𝐖𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐍. ˢᵗᵉᵛᵉ ʰᵃʳʳⁱⁿᵍᵗᵒⁿ ¹

004

004. 𝘀𝗵𝗲'𝘀 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗶𝗿𝗱 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁.

    𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐃𝐀𝐘, last period, when Lori's pen tapped on the wooden desk in a sequence of three's, along with the ticking of the clock over the bookshelves. Her leg bobbed up and down at a fast pace underneath the oak table, and her eyes flickered from word to word on the paper. Around, there was an occasional hum or loud whisper, the sharpening of a pencil at the sharpener near the windows, the tapping of pens, pencils, erasers on the surfaces of other desks, and the scratch of turning book pages. All of this filled the white noise as Lori sat in the back of the school library with her head down.

    She had her headphones pressed to her ears, and the portable cassette player lying on the table next to her backpack. She was sitting alone at the last table in the room, away from the study girls and the couples and the librarian. She had Mrs. Feller's history encyclopedia splat open before her, and she was looking at the words, but not really looking— just staring at the letters in the paragraphs that probably weren't true, anyways. Her foot tapped the ground repeatedly. The sound of the pen ceased when she began chewing the end of it harmlessly.

    She thought about her mom. Down in the centre of town, Maureen Philbin was making her way up to one of Hawkins' main offices, a bag clutched close to her side, her black heels clicking on the pavement and the pearls around her neck shining in the cloudy gleam. It was her first day in office.

    Lori tried not to think about her mom for too long because whenever her mom came to mind, it was always followed by her father. And that was something she didn't like to think about.

    When Lori looked up from the book and towards the windows, Jonathan Byers was passing by outside. He had a camera around his neck— sometimes he chose to spend his free period doing other things than sitting in the library like most— his hands shoved in his pockets, and a book under his arm. For some unknown reason, Lori stared at him with the pen pressed to her chin, at his obscure disposition that she couldn't help but notice— even if she was sitting behind glass windows and had never talked to him before.

    Lori was good at that kind of thing. Some guess that when you have no interest in making friends, it's easy to observe people without wondering if they'll like you or if they won't like you. She had this sort of advantage— if she was going to cruise through high school with a low profile, observing people's nature was going to be much easier than worrying if anyone was evaluating her own. So, with that, she watched this boy walk out of school with a camera hanging from his neck and a book under his arm, deciding that he fit Hawkins' mysteriousness perfectly.

    "That's the Freak's brother," A voice spoke out.

    That's when Lori flickered her eyes away from the window.

The girl, the short one with the long black hair, that she'd seen on her first day in the office— the one who was caught smoking in the girl's bathroom— had slid herself into the chair opposite from Lori.

    "What?" Lori immediately said, only slightly taken aback for a simple moment. She took the headphones off her ears.

    The black-haired girl leaned back in the plastic chair, "Him," she pointed at the window where the boy was walking away. "That's Jonathan Byers, the Freak's brother."

    Lori's eyes lingered on this Jonathan Byers for a moment, before she looked back to the girl in front of her. Why was she talking to Lori, out of all people in the library?

    "Oh." Lori simply said, not caring enough to think of anything else.

    "I'm Helena Gibson," The girl leaned forward and struck out her hand, with sort of a badass demeanour. "My real name's Helen but no one calls me that."