Kate Hopper's life had finally gone back to normal.
With the summer after her senior year in session, she'd soon be leaving behind the horrors of Hawkins behind, returning to New York City in the fall.
Kate only tried to live in the moment as Steve...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
THAT NIGHT WHENEVER Kate had gone home, she kept frantically checking her watch.
Ten o'clock.
She always found herself to be such a hypocrite at times like this one.
Even though Kate criticized Mike and El for being inseparable and for making out all the time, she and Steve definitely weren't any better. In fact, they were probably worse than the two kids. They both, whenever possible, tried to make themselves available after Steve got off from work at nine-thirty every night (or at least, that was when he was supposed to get off).
Kate, since the beginning of the summer, had helped the situation slightly. The bookstore she used to work at had to close once the mall opened, just like most of the other storefronts in downtown Hawkins. Because of that, her father had let her work at the police station whenever Flo needed filling in for, just like she had that day (during the summer, of course, Flo had been out much more than she usually was during the year because she would go out of town to visit her children and grandchildren in the city, so Kate was more than happy to fill in for her whenever she wasn't there). Even though Kate had much more time on her hands now, Steve still always had work.
Steve's place of work had been something of a sensitive topic for him. He originally was going to go back to being a lifeguard for the third summer in a row, but whenever he walked in on his first day and saw Billy Hargrove, he quit within five minutes of being there. Because his dad was forcing him to get a job (while his father hadn't "forced" him, he did completely cut him off from any financial funds, so whenever they weren't home, he was absolutely screwed on money, which was most of the time, and he refused to have anyone else pay for him), he'd had to look for work anywhere and everywhere. The mall had been around for a couple of weeks at that point, but most of the stores had already been fully hired with teenagers who needed summer jobs, all except for one.
