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CHAPTER TWO
another reason to lose sleep
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( the weirdo on maple street, pt. i )

• °:.☆ . ₊°• ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

LAURA THINKS WHOEVER DECIDED that the school day should start at eight in the morning deserves a swift kick in the ass. She hadn't gotten much sleep once again — though this time, it's because she'd spent the night tossing and turning, her mind reeling about Will's disappearance and how Mike must feel — and it shows in the shadows under her eyes. She rubs at them, the skin underneath thin and sensitive.

Nancy's main concern this morning is their looming Chemistry test. Barb has been running through vocabulary flashcards with her all day, but Laura isn't listening. She's already accepted the fact that she won't get higher than a C on the exam.

While Barb and Nancy are academic achievers, their grades always at the top of the class, Laura is just... there. She floats in the middle of the ranks; not stellar enough to stand out, but not low enough to warrant intervention, either. Her teachers often forget she exists. When her parents attend conferences, they'll struggle to place a face to her name and make some vague comment about how she's "a nice girl".

Even to her own teachers, Laura is forgettable.

She wishes she had the same drive as her friends. Both girls are the most determined and ambitious people she's ever met — there's nothing Nancy can't do once she puts her mind to it, and Barb is better at math than Laura's own father — but Laura isn't. She sometimes hopes she could motivate herself to dig out of the hole of being average. But every time she tries, she hits a wall and comes sliding back down to where she started.

Maybe the worst part is that she's disappointing her family. To her dad, she's a superstar no matter what she does. To her mom ... well, though she never admits it, she thinks of Laura as a disappointment. Her Japanese culture prioritizes academics. Laura's grandparents, who had immigrated from Japan, always ask if she's gotten straight A's yet. And every time she shakes her head, her Jiji just smiles and assures her she can do it.

Laura hugs her Chemistry textbook tightly to her chest as she trudges behind Barb and Nancy, who are reviewing the cue cards for the trillionth time on their way to class. She feels a headache beginning to throb at her temples at the idea of cramming so hurriedly before their test. Does she want that sense of urgency that's eating away at their stomachs, pushing them to revise the same material over and over in an endless loop? Or is she content with accepting her average grade as her inevitable fate?

"When alpha particles go through gold foil, they become...?"

"Unoccupied space," Nancy answers without missing a beat. It's clear she could probably recite these questions from memory.

Barb nods, flipping to the next card. "A molecule that can—"

She's interrupted by a hand seizing the papers and yanking them out of her grip. The three girls' heads jerk up at the abrupt interruption, Laura's focus snapping back into place.

Steve Harrington had taken the cards. He rifles through them carelessly as Tommy and Carol flock around him.

"Hey!" Barb exclaims in protest, but she's quickly silenced by Tommy twisting a finger, wet with his saliva, into her ear. He also tugs on the end of Laura's half-up section of hair for good measure before leaning against the wall of the intersection with his girlfriend.

"I don't know," Steve drawls, "I think you've studied enough, Nance."

Hearing the nickname that her close friends use come so easily from his mouth sends a sucker punch to Laura's gut. Maybe this thing with Steve is more serious than she'd realized.

"Steve," Nancy complains.

"I'm telling you, you know, you got this. Don't worry." He taps his hand onto the end of the stack to even it out and slides the cards into his back pocket. The action makes Nancy tilt her head and send him an irked glare. "Now, on to more important matters— my dad has left town on a conference and my mom's gone with him, 'cause, you know, she doesn't trust him."

"Good call," Tommy cuts in.

The list of things Laura knows about Steve Harrington is very short, and she hadn't been planning on ever adding to that list, but now she has "parents' marital problems and possible infidelity" cataloged into her brain.

"So, are you in?" Steve asks.

Laura blinks, wondering if she'd missed a part of the conversation. Nancy glances back at her and Barb, genuine confusion also wrinkling her delicate features. The fact that she's also perplexed makes Laura feel better about herself. She has a tendency to zone out or misread conversations.

Nancy questions, "In for what?"

"No parents?" Carol says with raised eyebrows, speaking as if she's explaining something to a toddler. "Big house?"

"A party?"

"Ding, ding, ding!"

But Nancy is still thrown off, her incredulous gaze trailing back to Steve. "It's Tuesday."

"'It's Tuesday!'" Tommy mocks in a high-pitched voice— a poor imitation of Nancy's benign cadence. His eyes flicker to Steve, almost like he's looking for validation or a smile of agreement, but all he gets is a scolding smack on the arm. Still, he chuckles, "Oh my God," with a look to a snorting Carol instead.

Anger simmers in Laura's gut. God, they make her want to swallow her textbook whole.

"Come on," Steve says, his voice turning serious when he notices that Nancy still isn't convinced. "It'll be low-key, it'll be just us. What do you say? Are you in or are you out?"

