chapter four ♰ Teenage Kicks

To keep up her babysitter cover to Mrs Wheeler, Sydney had insisted on dropping Lucas off home. He lived on the same suburban, cushy street as Mike ━━ Maple. His dad, Samuel Sinclair, had worked as an attorney, so he had been a relatively good friend and close colleague of Christine's. Hence where Sydney got the babysitting gig from ━━ Christine was sick of her daughter asking for cash only for it to be splurged on a hedonistic rendezvous with Toby in a park or in the alleyway of somewhere dingy, so she hooked her up with a job. Babysitting her associate's kids (Lucas had a little sister ━━ Erica ━━ who was somehow more vivacious and argumentative than him).

  On the way back to his place, Lucas started ranting indignantly about Mike's stubbornness concerning Eleven, righteously telling Sydney how he had been adamant that they should just tell their parents so they whole mess could be cleaned up. That they didn't need the added complication of another mystery kid when Will was still out there, still lost. Mostly, Sydney agreed ━━ morally, she should go home and tell Matt, even if she was begrudgingly dragged into an unsanitary spit pact with the boys and swore to never speak a word about Eleven to anyone who wasn't them. But, she could see where Mike was coming from. He didn't want to risk Eleven getting hurt if word got out about where she was hiding ━━ if she really was being hunted down by 'bad men', the police probably weren't even safe.

  (Well, the corrupt bureaucracy of the criminal justice system was hardly safe as it is ... Sydney just trusted Matt).

  "━━ he's just so selfish!" Lucas was seething. "He only cares that she's got superpowers and can move shit with her mind! It's like he cares more about having a superhero friend than finding Will."

  Sydney placated him. She had delicately assured him they'd fix all of it soon. They'd find Will, and they'd confide in Matt about El, and they'd get her somewhere safe to go. And then she dropped him off home. Like the conscientious babysitter she was.

  "Oh, Sydney!" Mrs Sinclair had cried, wrapping Sydney up in a hug. She always loved Sydney. "Thanks for bringing my boy home. I've been so worried ━━ with Will and everything. Here, here ━━ let me give you something for helping out."

  Emphatically, Sydney had pretended to be so against the money, insisting it was just a good gesture. That she merely just wanted Lucas to get home safe and sound. But, when Mrs Sinclair put the crisp 20 dollar bill in her hand, she shut up her protesting. Like she'd said ━━ she was short on cash. She appreciated though. So much that she hugged Mrs Sinclair herself and told her to give Samuel her best, before biking off back home.

  She didn't talk much with Matt when she got back home. Mainly because, for some twisted reason, Sydney genuinely hated lying to him. His big, stupid, brown eyes when she came in later than he expected made her chest ache with guilt as she told him that Toby's mom was alright when he asked. He was a good guy, really. Just a shitty dad. She sat down with him to watch a few episodes of Only Fools & Horses on their tiny, box TV, and indulged hedonistically in the mushroom and pepperoni pizza ━━ eating until her hunger was satiated and she physically couldn't sit in a room with him any longer without telling him about El.

  Sydney went to bed as soon as the pizza box was empty and when her lack of conversation sent Matt into a stupor. Before going to her room, she draped a patchy blanket over his blackout body. He snored loudly in response, nuzzling into the knitted quilt, and Sydney patted his head affectionately before heading off to bed.

  Sydney didn't even tell Toby about El when he picked her up in the morning. She didn't even mention going to Mike's house last night. Apparently, a spit-pact is bounding and drills some kind of cognitive dissonance into your skull.

  "Get up to much last night?" Toby asked. His radio was quietly playing some E.L.O. song or other, and he wore a red jumper today.

  Does much constitute as 3 of the kids who used to make you play a frivolous, thespian roleplay game about monsters and warlocks telling you about the runaway girl they were harbouring in one of their basements'? And said runaway girl disclosing that their missing best friend was supposedly missing in the upside down of the board to said roleplay game, alongside a monster?

  "No, not really," said Sydney nonchalantly.

  If Toby thought she was lying, he didn't say. "So, you didn't go to Steve Harrington's party?"

