom door, "wake up! YN, come on! Wake up! Wake up!" I swung my door open and glared at him, "will you stop banging on my damn door!" I said. I pushed past him and walked into the kitchen, "I need you to take me to Mike's house," he said, following me. "I thought you guys were riding your bikes to school," I said, opening the fridge.

"We are. But I was hoping you could drive me over there or maybe you could just drive the three of us to school and then come with us to look for Will," Dustin said. "You guys really shouldn't be going out there, Dustin. It's dangerous," I said, pouring a glass of orange juice. "That's why you should come with us," he said. "Love to, kid, but can't," I told him, walking back to my room. "Why not?" He asked. "Because I was going to go see  if Jonathan wanted to hang out," I said. "Are you guys like dating?" Dustin asked. "What? No! Oh, my god! Go put your stupid bike in my car if you want me to take you to Mike's." I threw my keys and then shut my door.

At school during lunch I was walking to a table not realizing what table I was passing when my name was called. "YN." I stopped, sighed and turned around, "hey, Nancy," I said. "Hey. Have you seen Barb?" She asked. I raised my eyebrow at her, "no. Weren't you with her last night. You know at the ''special assembly thing for Will.'' last night?" I asked, making air quotes. " Or did you ditch her so you could get your cherry popped by Stevie boy here," I said. She shook her head, "no. Of course not. She was at Steve's with me–" I cut her off, "but let me guess. You told her to go home and Steve would take you home. She was hurt and left. Then you went to his room and let him take your virginity. Because I mean come on, who doesn't want the King of Hawkins High to take their v-card? Was it worth it, Nancy? I mean if I was Barb I'd ignore you too, " I said and walked away.

Was I a little harsh? Probably. Did I care? Not really. Why? Because I don't know how to control my jealousy. That's right you heard me. I'm jealous. I've always had a crush on Steve Herrington. I never admitted it to anyone but I've liked him since we moved to Hawkins a few years ago. It was stupid because I've only ever talked to Steve if it was school related. He was in a few of my classes and we were both juniors this year.

I walked out of the cafeteria only to run into Jonathan. "Shit. Sorry," I said. He steady me, "it's okay. You alright?" He asked. I nodded my head, "yeah. I was actually hoping to run into you," I said. We started walking down the hall and he asked, "you were?" I smiled, "yeah. I wanted to see if you maybe wanted to hang out. It's been a while," I told him. "Sure. I mean I have to develop these pictures but we can do something after school," he said. "Great! I'll see you then."

After school I headed towards the parking lot. While I headed for my car I saw Steve and his idiot friends sitting on the back of Jonathan's car. Steve jumped down and walked towards Jonathan who was just walking over to them. "Hey, man," Steve said. I threw my bag into my car and closed the door. I stood there and watched as Steve and Jonathan came face to face. "What's going on?" Jonathan asked. "Nicole here was, uh, telling us about your work, ' Steve said. I sighed and walked over to stand beside Jonathan just as Steve said, "and we'd just love to take a look. You know, as... connoisseur of art."

"Hey, Henderson. Just in time," Tommy said. I flipped him off and looked at Steve. "What's going on?" I asked. "Nothing. I don't know what you're talking about," Jonathan said to Steve. He went to walk by them and Tommy took Jonathan's bag. "Fuck sake. Are we really doing this playground bullshit?" I asked. Tommy threw it to Steve and he started going through it. "Ever hear of privacy, Harrington?" I asked. He turned around and had a stack of pictures in his hands. "Here we go," he said.

They started looking at them and Carol took them, "yeah, this isn't creepy at all," she said. I snatched the pictures from them and looked down. I sighed when I saw they were pictures of them when they were at Steve's last night. I looked at Jonathan. "I was looking for my brother," he said. Carol took them back from me and I shot a glare at her. "No, this is called stalking," Steve said.

Just then Nancy walked up, "what's going on?" She asked. "Here's the string lady," Tommy said. "What?" She asked, confused. "This creep was spying on us last night," Carol told her. She took one of the pictures and held it out to Nancy, "he was probably gonna save this one for later," she said. Nancy took the picture and looked down at it. "See, you can tell that he knows it was wrong, but... man, that's the thing about perverts... it's hardwired into 'em," Steve said, walking up to Jonathan. He ripped up some of the pictures, " so, we'll just have to take away his toy."

Steve walked back to the bag. "No, not the camera," Jonathan begged. Tommy stopped him from going over to Steve. " Hey. Tommy. Tommy. It's okay," Steve said. " Come on, Steve. Don't be an asshole. Just let it go," I said, moving in front of him. He looked down at me and held his arm out, "here you go, man," he said. I knew what he was going to do." Don't," I whispered. Then I heard the camera drop to the ground. "You're an asshole, Harrington. You'll do anything to impress your stupid little friends," I said. He looked away from me then walked around me. "Come on, the game's about to start," he said.

Tommy, Carol, and Nicole followed after him. Jonathan bent down and started picking everything up. I turned around and bent down and started to help him. Nancy bent down and started gathering a few of the pieces of pictures when Steve called her. She walked away and I picked up the camera. "I'm sorry. Guess there's no fixing this, huh?" Jonathan looked up at me and shook his head. 

After what happened Jonathan didn't want to hang out so we did a rain check. I went home and started on my homework. I was helping my mom with dinner when Dustin burst through the door. I turned around to see the tears running down his face. "Dusty. What's wrong?" Mom asked. I walked over to him, "Dustin." He through his arms around my waist and buried his face in my shirt. A sob racked through him and I wrapped my arms around him. "He's— he's— Will—" he choked out. "What about Will?" I asked. "He's dead. They found him body in the quarry!" He sobbed. I held onto him tighter. Mom came over and wrapped her arms around both of us.