Risky Business ｡ Stranger Things

23 : Grease

It was raining the day after, sheets of cold rain soaking the earth and swelling up the gutters. It was like the sky was mourning for the loss of last night and Prue believed that the sky mimicked her own body: grieved, sore and blue. She had just gotten home after spending the rest of the night and the early hours of Monday morning in the hospital beside her father's small hospital bed. She hated how weak and pale her father looked, and Prue knew Grey felt the same way. When she and her younger brother could no longer keep their eyes open, Caroline Owens sent them home. Caroline had been surprisingly calm, but her daughter knew that was a facade because her eyes held a storm of emotions. The house was silent and washed out with the dark falling sky. Grey didn't even make it to his bedroom and fell into a deep slumber on the couch; the young teenage boy had needed the television on for the sounds. The silence was too much for him after such a terrible night. Prue found the energy to shower and it was a gross relief to peel away her ruined Henley shirt and dirty jeans. Prue had scrubbed her skin raw in a mad rush to get the sweat, dirt and blood off her skin, but when she reached the claw marks on her torso, she bit down onto her bottom lip to drown a scream. And then it wasn't a scream she was trying to drown all of the sudden, but a cry of sorrow. And lost in the hot shower stream, Prue allowed herself to break down as she gingerly touched the wounds that spoke of her survival.

And while Prue wanted to sleep, sleep didn't find her and she was lost among the waking. Without much else to do, the brunette teenager decided to start writing her and Billy Hargrove's English presentation speech that the pair would be presenting in a few days. The school work busied her mind, and in no time at all, the afternoon was upon her, but she was still determined to practise her speech with her partner. Prue dressed in a pair of worn acid-washed jeans and a slogan shirt with MTV printed on the front in faded neon colours. Grey was awake by now and Prue told him to shower and dress while she called their mother to get an update on their father. The rain was slowing down and orange afternoon light was breaking through the cloud coverage when Prue and Grey made a dash for the car.

"Why do we have to go over there again?" he asked, shaking rain from his hair inside the car. Prue twisted her key in the ignition.

"Because I have to practice my presentation with my partner. Who, unfortunately, is Billy Hargrove," she said through clenched teeth. She wasn't that keen on returning to the fifth house on Old Cherry Road today, but her presentation wouldn't wait and she had steady grades to maintain, so she would grin and bare an hour or two with the blond asshole with an abusive father.

"Well, Max better be home," Grey huffed out.

"Are you guys friends now?"

"How should I know?"

"Crazy to think that you needed a monstrous night to actually talk to her," Prue ended with a little laugh of disbelief. It was kind of funny, but also kind of sad that Grey had to go through a night of hell to talk to his crush. But trauma bonds people in the most unusual ways.

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Prue knew she was ridiculous for feeling nervous as she strode up to the Hargrove's front door with Grey beside her. She clutched her school work tighter in one arm as she reached out the other to knock on the door. No one answered and Prue spied Billy's navy blue Camaro back in the driveway and rasped her knuckled on the door again, this time louder.

"Oh, hello!" Susan Hargrove greeted them across the threshold. Her red hair was pinned up in a bun and Prue spotted a light splattering of freckles across the woman's face. She was definitely Max's mother. "Sorry I couldn't hear you over—wait, aren't you the girl from last night?" Susan opened the door wider.

Prue nodded. "The non-whore, yeah." Grey choked on his chuckle.

Susan's comely face reddened with embarrassment. "I'm so sorry. My husband—" she attempted to explain, but it wasn't needed. Prue didn't hold the woman responsible for Neil Hargrove's language or violent deposition.