  A homicidal rage bludgeoned up the mass of curiosity attached to Sydney's brain. Instead of mulling over El and Will and the Demogorgon, Sydney thought about Steve Harrington's arrogant smirk and his stupid invitation to his party.

  "No," she snapped. "I didn't."

  "Naw, you could've had such a nice time, though."

  Sydney rolled her eyes, suppressing a smile. "I'm sure I would've. Me, Steve, Tammy, Carol and Nancy bonding over our many things in common."

  "It's a good job you didn't go ━━ Steve might've fell in love with you. You know, with all your many things in common," joked Toby, belly-laughing at the idea of Steve Harrington ever being in love with his best friend.

  The thought was just as amusing and absurd to Sydney, who threw her head back as laughs wracked at her shoulders. "Oh, yeah. He'd be all over me."

  Once they got to school, Sydney made an immediate beeline to her locker, rummaging around for her History textbook. Toby had put a tentative hand on her elbow and gave her a warm smile.

  "Hey, I'm going to find Jonathan, alright? They still haven't found Will, so━━"

  His compassion never failed to make her heart melt. Sydney nodded reassuringly, saying, "Yeah, of course. I'll catch you at lunch?"

  Toby beamed, grabbing either side of her face and pecking her forehead saccharinely. As he stalked away to find Jonathan, and Sydney stood there blanched by her locker, they both simultaneously thought the same thing ━━ what the fuck was that? Toby was maliciously kicking himself for it. It had been so absentminded, he hadn't even thought before kissing her like that. Sure, she'd brushed her lips against his cheek a few times and he'd even kissed the top of her head on a few occasions while comforting her, or when he was drunk. What's his excuse now?

  Meanwhile, Sydney kept thinking about what Matt said. That he knew when people loved someone. That he saw it in Toby when he looked at Sydney. With everything going on with Will, and the unexplainable sense of responsibility she felt for him, and now El, she couldn't deal with this too. Not Toby. Anyone but Toby.

  Just as she shut her locker, Nancy Wheeler materialised behind it, pretty face contorted in an overwrought expression that Sydney dreading an unanswerable question like ━━ who the fuck is the weird chick in my basement?

  "Nancy?" it was more of a question than a greeting.

  Sure, they were friendly. But not friends.

  "Hey, Sydney," said Nancy breathlessly, lips a bit torn up from ruthless biting and nerves. "You haven't seen Barb, have you?"

  Sydney almost cried in relief. Not about El. Then, she composed herself. Barb. "Barb? No. I don't think so. Why?"

  "I━━ uh..." Self-consciously, Nancy hugged herself with her sylphlike arms, looking around sheepishly at the teens going by. Sydney observed that some of them were staring at Nancy, whispering to their friends and giggling. Huh. That was certainly a new development. "We kind of, uh ━━ hey, do you feel like they're all looking at me?"

  Sydney frowned at the teenagers. "I won't lie. Yes. They are. What's up ━━ did you kill Barb?"

  Flinching, Nancy stared at Sydney in horror. "What? No!"

  "Nance, it's a joke," Sydney laughed nervously. "Hey, what's going on? You can talk to me."

  "It's just that, last night ━━"

  "Ladies..."

  Steve appeared. Fantastic. As Sydney glowered at him, he sent her a cocky little wave over Nancy's shoulder, before looking down at his girlfriend innocently.

  "Is everything OK?" he asked her.

  "Yeah!" Nancy exclaimed hastily. Sydney rolled her eyes, collapsing back onto her ashen locker and lolling her head up to the ceiling. "Yeah, totally. I just feel like ━━ everyone's... staring at me."

  Checking for himself, Steve frowned at a gaggle of girls walking past with jealous, judgemental eyes and sneers. Their green envy and what Steve cryptically said next told Sydney all she needed to know ━━ Nancy and Steve slept together. Now, the whole school knew. Apart from Sydney. Classic.

  "Oh, I didn't tell anyone," insisted Steve.

  "I know!" replied Nancy earnestly, giving him a convincing nod. "I know. Of course not." She inhaled sharply, looking down at her feet. This was starting to grow intimate ━━ Sydney considered if she should leave. But Nancy had been mid-sentence before Steve interrupted. And it had seemed important. So, she stuck it out. "But what about, like, Tommy and Carol and them..."

