Night Moves // Billy Hargrove

No Name: August 26th, 1986

Roxanne walked into her morning class to see Billy hurriedly trying to finish that weekends homework. She didn't take it easy on them either; she gave them all 80 questions, some even had two or three parts to them! It was only to test what they remembered from last year so it was okay if they didn't get any right answers, but they weren't allowed to sloppily half ass it either. Roxanne pulled her finished homework out of her baby pink jansport backpack and set it gently on the corner of his desk. "Here, maybe change some answers so it's not an exact copy." He was relieved yet baffled to see that she was even acknowledging him after he bailed on their Saturday night plans. "How was your weekend? I'm sorry that I missed the bonfire." He wasn't really that sorry; he stands up girls all the time. He only has a bet to win.

"No worries, and I had a great weekend, thanks for asking. Maybe next time though?" She gave him a grin as she tilted her head slightly to the side. "What about your weekend?" She wondered, her back toward him as she arranged her stuff onto her desk. His eyes shot up at her in paranoia - he knows that there's no way she could know about his home life but the way she said it made him feel like she was in the room with him when it happened. His eyes were glued to her back, practically burning a hole right through her. "Busy." He said mindlessly in a flat tone. She turned around again so she could snag her homework back from him before class started. The minute she started to turn around Billy snapped out of his neurotic trance. "Dude, that sucks. I just quit my summer job over at the community pool, it's been amazing having nothing to do on the weekends."
"Lifeguard?"

"Nope, just the front desk selling passes and folding towels. Not as glamorous but also not as sweaty," Billy tapped his pencil on the top of her chair as she continued on. "And I don't know if you care, but my sister came home with this crazy story Saturday," he kept tapping as he watched her goldenly tanned face excitedly twitch as she recalled the story. "This probably isn't as cool as your Cali stories but not a lot happens in Hawkins; but, she was over at her friends house playing games with some other kids, right? And one of their brothers basically kicked in the door and drug another girl kicking and screaming out of the house! He did it like a robot. Isn't that insane?"
She laughed at the messy situation - taking humor in a moment that had some comedic value to it, but she didn't know the full story. Billy's amused smile dropped as she unknowingly laughed at his abuse. "Why's that funny?" Roxanne's smile dropped too when she heard how deathly dark his tone was. "I don't know...it just sounded like a Saturday Night skit,"

She didn't know what else to say. She didn't understand why he was so personally offended.  Billy's jaw clenched at her response. His trauma was a comedy skit to her?
He wasn't trying to hurt Roxanne by leading her on, he was only trying to win a conceited bet, but now he wanted to make sure that she felt hurt by the end of it. Billy kept his silence and it pressured her into word vomiting  further. "I'm sorry. It was just the way she explained it - she has a hard time conveying the actual tone of a story sometimes." Billy was thinking about responding but before he even wanted to Mrs. Robinson had finally kicked off the start to their Monday. The final morning bell had gone off and the sun shined through the hard water stained window onto the packed classroom.

Class had finally let out. Roxanne felt like it had droned on for an eternity; she felt terrible that she had gotten under Billy's skin like that. Throughout the class Billy felt a little guilty as well. He had become so hot headed so fast because that was a fresh wound from less than 36 hours ago. She had already tried saying sorry, now she just wanted to tuck her tail in between her legs and run in humility. Billy followed her a few feet out of the classroom before tapping on her shoulder, "I'm sorry." They said in a crooked unison.

Billy smirked sweetly as a look of relief washed over Roxanne. "I'm so sorry I hit a nerve."
"All is forgiven. I wanna apologize too," he shifted all of his weight onto one foot as the opposite thumb hooked into his belt loop. "I really overacted," he chuckled smoothly as he chewed his gum in a fidgety sort of way. "I stood you up, which you were sweet enough to not even mention, and then I snapped on you when you tried to joke."
She nodded in agreement with a coy smile on her face. "It's okay. Do you want a second sorry now or no? 'Cause I don't mind saying it again." Billy casually tossed his arm around her shoulder as he walked her to history. He laughed and shook his head. "Once is great, but assholes have to make up for being assholes, you know? So I'll see you for sure this Saturday night."

Her thin eyebrows furrowed upwards in hesitation at the offer. Did she really want to be stood up again? But she didn't have feelings for him, so is it really that bad to be stood up by someone you barely know? After all she was only out to have fun and party a tiny bit her senior year so what the hell, you know? "Sure."