LIFE IS SURREAL.
DON'T LET IT GET TO YOU

finn walked home, per usual, but there was something different about this walk home. he was usually happy about going home from school, but he was filled with dread instead of happiness this time. he remembered that he had to tell his parents about his month-long detention. he thought about lying to them and saying he joined an after school club, but knew he was terrible at lying and his parents would see right through him.

he gripped the straps of his backpack that hugged his shoulders as he continued to walk down the sidewalk and eventually into his house, where he saw his mother sitting and typing something up on her computer. he said a quick hello to her and headed upstairs and into his room, to which she didn't even take notice of him coming home let alone him going upstairs immediately after. after he got into his room, he set his bag on a chair near the door and pulled out his phone to see any missed notifications.

going into the 'calendar' app, finn made an event ending the following month, the end of the detentions he would be sharing with millie bobby brown. he couldn't wait until this was all over, even if it hasn't started yet. just the thought of having to tell his parents, although his dad would probably brush it off as if it were nothing, made his stomach drop. spending an extra hour and a-half after school with millie sounded like hell, and he knew that's what it would be like.

finn heard the hardwood floor creek outside his room, meaning someone was coming to his room and he was guessing it was his mom. and sure enough, he was right.

not even bothering to knock, his mother entered his room with a stern look upon her face as she crossed her arms in front of her. "what's this I hear about a detention, finn?" she questioned him.

he froze in his sitting position on the bed, "y-yes. but it wasn't m-my fault! it was a girls fault, I s-swear!" finn pleaded with her, trying to blame it all on the girl with the short brown hair once again. his mother then proceeded to sternly tell him that 'being in detention is punishment enough' and 'this should help you learn your lesson' but he was just relieved she decided to leave his room.

he layed down on the bed and rested his head on his pillow and drifted off into a dreamless sleep, not bothering to eat any dinner, and wanting nothing more than to never wake up.

⌲⌲⌲

finn entered the school's detention room, or what is usually the health class, and looked around to see who he would be spending the next month with. only two other people were there to serve their time, obviously they were upperclassmen who seemed as though they were there every day, and they were already fast asleep on top of their own separate desks. he quickly sat down in one of the seats in the second row and tried not to make eye contact with the other students, who weren't even paying attention because they were both busy sleeping. there was just this paranoia inside his head that made him feel like everyone was looking at him even when they obviously aren't.

finn put his backpack on the floor and under his chair, noticing that the teacher had already come in and sat down at his desk with a magazine to keep himself busy during the hour.

"I see we have a new face in here," the teacher, mr. turner, spoke up as he put his magazine on the desk and looked at finn, "don't worry, just don't talk and don't do anything at all. it's detention, not study hall." he told finn.

he grabbed his binder from his backpack and grabbed a worksheet he had received earlier in the day from one of his classes, but was stopped by the teacher who said no homework was allowed. what was he supposed to do the whole time? sit and do absolutely nothing? this didn't settle well with him, but he wasn't about to get into more trouble, so he decided to let it go and quietly put his stuff away.

there was no sign of millie, and finn hoped that she either wasn't at school or chose to skip detention altogether. but as he started to think about it, the serpent herself walked lazily into the room, sitting in the row behind finn and a few chairs to the right. she didn't even bother giving the teacher an explanation for her tardiness, which finn thought was very rude. the teacher didn't look up from his magazine while he spoke up.
"alright, detention is now in session."

⌲⌲⌲

about a half hour had passed, a miserable and boring half hour. the other students were still asleep in the back, millie had resorted to drawing on herself in pen, and finn sat with his head on the desk and used his crossed arms as a 'pillow'. the teacher had left to go to the teachers lounge for some coffee, as careless as it sounded, about 10 minutes into the detention and he probably had no intention of coming back.

millie finished drawing a little spaceship with many tiny stars around it and clicked her pen to close it, looking up at finn who was starting to fall asleep.