  "You're being paranoid," said Steve, shaking his head with a teasing grin.

  Sydney looked him dead in the eye, stuck two fingers near her mouth and gagged. He smirked lopsidedly, his gaze lingering on her for a moment, before drifting back to his anxious girlfriend.

  "I'm sorry," sighed Nancy, rubbing at her arm.

  Steve shook his head. "No, no, it's cute. Hey ━━ I had a good time."

  OK. Sydney was definitely overstepping now. Her nose crinkled in disgust and now she gagged for real. It just made Steve's grin widen, and he glanced back up at her illicitly, so subtly that Nancy probably didn't even notice that he speaking at Nancy, but talking to Sydney.

  "Yeah," blushed Nancy. "Yeah, me too."

  Smiling sweetly at her now, Steve leaned in slowly and kissed her lips. Chastely. Almost as if he was a good guy capable of human emotions. Nancy kissed him back, tilting onto her tiptoes to deepen it. It lasted longer than necessary, because Sydney felt an odd twisting sensation in her stomach. It made her guts convulse and chest feel taut.

  Probably nausea.

  When Nancy pulled away, the apples of her freckled cheeks were dusted peony. She had went so quickly from a stressed girl with raw lips and frantic eyes to a lovesick girl with misty eyes. The Steve Harrington Effect.

  "I'll, uh ━━ " she spun back around to face Sydney, who just grimaced. With Nancy's back now turned, Steve took the chance to tilt his head obnoxiously to the side and beam at her haughtily. Egoist. "I'll catch you later, Sydney. Thanks. I'll ━━ yeah, bye."

  Textbooks cradled to her pastel, cableknit sweater, Nancy hastened off to class.

  Sydney rolled her head back to glare at Steve. "You really are a pervert."

  "I don't know, Sydney," drawled Steve, knocking his knuckles against the lockers until it reached hers, then planting his hand slightly above her head. They were close. Too close for a boy who just kissed his girlfriend. Which meant he was messing with her. "I think I'm just a good old-fashioned lover boy."

  "God, you just ruined Queen for me," retched Sydney.

  Steve grinned at her, as if he was happy that she understand his reference. "You didn't come to the party last night."

  "Aw, yeah..." Sydney feigned disappointment, resting the side of her head against the locker and pouting. "Something came up."

  "That's a shame," said Steve, mimicking the same sadness with faux sincerity in his eyes. "Would've really liked to have you there."

  "Yeah?" asked Sydney.

  Steve nodded firmly. "Yeah."

  "You, me, Nancy ━━ no way would we have all fit in your bed."

  Steve laughed. That ugly feeling wrenched in her gut again. Definitely nausea. He made her sick. She was unwell.

  "We could've made it work," he played along.

  "What are you doing, Harrington?" demanded Sydney.

  Steve straightened up, his hand still flush against the locker above her but his posture less relaxed now. Less complacent. "I'm talking. With you."

  "Yeah, but why?" she asked. "We're not friends."

  "Ouch," Steve hissed, holding his chest, as if he wounded. "A knife to the heart, Sydney."

  Sydney pinned him with a blunt expression. "I'm being serious."

  "I like you ━━ I think you're cool," he said with a shrug.

  He spoke so nonchalantly. As if he had just uttered the most hollow, meaningless thing to her. Meanwhile, Sydney couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. King Steve 'the Hair' Harrington thought Sydney Sommers ━━ the girl who faded into nothing after her mother's accident ━━ was cool.

  "Bullshit."

  Steve removed his hand, plunging them both in his pockets. "I mean it. You're funny, and interesting, and ━━"

  "My mom's dead, so I'm interesting?"

  His eyes widened at the drastic shift in atmosphere. "What? I didn't say━━"

  "What?" Sydney demanded, suppressing a smile as Steve spiralled. "Does your group contain too many kids from with two parents? Do you need me, with my dead mom, to make it more ... interesting?"

  "Sydney, I swear, I didn't━━"

  "God, you really are an idiot."

