Chapter Twenty: We Were Happy

Starcourt Mall was a dream come true to Annie. If anything captured the 80s and the life she wished she had outside of Hawkins, Starcourt Mall was it.

And she wasn't the only person who was there almost every day. The people of Hawkins, especially the young crowd, loved the mall. If they couldn't drive, they rode their bikes or the bus.

Annie, Holly, and Meghan rode the bus since not all of them had bikes, none could drive, and Steve was already at work so they couldn't use him for a ride. Sometimes she'd come up to the mall with Steve when he was opening Scoops Ahoy, but other days she didn't want to get up that early.

"Guys, come on, I wanna see if I can find any new soccer shoes and ask my parents to get them for me!" Meghan said, and the girls walked over one of the many shoe stores. This one was specific to athletic shoes. The other was more up Annie and Holly's ally. But, they'd go through all of these aisles with Meghan as she looked for what she wanted.

After a couple minutes, she couldn't seem to find anything. "I'm gonna ask just to make sure." The girls nodded and followed Meghan as she walked over to an employee. "Excuse me, do you guys have any girls soccer shoes?"

The employee, some teenage boy, looked at her and shrugged. "Probably not. Cause this is an athletic shoe store."

Meghan's face dropped and she crossed her arms.

"Oh no," Annie whispered, Holly shaking her head, agreeing with Annie.

"I'm sorry, you must not have heard me. Do you have girls soccer shoes. This is where I'd find them, no?" she tried again, her patronizing behavior making Annie worry they'd have to leave soon.

The teenager rolled his eyes. "Yeah, we don't have any. Go to some other store to find your girly crap," he answered,

Meghan took in a deep breath and was going to step forward if Annie didn't put a hand on her shoulder and pull her back.

"Come on, this dipshit isn't worth it," she said. There was no arguing as the trio left the store, Annie having to hold Meghan's arm down so she wouldn't flip the employee off.

"Jerk, who says and thinks like that," Holly said with her arms crossed in a huff.

Annie nodded her head in agreement, but Meghan sighed. "Most of the teenage male population it seems. But that's fine, I'll just show 'em when I get on the Hawkins High soccer team," Meghan said, pretending to crack her knuckles with the last sentence.

This made all three girls laugh as they made their way to Scoops Ahoy to grab a cone of ice cream each before Holly and Meghan had to leave.

The each got their favorite flavors: Annie got strawberry, Holly got vanilla with rainbow sprinkles, and Meghan got two scoops of cookie dough. Even though they didn't have to, the girls still paid. Annie felt bad for tonight anyway, though she wasn't going to tell Steve about that yet.

They wandered the mall as they ate their ice cream, passing time until the bus Holly and Meghan needed arrived. As the bus started pulling up, the girls got ready to go on. "Have fun with Max tonight," Holly said, with Meghan adding some eyebrow wiggles.

Annie scoffed and smacked her arm lightly. "It's the whole Party, not just Max," she said, but her cheeks were already pink. Obviously they knew that, they just loved teasing her about it.

However, Annie had to be relieved that Max was typically a boy name, because then the strangers around them simply thought Annie was being teased about liking a boy, not a girl. Made the evil glares go down quite a bit.

Once the girls were on the bus and Annie had waved goodbye, she sat down on a bench close to the entrance to finish her ice cream and wait for the others. They'd be arriving soon, the movie was starting any minute now.

The first thing Max saw as she rode up to the entrance was Annie sitting on one of the benches.

It was hard not to stare, the bright pink and yellow patterned t-shirt being the main attention grabber. With it, she was wearing some cute denim shorts. But it wasn't just Annie's fashion choices that grabbed Max's attention.

"Annie!" Max called out, and the girl looked up and waved at them all. She got up from her spot and tossed her ice cream trash while the others got their bikes put up. They all met in the middle in a little circle.

Annie looked at each face, then frowned at the missing one. "Where's Mike?" she asked.

Across from her, Lucas rolled his eyes. "Probably sucking El's face clean off." The other three laughed at his answer. "It's the same thing every time!"

"You're right, we're totally gonna miss the opening," Will complained, dropping his arms by his sides.

Annie bumped his shoulder. "Yeah, but you know he'd be pissed if we ever didn't wait for him. We just have to either tell him get his ass here earlier or we go in without him. Maybe it'll knock some sense into him."

"It'd only work if we followed through," Max said.

"Trust me, I would," Lucas scoffed. Then, he looked at Annie and the bags she had in her hands. "What, you get here early to shop?"

Annie blushed and shook her head. "No, Meghan and Holly wanted to hang out at the mall today so I figured we could and it'd be easier for me to stay here and meet you guys," she explained.

"What'd you get?" Max asked. She already knew they were going to hang out, saying she couldn't because she had to do stuff at home before she could go to the movie tonight.

The group was looking over what Annie bought when Mike rolled up. They all walked over as Annie put all of her bags into one to make transporting it all easier.

"You're late."

"Sorry."

"Again."

"We're gonna miss the opening!" Will added.

Mike, with his bike now put up, looked over at him and then everyone else. "Yeah, if you guys keep whining about it! Let's go!"

Lucas mocked him as they moved to walk inside. "Just please stop talking dude," Mike said as they entered the mall.

