𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞, 𝖾𝖽𝖽𝗂𝖾 𝗆𝗎𝗇𝗌𝗈𝗇

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈𝐈.

Sitting in the uncomfortable wooden chair of the chemistry class, Elizabeth waited for the bell to ring. It was the first time in two months, maybe even three, that she had shown up to school. When she entered the classroom at the first hour of the day, heads had turned toward her and a wave of uncomfortable whispers had filled the room. After twenty minutes, all the talk about her was over.

That's how it is in the teenagers world. Everything has to be in constant motion or you get bored. Trends are temporary, you have to be constantly on the lookout for what's going on, everything is moving so fast : what's trendy in the moment won't be in less than an hour.

There was a time when this inspired Elizabeth, it set the rhythm of her days and she was fine with it. She always did her best to keep her place in the popular high school group, she dated a lot of boys, one after the other, secretly with some girls. She had all the keys in her pocket to get the latest gossip, the latest news you couldn't miss. Even when she was wearing anything but the trendy clothes of the moment, she was fine ; people said she didn't care about codes, and it was "cool" not to give a damn. Having the life of the typical teenager girl from her favorite movies was fun to her, and she thought she'd never break away from it. But that was in California. Now, she was in Hawkins.

The ringing bell announcing lunch break cut her off from her memories. She got up, grabbed her bag from which she hadn't even bothered to take a pencil case, and was the first to leave the room. Once in the hallway, she felt like she was living in a world that was saturated beyond belief. Everyone was talking and Elizabeth wondered how they could hear each other in such a loud environment. The clothes of all these people were full of colors, both bright and pastel.

Following the movement of the crowd, she made her way to her locker. In front of it she didn't know what to do ; it was empty of any decoration. She opened it, knowing very well that it would be just as empty inside. And she was not mistaken, nothing at all. Nothing at all except maybe a small piece of paper carefully torn from a checkered paper. The redhead grabbed it, opened it and read: "Welcome back! =) Chrissy C.". Why Chrissy Cunningham had thought of her return, she didn't know, but the attention made her feel happier.

She grabbed her wlakman and her hundred-year-old headphones from the bottom of her backpack and cut herself off as well as she could from the rest of the world by turning the volume of her music up. Anyone passing by her in the hallway to the cafeteria could hear the tune of Chiquitita by ABBA for a few seconds. In front of her, two teenagers she recognized as her little sister's friends were talking. She couldn't and didn't want to hear their conversation anyway, but she did notice that they were quite agitated. This made them even slower in choosing their meal, which annoyed the redhead.

Once the doors of the cafeteria were passed, Elizabeth pushed them in order to pass in front of them without waiting any longer. She went directly to a table where Maxine Mayfield was sitting. The taller girl took off her helmet, letting it rest around her neck, and waved at her younger sister. She observed the room and the people in it.

Overall, nothing really changed between the Hawkins canteen and the one in California. The food was still as despicable, the noise still as environmental, and the groups still the same : the popular, the cheerleaders, the jocks, the losers, the nerds, the rebels and the weirdos. Around these groups gravitated small bands of ordinary, lost people who had not found their place in any of the big, ruling high school groups.

If there was one thing that changed, it was the status of the popular ones. They were what Elizabeth called "the rural populars." As the only teenagers making the rules in this small town in the middle of Indiana, they thought they were the world's center of attention ; there was no competition, nothing to bring them down to earth and remind them that they were just as ridiculous as everyone else. It was funny to see them put themselves on such a high pedestal ; if they saw their fellow Californians they would be back on the ground.

As she watched the people in the lunchroom, Elizabeth saw two heads turn toward her before turning back to their friends. It was the two boys from earlier. What were their names again ? Justin and Miguel ? Probably not ; she wasn't good with names.

Then, she turned her head to look at a boy taller than the others, sitting at the end of the table. If she had trouble with names, it didn't take her a second shot before she remembered Eddie Munson's name ; the master of a club, which didn't stand out because of its reputation, called the Hellfire. Everybody knew him, and nobody knew Elizabeth Mayfield.

The redhead forgot about her sister, who was still talking to her, and put on her headphones to let Mötley Crüe's "Girls, girls, girls" blur the bits of conversation around her. The eyes of the two students never left each other and the cold look of the girl contrasted perfectly with the one of the boy. She looked at him as if to send him ice spikes while her heart seemed to be tangled with itself. She wasn't really used to being stared at in this way and staring back at people.

She won't admit it now, but she was intimidated. She felt strangely small under his piercing eyes, like a child who was caught red-handed. Besides, she thought the Hellfire members were funny. They were all lost teenagers that Munson had taken with him, he taught them not to care about the reputation they had, he taught them to play with it.

Elizabeth stood up, her platter on one hand, grabbed her bag and threw it over her shoulder with the other, and walked towards the exit. She passed by the Hellfire's table, locked eyes with the older one once again since she had lost him for a few seconds, and then lost him one more time when she turned her back.

Eddie Munson left her a bad impression. Like a bitter aftertaste on the puck ; the taste of change. And change, she had more than enough of it in two years. Yet she wished she had the strength to be like them, to go back to being a teenager and fall into the group effect, no matter which one.

If only she knew that after this summer, none of them would be teenagers again.