Hawkins was the perfect place for her; she had the idyllic life - not quite routine, but she was fine with that. Just enough happened in the small town for her to write her weekly journalism columns and normality was certain.
Until a certain chain o...
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Of course, Shay wasn't alright after yesterday's ordeal. The only thing that she could do after she got home was cry and scream into her pillow, for which she was thankful that her family was out of the house so they couldn't assume it was because of Wesley. She hadn't had a relapse of those emotions in a while and wasn't sure that she ever would, but the rest of the Xu family was quick to assume. Shay had essentially become emotionless in the past year, any display frightened them witless.
So, she'd thrown herself into her work for the day and stayed like that. Her mom and dad had left a few hours ago for their monthly "date retreat weekend", which they swore was the reason they still loved each other. "A healthy marriage means having fun and you have to get away from your kids to do that", Bruce would say. The kids would just roll their eyes and wait for their parents to leave. Jackie used to invite her friends over and smoke weed in the garage and Rickey would have some girl over usually, while Shay just made the living room her personal space and ate as much junk food as she could before she got sick.
Now, Jackie was going on her own dates like a respectable adult and Rickey was currently on his way back to California, which meant that Shay had the living room all to herself again. Most of the textbooks she owned were strewn around her on the floor, while she sat on the couch with her legs folded, her head in the last textbook as she took notes for next week's Economics chapter. She'd turned the television onto MTV, although she wasn't paying attention to half of the music that they played, so it turned more into background noise. Background noise that was apparently too loud, seeing as how half of the neighborhood made a point to stare at the teenage girl through the opened curtains as often as they could. Shay would just stare back at them until they eventually left, going right back to her work afterward.
Her attentiveness to the outside world somehow slipped just long enough for a certain blond to make his way to her front door, unnoticed by the girl. The sound of loud knocking made Shay flinch against the cushions of the couch, swiping her pencil against her notebook across the words she'd written as she did so.
She frowned a bit before removing all materials from her lap and standing up off of the couch, surveying the room for the remote to turn the volume down. Once she did, she walked to the front door, curious as to who would be outside. Jackie didn't have friends and the only person that Shay would invite over wasn't currently speaking to her, so that left a salesperson as the only logical person.
Except, the person on the porch was the furthest thing from that. It was Billy - dressed in his usual denim and plain t-shirt, with his hair being the most eye-catching feature about him. That and the cigarette hanging from his mouth. Shay wasn't sure if he remembered that she hated them, but somehow she knew that he wanted to annoy her. He stood there with his usual suave smirk, hands in his pockets as he very casually said her name.
