CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
GAMES

Aaron was sat on the bleachers with Kimmy to his left, waiting rather impatiently for Steve to arrive at Lucas' game.

Well, it wasn't really Lucas' game, in all the times Kimmy and Aaron had showed up to watch the boy he'd never actually made it off the bench. He'd never been off the bench, not ever.

Still, Aaron and Kimmy went to everyone they could make, knowing the boy would do the same for them.

The rest of the party hadn't showed yet, and Aaron didn't expect them to. Mike and Dustin had their D&D game and Aaron highly doubted Max would show face. Not since she was determined to push almost everyone away.

Once more, Aaron checked his watch. Groaning in frustration when he realised the game was about to start and his older brother was still nowhere to be seen.

"What's he doing?" The blond asked Kimmy in a stressed tone, keeping his voice hushed as he spoke to her. "He should have been here ten minutes ago."

"Relax." Kimmy told him with a shake of her head. "He'll be here any minute, he'll just be running late-"

Kimmy cut herself off as she pointed ahead, causing Aaron to turn his head to look at what she was referring to.

While he was relieved to see his older brother making his way through the stands to get to them, Aaron was forcing back an eyeroll as he realised Steve had a girl with him who the blond didn't recognise.

"Who's that with him?" Aaron heard Kimmy ask in a curious voice, unsure if it was someone she was supposed to know or something.

"I don't know." Aaron shrugged, simply sending his older brother a questionable look once Steve was close enough that the older boy ignored.

"Hi." Kimmy gave the older girl who she didn't know a small smile and wave when the pair sat down in their seats.

The girl sat with Steve snapped her head around to look at the younger two, furrowing her brows before adverting her attention back onto Steve.

Aaron rolled his eyes at her, making sure his older brother saw as he did so.

"Uh... Aaron, Kimmy," Steve spoke up awkwardly, lazily motioning to the younger two who were sat looking confused with his land. "This is Brenda."

The girl simply giggled and clinged to Steve's arm, causing Aaron to raise his brows in surprise at her blatant rudeness.

It wasn't like the two would be a long term thing, they probably wouldn't even see each other after that very basketball game. Aaron had come to realise that his older brother had gotten into a habit of... going from girl to girl rather quickly. As in, see a girl for a couple of days before moving onto the next one type of quickly.

"Everyone now please rise for our national anthem." The abrupt noise of the principal speaking loudly into the Mike in the centre of the court caused Aaron to flinch, shifting his attention off of his brother and onto the court in front of him as everyone stood. "Singing for us tonight, we have a very special guest. All the way from Nashville, our very own Tammy Thompson!"

Aaron's eyes widened and he instantly looked to his brother as the girl walked out, holding back an amused grin at Steve's expression.

Needless to say, the girl was horrendous. She could not hit a single note.

"Muppet." Steve whispered to Aaron, causing the boy to snicker uncontrollably as he fought back a loud laugh.

"Aaron." Kimmy halfheartedly scolded him quietly, nudging his shoulder as she tried to get him to be quiet.

"Wow." Brenda gasped at Steve with an awed expression. "She sounds amazing, doesn't she?"

That had Aaron bursting into laughter, pressing a hand to his face as he was unable to stop his shoulders from shaking.

He could already tell people would be looking to him, but he couldn't help it, trying to stop himself before too much people noticed.

...

The game was almost over and it looked like the Hawkins team weren't going to win the championship.

There was one boy who Aaron did not recognise being walked off the court by two teammates as he struggled to walk due to injury, and the blond was placing his best bet on the fact they weren't going to win this one.

In fact, it had got to the point Aaron was hardly paying attention. He wasn't interested in basketball, he only ever showed up because Lucas was on the team, and he'd never actually played a game.

Aaron was more interested in watching the boy who was injured, trying to see what was wrong with him and why it was so serious that it had made so much people crowd around him.

Although the blond quickly turned to look at Kimmy instead as she gasped loudly, letting out a mix of a yell and a scream as she tugged on Aaron's arm.

The brunette rarely took part in all the yelling that everyone else seemed to during a basketball game, for the same reasons as Aaron: she wasn't interested. She only showed up for Lucas.

"What?" The blond asked with a perplexed look on his face.

"They're putting Lucas in!" She exclaimed excitedly, pointing frantically down to where the boy hesitantly made his way onto the court. "See? He's playing!"

