Halley's comet | Steve Harrington

xii. scatterbrained shit

The air was cold, and there was a breeze that kept sweeping her hair into her face. The idea of going back to class was long gone, and even if it wasn't school had let out twelve minutes ago. Exactly twelve minutes, she counted. Jonathan was taking way too fucking long.

A large slam came from someone hitting the top of her car and she flinched violently, nearly dropping her cigarette.

"Hey Bitchy Byers, what's up?" God. Steve Harrington. And with her luck he had his stupid croonies with him. She sat up, only finding herself right, as Tommy, Carol, and some red head girl, Nicole something.

"The hell do you want, Harrington?" she said, blowing out a puff of smoke. "Kinda busy right now." This was the last thing she wanted to deal with right now. And there was no way they didn't know that.

Tommy and Carol leaned against the trunk, each giving her sickly smiles. She groaned.

"Fuck this," she grumbled, slipping off the hood and flicking the butt of her cig at the group. She had waited for Jonathan long enough, it wouldn't kill him to wait for her as she gave Steve time to leave her the fuck alone.

Had she been thinking clearly, maybe she would have figured Harrington wouldn't have just been loitering by her car for no good reason, but shitty sleep and shot nerves weren't helping her logic. Her day had been all over the place since the morning, and it wasn't about to start making sense now.

Part of Halley wanted to walk over to the middle school, something she'd do when Will was there. Going over to ask how school was and talking with the boys as she waited for Jonathan to get out of the school's darkroom. Usually Will would ride his bike with the rest of his friends, but there were the odd times he would drive home with Halley and Jonathan.

She could imagine their conversations. Almost always about their campaigns. But, maybe Will would be talking about a new drawing he'd done. God knows his friends were more supportive of that than his father.

Cars passed her as she walked through the parking lot. She could recognize nearly all of the faces as they drove away. Hawkin's was small. Small enough that she knew they recognized her as well. And small enough for them to know exactly what was going on with her family.

She stepped over a parking bumper and into the neatly mowed grass. It was shady, which would have been nice, had the November air not been so cold already. Halley chose to ignore the cold though. Afterall, it was better than being anywhere near Steve.

Noticing someone familiar, she waved, a thin smile almost showing on her lips.

Robin Buckley said something to the boy beside her, Arthur, Halley thought his name was; she had seen him carrying a trumpet down the D wing hallway a few times. He nodded, flashing her a smile that looked a little more than friendly, hiked his backpack up, and strutted off. Halley had never seen such a prime example of why people called them the band geeks.

"Hey," Robin said, adjusting the collar of her shirt, her expression was unfaltering, and it was almost surreal. The past two days had been nonstop anxiety, but it felt as though Halley was just getting out of English and she and Robin were talking about their newly assigned essay. "Haven't seen you in a while, you missed Joanna's oral report on how totally adorbs Romeo and Juliet's relationship is." she rolled her eyes, imitating Joanna's superficially sugary voice.

"Doesn't sound like she finished the book," Halley laughed, fiddling with the hem of her shirt, "then again, I don't think she's finished an assigned reading since middle school."

Robin gave a snort of agreement. Picking at chipping red nail polish. "I heard about what happened. That sucks, I'm really sorry." And then the sense of normality was ripped away again. If Robin noticed the shift in Halley's smile, she didn't acknowledge it.

"Yeah, it's been kinda tough, but we're doing what we can." She finally replied, rubbing her arms as she suddenly felt cold. The air between them was different now; they weren't joking about kids in their English class anymore. "So, uh, you and Arthur?" She tried to joke, anything to light. Robin was confused. "Oh come on, he was totally flirting with you!" Halley laughed, gesturing to where the two had just been talking.

Nose scrunching up, Robin let out an undignified, "oh, gross!" cringing at the thought.

"Guess the feelings aren't reciprocated?"

"Absolutely not. I've seen him empty his spit valve onto the tiled floor. Disgusting." Halley didn't know what a spit valve was, but in Robin's defense, it did sound pretty gross. "I've got a tutoring gig in like ten minutes, so I should get going, but it was good to see you. Maybe try coming to English a few times a week, at least?" she raised an eyebrow, nudging the other girl's shoulder.

Halley laughed, hoping it didn't sound as hollow as it felt. "Maybe. No promises though," she ran a hand through her knotted hair, "good luck with the tutoring."

Giving a mocking salute with two fingers, Robin called out, "See you, Byers!" Before merging with the rest of the small crowd still milling around the bike rack near the school's entrance.

It was time to go back. To see if Jonathan had finally finished whatever he was working on, there was a large part of Halley that wanted to stay away from her car as long as she possibly could. The mere idea of dealing with Steve was not something she wanted to waste time on. Her brain had been scattered throughout the day, and she most definitely did not need yet another variable to add to the fucked up experiment in her head.

Nonetheless, she turned and made her way to where she had spent over half her day. She was itching to grab another cigarette from her pocket, but if Jonathan found her with one again... she wasn't going to worry him again. Not over something so stupid.

As it turns out, it wasn't Jonathan who would be worried.

She was still a good few feet away from her brother and their car, and she couldn't make out whatever conversation was going on, but she was able to make out Jonathan lurching for his camera as Steve dropped it to the ground. He missed. She could hear the crunch of glass and irreparable damage from where she stood.

For a moment, she was stunned, standing here and watching as Jonathan hopelessly picked at fragments of the camera and what looked like ripped up photos.

Nancy Wheeler brought her out of her stupor. Watching as the girl bent down beside her brother and picked something up, without saying a word to him. Bitch. It was her fucking boyfriend that had just done that. Halley was ready to fulfill the lie she had told her mother about a fight at school, but Harrington called out to Nancy before she got the chance.

Alone now, Jonathan looked beyond defeated. A look Halley had only seen on her mother. Her heart pounded, and she yearned to chase after the dicks she had left alone at her car. God, she should have known something like this would happen.This was definitely her fault.

Getting closer, as she finally made her way, slowly, to her brother, Halley was able to assess the damage. The shattered glass was in as terrible shape as it had sounded only seconds before. Tiny, glittery pieces shimmered in the sunlight, a beautifully cruel last piece of art created by the camera.

He flinched when she put a hand on his shoulder, nearly jumping into the car before he realized who it was. "Hey." she didn't ask what happened. Half of her didn't want to know, but the other half craved for context. She fought that half down. "We should probably get home, you know, before Mom starts to worry." saying she didn't know what to say was an understatement. She could tell by the blush on Jonathan's cheeks that Steve or Nancy had said something to work him up, and Halley knew enough about her brother to know that there was no way he was going to open up at that moment.

Jonathan mumbled an almost mute response, taking a deep breath and prying himself away from the corpse of his camera.