our story 💫 (jopper fanfic) COMPLETED

i dont know.

tw!!! talk of abuse, addiction

a year later

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it's been a year since the ultimate joyce and hopper break up. "i think we should see other people." thats what she said two days after the incident with chrissy, before walking away from hopper and leaving him in the dust. she never told him why. she hadn't said a word to him since.they were the "it" couple. nobody ever thought that they would break up. nobody ever thought that anything would happen to them. neither did joyce and hopper themselves. but life is...life. it works in mysterious ways.

joyce started dating lonnie byers a month after the breakup. and oh, was that the worst decision she could've ever made. lonnie became the new football quarterback after hopper got fired from the team for having failing grades. well of course he had failing grades, since joyce wasn't there to help him. lonnie was the rudest kid in school. both of his parents were drug addicts, and mostly everyone thought he was gonna ends up the same way. and sometimes, he...he hit her. he hit joyce. nobody knew that of course. whenever joyce had the urge to tell anyone, she remembered what he always said. "if you tell anyone, i will kill you. i will kill you." so she suffered in silence. nobody understood what joyce saw in him. not even joyce herself.but what joyce didn't know, what nobody knew, was that hopper never kissed chrissy. she kissed him.

and a week after the break up, joyce lost the baby. she had a miscarriage. joyce didn't know whether to feel happy, relieved, or sad. maybe it was a mixture of everything. she didn't know. she told no one but karen, who was the only one that knew about her pregnancy in the first place. and as for karen, she started dating the nerd of the grade, ted wheeler. nobody understood what karen saw him. neither did karen. everything had drastically changed, only in a year.

it was the night before the prom, and joyce and karen were getting ready. joyce was going with lonnie, karen was going with ted. "you ready?" ask karen smiling at joyce while putting a flower clip in her hair. "yeah, i guess." joyce said sighing. "i just, i always thought my prom would be with h-hopper. i guess...not." joyce said looking down. karen grabbed her hand. they both looked up and smiled at each other.

when they got to the dance, joyce dragged lonnie to the dance floor. "you wanna dance?" joyce asked. lonnie shrugged with a cigarette in his mouth. "come on lonnie, it'll be fun!" said joyce, trying to be encouraging. "no, joyce." lonnie said. "w-well everybody else is dancing! i told you this is the one thing i wanted to do, remember? i told you that we could do whatever you wanted except for this. please lonnie? i've just been wanting to do this since i was a little girl." joyce said smiling, praying not to get hit by him. lonnie hit her arm, hard. "i said no joyce." lonnie shouted angrily before running off with his friends. "o-okay." joyce said with tears in her eyes. 

she quietly walked out to the parking lot and sat on the roof of her car, looking at the stars. it reminded her of how her and hopper used to do that. everything was so much simpler then. gosh, how she missed those days. "you okay?" she heard a familiar voice from behind her say. joyce turned around. it was hopper. he was the last person she'd ever thought would be standing there. trying to find the right words, she finally said something. "y-yeah i'm okay."

hopper stared at her for a few seconds.

"no you're not." hopper said. "you know me too well i guess." joyce said with a laugh. "yeah, i guess i do." joyce smiled at him. she missed him. desperately. if only things were different.

"joyce...what happened?" he asked softly.

joyce tried to think of an answer, but she couldn't come up with the one. so she said was she was really thinking. not what karen was thinking, not what lonnie was thinking, not what her mother was thinking. what she was thinking.

"i don't know." she said. "i don't know."

a/n: finished high school!! sorry these past few were kind of short, i just really wanted to move on to the adult years i guess lol. hope you guys enjoyed and now onto the adult years!!🥰