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↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
THE FOLLOWING DAY, it was another busy day at Hawkins Community Pool. The bright sun was out and with it came anyone looking for some chlorine-flavoured fun or a tan. It was around 11:30 when Billy's shift began and at the very moment he emerged from the break room, it was as if everyone around held their breath in awe of him. Or at least the daily group of attention-starved housewives did. He could always feel their stares as he walked past them and being honest, he kind of liked the attention. It wasn't like he was actually interested in them at all, but it was just a nice ego boost that even though he had started hanging out with Molly and by proxy some of her strange friends, he still had his good looks going for him.
Alright Billy had to admit it. He was kind of silently worried about what publicly spending time with Molly would do to his reputation. Of course he was happy to be with her, he loved her just the way she was, he loved how much of an outcast she was, it made her feel like some forbidden fruit he had to enjoy in secret, but he was kind of relieved that she agreed to keep their relationship secret. Not because he planned on doing shitty things behind her back or cheating on her, but it just made it easier to retain his reputation of the hot Californian cool guy. God knows how quickly Molly would find out if he was cheating on her and how even faster she'd kill him first and ask questions later.
When Billy got up to the lifeguard chair, he had a look around to see if Molly had gotten there already and he just hadn't noticed, however no such luck. He supposed that he'd be fine without her for a little longer but it really would've been so much more bearable being there if he could just see her, like when they look at each other across the school lunch hall or parking lot past all the other bustling kids, silently joking about whatever popped into their heads through their facial expressions alone before quietly inviting the other to hang out sometime someplace alone together.
Just as Billy began to boredly rest his chin in his hand, waiting for someone to either make a pass at him or start drowning, his eyes were drawn to a pretty pale blur out of the corner of his eye.
His eyes lazily traced over towards whoever it was before doing a double take and realising it was his girl. It was Molly. Noticeably pale, decked out in a white and red spotted old-fashioned-looking swimsuit, making her way towards Karen Wheeler and looking prepared for battle.
Molly was viciously over-stimulated in those few seconds it took to walk from the exit of the changing rooms to right next to Mrs Wheeler. She felt utterly ridiculous in that swimsuit. True, she had been coming to terms with her femininity and was slowly growing more comfortable with it... But this was way too much!
