⊹ Chapter 7 ⊹
Nothings Going On
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"Officers, thank you. It won't happen again, I can promise you that much." Laurel apologized as she led the cops out the door.
"Tell Mr. Fisher the chief wants to set up a tee time when he gets back in town."
"Absolutely." She nodded faking a smile. "Sorry again for all the trouble. Have a good night, Officers."
As soon as the front door was closed, Laurel turned to the teenagers that were gathered in the hallway. Violet who was sitting next to Conrad on a bench was nervous. She had never gotten in trouble with the police before.
"How could you guys be so irresponsible?" Laurel practically screamed glaring down at the teens.
"Mom, it wasn't a big deal." Steven spoke brushing the whole thing off. "All right? Seriously. The cops were just looking to break up the bonfire."
"Not a big deal?" The woman scoffed. "I would say getting picked up by the cops for underage drinking is a pretty big deal, Steven"
"Were-were you guys, you guys smoking tonight?" Steven blurted out after sniffing the air.
"What?" Laurel instantly asked. She was clearly caught off guard by that question. Violet found it a little suspicious. Why would she be acting like that if they weren't actually smoking? "Keep your voice down. Susannah's asleep on the couch."
"Well, I wasn't yelling."
"Well, you-you were." The woman stuttered.
"Just so you know, Laurel, I-I didn't drink tonight. I was the DD, I swear." Jeremiah announced hoping to make the woman feel a little better about the situation.
"You're the oldest. What the hell's gotten into you?" Laurel questioned looking at Conrad before turning to her daughter. "And when did you leave the house without telling anybody? And what in the world are you wearing?"
"It's Taylor's." Belly shrugged looking down at her pink dress. "And why am I the only one who's not allowed to go out?"
"It's not that you're not allowed, it's that you should have told us you were going. How did you even get there?"
"I walked."
"Jesus." Laurel gasped throwing her hands up. "You know better than to walk that far down the beach alone late at night."
"Can you stop treating me like a kid?" Belly shouted.
"If you want to be treated like an adult, you need to act like one."
"Then maybe you guys should, too." Conrad spat back sarcastically. From beside him he could feel Violet tense. Conrad knew he probably shouldn't have said anything but he couldn't help it.
"What does that mean?" She asked but only received a small scoff in response. "I hope you realize this night could have ended a lot differently if your family wasn't your family."
"We're sorry, Laur." Jeremiah sincerely apologized.
"Just... go to bed, guys." The older woman sighed. She watched as all of the teenagers walked up the steps. Laurel couldn't help but stop Conrad as he went to walk past her. "I don't understand what is going on with you."
"Nothing." He shook his head. His eyes following Violet as she disappeared down the hallway that led to his bedroom. "Nothing's going on."
"Connie..." Laurel mumbled as he hastily walked away from her.
♒︎
Violet was changing into a pair of spandex shorts when Conrad entered the room. She could tell from the look on his face that he was upset with whatever had just happened with Laurel.
"You wanna talk about it?" The girl questioned pulling one of Conrad's T-shirts over her head.
"Not really." The boy sighed climbing into his bed.
Conrad's eyes followed Violet as she walked around his room. He couldn't help but be captivated by her even when she was doing the smallest of things like taking off her makeup.
"You know we're going to have to talk about what happened tonight. Right?" Violet wondered as she slipped into bed next to him.
"It was nothing Vi."
"I know there's something going on with you. There has been for months." She sighed. "That wasn't you tonight Connie. You literally fought someone over a beer."
"The guy was a dick." Conrad scoffed defending himself. "You saw him flirting with Belly. There's no way he couldn't tell that she was a minor."
"That's not a reason for you to fight him. You have a lot more to lose than some loser that still hangs out with teenagers." Violet replied turning onto her back. "Besides, Steven was handling it. He wouldn't have let anything happen to his sister."
"Yeah." The Fisher boy nodded staring at the side of his girlfriend's face. "He was still a creep though."
The Montgomery girl didn't respond. She instead turned her back towards Conrad and attempted to fall asleep.
Violet knew he was just trying to look out for Belly. The Conklin girl was practically family to him. But there was still something telling Violet to keep an eye on Belly and Conrad.
In all of the years that she's known Conrad she'd never think he would cheat on her. Violet still had faith that he wouldn't. But she didn't know Belly. How could Violet know if Belly was one of those girls that made moves on a guy even while knowing he's taken.
Little did the couple know, that there was a certain girl who just happened to be walking by their room. Belly smiled at the fact that Conrad was upset with the guy for talking to her.
Maybe she hadn't lost him to Violet after all.
♒︎
On a high from last night, the Conklin girl skipped her way down to the beach hoping to catch the sunset and her favorite boy.
Although when she arrived she wasn't expecting to find the boy sitting there with his arm around Violet.
Belly stood back for a moment debating whether or not she wanted to interrupt them or just go back to the house. She knew she had to leave at a certain time to see Cameron but she couldn't help that she also wanted to see Conrad.
Belly wanted to be alone with him. But everywhere he went Violet followed.
Deciding that she wasn't going to chase Conrad around anymore, she left the beach.
"Last night was a shit show." Violet chuckled taking a hit from Conrad's blunt. She didn't normally smoke but she'd occasionally have a hit or two at parties.
"You know you're gonna have a bruised nose for that tea tomorrow, right?" Conrad huffed trying to not look at the slightly purpling skin around Violet's nose.
Thankfully, the girl didn't think it was broken. She had asked Jeremiah to give her a diagnosis before bed. He obviously took his job very seriously and inspected every inch of her face. 'Doctor Jere' which is what she was ordered to call him, broke the news that she fortunately didn't have a broken nose but she was going to have a nasty bruise.
"It's already tomorrow." She joked laying her head on his shoulder. Conrad cracked a smile at her sarcastic reply before leaning his head on hers. "Do you remember that happened last night?"
"You know I always remember everything when I drink."
"I mean, you were pretty wasted." Violet commented. "I think that was the most I've seen you drink in awhile. Any reason why?"
"There are a lot of reasons why."
"Am I one of them?" As much as she may not have wanted to know the answer she had to ask.
"No." Conrad firmly stated looking the girl directly in the eyes. His hand came up to cup Violet's cheek as he sighed. "You make me feel better. There's a lot of shit going on that I don't know how to deal with. I honestly don't even think I'm ready to deal with it yet."
Violet was a little surprised at how honest her boyfriend was being in that moment. She had been asking him for months if anything was wrong and every time she'd get the same answers.
No.
I'm fine.
Nothings wrong.
You're overreacting.
But here Conrad was, finally admitting that there was in fact something wrong.
"I just can't talk about it right now." Conrad said still looking Violet in the eye. "I promise you that you'll be the first person I talk to when I'm ready."
"Okay." The red head agreed, smiling reassuringly at the boy. "Thank you for at least telling me that something is going on. I've been going crazy for months."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be." She shook her head. "I know you're not the most emotional or talkative guy. And I don't need you to be. I love you for you. I just wanted to make sure that you knew you could talk to me."
"I know Vi." The Fisher boy grinned pulling the girl closer to him and placing a kiss on the top of her head. "You can talk to me too. About anything."
"Okay..." She paused letting a small smirk form on her face. "Does that mean we can talk about the deb ball?"
"It's way too early for that conversation." Conrad laughed shaking his head.
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Sorry for not updating yesterday. I spent the day with my grandmother.
Episode 1 is complete. Now onto episode 2.
Also how are we feeling about vol. 2 of stranger things?
All I'm going to say is poor Max.