In the Name of Love | lumax AU-stranger things

~Why Me~

Max woke up on September first with wide dry eyes and her hair a mess. She blinked a few times before getting out of bed and pulling up the blinds on her bedroom windows. She had picked out her outfit the previous night when she got home. A gray t-shirt, some baggy dark blue jeans, some white socks and her favorite pair of red vans sneakers.

Max quickly changed, brushed her hair with a part down the middle, grabbed her backpack and headed downstairs to the kitchen.

Her mom had placed some buttered toast on the table and Max grabbed a piece, munching on it as she looked over at her mom who was already washing dishes.

"Remember Maxine, the bus is sometimes late so don't go skating home if it arrives after dismissal," Her mom explained.

"Yeah, I know," Max said, gulping some orange juice.

Max heard a screech after a few minutes of standing in the kitchen, waved to her mom and ran outside. The bus was quite empty when Max first got on, so she took a single person seat toward the back as the bus driver continued to the next house. Max only recognized a few people from middle school on the bus. Like Chelsea Randolph, Jessica Ferberts, and Alex Jones. She had a few classes with them in 8th grade, but they were nobody special to her.

The bus didn't just make a few stops. It practically went all around Hawkins to pick up at least four or five kids from each street. Max asked Jessica what time it was, she didn't know and one kid shouted out that if the bus driver didn't hurry up, everyone in that bus would be missing first period.

***

At school Max quickly got off the bus and ran for the freshman entrance. The orientation already happened a few weeks ago, so the only people outside the doors to the school were those advertising for clubs and other various extra curricular activities. Max already knew there was a video games club and a math league.

She wasn't really into joining the math league because she didn't want to be classified as a nerd, but she was good at math, so she considered giving it a try. On the other hand, Max loved video games. She had played every video game she could rent in Hawkins and her home town in California. She had consistently kept up the highest score on the dig-dug machine at the Hawkins local arcade, even with Dustin's impressive skills.

In the halls, Max knew she was going to find Lucas looking for her, and it's not that she didn't want to see him, but she didn't want to spend so much time talking to him because her class was already at the other end of the building, plus she had arrived pretty late. The redhead team did hear Lucas's voice call her name, but before quickly looking at him, she ignored him and found her way to the staircase she had been looking for.

***

In fifth period, Max took a seat next to Dustin. History was never an interest of Max's, but at least she knew who she could cheat off of during tests.

The bell was supposed to ring for lunch at twelve thirty, and it was fifteen after, so Max was quite antsy. Her legs were shaking and she was constantly looking up from the survey her teacher had given her so she could look at the clock.

Suddenly the classroom phone rang, and the teacher picked up the hand piece.

"Hello?"

Pause

"Oh, very good."

Pause