Hawkins High, Monday Morning, 1984
Olivia had never been a really big fan of gym class. With what little muscle mass she had, coupled with the fact her hand-eye coordination was extremely poor, most of her classmates steered clear of her. Today, however, she didn't mind it so much. Since Hawkins was enjoying a particularly warm autumn, they were spending most of their time outside on the football field to do their exercises and activities.
After working on their cardio, Coach Palmer agreed to allow the girls to have some fun playing kickball. With the makeshift bases of football dummies, the game was set. Olivia was the last one picked for her team, and she was given her position. designated outfielder.
Donned in her gym uniform of a sleeveless yellow top and royal blue shorts, Olivia stood far out in the grass, tilting her head toward the sky as she breathed in the fall air, earthy tones with the faint scents of mixed perfumes from the other girls who were enjoying the game. Olivia hugged herself, mind wandering as far as she'd let in, once more lost in her own world, another moment to be whispered about between friends on how Olivia Henderson, the local weirdo, was a budding witch that talked to herself and put spells on people.
She glances toward the bleachers, focusing in on the few people that were spending their lunch there.
She uses her hand to block the sun, trying to find someone specific. The click of a camera moves her gaze towards the first row, and she spots Jonathan Byers there, her best friend. Olivia couldn't help but smile and wave, bouncing on her feet like he couldn't see her. She saw the faintest hint of a fond smile. Another click of the camera. Olivia was his muse for many things.
She didn't mind so much having her picture taken. Growing up, her mother often made it a mandatory practice, their walls littered with herself and Dustin throughout the years. Jonathan was no different. Each piece involving Olivia kept her anonymous anyhow. He explained putting an actual name to the figment of positivity would somehow confuse the message, make the viewer focus too much on the identity, rather than what it represented.
Olivia turned back to the game, still feeling quite pleasant. She breathed in deep, taking in as much air into her lungs, closing her eyes and feeling the sunlight on her face.
"KEEP YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME, HENDERSON!"
Before Olivia could even open her eyes, she felt something very hard and very rubbery smack her in the face, sending her falling backward into the grass, staining her uniform and scratching the backs of her thighs as she groaned pathetically, lifting a hand to squeeze her now bleeding nose.
"What, are you kiddin' me?" Heather Holloway's voice snaps, sounding much closer than she had a few seconds before. Olivia saw the girl lean over, her beautiful brown ponytail falling over her shoulder. "That was comin' right at you, Henderson, least you coulda done is used your face to catch the ball! Now they have one run over us!"
Heather scoffs and steps over Olivia to retrieve the ball, running back to the team to return it to the pitcher.
"Okay, will do!" Olivia squeaks, struggling to sit up. She groaned, holding her nose and feeling the blood seep through her fingers.
"You good, Henderson?" Coach Palmer calls. Olivia hears faint laughter from the other girls, amongst frustrated murmurs from Heather and a few other girls manning their positions. Even the bleachers echoed with mocking laughter, from nerds doing their homework at the top to a few stoners not so discreetly hiding behind the seats. Jonathan, on the other hand, had set his camera down and jumped to his feet, gripping the railing as he tried to assess his friend's injuries from there.
"Could I go to the bathroom, Coach Palmer?" Olivia calls, trying to ignore the blood in her cheeks.
"Sure, pick your pride up, soldier! You'll get 'em next time!" Coach Palmer assures, her raspy masculine voice doing little to lift Olivia's spirits, especially the way the girls glared at her as she quickly passed, still holding her nose. Olivia tried to keep the blood from her nose from hitting her gym clothes as she rushed off the field head set on getting to the locker room.
Jonathan was waiting for her, hoisting his book bag over his shoulder.
Now that she was closer to the bleachers, the laughter became louder.
"Shut up!" Jonathan shouted loyally, shaking his head. "Come on, I'll help you get cleaned up."
Olivia nods, keeping her nose elevated. At this level, she could see the groups clearer. Nelson Patterson was one of the nerds up top, his nasal guffaws enough to make her want to go hide behind the bleachers, but the stoners were there, too, and they'd laugh even more cruelly.
One group she hadn't spotted before was at the far end of the bleachers, on the route to the locker room. Olivia didn't bother looking to see who.
"Hey, Byers! She could probably use this!" someone shouts, and something black falls from the stands and into Jonathan's awaiting hand. A black handkerchief
"Yeah, thanks," Jonathan said, a little harsher than he probably meant it to be. He held it out for Olivia, and the pair left. "You okay?"