"Let me guess," Lucas started. "You were too busy." He followed the jib up with kissing noises.

"Oh yeah, real mature Lucas."

"'Oh El, I wish we could make out forever, and never hang out with any of our friends!'" Lucas continued to mock, causing Annie to laugh and share a look with Max and Will.

The redhead butted in. "Lucas, stop," she said, even though there was a smile on her face.

Annie and Will were smiling, though. "Will and Annie think it's funny!" he defended.

"Because it is!" Will said.

"I love teasing Mike. Could do it all day long," Annie added with a sigh. Max laughed and hit her arm. "You can't say you disagree!"

However, Mike wasn't on the same page. "Yeah, it's so funny that I want to spend romantic time with my girlfriend!" he said.

"I'm spending romantic time with my girlfriend," Lucas said, and slowed down enough to put an arm around Max.

Right. Lucas and Max were dating. It's been kind of a weird rollercoaster for them, going from dating to not way too often. Annie wasn't a huge fan of any of it and often talked to Holly, Meghan, and Will about it. Even though she wasn't a huge fan, she made sure Max was unaware of how she really felt.

In more ways than one.

"I don't really know if I'd call hanging out with almost your entire group of friends 'romantic time with your girlfriend' but what do I know," Annie said, causing Max to laugh and Lucas to jokingly scowl.

Annie fell back a bit to walk beside Will and let the couple have their time. "You okay?" Will asked her quietly, though they didn't have to worry too much about eavesdroppers since the mall was quite loud.

She nodded. "Yeah, teasing is a sort of outlet for me," she answered.

Th group got to the down escalator and weaved through the thick crowd. "Excuse me!" Annie called when she felt some asshole try to block her. Max reached back and gripped Annie's arm to pull her through, flipping the guy off when he said some pretty nasty stuff.

At the bottom, Mike stumbled through a group of girls. "Watch it!"

"Yeah, watch it nerds!" Annie looked over and saw a girl eating ice cream with her friends, confused at who she was.

Then: "Isn't it past your bedtime?" Lucas asked, and Annie put it together that this was his little sister, Erica, who she'd heard about plenty of times but never actually met.

"Isn't it time you die?"

Along with her friends, Annie let out a short laugh. "I like your sister Lucas, she seems fun."

"Psycho!"

"Butthead!"

"Mall-rat!"

"Fart face!"

Refusing to be outdone, he blew a raspberry in her direction and caused Max to scoff. "Oh now that was mature," she deadpanned while turning him back around and pulling him into Scoops Ahoy.

They all went to the front counter with Mike at the front, who immediately started ringing the bell. Poor Robin at the cash register looked pissed the second she saw the entire group. Annie wasn't bad, but Mike was awful.

"Hey dingus, your children are here!" she called out, not breaking eye contact with Mike.

Steve opened up the window to the backroom and sighed at the sight. "Again? Seriously?" He made eye contact with Annie, who mouthed her apology. The others just looked at him, and Mike hit them bell once more.

He sighed and closed the window, then moved to the door and opened it up. The kids all hurried back and followed as he took them to the other door, the one leading to the back halls.

Steve urged them through the door, Annie going last and saying, "I'm sorry about this."

With a sigh, he said, "I swear, if anybody hears about this-"

"We're dead!"

They went through the hallways and followed a path they had gone quite a few times now. "I don't think I'll ever get over how cool this feels," Annie whispered. She felt like that spy from that one movie Steve was watching down in the living room one day.

Max looked back at her and smiled. "It's like our big secret," she added with a bright smile. Annie felt her heart flutter until Max turned back around and continued walking forward.

At the end, Mike peaked out to make sure they were all clear. When they were, they all exited as if nothing happened. They walked into the special showing of Day of the Dead. There were just enough seats for them to sit close enough in the theater. Will and Mike sat in the row behind Annie, Max, and Lucas.

"See, Lucas? We made it," Mike said in a weirdly loud whisper.

He sighed. "We missed the previews."

"We still made it. Fart face," Max shot back. They all leaned back in their seats and get ready to watch the movie.

Will passed some candy and drinks to them that he had stored in his backpack, Annie getting some Skittles.

"Ooh, gimme some," Max whispered, holding her hand out. Annie poured some out for her and then gave her a smile.

The movie was on and Annie already felt on edge. She heard this was supposed to be a bit scary, and Annie wasn't huge into scary movies, despite the real life horrors she survived.

It's like surviving a disease and then being forced to watch every known documentary and read every article about it. There's comes a point when it's time to do anything else.

But, her friends wanted to watch this so she figured she could stomach it for a couple hours.

Okay, Max was the one who convinced her, but still.

She watched as a woman walked up to a calendar on the wall, unsure of where this was going, before the film got messed up and suddenly the power was out.

Everyone in the theater groaned and got up in protest. Max let out a few yells as well, but Annie felt wrong. She wasn't a huge fan of the dark.

Of course, this was just a power outage, nothing to freak out over, right?

A few moments later, the film was up and rolling again, causing everyone to cheer. Annie smiled and let out a noise of excitement before the audience grew quiet again to watch the film.

The movie went on.

A/n: welcome to season three!