Chapter 4 - Betty
But if I just showed up at your party
Would you have me?
Would you want me?
Would you tell me to go fuck myself
Or lead me to the garden?
Staggering down the long country road that leads back to his neighborhood, Hopper balls his fist and swings at the air. The world before him was blurry and he probably should have waited to sober up a bit before walking home, but he couldn't bear to stand there and watch Joyce flirt with Lonnie and pretend she didn't care that their friendship was falling apart.
Watching her place her hands on someone, the gnawing feeling in his gut that he first felt at prom reappeared. It adds to his light-headedness and suddenly the world is rotating on a tilted axis and he doesn't know up from down. He remembers the way he felt at prom, watching them together; he was ready to knock Lonnie out cold, and for what? Because Joyce was paying attention to him? Because she seemed to enjoy the way he held her close?
Since that night, he wondered what Lonnie whispered in her ear while they danced. He knows it's ridiculous to concern himself, but he can't help it. He was experiencing the feeling from prom all over again tonight, the pull towards Joyce and the desire to tell Lonnie to back off. But it wasn't his place to defend Joyce and even under usual circumstances when he knew she considered him as one of her best friends, who was he to stand in the way of her happiness? Who was he to feel this way when he was the one who abandoned them for a relationship?
As he continues to walk on, he's struck with a question that leaves him baffled. Who was he to Joyce - and who was Joyce to him?
Surely, she considered him a friend, but did she see him as something more?
To him, she was everything. She was his best friend, his favourite smile and the smartest, most driven woman he knew. She was sunshine on a cloudy day even though she hid that side of her away from the rest of the world; he knew he was privileged to see beneath the facade she showed everyone else. He asks himself the question over and over as he walks, adding to his answer until he finds himself standing at the edge of his driveway.
He asks himself one final time before heading inside, willing his subconscious drunk mind to give him the answers he's so desperately seeking.
Who was Joyce Horowitz to him?
Someone he couldn't live without.
As he fumbles for his house key, he realizes that while he left the party alone, there was a chance Joyce would leave with Lonnie. The thought darkens his chipper mood and he feels sick. He makes it to the washroom and turns on the shower. Stepping out of his party clothes, he lets the cold water wash away the smell of cheap beer and cigarettes. He pounds his fist against the wall and hangs his head beneath the water, allowing the cold droplets to sober him up. He tries to force all thoughts of Joyce from his mind, but it's useless. She's there, laughing at something one of her friends said, her hand grazing Lonnie's shoulder. She's alone at the library, sitting in the sunlight that streams through the window next to her favourite table, reading. She fills every crevice of his mind and it isn't until he steps out of the shower to dry himself off that he realizes he hadn't thought about Chrissy once tonight. Instead, he'd been focused on Joyce and the anger that spiked throughout his body when he saw her with him.
Staring into the mirror, Hopper swallows hard. He wasn't jealous, was he?
.
.
Hopper had always considered himself to be a good person, but after the events of the past few weeks, he was beginning to wonder if that wasn't true. The worst thing he'd ever done was what he did to Joyce. He replays their conversation over in his mind as he tries to fall asleep, wondering where he went wrong and if there was anything he could do to make things right.
"Look Joyce..." He drags his hand through his hair and tries to begin his apology but his lungs are filling with water and he's drowning. When he finally manages to force air into his lungs, and find his voice and he stutters. "I've realized that… you know … lately I've been a really shitty friend and I-"
His heart sinks when she raises her palm to stop him from continuing. Her faint laugh shatters him and leaves him feeling broken. "Save it, Hop," she rolls her eyes. "You've made it pretty obvious that there are other things that are more important to you than our friendship. Spare me the pity speech and let's both just move on with life."
Pity was the last thing he felt towards her. Rage because of her stubbornness, anger with himself for letting things get this far and desire. The last one catches him off guard, but it's rooted in the way she stands up for herself- he finds it attractive.
"Joyce," he calls after her. His voice carries and she stops immediately and turns to face him.
"What?!" she exclaims.
He doesn't utter another word, instead he takes two long strides and closes the distance between them. His hands land on her hips and his lips come crashing down on hers as he hoists her onto the hood of his car. Initially shocked, she freezes against him but the moment her back makes contact with the metal of the car, she's kissing him back. He's faintly aware of the hollering behind them, but none if it matters. The way her heels drive his calves forward, his feet planted firmly on the ground between her legs, causes a low groan to roll off his tongue and he kisses her harder.
