Teenage romance is already difficult enough to navigate.
But when the one you love doesn't love you back? That's the worst pain of all.
STRANGER THINGS | NANCY WHEELER
seasons 1-2
┌─────── •✧• ───────┐ CHAPTER SEVEN the boy with the camera └─────── •✧• ───────┘
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( the body, pt. ii )
• °:.☆ . ₊°• ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆
NANCY SPRINTS OUT of her house as soon as she sees Laura's mother's car pull into the driveway. Laura says she'll follow her inside once she sees what Nancy wants, though judging by how frantic her friend's movements are, it's nothing good.
"I didn't say anything about—" Laura starts as soon as she's within earshot, but Nancy interrupts her.
"Look at this, Laur. Look."
She shoves something into Laura's hands with a sniffle. Her eyes are red-rimmed like she'd been crying, and Laura wonders how her talk with Callahan and Powell had gone. Evidently, they'd already spoken to her, and she'd also chosen to go home afterward. Had her mother been upset about their lies? That her daughter had been keeping the secret about Steve from her?
"Are you okay?" Laura asks, examining the prominence of the veins and smudged mascara under Nancy's eyes. She'd run outside so fast that she hadn't even bothered to put on a coat— she stands shivering against the cold in the Fairer's driveway.
Nancy disregards her question and points to the thing she'd given her. "Look."
Laura does. It's a photo, ripped into several pieces but haphazardly taped back together to form the original, full image. What she sees makes her suck in a breath. There, in the lower right corner, is Barb, sitting on the diving board with her feet dangling over the shimmering water of Steve's pool. This must have been taken while she was waiting for Laura. Her head is down, her shoulders slumped. She looks dejected.
Laura should have been there. She should have been sitting right there with her.
"Do you see it?" Nancy asks, her voice a whisper. She points a trembling finger at the bit of forest just behind Barb's image. It's a spot not illuminated by the pool lights, so Laura has to squint to make out a few branches, a shadow, and—
The thing. The something she'd told the deputies about. The not-person, not-animal. It's fuzzy, its dark edges blending into the background, but she's certain it's the creature they saw yesterday.
"Who took this?" Laura asks.
"Jonathan Byers," Nancy replies. "We have to go talk to him."
Why Jonathan Byers was there that night, Laura cannot fathom, nor does she know why he was taking photos, but she will now kiss the ground that he walks on for capturing this. It confirms their fears. She never thought that would be a good thing.
