chapter one

     first day blues

CASSANDRA'S GREEN AND white cheerleader uniform was crisp and new for the start of her senior year. There was a pep rally for the first day of school and the cheerleaders always wore their uniforms on the days of pep rallies. She sat at her vanity, meticulously fixing her hair and applying her makeup for the first day of the best year of her life. She heard her father grumbling as he walked up the grand staircase from the kitchen, meaning she only had a few more minutes before she had to leave. Dropping her blush brush, she scampered over to her bed, zipped up her uniform, pulled on her pristine white socks and tied her white shoes. She gave herself one more look over in the mirror to be faced with her best work. 

Slinging her backpack over her shoulders, she ran down the stairs, grabbed the smoothie in the fridge that she'd made the night before, said goodbye to her father and ran out to her white convertible. Turning the key in the ignition and stepping on the gas, she sped down the hill, past their housekeeper, who was just making her way up the hill and towards the high school. ABBA, Elton John and Bruce Springsteen blared from her speakers as she nodded her head to the beat. Making a turn towards one of the residential streets, she stopped in front of a quaint brown house and honked twice. Tammy Thompson came running out, a curler still in her hair, her jeans half zipped and her bright blue eyeshadow smudged a little. She giggled as she rolled into the back left seat. 

They went two houses down to a seemingly identical house, but with a big American flag out front, and Natalie Morris sauntered out in her cheerleader uniform. Natalie greeted the girls and jumped into Cassandra's front seat as they made their way to their last stop before school: Stephanie Kline's house. Her dad was the mayor, so they lived in a large white house—one much too large for its surroundings. She ran out in matching jeans to Tammy and jumped into the back right seat. 

Once everyone was settled and buckled in, Cassandra stepped on the accelerator and they drove smoothly to school. Once they reached the school parking lot, they could see the groups of new freshman and the old cliques starting to reform after the summer. Headed for her normal parking spot, a blue Camaro going a million miles a minute cut in front of her and claimed its prize. Cassandra honked loudly as all of the girls starting shouting at the car. The shouting died down, however, when an attractive boy they'd never seen before stepped out. He grinned and sauntered over to their car, stopping by Cassandra's side. 

"Did I take you spot, beauty queen?"

Cassandra glared at him, but was still at a loss for words. "Yes, could you move?"

"And who am I moving for?"

"The cheer captain and the student life editor of the yearbook, so if you want to be in the section that people actually look at, I'd move now."

The boy smirked down at her and chuckled. "Terrifying." Cassandra let out a short laugh and shook her head, but looked back up at him with her wide emerald green eyes, making him smile slightly. "I'll move if I get to take out on Friday."

"There's a party at Tommy Hagan's. Pick me up at 8?"

"And where do you live, doll?" Billy took a cigarette out of his jacket pocket and lit it, smiling as he took a hit.

Cassandra smirked "The big house on the hill. Hard to miss."

"And does the prettiest date in town have a name?"

She stuck out her hand as she bit back a smile. "Cassandra."

He smiled playfully as he shook her hand. "Billy." 

He jogged over to his car, turned on the ignition and pulled out, allowing Cassandra to pull in and park. The girls were all whispering excitedly as Cassandra's cheeks blushed red. She unlocked the doors and stepped out, only to find a hand awaiting her. She looked up to see Billy's electric blue eyes. She took his hand and he lifted her out of her car. Grabbing her backpack, he swung it over his shoulder and motioned for her to follow him. She looked back at her friends excitedly as she locked the car and flitted over to him. 

"So, Billy, you're obviously not from here—"

"I'm not."

"So where—"

"California."

"How are you finding Hawkins so far?" She looked up at him with excited, curious eyes. 

"Well, originally, I hated it," he looked down at her with twinkling eyes, "but now it's getting a little sweeter." She blushed and looked down as they entered the school. Both of their eyes searched the sea of people, looking for those that they could love. "So where's your boyfriend?"

"Oh I don't have one."

"And why's that, pretty girl?"

"Don't really have time for one and besides, the only suitable pick is already dating someone else."

"Well then he must be blind or stupid."

"He's not the brightest firefly of the bunch, but Nancy Wheeler, his girlfriend, seems okay." 

"But nothing compared to you."

She blushed furiously and giggled as she looked up at him with a horrified look. "You can't say that!" 

He smiled and held back his laughter. "I can if it's the truth." 

"This is me." She stopped in front of her locker and put in her usual combination. It opened to reveal the little bottle of perfume and some of her pictures from the previous year. She turned and took her backpack from the hands of Billy Hargrove. She dropped it on the ground, leaned up and pecked him on the cheek. "See you around, Billy."

"Pleasure meeting you, pretty girl." 

