𝐋𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 -- s. harrington

→ nine.

"SO HE ASKED you to take me home?" Nancy asked as she looked over at Jonathan. The two had been talking about what happened the night before and she still couldn't wrap her head around it. She couldn't remember much of what happened but she knew that she and Steve had gotten into a fight because she was jealous of Andrea at the time.

          "Yeah," Jonathan replied and nodded at the girl, glancing over his shoulder at Andrea who sat quietly inside his car working on an assignment she hadn't quite finished. "Yeah, he was upset. I mean, he was... he was really upset." He watched as Nancy frowned and fiddled with her hands in her lap. "But he was still worried about you," he added and then set his sandwich down on his bag before turning toward Nancy. "Hey. You need to cut yourself some slack, okay? People say stupid things when they're wasted. Things they don't mean."

          "Yeah, but that's the thing," Nancy said and looked up at Jonathan, lowering her voice slightly when she caught a glimpse of Andrea in the front seat of Jonathan's car.  She looked back at Jonathan and swallowed a lump in her throat. "What if I did mean it?"

          Andrea lifted her head at Nancy's comment. The girl in the car had been doing her best to ignore the conversation Nancy and Jonathan were having while sitting on the hood of the Byers boy's car, but this sentence caught her interest. Andrea closed up her books and shoved all of her belongings into the bag at her feet. Nancy really meant what she had said to Steve about them being in love? She really did think it was all bullshit? From what Andrea had seen in school, Nancy and Steve were a cliche couple and they were madly in love with each other but when you pulled back the curtain of Nancy's mind, there was much more hiding in the dark - she had been dating the guy for almost a year and hadn't loved him? And even if she did at one point, she didn't love him anymore.

          As the two outside the car continued with their conversation, Andrea listened in closely. Jonathan began talking about how Will hasn't been the same since he came home and that made Andrea's heart hurt. Will was the sweetest boy she had ever met and even though he was four years younger than her, she had respect for the boy. She felt bad for him after what he went through, he didn't deserve that.

* * * *

Andrea pulled up into the Byers's driveway and shoved the car in park, huffing out a sigh. She glanced over at Valorie who was tapping her fingers on her thighs nervously, staring up at the front door of the house. The blonde reached over and touched her sister's shoulder lightly, yanking her hand away when she jumped. "Val? Are you okay?"

          Valorie slowly shook her head. When she and Mike found Will in the field shaking with his eyes rolled to the back of his head, it burned an image into her head. Seeing the boy she once considered a brother be in such a scary state almost made her cry and even thinking about it now made her eyes water. "Every time I close my eyes I see him shaking in the field. I see Joyce screaming out for him to open his eyes," she said softly and looked over at Andrea, blinking away the tears that had formed in her eyes. "I just need to make sure he's okay."

          Andrea nodded and climbed out of the car, shutting the door behind her. "We'll see if he's up for any visitors, alright?" She said and rounded the car so she was standing up against the hood. Valorie walked over to her and Andrea wrapped her arm around her little sister's shoulders, giving her a tight squeeze before the two girls walked up to the front door.

          The younger of the two lifted her hand up and knocked on the front door a couple of times before shoving both her hands into the pockets of her coat for warmth. She huffed out a sigh and watched as he breath danced up into the air above her head. Once the door opened, she looked ahead and met Joyce Byers's eyes. "Hi, Ms. Byers, is Will up for any visitors?"