WILDFIRE ↝ E. MUNSON

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MANY KILLED IN A FIRE AT STARCOURT MALL, INCLUDING HEROIC POLICE CHIEF JIM HOPPER

               

Lily Mayfield threw the morning edition of the Hawkins Post down on the kitchen table, the house barren except for a few boxes waiting to be packed up into her mother's car, the majority of their belongings already having been moved to a mobile home in the Forest Hills Trailer Park.

She hadn't wanted to leave, on the contrary, she'd rather enjoyed calling this place home over the past couple of years, but the second her step-father Neil Hargrove had hit the road, her mother, Susan Mayfield, knew it was best for her and her two daughters. 

Susan waited in the car as Lily picked up one more box to fill up the car's back seat, her younger sister Maxine already at the new home unpacking boxes. She took one final glance down the hall, at one bedroom door that hadn't been opened since Neil left: his son Billy's bedroom. Lily took a deep breath, shaking her head to escape the sound of Max screaming Billy's name in agony that night at Starcourt Mall, and clutched the box tighter in her hands, pushing the front door open and leaning against it to close it once she was outside.

"Are you ready?" Susan asked as Lily took her seat on the passenger side of the car, buckling her seatbelt, and the redhead simply nodded. 

Lily's eyes stayed on the house until it was out of view, the streets of Hawkins passing by in a blur out the passenger window. She sat in silence as she gazed down to where she'd stashed a flyer detailing information about the upcoming Hawkins High cheer squad tryouts, her eyes scanning over the words printed on the page as if she hadn't read over them a hundred times already and could recite the details in her sleep.

"Here we are," Susan announced as the Forest Hills sign came into view, the paved roads now turning into a gravel path crunching beneath the wheels of the car, and she pulled up in front of the mobile home. "Home, sweet home."

Lily opened the car door and stepped out, pulling the first box from the backseat. She let her eyes wander to a nearby trailer that she knew all too well, where the curtain covering the window was parted slightly, two familiar silhouettes visible from inside watching her, though as she studied the figures in the window, the curtain shifted back into place, obscuring them from her view. She turned away from the trailer, carrying the box inside, where Max was already blasting music on the radio while getting things unpacked in their kitchen.

Once the Mayfields were moved into their mobile home, it didn't take the Munson siblings long to knock at their front door in an attempt to see Lily. Over the next few days, whenever she could hear the sound of knuckles rapping against the door, Lily would stay hidden in the room she shared with Max, waiting for them to go away. She knew she should say something, she hadn't seen Nicolette since that fateful night at the mall, and even longer since she'd seen Nick's older brother Eddie, she just didn't know how to form the words that would officially close what she had deemed the most important chapter of her life thus far.

But she knew, if there was only one way out of Hawkins one day, then she had to do this.

Lily grabbed the worn Hellfire Club shirt from where it lay perched on the chair next to her bed, fixing her ponytail and retreating from the mobile home, where her mother lay on the couch with a can of beer in her left hand. She marched across the small field of grass separating her trailer from the Munsons', willing herself to go faster before she changed her mind.

She knocked at the trailer door, eyes soon moving down to the gravel under her feet. She didn't look up when she heard the door open, nor did she see the look on the boy's face who answered.

"Lily," Eddie breathed softly. "How... how are you?"

"Lily's here?" Nick's voice sounded from inside the trailer, the girl hopping off the couch to stand behind her brother. "Where've you been, we've been looking everywhere for you?"

"We tried to come by, see if you were okay, but we didn't think you were home." Eddie said, and Lily's eyes finally moved up to look at him as she thrust the shirt forward, into his hands.

"Consider this my resignation." she said, willing her voice to keep steady.

"What?" Eddie asked, taking the shirt from her. "Lily, if this is about what happened at the mall with Billy, why don't you come inside, we can talk about this-"

"Bye," she said softly, refusing to spare a glance at where her best friend stood behind him as she turned around, marching back through the grass.

"Lily!" Nick's voice called, Eddie's echoing behind her, but Lily kept walking, crossing her arms over her chest and not looking back, so they couldn't see her tears being shed. "Lily, think about what you're doing, let's talk about this!"

Lily pulled the door open to the Mayfield home, slamming it behind her and locking it as she leaned against it, her eyes looking to where the flyer for cheerleading tryouts now lay pinned against the refrigerator on a magnet.

One way or another, the second she graduated, she was getting out of this town.