Always The Babysitter; A Stranger Things Rewrite

chapter eleven: the pollywog

 I had Steve drop me off at the station on the way to school so that I could show Hopper that I could go to a party and not be at the station all night... and so that Steve could go get some breakfast. Hopper was surprised and so was I, so I got a little bit of work done before Steve came back by to pick me up.

We rode to school, just talking about nothing, reminiscing on a few memories, laughing. Once we got to school, we sat in his car, eating our breakfast, still laughing and sharing our favorite memories with one another.

"Oh, my god," I said, swallowing my bite of food. "Do you remember that time when we were like 12 or 14 and your parents busted us for looking at their special book?"

Steve laughed, putting his hand on the steering wheel. "Yes! It was one of the few times they were actually home for a while." His laughter died down, and so did his mood before he took a bite of his breakfast sandwich.

I sighed, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought that one up."

"No, no, it's... it's cool," he said. "I like it. I like this."

Looking at him, I asked, "Like what?" before looking at my own breakfast sandwich and taking a bite, eyes back on him.

"This. Us. What we're doing."

"Being friends?"

He nodded. "Best friends." Taking another bite, he sighed before chuckling. "You might be upset with me for bringing this up, but what about the time before you started getting busted by the cops?"

I had to think for a moment before smiling and chuckling. "The 4th of July party at Tina's? "

Nodding, he said, "Yeah. That's the one! When they came and tried to break the party up because some snitch called them and said someone ordered a keg?"

"Oh, my god, I totally forgot someone called!" I exclaimed, laughing. "And we ran back to your house, almost falling in the woods from laughing, and then actually falling into your pool from not watching where we were going?"

Throwing his back against the headrest, Steve laughed... hard. I haven't seen him laugh that hard in a while, and it felt good to see him let go for a moment. As his laughter started to die down, he cleared his throat. "Do you, uhh... do you remember what else happened that night?"

I nodded my head, looking down at my half eaten sandwich. "I do. How could I forget?" I looked at him, his eyes already on me. I had a feeling about what would happen next, and I wanted it to, but I instead cleared my throat. As I opened my mouth to say the memory, I heard the first period bell ring.

"Guess that's our cue," I sighed. "Let's go try and learn something. Oh! Did you ever finish your essay?"

He shook his head, "No. I missed the deadline."

"Steve, I'm so sorry," I said, sadness in my tone and facial features.

"It's alright, there's always next time," he sighed. "Come on. We don't wanna be late."

~~~

Second period. Gym. Well... it was Steve's gym period. I had another class, but Steve had also asked me to sit in the gym with him like I used to, so I went and got my classwork from my teacher and went to the gym.

Watching Steve in his element playing basketball was... awesome. I hadn't seen him play in what felt like forever, it was nice seeing him play again... even if it is against Billy Hargrove being a skin. Skins vs Shirts.

When I heard someone grunt, I looked up from my papers, seeing Steve and Billy's back towards me. I could hear their conversation.

"Harrington, right?" Billy said. "I heard you used to run this school. That true? King Steve they used to call you, huh? Then you turned bitch."