Royal Pain || Stranger Things

sixteen || hurt feelings

The scent of fresh coffee ran rampant throughout the Rivers residence as ten am rolled around, the sensation of Tatum's mattress shifting drawing her awake.

     Tatum blinked in the morning light, the image of Elena at the edge of her bed coming into focus. She shot up with a start, her first intention to reach for the half-read manuscript and tuck it away.

     But it was already in Elena's lap.

     "It's alright, love," Elena softly assured. "You're not in trouble."

     Tatum glanced to her window, the light stronger than what she typically woke up to for school. "What time is it?"

     "A little after ten." The school teacher motioned to the busted alarm on the nightstand. "You missed your wake-up call."

     "Where's Dad?"

     "How about some coffee?"

     Tatum's brows furrowed as she sat up further in bed. "What about school?"

     Elena shook her head as she stood, taking the manuscript with her. "I don't think either of us will be making it in today. I already had a substitute in place. Let's have coffee, darling."

     Although Elena got a head start, Tatum met her downstairs and slid onto her claimed barstool, it not long before a cup of coffee prepared just the way she liked it was put in front of her.

     "Jordan was curious if you would find them before we got home," Elena said, absently nodding toward the battered telephone hanging in the kitchen, receiving hanging low.

     "Where is he?"

     Elena took a long sip of her coffee, leaning on the counter opposite of her stepdaughter with the manuscript between them. "The speaking engagement took a slight detour," she began. "The night we got to Chicago, we had a talk about what you found in his desk. That talk led to more than I was expecting, because after months of keeping it secret, he told me about what his novel is based upon. He told me about what happened with your mother, and I don't know if you know –"

     "I know she was pregnant."

     "And you know that he believes that she was taken, as well as the baby, by the government?" Elena hummed softly against the lip of her mug as Tatum nodded in agreement. "I take it you've deduced that his cocaine binges have lined up with those memories of her coming up?"

     "Way ahead of you." Tatum ran a finger around the rim of her glass. "You still haven't told me where dad is."

     "He in a rehabilitation facility just outside of Chicago."

     Tatum's eyes widened as she stopped cold. "What?"

     "When everything was brought out into the open, he said he needed help. That if he keeps obsessing over what could have been or what might be, he'll never get to truly be your father. He asked me to have you burn the manuscript. He told me where everything was in case you hadn't found it first. But you're clever, so of course you figured it out."

     Images of the night previous flashed behind her eyes as she searched for something in Elena's face to convince her to tell her everything.

     But she stayed quiet.

     How could she so easily tell Elena that nearly everything her father had been on to was correct? Yes, there was a sister out there that had been stolen by the government. Yes, her mother's death was likely faked and hidden from the press for almost two decades.