"way to make good use of your time there, wolfhard." she laughed a little.

finn popped his head up, turned around and scolded at millie, and put his head back down.

millie walked away from her own desk and sat in the one next to finn's, to which he didn't pay much attention to. he tried not to give her the attention she wanted, until she softly spoke up, "can i draw on you?"

"what? no! what kind of question is that?" he turned to face the girl, but put his head back down to where it was before.

"i have my own pen, so i don't need to borrow one of yours! it'll be really cute i promise!" she pleaded with finn, him eventually giving in and rolling up the sleeve to his yellow-knit sweater.

she took out her black inc pen and started drawing a small rose, one that would go just below the veins of his left wrist. she was doing it all by memory, but still making it look like a picture.

it took until detention was almost over for her to finish, but she added something else to go along with it, along with many other details to the object. the teacher soon came back into the room just to tell them it was time to go, making finn very happy because all he wanted to do was go home and sleep. he rolled down the sleeve of his sweater that would cover the rose millie drew, collected his belongings, and headed out of the room and out of the school.

millie stalled for a little while, collecting her things slowly and gazing out of the window for a long period of time. mr. turner grew impatient and sternly told millie to hurry up and leave the building so he could go home.
truth is, millie didn't want to go home.

every single day, she has to listen to her mother fight with her lousy boyfriend about who knows what, and have to basically fend for herself when it comes to food. sometimes millie will just take one of her mothers many beers and drink that, calling it 'dinner'.

but hey, that's how life is sometimes.

⌲⌲⌲

finn looked at the rose millie drew on him maybe a million times when he got home. he was just so amazed at how perfect it was, despite it being done by someone he strongly dislikes. he loved how small and subtle it was. it looked like an actual tattoo, but finn would never get one because he thought tattoos were a sign of who was a criminal and if you had one you were immediately bad news in his mind.
that's what his mother told him to think.

he turned his arm around to look at the other side of his wrist, because he felt millie put something there earlier. it was a small array of numbers in a line, separated by a few dashes. below it was millie's signature 'MBB' with a smiley face next to it.

did millie just give finn her phone number?

⌲⌲⌲

"she gave you her number? like, all ten digits?" sadie questioned finn as she sat down on his neatly made bed, him nodding a 'yes' in response. he showed her and gaten the numbers millie wrote on him, both of them observing it carefully.

"i have no idea why she would give me her number," finn said, "i thought she hated me. what should i do?" he asked sadie and gaten, to which sadie had to put a little thought into her answer.

gaten whipped up a quick response, "i don't think you should call her. she's bad news, she's been arrested at least three times for stealing and i think two times for trespassing on private property. i think it's best if you just stay away from her, for your own protection."

"i think he should do whatever he wants, and it's not like he's going to follow in millie's footsteps," sadie declared to gaten before turning to finn, "and i agree that she's hasn't made the best choices, but that doesn't mean she isn't a good person. maybe you should just try to give her a chance?"

finn took both opinions in mind, but leaned more towards sadie's, and decided to text millie later that night after sadie and gaten would leave to go home. after talking about it for a few more minutes, the three of them decided to go downstairs and watch a movie in the living room. since finn's mother wasn't home, gaten and sadie agreed to play a movie they knew finn wasn't allowed to watch, even though it wasn't as 'inappropriate' as she told him.

they all sat with their legs on top of one another across the couch with a big bowl of popcorn being passed around between them as the movie carried on. it soon came to an end as the credits started to roll across the screen, making both sadie and gaten get up off the couch and give finn their goodbyes when they realized how late it was.

after his friends left, finn walked back upstairs and into the bathroom right across the hall from his bedroom, turning on the faucet of the shower and slipping in, immersing himself into the stream of the hot water.
he wondered that if he started actually talking to millie, he might change his mind about her. but he might not.

after all, she's just trouble.

~

this chapter is dedicated to ; sam
because she reads the chapters ahead of time ;)

- shae