Nancy wrinkles her nose, humming in consideration that's teetering on a pass. But before she can say anything, Carol speaks up.

"Oh, God. Look."

The group turns to see what she's raking her disgusted gaze up and down. They find Jonathan Byers, Will's older brother who's also a sophomore, tacking up a poster for his missing sibling onto a bulletin board. The sight makes despair replace the annoyance in Laura's chest. It's a reminder of why she'd had another sleepless night. Her lassitude seems to amplify at the photo of a smiling Will on the poster. As the situation becomes more serious, she's bound to continue on this cycle of fatigue.

"Oh, God," Steve says indifferently. "That's depressing."

"Should we say something?" Nancy asks.

"I don't think he speaks," Carol replies with a judgmental click of her chewing gum.

"How much you wanna bet he killed him?" Tommy laughs.

Steve smacks him again, this time in the chest. "Dude, shut up."

"That's bogus and you know it," Laura shoots back at Tommy, catching the trio of upperclassmen by surprise. It's clear they'd forgotten about her entirely, and by speaking, she'd brought herself back into their bubble.

Carol's sharp eyes train on her, a brow raising at Laura's blunt tone. The younger girl forces herself not to back down from her challenging stare. People don't usually talk back to them, even though they totally deserve being called out, and Carol is clearly waiting for Laura to avert her gaze and apologize.

But she doesn't. Even with the pinprick of discomfort that races down her spine from the prolonged eye contact. Laura is taller than Carol by a decent few inches, and she uses this to her advantage by squaring her shoulders to straighten herself into her full height. Her arms drop to her sides along with her Chemistry book, now clutched in one hand by the spine. She becomes conscious of her rumpled flannel shirt and clearly sleep-deprived face in comparison to Carol's carefully-styled ginger hair.

Finally, Carol breaks the intense stare. By that time, Laura realizes that Nancy is gone, and it's just Barb standing with her alongside the juniors. As if realizing this as well, and also the fact that they don't want to be seen associating with two losers, Steve and his friends head to their next class without a word to the girls.

Laura's internal compass, always seeming to seek Nancy out, finds her talking to Jonathan by the bulletin board. The tall boy with shaggy brown hair is quiet but seemingly appreciative of her coming forward. Jonathan is a different kind of unpopular from them— he prefers to keep to himself, staying mostly silent during class. He'd been Laura's science partner in the seventh grade and she doesn't think he'd spoken a word to her. Not one to strike up conversations with strangers on her own, they'd worked in silence for the entire year. And yet they'd still gotten a perfect score, largely thanks to him.

The warning bell cuts through the air, counting down the seconds to the dreaded Chemistry test. When Nancy turns back to join Laura and Barb, the P.A. system crackles as it comes to life. The principal's voice drifts through the speakers. "Attention, faculty and students. At eight PM tonight, there will be an assembly on the football field in support of Will Byers and his family. All are encouraged to attend. Volunteer sign-ups for search parties are still available in the office."

Before the announcement ends, Jonathan hurries through the exit to his immediate left. Laura's mouth pinches in concern as she watches his lanky form shrink the further he walks into the parking lot. His hands are shoved into the pockets of his worn sherpa-lined jacket, not too unlike the one she wears, his shoulders hunched.

Laura only diverts her attention from him when Nancy links her arm through hers and walks her along to Chemistry class.

—°• ☆ . °—

"Hello?" Laura calls as she enters the Wheeler house, toeing her sneakers off and setting them neatly on the rug. Knocking had become unnecessary almost a decade ago. She and Nancy have spent so much time at each other's houses since birth that they consider them second homes.

"Oh, hi, honey," Mrs. Wheeler says with a smile as she pops into the foyer from the kitchen, drying her hands with a dish rag. She looks as well-manicured as ever with her bright lipstick and perfectly curled brunette hair. "Nancy is in her room."

"Actually... I was wondering if I could see Mike first." Laura holds up a plastic Tupperware container packed with freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies that she'd made after school. "He must be so worried about Will. I wanted to help out in any way I could, so..."

"Laura, you're an angel." Mrs. Wheeler steps forward and pulls the teenager into a hug that smells like sweet perfume and a hint of whatever she's cooking. After stepping away, she turns toward the basement door and yells, "Michael, come up here, please!" She looks back at Laura with a shake of her head. "He's been holed up down there. I'm just glad he has his friends over today to keep him company. At least he isn't becoming a hermit."

Footsteps pound on the wooden basement steps as Mike thunders to the ground floor. Mrs. Wheeler retreats back into the kitchen when the door creaks open, revealing Mike's pale face and his mop of black hair. "What?"

Laura once again lifts the box of treats and shakes it. "Mikey want a cookie?"