She's the first to break the kiss, pulling back so that she can place a trail of kisses along his jawline. He closes his eyes and savours each touch, the delicate flutter of her lips against his skin setting it ablaze. When she reaches his ear, she tugs on it with a smirk and leans forward to whisper in his ear.
"Hop," she breathes. "Take me home."
Hopper jumps up and realizes he's in bed and it was all just a dream. One hell of a dream, he thinks to himself. He leans back against his pillow, processing, when his eyes widen and it hits him.
Shit. He was jealous.
.
.
"Whatcha' doin?" Chrissy asks. She's sprawled out her stomach on top of her pink comforter, her english textbook open in front of her.
"Homework. Like you're supposed to be doing," Hopper reminds her with a smile.
After a slow start to the morning and some contemplation over an extra coffee to help with his raging hangover, he headed over to Chrissy's to spend the afternoon studying. Only, he realized after arriving that when she invited him over to study, she didn't actually have any intention of getting school work done.
Chrissy's house was located in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Hawkins. A long street where all the trees were properly trimmed and there wasn't a lawn with a blade of grass out of place. Her large white house, located on the street corner, stood proudly amongst the smaller ones along the road and always made Hopper feel small. Both of her parents were out for the day, meaning they had the house to themselves for the entire afternoon.
After insisting they work in her room; a room that was covered in more pink and lace than Hopper had ever seen, Chrissy quickly grows bored of her textbook and begins whining.
"You invited me over to study, remember?" he smirks.
It was no secret that Chrissy didn't care for her grades, but unlike her, Hopper was hoping for a term of excellent grades so he could apply for football scholarships and get the hell out of this small town. While Chrissy was the one who filled his mind with ideas about leaving Hawkins, her parents were funding her escape plan and Hopper was going to have to work for his freedom.
"I remember," she replies, "I just think there are more fun things we could be doing." She reaches over to where he's perched with his back against the headboard of her bed and goes for the buckle on his belt.
"Some of us need to ace their science test on Monday if they want to get out of this hell hole," he reminds her.
"Aren't you glad I convinced you that there's so much more to life than what this place has to offer?"
Was he? Before dating her, he never considered moving away from Hawkins. His friends and family were here, there were plenty of good paying jobs, what more could there be? Now that they were together, people (particularly adults) always fawned over how great it was going to be when he and Chrissy made it out of Hawkins and started a life for themselves because they were, as it was so often put, perfect together.
He tries to keep focused on the textbook page he's reading, but his mind is racing. Nothing about this afternoon sat right with him. Chrissy hadn't asked how the party was, even though he asked how her evening with her friends was, and he wondered if somehow she knew what he'd dreamt last night.
"Earth to James," she waves a hand in front of his face.
"What?"
"I said, aren't you glad I convinced you to get of this god awful town?"
"Oh, yeah."
She slides closer to him and smirks up at him while reaching for and closing his textbook. He knows that every guy on his football team would be insanely jealous of the position he currently found himself in. Home alone with Chrissy Carpenter. Hell, he was sitting in bed with her while she tried to get his attention. He would be the envy of his classmates the moment he told this story, but something in him wishes he'd chosen to study at the library because he actually wants to do well on his test.
"Why don't you finish reading that later?" she smirks. She climbs into his lap and straddles him, her hands falling to his shoulders.
"Then what would I do now?" he flirts. This was the part he was good at. The flirting, the teasing, what came after that. It was simple, mindless and a distraction from the chaotic storm going on in his mind.
"I have some ideas," she purrs, capturing his lips in a kiss.
They tumble back onto the frilly pink covers and he doesn't study another thing all afternoon. Before declaring he should head home for dinner, they lay side by side beneath the covers and his headache returns. He feels nothing. He's laying next to her, their hands intertwined but he felt more in his dream about Joyce than he did just now with Chrissy.
It was a good distraction, made him feel good for a few hours, but he admits inwardly that that's all it was and that maybe he and Chrissy weren't as perfect as everyone made them out to be. They'd slept together before today, and each time Hopper thought maybe he would feel something more. While it wasn't bad, it wasn't the way he knew it was supposed to be.
He kisses Chrissy goodbye and packs up his book bag and promises to call her after dinner. On the way home, he blasts the music to distract him from any unnerving thoughts. He liked Chrissy. He really really did. But….
.
.