  Steve still looked alarmed for a second, before realising she was messing with him now. He remembered that's why he got so intrigued by her in the first place ━━ from that day in the bathroom, when she called him a pervert and carried on interrogating him until she cracked, laughing at his horror. He didn't know how he had never paid attention to her before ━━ this pretty girl, who knew his favourite Queen song, and had lived across from him back in Loch Nora. Who somehow could make him laugh. And terrify him. Make his belly contort in embarrassment and a blush crawl up the nape of his neck and column of his throat.

  And she really was pretty. He wondered if it was just because she resembled Nancy a bit. They had the same hair colour ━━ light-brown. But Sydney's was shorter. And she always had it in a certain way ━━ with some of it pulled back and fixed by a little butterfly clip. She also had some lighter bits in there, not quite blond, maybe a bit like honey. And Nancy's eyes were blue ━━ piercing and pretty. Sydney had blue eyes too but they weren't as sharp. If Nancy was the daylight sky, Sydney was the ocean. Nancy was lithe and short. Sydney was slightly taller, and her years of cross-country had given her a more athletic build. For everything they shared, Steve found a difference.

  "Whatever ... I've gotta go." Sydney paused, lingering around to briefly meet his eyes. "I'll ━━ see you around, I guess, Harrington."

  Steve smiled. Really smiled. "You will."

The little bit of fondness that bloomed for Steve Harrington after the morning was squashed like a bug between the grubby, ruthless fingertips of a child playing in the garden.

  The school day passed as smoothly as it could for Sydney with the tumultuous furore going on in her head. Instead of paying attention to Mrs Click drone on about the drafting of the US Constitution, Sydney thought about Will. Rather than listening to Kaminsky talk about thermodynamics, her mind was on El. When she should've been analysing Jane Eyre, she was dissecting the last 10 years of friendship between her and Toby, trying to pinpoint exactly where it wrong ━━ when strictly platonic turned into kisses and jealousy and Sydney always taking note of what coloured sweater he was wearing.

  Toby had been waiting outside of Kaminsky's lab for her as soon as the bell tolled, with Jonathan.

  Sydney gave Jonathan a strained smile. "Any luck?"

  "No sign of him," said Jonathan. The three of them started to walk out of the high school, Toby draping his arm over Sydney's shoulder naturally. "I drove out to my dad in the city yesterday ━━ but he's a waste of space. Probably doesn't even remember what Will looks like."

  A few months ago, Sydney might've empathetically joined in on the rancour against fathers. Agreed that Matt was, too, a waste of space. But things were different now. Things were better. This was the new normal.

  "I'm sure he'll turn up, man," said Toby, all rapport and goodness. "He has to ━━ it's Will."

  Jonathan had just retrieved his keys from his pocket. "Yeah, I know, it's just━━"

  Then, Jonathan blanched. In the middle of a fucking carpark. Sydney was just about to reprimand him when she noticed what had made him halt so brusquely. Sitting as pompous as ever on the boot of Jonathan's Ford Galaxie 500 was Steve Harrington. With him, as always, were Tommy and Carol, her finger curled around the collar of his shirt and his lips against the shell of her ear as he laughed at something. Nicole was there, too ━━ one of Carol's friends.

  "This is going to well," Sydney mumbled to Toby.

  He just nodded grimly and kept his arm protectively around Sydney as they flanked behind an apprehensive Jonathan towards the group swarming his car.

  As soon as Steve saw that Jonathan was approaching, he smoothly hopped off the boot of the car and stepped up to him. "Hey, man."

  "What's going on?" Jonathan demanded.

  "Nicole here was, uh, telling us about your work," explained Steve ambiguously.

  Sydney didn't need an impeccable gut instinct ━━ which she did, in fact, have ━━ to be able to tell that whatever Jonathan's 'work' was didn't bode well with Steve.

  Carol smiled saccharinely around the chewing gum she was chomping on. "We've heard great things."

  "Yeah, sounds cool," chimed Tommy.

  "And we'd just love to take a look," said Steve, smiling easily. "You know, as... connoisseurs of art."

  Sydney frowned. "Connoisseurs of art. Really?"

