THE DAY PICKED UP QUICKLY, AND SOON, THE ARCADE WAS BUSTLING WITH NOISE AND USUAL LOUD CHATTER. Ophelia was stationed behind the prize counter, her shift over, but her replacement wasn't here yet, so she was stuck. Not that she minded, she enjoyed her job, she was just getting tired of the long hours of being on her feet and Talia had already abandoned her for a nap.
Ophelia reached up behind her to grab a prize when she heard the counter swing open. "You're late again, Sam." She heard him groan as she turned around, handing the prize to the kid at the counter. She shifted her attention to him.
"I know, I know, I'm sorry. I tried to bake bread and I might have wrecked the machine." Samuel Bradbury had a sheepish grin on his face as he reached a hand up to run it through his short, dark hair. Sam was constantly rotating through different hobbies, trying to find one that he was good at with little results.
Ophelia chuckled at him before turning to another kid who had approached the table, handing her a large stack of tickets before pointing up to one of the top shelves. "I don't think aunt Abigail is gonna let you sleep on our couch again if your mom kicks you out for the sixth time." She began feeding the tickets into the machine, counting them quickly before she smiled, reaching behind her. She handed the large toy to the also grinning boy at the counter. He thanked her before turning back to his friends, holding it over his head in victory. They let out an enthusiastic cheer in support, before immediately grabbing him and ruffling him up. Ophelia smiled at the exchange, before again returning her gaze to her late coworker.
Sam just smirked at her, tossing his own beat up Walkman into his locker. Music was one of his hobbies that always seemed to stick, and that was probably one of the reasons the two were friends. "Oh come on, O! Y'know Abi loves me!"
Ophelia rolled her eyes, leaning her hip against the counter, "More like she puts up with you 'cause you're Dally's friend."
The boy gasped, holding a hand over his heart, "Just Dally's friend? Is that all I am to you?" He didn't wait for an answer before he pulled open her locker, grabbing her Walkman and popping it open. His mouth dropped open lightly as he pulled the cassette out, "When the hell did you get this?"
"It came in the mail just the other day." Ophelia grinned as he flipped it over, reading the track list.
"Shit," Sam drug out the word, "I tried to get one-a these but they were all sold out!"
"Well you'll be happy to learn I've got a surprise for you the next time you're hanging out with Dal." Turning his attention away from the cassette as she turned hers to a new customer with a wad of tickets in her hand, he closed the two lockers before closing the 'EMPLOYEE USE ONLY' door.
"Well you'll be happy to learn that I was planning to tonight, but I might not have much of a choice once ma sees what I did to her bread machine."
Ophelia sat crosslegged on the brown shag carpeted floor of her room. Her cassettes were spread in front of her, her focus on the blank ones. Talia lay on her stomach across Ophelia's bed, which was really just a mattress on the floor. Her blanket was bright red, which clashed with her lime green pillowcase. It was an interesting combo, but her usual grey and blue spread was in the wash. Ophelia's room wasn't especially clean, the closet behind her open with clothes falling from the hangers and littering the floor, but her desk was probably the messiest. There were cassettes, cassette cases, glue, scraps of paper, and track lists written on pieces of paper scattered across its surface. She had been kind enough to make her bed, but it's not like Talia was one to judge. Ophelia had seen her room at its worst.
The darker girl was flipping through one of Ophelia's many magazines, a lot of them being outdated ones from her aunt. Ophelia was humming along to one of her mixtapes that played softly through the room. Talia's head was bobbing along.
"Who's this?" She flicked her eyes up to her companion.
"Wings." Ophelia twirled the utility knife in her hand, flipping through and cutting out things she liked from her own magazine, using the cutting board in her lap. She would mostly use them to decorate her mixtape cases, but some found their home on her walls.
"Wait, but I know that voice." Talia pointed at the player, squinting her eyes as if it would help her ears.
"Yeah, it's Paul McCartney. This was after The Beatles split."
Talia hummed, "It's nice."
"I probably like his solo stuff the most, but All Things Must Pass is a very close second." Ophelia grinned up at her friend.
"Ooh I know this one!" Talia paused for a second, before snapping her fingers, "That one's George's."
Ophelia laughed, "You're learning well."
The two again dropped into comfortable silence, feeling happy just in each other's presence and in the blissful melody floating through the room.
Ophelia had always had a strong attachment to music. It was a comfort that she held onto tightly when everything else seemed to be slipping away. Even with the church hymns and choir music that were her only source of music when she was younger, she still felt a certain closeness with the sounds. Though she had moved past the songs full of empty promises thanking someone she felt she owed nothing to, they gave her something to channel her focus into, to block out the rest of the world. It made her feel the way nothing else could. It left a mark on her soul that she didn't want to scrub away for once.
Ophelia sat on the floor of her room, even though, at this point, she deemed it more of a cell. She couldn't focus, her mind in a haze as her entire, shaking body ached. She didn't remember what had been happening seconds, minutes, or even hours before. She didn't even know if it was the same day that she last remembered being taken from her room. An ache that seemed to radiate throughout her whole body told its own story, as it was not nearly the first time she had felt this way. She was sure it was from one of the multitude of tests the doctors would put her through. It had been about two years of constant testing and a blur of pain, fear, and missing memories. She could hardly place the time or day anymore, and she had just given up on even trying. Her head hurt too much anyways.
The frail girl was about the muster up the strength to stand and try to get into her small cot, but the thought floated away into the fog that her mind was shrouded in, just like it had when she had tried previously. It would at least be warmer than the tile floors, but she just let her eyes slip shut. The institution was quiet, which was an odd occurrence. Her hearing seemed to meander through the hospital, looking for something to grasp onto to keep her minutely conscious. They pricked up at a soft choir of voices that she could faintly hear. She recognized it almost instantly and even in the state she was in, the corners of her mouth pricked upwards. A gentle sigh left her lips as the voices grew louder the harder she focused.
