Zero: A Stranger Things Fanfiction

Chapter 010

Jenna wandered down the shadowed hall, staring ahead without seeing. Each of her footfalls, silent on the middle school floor, moved without her telling them to. Numb. Jumbles of words broke out from the gym, now a few rooms away. Last she knew, Eleven was wrapped up between the boys, cradled against Mike. Whatever kind of argument the others were getting into now, she wanted no part of.

When she was ten years old, she had escaped that lab without a second thought. She hadn't waited to look for others. She hadn't waited to find Eleven. And then again, Tuesday night, she hadn't waited to save Barb.

Breaking into a new hallway without even thinking, Jenna found Nancy Wheeler shrunken on the floor, back against the tiger-painted wall. The stupid, giggly slip of a girl she had known just a few days ago was gone.

As Nancy looked up, Jenna found that her face was ravaged with tears. Flyaway strands of dark hair clung to the glittering paths on her cheeks, the hollows under her eyes pools of sadness. She held her legs tightly to her chest, hands latched together like an unbreakable lock.

Wordlessly, Jenna crossed the distance between them and slid to the floor beside her. The platinum white wall across from her was strangely blinding, bright where the moment should have been drowned in black. She slowly breathed in the cool air, allowing her eyes to flutter shut.

"The other kids were mean to me," she murmured, finding refuge in the numb peach color of her closed eyelids. Nancy said nothing, but questions hung in the air regardless. "The neighbor kids. I wasn't as smart as they were, not as quick on my feet or funny, or whatever. Not when I moved into that house with my... family."

Jenna hung a bitter emphasis on that last word, a surge of spite rising in her stomach. Why she still called them that she had no idea. But she just kept going.

"They pushed me because I let them. Called me names because I let them. One winter in seventh grade, the kids had a snowball fight. I wanted to be a part of it so badly, I just tried to blend in and have fun with them. But it didn't work." She finally opened her eyes, blinking wearily against the light.

"They pushed me into the mud at the end of the driveway. It was a new coat, and all they did was smash it into the mud. Over and over again. When they had enough, they just left. Found some other game, you know? I was pretty heartbroken. I just sat there. And then a redheaded girl my age came over." A faded smile flickered across Jenna's face, one that just barely reached her eyes. She finally allowed herself to turn her head, looking at Nancy's hands instead of her face.

"I didn't know her yet. Only that she lived down the street. And that they picked on her too. Made fun of her, like me. That day, she spent hours helping me scrape all that shit off my coat. We were never brave enough to stand up to them, but... after that, we always had somewhere to go. Someone to be with. Someone who understood.

"After we moved, I just... let my friendship with Barb die. I let her go. I don't know why I did that. Maybe I was scared she didn't like me anymore, or that she was tired of me. I regretted it though, every second I let her fall away, I regretted it."

"She wasn't tired of you." Jenna's gaze swept up to meet Nancy's, questioning and exhausted. Nancy shifted, picking at her sleeve. "She... was always happy when you were around. I mean, why do you think I invited you to that stupid party in the first place?"

Jenna blinked and bit her tongue, her efforts to keep tears away just barely working. She smiled, a crestfallen, hopeless smile that couldn't stay on her face for more than a second.

"You were a good friend to Barb, Nancy."

"So were you."

Jenna opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off as Hopper, Joyce, and Jonathan blazed into the hallway like a whole ass parade. Hopper, placing his hat on his head and pulling his keys out of his pocket, appeared to be deeply embroiled in a war he was losing.