I said goodbye to Lucas and sprinted towards the restaurant previously known as Benny's. I don't really know why I chose to work at a place where the owner died because of me, but it's a decent job. I get paid 10 dollars an hour to cook and clean. I was told we hired a new waitress today, so I don't have to serve tables anymore!
I walked into the diner and saw a girl who looked a bit younger than me wearing the diner's uniform. She had a baseball cap on with a short ponytail in the back. Her name tag had been scratched up and the name "Sam" was scribbled onto it in red marker. Maybe I should do that with my name tag. Jane was a weak name anyway.
"You must be the new girl," I tried my best to sound excited. "I'm El."
"Sam," The girl responded with a smile. I was tired from everything that happened today, so I just went into the kitchen to set up.
"So, why does your name tag say Jane if your name is El?" Sam asked as she rang up the first order.
"I didn't like Jane," I was trying to focus on cooking, but I guess I could handle a conversation too. "Why's your name scratched out?"
"Cause Samantha takes too long to say,"
"Oh," I said. So she was like Max. Sam looked at me strangely for a second before talking again.
"So you're the girl who broke Troy's arm, right?" I nodded. "It's weird, I heard that you worked here and freaked out. With what you did, I thought you'd be so much more scary. Thought you'd be insane or something."
I ignored her and kept working. I honestly didn't know how to respond to that. It was sweet to know that I didn't scare Sam, but the fact that she was nervous in the first place wasn't great. Troy might be a bigger problem than I thought.
-End of The Shift-
I tried to walk out without Sam noticing, but I failed and she ran towards me. I didn't dislike her, she was just too energetic. It was tiring to talk to her.
"El!" Sam called out, catching up to me quickly. I turned around to face her.
"Hey, I'm sorry for saying that stuff about you being insane and all," Sam half yelled. "I don't really think that, I promise! It's just... hard to talk to people, you know? And all I knew about you was what Troy said."
"It's alright," I tried to leave, but she followed me.
"Soo, um, I might have told my parents that I was staying with someone tonight," Sam said awkwardly. Great. We walked in silence for a few minutes before she continued.
"What I was trying to say was that I don't have anywhere to stay tonight, and I was wondering if maybe I could, y'know, go to your house?"
"Why?" I was extremely confused. Why would she tell her family she's going somewhere when she's not? It didn't make any sense.
"Look, I just really need somewhere to sleep, ok?" Sam snapped. I was surprised and nodded instinctively. Great job Eleven, you're letting some random girl come over without telling anyone! Sam clapped and ran in a couple little circles before we kept walking.
"This is my house," I announced as we approached Hopper's cabin. I saw cars at the front so I changed directions and took Sam to Argyle's van. Argyle was a bit confused, but he let us in.
"I thought we were going into the house?"
"Oh yeah, Jane doesn't go inside when her Dad's got friends over," Argyle leaned over his seat to say. "They're -"
"They're really loud," I interrupted. Sam nodded and started to look through my stuff in the van, which annoyed me, but I didn't stop her. We just sat there in silence for a while, Sam digging through my stuff and me trying to figure out how to enter the void without Sam noticing.
"Hey, Sam, can you stop looking through my stuff?"
"Sorry," Sam mumbled. "Quick question though, who's the girl in all these pictures? I've seen all the other kids in them, but never her." She held up a photo to show me, but I didn't need to look.
"That's Max," I said softly. "She's my best friend."
"Why haven't I ever seen her then?" Sam asked.
"It's complicated," I replied, preparing myself for the hundreds of questions Sam would ask me. This will be a really long night.
Author's Note- Sorry this took so long, a lot has happened. Firstly, I got a concussion, but the main reason was that a kid actually went missing in our town and I've been helping her friends keep tabs on the search since they couldn't really help. 400 hours of programming lessons finally paid off (the police really tried to hide the case)! She's ok now, but it was pretty intense and time consuming. Bye!
