Your parents decide to relocate after an incident the summer before your freshmen year of high school, one that leaves you irrevocably changed.
But after three years away, you decide to stop running from your demons and return to Hawkins High for y...
You enter the hallway of Hawkins High for the first time. You can't describe it, but somehow it's a familiar smell, the same way Hawkins Middle school Smelled: School supplies, sweaty teenage bodies, vanilla body spray, and bleach cleaner.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
You hear varying levels of conversations, lockers slamming closed and the squeak of sneakers while students shuffle their feet in a half assed attempt to get to first period.
You're trying to find your locker but also scanning the crowd for familiar faces. You don't know if anyone will recognize you. You don't look very different—but it has been three years. Of the faces you see, some are very familiar but not necessarily people you'd approach with open arms; others are vaguely familiar, their names on the tip of your tongue. Others you don't recognize at all.
You finally find your locker and reach into your back pocket for the small piece of paper with your locker combination that the woman in the main office gave you. You work slowly so you don't have to try over and over to get the damn thing open. You're concentrating so hard that you jump when someone slams their open palms on the locker next to you, rattling not only the entire row of lockers but also your already frazzled nerves.
"Boo!" Stacy says, eyes wide with a Cheshire Cat smile.
"Jesus fucking Christ, Stac," you say, looking up and running your fingers through your hair, blowing the hair out of your lungs that you sucked in when she scared the shit out of you. "You know I hate when you sneak up on me."
You mean it and your tone conveys it, but you can't help the smile that spreads across your lips either, because this is the first time you've seen your best friend in over a year. She had come to visit you in Colorado last summer for a few days but face to face time had been few and far between over the past three years.
"Hey, girl," she says, tiling her head to the side and bringing her arms out to embrace you in a warm and tight hug.
"It feels like I've never been here and also like I've never left," you mumble into the buckle of her overalls.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"I can imagine. Well... welcome to the Jungle! Who do you have first period?"
"English with Ms. O'Donnell," you reply, looking hard at your schedule.
"Ah, she's not bad," Stacy replies with a dismissive wave of her hand. "She likes fire crackers...she would have," Stacy stammers, "WILL...she will like you."
You feel a tightness in your chest. Stacy says the thing you've been thinking yourself all this time—you're not the person you were. You want to be. You want to be the quick as a whip, enigmatic, sarcastic, "fire cracker" you once were. Yet part of you, at least according to your Colorado therapist, thinks you blame that part of you for what happened. If you weren't so "out there," you wouldn't have been such a target...
"I know Stacy. I haven't been..." you sigh. "Me."
"Give it time," Stacy says gently, putting a hand on your shoulder. "You're home now. The old you will come back."
"Yeah," you nod, hoping you both look and sound convincing. "I'm home."
"Listen Mr. Wilbur will have my ass if I'm late to Chem again. I'll see you at lunch?"
"Sure, yeah. Um...where's O'Donnell?"
"Down the hall, two doors down," Stacy points.
"Thanks!" You wave, close your locker and go.
*Based on the teacher, have any ideas who we'll finally meet next?😉
