𝙷𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚋𝚘𝚢.

𝚂𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚐𝚒𝚛𝚕.

𝙲𝚊𝚗 𝙸 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚒𝚝 𝚊𝚗𝚢 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚘𝚋𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜?

𝙷𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚙𝚞𝚗𝚔.

𝚂𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚒𝚍 𝚋𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚝.

𝚆𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝙸 𝚜𝚊𝚢?

𝙷𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚛.

𝚂𝚑𝚎'𝚍 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕,

𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚕𝚢 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚒𝚖 𝚊𝚜 𝚠𝚎𝚕𝚕.

𝙱𝚞𝚝 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚏𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚜

𝚂𝚝𝚞𝚌𝚔 𝚞𝚙 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚛 𝚗𝚘𝚜𝚎.

𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚊 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚖 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚋𝚊𝚐𝚐𝚢 𝚌𝚕𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚜.

Lennon would have jumped out of her skin when the door was swung open, but because she held the company of Mary Jane for a solid fifteen minutes beforehand, her body was completely relaxed.

Her attention went to the dorks who had burst through the backdoor with surprise, watching the backs of their heads as they laughed and cheered in victory. Their guitars and drum sticks whipped around in the air as they grew with excitement.

"That was fucking awesome!"

"You were stellar on the drums, bro! We had the whole crowd boppin'!"

"That was deadly, dudes! Great show!"

Lennon had instinctually pulled the rolled marijuana behind her back and dabbed the hot end into the wall as she kept her stare on the tallest of the bunch.

The smell must have caused alarm because Eddie had turned back towards the building with his nose in the air. Eddie had caught Lennon standing there with her hand behind her back and her heel pressed to the wall.

"Well, well, well..." Eddie stopped in his tracks, causing the three boys behind him to slowly come to a halt to see what he was addressing. "Look who's become our very first groupie."

There was snickering from the guys behind him but Lennon didn't find it funny.

She realized how sketchy she must have seemed just hanging out all alone in the back of a seemly random bar on a Friday night. It was nearly midnight and it instantly dawned on her how suspicious it was for them to be together in that setting.

It was dark, with only a single rusty lamppost to light up the expanse, and Lennon was alone. These were four dangerous boys and one new girl who's only skill was to run.

If everyone was right about Eddie and his group of friends, that they were cultist freaks who wanted something from her, Lennon was sure to find out right about now.

She held her breath and kept looking from Eddie, who didn't exactly make her feel uncomfortable, to the guys behind him who were laughing and slung over each other delinquently.

"I was just waiting for someone..." she said timorously, feeling worried but not anxious as she shoved her right hand into her jacket pocket for comfort.

"I don't know..." Eddie drew out joshingly. "You seem like you were having a little after party without us," he teased with a dangerously alluring smirk strung out on his lips.

"My brother," she stated more solemnly, hoping that if she mentioned a reliable male figure then they might leave her alone. She hoped that if she was straightforward and didn't play into their mind games that they would go. But it wouldn't be that easy to shake Eddie off of her trail.

"Oh yeah?" Eddie's tongue was pushed into the side of his cheek as he watched her eyes stare up into his cautiously. "Again," he shrugged his shoulders and popped his bottom lip out childishly. "I hear an awful lot about this brother of yours but I still don't see him..." Eddie drew out suggestively.

Why did Eddie want to know her brother? Why was Eddie talking to her? Why didn't they just wave and go their separate ways? They were clearly in a jovial mood and Lennon was clearly not. What did they want with her?

"You know him," she informed him confidently. "You just don't know that you do."

She fiddled with the filter between her fingers, keeping it behind her back as she kept wishing for these classmates of hers to leave her with her contemplative thoughts.

"They might not," she pointed towards the three boys still standing behind him as their glee dwindled over time. "But you sure would," she ran her eyes across his figure, from the frizzy hair at the top of his head to the heels of his dirty white converse.

"Mind giving me a hint?" Eddie chuckled, leaning back, sticking his hips forwards slightly as he shoved his hands underneath his armpits for warmth.

"I think I'm alright," she shot back, continuing to try and get rid of them but nothing seemed to work. Everything she said or could've said for that matter would've only egged him on more.