  Steve's eyes fleeted to her, narrowing. "Get out of here, Sydney."

  "I don't know what you're talking about, anyway," Jonathan insisted, trying to brush by the gaggle and reach his car.

  "Oh, no?" taunted Steve, tilting his head.

  Before Jonathan could even touch the door handle, Tommy grabbed his back and yanked it off his shoulder, laughing raucously.

  "Hey, what the fuck, man━━" seethed Toby.

  He stormed forward, ceasing Tommy's shoulder vehemently and shoving him back. As the freckled kid staggered backwards, he tossed the bag to Steve, who caught it agilely.

  "Please, give me my bag," protested Jonathan weakly. "Just, hey━━"

  "Steve, don't be a dick," snapped Sydney.

  "This hasn't got anything to do with you, Sydney," drawled Carol, rolling her eyes. "Take your boyfriend, and go."

  "Man, he is totally trembling, he must have something to hide," Steve taunted, peeling open Jonathan's bag as the boy swayed nervously, muttering objections whilst Toby kept trying to steer him away. He grabbed what he wanted out of it and tossed it into the boot of the car. It was an amass of freshly-developed photographs, still shiny and ripe. "Oh, man."

  Steve's expression withered from one of meanness to utter disgust, sweeping the photographs with his sneer deepening each time.

  "Lemme see," jeered Tommy, taking the ones Steve had already looked at off of him. "Dude!"

  Carol inspected them for herself, lips curling contemptuously with a scoff. "Yeah, this isn't creepy at all."

  "I was looking for my brother!" insisted Jonathan hoarsely.

  "No. No, this is called stalking," said Steve, facetious.

  "Leave him alone!" exclaimed Sydney, glaring at the four of them.

  Steve pushed himself off of the car, rounding on her. "Do you even know who you're defending, Sydney? He's a pervert, alright? See, look for yourself━━"

  Sydney exchanged a glance with Toby, who was torn between who to focus on ━━ Jonathan, who was tremoring with both rage and trepidation, or Sydney, who was now nearly toe-to-toe with Steve Harrington, looking down at her expectantly and handing out the wad of photographs. Sydney even looked at Carol. They had never been friends, per-say. But Carol's mother was like Christine's ━━ a teen mom. Christine and Mrs Perkins had even been friends back in their girlhood. Carol pinned Sydney with an expression, raised her eyebrows at her and then nodded back down at the photographs as if to say: it's all there, look for yourself.

  By God, she wished she hadn't. What respect and fondness she had harboured for Jonathan the past few days after he gave her lift and they ephemerally bonded over their fatherly wounds shattered at her feet like shards of glass.

  These were photographs of the very people standing in front of ━━ snapshots of a moment that wasn't Jonathan's to be capturing from behind the foliage of leaves that marred the edges of some of the frames. Tommy tossing his girlfriend into the pool. Nancy emerging from the water, top clinging to her body. The worst of all was Nancy topless in the dim light of Steve's bedroom. A moment that should've been just theirs, now swathed in a glossy film.

  "Jonathan..." muttered Sydney, aghast. For a moment, that was all she could say. She felt sick to her stomach. She glanced up at Steve, who was already looking at her with raised brows and a smug grin ━━ I told you so ━━ and then glared at Jonathan. "This is ━━ this is really, really wrong, man. Like. Crossing so many boundaries wrong ━━ why?

  Steve leaned down to Sydney, angling his head so he was whispering into her ear. "This is what perverts do, Sydney."

  She blinked up at him just as he straightened back up, but then Nancy Wheeler finally approached the group and Tommy started whistling wolfishly at her.

  "What's going on?" she laughed nervously.

  "Here's the starring lady," jeered Tommy.

  Nancy's smile was strained, looking very confused as her eyes drifted between her boyfriend, Sydney and Jonathan. "What?"

  "I think that's enough now," said Toby sternly.

  Sydney looked down at the photographs, a lump in her throat. "She should know, Toby."

  Steve nodded at her, smiling.

