Me, Myself, and Her

Chapter Seventy

Chapter Seventy: All You Had To Do Was Stay

When they arrived at the Munson's trailer, the kids quickly hopped off their bikes and left them in a pile in the front yard.

"Come on, come on!" Dustin urged, the gourd of five hurrying to get inside the trailer.

The moment Annie was inside, she saw the snack-sized gate. "Woah," she whispered, removing her headphones from her ears. It even sounded like the gate was making noise, which weirded her out even more.

"There's like... some kind of webbing over the entrance," Max noticed, walking to be right under the gaping hole. Annie walked up next to her, looking through. "It looks like there's veins inside."

A shiver rushed down Annie's spine. "That's disgusting," Annie muttered and looked away from the hole.

"I'm gonna go find something to rip through it. Then, we should be able to see right into the Upside Down," Dustin said. He ventured off into the trailer with the Sinclair siblings and girlfriends stood and looked at the gate.

Annie's hand found Max's, naturally, and she started to lean on her girlfriend's shoulder. Her eyes started to wander, and they landed on Erica. The younger girl was looking at the pair, an eyebrow raised.

Annie's first instinct was to freak out. Something that Erica must've sensed. "I already knew you two were a thing. Just, really? Snuggling under a gate to a different dimension?"

While Annie blushed, Max laughed. "You'll get it someday. Most definitely not today."

"Or ever! No dating. That's gross," Lucas interjected.

This made all three girls roll their eyes. "Seriously, Lucas? Even Steve wasn't like that with me!" Annie said.

"Yeah, same with Billy."

He scrunched his face up. "That's because you're dating each other. No boys involved. Boys are disgusting and terrible and gross."

Erica tilted her head to the side. "Two of those words mean the same thing."

Lucas didn't care. "Yeah, well, point still stands."

After a second of silence, Max pointed at Lucas. "You realize you're a boy?"

Lucas paused, blinked a few times, and said, "Yes..."

"All right!" Annie, along with the others, turned to see Dustin coming back with a long sort of stick. "This should be long enough to get up there and break through the barrier."

Everyone stepped back so Dustin could have all the room he needed to poke through. "You should maybe put your headphones on. Just in case," Max suggested, whispering in Annie's ear.

The brunette glanced at her girlfriend and nodded. She freed her one hand so she could use both to move the headphones, then replaced it in Max's hold. The other hand turned the volume of the music down a few notches, so she could still participate in everything.

As Dustin poked the weird, flesh-like barrier, Annie felt herself taking a few steps up to be behind him. Max, Lucas, and Erica did the same.

"You need to push harder," Lucas said, coming up to try and take the stick from Dustin. "I'm taller anyway, let me do it."

Dustin yanked the stick away from Lucas and down away from the gate. "I got this! Just... give me a second."

Lucas put his hands up, surrendering, and stepped back to give Dustin the room he needed to get the stick up.

When it started to make a squelching noise, Annie felt disgust start taking over her face. But, it worked. The stick broke through the strange cover on the gate. Dustin used it to move the rest of the gross stuff out of the way, revealing the entire gate.