━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ One Week Later ... ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
It was so quiet at Hawkins High that a testing room could hear a pin drop.
No student knew how to react to such news. Chrissy was the light that shined when a physics class took a test. An arm wrapped around a friend in the counselors office. A teacher who taught students who thought they knew the most.
Lunch was near silent. There was an everlasting line of chatter, but the Hawkins High cafeteria mourned the loss of such a beloved colleague. Everyone knew. The news spread like wildfire, as did the rumors of how it could have happened.
Jules shuffled her sneakers across the floor, hauling herself to the table in an attempt to sit the hell down before she collapsed with tears pouring down her face. The sleeves of her hot pink sweater made contact with the juice of the green beans, placed on her tray. The lunch lady didn't give one damn about what she was serving, and Jules knew that, because she dropped her chocolate chip cookie in the green bean mess as well. Other than the death of her friend, her day was not going as planned.
Jules has a constant pout on her face, with the occasional lip tremble whenever she caught the Chrissy's name in someone's mouth. None of the rumors said were true. Even the friends that she so desperately needed were all over Chrissy and what—or who — caused her death.
She groaned as she placed herself in her assigned chair at the lunch table, right next to Steve and Eddie. Across from them sat Mike, Lucas, Max, and Dustin, Robin. who were shockingly wordless. The three boys looked down at their food, playing with it as an escape from interaction. Max was hunched over and was as still as a mannequin, with her hands on her lap. And Robin was just staring into space.
And there was Steve. He was just happy Eddie wasn't next to him. They would have teared each other like lions if they sat beside each other. Other than that, he was having one of the shittiest days of his life. He had a black eye, and a patch for his bruised nose.
As Jules sat down, the first person she looked at was Steve. He slowly returned the favor, gritting his teeth once they made eye contact. Jules had no desire to talk to him.
Meanwhile, Mike, Lucas and Dustin were filled to the brim with questions.
"What did her body look like?" Dustin rushed, causing his two friends to give him the deathliest of looks. Jules darted her head up in shock.