  "This creep was spying on us last night," Carol told Nancy, still holding some of the others. "He was probably gonna save this one for latter ━━"

  Carol passed it absentmindedly to a still perturbed Nancy, who took it with dainty, hesitant fingers. Nancy turned to Sydney as if asking for reassurance, and she just swallowed thickly. As Nancy scrutinised a picture of her removing her top through the invaded privacy of Steve's window, Jonathan murmured Sydney's name.

  "This is fucked, Jonathan," she muttered bitterly, not wanting to meet his hurt, guilty gaze. "Really."

  Steve clicked his tongue. "See, you can tell that he knows it was wrong, but... Man, that's the thing about perverts ━━ it's hardwired into them. You know, they just ━━" Ego effervescing from him, he started to dust off the lint from Jonathan's tense shoulders, "they just can't help themselves."

  Face contorted with fury, Toby stormed forward and slammed his hands into Steve's broad chest. Sydney exclaimed Toby's name in horror, watching uselessly as Toby balled up some of Steve's striped shirt in his swollen fists and rammed him into the edge of Jonathan's car. Instead of intervening, Tommy and Carol exclaimed simultaneous 'wow's, him snaking his arm round her waist as he moved her out of the way and laughed.

  "Why are you such a fucking dick, huh, Harrington?" snarled Toby.

  Sydney didn't think she had ever seen her best friend so mad. Steve looked desperately over his shoulder to her and she just stood there, her fingers now wrapped tight around Nancy's bony wrist as she continued to stare, bewildered, at the illicit photograph of herself. Her back was arching like a bow drawn by an invisible tendon, strung from the top of her head to the end of toes. It was something so vulnerable and hers. Now seen by more eyes than she had ever wanted. Now in her hands. Like a remnant of something that should only exist in the lovesick paradise of her mind.

  "Show your little boyfriend what his pal's really like, Sydney," grunted out Steve, voice hoarse. His tailbone was being dug into the side of the car, hurting. "Go on," he goaded. "Show him."

  "Toby, let him go," gritted out Sydney.

  He threw a mortified look over his shoulder. "Seriously, Sid?"

  "Just━━"

  After Sydney gave him the photographs, he let Steve go. The boy was breathing a bit ruggedly but composed himself quickly enough. The photos he still had in his possession were cruelly torn up and thrown into a bunch of tiny scraps onto the floor. Sydney just watched as Toby's features twisted in horror, confusion and betrayal ━━ he cared so lethally about his friends. Jonathan was one of them. But he also cared about Nancy. And about every girl who'd ever had their privacy invaded like that ━━ through hands or cameras or the brutality of words. So, seeing that must've been a sucker punch to the gut.

  "Jonathan..." mumbled Toby.

  "Toby, I swear━━"

  "Like I said, Stanfield," said Steve meanly, "they can't help themselves. We'll just have to take away his toy."

  Nancy grimaced. "Steve..."

  "No, please, not the camera!" protested Jonathan.

  As Jonathan went to stop him, Tommy moved forwards, planting his palm against the boy's chest and grinning maniacally.

  "No, no, wait, wait. Tommy, it's OK," rambled Steve, impassively pulling the camera from out of the depths of Jonathan's bag.

  Nancy had moved to grip Sydney's hand in return, the girl's nails indenting crescent moons into her skin. But Sydney didn't complain. She held her back just as arduously. All she could feel was confliction. Anger at Jonathan for what he had done to Nancy ━━ even to the others. Carol, Tommy and Steve were mean, nasty, spoilt teens. But their privacy had been infringed on, too. But she also empathised with the financial situation of the Byers family ━━ how this camera was probably one of Jonathan's few materialistic goods that he got to enjoy, with a single mother and a minimum wage job. Not to mention the fact that his brother was missing. It was no excuse ━━ not even a viable reason ━━ for the encroaching photographs. But it certainly wouldn't help the war ravaging his mind right now to see one of his few valuable possessions break at his feet.

  Steve didn't see it like that, though. Of course he didn't.

  He brandished out his arm, extending the camera to Jonathan. "Here you go, man."

