thursday, november 12th

The Hawkins' High cafeteria was like a wasp nest. Stressed, hungry people were buzzing around trying to get to their friends and share the latest news.

Beth made her way to the table -barely avoiding crashing into some cheerleaders- and sat down.

"Hey." She opened her can of Coke and took a long sip.

"Hey." Kate gave her a small smile, before returning to her intense conversation with Milton. It was about the new movie in the theater -Beth couldn't rememeber the name.

She heard a familiar voice greeting her from behind, and a second later Robin fell to the seat next to her. "Hiya." The girl sighed. "I'm sooo exhausted. Mr.Jackson made us do extra work for some stupid reason."

"He always find a reason to do the extras." Beth nodded, grabbing a few fries from Robin's plate.

"Hey! You thief!" Robin tried sounding mad, but she couldn't help a smile.

This is how Beth's lunches had been like for the past two weeks.

Aka ever since the first day after Halloween. Everyone was just as hangover as the girls predicted, and Beth hadn't seen Amy and Cassie yet. She wandered around the cafeteria for a good while, before she noticed her friends: sitting with Carol and Tina, sending dirty looks her way.

And that's when Robin noticed the poor girl, rescued her, inviting her to sit with her and her Odd Squad. Which included Kate, Milton and a few others. Some of them Beth already knew from drama, but apparently the marching band was really their thing. That's when she had learned that Robin was also in band, she played the french horn. How does she have the time to do everything -and still be gorgeous?

Now, Beth was having more fun than ever. Maybe she wasn't exactly a part of their group yet, but she had some-kind-of-friends. She had laughed more in a week than in her three years of highschool so far. Robin's company had made her days go by faster, and with school, work and drama classes Beth was busier than ever.

The school play had crepted it's way onto everyone's free time. After the casting was revealed, actual homework from drama had also started to appear. Practicing lines, all that stuff. The amount of times when Sandy had walked in on her daughter talking to the mirror was amusing.

So, no, Beth didn't have the time to save hee old friendships. For the first few days she tried- calling both of the girls, approaching them in the halls, but they always avoided her.

Beth was still curious that why on earth they were so pissed about a party, but she was done trying to find out for now. She had much better company, and she didn't have the time to mourn lost movie-nights, late night phonecalls and gossips.

"I haven't practised my lines at all. I'm screwed." Kate dramatically stated.

"You're not screwed." Beth said with a firm tone. "Ms.Grace doesn't mind. Just.. improvise!" She wawed around her hands, making Kate roll her eyes.

"Like any of our lines even matter." Robin said, eating her fries. "The whole play is just about Romeo and Juliet. Josh and Tammy get all the glory." The girl's voice changed ever so slightly as she said Tammy's name; no one but Beth noticed it.

Tammy had gotten Juliet's role, and Josh Romeo's. They were great choices, honestly. Both of them were kind of popular and looked great together.

Beth got the role of the housemaid. Nothing big, but hey- it's a role. Robin was an rich empress, one of those who couldn't accept Romeo's and Juliet's love.

"The play sounds like shit. It's so corny." Milton said. "I'm so glad I'm not in it."

—

"Beth!"

"Yeah?" Beth answered, lost in her thoughts.

"Tammy's not here today, can you take her place?"

"What?" The girl blurted out. The teacher was holding up a pile of papers, gesturing for the girl to go the center of the room. Josh was standing there holding his own script.

"Well, you don't have any lines in this part, you might aswell take Tammy's place." Ms.Grace gently pushed her to the middle.

"O-okay." Beth grabbed the papers that the teacher handed her, quickly reading trough them.

At least it was Josh. There were only two other guys in the class, but both of them seemed like cheaper copies of Steve Harrington. Josh was.. okay. Excluding the awkard flirting-kind-of situations their conversations always ended up on.

The boy gave Beth a calming smile, noticing how confused the girl was.

"Okay, you ready?" Ms.Grace asked, receiving nods from both of the teenagers. "Begin."

It was a dancing scene. Not very emotional, just sweet and all.

The teenagers got trough the dialogue succesfully, even though Beth had to peek at the script every now and then. Then came another part, where Kate's character made an announcement, and then was the main point of the scene: dancing.

Josh bowed slightly, asking "M'lady. May I?" He reached his hand out for Juliet to take.

It took everything in Beth not to start laughing. The boy's british accent was definitely the worst she had ever heard. The whole scene was kind of absurd.

"Sincerely." Beth nodded, taking Josh's hand. He spinned her around to get closer.

He hesitated for a brief second with his hand on Beth's waist. "Is this okay?"

Beth nodded, and Josh grabbed her other hand as they started moving around the room.

It wasn't exactly waltzing, more like stumbling and swaying back and forth.

"You're gonna have to practice your dancing skills." Beth chuckled, when Josh almost stepped on her feet. "Poor Tammy."

The boy laughed aswell. "C'mon, I'm not that bad."

"Oh, yes you are."

The two chuckled slightly, still awkwardly dancing. Over Josh's shoulder, Beth saw Robin's face. And this time, it was no doubt that she was staring at them. The look on her face- it wasn't anything good, that's certain. Robin's brows furrowed, she looked angry, and sad. Beth was pretty sure that was not a part of the scene.

Was Robin... jealous?

As the girl noticed that Beth caught her staring, she turned her face and got back to the scene, clearly embarrassed.

Josh turned the pair around, and the girl couldn't see if Robin's face was actually burning red or if it was the lighting.

That was weird.

"Aaand.. end!" Ms.Grace clapped her hands to stop the scene, and Josh's hands dropped Beth's.

"Good job! Even though, some of you might need to practice dancing a bit more."

"That's you, Romeo." Beth pointed a finger at his face, and the boy put his hands up. "Fine!"

"Okay, let's do the next scene."

Beth walked back to the side of the room, trying to catch sight of Robin. The other girl was still looking at Josh, with an expression Beth couldn't read.

If she was jealous, what was she jealous about? Who was she jealous of?

Josh?

What if..?

No.

There's was no chance that Robin had a thing for Josh.

Beth pushed the thought out of her mind, going back to her script.

"Kate, Brenda, your turn."

"Okay."