Lyn groans, holding her head as she sat up. "Oh thank god," She pops the two Advil pills that were on the table in her mouth and wash it down with the glass of water that was next to it. She picks up the napkin the glass was on, it read thanks for the fun night, Steve.
"You know Steve is Nancy's boyfriend," Dustin said after reading the napkin over her shoulder. Lyn screams, jumping off the couch in fright. "It wasn't like that. Steve and Nancy had a fight." She put a hand over her speeding heart.
"So what, you were he's rebound booty." Dustin raises an eyebrow at her.
"No, we just watch movies and ate ice cream to get his mind off it." She put her hands on her hips.
He went into the kitchen and opens the freezers. "You guys eat all the ice cream!" He screams out.
"How are you madder about us eating all the ice cream, then when you thought we were sleeping together?" She rolls her eyes.
"I knew you guys didn't sleep together. I came home to you guys past out on the couch while the Halloween credits played." He told her. "Now, come on I got to show you what I found in our trash can." He grabs her wrist and pulls her to his room.
"Ew, what is it, a roach, a baby raccoon. Throw it out." She screeches as he drags in front of the terrarium that was in his room. "What the hell is that?" She squinted at the small slug-like creature that had two little arms with webbed paws.
"I don't know. I'm going to go to the library today to research. If it's a new animal, then I can name the species. I'm going to name him D'Artagnan. I'll call him Dart for short." He told her.
"Wait, where is Yurtle?" She looks around to see that the tortoise was on the ground. "You can't throw him out of his home, because you found a new interesting pet." She scolds him.
"Yurtle can survive outside the tank and he won't escape. Dart needs the tank. He doesn't like the heat light, but he could escape." He reasons.
"Um, you don't know anything about it. You should turn it over to professionals. It could be poisonous." She stares at the unknown creatures, looking for any signs of danger.
"I held it last night. It didn't try to bite me and I'm not dead." He held his hand up, palm facing her as if that proves something.
"Do you know what it eats? It's going to die in your care." She tried to reason with him.
"He loves Three Musketeers." Dustin flashes his new teeth at her. He was beaming with so much pride that Lyn didn't have it in her to tell him that the slug would need more to eat than that. It wasn't like you could have nugget in the wild. She decides to sneak in the food that it would really need later.
"Alright, I won't tell mom about him." She promised.
"Cool, besides he's safer here than out there with that crazy blue car speeding down the streets. He almost ran me over yesterday." He hums happily, opening the lid to drop more candy into the tank.
"What? A Blue Car?" Lyn went into the living room to grab a car magazine. She flips through the pages as she went back to Dustin's room. "This car," She points to the Camaro that was the same model as Billy's.
"Yeah, that's it. Do you know him?" Dustin nods his head.
"That stuck up Cali bastard." She growls and balls up the magazine in her hands.
"California? Is he Max's brother? She was in the car with him." Dustin was interested to get more information on the girl he liked.
"I don't know if he has a sister, but he will pay." She hisses.
"Don't do anything crazy? The guy seems like a psycho. He swerved at the very last second." He told her.
"Don't worry. I will handle it on a proper lady." She smiles down at her brother, reassuring him that she wasn't going to go crazy. "I'm got to see if Mom will drive me to Tina to pick up my car." She walks out of the room to find her mother.
She charges through the school halls looking for the mullet asshole. She found him with Tommy, Carol, and a pack of other girls. She pushes her away through the females who all squawked angrily. "Hey prude, I heard you finally took the stick out of your ass and let one in your cunt." Tommy stood in front of Billy to laugh in her face.
She balls up her fist and gave him a right hook to the temple, knocking him out cold. She smirks at the sound from his body hitting the floor. She stepped over him to grab Billy by the collar and pull him down so he was face to face with her. "You played chicken yesterday with four boys riding their bikes. Those boys are my cubs. If I even hear about you looking at them you'll find out how a mama bear mauls their victims." She pushes him back so he would slam against the lockers. "And don't be lying to people that I slept with you. I would never touch anything with a mullet." She points a finger in his face.
Billy grits his teeth as he glares at Lyn's back as she walks away. This time the girls move out her away. It took everything in him, not to backhand her. If it wasn't for them being on school ground he would have. Who did she think she was telling him what to do?
