𝙳𝚊𝚣𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚊 𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚕𝚢.

𝚈𝚘𝚞'𝚛𝚎 𝚐𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙸 𝚐𝚘𝚝𝚝𝚊 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚢

𝙷𝚒𝚐𝚑

𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎

𝚃𝚘 𝚔𝚎𝚎𝚙 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚘𝚏𝚏 𝚖𝚢 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚍.

𝙷𝚒𝚐𝚑

𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎

𝚃𝚘 𝚔𝚎𝚎𝚙 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚘𝚏𝚏 𝚖𝚢 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚍.

𝚂𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚢 𝚍𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚊 𝚑𝚊𝚣𝚎

𝚃𝚛𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞, 𝚋𝚊𝚋𝚎, 𝙸 𝚏𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗.

𝙶𝚘𝚝𝚝𝚊 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚢

𝙷𝚒𝚐𝚑

𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝚖𝚢 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎

𝚃𝚘 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝙸'𝚖 𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚢𝚘𝚞.

Lennon rounded the building to make sure the woman her brother had watching over her hadn't noticed her come in right after the band. However, the redhead was still too busy talking to her coworkers to have even noticed Lennon was missing in the first place.

She took a deep breath and approached the blond man she had drawn the first time she was there. She asked for water and took a seat right in the middle of the bar. There were only a few people occupying the space while Brontë reemerged from the kitchen behind the bar space.

A woman was sitting with a man, looking to be in the middle of their twenties and out on a date. Three men dressed in wrinkled suits were casually sharing a beer after what seemed to be a long day at work, and a younger girl was chatting to one of the male bartenders a little way down.

Lennon sat by herself, listening contently to the music blaring off the speakers around the Hideout. She began drawing in her notebook as she bopped her head to the music only a few drunks seemed to be interested in. She didn't dare join them this time but she did listen and occasionally, she peered over her shoulder and watched for a few seconds.

As much as she tried to lose herself in the music, her head was still telling her something was wrong. Eddie was high and depressed and the combination didn't sit right with her. She fiddled with her pen in thought and chewed anxiously on the end when her fiddling came to a halt.

At the end of Eddie's set, she hopped out of her chair and shoved her hand into her pocket for some change. She pulled out a few dimes and a handful of pennies and asked Brontë to exchange them for a couple of quarters.

Knowing she used them for the phone at school every day, he didn't think much of it until she immediately deserted her things and stalked over to the phone hanging in a secluded corner of the bar. Brontë watch with suspicion as she closed the glass-paned doors and dialed a number from struggled memory.

He watched her tap her foot against the floor like an agitated rabbit and as the person on the other end spoke, she chewed at the inside of her lip like she didn't know what else to do with herself.

The phone call didn't last very long, no more than five minutes, but it seemed like it was effective.

Lennon came back from the phone and sat down as if nothing happened. She seemed content with whatever she handled over the phone but her brother wasn't. Brontë stared at her, waiting for her to say something or at least acknowledge his suspicion, but it wasn't immediate.

"What?" she asked, looking up from her drawing and finding Brontë's staring to be both unnerving and irritating.

"You alright?"

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?" she scoffed, setting her pen down on top of her sketch and finishing her glass of water before Brontë moved to get rid of it.

"I don't know," he admitted. "You seem... Off..."

"Off? Off how?" she grew with curiosity, wondering if now was the perfect opportunity to kill any rumors he might have caught onto recently.

"I don't know," he laughed. "How stressed are you about that final?"

Yes. The final. The final you think I'm taking to advance in my education; definitely not because Eddie's taking English 4...

"I'm nervous but," she admitted and shook her head. "I'm worried about the game... It's a lot."

Brontë was supportive with the mocking tone. He was caring but he always had a funny way of showing it. It was always light-hearted and slightly offensive but it was still there. She never had to question his love, no matter how condescending or rude his remarks may have seemed, she knew it was just his way of showing that he cared.

Their conversation didn't last long though because someone came from the stage door. They ran over to them at a heightened pace to reach the seat beside Lennon.

"Bro!" Eddie exclaimed exuberantly, obviously getting on his nerves.

"Don't call me that," he grumbled darkly.

"Steve does... So does she," Eddie elbowed Lennon in the arm and casually dropped a tiny folded piece of paper between their feet.

"You don't call me that."

Lennon's eyes followed the piece of paper but when she looked back up at Eddie, he wasn't interested in her.

"Fine," he sighed, bringing no attention to the note he dropped underneath the bartop. "A water, please... I'm dehydrating out here."

Brontë stared dauntingly back at Eddie who seemed rightfully innocent and childlike when compared to Lennon's dark and serious brother. Brontë stood there like a stone, contemplating how badly he wanted that promotion and if it was worth putting up with Eddie's games.

After a few seconds of eye contact, without blinking, Brontë pulled a glass from the counter and poured him water that only reached three-quarters of the way full.

Eddie hummed enthusiastically and chugged the water without losing Brontë's gaze. It was like he was showing off but Lennon knew better. There was nothing honorable about shotgunning a glass of water, it had to be something else.

When he finished, he set the glass down in front of Brontë and pulled out ten cents for the water. He winked at the disgruntled man and disappeared through the same door he came from.

Lennon found his behavior odd and suspicious, but what was more strange was her brother's reaction. He didn't retaliate and he didn't falter in his stance. He just stifled Eddie's presence like he had done it for several years.

