Brandi [STEVE HARRINGTON]

I. THE NEW RANCHERS IN TOWN

[ ONE ]
[ THE NEW RANCHERS IN TOWN ]

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An Indiana fall was much warmer than a Texas fall. Not that falls make a boring, rural town any different than the rest of the latter; Indiana was just another state filled with its rural towns that mirrored all of the other ones. Its fall was just warmer than the ones that the Suttons were used to.

All throughout Brandi's life, she'd never been to Indiana. In fact, her classmates thought that all of the Midwest was the center of incest and bad music. That's what they told her when she announced that she was moving there. All twenty-five of her classmates advised her to not spend too much time there because she'd get sucked into the horrible disease of pop culture. All twenty-five of them had never been to Indiana in their lives either, but she appreciated their concern and promised she'd stick to her small town beliefs—or, more specifically, her Earnest beliefs.

Earnest, Texas, the stereotypical farm town, was a place where the Suttons felt at home. It was safe to say that it was where they all were their happiest. Brandi had grown up there up until after the accident. She had a childhood on a farm; she grew up with horses to rant to in times of trouble instead of actual friends, and she learned how to milk a cow properly instead of choosing the right lipstick to wear. The Earnest farm life was something they didn't want to let go of until they had to.

Until the accident.

The sun was barely peeking its head over the vast fields of the Southern part of the Hoosier State. Brandi's blonde hair was beginning to show off its glowy nature as the light hit through the driver's window of her Chevy pickup truck. The more the light seeped out of the sky, the more time went by before she'd arrive at their destination: Hawkins, Indiana.

The pickup truck in front of her had a license plate like hers, claiming "TEXAS" on the rear end of it. Brandi was quite familiar with the rusty vehicle, for it was her dad's. In the trunk was visibly almost everything the Suttons owned: couches, chairs, boxes of clothes, and other miscellaneous things that Brandi couldn't list even if she tried. Eric's bike could be seen on the side of it; the thing almost fell out of the truck every time it would take a left turn. The rest of their belongings was in the back of Brandi's truck and the trailer behind her dad's (it was supposed to be for horses, but they converted it into a little makeshift U-Haul). Their horses were in their other trailer, which was straggling behind Brandi's truck.

Brandi took a hit of her cigarette in between her fingers while the radio in her truck started to play Cyndi Lauper. She immediately cringed at the song, exhaled out the cigarette smoke angrily, and changed the station. Another Cyndi Lauper song blasted, and Brandi hit her hand on the headboard in disgust. "Goddammit!"

Just as Brandi was about to break the radio station into pieces, she noticed a sign on the side of the road that read Welcome to Hawkins. She gave out a sigh of relief as she lifted the cigarette to her mouth once again. People in Hawkins just love Cyndi Lauper, don't they, was the only thing that drilled through her mind as she entered city limits.