When Lennon looked past his amused smirk and darkly lit eyes, she could see the rest of his bandmates standing in confusion behind him.

"Uh-huh..." Eddie drew out amorously. "I see..." his tone turned coquettish and playful as he took a step towards her.

"Hey, uh...Eddie," Gareth called out curiously. "It's getting late..."

Lennon silently thanked the junior for trying to get Eddie to leave her alone but he didn't take the bait.

"Uh-huh..." Eddie agreed, keeping his focused stare on Lennon as he replied, lifting the corners of his mouth upward slightly and causing Lennon to stare back defensively.

"Yeah," Grant commented. "We should get home."

"C'mon, dude," Jeff added, taking a step back before encouraging the drummer and bassist to follow his lead. "Let's go."

Eddie started to slowly turn his head but his eyes refused to leave Lennon's. There was something addictive in how he made her the center of his attention.

Lennon hated it. She hated it because she could feel the butterflies in her belly start to flutter. She could feel her cheeks get warmer with his unintentional flattery. She could feel her heartbeat speed up despite the weed she smoked.

She knew what that meant.

She knew what those signs were leading her towards and she hated the destination. She didn't have time to stop and sight see but that didn't stop her from trying. She wanted to deny it and delay it no matter how tempting it was to reach her final destination.

Stopping would have felt nice. Taking a break from all the running was enticing, and yet she didn't want to stop. No matter how sublime, no matter how comforting, no matter what, she couldn't stop.

Eddie finally turned away from her and she let out a breath of air she wasn't aware she was holding.

"Pack everything up," Eddie offered. "I think I'll uh... I think I'll hang back a bit," he turned back towards Lennon and she immediately worried about what they would think of her.

He walked over to Grant and handed him his guitar, mumbled a threat under his breath about scratching her, then slowly stalked back over towards Lennon.

Surely they smelled the weed on her clothes. Surely they were going to talk about her and Eddie at school. She didn't know what to do.

These were his friends. These weren't just people they went to school with. These were his friends. These were people who actually liked him. They could say anything and make it believable. Surely they would encourage his temptation to the new girl. Surely they would want him to get closer to her.

She didn't want people to know she was hanging out with the 'freak' of Hawkins High. She didn't want to be labeled as something she wasn't... Or maybe something that she was and just didn't want people to know about her. They were potential threats to her public image and there was nothing she could do about it.

Fuck.

"What do you want?" Lennon asked, sounding more diffidently than she intended.

"Sorry?" he put his hand up to his ear even though he heard her quite well.

"What-" she swallowed uncomfortably. "What do you want?" she asked again, sliding her foot down from the wall and taking a deep breath of the nippy air to prepare herself to run in case Eddie was exactly who everyone at school said he was.

"What? I just wanted to ask you some questions... You know... I've never seen you here before and yet we've been playing here every weekend for almost two years," he smirked suggestively, taking another step closer to her.

"That's not a question," she sighed, shifting in her shoes as he got a little closer.

"Ah," Eddie flung his head back as he clicked his tongue off the roof of his mouth. "Shit. I forgot," he smiled widely. "Clever One," he shook his index finger in her direction accusingly. "Nothing gets past you..." his eyes trailed away from her eyes and landed on the hand she was hiding from his view.

She didn't have anything to say to that. She was uncomfortable but not because she didn't feel safe. She felt uncomfortable because she was now standing behind a bar in the middle of the night with a blunt behind her back as she talked to the 'freak' of the town.

People could make assumptions about them and all it would've taken was one half-ass glance to conjure an entirely fictional story.

The closer he got, the more she wanted to welcome his company. He was being playful but not sexually so. Those two things being separated from a classmate was a strange occurrence to Lennon. She had never seen it before that night.

Eddie noticed how she clammed up when he got two feet from her face. He wasn't trying to scare her this time. He just wanted to talk to her...

"Heh, listen," he chuckled, turning over his shoulder to see his bandmates load into two separate cars since Gareth failed his driving test just when he saved enough money to actually go to the DMV. Jeff rode alone and Grant was with Gareth.