Maybe he did?

Lennon didn't know how often they interacted before she came along.

"Prick," he hissed, swiping the glass from the bar and tossing it into the tub behind him. "Why the hell are you friends with him?" Brontë retorted, snagging the rag from his belt and wiping the countertop angrily.

Lennon almost smiled at the title Brontë chose to link the two of them. He was serious when he decided to terminate any sort of past grudges.

She got rid of the conversation about Eddie and used him to redirect the topic to school.

Everything was focused on Hawkins High and what more she had to do before the winter break: the final, the game, Heather's party...

When Brontë had to walk away to tend to a customer, she purposefully dropped her pen and bent down to grab the piece of paper Eddie dropped.

She briskly glanced over to her brother and saw his attention moving between a tall woman and the short redhead he worked with.

She took that time to open the paper and found Eddie's handwriting to occupy the inside. It was the same paper they had written on Physics.

She smiled, rereading the conversation between them until she stopped on the new writing at the bottom of the page. It was written in a different color and it was bigger than the rest of the writing.

I'm sorry. Let me make it up to you. Tomorrow after lunch, woods behind the football field.

-E

She reread his words like they hadn't quite sunk in the first five times. Even after his words registered, she kept rereading them, noticing little quirks in his writing like how he signed the 'E' in one line of lead, creating a stiff loop in between the top and bottom lines.

She saw that he didn't use apostrophes but he did know what commas were. His 'i's weren't dotted. His 'w's were written like his 'e's, only sideways. His hand tilted to the right slightly and the tails of his 'a's were short and almost resembled 'o's.

She kept reading his writing and finding personal touches all over the paper. She kept rerunning those words through her head until her brother came back and she had no other choice but to slap the paper in between two pages of her notebook and desert it entirely.

The rest of the night was surprisingly pleasant.

Brontë didn't pester her with questions about Eddie and her or insinuate anything between them. The bar wasn't crowded which pampered her anxiety. Her brother's co-workers were funny and welcomed Lennon into their conversations. And she didn't have to worry about Eddie or his drugs because she called Wayne and asked him to talk to Eddie when he got home.

Things were beginning to fall into place.

Or so she thought...

***

Come Wednesday, she was feeling the effects of her suppressed anxiety. It just kept growing. Nerves, anxiety, worry, fear... Almost synonymous and yet far too complex to be one in the same.

She was walking with Chrissy and Heather for most of the day. The girls were the most tolerable, especially after Tina decided to take it upon herself to make an enemy out of Lennon.

Chrissy was sweet and innocent. That girl was incapable of hurting anyone and that made Lennon feel safer than usual. She might not have had the loudest of voices or been the best advocate for things that meant a lot to her, but she still knew right from wrong and in a tender voice, she would defend anything that needed it.

Heather was good company when Lennon's head was getting too busy. She talked a lot in the best of ways and she always had something going on that allowed her to keep talking nonstop. For a few segments throughout the day, Lennon could lose herself in Heather's drama and seize to exist altogether sometimes.

When Lennon went to take her final exam, her mind kept creeping away from her paper and into the tiny note Eddie wrote her the night before. The words started to warp into his handwriting and only when she revisited the question did she realize she was doing it. She reread the text more times than she could count and barely finished on time because of it.

She let out a breath of relief as she scribbled in the last answer on her worksheet and handed it to Mrs. Turner. She said her goodbyes and practically raced to her locker.

She was blushing and had a pair of tight lips plastered to her face as she tried to fight a smile. She threw her textbook inside and grabbed her bag before slinging it over her shoulder and making her way toward the back entrance of the school.

She took another deep breath and closed her eyes tenderly as she slowly walked through the crowded hallway with a strained expression of fake neutrality. Just as her eyes popped open, her shoulder collided with someone else's.

"Sorry!" she exclaimed before realizing it was just Steve.

Steve stopped in his tracks, ready to brush her off to get to his next class, but the red of her ears, neck, and cheeks was oddly tempting to point out.

He narrowed his eyes and smiled. "What are you so happy about?" he scoffed, forcing Lennon to stop and face him.

"Nothing," she forced a frown and shrugged nonchalantly. "What's got you so miserable?" she countered snarkily.

Steve laughed an obnoxiously fake laugh before properly leering.

"Oh wait!" she giggled. "I already know..." she drew out humorously before slowly backing away.

Steve cringed and flipped her the bird.

Lennon reciprocated his hand gesture except instead of staring with scorn, she was smiling satirically and hurrying to face the back entrance again.

She nudged a girl with braided blonde hair and Lennon immediately apologized for running into her and quickly scurried off.

Lennon turned her face down toward her feet and chuckled.

From the Eddie-dyslexia to bumping into people left and right, she couldn't help but laugh. She was recklessly enamored by this man and she could only imagine what she was getting herself into.

Just as she reached the door, she exited the building and had the cold rip her smile away.

What was she getting herself into?

Did she seriously just agree to walk into the woods behind the school without even considering what Eddie might want from her once she got there?

She was too wrapped up in the longing for him and his company and his warmth and his safety that she didn't even stop to consider the more malevolent possibilities.

How did he want to make it up to her? What was he planning to do? Why was he luring her into the woods all alone?

As much as she wanted to disbelieve what everyone already thought about Eddie, she couldn't stop herself from regarding the fact that they might be right...