Andy Hopper had enough to deal with. She hated her mom's new boyfriend, she was still grieving the death of her sister, and she hadn't seen her dad in years. The last thing she needed was to be packed up and shipped off to the small town of Hawkins...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
----------
THE NEXT MORNING ONCE ANDY HAD AWOKEN AND GOT READY FOR SCHOOL, she strode into the kitchen living room to see her dad asleep on the couch. But it wasn't a peaceful sleep. The problem was he hadn't moved an inch from the night before. The space around him was covered in empty beer bottles and she noticed a bottle of pills on the coffee table. Anxiety medication. She recognised the name. She knew he'd have the hangover from hell when she woke him but what else was she meant to do? Just leave him there?
Andy's footsteps tapped against the cheap flooring until she was at her father's side. She shook his shoulder until he stirred. "Hey, get up. Don't you have a town to protect?"
With a groan and rub of his eyes with the back of his hand, he sat up, pulling the sheet of fabric that was covering him up too. He looked awful.
"You need to stop drinking so much."
Andy didn't like to sugarcoat things. She was upfront and honest. A trait she was certain she had either inherited or learned from her father.
"Working on it, kid." He replied, stretching off his tiredness.
She grabbed the sandwich and apple off the counter that she had prepared the night before. Andy was thoughtful and organised. Maybe her presence could give her dad the help he needed to get his life back on track.
Her dad wished her well on her first day and began his own morning routine, while Andy began her walk to school. She didn't have a car. She never needed one in New York. Although, she did have her license if anything ever changed. Which now it had. But for now, she was just thankful that Hawkins was a small town and walking never took very long.
As Andy approached the school she got a strange surge of confidence. This wasn't her new school, it was just a school she was attending for a while. It didn't matter if people liked her, whether they thought she was cool or not because, by the time they came to a decision, she'd be gone.
Stepping inside she noted how it looked like every classic high school ever. A mixture between white, blue and beige walls. Rows and rows of grey lockers with teens leaning against them. Ugh, how she wished she could just be back with her old friends.
She had barely made it down the corridor of never-ending lockers a few feet when a name called out to her. That was the thing about small towns, everyone knew everyone.
"Andy, is that you?"
She recognised the voice instantly. Andy turned on her heel half-hoping when she got there the space would be empty but against her luck, it wasn't. There was Nancy Wheeler.
