HEART FLAYER | b. hargrove

CHAPTER 019.

3 MONTHS LATER
May 28th, 1985
(not me writing about May 28th on actual May 28th AYO also chapters will start coming out every 2-3 days now so I can catch up on writing more with less stress)

Arwen waited and waited for Billy to come to her and try to make things right, but he never did. She'd watch as he mostly kept to himself unless it was to let a pretty girl into his Camaro to take home with him. It was something he'd stopped doing after a few weeks into the school year, but it had started back up once more for the final month or so. He wouldn't even glance in Arwen's direction anymore. It all hurt, of course, but she did her best to just... let it go.

In reality, she had other shit to worry about. Her nightmares had become pretty frequent again, causing lack of sleep. On top of that, she had to keep her grades up in order to graduate and juggle Hellfire Club and spending time with friends and family. Thankfully the hard work and stress paid off and she'd managed to graduate with the rest of the senior class of '85 (minus Eddie, who got held back) about a week ago.

Starcourt Mall had finished being built, with Robin scoring a job at Scoops Ahoy - along with Steve, coincidentally - and Arwen getting hired at a record store not too far from the ice cream parlor. She'd started the job just a few days ago and managed to talk Eddie into working there alongside her.

Despite her nightmares, things had been starting to look up. Not having to see Billy every day in class would help her to move on from whatever they had going on before. And her life felt... Normal. There was no world-threatening situation for once and she could just work at her silly little job with her friend. No worrying about Demogorgons or anything, just the occasional mental debate on what to have for lunch. Speaking of which...

Arwen glanced up from the cash register to the clock on the wall. Just a few more minutes until her lunch break... fuck yeah. She and Robin had a little agreement going that whenever they worked on the same days, they'd take turns buying lunch for the two of them from somewhere in the mall food court. They'd always meet in the backroom of Scoops Ahoy to eat and bitch about customers. It was Robin's turn today to get the food, so she daydreamed for a moment about some salty ass French fries. That was, until her little sister and her red-headed best friend strolled into the record store with ice cream cones in their hands.

"I see you guys visited Steve and Robin before me," Arwen pointed out with a grin. "I'll try not to be too offended."

The two girls giggled before El spoke up to ask a question.

"The pool is open tomorrow. Can you take us?"

"Oh, is it?" Arwen leaned on the register counter and nodded. "Yeah, sure. Sounds like a good time."

El and Max beamed with excitement, which made her heart feel full. Sure, she had no idea how to swim so probably wouldn't partake in the pool herself, but she could still lay out in the sun and read or something. She just enjoyed making sure El had the childhood experiences that she deserved.

Max explains that she'll be sleeping over at the cabin tonight so won't need picked up tomorrow. Arwen nodded, then proceeded to shoo the girls away when a customer approached the checkout counter. She rang the man up and once he was out of the store, she threw a ball of paper at Eddie who was sat reading a rock magazine. He jumped slightly and stared at her with wide eyes and an expression that said 'what was that for?'

Arwen chuckled at the look on his face. "I'm going on my lunch break. Please watch for customers for once." She gave him a stern look that still held a bit of a smile.

"As long as I can come to the pool tomorrow." Eddie grinned.

"Fine, but I'm not picking your ass up. You can meet us there. And you gotta make sure your shift's covered."

He waved her off and she exited the record store, heading down to the ice cream parlor. Once she got there and saw that no one was at the register, she began repeatedly slapping the little bell. The dinging went on for a full ten seconds before the little window to the backroom opened up and Robin's head stuck out of it.

"Jesus Chri- Oh, it's you."

"It's me!" Arwen smiled broadly and waved in an over-exaggerated way.

Robin laughed and rolled her eyes as she slid the window shut again. A second later, Steve had opened the door to the backroom to let her in. Arwen gave him a pat on the head as she walked in and sat down at the little table they had back there. Her eyes landed on a white board that said 'You Rule/You Suck' on it with a bunch of tally marks underneath the 'You Suck' category.

"Who sucks?" she asked, pointing a thumb to the board while looking at Steve and Robin.

"Steve does." Robin answered proudly as she also sat down.

"She thinks my miserable excuse of a dating life is just hilarious." Steve added on with his arms crossed grumpily. A dinging sounded from the front of the shop again and the two flipped each other off as Steve exited the room to go serve ice cream to someone.

Arwen chuckled at their behavior, but immediately became distracted by the giant basket of fries that Robin set down on the table along with two chicken sandwiches and two huge sodas.

"Oh, you're a saint," Arwen gushed as she unwrapped her sandwich excitedly. "They should write songs about you in Valhalla for feeding the tired and hungry."

"The 'tired and hungry' being you?" Robin asked with a quirked brow and an amused smile.

"Yes."

They ate while off and on ranting about customers or whatever else had managed to annoy them today at work. This was one of Arwen's favorite things about working in the mall; having her best friends around to spend time with despite now being fully-fledged adults with jobs.

The lunch break had come and gone all too quickly, though, and Arwen thanked her for the food as she stood up and stretched. She took a moment to mentally prepare herself for finishing out her shift. She started toward the door back out to the mall before she paused and looked at Robin.

"Oh yeah, I'm taking El and Max to the pool tomorrow if you wanna join us? Eddie invited himself too." She grinned.

"Sure. I'll have my mom drop me off."

"Cool, see you tomorrow!" Arwen waved at her before going out the door. She'd also invited Steve, but he sadly declined since he had to work tomorrow.

Arwen made her way back to the record store with a small smile resting on her lips. She was definitely looking forward to some quality time with her friends outside of work tomorrow.