heat waves₁ [s. harrington]

i

"So, did he call?" asks Barb.

She, Nancy, and I are walking to our lockers before first period.

"Keep your voice down," says Nancy, her voice hushed.

"Did he?" I ask.

"I told you, it's not like that," says Nancy, very unconvincingly. "Okay, I mean, yes, he likes me, but not like that. We just made out a couple times."

"We just, made out a couple times," I say, mocking Nancy's tone of voice.

"Nance, seriously. You're going to be so cool now, it's ridiculous," says Barb.

"No, I'm not," assures Nancy.

"You better still hang out with us, that's all I'm saying," says Barb.

Nancy looks at us quizzically.

"If you become friends with Tommy H or Carol-" I begin.

"Oh, gross," says Nancy, opening her locker.

"I'm telling you, it was a one-time," noting the look on our faces, she adds, "two-time thing."

As Nancy puts her books in her locker, she extracts a folded up piece of paper from the bottom. She unfolds it, smiling as she reads it to herself. I can see Steve Harrington's messy handwriting scrawled across it in blue marker.

"You were saying?" asks Barb.

Nancy smiles sheepishly at us.

"Don't make him too late, we have a lab in physics and I am not doing it alone," I say, taking a notebook from my locker. Steve and I are in the same grade, a year older than Nancy and Barb. "I'll see you at lunch."

A few minutes after the bell rings, Steve walks into Ms. Bishop's classroom, taking a seat next to me.

"Steven," says Ms. Bishop.

"Yes, ma'am," he says.

"You're late. Again. If this happens again-"

"I'll get detention, blah, blah, blah," says Steve.

Ms. Bishop rolls her eyes and returns to passing out lab packets.

"Thank goodness you're here, Steven," I say. "If you'd ditched because you were eating the face off of my best friend, I would have been mad."

"Don't call me that," says Steve.

"I'll call you whatever I want to call you," I say.

He shakes his head and looks at his packet, scribbling his name across the top.

Steve and I have known each other since before we could talk. We grew up in houses just one street apart. Our parents have been friends since college, therefore we had to be friends too. Or so they hoped. In all honesty, we never really clicked. Steve was funny, charismatic. I was more reserved, preferring to be alone than surrounded by a crowd. I hid in my room when he came over to help babysit my little brother Timothy. Polar opposites. We were on good terms, we've just never spoken until he and Nancy started their 'one-time, two-time' thing.

"Are you just going to sit there and mope, or are you going to help me,  Amanda?" asks Steve, putting extra emphasis on my name.

"If by 'help you,' you mean 'do all the work,' I'm good," I say sarcastically.

"I'll help," says Steve firmly.

I roll my eyes. "When hell freezes over."

an: here's the first chapter to a steve fic! i'm going through a stranger things phase right now so i had to get this written out. sorry this chapter was pretty short, i'm hoping the next ones will be longer. this book will also be a lot shorter than the sequels will be, it's meant mostly to introduce amanda's character and her relationships with nancy and steve. ps, the cover and beginning part (cast, playlist, epigraph) will be published tomorrow, the graphics are being temperamental, but if you're curious, emilia jones is the face claim for amanda