Eddie smirked and threw himself against the wall beside Lennon. His abrupt response surprised her and caused her eyes to follow his sudden action. "You got a smoke?" he asked cheekily, knowing the answer but asking anyway.

He pressed the back of his head to the building as he turned to meet her wide eyes.

He already knew what she was smoking. He just wanted to see if she trusted him enough to admit it.

He didn't expect her to offer him a drag or casually hand over the illegal paraphernalia but he wanted to test her.

Would she disregard all her peers and trust him or would she fall right into step with them and lie?

It was pretty clear to him that she was being told specific things about his way of life through others and the person they made him up to be wasn't someone she should want to share with.

And besides, weed wasn't cheap.

She looked back at him apprehensively, considering what his purpose in asking was. She could not understand him. She didn't get it.

"What do you get from this?" she asked bluntly, finding that in the absence of fear she was quite frank.

Shockingly, she had risen the blunt from behind her back and leveled it between their bodies which were both pressed to the side of the building.

Eddie looked down at it with furrowed brows, not at all expecting her to be so forward or accepting of his abrasive intervention.

She had acted so casually about it too. Like they were just two friends who were sharing a smoke for their thoughts. But it gave him a good inclination about who she was as a person.

She trusted him...

He knew good and well about all the comments being shot at her about him. He could tell by the way Steve upset her that day in the cafeteria, how Nancy stood by her protectively the day before, how she avoided laughing at his outraged performance that other day, and how she had backed away from him in the bathroom. And if she knew he knew her sibling, then whoever this mysterious brother of hers was had surely spun some lines about him too. How else would she know they knew each other?

"What could you ever mean?" Eddie smirked sarcastically, wobbling his head like a bobblehead as he took the burned-out joint from her clutches and rose the thin end to his lips.

She couldn't help herself from pulling the lighter from her pocket and flicking the flint once again.

She didn't even think about it before her hands were preparing the light. It was instinctual to bring them closer. It was a good opportunity and somehow her subconscious managed to dominate her consciousness because there was no stopping it once she got started.

They were both turned towards one another, sharing very close proximity as she covered the flame from the cool breeze and lifted it to his lips.

She watched how the fire burned the tip; how the paper had recoiled slightly when he inhaled simultaneously. Her eyes traveled suddenly from the tip to the lips the drug was pressed between. She was caught up on the deep pink color of them and the prominence of his cupid's bow before she promptly averted her gaze.

He watched how her hands trembled as she held the black lighter to his face. He wasn't sure if it was because of the cold or because she was nervous, but it was something he was going to look at the next time he had the chance.

He couldn't help but notice how green her eyes looked in the low light of the fire before she pulled away. He could've sworn they were brown before... But no. They were definitely green, like the deepest parts of a forest.

She had pulled the lighter away and took a step back. She shoved both her hands into her jacket pockets and faced Eddie for an answer.

When he had taken a drag and didn't respond, her expectant stare caused him to look back in confusion. "What?"

"What could you possibly get from this?" she asked more confidently, shaking her head and looking up from her eyelashes with sincerity. "We don't have anything in common. And you know why I'm hesitant to talk to you; so what's this about?"

Eddie raised his eyebrows and smiled. "That's funny," Eddie smirked, moving to take another hit as he shot his eyes out into the dark.

"What is?" she questioned, noticing the subtle bump at the bridge of his nose. She could see him a lot better up close despite the poor lighting. Like the way his upper lip stuck out a little more than his bottom as he let the smoke fell lazily from his mouth. She could see small pores beneath his eyes and the frayed ends of his hair sticking up at the top of his head as his sweat dried in the early winter air.

"You really don't think we have anything in common?" he pondered, turning towards her and extending his hand to her.

Her eyes fell to the cigarette before shooting back up to his eyes. She shot him a questioning look. Her eyes continued to stare into his brown ones when her hand pulled the marijuana from his.

"I didn't know you were so well acquainted with me," his eyes widened satirically. "Considering we don't know each other..."

Eddie exhaled and turned toward the suspicious brunette beside him.

