STARCROSSED ▷ steve harrington

08. dear billy - part two

CHAPTER EIGHT — DEAR BILLY
PART TWO

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THEY GATHERED in a circle, and Nancy dished out the file she was holding in her hands to Steve, who flipped it open to read the papers inside immediately.

Robin spoke first. "Thanks to Nancy's newspaper minions, we are now rock-star psychology students at the University of Notre Dame."

"I'm now Ruth," Nancy said, cocking her head to the side at Steve's questioning stare.

"And I'm Rose."

"Nice GPA," Dustin commented, passing the folder to Jackie.

"Thanks. So we called Pennhurst Asylum, told them we'd like to speak with Creel for a thesis we're co-writing on paranoid schizophrenics—"

"To which they said no."

"But! We landed a three o'clock with the director."

"And now all we have to do is charm him and convince him to let us talk to Victor."

"Then maybe we can rid Max of this curse."

"Wait," Jackie interrupted, flipping through the pages, and glancing up at the two girls. "You keep saying we. Where's mine?" Nancy's mouth fell agape, and she shared a look with Robin. Jackie's jaw clenched. "Are you guys serious?"

"Look, you call Steve a bad liar, but you're even worse," Robin said defensively. "Especially under pressure! Remember that one time you got caught sneaking out your bathroom window? And your mom asked what you were doing?" Jackie would've smiled at the memory if she hadn't currently been fuming. "You said 'drugs.' Drugs, Jackie! You are a horrible liar."

Her and Nancy chuckled, but when they caught sight of Jackie's expression, they stopped short. It was very clearly a lie. Jackie would have been hurt, but them just outright telling her she wasn't invited would've been preferred to the straight-up bullshit they were spewing.

"She's literally my sister!" Jackie bursted out, unable to keep herself leveled any further. "Not yours, if anyone should be running around and playing hero to save her life, it should be me! You never even spoke to her before all of this, Nancy!"

"That is not true," Nancy argued. "And I know she's your sister, but we know you're going through a lot too, I mean, we just wanted to lessen the load on you!"

"Lessen the load on me," Jackie snorted, nodding her head sarcastically, like she understood their thought process completely. She stood up without a word, and dropped the file onto the coffee table. "Nice. Thanks."

"Jackie!" Nancy desperately called after her, but the only sort of response she got was the hard slam of the back door.

She sat on the set of steps that lead up to the house, her knees drawn to her chest. She didn't know what was wrong with her—she knew she was being ridiculous, but she just couldn't get Max's horrified expression out of her head. That was her baby sister. She was Jackie's responsibility, and she was her entire world. She was bitter that someone else was trying to take that from her, and it was such a stupid reason to be mad, that Jackie became angry at herself, too.

The air was chilly for an afternoon in mid-March, and the sky was clear. Jackie pulled her legs closer, unprepared for the breeze. She was still too angry to go inside, but she wished she had brought her jacket out with her. Maybe she could just army crawl back inside and pray that nobody saw her.

She heard the door creak open, and instantly she straightened, trying to force the bubble off annoyance down, and tell whoever had come out to kindly fuck off. Until she saw who it was.