Aaron felt his eyes widened as he followed her vision, more than surprised to find Lucas actually on the court with his team.

It wasn't long before Lucas actually managed to get the ball, however there was less than a minute of the game left, so the chances of Lucas actually managing to score was low.

Still, the boy went for it. Most likely knowing he wouldn't get another shot on the court again.

Surprisingly, he made it. Lucas had won the championship for the Hawkins team for the first time in years.

"Yes, Lucas!" Kimmy yelled frantically as everyone on the Hawkins side of the bleachers erupted into cheers.

Aaron cupped his hands around his mouth as he too began yelling for his friend, cheering loudly as he watched Lucas' teammates surround him.

Aaron was sure that he, Steve and Kimmy were probably cheering loudest out of the entire gym, although they were more cheering for Lucas, not the team.

...

It was dark out by the time Lucas' game had came to an end.

Kimmy and Aaron had gone up to congratulate him, but didn't linger around for too long. Knowing he and his team were going out to celebrate.

Steve had offered to give both Kimmy and Aaron a ride home, however the blond boy had quickly shot the idea down, insisting he and Kimmy would be fine walking. Although Kimmy believed that this was more because he wanted to stay with her without Steve's presence.

Kimmy didn't bother bringing it up, not wanting to unintentionally embarrass the youngest of the two brothers by drawing attention to it.

Instead she went along with the blond boy, leaving Steve to drive Brenda home just the two of them.

Of course, Kimmy and Aaron ended up on some sort of detour, the two wandering aimlessly as they spoke whatever thoughts would pop into their heads.

Usually, the brunette would have loved to walk around and talk nonsense with Aaron. Although it were as if she couldn't keep her mind clear, and she did not know why.

Kimmy couldn't understand why but the only thing that seemed to be playing on her mind in that particular moment was her ongoing conflict with herself.

The issue that her mind kept circling back upon was the fact that Aaron had not made any sort of effort to even subtly bring up the love word.

Truthfully, Kimmy didn't care if Aaron didn't tell her he loved her. Especially if he didn't mean it. It was more the embarrassment that sunk in knowing that she'd already said it to him, and that she couldn't take those words back no matter how hard she tried.

It's not that she wanted to take the words back - she didn't, because she meant them. It was more for her sake, to take at least some of the embarrassing sting off of her.

She wasn't embarrassed that she'd said those words to him, she was embarrassed that he hadn't said them back.

If she was to be perfectly honest with herself, she didn't think Aaron loved her back. In fact she thought she would be stupid to assume he did.

The boy was only just fifteen, and he and Kimmy had only been dating for a number of months. He was not obliged to feel the same way, it would be surprising to anyone if he did.

It wasn't exactly something that people just blurted out, Kimmy knew herself that she probably wouldn't have written those three words to him if it weren't for the circumstances.

While it would be something that would typically take the average person a long time to say, it would most likely take Aaron an eternity.

If it wasn't for Kimmy's abrupt actions, the two most likely would have never even began dating in the first place.

Aaron wasn't all that confident, Kimmy knew this well. And although his friends may not see it - or not as much of it at least, he was sensitive and overthought all of his actions so much before they'd even happened that more times than not he'd back out before it was even time to do it.

Even if the rare chance that he did love her back was reality, Kimmy knew he wouldn't tell her. Not until he was more than sure that she most definitely loved him back.

But that was if he loved her back - a big if.

The topic had been plaguing her mind for what felt like hours that night but was most likely only a matter of minutes, came to an abrupt pause when the blond's voice broke her out of her slight daydream.

"Why do you think the basketball team wear their uniforms around school even when they don't have practice?" Aaron asked her in a quiet voice as he shrugged nonchalantly, tilting his head in genuine confusion.

Kimmy couldn't stop the snicker of surprise as she raised her brows at him, puzzled at how or why he cared so much about the sudden and peculiar topic of conversation.

"What?" The brunette laughed in response.

"You don't think it's weird?" He asked in a taken aback tone while his brows knitted together. "The cheerleaders too. I mean, I have a jersey and jacket, but I don't wear it every single day to school - no one on the hockey team does. Not unless we have practice or something where everyone wears it. I just think it's weird."

Kimmy blinked slowly, shaking her head once as she tried to gather her thoughts on the matter and figure out why Aaron was so interested in the matter.

