𝘁𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗲𝘆𝗲𝘀, ( 𝗺𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗿 )

[26] TO THE ARCADE!

THE NEW YEAR BROUGHT MUCH TO HAWKINS, it was October. It brought the party the new arcade they began frequenting and growth spurts. It brought them teenage rebellion and so on. It also brought on, snarky Mariella DeGray.

Months after Will was found, Mariella had decided that being sweet wasn't all she had going for her. She began to become more loud, less shy, more confident. It began physically, her once silky brown waist length hair which all the girls in Hawkins Middle seemed to love was now chopped off and straight cut just above her shoulders. Something which Lucas was more than happy about. He hated her long hair, after all. Her mom, on the other hand, wasn't too keen.

After her hair, her words became less clouded. She spoke louder. She glared at those who angered her. She mastered the pointed look her father used in court. It was odd, the boys thought. Watching as their shy gem become a composed, stone cold yet kind individual of her own.

Despite so, Mariella continued to remain gracious and giving. Though, only to those she cared for. After all, she'd give everything and more for those she loved. The events which ensued to year before had taken its toll on all of them. Mariella had her own type of coping, after all, shooting a man in their side and watching your only girl friend conquer a monster was pretty traumatic in itself. She had a tendency for numbers. Scribbling down off algebra problems when anxious, mumbling out math problems too. It was something the boys found fascinating, the way her brain pumped answers out.

And so, she stood in front of the mirror of her bedroom. It hadn't changed much despite her other changes. She adjusted her dark green fall coat over her black overall dress and pulled her turtle neck up comfortably, grabbing her coin purse from her vanity and stuffing it into her pocket.

"Mars! What's your haul?" Dustin's voice echoes out of the speaker of her walkie which sat at the foot of her bed.

"Take a wild guess, Henderson!" She speaks into it with a smirk.

"I don't know? A dollar?" He asks, genuinely at a loss.

"You really think—! I've got seven dollars, sucker!" She laughs. "What about you? A dollar?".

"How do you have seven dollars? Of course, I only got a dollar!" Dustin responds.

"Babysitting the Ellis kids next door. Don't worry, I'll share! Over!" She says before tossing the walkie back into her bed and rushing out of her room and into the hall, running down into her parents room and seeing her mother about to start changing into her nightgown.

"Oops! Sorry, mom!" Mariella laughs. "I'm meeting the guys are the arcade," She explains, closing the door and running down the stairs. Their relationship had improved tremendously since last year. Emma had finally began to accept that Mariella wasn't her and that she was her own person.

"Mariella!" Emma shouts out in annoyance at her daughters lack of privacy.

"Sorry! Bye, love you!" Mariella calls from the bottom of the steps and rushes out the door.

♧

Mariella pulls into the arcades parking lot, already spotting Dustin, Mike, and Lucas shoving their bikes into the bike cage. She bikes towards them, zigzagging past cars and waving towards them before noticing Will exiting Joyce's car and running towards them.

Hurriedly, she bikes up the curb and hops off her bike. "Hey!" She smiles, nudging Lucas on accident as she locks up her bike.

"What's your haul?" She asks Lucas, Dustin, and Mike as she pulls out her coin purse with a sheepish grin.

"Four dollars," Mike answers. "I stole from Nancy's piggy bank," He adds as they begin towards the doors.