"Peachy," Olivia said, pressing the handkerchief to her nose.
"Anything broken?"
"Not that I know of."
Jonathan nods. "Was that...my fault? I mean, I know I probably distracted you, I shouldn't have..."
"No, no, you didn't." Olivia assured, moving her hand blindly, trying to pat his shoulder in an empathetic sense. He sympathetically moved into her touch, receiving the pat on his bicep instead. "I should've been paying attention. You didn't happen to catch that with your camera, did you?"
"No. At least, I don't think so," Jonathan said.
The girls' locker room was a separate building from the gymnasium, unlike the boys'. It was built only a few short years prior, after some girls had grown tired of changing into their 'pep squad' uniforms in their cars. Thus, the locker room was built. It wasn't that grand. Olivia knew the boys' locker room actually had windows, so the humidity wasn't nearly as bad.
Olivia reached the silver door.
"Could you? I can't..."
"Yeah, yeah," Jonathan said, pulling open the door so she could go through.
She stepped inside and waited. Confused, she turned around blindly.
"What are you waiting for?"
"I can't exactly go in there, it's the girls locker room."
"Nobody will see you. Gym still goes on for another twenty minutes. Come on," Olivia insists.
"Yeah, that's all I need. Everyone to see Jonathan Byers sneaking into the girls' locker room with all the girls still on the football field. Liv, what would that look like to you?" Jonathan hisses.
"Come one!"
Frustrated and tired of arguing, Jonathan hastily looked around before following her inside, putting a hand in the middle of her back to carefully lead her to the sinks, his other hand covering his eyes so he couldn't see anything provocative or embarrassing, despite the place being completely empty and actually relatively clean. The girls kept it real tidied up. Keep anything of value out, it would get moldy from the humid air.
Olivia felt the porcelain and finally looked down, hovering her chin over the sink and removing the handkerchief from her nose, which was now stained with her blood. She gazed at her reflection with a critical eye, her upper lip stained in red and her nose already going purple from bruising.
"Jada Fowler doesn't joke around with kickball," Jonathan comments, wincing at her face.
Jada Fowler was a rather...broad senior. Stocky, wide shoulders, and apparently with an impressive kick.
Olivia sighs, turning on the water and grabbing a few paper towels. She began to dab at the blood, hissing at the pain.
"It wasn't her fault. She...did earn her team a point, even if it was on my shoulders. Or...I guess in my face," Olivia says, gesturing to her reflection. "You can barely notice it, right?" There was a purple line running across the bridge of her nose. She turned to Jonathan.
"It's not crooked...I guess."
Olivia huffed, turning back to her reflection. She grabbed another paper towel and ripped off two small pieces, stuffing one in each nostril. It clogged her airway and her sense of smell, but she could stand to breathe from her mouth a bit if it meant the bleeding stopped. Satisfied, she pumped a dollop of soap into her hand and began to wash the red stains off.
"Since you're in a relatively good mood, all things considered...can I ask you for a favor?" Jonathan asked, carefully placing his camera on top of the paper towel dispenser to dig around in his bag. Olivia watched him, trying not to accidentally snort a wad of paper into her nose after she forgot she was meant to be breathing through her mouth. He pulled a crinkled piece of orange paper out and held it out. Olivia took it, smoothing out the edges so she could read it.
"Oh, I forgot about Tina's annual Halloween party," Olivia said thoughtfully. She suddenly got excited, hopping up and down. "You got invited? That's so..."
"No, no, uh...Nancy's asking me to go. She's going with Steve, but...she wants me there."
Olivia tilts her head. "But if she wants you there, why would you bring me with you?"
"Because you're my friend and I'm not going alone."
Olivia hums. "I dunno...it seems pretty important to go alone if Nancy asked for you explicitly. Did she even mention my name?"
"No, but...look, Liv, the odds of me going anyway are slim to none. I've already been going back and forth on it since I'm s'posed to be takin' Will trick-or-treating with the boys, but...if you go, maybe it won't be as awkward. At least I'll have someone to talk to," Jonathan said.
"You'll have Nancy to talk to." Olivia said, sounding much more nasal, almost like Nelson Patterson. "This is so good, Jon, she wants you to go to a party with her?"
"And Steve."
"Well, yes, but...it's a step. I know you two got close last year when you were helping each other grieve for Will and Barb." Olivia said.