On Monday morning, Hopper and Benny decide to hit the gym and sneak in a workout before class. With the most important game of the season coming up, both were determined to impress potential scouts before their senior year.
"Are you going tonight?" Benny asks between reps.
"Going where?"
"Joyce's party," Benny states, confused.
"Joyce is having a party?" Hopper stares blankly at Benny and sets his weights on the ground. "On a Monday?"
"You didn't know? Shit, I thought I saw you two talking at the lake. You're still not talking?"
"We're talking," Hopper mumbles.
"You didn't know about the party," Benny points out.
Tossing his arms up in frustration, Hopper groans and exhales a deep breath. "Joyce's parents would never let her have a party, you must have misheard."
'I'm telling you man, she's having a party. Her friend Josie told me at the diner yesterday. Anyways, I'm going to hit the showers. Let me know if you want to go tonight. I'd be down to check it out." He pats Hopper on the shoulder and leaves him alone in the gym.
In all the time he'd known Joyce, her parents never once went away. Not together. There were several occasions when her mother would go away for the weekend on business and Joyce's father would fail to return home for a few days while she was gone, but they'd never announced they were going out of town together.
Even if her parents had gone out of town in the past, Joyce hated most of the kids in their class she would never waste her energy on throwing a party. Whenever he convinced her to attend one with him, she always complained that she didn't like anyone there and extended her empathy to the host who would, in her words, "be stuck cleaning up someone else's mess."
And now she was going to be the one stuck cleaning up someone else's mess. It didn't make sense. Maybe that Josie girl wasn't as good of an influence as he once thought. He does another set of push ups, biceps quivering with each dip but he pushes through and hits his goal of twenty-five. Once again, he finds his shower thoughts lingering on Joyce and he decides that he needs to rid himself of this uneasy feeling and sort out his emotions. He needed to know once and for all if what he was feeling was rooted in jealousy, and the best way to do that was to confront Joyce. Plus, going to her party would give him another chance to try and apologize. If he was lucky, maybe this time he could say the right thing and save their friendship from demise.
She wasn't exactly happy with him the last time they spoke, and he wonders what she'll think about him showing up at her party. He knows her well enough to know that she'll think he's there to keep an eye on things; he'd always been protective of her, especially when it came to her home life. Aside from that, would she still be angry with him or would she be willing to hear out his apology and make amends?
He decides the worst thing that could happen is that she refuses to speak to him, though he doubts that will be the case. Joyce was never one to walk away from confrontation, if anything, she thrived in situations that involved it. She hadn't exactly invited him, but Benny made it seem like it was an open-invitation for the junior class and he was a member of that class.
Joining Benny in their first period class, he claims his seat and turns to his teammate, "Alright, I'm in. Let's go to the party."
He completely forgets he has plans with Chrissy but when he mentions the party at lunch she folds her arms over her chest and tells him she doesn't want to go to a party with a bunch of "younger kids." Hopper conveniently leaves out the fact that it's Joyce's party and doesn't push after she tells him she doesn't care if he goes without her. She excuses herself early and Hopper tells Benny he'll pick him up at 8 o'clock for the party. He catches a glimpse of Joyce from across the cafeteria and offers her a weak smile. She pretends she doesn't see him and turns her back to him.
.
.
Pulling into Joyce's driveway, Hopper is hit with an unexpected wave of nostalgia. He's immediately content with his decision to come; he missed her. The boys hop out of the truck and grab the pack of beer provided by Hopper's father. They round the side of the house and Benny follows Hopper down the path leading to a gate into the yard. Joyce's house, though small, had a massive backyard, complete with a massive rose garden maintained by her mother in the summer months and an old wood deck.
The sound of the partygoers drifts up over the fence before Hopper has a chance to push open the gate. He and Benny enter the yard on the far side of the lawn and wave to a few classmates that are scattered across the yard. He immediately spots Joyce, wearing her typical dark leather jacket, leaning against one of the deck railings in the middle of the party. Her dark hair is parted and hanging loosely over her shoulders and she has a drink in her hand. She looks up and they lock eyes for a moment before he pulls away due to the unbearable tension passed in their silent conversation.
"Damn, some party," Benny swoons. He claps Hoppers back and takes the lead, weaving through the crowd. He settles at a patio table covered in drinks and places the case of beer down.
Hopper immediately reaches for one of the cans and swiftly downs it to steady his nerves. He has no reason to be nervous. This was Joyce. The same Joyce who he once made laugh so hard her drinks came squirting out of her nose. He takes a deep breath and reminds himself that he's here to right a wrong and sort out how he feels.
