Basic Instinct [stranger things]

3. Walks Home

CHAPTER THREE
WALKS HOME

Numerous hours later, Kimmy wondered out her middle school building with a feeling of dread in her stomach. Although this wasn't entirely unusual, often this feeling of unease appeared whenever the idea of returning home seeped in and plagued her mind.

Surprisingly, the feeling didn't seem to wear her down as heavily as she often found it. Instead it was replaced by a feeling of... anxiousness? She wasn't sure, she didn't know exactly how to explain it.

But the feeling which remained stuck in the pits of her stomach since that very lunch puzzled Kimmy to such degree. Safe to say it was a feeling she didn't like.

It wasn't like she liked him in a crush way, and she really didn't. Which was why she wasn't sure why it effected her so much that he had been so nice to her after Sunday.

Perhaps it was because she wasn't used to it.

She didn't really get anytime to dwell on the fact, because the boy she had been in a deep internal debate about, caught her eye. Causing her to do a double take as she furrowed her brows.

She couldn't see his face, but he was sat on the edge of the sidewalk with his backpack tucked under his right arm while frantically checking the black digital watch which sat on his left wrist in a repetitive manner.

He was constantly shaking his head, and Kimmy didn't even have to see his face to know he had a look mixed of panic and annoyance. Most likely the same expression which had washed across his face during their conversation reguarding the school lunches.

Kimmy stood like that for a few more moments, just watching him curiously for longer than she cared to admit.

That was until she came to her senses and snapped out of it, rolling her shoulders back in a poor attempt to push back the nerves that were suddenly drowning and bluring her mind before they got too much for her and she backed out of talking to the boy sat on the side walk.

Slowly but surely, she made her way over. Clutching the straps to her school bag to prevent unnecessary fiddling with her hands.

Hesitantly, she gently shook his shoulder to catch his attention. Which looking back, wasn't the brightest idea, seeing as it resulted in him flinching violently and snapping his head around to face her.

"Sorry," she mumbled unsurely, looking to him with her face flooded with the same guilt which was a match to the surge of misplaced guilt in her chest.

She watched as Aaron's face morphed from that of irritation to that of panic. Quickly rising from his seat on the ground, nearly losing his balance at the speed he had stood, his bag now left disregarded on the floor.

"Kimberley-" he begun sounding quite taken aback, as if the wind had been knocked out of him, before cutting himself off as he scrunched his face up. "Right, Kimmy - sorry."

Kimmy smiled at the boy to try put him at ease seeing how easily he became flustered, but it was halfhearted and didn't appear to help the boy at all. In fact, Kimmy actually feared that he now appeared more nervous then before.

"What are you still doing here?" She asked, it only just hitting her that he was there alone - without his friends, who neither of them seemed capable of leaving each others sides. "Where are your friends?"

"At their houses, just like I should be." Aaron replied briskly, his lips now pulling into a frown. "If my brother ever remembered to pick me up."

Kimmy's brows furrowed and her smile slipped as she listened to him ramble on, following his figure as he bent down to pick up his backpack and sling it over his shoulder.