Jonathan coughed awkwardly. "Erm...right. Look, I'll still be able to talk to Nancy, but...odds are with Steve there...present, it'll make it a bit more awkward. Just go with me. Please?"
Olivia thinks for a moment, but she nods. "I guess I could go as Carrie." She laughs, slapping his arm. He barely chuckled, but that was as good as a laugh to her. She grabbed the bandana and moved around him. "Let me grab my clothes so I can change and we can head for second period."
Jonathan nods. "I am...gonna wait outside for this one. Just meet me out there when you're ready."
"Okay!"
Olivia found her locker with ease.
All of the lockers were painted to represent the school colors of green and gold, some even decorated in shimmering construction paper and ribbons for the cheerleaders or magnets for others. Olivia's was on the far end of the room, and the spray paint from the last prank was still struggling to fade away, after so much scrubbing from the school custodian.
'WITCHY BITCH' was still very much legible, but she's long ignored it since it appeared there two months prior. She still didn't know who did it.
She unlocked it and pulled out her school clothes, which were neatly pressed and folded, along with a pink sticky note on top from her mom.
'I love you, sweetie, have an awesome-pawsome day!' Olivia smiles and takes the sticky note, pressing it to the inner walls along with the hundreds of others in multiple colors, all from her mother, either telling Olivia she loved her or reminding her to pick up a certain grocery item on the way home. Either way, the sentiments always made her feel good, so she kept them all.
Olivia quickly changed, still continuing to breathe through her mouth. The black sweater her mother had gotten her for Christmas was pulled over her shoulders, along with her long pants and sneakers covered in Sharpie. Her fingers were soon littered in the little rings she'd won in crane games at the local dairy mart, and her favorite necklace(the charm was a tiny sparkling spider), hung over her neck. Witchy bitch: Olivia Henderson.
She heard the faint ringing of the bell, so first period was officially over. Relieved, she closed her locker and grabbed her bag along with the novel she was currently leafing through. Her journal, bulky and inconvenient as it was, was clutched to her chest, too. Her most prized possession, stolen twice by her peers and tossed into the toilet, but the words were saved, and so was it.
She kissed the cover, a gross habit of hers, and she was running for the door, finding Jonathan outside leaning on the wall, fixing the lens to his camera. In the distance, she could see the girls coming off the field, sweaty and laughing together. Olivia sees Heather Holloway and Tina Johnson embracing each other, giggling. Olivia smiled.
"That's nice," she comments.
"Heather literally just yelled at you for getting hit with the ball and didn't help you up," Jonathan reminded, as if Olivia could forget.
"But she seems happy now." Olivia pointed out. She smiles. She's already thinking of featuring something like that in her journal, the thrills of female friendships and the security blankets they could become. Clearly Heather and Tina were close, and Olivia wished to recreate that relationship with her own characters.
She misses Jonathan's eye roll.
The kids from the bleachers were also coming down, prepared to start their second period, too. Even the stoners could be seen putting out their cigarettes and slipping into the crowd. Olivia couldn't help but peer at one group in particular, a group of four pushing and laughing with each other, donned in the same threads, convenience store bags swinging from their wrists.
"Eddie Munson?" Olivia asks.
Jonathan nods. "Guess he and his pack were enjoying a late breakfast, early lunch deal. You could smell the jerky from where I was sitting. Who do you think gave me the hanky?"
Olivia was surprised. "That was sweet of him."
"He was laughing at you, too," Jonathan said bitterly. "But yeah, silver lining, I guess. Come on."
Olivia obliged, and she hopped up the steps and opened one of the doors, quick to leap to one side of the hall, which was now packed with students, armed with textbooks and hairspray, some with just their walkman. Jonathan stayed behind her, ducking his head out of habit. Olivia was different. Olivia kept her head high, staring curiously around her, focusing perhaps too hard on the stragglers and the way they walked or the way some of the guys picked up their jeans or even the way the girls applied their lip balm, some with their eyes clothes and others half-lidded. Olivia tried to find the best words to describe the activity, her feet conditionally sliding together, the squeaking grating on the ears. She had them trained to find her locker.
Up ahead, there was a small crowd of boys surrounding her locker. When she and Jonathan got closer, they were quick to run back into the crowd of students. Olivia, confused, went up to her locker to see what was so interesting.
"You've gotta be kidding me." Jonathan mumbles.
'WITCHY BITCH' was spray painted here, too, in the same handwriting.
"Son of a bitch," Jonathan mumbles.
