Frankie Walsh was seemingly perfect.
She was popular, got good grades, was very pretty and could play piano better than anyone in Hawkins. The only thing to taint this perfection was her twin-brother, Troy, who was the schools biggest bully.
Dusti...
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Mike walked over to Dustin and Frankie who were sitting down next to eachother on the hood of a scrapped car, talking. He was a bit pissed that they stopped looking for El, but forgot about that when he heard what they were talking about.
"Wait, so let me get this straight," Frankie started. "Will is in a parallel dimension and the only way to get there is through a 'gate' that only El can find because-"
"Because she has superpowers," Dustin finished for her. He had a habit of doing that and his mother always told him that it was rude, but Frankie never seemed to mind much.
"Powers, like plural? But you only mentioned telekenesis," she furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.
"I mean, she can communicate with Will through radio frequencies too. We don't really know much detail-" Dustin was quickly cut off by Mike.
"What are you doing?!" Mike asked loudly as he quickly ran up to the pair. "Why are you telling her about everything?" He threw up his hands in the air.
Dustin looked at him like he was an idiot. "Dude c'mon, she literally saw Lucas get flung like a frisbee. It was either tell her everything, or lie and say you have super-strength. Which is definitley not believable," he joked, refering to the skinniness of Mike's arms.
Frankie did her best not to giggle at this as she felt like it wouldn't help her case. "I'm not gonna tell anyone, Mike. You can trust me," she reassured him as much as she could.
Mike crossed his arms. "Fine." He huffed before storming away.
Once he was out of earshot, Frankie leaned into Dustin and muttered "I don't think he likes me very much,".
"He does, he's just a bit pissed because of his fight with Lucas but he'll come around," Dustin replied, tapping Frankie on the knee."I'll go talk to him," he said before walking over to Mike.
Frankie gathered up all of her stuff from inside the old schoolbus before putting them back into her bike basket and pedalling to catch up with the pair, who were walking down the hill.
"El! El, Where are you?" Mike continued to shout out.
"It's no use," Dustin said. "She's probably gone too far to hear you,"
Frankie nodded. "I'm sure she'll turn up, Mike. She probably was just frightened because you were shouting at her," she reasoned.
Then, Mike turned to the girl. "She's not a lost dog, Frankie! There's people looking for her, bad people and if we don't find her, they could. God, you don't know anything about this so just SHUT UP!" He shouted and picked up his pace as he continued to walk.
Tears started to well in Frankie's eyes, but she held them in; not wanting to seem weak. Dustin noticed, however and put a hand on her shoulder. "Are you alright?" He asked.
"I'm fine," Frankie lied as she quickly wiped her eyes. "I think I'm just gonna go home... um- I'll call you later Dustin," she sent him a weak smile before hopping on her bike and cycling away.
The curly-haired boy watched as she disappeared through the trees. When she had gone completely, he went up to Mike and slapped him in the back of the head. "Good job. That's the third person that you've upset in the past hour,"
Mike rolled his eyes. "She's doesn't belong in our party, she's one of those mean popular girls," he huffed.
Dustin was sick of his shit. "You're acting like Troy yanno that? Being a dick to someone because of their appearance. Frankie is nice and always stands up for us so stop judging her just because she is pretty and popular!"
Mike didn't reply as the pair continued to walk down the old traintracks. He realised that he probably was just being a dick to Frankie, but the fight with Lucas wasn't his fault and he wouldn't stand down on that fact.
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By the time that Frankie had reached home, the streetlights had come on and the streets had gone quiet. Frankie could see the blue light of the TV shining through the living room blinds. Her father was standing on the porch, a cigarette hanging from his mouth as he tried to light it.
"Why are you out so late, doll?" he asked, taking the smoke out of his mouth to speak.
"It's 6.45, it's just dark out because of Autumn and stuff," Frankie replied, not looking her father in the eyes as he would be able to tell that something was wrong.
She pushed her bike through the side gate and into the garage, taking all of the stuff out of her basket. She then entered the house hands full, to see her mother on the couch with a glass of red wine watching tonight's episode of Dynasty.
Before she was seen, Frankie quickly snuck up the stairs. Her attepmts at remaining unnoticed failed because as soon as she closed her bedroom door, it was burst open again.
"Yo, dipshit. Is the-" Troy started to speak but cut himself off when he saw that his sister's face was red and blotchy, like she had been crying.
"Who made you upset?" he asked simply. Troy never felt the need to ask uneccesary questions whenever he was faced with emotion because he knew that he was no good at comforting people, so the only thing he could offer was solutions.
Frankie turned away. "I don't know what you're talking about," she muttered, as she picked up various things that were lying around her room and put them back in their place.
Troy stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind him. "Is it those freaks you insist on hanging out with because I swear to god-" he said, visibly getting more pissed off with every word.
"No!" Frankie quickly interrupted. "And you promised that you would leave them alone, Troy," she reminded her brother, poking his chest.
"Yeah but if any of them nerds upset you, then the promise is void! So tell me the truth," Troy crossed his arms, he genuinely seemed worried. It was moments like these that made Frankie grateful for her brother and she knew then that she was going to miss him once he moved to Chicago.
"No one upset me. I- I was just having one of those days," Frankie lied, tucking her hair behind both ears. This was her tell, the one thing she did subconciously whenever she lied. Troy noticed this, and kept quiet because he knew that Frankie wouldn't back down from her alibi.
"Alright, alright... um, is the English homework due on Monday?" He said, going back to his original purpose for coming into Frankie's room.
"No it's not due until next Wednesday," Frankie run a hand through her hair, relieved that she had gotten away with her lie.
Troy nodded and exited his sister's bedroom. Once he got into his own room, he made a beeline towards the telephone and dialed the number he had called a million times before. After a few rings, a familiar voice came through the other side.
"Hello?" It said
"James, it's Troy. I have an idea of how to get back at those freaks for what they did to me that day at assembly,"