The boy cringes as he emerges fully from behind the door and closes it behind him. "I told you I'm too old for that nickname."

"Oh. I see." She opens the lid and angles the container down so he can see inside. The cookies are still warm, some of the chocolate chips half-melted, and their delicious aroma floods the foyer. "I'll just give these to Holly, then. HOL—!"

"NO!" Mike shouts, darting forward to seize the container before she can finish yelling his little sister's name. He keeps it close to his chest possessively. "Er, thanks. Dustin will probably eat all of them, though."

He begins to walk back toward the basement, clearly anxious to leave her and get back down to whatever has him "holed up down there" as his mother had said. Laura knows that Mike is almost done with middle school and that has him entering a phase where gratitude and affection are embarrassing, but she still feels a stab of hurt at his concise expression of thanks. Then again, she's never had a friend go missing before. She has no idea what's going on in his head.

As if sensing her growing worry, Mike turns back toward Laura with a sigh and sets the plastic box onto a chair. Then he does something he hasn't in years— he gives her a hug. It takes Laura by surprise immediately. She almost forgets to return it, then realizes that he must be going through a growth spurt, because when did he get so tall?

Though their dynamic has changed as they've entered new phases of their lives, their sibling-like bond has never dissipated. She and Nancy have bickered with him when he and his friends would prank them. She'd placed a Star Wars Band-Aid on his knee after he'd fallen off his bike when he was five. They dump popcorn on each other and tease each other and love each other just like siblings do. Because Laura doesn't have any siblings of her own anymore, Mike and Holly have replaced that gaping hole in her life that's existed since she was three.

Before her thoughts can get too deep, Mike steps back and gives her a lopsided smile, his freckles standing out against his pale skin. "Thanks, Lowa."

And that's how she knows he means it. When Mike was learning how to talk, he couldn't pronounce Laura's name, instead resorting to Lowa or Low like how Nancy had called her "Laur." Sometimes he still uses it, just as she brings up the old Mikey nickname.

This time, when Mike heads back downstairs, she feels considerably better.

Laura raps her knuckles on Nancy's bedroom door in a tap-tap-taptaptap-tap-tap rhythm, the signal that she always uses that it's her on the other side. Nancy's voice calling, "Come in!" follows a beat later.

She enters the bedroom to see Nancy sitting cross-legged on her bed with her powder blue rotary phone beside her on the mattress. Laura shuts the door behind her, climbing up to sit near the frilly throw pillows at the top of the neatly-made bed. She tucks her knees under her elbows and clasps her hands to lock them in place.

"You're making me go to this party, aren't you?" Laura questions without bothering to use a real greeting.

Nancy's mouth is puckered into a frown, her eyes downcast in the direction of the phone, its electrical cord pulled as taut as possible as it threatens to pop out of the wall socket. She's deep in thought. Her fingers absentmindedly toy with the watch on her left wrist, picking at the brown leather strap.

"Nance," Laura says more sharply this time. The girl breaks out of her stupor and glances at her, causing Laura to give her a pressing look.

Nancy sighs and relents, her shoulders dropping with the exhale. "I don't want to go alone. I'm going to ask Barb to come, too, so we'll all be together."

Laura's eyes flicker around Nancy's pastel-colored bedroom as her jaw tightens. This is her last day off of work this week. She hadn't planned on spending it at Steve Harrington's house of all places. Once again, he's thwarted her efforts to be at peace on a free day.

"Laur," Nancy pleads, reaching forward to clasp her hand when she notices Laura's annoyance.

"It's my day off," she argues.

"I know, and I'm sorry." Nancy swallows. "Plus, I'd feel better with you there. I want to make sure there's someone to... keep me in check."

Laura can already feel her resolve slipping. When it comes to Nancy, is she ever able to say no? Anyways, the thought of her going to that party alone makes Laura want to throw a rock. She'd feel better if she was there with Nancy, too.

"Please?"

Laura never really stood a chance.

"Fine," she concedes through a sigh.

Nancy cheers, throwing her arms around Laura and clouding her with her sweet perfume. Laura fights a smile as she hugs her back.

"Thank you!" Nancy exclaims, and the smile lighting up her face as she grabs the receiver of her phone will definitely make this all worth it. "I owe you everything. Okay, let's call Barb. Turn on the radio so nobody can eavesdrop."

Laura gets up and crosses the room until she reaches Nancy's stereo. She pops a cassette tape into the machine and presses the play button, allowing music to flood the room. After adjusting the dial so it's not too loud, but just audible enough that nobody can hear Nancy through the door, she returns to her spot on the bed.

Nancy picks up the receiver and dials the Holland family's number, then flops backward onto her mattress until she's staring up at the ceiling. Her brunette hair fans around her head. Some of it brushes against Laura's denim-clad knee.