"Guess this means a guy snuck into the locker room to spray paint it there, too," Olivia comments, trying to ignore the sting in her eyes. She quickly put in the combo to grab her math book. "That means you weren't the only guy whose gone in there, Jon."
"Liv," Jonathan says.
"We're gonna be late," Olivia said, shutting the locker and moving back into the crowd, uncharacteristically ducking her head as she tried to get to Mrs. O'Donnell's class with what little dignity she had left. The paper towel tufts did little to help her image, now also stained red so she looked like she had two red boogers hanging out of her nose.
Olivia Henderson was not many things, quite unlike what most people thought of themselves. She knew she tried to see the best in everyone, and she never spoke ill of anyone she knew. Her best friend was Jonathan Byers, and she was the eldest daughter to Claudia Henderson. She had a younger brother, Dustin. And she thought the world of him. Olivia liked lots of things, from sunshine to dogs to scary movies that made you hide under your blanket. Olivia liked to wear dark clothes to express herself, and she liked The Runaways and Fleetwood Mac. Most of all, Olivia loved to write.
Her journal, consistently abused by her fellow classmates, was filled with little diary entries, essays, and short stories she'd come up with on the spot; she had one in mind already, inspired by the small moment between Heather and Tina outside.
But most of what she was reduced to were the rumors. Most kids without a pack to keep them upright were. Jonathan was a murderer last year, according to most, rumored to have killed his brother, Will, despite the reality being he was lost in the woods. Nelson Patterson, despite his cruel laughter earlier, was rumored to be a gerontophile after volunteering a summer at the local nursing home. And Olivia Henderson was a budding witch, who worshipped the devil and put spells on her classmates.
Being called a witchy bitch was the least of her worries, truthfully, even if it did hurt just a little, and the notebook pages she'd write in later would mixed with mistimed tears. She'd found sage stuffed into her locker once, her notebook thrown several times into the toilets, proclaiming she was making some kind of witchy brew. One time she had even found a dead spider in her school lunch, one of the jocks jumping to his feet and telling the cafeteria Olivia was spitting spiders out.
And, of course, she had boys spray painting 'WITCHY BITCH' on her belongings.
Jonathan stood up for her when he could, and most teachers have tried to keep her anonymous in their anti-bullying spiels in classes, even if the subject was pretty obvious. Olivia never really said much on the matter, never denied nor confirmed the rumors, she just knew what they were. She supposed the only two people in her little world that didn't know were her mother and brother, and they were the last people she wanted to know.
Mrs. O'Donnell's class smelled like cinnamon and old lady perfume. Most students tried to avoid going there until the last possible moment when the late bell would ring. Olivia and Jonathan were two of the very first, and they took their usual spots at the far left in the back.
Olivia always took the seat nearest the window. She enjoyed gazing across the quad, students moving in and out of focus as some skipped or some rushed to their classes. The perfect setting. Olivia made it a point to stare harshly into the quad now, avoiding Jonathan's sympathetic gaze as she fought to not sniffle, lest a blood covered paper towel go right up her nose, but there was nothing to keep her tears from falling other than the obnoxious mouth breathing she was probably doing.
"Olivia," she hears Jonathan faintly call, and she selfishly ignores him. Olivia internally scolds herself for being rude to her friend, but she knew if she opened her mouth to speak, the waterfalls would start, and she'd be more embarrassed. She'd apologize profusely once she managed to calm herself down.
Down in the quad, the crowds were thinning and there was nothing left but the old tree surrounded by brick and green and gold handprints from alumni, a treat for the Class of '72. Olivia thought for a moment she really could get away with this.
A figure was moving across the quad now, teetering almost off balance as he was playfully pushed by a friend, or who she assumed was his friend. Olivia was surprised to see Eddie Munson and a boy in the same shirt(confirming her friend theory), both heading for the student parking lot instead of their respective second periods.
Eddie clearly didn't feel Olivia's harsh gaze on him, further confirming she wasn't a witch capable of supernatural abilities. She should thank him for the handkerchief sometime if he chose to return to school that day. That was kind of him, even if he was part of the laughter. But Olivia understood. The sight was probably quite funny, a girl lost in her own thoughts being nailed in the face with a ball, courtesy of Jada Fowler. She even giggled at the thought, her tears not betraying her. She was calming down.
Eddie disappeared behind the tree, most likely finding his signature van to drive off in.
With that in mind, Olivia turns back to her desk and opens her bulky, soiled journal to a fresh page. She grabs a black pen and removes the lid.
And she began to write.