"Tommy, Tommy." Carol shook her boyfriend.
"I have seen this in a movie." Vicki opens her water bottle and pours it on his face.
"Should we give him CPR?" Tina gasps.
"He's fine." Billy rolls his eyes. He knelt down and gave him a few rough pats on the cheek.
"What happened?" The boy opens his eyes.
"You got knocked out by a girl." He smiled smugly at the teen that annoyed him. If Tommy didn't kiss Billy's ass so much then he wouldn't even bother with him.
Lyn and Steve were sitting on the bleacher around the track and field. They were sharing the turkey Swiss cheese pinwheels and chips that Claudia made for her daughter. "So she couldn't say it at all?" She felt bad when Steve told her about Nancy interrupting his PE class to yell at him for not picking her up. She didn't remember anything from last night and couldn't tell Steve that she loves him.
"No, she just stood there staring at me." He grabs a Doritos from the bag.
"She didn't even apologize for last night? She had to know she did something wrong when you didn't pick her up this morning." Nancy was normally a good manner considerate person, so Lyn didn't understand why she was being so cruel to her boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend. The way they left it was confusing. More reason that she should be there trying to fix it.
"No, when she pulled me out of the gym, she was ready to tell me off for not picking her up this morning. When I told her what happened last night, she made like everything should be swept under the rug because she was drunk." He glares down at the pinwheel in his hand before taking a bite. "Now that I think back to it I always said I love you first and most of the time she would say me too. I feel like such an idiot. I change my whole life around for her. I use to be King Steve." He grumbled.
"Do you miss being King Steve?" She grabs a chip and pops it into her mouth.
"I just miss not being fuck with by idiots like Tommy and Billy. The girls constantly hitting on me were nice too." He shrugs. Honestly, he didn't miss his old life. He likes having Nancy as a girlfriend and Lyn as his best friend. But, it sucked to think that the girl he gave everything up for didn't even love him.
"If it means anything I like commoner Steve better than King Steve, that guy was an asshole." Lyn stretches the last word out.
"Yeah, I know. You wouldn't even give him the time of day." He chuckled. Lyn laughs along with him, it was true last year she uses to avoid making eye contact with him. Now, she was having lunch with him while listening to his relationship problems. "What would you do if you were me?" He asks after the laughter died down.
"Don't do this to me? Nancy is my friend too." Lyn shook her head.
"Come on. Please, I need some type of advice right now. You're all I got." Steve pouts.
"What the point of advice? People say they want it when their unease about what they want to do in hopes that someone will make them feel better about it. But, even when they get advice that doesn't line up with their thoughts they do what they want anyway." Lyn rants and then shove a pinwheel in her mouth.
"Are you trying to talk me out of asking you for advice?" He raises an eyebrow. She shrugs while nodding her head since her mouth was full. "It didn't work. I still want your advice." He laughs at the way she glares at him while she swallows the food.
She let out a big sigh before giving her opinion, "If I was dating someone for a year and they couldn't tell me they love me, I would break up with them."
"Just like that?" He was shocked. How could she walk away from someone after so long?
"As hard as it is to hear, I think if someone doesn't love you within a year, they're never going to. I wouldn't want to waste any more of my time." Lyn felt bad for being honest. Steve had his head down with tears in his eyes. "It's not hers or your fault. You can't control who you do or don't fall in love with." She reaches out to give his shoulder a squeeze.
"That makes me feel so much better." Steve let out a bitter laugh.
"It's not like you have to follow my advice. You need to talk to Nancy. Maybe it's hard for her to say those words. This is her first relationship." It made Lyn's heartache to see Steve sad.
"I got to think about this. Thanks for lunch." He got up and walk down the bleacher. She watches him in pity until he was out of sight. Steve deserves to be with someone who didn't have to think about it before they said they loved him.
Lyn was sitting on Darling's hood as she waited for Dustin to bring Dart to her so that she could take his pet home while he hangs out with the party.
Billy and Vicki were lean against his car as he smokes a cigarette. "So, is your sister coming or what?" Vicki asked making Lyn turn her head towards them.
"If your sister is Max, then I'll take her home." Lyn offers. She wanted to meet Dustin's new friend anyways.