"I mean... I guess?" Kimmy shrugged, doing her best to follow what he was saying. "I'd never really thought about it."

"I don't know... I was just thinking about it now." Aaron spoke calmly as he stuffed his hands into the pockets into his jacket.

However just as Kimmy was under the impression he was done talking, he spoke up again in an almost perplexed tone.

"I just don't get it." The boy continued with a sigh, going down a path Kimmy knew would end up in a jumble of ranting and rambles. "We know they're on the team, so why are they wearing what they wear about practice to school. I just think it's..."

Unintentionally, the sound of Aaron's voice droned out from her ears. In fact, Kimmy found that whatever response she would blurt out to the boy died in her throat and she completely zoned out.

The girl found her footsteps coming to a halt, her body jolting slightly as she took in the sight before her.

There was a man looking right at her from across the street. Swaying slightly, but looking at her all the same.

Even though she knew Aaron was stood right next to her, it was evidently obvious that the man was looking at her - only her.

He was clearly drunk out of his mind. And usually if someone looked to her funnily, she'd put her head down and pretend she hadn't noticed. But it's all different when the stranger across the street is your own father.

The man was looking to her so intensely that it had her eyes widening in fear. There was a look on his face that had her questioning if he was looking to her in such a way because he was angered by the fact she'd practically ran away from home, or if it was because he was trying to figure out who she was - like he didn't even recognise her or something.

She didn't even know if Aaron could see him, everything besides the man's eery expression was all blurry. Like he was the only thing she could see, never mind focus on.

"Do you know who that is?" Aaron suddenly asked her in a hushed tone, suddenly sounding serious.

Despite hearing him, Kimmy hardly reacted to his words. Unable to take her eyes off the man who stood watching her.

"Kimmy?" Aaron pressed further when he was met with no response, grabbing her shoulder and forcing her to look at him. "Who is that?"

Not knowing what to do, she shook her head, blinking furiously as she tried to find the words that were failing her.

Aaron looked down at her with a furrowed expression as he tried to be patient with her, although he was clearly growing frustrated with the situation.

After some time had passed and Kimmy still hadn't answered him, he grabbed her hand tightly and turned around, walking away in the opposite direction as Kimmy trailed behind.

"Why's he looking at you like that?" Aaron stressed in a concerned tone. "I don't like that. Kimmy, he was watching you like some sort of freak. Do you think he'll try to follow you or something? Maybe we should-"

"It's fine, Aaron." Kimmy spoke up quietly, still having ahold on the blonds hand. "Please, just drop it-"

"Why would I drop it?" He retorted instantly, not turning to face her as he continued to tug her away. "I don't-"

"Please, Aaron." Kimmy found herself desperately pleading with him. "It's just my dad, just drop it."

Aaron didn't say anything after that, but he didn't let go of the grip he had on her hand either. Continuing to pull her away as he hoped to get the two back to his house faster than anticipated while doing his best not to show her the obvious stressed look on his face.

If anything the boy looked scared, but Kimmy knew it was her he was scared for and not himself.

Aaron had been the one to tell Kimmy she was not going back to live with her parents, he was scared they'd do something else to her. His fear for her was justified.

It was only then that it dawned on her that Aaron didn't actually know who her parents were, he'd never seen them before.

Kimmy could just hope that all went well with Aaron, that she wouldn't have to go back to her house after having been away for months.

She'd been through a lot with her parents, and as hard as it was, she tried not to let it bother her as much as it probably should. Kimmy tried not to think about it at all.

The brunette was doing her best to put it all behind her, to move on and get on with her life.

She'd just been taken aback at the sight of him, especially with her being so unprepared.

He hadn't even spoken to her, he'd just looked at her from across the street, and she'd fell into a full blown panic to the point she'd frozen in a mix of fear and surprise. The worst thoughts flooding her mind the second the chance was given.

Kimmy hoped he didn't recognise her, that his faraway look really had been because he didn't know who the stranger of a girl looking at her was.

It wasn't that Kimmy had changed, he was just plastered drunk, as per usual.

...

I know this was supposed to be posted last night but I fell asleep halfway through writing it lol.

This isn't proofread yet so I'm sorry if there are any mistakes LOLOL.

I haven't been posting recently because I've been so so sick recently, and haven't been able to write, but the regular updates will be back!!!!!!!

Tysm for 22k reads and all the support!!! I appreciate every read, vote and comment so much!!!

- AJ :)