CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT San Francisco State University Spring Break 1986
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Dylan sat in her apartment, staring out the window and basking in the hot sun. Being from Indiana, she wasn't used to this much heat this early in the year. She'd forgotten to pay her power bill last week and so there was nothing to do but stare out the window, not only for entertainment purposes but also to catch the slight breeze that blew in every so often. She needed to call the electricity company; she had the money but had felt very unmotivated through her midterms to do anything but school, school, and more school. She would right up a check this evening and send it off.
The phone rang across the room. The electricity company may have cut her power but they hadn't bothered to cut the wires to her landline. It was probably too much work for only a week's worth of missed payments. Dylan thought that was a little too soon anyway. She remembered her parents had missed a whole month one time back in Hawkins and the power was never once shut off. Maybe the electricity people were just greedier out West.
"Hello?" Dylan said into the receiver and she was met with the chipper voice of her old dorm mate, Marianne.
"Dylilaaah!" The other girl sung into the phone. "What are you doing this beautiful evening?"
"I didn't make any plans," Dylan shrugged even though nobody could see. "What's happening?"
"There's a party in the residence, you should come. Alexis is hosting it out of her dorm but I'm sure it'll bleed out into the halls as usual." Marianne said. "I don't know why you ever moved off campus anyway. Don't you know that's where all the fun is?"
Dylan glanced around her tiny apartment, thinking hard about why she chose to live off campus. She couldn't think of a reason—? It didn't really make sense, to move to California alone and then spend her days even lonelier, in an apartment by herself. She was probably in one of her moods when she made that decision.
"Honestly, Mari, I have no idea. What time is everyone meeting up?"
Marianne said something back but Dylan didn't hear it. With a loud bang on her front door, Dylan dropped the phone with an unexpected jump. The phone hung from its stand on the wall, faintly making noise as Marianne continued to chatter. Dylan couldn't hear it over the banging on her door.
She hadn't been expecting anyone.
Slowly, she made her way to the door and peeped through the hole to the other side. Her fright disappeared immediately only to be replaced with confusion. She stepped away from the door to swing it open from the inside.
On the other side of the doorway stood Jonathan Byers, his brother Will, Mike Wheeler, and some guy with long hair she had never seen before. "Not to be a pessimist," she greeted them. "But I'm guessing I'm not gonna be happy to see you."
"Not even a 'Hi, Hello, How are you?'" Said Jonathan. "Just straight to being snarky."
"Jonathan, I see you're a pleasant as ever." She looked at the two other boys who she knew. "Mike, Will. Nice to see you. Who's your friend?"