Ghost of You // Vance Hopper

XIII

Monday 1978. 3:12PM.
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    Making your way to the buses wasn't anything less than an awkward interaction with Vance. He never defended you before, so of course you didn't know exactly what to say. Occasionally, the both of you caught each other in a glance, but then quickly looked away.
    "I'm gonna go find Rebecca. Go do.. whatever the fuck you do with Robin." Vance muttered upon finally spotting Robin, who was frantically waving you over. You could tell just from there that he wanted to know why the hell you were walking with Vance Hopper, and why you had a bloody nose, along with grass stains on your clothes.
    "I'll see you around, Hopper, thanks again." You thanked the boy but he refused to meet your gaze. He instead stared at Rebecca that was waiting for him down the sidewalk, wondering why he was talking with you and Robin Arellano, out of all people.

     "Yeah, whatever. Stop stealing shit while I'm away." He joked with a small grin that disappeared right as it showed up.

    "What was that about? You were asking Vance something?" Robin scoffed in disbelief and looked you up and down, inspecting the stains on your shirt from eating shit in the field just minutes ago. Your injuries were minor, but you did need bandages for your fingers that were now further damaged.
    "No, I saw Finney's bullies following him and Gwen, so I tried catching up. Guess I wasn't watching my back, and Aaron grabbed me from behind. Jesus, you need to be with me 24/7, Arellano. Everyone wants a piece of this!" You spun around, then blew a kiss to Finney and Gwen, who were perfectly safe.

    "I think Vance has the hots for you.." Robin dragged out the 'u' and poked your sides when you both began walking to his house. Your mom didn't need to work any extra shifts, so she was definitely at home cleaning the house or painting, the things she usually did when she wasn't sleeping. You didn't want to risk going home and having her see the dried blood on your nose. You'd rather have to deal with Robin's mom being overly worried than having to face your own yelling at you for not telling her someone was beefing with you.
    "Nope, nope. He's got Rebecca. Just helping out a.. friend?" Cars leaving the school zoomed by, and the buses followed close behind with seats full of kids. Barely anyone else was walking home because of all the Grabber stuff, not wanting to get snatched up on their way home.

     "I still think you guys would make a badass couple. Just not as badass as our friendship, though. Nothing can compare to that." You nodded and grabbed Robin's face despite his groans and pleas not to and kissed all around his face multiple face.
    "Gosh, you're so adorable sometimes, Robin." He pretended to puke, but ended up letting you mess with his hair, since for once, the boy didn't wear his signature bandana to school.

"Hey, speaking of our badass friendship, I got invited to a party tomorrow night by some of the seniors and they told me to pass it on to you, too." Since when did your friendship have to do anything with a party? The fact that you were even invited in the first place surprised you. In order to be invited to a senior party, you needed to be in the very popular range, or be friends with the kings of the school, Tristen Forde or Roman Alanis. Lucky for you, Robin happened to be best friends with Roman. You understood why Robin looked up to him, because dealing with racism in a white predominated school was hard.
"Guess I'll go, I got nothing better to do. How am I gonna get there though?" Robin fumbled with his spare house keys as you turned onto his street while you glanced around nervously. Apparently, Bruce Yamada was kidnapped near this neighborhood, just a few blocks away from yours.

"Tristen's driving us," you were surprised Robin wasn't swooning over some girl that would be at the party, but then again, it was Robin Arellano. He claimed he didn't have time for girls other than his best friend.
"Was that van there before?" You then realized what was going on around you again. Students nearby that were also walking home had already reached their destination, since Robin's house was a farther walk. Rarely any cars even passed through the humble neighborhood, and it was dead silent— nobody outside.
"Robin, I have a bad feeling about this. Can we walk faster?" You had to refrain yourself from starting to spiral and making the situation work, but Robin was too busy staring at the van to even notice.

It drove past the both of you very slowly, but the front windows were too tinted to even see inside. On the side, it was hard to make out what most of the words said, but the person was a magician, from what you gathered at that moment.

Something was off.

"It's fine, Cariño. It's just some asshole trying to scare you." Oh. He brushed it off again.
"Uh, yeah.. you're right." Just in case, you planted an image of the black van into your mind, in the event of you needing to know what it looked like. Finally, after what felt like forever, Robin hopped up his front porch steps and inserted the key before swinging the door open, announcing to his mom that her children were home.

"Oh, oh! Mija! Your mom called just a minute ago. She wanted to know where you were." Uh oh, that didn't sound good. If you didn't return home after school, she normally assumed you were at Robin's, so why was she concerned now? Why was it different when the other kids went missing?
"Thank you, mamá! I'm getting it!" You carefully placed your shoes onto the mat in front of the door and took your time getting to the phone. Robin told you he'd meet you upstairs, so you nodded, watching as he skipped up the carpeted stairs.

"Hello? Mom?" Once punching in your home phone number, your mom instantly answered.
"Mind explaining to me why there was a boy in your room just a few minutes ago? I walked in to check if you were home and saw some blondie climbing out of your window." No, of course you couldn't explain, because you also had no idea why the hell Vance was in your room to begin with.
"Mom, that's Vance. He's just someone from school working on an art project with me. He must've thought I didn't hear him tapping on the window so he invited himself in." She wasn't buying your story at all, due to the deep sigh you heard over the static.

"That doesn't explain why he was going through the window." Oh, you had the perfect excuse for that one.
"He came over twice before when you were asleep, so he probably.. went through the window to not wake you, instead of using the doorbell." Was he actually thinking of smoking with you today? On a Monday?
"Ay.. okay, honey. I don't want you sneaking boys into your room." On the other side of the room, you could hear Robin's mom washing the dishes. The woman was quiet, in her own world, lowly humming a tune you distinctly knew.
"I know, mom. I'll see you tomorrow." The both of you exchanged 'I love you's and hung up after.

Robin was falling asleep on his bed reading some comic Finney let him borrow. Robin didn't even like to read, but he was doing it since Finney recommended it.
"Vance snuck into my room, he thought I was home apparently." The boy's jaw dropped, and he slammed the comic book shut,

"What?"

"I know, I was surprised too! Anyway, I'm sleeping here tonight, so get some movies ready while I finish some homework."

Then you both got to work.

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This was just a little filler chapter in preparation for the party chapter tomorrow, gonna be wild bro 😰.