"How do you know Max?" Billy glares at the girl. Max never mentioned meeting any older girl. Not, that she told him about her day, but he thought the little bitch could have at least mention the curvy girl he was trying to get between the sheets. He needs any leverage he could get now that he was on her bad side.
"She's friends with my brother," Lyn told him.
"I don't care that little shit can skate home." Billy throws his cigarette on the ground and walks around to the driver's side. Lyn roll her eyes if he didn't care then why did he ask.
"Don't call her my sister, she's not my sister." He yells at both girls before getting in the car. Vicki was quick to get in the passenger seat.
Lyn watch as he speeds out of the parking lot. She got up made her way to the middle school. She walks to the AV room to see a redhead girl using a paper clip to try breaking in. "What are you doing?" Lyn asks making the redhead jump.
"Nothing," She put the hand with the paper clip behind her back.
"Are you Max?" Lyn smiles down at the girl.
"Depends who asking," She shrugs, giving a fake smile to the girl that she was hoping to get rid of.
"I'm Rosalyn Henderson. I'm Dustin's older sister." Lyn crosses her arms over her chest.
"Oh, Dustin's in there but he locked us out." She points to the door.
"I don't think it was us. It was you." Lyn smirks before knocking on the door. "Dustin, its Lyn!" She yelled.
"In a second," Dustin yells back through the door.
"Now it's us," Max smirks at her before she went back to trying to break in using the paper clip. Lyn leans against the wall beside the door, waiting to see how long it would take her.
Max let out a little cheer when she got the door open. Lyn got off the wall when Max screams and jumps out of the way of a frog with a slug head. The freaky creature that was too big to be Dart ran out of the room. "What the fuck?" Lyn snaps.
The boys came running out of the room to slam into Max and they fell on the ground. "Where'd he go?" Mike was the first to get up.
"What was that?" Max stood up.
"Dart!" Mike glares at her.
Not waiting for any more information Lyn ran in the direction she saw it go down. "DART! DART! DART!" She yells as she ran down the hall. She wasn't sure why she was calling for it. The thing probably didn't know its name.
She was going in and out of classrooms trying to find the thing. She remembered how Dustin said he like the cold, so she went to look in the girl's bathroom. She came out when she found nothing there.
Will was walking past her. "Will, can you check the boy's bathroom? Dustin said it like cold damp places." She asks him.
"Um, sure," Will nod and slowly walk in there. "He's here." He yells out to the older teen. Lyn walks in to see it hissing at them as it tried to hide behind a toilet. "Guy, I found him," Will spoke into the walkie.
"Where?" Dustin sounds frantic.
"In the bathroom by Mr. Salerno's," Will tell them.
"Copy that." Lucas's voice came over the radio.
"It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you." Will speaks softly. Dart came out from behind the toilet to hiss at him. Will drop the walkie talkie and ran out.
"Will!" Lyn yells. She wasn't sure if she should go see if Will was alright or keep an eye on the Dart. The odd thing was when Will left, Dart settles down and went back to relaxing on the cold tile.
"Where is he?" Dustin came running in.
"He's in there." She points to the last stall.
"Hey, buddy. Come here. You know I won't hurt you." Dustin bent down and held out his hands. Dart ran into his hands. "It's okay. It's just me and Lyn. We won't hurt you." He told Dart when he started to look around.
"We're coming!" Mike yell from outside as loud footsteps could be heard.
"Stay low. Keep quiet." He put Dart on top of his head and put his hat over him. "Don't tell them we found Dart, they want to kill him." He orders his older sister.
"Why would they do that?" Lyn raises her eyebrows.
"They think he's a part of the upside-down, but he's not. He doesn't even look like those things." Dustin tries to keep as still as possible.
"Alright, I won't say anything." She nods her head. The thing grew triple the size it was this morning, but she could still kill it if necessary.
"Where's Dart?" Mike came running in with Lucas and Max behind him.
"I don't know. Not here." Dustin shrugs.
"What?" Mike gasp.
"He said by Salerno's, right?" Max asked, thinking they must have heard wrong.
"Yeah, maybe Will has him." Dustin wants to get them out, so he could pass Dart to his sister and she could take him home.
"Where is Will?" Mike looked around for his friend.
"He isn't outside," Lyn asks. She didn't think that he would run far.
"No." Lucas shook his head.
"He ran out when I came in here." Lyn ran outside with the group following her.