Heartbreaker (Mileven AU)

slip of tongue

Jane Hopper was used to having everyone's eyes on her, always expecting the weird stares and the snide comments as she walked down the hallways. She had never been very social and she had a tendency to scare people off due to how different she was. She saw her difference as being a good thing, something that set her apart from others but she couldn't help the sadness that settled into her heart every single time that people gave her strange looks like she was some type of animal locked up in a lab. 

When she moved to Hawkins, Indiana, her father became the police chief. That was enough for everyone to keep their distance, but throughout the years, Jane had only heard nasty rumors spread about her. She heard rumors that she was alone constantly and that she was a bitch, so she decided to play by those rumors. She glared whenever people looked her way and she snapped whenever they tried to speak to her, fed up of everyone calling her names and judging somebody that they did not know. 

"Look out" a small voice uttered as she walked up to the classroom door. 

Jane tilted her head and raised an eyebrow at the boy throwing her a weird look, quickly walking off to get away from her eyes. She huffed, sitting down in her seat sadly as she kept her head down, eager to ignore everybody else. 

"Late again, Miss Hopper" the teacher drawled, sighing at her eye roll. She bit her lip to stop the sadness from taking over and kept the bitchy frown on her face, knowing that if she let it drop, the tears would soon fall.

She got tired of always having to play the role of the freak. She figured that it would easier to accept their label, to act as if it was all true so that maybe it didn't hurt so much when they said it. In all honesty, she never understood why so many people thought such terrible things about her but it was easier to pretend that they were right. 

"Here."

The word was uttered from the same soft voice that she heard every day, his familiar fingers placing a spare pencil on top of her desk. 

Jane looked up and met the familiar eyes of Mike Wheeler, a familiar dork with his knitted sweaters and polo shirts, his dark hair falling gently into his focused yet soft dark eyes. She glanced at him like she did everyday when he handed her a pencil, taking it with a snatch before looking back down at her desk. His eyes widened like they normally did, his hand slowly retracting back to his side like she was a skittish animal about to pounce on him. 

Mike always left a pencil at her desk every morning, knowing that she never bothered to bring her own. She would always give him a look of thanks before ignoring him again for the rest of the day, always forgetting to give the pencil back to him. 

Jane watched Mike from time to time, jealous of his close knit friend group and his easy attitude towards work. He sailed by with good grades and a kind heart, avoiding the harsh gaze of everybody else, even having several girls find him adorable. He never seemed to care and Jane realized that he always seemed to be too busy working or spending time with his friends to give them any attention in return. 

She left the spare pencil on the desk like she always did at the end of the class, leaving him to pick it up and place it back in his bag without a word exchanged between them. 

...

"Well, if it isn't the freak."

Jane gripped her backpack tighter at the sound of his voice, slowly turning around reluctantly to meet the cruel gaze of Troy Harrington. With his swept brown hair and his rude smirk, he always waited by her locker to give her a hard time with nobody caring to stop him. 

"Troy, get off my locker" Jane demanded coldly. 

He tilted his head, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared at her. "Why should I, freak? Nobody is going to stop me because nobody likes you."