Disclaimer: I do not own The Goonies, be it the film or the kids themselves.
Contact
Since the unfortunate destruction of her last pair, Stef had dug the glasses she had worn before out from the depths of her desk drawer. They had smaller, black-brown frames that formed squares around her eyes, and she hadn't worn them in nearly three years.
Now she'd had them on for nearly three days. At first she was just happy to have the world back in focus, but the glasses were starting to be more trouble than they were worth. They felt small and oddly stale, and she didn't like the flash of frames in the corner of her eyes. Also, and worst of all, Stef found them unattractive. They made her very insecure, so that she automatically moved to readjust them when she heard the boys burst through Andy's front door, jumping enough to nearly drop her bowl of S'mores Crunch from her seat on the kitchen counter. As though, she thought, feeling irritated with herself, if I wiggle them, they'll suddenly look okay. She fixed them anyway and ate another spoonful of cereal.
"What's with the frames, Stef?" Mouth asked as he appeared in the kitchen, right before he popped open Andy's fridge and began to rummage. How like him, to make himself so at home in a place he'd never been before and to be so tactless as to ask such a question without so much as a hello.
"They're an old pair," Stef defended instantly, just like she had when Andy asked yesterday. She touched them once more, "Just until I get an eye appointment."
"Getting the same pair you had, or what?" Mouth said over all the rattling and clanking and drawer slamming going on in Andy's fridge.
"I don't know. I might, but I'll look at the others. Andy and my sister think I should get contacts as well," Stef paused to fish out a marshmallow before adding, "By the way, Mouth, you're not on a hunting expedition. You can have some food without beating it into submission."
"Alright, I'm sorry," his laugh sounded strange from the heart of the fridge, but all the other noises ceased. Mouth resurfaced a moment later, clasping a dented Coke, "But contacts, there's an idea."
"What do you mean?" she stopped, surprised by his answer. "Do you think I should?"
"Hey, I don't know. It's whatever you want, isn't it?"
"Of course it is. But which do you think?"
"What d'you want my advice for?" the soda opened with a crack and a hiss, with a bit of fizz rising to the top that he sucked back distastefully. Stef wrinkled her nose at him as she finished up her cereal. "It really doesn't matter, you'd see fine and look fine in both."
"C'mon, Mouth, just tell me," Stef said, dropping her empty bowl in the sink beside her and slipping to her feet, "I'm having trouble deciding."
"Okay, fine. If I have to do everything for you," Mouth heaved a mocking sigh, as though it were a great inconvenience to him, and plunked his Coke down on the counter. He clapped his hands on her shoulders and pulled her gently down to his level so he could study her face. Stef blinked, surprised, and pleased somewhere in the back of her head that she had let Andy do her makeup earlier. After a few long seconds, he let go her shoulders and walked carefully around her. "Chin up!" he commanded when he came to her other side, and tapped under her jaw. She smiled at his antics.
"Now, take those off," he touched the temple arms of her glasses this time. Stef obeyed, laying her frames next to the soda. Mouth narrowed his eyes and scrutinized her again, but only for a moment. He gave a decisive nod, "Contacts."
"Why?"
"'Cause you'd look better."
"You said I'd look fine in both!"
"Sure you would. But you'd look better with contacts."
"And why's that?"
"When you wear glasses," suddenly her eyes were rimmed in his fingers, little tunnels she watched him through, "you, yanno, see the glasses, first thing. But when you don't," her fake frames were gone, his fingers instead coming to rest feather-light at the very edge of her cheek, "you see your whole face, all of the time. S'just nicer that way, is all," Mouth finished lamely, bringing his hand self-consciously back to his chest.
"So my whole face is better?" Stef asked stupidly. She got like that sometimes, in the moments her neck felt hot and her tummy tingled; usually, it seemed, when Mouth was being sweet to her.
"I called you pretty once," Mouth said, relatively quiet, "I meant it."
"Kinda," Stef blurted, without knowing why, "Kinda pretty."
"Yeah, well," Mouth ran a hand through his hair, looking anxious and very much not at her, "I just meant pretty, alright? Real pretty."
Stef set her hand on his arm and squeezed, making him to look back into her eyes, "Thank you, Mouth."
Mouth grinned shyly and ducked his head again, "Stef, I-"
"Guys!" Andy came halfway around the kitchen door frame, pretty red ponytail bobbing over her shoulder. Stef flinched, ripping her hand off him; Mouth snapped his jaw shut and turned to Andy, "We wanna see Irreconcilable Differences. There's a showing in about an hour and a half. You wanna go?"
"Sure thing," Mouth said. He sounded relieved, as though they'd just avoided getting caught. Getting caught doing what?
"Yeah, definitely," Stef agreed, "But I'll have to call home." She felt dazed as she plucked Andy's phone off the wall and punched in her number. After two drawn-out rings, her stepmother answered. "Sarah, hi. It's Stef...Everyone's going to a movie, can I go?...I'll catch a ride after…No, it's fine, I've got like ten bucks on me."
Stef snuck a glance over her shoulder and saw Mouth had left the kitchen, instead flopped halfway over Mikey on the couch as he chugged his soda. Hesitantly, she added, "And, Sarah? Have you made that eye appointment?" Stef touched her old glasses again, clicking them gently against the counter, "Nothing, it's just that I've decided I'd like to try contacts."