He notices a blonde from their first period class named Helen making eyes at Benny and he shrugs in her direction.
"Someone has an admirer," he teases.
Benny pops open a can and smirks at Hopper, "I'll be back later. If I don't come back, even better," he winks. Hopper shakes his head and watches as Benny makes his way over to Helen. He says something that makes her laugh and Hopper knows just by the way they're looking at each other that he won't be driving Benny home anytime soon.
He busies himself by talking with a few of his teammates and finds himself polishing off his third beer while talking to Allen, a student who was in his fifth period class. Allen starts off by asking him about Chrissy, but Hopper only manages to mumble an excuse about her being busy and unable to make it to the party before he gets distracted watching Joyce with a few girls he doesn't know.
He vaguely registers Allen say something about how lucky he is to be dating someone like Chrissy, but the only sounds that really resonates in his ears is the sound of her laugh from across the party. To be polite, Hopper asks Allen about his own girlfriend, a redhead named Abigail who was also in their fifth period class. Allen's words fall on dead ears as Hopper can't help himself from watching, mesmerized by the sound of Joyce's giggle. When she catches him staring, her smile fades into a scowl and he forces himself to look away.
He's pretending to be engaged in his conversation with Allen when she comes darting across the lawn and smacks his forearm, knocking him a step back and away from Allen. He stares at her with wide-eyes, amused, and lets her shove at him again. He hardly falters on the second swat to the chest, and he allows his amusement to show with a smirk. She only managed to move him the first time because he was caught off guard, but next to him she's tiny and her gesture only manages to wound his ego.
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" she screams at him. He's convinced that the ways she's staring at him may cause him to burst into flames, he'd never seen her so upset.
"What's wrong with me?!" he exclaims, "You're the one who came over here swinging."
A few people nearby turn their heads to observe the screaming match and Joyce blushes. She steps closer to him and lowers her voice before asking her next question.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"I'm at the party?" he plays dumb.
"You know what I mean!" she raises her voice again.
"Just trying to enjoy the party," he repeats. He raises his palms to show her he has no intention of fighting with her.
"Alone?"
"I don't know if you noticed, but I was talking to Allen before you rudely interrupted us."
They both turn to where Allen was standing and discover he's long gone.
"Where's your girlfriend tonight?" she says. He cringes at the way she says the word girlfriend.
"Not here." He doesn't offer any further explanation. "Look Joyce. I need to talk to you."
"Because our last conversation went so well," she laughs. There's a strange look in her eyes that he can't place and he presses on.
"Joyce, I care about you and I'm worried. Throwing parties because your parents are away, talking to all these people when we both know you can't stand most of them, ignoring me…"
"Ignoring you? I'm ignoring you?! That's rich, Hop."
"Is this because of Chrissy? Is that why you won't listen to my apology?"
"Please, I don't give a shit about Chrissy."
"Then would you care to fill me in on what the hell is going on here? Because one second everything is fine and the next you can hardly look at me. I know I screwed up by bailing on you but I've been trying to tell you that I'm sorry."
Joyce paces away from him, folds her arms and then paces back. "Do you have some type of alarm that goes off in your head when I'm happy?"
"What?"
"You show up here, at MY party and insist that you care about me when really all you want to do is apologize so that you'll feel better about yourself. You know what, go fuck yourself!"
She moves to turn and storm away but Hopper catches her wrist before she can and he stares down at her with pleading eyes.
He tugs on her arm gently, and when she gives into his pull, he leads them away from the party and towards the dead rose garden along the side of the house. Reluctantly, she follows him, though she digs her heels in and gives him a hard time.
"Hopper what the hell!" she protests, looking back in the direction of the party. "You can't just drag me off and…"
He has her pinned to the wall on the side of the house before she can finish speaking. His body envelopes hers, his hands frame her face, planted firmly on the brick behind her ears and he leans down to eliminate their height difference and forcefully place his lips against hers. She stills when he first presses her up against the wall, but he notices she's kissing him back almost instantly. He grinds into her, pressing her flush against the wall while he angles his head to deepen their kiss. She tastes like stale cigarettes and cherry chapstick and he's certain he's never felt so light-headed. The moment he brings his hand to cup her cheek, she pulls back and instead of experiencing the sensation brought on by the taste of her lips, he's met with an open-palmed slap.
