The Babysitter Effect ( Steve Harrington)

Episode 3

Word count: 1000
Pages:  8

[ Hey where's Louise?]

!!Warning !! This chapter contains racism. In small town America especially in the 20th century due to the tensions high in East Asian countries in regards to wars and political ideology- placed stigmas against the Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and overall marginalized Asia into one. In small town America like Hawkins with a few black family's and the majority is white in a state that is known for being a more homogenous than New York, California and even Texas. Anyways, this is a short chapter but after this one is where things are starting to kick it up a notch. Please enjoy!!

Louise entered the halls of Hawkin high. Exhausted to say the least. She placed her bag into her locker and sorted through her piles of books.
"Now where is that assignment." She asked herself. She looked to the interior door of her locker. Pictures of her friends and family hung up on their- all smiling faces. One picture in particular caught her attention. It was Polaroid picture of Steve and her, sitting on lawn chairs, cheesin' away with drinks in their hands. It was one of her favorite pictures. They genuinely looked happy.  Louise smiled sadly. She turned her attention back to searching for that specific paper.

"I feel like they are all staring at me."

Louise froze. She quickly shifted through the piles of paper. Come on, come on, come on! There it was in bold. "The Pueblo's revolt" at the very bottom of the pile. It was like the universe was out to get her. She quickly grabbed the paper and stashed it into binder. She slammed the locker shut and turned around.

"Steve."

"Hey Louise."

"What do you want?" Louise automatically put guard up. She was emotionally drained and planned on exercise her right to avoid. But that was just not happening today. 

"I just want to apologize for last night..." he chuckled nervously.

"You do..." the short girl trailed off.

"Yeah. I'm sorry for being such an asshole. Sit with us at lunch."

Louise took a deep breathe in. "You know that movie I forced you to watch?"

"Yeah, The Outsiders." Steve smiled.

"I'm PonyBoy. And your 'cool' friends are the soc."

And with that Louise rushed off to US history.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The school bell rang signifying that it was lunch. Nancy walked from the lunch line holding a tray. She looked around worried. She sat down, with eyes down.

"I don't care what it is, it's disgusting!" Steve said with his mouth full. Steve waved his fork. "Get it off the table. We're eating here."

Nancy looked up. "Hey, Tommy. When you left, did you see Barb?"

"What?" Tommy responded with his mouth full.

"-Barbara. She's not here today." Nancy elaborated.

Tommy's freckled face scrunched up in confusion. " I seriously have no idea who you're talking about." Carol giggled.

Steve looked at Nancy. "Come on, don't be an ass, man. Did you see her leave last night or not?" Steve pushed around his lunch food.

Tommy looked at Steve then faced Nancy. "No, she was gone when we left."

Carol put a fork full of mash potatoes in her mouth. "Probably couldn't stand listening to all that moaning." Tommy chuckles as Carol started moaning and loudly yell "Oh, Steve! Oh, Steve! Oh, Steve!" As Tommy starts rocking the table and grunting loudly. Nancy sat back and Steve looked over at his girlfriend. Tommy started laughing along with Carol.

"Listen... I'm sure she's fine. She probably just, she probably just, like, skipping or something." Steve nodded and patted Nancy's leg.

Nancy looked towards the entrance of the cafeteria. The large blue double doors were open. She spot Jonathan and Louise walking.

"Yeah." Nancy looked down the table. "Where's Louise?" She asked.

Steve smile slowly disappears at the mention of his best friend's name.

"Oh loser Louise skipping." Carol bumped Tommy. "That's a first."

Tommy laughed. He points the fork towards Nancy. "You know she's adopted. We all know she's an accident due to the one child policy in China."

"She's a whoopsies." Carol laughed with her mouth full. "Oh I wonder if she knows she's adopted. I mean it's obvious, her parents are white! Haha! With that face of hers, it so~ obvious." Tommy laughed and stretched his eyes back -and began mocking Louise.

                       ~~~~~~~~~

Steve stood at the pay phone ringing Louise's house. "Please pick up, please pick up, please pick up." He prayed hoping that she would be home.

"The person you are currently contacting is unavailable, please leave a message after the beep."

Beep.

"It's, uh, Steve. Steve Harrington. I'm calling to see if you were ok? You weren't in study hall." Steve ran his hand through his hair. "I'm really sorry."  He sighed. His chest tightened at the fact that the one consistent person he liked, loved (?) was driven out of his life. "Louise-" he began. The phone clicked. Steve slammed the phone into the hook.

                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So I heard you were at the Harrington's pool party." Louise started off.

Jonathan chuckled awkwardly. "Wow, word sure does travel fast."

"It does."

"I thought you were going to be there too."

"Steve and I got into an argument..." Louise crossed her arms. "I called him out for being an  asshole." Louise chuckled. "And he kicked me out before the party started..." Louise trailed off. Remembering that strange person she saw nestled in the bushes. Louise shivered.

"Hey you ok?" Jonathan asked.

"Yeah, just the heebie-jeebies." Louise chuckled, she rubbed her arms hoping the goosebumps would go away.

They arrived to the Funeral parlor. The teenagers stood in front of the parlor for a bit. Baffled at the fact they were going to pick out a casket for a child. More specifically Jonathan Byer's baby brother. It basically goes against the natural order of things, having a child die was one of the worst things that can happen to a parent or a family for that matter especially if it's the baby of the family. It was honestly disorientating. Louise was an only child, however that didn't stop her from looking at Dustin like he's her younger brother, that could've been Dustin.

"Well, here we are..." Louise trailed off. "Are you ok?"

"It's best we get this over with." Jonathan pushes the funeral parlor door open and in they went.