I apologize if this fic feels rushed, it's because it is lmao. I feel like if I don't rush a little, I'll lose my motivation and abandon the whole thing to collect dust ? Anyways, please enjoy this!

Things shifted after the party.

Lonnie started drifting away from her, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that he had been far more interested in getting into her pants than actually being interested in her . It was hard to admit that Hopper had been right, but one day she finally sucked it up and told him so. She had to prevent him from finding Lonnie and kicking his ass, but finally, he hugged her, kissed her forehead, and told her once again that she deserved better. Just like that, the routine was back to normal. Lunch in the quad, a midday cigarette, and no Lonnie Byers. It stung a little for awhile, knowing she'd been used, but eventually, Joyce accepted that that was just how high school boys were. She went back to second base fumbles with Hopper, occasionally even engaging in some light experimentation with Karen, and she was content with it.

Until Lonnie came calling again.

It felt too good to feel wanted that way, even just for a night, and so she gave in to him again. And again. And again. It was a vicious cycle that left her in screaming matches with Hopper, worried conversations with Karen, and long nights of shoving her face into her pillow to muffle the sound of her sobs from her parents.

The cycle continued well into sophomore year and even plagued junior year. Joyce knew her friends were growing more and more tired of the whole thing, Hopper the most vocal of them all, but the fact of the matter was they didn't like Lonnie, and Lonnie didn't like them. She was certain he and Hop would kill each other within an hour of being forced to spend time in the same place, so it wasn't as though they could all hang out together whenever Lonnie deemed it a week he was interested in fucking her over all the other girls he had falling over him.

This week was not one of those weeks. Truthfully, it hadn't been one of those weeks for nearly four months. She and Hop hadn't fought about Lonnie in weeks, their small group felt normal, and overall, things had been going well. A little too well. In hindsight, she probably should've been expecting the other shoe to drop, and a part of her had been. She just hadn't quite been expecting just how badly it would drop.

"Shit." she hissed, staring down at the small white stick in her hand. " Shit, shit, shit, this can't be happening. " The pink plus sign stared back at her, seeming to mock her and her growing panic. " Fuck! "

The bell rang, signaling the end of her lunch period, which Joyce was certain meant her friends thought she ditched them for Lonnie without saying anything. Wiping away the tears that had pooled in her eyes, she stood up, flushed the toilet, and shoved the pregnancy test into her backpack before exiting the stall to wash her hands. Mechanically, she left the bathroom and made her way to her next class with dragging feet, her chest tight with panic the whole time, a feeling that didn't go away as the day progressed.

She zoned out nearly all day, her mind racing with thoughts of what she was going to do. Lonnie had barely even looked at her in months. How was she supposed to tell him she was pregnant with his child? Did she even want to tell him? And if she did tell him, what would his reaction be? She wasn't even eighteen yet, and he was now nineteen, struggling to complete a repeat of senior year. What was she going to do?

"Joy. Joyce!" Hopper's voice snapped her out of her panicked thoughts, her eyes snapping up from the textbook still lying open on her desk to her best friend. "What's up with you? The bell rang five minutes ago."

"I-" Joyce looked from him to the clock above their teacher's desk and back to him. "I-I don't know. I was distracted, I guess." Standing, she shut her book and quickly gathered her things.

"Are you okay?" Karen asked from the doorway where she and the rest of their friends were waiting. "You've been zoned out like…all day."

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just not feeling great." Joyce answered, stepping around Hopper to walk toward the door.

"Oh. Does that mean you aren't coming tonight?" Claudia asked.

"Coming where?"

"The party. At Carver's." Charles answered. "We talked about it at lunch. Thought you were with Byers and figured you'd be going with him."

"I wasn't with Lonnie." Joyce denied, his name enough to make the panic in her chest tighten further enough to nearly suffocate her.

"Where were you then?" Hopper's voice came from her side, and she tried not to look at him as she answered.

"Bathroom. Told you, not feeling well." The half lie slipped out with a forced calm that she most certainly did not feel as they all walked out into the hallway. "So, no, I'm, uh, not going to the party."

"We'll come over then." Hopper suggested. "Get you some meds and once you start feeling better, we can do some shots and have a few cigarettes. Just us."

"No." Joyce shook her head.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't feel well. You guys don't need to be around me."

"Since when has that ever stopped us?" Karen snorted softly. "Come on, we'll even bring soup."

"Guys, no, I just wanna be alone and miserable." Joyce told them, a tinge of annoyance bleeding into her tone.

"We could be alone and miserable together." Sue pointed out.

"Guys-" Joyce started again as her friends began to argue over whether that statement made any sense. They weren't speaking any louder than they normally did, but to her, with the headache that had come with seeing that little pink plus, it sounded as though they were screaming. Back and forth they went until the conversation shifted back to their planned invasion of her house, debates about what alcohol and brand of cigarettes to bring. Her stress went up exponentially with every word, and she tried to tune them out, to remain calm and remind herself that it wasn't their fault she was freaking out, but they just kept pushing .

"Come on, Joy, you never turn down alcohol and cigarettes." Hopper was saying as she finally forced herself to focus, and just like that, her patience snapped.

"Yeah, well, binge drinking and chain smoking aren't really recommended when you're fucking pregnant, Jim! So would you just fucking drop it?!"

It was like time stopped. The entire hallway fell silent, all eyes turning to her as Joyce closed her eyes in mortification at what she'd just blurted out. Gripping her backpack a little tighter, she quickly began walking again, trying to pretend she didn't hear the whispers that started almost immediately. Fuck that was not how she'd wanted this to come out. She had known it would, of course, but her first choice hadn't exactly been having a panic attack so severe it just came out barely fifteen minutes after she'd found out herself.

Vaguely, she heard her friends calling her name from somewhere behind her, but she merely quickened her steps and ignored them, pushing her way through the school's front doors with tears in her eyes.