Andy Hopper had enough to deal with. She hated her mom's new boyfriend, she was still grieving the death of her sister, and she hadn't seen her dad in years. The last thing she needed was to be packed up and shipped off to the small town of Hawkins...
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NEW YORK WAS COLD IN THE WINTER.
But a picture-perfect state nonetheless. You could see a real-life winter wonderland simply by exploring the city streets or taking a stroll around Central Park. Snow would dance in the air and every so often a delicate snowflake could land on your face then in a matter of seconds melt into a single bead of water. Trees covered in blankets of snow, a delightful crunching sound under your feet as you walked. Even the roads and tall office buildings looked charming.
Yet, not even that beautiful sight could make Andy any less somber.
As she walked the halls of her high school she felt like an outsider. She had no reason to though. Everyone remembered her, everyone liked her. Her friends were great, but for some reason, they felt like strangers instead. She felt entirely disconnected from the world around her.
Andy had been so scared that Hawkins had turned her into someone she wasn't, but as soon as she left she realised maybe she had been that person all along and it just took that little town to bring it out of her. Maybe she was a girl who punched douchebags, snuck out her bedroom window and cursed fearlessly. And maybe that was the girl she wanted to be.
All she had wanted was to be back in New York, but now she was there and more miserable than ever. It's funny how easily you can settle into a life, believing it to be much better than it is really is simply because you have nothing to compare it to.
At home, her stepfather was also worse than usual. Andy's short departure had obviously been a real holiday for him. It would be dinner time and they'd sit at the dining room table with a hostile reception. Barely talking and when they did it was the most mundane conversation possible. Her mom use to be fun, but Bill, the stupid Wall Street accountant, had sucked it all out of her. Once he fell asleep at a meekly eight pm in his armchair they would bond. Andy and her mom would watch Dynasty and laugh and joke for hours but that short time period wasn't enough to make Andy content or happy for long.
Andy had never felt more like a stranger in her own home.
She would forever love her mom, despite everything, and crave her company, but how could she live this dull and tedious lifestyle when there was quite literally a whole other world out there?
How could she live in New York when her brave, embarrassing dancing, Chief of Police father was in Hawkins?
How could she live in New York when Steve Harrington was a million miles away?
She couldn't help but miss him. She'd reminisce about all of the moments they had shared together, even the bad ones because, at the end of the day they were the ones that made the good ones so great and were special in their own way. Every time a boy looked in Andy's direction or spoke to her she thought about how they were so dire compared to him. One occasion when she saw some guy with the same ridiculous hair as Steve, she laughed at first but then sighed at how cute it looked and how she adored it.
Late at night Andy would stare at the phone she had in her bedroom and think about calling him, but she never did and resisted the temptation. It would be too painful, too stupid and it wasn't like they had left things on good terms either.
That needed to change.
The last couple of weeks had been awful. Andy was ready for a change of scenery.