  The sound of hitting the floor was ugly. It's how Sydney would imagine the noise of a heart breaking. Like glass. It smashed on the floor, a part of it splintering off and the lens cracking against the concrete. Sydney flinched, and Nancy's nails dug a little sharper into her skin. Toby, for a moment, looked like he wanted to defend Jonathan, but he fell short when he remembered what he was holding in his hands and just stared at the ruined camera at his feet.

  "Come on, the game's about to start," muttered Steve.

  Their group dispersed, leaving not without a few taunts and pokes at Jonathan as he blinked back some tears and scrambled to the floor to pick up the imploded remnants of his camera.

  Sydney didn't know what made something splinter in her chest to see him knelt in a mess of his mistake ━━ the torn up bits of the photographs still blowing in the wind. Maybe it was Will, and that poster Jonathan had put up of him yesterday on the noticeboard ━━ remembering that picture of the young boy smiling so purely. The possibility that that photograph had been taken by this very camera, now destroyed and irreparable at the alter of a sacrifice, almost. A demonstration of what happened to people who crossed Steve Harrington.

  It could've also been the upset on Nancy's features as she twisted her mouth to suppress a cry. Or Toby, stumbling around a bit lost, not knowing who to comfort, before he finally decided to wrap an arm around Nancy's petite shoulders and bring her into a side-hug, whilst they both looked at the pitiful state of Jonathan Byers, trying to fix the unfixable.

  Whatever it was, Sydney was blinded by it. A warmth festered up the nape of her neck and up her ears and sent her stalking after Steve as he strolled arrogantly back to the school.

  "Harrington!" she shouted after him.

  Steve stopped right away. Sydney picked up the pace to reach him, chest rising and falling in torment. Tommy, Carol and Nicole went off ahead, and Jonathan, Nancy and Toby were out of earshot. It left Steve and Sydney in an otherwise vacant parking lot, him looking at her with this amused complacency and Sydney red with belligerence.

  "That was a really shitty thing you just did," condemned Sydney scathingly, keeping a metre's distance between them.

  Steve cut that metre in half, squinting a bit at her. "Yeah?"

  "Yeah!"

  "OK, sure. Yeah. OK." Steve nodded fervently, lips drawing into a thin line as he gestured angrily behind her at Jonathan. "And what he did was totally fine, right?"

  Sydney glared. "You know I don't think that! You didn't have to break his camera, though. Not everybody shits solid gold, Harrington. You're so ignorant, it's unbelievable!"

  "Oh, I'm ignorant now?" he laughed humourlessly.

  "You've always been ignorant," retorted Sydney. "You're incorrigible. You will never change. You'll always be the mean, spoilt, ignorant boy you are now. And it's sad."

  Steve's eye twitched. "You really think that?"

  Sydney's stomach wrenched. "Yeah. I do."

  His expression was indiscernible. Was he upset? Was he still angry and vengeful? Why was he looking at Sydney like ... like her words meant something to him?

  "Whatever," he scoffed, shaking his head. He buried his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "Fuck you, Sommers."

  "No, fuck you, Harrington."

  He had already started storming off to find his friends. Steve kept thinking about the sincerity in her voice when she spoke her own cruel words all the way back to Tommy and Carol. Kept thinking about Sydney. Nancy, too. The glassiness of his girlfriend's eyes and the reddening of her knuckles as she clenched them into fists around the smudged edges of the invasive photographs. He just kept thinking about those two girls ━━ Sydney and Nancy. Sydney and Nancy. Sydney and Nancy.

  Meanwhile, both girls were being offered a lift home by a still shaken Toby Stanfield. His girlfriend, still numb and hurt, was being helped into the backseat by Sydney, who tried not to let her rage spill over and grip Nancy too hard. Sydney and Toby both clambered into the front of the car, and they left everything behind them. Jonathan still knelt there in the asphalt and the scar of his fuck up. Steve cutting himself up into tiny pieces ━━ so torn up he resembled the photographs being carried away by the breeze.

  "What have you got there, Nance?" asked Toby, glancing through the rear-view mirror at the distraught girl.

  Sydney looked behind her. Nancy was holding some of the fragments, trying vehemently to slot them into place.

  "Barb is missing," she choked. "I haven't seen her since last night."

  Will. El. Barb.

  It all had to be holistic, right?