The Great War | Billy Hargrove

23 | Pool Party

"Jaxon!" Isadora cried as she resurfaced and pushed her now wet, blonde hair out of her face and Billy bit his lip to stop himself from laughing as he saw the look on Isadora's face, "I didn't want to get my hair wet."

"Baby, you're at a pool party. How exactly were you planning on not getting your hair wet?" Billy asked her.

"I ... I don't know but I wasn't going to get my hair wet," Isadora retorted, as she made a face at the question before sending a splash of water in Jaxon's direction.

"Oh, it's on, Jones!" Jaxon cried before the two of them started splashing each other with water.

"Hey!" Ellie Hopper cried as she got caught in the crossfire between Isadora and Jaxon. Soon, a full-fledged water fight broke out and Billy watched on in amusement as Ellie and Jaxon teamed up against Isadora and Steve, whom had been convinced to join the water fight by Isadora.

"Okay, okay, you win!" Isadora finally called, as she realised she was completely soaked and her friends laughed before agreeing to the truce. Relieved, Isadora climbed out of the pool and walked over to grab her towel, and wrapped it around her waist before she sat down on the ground in front of the chair Billy was sitting on and leant against his legs, as he wrapped an arm around her and kissed the top of her head before he began massaging her shoulders.

"Here, I grabbed you a soda," Kendra said, as she walked over to join her friends and handed the soda can to Isadora before sitting down.

"Mm, thank you," Isadora smiled at her, as she opened the can and took a sip.

"So, have you decided on what you want to do now that we've graduated?" Kendra asked Isadora, who took another sip of her drink before shrugging.

"Well, I will be starting college classes at Eastview College in September because I got accepted to medical school to study nursing, but maybe I could look into getting a job for the summer," Isadora said, as she leant back against Billy, who momentarily stopped massaging her shoulders and listened as she talked about her plans now that they had graduated. A part of him always knew Isadora was going to go to college but he was a little surprised to hear that she would be starting college in September.

"You know, you could always become a lifeguard for the summer and work with me at the Hawkins Community Pool," Billy told her. Isadora nodded thoughtfully at her boyfriend's suggestion.

"Yeah, maybe," she said, before turning her attention back towards Kendra, making Billy frown, neither of them realising that Isadora later deciding not to become a lifeguard at Hawkins Community Pool would be one of the best and worst decisions of her life. As Billy went back to massaging her shoulders, Isadora went back to talking to Kendra, "I'm just glad that I don't have to move states for college. Luckily, the college I got into is close enough to Hawkins that I can just drive there whenever I have classes and the college I got into has all of the courses that I need."

"And you're still set on studying nursing?"

"Yes, nursing first and then eventually I want to become a surgeon. I still think I want to be a Paediatrics surgeon," Isadora said before taking another sip of her drink. As Billy listened, he moved some strands of Isadora's hair out of his way, so that he could massage her other shoulder but as he did, Billy noticed a faint scar on Isadora's shoulder and he frowned as he looked at it, wondering how he had never noticed the scar before.

"A Paediatrics surgeon sounds like such an awesome job but won't that mean long hours?" Kendra asked, as Steve came and sat down beside her.

"Who is going to be a Paediatric surgeon?"

"No one, yet. When I got to college at the end of summer, I will be going into medical school and studying to become a nurse and then hopefully one day I will become a Paediatric surgeon. And yes, it will probably be long hours, Kendra. I mean I will probably have to spend a lot of time at college studying and then I'll be going on job placements and I'm sure once I eventually get a job in nursing, it will probably mean long hours workings," Isadora shrugged. Billy listened carefully as she talked about the future, the horrifying realisation hitting him that Isadora was probably going to be away from home a lot more than he had expected.