Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
STEVE AND ATHENA were still in Athena's room, both sitting on opposite sides of it as Steve was situated at the girl's desk, which was pressed against the wall, with Athena comfortably sitting cross-legged on her bed, both of their notebooks in front of them.
Neither of them had spoken about anything other than the homework, Athena occasionally, and verybriefly, explaining certain concepts that Steve needed to know for his assignments—all topics of conversation that were ordered to be discussed by the principal.
Both of them were the furthest thing from overjoyed about this entire arrangement, and it seemed as though every single tutoring session had gone on for years—if either of them had to classify what their own personal limbos would be, it would be this exact situation.
As Athena was writing down a few more notes, a fleeting thought of Nancy trying to convince her to go to Steve's party earlier flew through her mind. Despite Nancy being her best friend, Athena had, of course, rejected the offer multiple times—she would rather do literally anything else than spend more than two minutes with Steve Harrington, Tommy, and Carol.
Stopping for a moment while she internally mulled over the decision to waste her breath on Steve, Athena, regrettably, went against her better judgement and eventually spoke up, inquiring about something she had been curious to have the answer to for awhile. "Why do you waste your time with Tommy and Carol?"
Steve halted his movements as a deep, offended frown appeared on his face, the boy turning to face Athena as he snapped in response. "What do my friendships have to do with history?"
Athena rolled her eyes and looked away at his irritated tone. "I'm just making an observation. There's a plethora of people that you could choose to be around, and out of everyone in Hawkins, you decide to be friends with them...embarrassing."
"It's none of your business who my friends are." Steve defensively countered, hardening his glare. "Since we're going down this route, maybe you should drop some of your friends."
At this, Athena shifted her eyes back to Steve, narrowing them defensively. "Ruth and Josh have nothing to do with this."
"I could think of a million reasons why they're embarrassing. See how annoying it is?" Steve raised his eyebrows in order to get his point across, soon reverting his attention back to his notebook as he continued. "Shut up, and just get back to finishing this stupid tutoring session so I can go to my party."
Athena just scoffed in a mixture of frustration, disdain, and regret in even bringing up the topic—she could've saved herself a few minutes of unnecessary annoyance, the girl scolding herself for going with the latter in her internal debate in asking Steve the initial question. "There's nothing I'd like more than for you to leave my house as soon as possible, so fine."