She watched him as he turned on his heel and sauntered down the hallway, making freshman dodge and girls sigh. She squealed quietly, picked up her backpack, unzipped it and unloaded the books she wouldn't need for her first class into it. Her friends immediately swarmed her, asking every question known to man.

"Dear god, Tammy!" Cassandra wheezed. "Why would I know how big his dick is?" 

"Well you guys were getting comfortable."

"Not that comfortable, Tam Tam," Natalie interjected with an amused smile.  

"Well I have the biggest news ever," Stephanie interrupted. All of the girls looked at her with wide eyes, some going down to her stomach as they tasted the salty anticipation on their tongues. "My dad told me that Hawkins is getting a mall."

"Oh my god."

"NO."

"Stop! I'm going to cry!"

"Fucking finally!" 

"This is going to be the best year ever," Cassandra exclaimed as she giggled with the girls.

"It opens in the summer, so we can go once we've graduated and we can plan all of the parties for college!" Stephanie said giddily. 

All of the girls suddenly became melancholy. "It sucks that your dad won't let you apply to the Indiana State."

"After Danny ended up there, he said he wouldn't let me. It's honestly Harvard or bust." 

The girls looked at each other with melancholy smiles. "But that's okay, we can just do roadtrips! Roadtrips are so much fun!" Natalie exclaimed. 

"Fuck college though, I'm moving to Nashville," Tammy snorted as she looked at the girls. "What do you even do with a degree? Work in an office? No thank you. I'm going to become a star. I'm going to become like Madonna—a world famous singer." 

Natalie, Cassandra and Stephanie made eye contact and then all started nodding.

"Absolutely Tam."

"You're so right Tam, you'll do so well." 

"Well, I've got to go! My homeroom is across the school!" Tammy exclaimed as she pulled Natalie with her. 

"Bye Tammy! Bye Natalie!" Cassandra and Stephanie said in unison. Once she was sure that Tammy was out of earshot, only then did Stephanie speak up: "God she's never going to make it."

Cassandra nodded as they both started to giggle. "She sings like a muppet." 

"It'll be okay. She'll meet a nice guy and settle down like the rest of us." 

"It would be tragic if one of her kids could actually sing." 

Stephanie laughed harder as she looked at Cassandra incredulously. "God, could you imagine? What a blow." 

"Alright, I better go too." Cassandra shut her locker and blew Stephanie a kiss before walking towards homeroom. People stared as she entered—watching her hair, her lips, her hips. She sat down abruptly, her hair flying, right in front of Steve Harrington—king of Hawkins High and the guy that should be her boyfriend. She turned around to face him, boring her eyes into him. "Remind me again of why we aren't dating?"

"Jesus Cassandra, do we have to go over this again?" he whispered harshly. "I'm in love with Nance. Stop bugging me."

Cassandra rolled her eyes and turned back around when the thought of Billy popped into her head made her smirk. He was bigger than Steve, he could easily take over if he wanted to. Be the new king. And he liked her, that much was obvious. Because the King should always be with the Queen. 

Classes droned on as they always did and her notebook started to fill with bright technicolor notes as she learned about Calculus, Hamlet and the game of the college process. Soon, the hallways filled with shrieks and laughing as the lunch line became long. Not Cassandra grabbed skipped the line in front of a sophomore with pink braces and grabbed a lunch tray. She sat down at her usual table with the cheerleaders, general popular people and the sports crowd. She groaned as she looked down at the Spam, wrinkling her nose and picked at the small fruit salad. 

"God, I wish I hadn't switched homerooms," Stephanie groaned as she sat down across from Cassandra, followed by Tammy and Natalie. 

"Why? Did you get stuck with Mrs. Click or something?" Cassandra asked as she swallowed a grape. 

"Worse," Stephanie groaned as she cut into her Spam, "that freak, the one who leads the club your sister was in, is in it." Cassandra chewed slowly at the reminder of all of the social trading her had to do in order for people to forget that her and Danny were sisters while they were at school. Neither girl wanted to be associated with the other's group, despite how well the pair of them got along. "He wouldn't stop going on and on and on about how popularity is overrated." 

"Sounds about right," Tammy snorted as she stuffed some potatoes into her mouth, "it's like he's obsessed with us."

"He probably wanted to be popular, but obviously didn't make the cut," Cassandra snorted, but her attention was taken momentarily by a freshman blonde girl coming to sit next to her. She glared at her. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I'm Stacy Woods."

"And I couldn't give a shit, get out of our table."

Stacy lifted an eyebrow at Cassandra. "I was the most popular girl at Hawkins Middle—"

"I couldn't give two shits if you were the Queen of England, scram you runt," Cassandra growled. "Your perm is atrocious and your eyeliner is thicker than your eyebrows. It's embarrassing." Stacy's eyes filled with tears as she furiously whipped her tray from the table and trudged over to a group of girls that looked identical to her. Cassandra scoffed and rolled her eyes. "It's like people think that they can do whatever they want."

