"And that's it for News Center this morning. Thanks for joining us. Let's hand off now to Liz at the news desk," the radio blares from the speakers. I wolf down my cereal, realizing I'm going to be late for school. "All right, thank you, Donna. Turning now to local news, we're getting reports of surges and power outages all across the county. Last night, hundreds of homes in East Hawkins were affected, leaving many residents in the dark."

I scrunch up my face in confusion and lean over towards the wall, not moving from my seat at the breakfast bar. I flick the light switch a couple of times and, surely enough, the lights did not turn on. "The cause of the outage is still unknown. We reached out to Roana County Water and Electric, and a spokesperson says that they are confident power will be restored to all remaining homes within the next several hours."

"Elizabeth!" I hear my name being called by my father. He comes down the stairs and into the kitchen. "Why aren't you on the bus? Your sisters left for work fifteen minutes ago!"

"Dad, fret not, I just missed the bus," I shrug my shoulders, picking up my empty bowl and throwing it the sink. "By the way, the milk tastes a little sour because all the power went out last night and the refrigerator is off."

"Oh my God! Why does everything have to happen at once! I can't take you to school, the car is in the shop getting fixed. The fridge was full of groceries - I only went yesterday!" Dad panics, starting to pace around the kitchen. "Ugh, your mother would've known what to do. I'm so useless."

Ah. There we go! The first cliche of my life - my mom died a year ago of cancer and it's still hard on us all. I have two older sisters who are twins - Elaine and Emily. Dad has been trying to adjust to the single parent vibe but he just struggles. Elaine is never home and Emily has the brain span of a dead goldfish - so that means that I have to help Dad around the house a lot, but I don't mind.

"Okay, get everything out of the fridge that is already spoilt and throw it away. The power should be back in a few hours. I'll call Steve's landline and see if he's not set off for school yet. If he hasn't, he will take me to school," I calm down my father, who is already getting on with what I instructed him to do.

I dial the number to Steve's landline, and lean against the wall, waiting for him to answer. "Hello?"

"Hey, bestie, guess who!" I shrill down the phone at him.

"Let me guess, you missed the bus and you want me to pick you up and take you to school?" Steve questions me, already knowing what was coming.

"You know me so well," I smile to myself, proudly. "Are we stopping to pick up Tommy and Carol?"

"No, Tommy already called and said they've had an argument so he's just going to take the bus. They will have made up by the time we get to school, though." Steve explains. It happens all the time, so we are both used to it now.

"Okay, see you in like -" I glance over to the clock on the other side of the room to check the time. "Fifteen minutes, bye." I end the call by leaving the phone hanging on the hook. "Okay, Steve is giving me a lift, I'm going to get my stuff and wait on the porch."

"Okay, see you later, honey," Dad calls, with his head in the refrigerator, making his words muffled. I run up the stairs and get my bag. I leave the house, shouting one last goodbye to my Dad before putting myself down on the porch swing.

I have lots of memories on this swing. I remember a couple of Christmases ago, me, Elaine, Emily, Mom, and Dad were all sat on the porch swing underneath a duvet, drinking hot chocolate, watching the snow fall from the sky late at night on Christmas Eve. It was when life was a lot simpler.

I am brought back to reality to the sound of a horn beeping in front of me. I look up to see Steve sat in his car. I smile at him, pick up my bag and get in the car. I throw my bag in the bag and put a cassette in his cassette player. "What are you putting on?" He asks me, suspicion laced in his words.

"You'll see," I say, smiling with my teeth. The first song starts playing, Come On Eileen. Steve smiles ear to ear. It's the mixtape he made me when my Mom died.

"I didn't even know you still had this," he laughs, keeping his eyes on the road as he begins to drive away from my street.

"Dude, this mixtape got me through hard times," I reply, actually shocked we had never spoken about it since he gave me it. "Remember when we were like 11 and you made me your first mixtape?"

"Yes, I do, with the cringe-filled letter in the back," he nods his head, physically and visibly cringing. He immediately snaps his head in my direction. "Please don't tell me you still have it."

"No, I lost that one," I shake my head, laughing at him. "I'll have to dig it out for you."

"No. No, you won't," he scoffs, grimacing at the idea of 11-year-old-Steve making the mixtape. We come to a stop at a red light and Steve hits his wheel, relatively hard. "Come on!"

"Woah, who pissed in your coffee this morning?" I tease him about his random burst of anger.

"I need to get to school quickly so I can put a note in Nancy's locker before she gets there," he sighs, getting out a cigarette and lights it. As the light turns green, I go into his pocket and pull out a cigarette of my own. I snatch the lighter from his hand and light it.

"Did you remember to call her?" I ask him, inhaling the smoke from the cigarette, letting it make its own way out as I speak.

"No, which is why I need to put a note in her locker," he shakes his head and sighs, pulling in to the parking lot. We finish our cigarettes, while Steve writes the note to Nancy.

meet me in the bathroom
- steve

The words were sprawled across the paper in messy, blue handwriting. "The bathroom?" I question him. He furrows his brows in response. "Can you get any less classy?"

"Shut up, Liz! Like there's another make-out spot," he scoffs. "Look, I got to go, Nancy will be here any minute, but I'll see you in English."

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"Hey, Beth," Carol calls my 'name'. I turn around and give her a look of annoyance. "Why are you looking at me like I just ran over your dog?"

"My name isn't Beth, Carly," I reply, pettily. "It's Elizabeth. But if that's too many syllables to handle, Liz or Lizzie will do just fine."

"Eliza-beth," she argues back. We aren't actually arguing - it's just a little bit of light-hearted banter. We are pretty much as close as you can get. We've been best friends for as long I can remember. "I'm still going to call you Beth."

"Then, in that case, I'm still going to call you Carly," I shrug my shoulders, sitting down in my seat in English. "What's gone on with you and Tommy?"

"Oh, nothing, we just had an argument but we're fine now," she replies, scanning the room. "Speaking of lover boys, where is your lover boy?"

"Okay, first of all, he's not my lover boy. Secondly, he wouldn't want me telling you where he is. Thirdly, he's in the bathroom having an intense make-out session with Nancy Wheeler," I tell Carol. The redhead scrunches up her face.

"Nancy Wheeler?" She questions. "As in the girl who always looks a bit too happy and is a bit of a nerd?" I nod my head in response and Carol audibly belches.

"Carol, don't be mean, she's really sweet," I fight for Nancy. "Her Mom was friends with my Mom and we used to go on play dates together when we were in elementary school. She's so nice, you just need to actually talk to her."

The bells rings and the teacher walks in through the door. Mrs. Youngman. She always smells like she's dumped a full bottle of perfume on before she leaves the house. Whenever she walks past me, I always sneeze because of how strong her perfume is. The second bell rings around a minute later and Steve walks in a few minutes after that.

"Mr. Harrington! You're seven minutes late, where were you?" Mrs. Youngman yells as he walks through the door.

"Ugh, bathroom," he replies, earning a giggle from Carol and me. He gives us both daggers and takes his seat.

"Just hurry up and get started, Harrington, I don't want to be spending an hour after school with you, again," she glares at him. Her wide frame makes its way to the blackboard, where she begins writing out the tasks for that period.