Ringo Wheeler had enough problems - she was named after a member of a band she doesn't even like, she can't find her favourite record in any store along the East Coast and she pissed her parents off enough to be shipped to Indiana.
Now, she has a ne...
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JUNE, 1984.
THE WARM SUMMER AIR LINGERED AFTER SUNSET, leaving the streets of Callahan ideal for the local teenagers to frolic carelessly. For one group in particular, their agenda for the evening had been purely based around celebration.
Perhaps their celebrations were premature, after all, high school didn't let out for Summer for another week. But for Ringo Wheeler and her gang of friends, the week was just the beginning of their Summer blowout.
The blonde wasn't cold at all, but Ronny insisted she wear his letterman jacket anyway - probably as a sign of ownership more than genuine concern for her being cold. If she were half sober Ringo would have been bothered, but as it turns out - the more and more she drank, the less she cared for her independent, girl power ideologies.
They had started drinking the second classes had finished earlier that day, Ringo's school bag still laying in the back of Jeff's truck as she hadn't even ventured home yet. The later it got, the less she wanted to return and receive what was sure to be a devouring from her mother.
Katie squealed girlishly as Jeff roamed his hand over her bottom, causing the rest of the group to erupt into giggles. Their evening had consisted of numerous forms of entertainment they concocted to humour themselves - ranging from dragging each other around in a stray shopping cart, to smoking weed in an abandoned swimming pool.
Unfortunately for her, Ringo was reaching the inevitable part of the night where the alcohol no longer made her giddy, instead, it brought her mood down tenfold. None of her 'friends' noticed her sudden change in demeanour, or at the very least, they didn't mention it.
She wasn't quite sure why the group had brought her in, they weren't anything like the type of people Ringo liked to surround herself with. But when she first returned from Hawkins to Callahan High, her comeback was almost scarier than singlehandedly fending off an other worldly being.
Walking into the school that first day brought back a rush of memories, and none of them good. The sensation of being watched as she walked past, the constant humiliation about the fact everyone had seen her naked body - it was all too much to handle. In Hawkins, Ringo had Jessica, Steve, Nancy and Jonathan. In Orlando, she had no one.
To say she was fairly surprised when Katie Valentine, the single most popular girl in school, had asked if she wanted to sit with them at lunch would be an understatement. Ringo had pushed aside her distrust of the popular elite to accept her offer, figuring their ego would be easier handled than sitting alone at lunch.
It all took off from there, and soon enough the group welcomed Ringo in with open arms. It almost made her forget the friends she had back in Hawkins. Almost.
