HI, IM STEPHANIE
October 30th, 1984
⏰ 6:40 am 📍Hawkins, Indiana
༺♥༻ Stephanie woke up earlier than she would normally, but ultimately decides that it's not that big of a deal since she wasn't tired anyway.
Since Stephanie's already ready for school, she decides to get to school early just because she could.
Stephanie makes her way out of her room and knocks on Steve's closed door. "Steve! Come drive me to school!"
"Mmmm."
"You haven't even been to school in, like, a week, so it's not that hard to grab your keys and drive away!"
No response.
"Okay then. Just so you know I'll be biking to school, since you're depriving me of transportation. I could get y'know...hit by, like...a truck or something."
Stephanie takes her time biking her way to school (and not getting hit by a truck) since she doesn't need to be there super early.
Once Stephanie makes it to school almost no one's there yet. Except for one person. She assumes it's a teachers kid since they're always very nerdy and get to school way before they need to.
Thinking this made Stephanie realize that she's super early and that would technically make her a nerd, but she shakes this thought away since she doesn't want to consciously know that piece of information.
She decides to sit on one of the benches that's near the back of the school where the other kid is.
Normally, Stephanie wouldn't go super close to someone that she didn't know to avoid being bullied, but this girl (which she learned from being within 10 feet of this person. Progress!) seemed to emanate good energy.
Stephanie pulls out her English notebook to work on an essay that her teacher had assigned. She thinks that essays should be illegal and classified as child abuse. She's only 13!
Just as Stephanie starts to write the beginning to her introduction paragraph about how "technology is ruining our society", (her english teacher is a hippie, if that already wasn't obvious.) she takes closer notice to the girl. She is skateboarding. She has firey red hair and is wearing a red Adidas jacket over a striped shirt with jeans that Stephanie personally would've cuffed, but this girl could pull it off either way.
But most of all she was really pretty.
Like, effortlessly pretty.
Stephanie had come to realize that she always knew she was different. But she never knew how or why. She just knew. Her friends in fourth grade all had crushes and even boyfriends but Stephanie never understood why she didn't.
Stephanie must not have noticed she was intently staring at this poor girl, probably making her uncomfortable with the amount of time that this had went on for.
The redhead walked up to Stephanie, still keeping her distance. The girl starts to speak, "Were you just staring at me?" she asks with raw confusion.
This pulls Stephanie out of her thoughts. "Huh-oh-wha-me?" Stephanie points to herself and looks around like the girl would be talking to anyone else.
"Uh, yeah. You," the redhead affirms.
"Oh. Right. Sorry. Uh...no? That was definitely not me." Stephanie winces at her response because she's totally blowing her first impression with this girl.
"Uhm okay then," the redhead says with a puzzled look on her face. Now would be a perfect time to leave but she doesn't.
"Okay, let me start again," she says as she sticks out her hand. "I'm Max."
She even has a pretty name.
Stephanie sticks her hand out mirroring Max.
"Hi, I'm Stephanie."
"Cool. See you around, Steph," Max smiles as she skates away towards the building.
Steph? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
————
༺♥༻ "Meet the human brain. I know, I know. It doesn't look like much. A little gross even right? But consider this; there are a hundred billion cells inside this miracle of evolution working as one. No, I did not stutter. Idntmspk...."
Stephanie usually enjoys science class and Mr. Clarke's lessons, but she couldn't stop thinking about Max.
Did she like me?
Does she think I'm weird?
Why did she make that face at me?
Does she like girls?
Do I like girls?
Stephanie is abruptly pulled out of her thoughts when the door swings open, making a loud noise that startles half of the class.
"Ah, this must be our new student," grinned Mr. Clarke as the principal walks in with someone who she couldn't see even if she wanted to because of Mikes big head in the way of her view.
"Indeed it is," agreed the principal with a sweet smile. "All yours."
Stephanie had given up trying to see who just came into the classroom and focused back onto her doodles she made in the margins of her textbook.
The person starts walking towards the back of the classroom but Mr. Clarke stops them.
"Hold up. You don't get away that fast. Come on up. Don't be shy." Mr. Clarke says, acting like this mystery person is a dog he's coaxing. "Dustin, drum roll."
Dustin flips the cover of his textbook to the front and starts tapping on it, imitating a drum.
"Class, please welcome all the way from sunny California, our latest passenger to join us on our curiosity voyage...."
Stephanie is still focused on her drawing.
"Maxine!"