"I know your name is Eddie Munson," she replied knowingly. "You're nineteen. You repeated the tenth and twelfth grades. You drive a van that smells like weed and stale food. You're friends with Dustin Henderson, Will Byers, and Mike Wheeler even though they're freshmen. You're a satanist, drug dealer, cultist... man," she avoided calling him the very thing she refused to look at him as. "Who has earned quite the nickname at school. And you're in a band called Corroded Coffin," replied knowingly. "I think I know enough to know whatever it is you think you want with me isn't good."

She then turned away, ailed by his doubt, and took a long drag from the filter in her hand.

She closed her eyes and let the drugs take effect, pressing her head to the back of the building and exhaling slowly.

"See," Eddie sang out. "That's what I'm talking about," he scoffed in disbelief.

Lennon had turned in question, opening her eyes and finding Eddie with a distressed smile on his face.

"It's funny because I never told you any of that," he defended himself. "You know about my van and you just heard my band... But everything else..." he shook his head incredulously.

She knew he was right but he didn't deny it either. How was she supposed to doubt her friends when he himself didn't tell her otherwise?

Lennon faced Eddie with furrowed brows, staring at him with a belly full of burning butterflies. These weren't normal butterflies that made her feel all warm and cozy on the inside. These butterflies felt scorched. It was too hot and their desperate fluttering to put the fire out only encouraged the flames to reach up into her throat.

He had an overwhelming effect on her. He wasn't backing down. She kept swatting at him like a pestering fly but he wouldn't leave her alone. He kept coming back.

She tried to listen and avoid him, but she didn't want to, and from the looks of it, neither did he.

"Now if I didn't know any better, I'd say I've got a stalker," he turned his simmering sadness into charming humor.

Lennon tried not to smile but the corners of her lips refused to cooperate. "What is this?" she sighed, shaking her head and sighing.

Eddie was peering down at her guilty face with interest. He was watching how her eyes drilled holes into his, how her forehead hardened with restraint, how her lashes would stretch towards her eyebrows when she met his stare...

"What's the purpose of this?" she pushed her body off the wall and turned to him. "You go out of your way to talk to me but you won't tell me why. What do you get from all this, Eddie? Please..." she huffed out tiredly. "Tell me."

She was desperate; not just for answers, but for her mind to stop motivating her heart's intentions. She wanted to stop questioning it, to stop questioning him. She wanted to stand there in a haze and talk to him because he was willing to do that much with her in such a somber state. He was oddly comforting... And if it weren't for the talk of the town, she wouldn't have questioned it. She would have accepted his comforting company without a second thought.

But she couldn't. She had to question his intentions. She had to know why so she knew she wasn't playing into some twisted game of his or making up excuses for someone who didn't deserve them.

"Well shit..." he drew out, moving for the filter in her hand and taking a final drag from its warm supply. "When you put it like that..." he squinted as he inhaled, only to flick the remaining bud onto the ground and follow Lennon's stance.

"You have to know what they all say about you..." she drew out inconclusively.

"Oh," Eddie's eyes went wide as he nodded his head in agreement. "Everyday."

"But is it true?" she asked innocently, staring at him quizzically to try and read his expression. But he wasn't hiding anything for her to uncover. He wasn't lying or shielding himself from something; not like her. He was just standing there with his hands in his pockets and an attentive glint in his eyes that made him all the more attractive.

"Is what true?" he questioned softly, growing genuinely curious as to why she hasn't run with what all the jocks say about him... What all the media thinks of people like him... Why she hasn't physically run away from him after all he's done to scare her. She was just too curious, wasn't she?

Like the cat... it was going to kill her.

"I don't know you. So why don't you tell me what's true?"

She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and let her eyes run down to her feet for a brief moment.

"Well..." Eddie bent his knees and leaned back, a habit she was picking up on rather quickly. His bottom lip popped out slightly and his eyes ran to the sky in thought. "I am nineteen but I turn twenty in February," he pinched his lips together and met her eyes kindly.

But his friendly tone didn't last very long because the truth wasn't as easy and self-satisfying as people at school made it seem.