"What the hell are you doing?!" she shoves him away from her and walks away from the wall.
"Joyce, I-"
"You what?! Saw me having a good time and decided it would be fun to ruin it?"
"No, that's not…"
"Not it? Hmm, let me see, got bored of Chrissy and thought why not drag me into the mess that is your love life?"
He stuffs his hands into his pockets and rocks back on his heels. "I thought that maybe you wanted me to…"
"Why the hell would I want that?"
"Don't you…" the words fail him once again and he impatiently drags his hand through his hair.
"Don't you dare finish that sentence! You didn't do that because you thought I wanted you too, and I think we both know that. Now," she huffs, squaring up to him, "why did you do that?"
He wants to tell her, to say something, anything, but he can't tell her how he feels because he isn't sure himself. All he knows was that the feel of her lips against his has left him breathless in a way he didn't know was possible and that he wants to kiss her again. Instead of saying something, he awkwardly blushes and looks away.
"Can't say it? Figures," she scoffs. "Get the hell off my property."
She storms back into the yard, leaving Hopper alone in the garden of dead roses.
.
.
Unable to locate Benny, Hopper leaves the party almost immediately after Joyce abandons him in the garden. He's not sure what came over him back there. Something about the way she was standing up to him, when she told him to go fuck himself, he found it attractive.
The realization rattles him but no more than the revelation that arose after kissing her. Why did he kiss her? The short answer, he wanted to. More than anything, he wanted to know what it felt like to taste her lips. The more complicated answer was because he selfishly wanted to know if he was jealous watching her with Lonnie. He was. Incredibly fucking jealous.
He didn't regret kissing her, but he did regret the fallout it caused. Standing there, looking into her big brown eyes, he was certain Benny was right. The way Joyce asked about Chrissy told him she was jealous, and that meant what Benny said about her being interested in him had to be true, so he kissed her.
Don't lie to yourself, he shakes his head. You kissing her had nothing to do with what you thought she wanted. It was selfish. You did it because you wanted to. You would do it again because you liked it.
He went to her party so that he could sort out how he felt and all he managed to do was confuse himself further and make Joyce angrier with him. Kissing Joyce was better than he dreamed it would be. He felt that kiss in his toes. If Joyce hadn't stopped them, there's no telling how far things would have gone. There was definitely something physical there. He runs his thumb over his lower lip, the ghost of her kiss haunting him. Definitely something there.
But, did he want more? Joyce was attractive, he wasn't blind and it was now clear that he was sexually attracted to her, but was there an emotional connection? - a romantic one?
He's half way through his walk back home (he decided he'd had one too many beers to drive) when a car horn blares from behind him. He turns back and spots Chrissy leaning out of the driver side window of her dad's oldsmobile.
"James, get in," she smirks. Stopping the car, she waits until he climbs into the passenger seat before she continues down the road to his house. They don't say much on the drive, Hopper too preoccupied with his own thoughts and Chrissy wondering why the hell he was walking home, but she wasn't daring enough to ask. He doesn't ask where she's coming from, or comment on the irony of her timing, he just sits and lets the silence consume him.
"Do you want to come in?" he mumbles when they arrive.
"I've got to get my dad's car back. Tomorrow," she smiles. She leans over the center console and places a kiss on his cheek.
He waves and walks up to the front door. Once she's out of sight, he lets out a deep breath. He had to laugh, what were the odds that Chrissy would be driving down Joyce's street at the exact time he decides to leave it? It had to be a cruel trick of fate, someone punishing him for kissing Joyce when he was with Chrissy.
Kissing Joyce. Jesus. He hardly has time to over analyze the awkward encounter with Chrissy in the car because his mind is still back in the rose garden.
He feels more confused than when he left for the party. He rehearsed his stupid apology speech for hours, went over what would happen when she saw him at the party, but none of the pre-planned scenarios in his head panned out.
He heads to bed a mess of questions. What if he hadn't showed up at Joyce's party? What if he told her he missed having her in his life, because he did. If tonight taught him anything, it was that Joyce was one of the best things in his life. He would give anything to rewind and fix things. They would have gone to the party together and made fun of everyone who got drunk and did something stupid. They would ditch the crowd and pass cigarettes back and forth and he would steal a kiss when he drove her home. Except, that last step didn't fit with his proposed rewind and he knows it's too late to go back.
Before he drifts off to sleep, he concludes that he doesn't know anything anymore.
I don't know anything
But I know I miss you
