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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HEARTBREAK IS COMPLICATED.
It's feeling so completely and utterly broken that all your senses and happiness shred away, but craving more than anything to feel loved once again. It is grief, fur-lined with fear that joy has forever escaped you, that there will be no happily ever after for you. Being an automation of yourself, imitating other humans because you have forgotten how to live. It feels like death, just the same as bereavement and in quiet moments sometimes it overcomes you altogether.
Until it eventually those feelings only come in waves and eventually those waves break against the shore and disappear... until the next batch of course. But the shard of glass that had cut at your inside now has dull edges and you can finally begin to exist again.
Jim Hopper hadn't noticed his own daughter's heartbreak. He hadn't noticed how she barely left her room, how she picked at her food, how eyes had lost all hope behind them. He had way more important things to worry about as far as he was aware.
And the thing about heartbreak is that after a while it's silent, it's invisible. You're normal again and the outside world sees you as only that, but in the inside, those cuts from the shard of glass are still healing.
Andy Hopper's shard of glass had gone but her cuts were still healing. They were deep ones. But she was living and she was existing and she was conquering. She wasn't going to be that girl who cried over a boy and let it ruin her life. She was a girl who punched douchebags, snuck out her bedroom window and cursed fearlessly and she wasn't going to let that go.
Steve Harrington could do what he wanted, those were his mistakes.
Three weeks had passed since Andy moved back to Hawkins and she was finally enjoying her life for what it was. Everything had seemingly gone back to normal. The boys went back to playing D&D with Will at their side, Hopper got stuck into his job, Nancy and Steve dated and Jonathan spent time with his loving family. It would have been incredibly boring if they weren't all so thankful for some peace and quiet.
Over the holidays Andy spent a lot of time down at the police station. For time to time she would help out, filing documents, tidying up, but the majority of the time she would sit at a desk gossiping to the receptionist, Florence, or Flo for short. The old woman sure could talk and it was a good way to pass the time until school started back up again.
Andy knocked her boots against the metal frame of the police station door, the snow falling off them and then entering. She was greeted by a smiling Flo, who cradled a warm mug of steaming coffee. "Hello, Andy dear. Here for a chit-chat?"
"I wish." Andy smiled, shaking off her new winter coat and hanging it up on the rack. "I'm just here to see my dad. Is he here?"
The friendly elderly woman spoke to her peering over the top of large oval-shaped reading glasses. "Sure is, just got off duty. Go through."