Stephanie's head shoots up which honestly might've given her whiplash.
That's Max!
"It's Max," she falters, looking anywhere but at Mr. Clarke.
"Sorry?"
"Nobody calls me Maxine, it's Max," Max defended in a more assertive tone.
"MadMax," whispers Lucas to Dustin, who was right next to him.
Lucas sits on the right with Dustin on the left, behind Dustin is Will and Mike sits behind Lucas and Stephanie sits back behind Will.
She can still hear everything that they say, considering that they're all extremely loud.
Stephanie hadn't even put two and two together that the Max she met this morning was the MadMax from the arcade.
By the time Stephanie realized, Max was already beelining to her seat way in the back corner. Stephanie turned back in her seat to look at the girl who was staring out the window probably wanting nothing to do with this town.
Who would want to move to Indiana after living in California?
————
༺♥༻ At recess, the boys are standing right against the chainlink fence, staring at Max while she skateboards around the pavement. Stephanie is wavering behind the boys just incase Max saw them staring at her, she wouldn't have another awkward encounter with Max again, and to avoid Max thinking that she's creepy like the majority of the party is.
"There's no way that's MadMax," Mike says out loud, but it almost seems like he's trying to reassure himself.
"Yeah. Girls don't play video games," Will adds.
"Is that so?" interrogated Stephanie, crossing her arms and giving Will a baiting look.
"Uh-wel-no-I-didn-"
"Relax, I was teasing."
Will opens his mouth to say something but closes it again after a moment or two because there's no point to try and argue with Stephanie.
Mike goes back to what he was saying, "Even if they did, there's no way you can get 751,300 points on Dig Dug."
Lucas debates Mike on the matter, "But her names Max!"
"So?"
Mike is so dense.
"Uh so?" Stephanie mocks. "How many Maxes do you know Mike? Name one!" Stephanie finishes.
"Ugh, I don't know," Mike scoffs.
Lucas adds on to Stephanie's point, "Zero. Thats how many."
"Someone with the name Max beats Stephanie's top score then the next day someone shows up to school with the same name? She has to be MadMax," Dustin declares.
Stephanie looks back at Max. "Plus she skateboards so she's pretty awesome."
"Awesome? You've never even talked to her!" Mike argues, raising his voice.
"Actually, I did, so eat that, bitch."
Mike pulls Stephanie by her wrist around the corner of the building. "Why did you talk to her?" he whisper-yells, glancing over Stephanie's shoulder at Max.
"What? I don't know! She came up to me! She's nice, Mike."
"Why didn't you run it by me first?"
"Uh okay Michael. Do you want me to 'run it by you' every time I talk to someone? I'm my own person. I can handle myself!" Stephanie argues back, completely surprised by Mikes sudden anger.
Who does this kid think he is? The president? Jesus Christ himself?
Stephanie walks off past Mike and hits his shoulder with hers. (It may or may not have been on purpose.)
Once Stephanie turns the corner, Lucas and Will are standing in front of the trash can near a staircase while Dustin digs through it like a raccoon foraging for food.
"What on God's green Earth are you guys doing?" Stephanie tries to yell, but is too out of breath from running to sound intimidating.
"MadMax threw something away and we need to know what it said, wheezy." Dustin announces as he pulls the crumpled up piece of paper that Max had thrown away.
"Stop spying on me creeps! (Not you though, Steph)"
OH MY GO- sorry, I'm keeping it together.
She called me Steph!
"William Byers?" The principal asks almost as if Will wasn't standing right there. "Your mother's here."
Stephanie always felt bad for Will when he had to leave school. She knows that people are mean and feels protective over Will, even though they're the same age.
Will had gone inside the building with the principal but the rest of the party gets to the front a few seconds before him where they see Will come out of the double doors, trailing behind the principal.
Stephanie sees Mrs. Byers standing outside of her car, looking down at the ground, smoking a cigarette. When she sees Will, her face lights up like it's the first times she's seen him in a hundred years.
Why can't my mom do this for me?
"You guys think he's okay?" Dustin asks, probably feeling the same way Stephanie does.
"He's always weird when he has to go in," Lucas adds.
Will has been leaving school every few days to go to doctors appointments at Hawkins Lab. No doctor or scientist can quite figure out what's wrong with him though.
Mike speaks up, "I don't know, he's really quiet today."
"He's always quiet," Stephanie argues with Mike even though she agrees with him, she just wants to not think about Mike right now.
༺♥༻
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