DIANE

Early Morning

With a groan she rolled out of her bed, and then ran to the bathroom to rid herself of the booze that still simmered in her stomach. It had been acidic going down and coming up with the force of a waterfall wasn't making her hangover expierence any better. Crawling into the shower she let the hot water warm her up. For some reason she had been unbelievably cold this morning, her own shivers waking her up. As the steam seemed to release more of the alcohol through her pores she became more focused. What time was it even?

Throwing on a bathrobe she padded back into her bedroom: it was only 5.45 AM. Great. Well, at least she hadn't overslept. Now she was wishing she had though, because God, this hangover was deadly. When she tried to recall what had happened last night it was just a drunken haze. There was a few fragmented images she could call forth, like becoming friends with Steve again. And if they weren't friends, at least they were on friendly terms. Nancy had been angry about something. And she had been driving shotgun in the car. Steve's car, if her memory served her right. Not that she was willing to stake her life on her fleeting, hazy memories.

The curtains swayed in the breeze. With a scoff she went to swing it shut. Opening the window had clearly been a bad drunken decision on her part, and now she was sure she was going to come down with a cold.

Time dragged towards 8 A.M. when the school bus was going to drive past her house. At the last minute she ditched the idea of being on a jostling, bumpy bus and decided to cut through the backwoods and walk to school. Hopefully the fresh air would make her alert enough to survive the day of school.

Leaves crunched beneath her feet as she waded through the forest. Every now and then her mind would try to fill in blanks from yesterday night, but frustratingly kept coming up short. In the distance she saw the football field.

Some of the guys had already changed into their gym wear, throwing around a football as they waited for gym to begin. When they saw her there were a short pause, and then they were ribbing their teammates as she walked by. But they couldn't be talking about her, right? No one cared who she was. A sense of unease crept up on her and she hitched up her backpack, walking a little faster towards the school.

It didn't get better when she entered the building and navigated through the hallways to her locker. While she didn't think she was self-centered, she was fairly sure there was much more attention being thrown her way than usual. That was when she saw Steve and made a bee-line towards him. Immediately he acknowledged her and waited for her to close the distance.

"You're just crackling with energy this morning." He greeted her.

She knew full well there were dark circles beneath her eyes. And that she looked hungover. "Oh shut up."

The whispers seemed to intensify and she glanced behind her; quickly several people pretended to look elsewhere. Seriously, what was going on?

"Steve what happened at the party last night?" Her words were slow and cautious. If she dragged her sentence long enough, maybe the bell would ring and he wouldn't be able to answer.

He sighed, then jerked his head towards the empty classroom and the color drained from her face. By the serious expression he harbored and the fact that they needed privacy just to discuss what had happened meant something really had happened.

He closed the door, and the voices outside became mere murmurs.

"Was it really that bad?" She needed to sit down before her legs gave out. He joined her, leaning on the desk.

"No. Its not like you murdered someone." He said. The way Steve had looked since she had spotted him told her that he was in a dour mood, but it didn't seem directed towards her.

"Well what did I do? Because its sort of looking like I did something. Or like, danced naked at the party and then murdered someone. Oh God, I didn't dance naked. Right. Right?"

"No. Also, no. And I don't get how you prioritise dancing over murder." He put his hands on his hips." Come on Dee, you know how rumours go. They start with a small, stupid spark and then just blaze up."

"What rumour is it Steve?"

He shifted on his feet.

"Steve."

"Just . . . That you, um, were together with me, and you know, Simon, and, well, Billy."

"Like third base together together?"

He shrugged.

"But I didn't." She insisted, then paused. "Did I?"

"Do you actually not remember anything?"

"That's not an answer, Steve." She snapped. Horrible images were filling her head. It wasn't like she hadn't had alcohol before. Not that anyone would believe it. But she never thought she would go that wild, that every single inhibiation would have been metaphorically fired out of the window by a cannon.

"We just talked. That's it. I don't know if anything happened with Simon or Hargrove. Come on, it's not a big deal."

"Yeah to you it isn't!" She cried, getting up from the desk and whirling around to face him. "Nancy hooking up with that Byers kid wasn't even true and she got 'Whore' spray-painted all over town."

Steve shoved his hands deep into his pockets. "Yeah which I helped spraypaint because I was a huge dick. Come on, Dee, no one's going to be spraypainting anything about you."

"You don't know that." She huffed.

"If anyone does shit like that, then screw them. And hey, I'll be right here wasting my time with you to clean it up. But you'll have to fund my trip to the nail salon for any messed up cuticles I end up getting."

She deflated a little bit. Sure it was still terrible, but at least she had Steve. Then she laughed softly in surprise. That wasn't a sentence she would've thought she'd have been able to construct until a few days ago. It had sort of been her assumption they would've graduated, she would've moved to another state for University, and merrily would've never saw him again. Now she was becoming glad for their growing friendship again. Even if the air around them was still cautious.

"I don't even know how any of this happened. All I had wanted to do was just . . . go and drink a bit. And I don't get it. Then I find out I kissed multiple guys?" She mulled it over. "Especially Hargrove. I didn't even . . . " She bit her lip.

Steve didn't seem happy with the idea either. Of course, him and Hargrove had some sort of natural disdain and rivalry with each other. It wasn't about her. Still, there was something off with Steves reaction. It was more pained than she imagined he would.

"My memory is a black drunken void. What aren't you telling me?"

"It's all just rumours. I can't tell you what's true and not true."

