The Long Game, Lucas Sinclair

the one where sam isn't sam

◦☆＊★ ━━━━━━ ★＊☆◦

It took a lot to shut Samantha Hughes up. Anyone you asked, they would tell you that Sam was a bright and extroverted, lively girl full of jokes and laughter. She was surrounded by seven friends that she was loyal to at all times. She wore bright colors and had a girly fashion sense. She befriended everyone around her, despite how willing that person may be for Sam's friendship. She talked about music, and science, and love, and comics, and so many random things that you couldn't keep count on what she liked. She had twinkling, green eyes that lit up brighter when she grew passionate. She always had something positive to say when her friends were down, and she lifted everyone around her up with her radiance.

When Sam got to high school, all of that changed.

It didn't take very much to dull Sam, anymore.

Sam didn't know how everything turned downhill so quickly, but suddenly she was losing friends left and right. Max was trying to pull away from her, Lucas joined basketball, and Mike and Dustin in Hellfire weren't too happy about it. Sam was always their glue, and she tried holding them together — she really fucking did — but it just made everything worse. They got mad at each other, and they got mad at Sam, and it all went to shit.

The Party was the only reason Sam had remained so happy throughout the years; despite everything she'd been through.

And now the friend group was shattered to pieces.

Now Sam had nothing.

She stared at herself in her full-length mirror as she got ready for school. She stared at her faded yellow, oversized American Summer shirt from the thrift store. She stared at her baggy brown pants with thin, darker brown lines striped down then. She stared at her old, vomit green, corduroy jacket with a shit brown collar. She stared at her brown Dr. Marten Mary Jane shoes. She stared at the rings on her fingers, an accessory she never wore before high school. She stared at her messy, wavy hair pulled up by a banana clip with blonde hair poking up.

Sam didn't care to maintain her hair anymore; now, she just let it dry naturally and never straightened it. She had dark circles underneath her eyes from the sleep lost to nightmares. She still had that stupid slit running down her eyebrow from Troy Walsh pushing her in the seventh grade. She wore the gold necklace with the B pendant gifted to her by Joyce. She was tired, and she looked tired, and the fact she didn't care enough to hide she was tired spoke volumes.

She wasn't the same Sam Hughes she used to be.

There was maybe one thing that remained the same, and it was the fact Sam remained in the AV Club — contrary to everyone else in her broken friend group. At first, her friends thought it was weird of her to join AV when all the rest of them were dropping it, but Sam was glad she didn't. It was all she had left going for her, anymore.

There were only two people in the AV Club — Sam, and a senior named August Santos. Sam liked Auggie. He was cool... kind of.

Actually, "cool" wasn't really how Sam would describe him. In reality he was really awkward and a loner and his only friend was technically Sam, but he was coolish.

Like, he introduced Sam to a lot of her now-favorite songs, he talked shit with Sam in their free time because of how empty the AV room was, every Wednesday during lunch they watched different films for "official club business," and they get to do morning announcements together.

Morning announcements was kind of a drag, though. It consisted too much of "Goooood Mooooorning Hawkins Highhhh" and"today's lunch is" and "don't forget your tickets for the basketball game" and on, and on, and on.