Hawkins High School
1984
9:43 am.
"You're sure you'll be okay without me here? It's just filling out your part of the paperwork…" the redheaded woman asked.
Billy looked up for what seemed like the billionth time and nodded. His eyes wandered to the shorter redhead girl standing next to the woman. Her green eyes stared right through him, as if she had laser vision or something.
"Yeah, Susan. I'll be fine," Billy muttered.
Susan nodded and placed her hands on the shoulders of the little girl next to her, to get out the door. She spoke a soft "let's go, Maxine" as they left. Billy rolled his eyes once they were gone. He slouched in his chair as the woman behind the desk came around to hand him the clipboard with the rest of his paperwork on it.
The office of the high school was small and Billy stretched his legs all the way out. It was so small that his feet barely touched the bottom of the large desk. But he continued to sit there, skimming through each part of the papers. He filled them out as quickly as he could. He felt like this was a huge waste of time. There were at least ten pages of nothing but blanks. Billy wanted nothing more than to be back in California again.
After a few minutes, the office door opened and all Billy saw from his view behind the clipboard was a white pair of shoes that stopped before they reached his outstretched legs. His blue eyes shot up to see that those shoes belonged to some fluffy haired student with a plain gray sweatshirt on.
"Can you please move your feet, I'm uh, trying to get through," the guy asked, his voice stern and monotone.
Billy rose an eyebrow and lowered the clipboard and his eyes wandered from his shoes to his hair. The student's dark eyes looked right at him, waiting for him to move his feet. Billy's jaw moved, preparing to say something, but the guy beat him to it.
"Jesus Christ, how hard is it to move your feet?" he grumbled under his breath to where only Billy could hear it. He stepped over Billy's long legs and found himself standing in front of the secretary who sat behind the desk.
Billy squinted his eyes at the back of the guy's head which was full of fluffy black locks. This guy had a lot of nerve. The guy then turned around, eyeing the seats that were available. There were only two, so he took the one farthest from Billy, leaving one seat between the two of them. Billy wasn't afraid to turn his head and look right at the guy who pissed him off.
"I was gonna move my feet, dumbass," Billy stated, his voice low and his lips close together in anger.
The guy turned his head to just glance at him. His somewhat long hands rested on the armrests and he slouched only a slight bit.
"Didn't look like it to me," he retorted back, not even making eye contact with Billy.
Billy eyed him as he thought of something else to say. He had black hair that came down to where his neck and back met and his cheekbones and jawline was something people only saw on movie stars. Why the hell was someone like him going to a school like this, in the middle of nowhere?He was used to seeing someone who looked like that back at his old school in California, but he wasn't expecting to see it here in Indiana.
Billy took a breath to say something more, but was no sooner interrupted by the secretary behind the desk.
"Charlie, the principal is ready to see you now," she said.
The fluffy haired guy rose up and stepped over Billy's legs, not even bothering to ask him to move this time. But Billy was more focused on the name that he had. Charlie? His name was Charlie? Of all the names in the world and his name was Charlie. Billy couldn't help but chuckle to himself.
"Mr. Hargrove, are you almost done with all that?" the secretary piped in.
Billy gave a small sigh and rolled his eyes, as he looked back at the clipboard. She took that as a no. The hatred that he had when he first entered the office began to come back. He didn't see why he had do all this, and why the hell his dad had to move them all the way to Hawkins, Indiana of all places.
He was perfectly happy in California. All his friends were there, he lived near the beach, the girls were all over him, Billy saw nothing wrong with leaving. Billy blamed his dad for getting remarried and causing them to move pretty much all the way across the country. It was cold in Indiana, nothing compared to the California sun. Billy considered just packing his things and driving his Camaro all the way back home, without giving a shit as to what his family or anyone thought. Indiana would never be his home.
At the end of all his paperwork, Billy quickly signed his name and pulled his legs back so he could stand up. He walked up and placed the clipboard on the desk for the secretary. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his denim jacket and turned toward the door.
"Not so fast, Mr. Hargrove," the woman behind the desk blurted out.
He spun back around. The look of disappointment was written all over his features.
"What?" he asked as if she was bothering him.
The lady furrowed her eyebrows at his attitude, but then brushed it off, understanding that he was new and all that. She flicked her wrist out at him with the clipboard still in hand.
"Here," she began. "Take this back with you to the principal's office."
Billy blinked a couple times, wondering if he heard her right.
"Did you say principal's office?"
The woman nodded. "That's what I said."
She pointed to the closed wooden door that stood quite a few feet behind her. Billy took the clipboard, his mouth slightly agape. The woman watched as he basically strutted back to the closed door and used one knuckle to knock on the door. A man's voice said "come in".
When Billy stepped inside, he saw a well-dressed man sitting behind the large desk in what looked like a comfortable chair. On the other side, in the less comfortable looking chair sat none other than Charlie.
"Come right in, that seat next to Charlie is free!" the older looking man said, more cheerfully than Billy was expecting. "Oh, I'll take those papers from you."
Billy handed the clipboard to the principal and took a seat next to Charlie, who still refused to look in his direction. The principal flipped through the paperwork and Billy sat on the edge of his seat, hoping to get out of there as soon as possible.
"I'm sorry for the hassle with all this, it's just something we gotta do when we get new students," the principal told him.
Billy gave a brief nod. He slowly bounced his foot up and down, waiting for the principal to just tell him that he was free to go. But that didn't happen. He watched as the principal flipped through his papers, taking his sweet ass time to read every word.
"So you're from California, Mr. Hargrove?" the principal inquired.
His lips were pursed together out of irritation. Billy exhaled sharply through his nose.
"Yeah, I am."
The principal nodded his head quickly, thinking that was the coolest thing ever.
"What's it like there?"
Billy rolled his eyes and he heard Charlie chuckle to himself. Billy whipped his head around to face Charlie, who immediately lost his smug smile. Charlie cleared his throat and situated himself in his chair to regain his composure. Billy sighed and turned back around to face the principal.
"It's a hell of a lot different than this place," Billy snidely remarked.
The principal lost the cheerful look in his eye and placed the clipboard on his desk. He proceeded to fold his hands and leaned forward to rest his arms on the desk.
"So you're probably wondering why you're in here," the principal stated.
"Yeah, no shit," Billy remarked.
The principal rose one eyebrow, taken off guard by what Billy had said. Billy sat back in the chair, not really seeing anything wrong with what he said.
"Don't talk like that in my office," the principal sternly told Billy. "But for new students, we assign them a someone that will help them around the school, help them navigate their way around the school, you know, stuff like that."
Billy sighed and tilted his head back to where it hit the wall. He didn't need a mentor, he could easily find his way around the school.
"So who's this so called mentor that you're forcing me to hang out with?" Billy sighed.
The room fell silent and the principal pointed over at Charlie.