"I'm embarrassed for her, honestly. She thought that she could just come sit here," Natalie snorted as the girls finished their lunches. Cassandra's was mostly untouched as she dumped it in the trash and handed the tray to one of the lunch staff. 

She was ready to start getting ready for the pep rally until murmuring erupted throughout the cafeteria, making her whip around to see Eddie Munson standing on top of his table. He laughed at the basketball players and jeered at the cheerleaders until his eyes turned towards her. Her arms were crossed and she was leaning against the wall as she glared up at him. 

"Would you look at little miss popular?" He snickered as his eyes bored into her. "A hair out of place?" She only raised an eyebrow at him while some of the basketball boys stood up to defend her, notably Billy Hargrove.

"What do you want, you freak?" Billy yelled at him.

Eddie only snickered, but his gaze was unwavering. "You feel so accomplished being the prettiest girl at the party?" He forced his voice higher, mocking her.

"At least I'm graduating on time," she sneered as she pushed herself off of the wall and walked out of the cafeteria. He had no retort and even if he did, she was gone too soon. 

Cassandra, along with the rest of the cheerleaders, got to skip the last two periods of class to get ready for the pep rally. Soon, the girl's locker room was suffocating with hairspray and every mirror had girls applying eyeliner, blush or lipstick. Cassandra was stationed in front of a mirror meticulously drawing the yellow outline for her green and yellow stars that highlighted her eyes. Natalie tied green and yellow ribbons around the two half up pigtails in her hair. 

"Cassandra!" one of the sophomores screeched. "Can you help me with my eyeliner, please?"

"Jesus," Cassandra grumbled as she put down her makeup brush, still wet with the paint. She turned and grabbed the eyeliner out of the girl's hand and turned her to face the mirror. "It's so simple. You put it along your eye, then you carefully lift up and then you bring down the other side and fill it in. Soon, two nearly perfect cat eyes were on the girl's face and Cassandra flounced back to her mirror, waving away the "thank you" that was sent her way. 

Her makeup complete and her stars as perfect as she could make them, Cassandra left the bathroom and headed towards the gym to start stretching. Kids with bathroom passes past by her quickly, until a hand abruptly pulled her into one of the empty classrooms. She struggled to try and get out of the person's grip as she heard the door click carefully behind her. The person spun her around and she saw the deep brown before lips carefully met hers. The intense smell of fresh laundry and the woods filled her up as she melted into the kiss. She may have been made of steel, but Eddie reigned Hellfire down on her. 

Their lips moved in sync until she finally realized where they were, what she was about to do and who could be outside the door at any moment. She pulled back abruptly and blushed deep red. "Eddie! Jesus! Anyone could walk in right now! School is dangerous, you know that."

"And who says I don't like a little danger?" Eddie raised an eyebrow as he looked down at her. She was tall, but he was taller—almost tall enough to put his chin on her head. 

She smiled and laughed. "You're one of the mostly cowardly people I've ever met." 

Eddie rolled his eyes, but still looked at her with the same look as the first night their universes supernova-ed. "You were gone for so long."

"It was a month and a half."

"First summer without you, Cass, didn't like it."

She checked behind her quickly before turning to face him. "Tonight?"

"Can't," he groaned as he ran a hand through his hair, "inducting the newbies with a campaign." 

She bit her cheek, keeping an insult churning inside. "Friday?" He nodded. "I gotta go." 

"Ah yes, the pep rally awaits," Eddie jeered sarcastically.

She waved her pom poms sarcastically, but her smile was genuine as she looked at him. She bit her lip to stop her smile from growing too large. They shared a laugh as she backed up and opened the door, checked to make sure no one was in the halls and then turned to face Eddie. "Five minutes. Stay here for five minutes after me." Eddie rolled his eyes, but saluted. She checked the hallway once more. "Bye." 

The sweetness that laced her normally poisonous voice made Eddie smile, but she was gone too quickly to see it. He ran a hand through his hair as he shoved a couple of desks together and laid down on them, counting the seconds in his head. He tapped his stomach rhythmically as he thought about her smile, her eyes and her sickly sweet words that only seemed to come out with him. 

He didn't know if it had been five minutes yet, but he heard crowds of people filling the hallways, so he slipped out of the classroom under the cloak. He could hear Cassandra yelling at the cheerleaders in the gym while freshman boys tried to catch glimpses of them through the cracks. He had to catch his laugh as he headed towards the parking lot, skipping last period and the pep rally to find the newest members of Hellfire waiting.