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Riley stood awkwardly by the entrance to the canteen, lunch tray in hand. He eyes skimmed over the sea of students looking for Dustin. Just as she spotted his blue and white thinking cap, a hand came slamming down onto her tray sending it crashing towards the floor.

The whole room fell silent as everyone looked towards where Riley now stood staring at the floor her hands shaking slightly as she looked up to find one of the cheerleaders standing besides he laughing with her friend. 

Riley wasn't even sure what her name was, she was popular, that much was obvious by how Jason suddenly appeared behind her laughing with the group of girls. Riley didn't stick around, instead rushing towards where she had seen Dustin, leaving her food splattered across the floor.

She pulled out her usual chair besides him trying to ignore the silence that filled the table, the others not entirely sure what to do. Dustin silently reached his hand under the table holding onto her own before re-starting the conversation they had been talking about before, trying his best to divert the attention off Riley.

"So, uh, speaking of monsters, uh..." He stuttered looking towards Eddie who sat at the end of the table, "Lucas has to do his, uh... balls-in-laundry-baskets game. So... he's not gonna be able to make it to Hellfire tonight."

Eddie stared at him in silence.

"And I know there's no way we can beat your sadistic campaign without him. So, me and Mike, we were talking, shooting the shit, and we were thinking that maybe we might..."

"Postpone." Mike finished. That idea did not go down well, as the whole table suddenly birst into disagreement.

"Shut up!" Eddie suddenly yelled silencing the group, "You saying Sinclair's been taking in by the dark side?"

"Uh, something like that." Mike nodded. 

Dustin turned away from Eddie for a few seconds, carefully pushed his own tray of food infront of Riley, "If your hungry you can have mine." He whispered. Riley stared at the tray before shaking her head, wordlessly pushing it back towards him.

"Something like that?" Eddie repeated throwing his food towards the two boys causing Dustin to look away from Riley.

"Jesus Christ."

"And rather than find a sub for him, you want... you want to postpone 'The Cult of Vecna'"

Riley sighed leaning her head on her free hand which wasn't holding Dustin's, she wanted to go home. She used to love school, it was where she'd go to hang out with her friends and learn new things, but now, she hated it.

It's like since last year every kid had suddenly grew up and forgotten how to be nice, they were all in a constant battle to see who could be more rude to someone else, who could make someone cry the fastest. 

She just wanted to go home and spend the whole day watching movies with Steve. Although at the moment, she'd rather go to Dustin's house and watch movies with him. She'd been spending the past few nights at Dustin's since her parents had suddenly reappeared out of the blue, and didn't look like they'd be leaving again anytime soon.

Riley wasn't really sure what had caused her parents to suddenly return, but they hadn't spoken to each other since they got back. Her dad was worse than usual, he'd started drinking, which terrified Riley. 

When he's drunk, he's unpredictable and she didn't like that, he could go from talking calmly one moment to yelling the next, then to crying. And then he'd wake up in the morning and forget how he acted the day before, and start drinking again.

Riley had stayed there for the first few days since they'd returned, up until one night, when her dad had been drinking, he'd entered her room and sat on the edge of the bed. He stayed like that for ages, just sat there watching her. 

Riley had spent the whole time pretending to be asleep, counting the seconds hoping that he would leave, but he didn't. Instead he'd reached down starting to stroke her face. Riley led frozen, she felt stuck.

Luckily Steve had been out that night, and had just returned home. He'd seen her bedroom door open, and when he saw their dad in their he practically pushed him out the room slamming the door closed before immediately helping Riley pack her bag.

Riley was suddenly pulled out of her thoughts as she was tugged to her feet by Dustin who had been roughly pulled upright by Eddie.

"And we showed you that school didn't have to be the worst years of your lives, right." Eddie spoke. Riley disagreed, she still thought school was going to be the worst years of her life, "No, no, no. Well, i'm here to tell you that there are other lost little sheepies out there who need help. Who need you."

Eddie spun the two boys around to face him, "And all you guys gotta do. Is get your Bo-Peeps on and go find one." He shoved them into the opposite direction, Dustin still pulling Riley along with him.

Someone to you - Dustin HendersonWhere stories live. Discover now