Hellfire's Angel | Stranger Things

No Regrets

         Sunday passed like a fever dream in the Evans household. No one spoke to each other unless they absolutely had to, and most of that time was spent in separate rooms to each other. Frankie tried to focus on her schoolwork, but she couldn't get the image of her father's face out of her mind. If someone had tried to cover up Will's disappearance, were they still covering up their tracks? Did her father know who was responsible, or what? Was it a client? A friend? Or was it someone with power? More powerful than the police, powerful enough to make her dad act that way.

When Monday came she felt butterflies in her stomach at the thought of returning to school, facing the wrath of her friends for leaving the party without saying anything, facing up to the people who knew where she'd been and who she'd been with. Facing Travis... That one made her the most nervous. She had a bad feeling he would already know, and if he knew, it wasn't hard to guess how he might react.

Her mom had made pancakes, which was unlike her, and her dad wasn't sat at the table reading his newspaper, which was unlike him. He'd gone into work early, her mom said, placing a plate of pancakes in front of her. She wondered what the occasion was, considering her mom hadn't made pancakes for breakfast since she was ten.

Dustin was wheeling his bike down the driveway when she left the house. She hadn't seen him since Will was found, and now she found herself not knowing what to say.

"Weird shit, huh?" she mumbled.

"Yeah, really weird." He looked shifty, almost like he knew something. Just like Dad.

"Have you spoken to him yet? Is he ok?"

"He's... about as ok as can be. Anyway, I better get going. School."

She nodded, watching him cycle away, wondering exactly how someone can go missing, presumed dead - no, confirmed dead - and then turn up all of a sudden, alive and well. It was a mystery. A very strange mystery.

On her drive to school she listens to the radio, however, her thoughts drown out the music. Before she knows it, she's at school, parked the car, gone to her locker for a textbook and headed to her first class in a daze. It's English. She hands in her homework, smiles at the girl at the desk to her right. Robin her name is, she is good at remembering names.

Second period is Math. She hates Math. She takes a test she hadn't revised for, her brain struggling to come up with any answers. Math required too much concentration, and today she can't do that. She knows she's failed the test when she hands her paper in.

Soon it's lunch, and so far, nothing eventful has happened. Her daze continues. She sits at her usual table where Jackie and Beth are already seated, animatedly discussing the party on Friday night. They fall silent when Frankie sits. It is their first time seeing her since then.

"Where did you go?" Jackie asked, "I came out and you were gone, I was so worried!"

"Yeah, we thought you'd done a Barb," added Beth.

She flashed her a look. It was too soon, and admittedly, too strange, to talk about Barb in that way. "I got a lift," she said.

"Who from?"

"All you need to know is that I was fine, more than fine, and I'm here today. So can we please just drop it?"

"Fine," mumbled Beth, holding up her hands.

"Did anything eventful happen after I left?" she asked.

"Not much," replied Jackie, "Just the usual drunk people being drunk people. Tommy and Carol were caught in one of the bedrooms." Figures. "Oh, and Travis's mood took a right turn. One minute he was happily chatting up girls-"