"Don't keep playing this game with me." The longer all of this dragged on the more her patience was wearing thin. All she wanted was to know what exactly had happened so she could try to pretend none of it had happened at all. It was better than being left in the dark and allowing her over-active imagination to fill in the blanks.

"You left the party. Together." He answered roughly.

Oh. Oh, no. Not him. He didn't care about anyone, and he definetly didn't care about her. How could she have allowed that to happen. How could Steve?

"But . . . But why would I go home with him?" Her voice was barely above a whisper. "Why didn't you stop me?"

Steves face flooded with guilt.

"Where were you?" She asked.

"Dee I'm sorry. I got in a fight with Nance and I just . . . " He shrugged, "I just needed to get out of there."

As the full weight of her actions began to settle in she nodded slowly, looking at the floor with crossed arms. Okay. You know what, she could get through this. Rumours were just rumours. All that had happened was probably that he had driven her home. She was still good.

She glared at Steve. He had promised to take her back home too, and whatever they had argued about couldn't possibly be serious enough to warrant ditching her at Tina's party. "Whatever, Steve."

Yanking the door open she strode down the corridor to her locker, making sure she averted eye contact with everyone. Just a week or two and it'd blow over. A new rumour or scandal would take its place, and then she could at least go back to invisibility in the place of obscurity.

Trading one book for another in her locker she yelped in surprise when Carol appeared next to her. While her locker was close by, she didn't think them bumping into each other the day after the party was a coincidence. She turned being a bitch into a hobby.

Carol had a great big grin on her face. Oh, how Diane just wanted to take her books and scurry away from her locker, ducking behind a book in class. Shame was festering in her stomach. Too bad it wasn't just the alcohol making her feel slightly nauseous still. While Diane had been trying to convince herself that nothing had happened, the popular girl in front of her had a different version of her black-out events it seemed.

Carol was overly bright today. "Morning Diane. How was your night?"

"Fine." Diane shut her locker hastily and began walking to Biology.

But Carol stayed right in step with her. "Heard it was more than fine. In fact you seemed to have had quite the busy night. Hell, I could barely keep track. So like with all that nerdy organization you have, do you like keep tabs on them? Schedule the boys into your calendar?"

There wasn't anything to say. Whatever had happened, had happened. She hated it. Everyone seemed to be staring at her, and all of the whirlwind of whispers seemed to be about her. So much for staying out of the spotlight. The mensroom door swung open and she collided with Billy himself. Great. Quickly she steadied herself and took a step back.

He was wearing his usual jeans attire, and his familiar smell of cologne and cigarettes hit her harder than usual. Everything about it was the same, and yet looking at him was now entirely unfamiliar.

Carol pounced on the opportunity, ready to exploit this situation for her own cheshire-cat grinning satisfaction. She looped her arm through with Dianes to keep her from ducking of this conversation. "Well if it isn't the man of the hour."

Billy wore his usual bored expression. The last thing he seemed was entertained by Carol's flair for the dramatic, and he was barely glancing Diane's way. "There a point?"

"We were just talking about you know, you two. And last night." Carol said, then she looked at Diane. "Oh my God, you look so embarassed right now. Like your face is totally just, red."

But Carol wasn't done. "Honestly Diane, you don't have to worry about fucking him. I mean, of course it's not like super dignified to just throw yourself at the first guy when you're drunk . . . but it happens, right? Even to you."

It felt like her heart was going to beat straight through her rib-cage and plop onto the floor. Billy wasn't denying it. And him and Carol hung out in the same group, enough so that she would obviously know about what had happened between them too. They had done a lot more than just drive to her place then. She wanted to vomit. Now Billy was looking at her though, and she couldn't seem to look anywhere else.

Her face was heating up with humiliation, and she struggled to maintain her composure. Billy was watching every facial tick with the intensity of a hawk. Her mind had become a dark void. There wasn't anything she could say. Billy licked his lips slowly, in an almost antagonizing manner.

Carol patted her shoulder. "I can just feel the sexual tension. Well, I guess I'll leave you two to it!"

Then she nearly skipped away with the excitement of the pot she had stirred, and yet just close enough that she wouldn't miss out on any of the drama.

"Just can't keep your hands of me, can you Dobler." His smirk was infuriating and she wanted to hit him.

"I didn't mean to bump into you, you should've looked where you were going."

"And here I thought you wanted a repeat of yesterday night." He drawled.

"Shut the hell up." She snapped at him.

Anger flashed in his eyes before he hid it, again a sardonic expression taking over his expression. It was the one she hated the most, where he tried to provoke and trigger and channeled whatever malice was festering inside of him.

He surged forwards before she could react, only a sliver of space between them. "Why? Does the thought of my hands on your waist, crawling under your shirt -"

"Stop."

"Hey, look a little more upbeat, you enjoyed it." He hissed in her ear, before striding right past her. Diane stared ahead for a moment, before taking a deep breath. Then she headed to class.

The entire time the words on the pages seemed to crawl all over the place. The teachers words were drowned out by the blood roaring through her ears. Classmates kept glancing her way, and every giggle were like finger nails on a chalkboard.

Lunch was spent locked in the bathroom.

Her eyes remained glued to the clock for the last class of the day, and as soon as it hit three P.M. and the teacher dismissed them she was out of her seat and dodging students as she hastily exited the school, nearly running.

Her feet carried her right to the woods, far from any other student. The trees groaned above her.

Diane had done it. With Billy Hargrove. The whole school knew. And she couldn't even remember it.

She walked back home with her arms crossed tightly across her chest, and her head hung low to keep the biting wind from freezing the tears that ran tracks down her cheeks.

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