Happenstance ⌱ Jim Hopper

[ 4 ] CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

[ 4 ]

JODIE WAS frozen to the bone. Spending the whole November night trecking through the thick forest in a nightgown and a robe, armed with nothing but a flashlight and a pair of tennis shoes, was a particularly hard feat. But, she suffered through, shivering all the while.

     Her anger drove her. Anger at the police force, anger from another kid missing, anger at the cold. Anger at herself.

     A few people tried to speak with her as they searched, but she didn't open her mouth once. Jodie didn't have anything to say to those people, with their prying questions and mindless small talk. It was a small town, and she had grown up with all of them. Jodie knew that they probably pitied her, considered her a troubled woman trying to do some 'good'.

     If Jodie answered any of their questions, she wouldn't be able to control herself. She'd tell them exactly what she thought: that she wasn't trying to 'do good', she was trying to do better. Better than their self-absorbed reasons, better than the dumb ass cops, and, better than she had a year ago. 

                         Perhaps if she had done better, Jamey would still be alive.

      And so, she was fueled by anger. An anger that hid the wounded pain in her chest of the long-accepted fact that her own little brother would never be found. But, if there was something she could do to help the Byers' boy, Jodie would do all she could.

       Jodie trudged away from the prying eyes of the gossiping groupies that flocked together in a shivering huddle. She detested those women. Growing up, half of them had reported her to the cops for trespassing or smoking, or something trivial. They hated Jodie when she was growing up. But, now they wanted to be her best friend, all because of a skeleton in her not-so-empty closet. 

       "Prude bitches," Jodie snapped over her shoulder, pushing herself over a large tree stump. A couple of the women overheard and began hissing and muttering to one another, angry snakes in the fall-littered grass. 

      Jodie smirked to herself, pushing back a low-hanging tree branch as the wind kicked up once more, cutting against her.

      "D-Damn, it's cold." Jodie rubbed her icy hands, but the friction only made her feel colder. Using her flashlight, Jodie shone a bright beam across the landscape, checking from the ground to the tops of the trees. There was no boy in sight, no clue. She hadn't been anticipating anything, but the empty void of stars, the half moon, and nothing but decaying trees was a lonely visual. Jodie wondered what Will was seeing right now. 

     Was he shivering in the cold night too? Was he even alive and able to see the world around him?

      Was this what Jamey had felt too?

       Jodie's hair carried with the next gust of wind, floating like silver strands in the moonlight. It was sort of majestic, and for a brief moment she felt taken away from the cold, dark woods, and thrust into a world where she was a moon goddess of some kind. As soon as the thought came, it was gone.