The mist of her mind seemed to dissipate, if only just slightly. The sound filtered through her ears and spread to her chest. It was like an energy, a sweet tingling feeling that ebbed and flowed under her skin, from her chest out to her toes and fingers. The voices blend together, rising and falling like an entity, and though she couldn't understand what they were singing about, it was her only sense of light and peace. Intertwining and overlapping, she hung onto each note like a life raft. She felt like the weight and burden of what she told was a cursed and sinful existence were lifted off of her shoulders, if only for just this moment.
The bruises on her arms from needles or rough hands, the scars on her hands and heart, her salty, dry cheeks, the inescapable ache, they all seemed to melt away in those small moments. The time where she was alone. Just Ophelia. Just her and the revered music.
She hadn't quite registered it yet, but she had finally been able to stand, legs shaky, but moving nonetheless.
Once Talia finished the magazine she was looking through, she tossed it at the girl on the floor. Talia pushed herself up with a groan, spinning around to grab another magazine from the pile underneath Ophelia's nightstand on the other side of bed. Just as she was settling in again and a Doors song started playing, Sam burst into her room as if on cue.
"Jesus christ, Sam! Did you never learn to knock?" Talia complained after jumping. Ophelia had heard him running up the stairs, but she had just assumed it was Dallas.
Sam sang obnoxiously along to Take It As It Comes, pretending to serenade the annoyed looking girl before he spun to face Ophelia, "Ya said you had a 'surprise' for me."
"Oh, right!" Ophelia scanned the pile of cassettes in front of her. When she couldn't find the one she was looking for, she rose to her feet, "How'd your mom take the bread machine incident?" She asked over her shoulder as she shuffled through the mess that was her desk.
"Get this! She wasn't even pissed!" Sam laughed, crossing his arms over his chest, "She said it was gettin' old anyway, so it was a good excuse to buy a new one."
Ophelia hummed, laughing lightly along with him, "You're lucky. You better take this as your last warning from the universe." She finally found the cassette she was looking for next to her cassette player. Turning and tossing it to Sam, she awaited his reaction.
"Aw c'mon," Sam whined, turning it around to face her. There, covering the front of the cassette, was his 7th grade yearbook photo. He had decided to try and cut himself a mullet the night before, and by the crooked bangs and choppy sides, you could tell that he wasn't cut out to be a barber.
Talia craned her neck around to see, before snorting, "Holy shit!" She laughed, to which Sam tossed her a dirty look.
"How the hell did you even get it this big." Sam flipped it around again, thumb running under the enlarged 'Samuel Bradbury' beneath his scowling face.
"Let's just say I have a friend in the photography department at your school." Ophelia rocked onto the balls of her feet, grinning cheekily.
"If it was Jonathon I swear I'll kick his ass."
It was, in fact, Jonathon Byers that Ophelia had asked, but Sam didn't have to know that. He had come to pick up Will from the arcade when she had stopped him, asking for the odd request. She had even offered to pay him, but he was happy to do it for free. He came back with the perfectly enlarged picture the next day.
Sam had finally ended up flipping the cassette around to read the tracklist, to which his mouth popped open. When his eyes met Ophelia's again, there was a sparkle of joy in them. "Is this really-?"
"Led Zeppelin II, copied word for word."
It seemed like it took everything in Sam not to jump up and down right there in the moment, but instead he just stared down at the cassette, shining smile splitting his features. His eyes again looked up at Ophelia, who leaned against her desk, smiling at his genuine joy.
"Oh Ophelia Castro, I'm still in love with you."
Ophelia rolled her eyes, "Oh Samuel Harold Bradbury, get out of my room."
Sam offered her a shocked look, holding the cassette to his chest, "I cannot believe after all these years, you still don't know my middle name!"
Ophelia's face split into a shit-eating grin, "Of course I do, Sammy," Her grin broadened, "It's Dick."
It was Sam's turn to roll his eyes, "Richard." Talia continued to laugh, still not over the photo, and Ophelia crossed her arms over herself, mischievous smirk still prominent, "And besides, how do you even get Dick from Richard?"
"You ask him nicely." Ophelia and Dallas said at the same time as the latter appeared behind his friend. Sam seemed to finally grow exasperated of the assault on his ego, and offered her a final thank you before being drug away by her cousin, who waved at the two girls over his friend's shoulder.
Ophelia plopped back down into her spot and Talia let out a happy sigh, returning to the new magazine. "I still can't believe you dated him."
Ophelia scoffed, "For a month when we were 14 years old, and besides, you had a crush on him all the same, you just didn't want to break the 'Girl Code'"
Talia smiled, holding up a page of the magazine that Ophelia had already cut a square out of. She looked at her through it, "Well I dodged a bullet with that haircut, didn't I?"
"Hey!" There were three loud bangs on the wall behind Ophelia, "Stop gossipin' about me in there!" There was muffled bickering before Sam's voice spoke up again from Dally's room, "You guys wanna go to the movies later? They're still playin' Jaws 3D."
uh oh my own characters interacting :/ i love them :)
we gonna b skippin around a bit for now bc !!! i wanna get to the Show yknow ? and i'm honestly Bad at making things short n sweet n to the point so yeehaw let's just jump around between chapters
but i'll see u in the next chapter ! i'm not sure if anyone is even reading at this point haha, but i love u if you've made it this far and i hope you're doing good :)
thanks for reading!
max <3