funeral grey ➤ steve harrington (slow updates)

000

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Hawkins High School felt more crowded than usual as she shoved her way through her peers, exchanging several disgruntled looks with a few of them.

She cursed herself for wearing such a thin t-shirt and forgetting her jacket in a rush that morning. October had ushered in cooler temperatures, dishing out chills and common colds like candy on Halloween.

Halloween.

The Monday after Halloween was always something, with some students still hungover from the weekend's parties and some desperately to avoid eye contact with anyone they may have hooked up with over the weekend.

Halloween this year had been much different, as she had agreed to go to one of the parties being thrown by a classmate she had never even spoken to—simply because her brother's garage band was playing.

She had planned on getting there just before they started, and leaving just after they finished. It had not gone according to plan, as she had made a very outbid the ordinary decision for herself that night—she had decided to have a couple of beers.

She wasn't much for drinking, but she figured if she had to tough it out for her brother the least she could do was loosen up a little, as Nancy Wheeler had simply put it.

Nancy Wheeler had been the reason for her early arrival, as Barbara had refused to go to the party. Nancy wanted to meet boys and have fun, to try and ditch the prim and proper for at least one night.

The crowd of students around her reminded her of how tightly packed they had all been surrounding the Harringtons' pool only two nights before.

The Harringtons' house had been crowded, but she had still managed to slip away from Nancy as she'd found a classmate to flirt with by the table with all of the drinks. Apparently Knox had not been the only one eager to slip away and breathe away from a crowd.

He had found her sitting on the front steps with a cigarette hanging from cherry red lips.

She looked up, spotting her locker just up ahead. She looked around and immediately found relief in the absence of his face.

As she looked around she noticed people staring, only a few, but enough to make her a little uncomfortable. She knew why they were staring. She knew why they were whispering. Someone had to have seen her follow him up the stairs, or saw when he'd taken a seat next to her on the steps.

Regret wasn't a word that came to mind for her, but the attention that it was already beginning to bring in was unwanted in every way. She wasn't one for popularity. It was never something that she had. It was never something she wanted. And she still didn't want it.

She ignored their wandering eyes and kept her head up, careful to not let it be known that she could tell they were whispering about her.

It was just a another dreary Monday in the midwestern cesspool that was Hawkins, Indiana.

She wasn't going to treat it like it was anything but.

The locker was cool to the touch when she'd finally reached it. Her fingertips barely adjusting to the temperature as she hurried to undo the lock. She hoped she hadn't removed the jacket she'd borrowed from her brother the previous week out of her locker.