FIXATION

SEVEN

SEVEN: CURIOSITY KILLED DUSTIN'S CAT
november 3rd, 1984

"Hello?"

"Rose? It's Steve."

She hung the phone up after hearing his voice and fought the urge to rip all the phones in her home out of the walls. She had to check to make sure she hadn't broke her mint green house phone after slamming it back down on the receiver so hard. Steve Harrington had to have been the person calling her house for the past hour. Or at least that's how long it was since Rosalie had woken up to the sound of that obnoxious telephone ringing. Her clock next to her bed told her that it was almost five and that she had spent the morning sleeping through the afternoon. The house shook with the rings of the phone, the same jingle - one after the other, after the other.

It made sense why he was calling. She knew why, he knew why. He was probably hung over and confused by why Rosalie hadn't woken up in his arms, like he wanted her to. But how did he expect her to stay the night after he fed her a story of lies? Right. Sure, of course Rosalie would want to stay after he told her some monster from another dimension stole and killed her former best friend. Yeah, right. In what world did that makes sense? "In the upside down," is what Steve had responded when she asked.

Yeah, right.

The phones rang all throughout the house, again. Her teeth gritted and she answered, with no control, on the fourth ring.

"Steve. Stop calling me."

"Stop hanging up." He replied then quickly added, "I'm coming over."

"Don't"- before she could answer he was the one to hang up. She exhaled angrily and slammed her phone down again. In fear that the neighbors would hear her, she grabbed a pillow and screamed into it, in hopes of getting some anger out. After a few minutes she felt a little better. Her mother wasn't home so she didn't need to worry about her storming in and sticking her nose into her business. Her mother didn't need to hear about this, not until she dealt with Steve and could give her something to hear about.

Now that Rosalie thought about it, sitting in her empty home in her lavender colored bedroom, driving Steve's car back to his house before taking her own car back to her house this morning probably wasn't her brightest idea. She needed to blow off some steam and think after Steve fell asleep at five o'clock this morning and she finally left his house. She hadn't slept at his place for the entire night, she had listened to Steve's drunk story - interrupting him and asking clarifying questions. Questions like, "wait, so no face? It just.. opened up?" Which resulted in Steve responding with little effort, "like a flower," he had told her.

Rosalie managed to turn a one hour story into a three and a half hour story. Not including an hour of Steve throwing up in the main level restroom, and an hour of where he continued to doze off after every other word. He told her the story of how he, Jonathan and Nancy killed - what they decided to call - a 'Demogorgan' in Jonathan's home last year after burning it to a crisp.

After the story, Rosalie sat in Steve's living room for a good half hour, rethinking everything he said, until she realized she needed to get out of there. She needed.. well, she wasn't sure but she needed something. So sleep deprived and angry, she walked from Steve's house to the empty high school on the Saturday morning, his car keys in her pocket while birds chirped above her. Once she got to the school, she got in Steve's cold car and drove it back to his house, leaving the keys in the ignition and got in her car without even a goodbye.