"Hey, Barb," Nancy greets when the redhead picks up the phone, seemingly grateful that her parents hadn't answered instead. "Listen... I was wondering if you'd come with me to Steve's. Laura's in, too." She waits for a beat as Barb responds. "Because I don't want to go by myself." Another beat, then she sits up. "Barb ... Barb, it's not rocket science. You just tell your parents you're gonna stay at my place afterwards."

She listens for a moment, then holds the receiver out to Laura in exasperation. "Tell Barb that everything will be fine."

Laura takes the phone and holds it up to her ear. "Listen, Nancy clearly has a plan. And you know Nance is a mastermind— there's no part of it she won't have covered."

She glances at the girl as she says the last part, finding her already giving her a grateful smile.

"I just... I really don't know, Laura," Barb says from the other end.

"I'll be there to keep you company," she promises. "You won't be totally alone while Nancy's ogling Steve."

She earns a smack on the arm from Nancy for that.

From downstairs, Mrs. Wheeler's voice calls, "Nancy, Laura! Dinner!"

"Coming!" Nancy shouts back over the music. She then takes the receiver back from Laura and tells Barb, "Look, we gotta go. We'll see you in an hour."

With a smile on her face, she hangs up.

The dining room is completely silent except for the clatter of cutlery. However, it seems that Mike and his friends aren't eating. Dustin Henderson stabs the tines of his fork through his portion of meatloaf and examines it like a science experiment, his furrowed brows obscured by his wild curls. Lucas Sinclair has been pushing his food around meaninglessly for the past five minutes.

Mrs. Wheeler, not blind to the fact that the boys haven't touched their meal, asks, "Something wrong with the meatloaf?"

"Uh, no, I had two bologna sandwiches for lunch," Dustin replies with a smile. "...I don't know why."

Lucas copies his grin and sets down his fork, his hand tapping restlessly on the wooden table. "Me, too."

Laura has been digging into her meal in sharp contrast to them. She's already half finished, unbothered by the boys' lack of interest. She wants to get to Steve's house on a full stomach— especially if she ends up drinking, herself.

"It's delicious, Mommy," Nancy reassures her mother.

"Yeah," Laura agrees after swallowing another mouthful of green beans, unaware that Nancy had merely been trying to butter Mrs. Wheeler up.

"Thank you, girls."

Nancy pokes at an uncut portion of meatloaf with her knife as she speaks. "So... there's this special assembly thing tonight for Will at the school field. Barb's driving us."

Laura almost chokes on her food, but manages to swallow safely before it can become obvious. She didn't know that Nancy would be using the Byers's support assembly as their excuse for leaving.

"Why am I just hearing about this?" Mrs. Wheeler questions with a frown.

"I thought you knew," Nancy replies.

"I told you, I don't want you out after dark until Will is found."

"I know, I know... but it'd be super weird if we're not there. I mean, everyone's going."

The food in Laura's stomach churns. She glances down at her plate, her appetite vanishing. Something about using the assembly as a cover feels... wrong. Especially since she knows that her parents are going.

From her right, Holly drops her empty toddler cup. Laura automatically bends down to retrieve it without thinking.

Nancy's mother sighs and relents. "Just ... be back by ten." She pauses thoughtfully as Nancy nods in agreement. "Why don't you take the boys, too?"

"No!" all three kids exclaim at once, with Lucas violently shaking his head as well.

Well. Something is definitely going on. But Laura won't bring it up because something is going on with her, too, and as long as she keeps their secret, they won't bring up her and Nancy's ruse. It's an unspoken agreement. Ignore each other's schemes, and nobody gets tattled on.

Mike casually takes a sip from his glass of milk.

"Don't you think you should be there?" Mrs. Wheeler asks. "For Will?"

The boy's eyes flicker to something behind Mrs. Wheeler. He snorts, sending the drink sloshing over the sides of the almost-full glass, at whatever it is. Just as his mother turns to see what had caused the reaction, Dustin pounds both fists on the table twice. The action causes a cacophony of racket as the dishes and cutlery clatter. Mrs. Wheeler turns back around with startled eyes.

Dustin smiles sheepishly and sits back in his chair. "Sorry. Spasm."

Mike looks at the drink in his lap with an expression of disgust. Laura is surprised that Mr. Wheeler doesn't make a joke about crying over spilled milk. He seems too focused on his meal to bother with everyone's unusual behavior, content in his own world.

Holly slouches in her high chair, her face scrunched like she's about to cry. Mrs. Wheeler leans down to console her. "It's okay Holly. It's just a loud noise."

Nancy looks at the boys with a scolding expression. "Nice."

Dustin pulls his lips into a guilty line, staring down at his still-untouched plate.

They all have something to hide. For Laura and Nancy, it's just a party. But these kids whose best friend has just gone missing? She can only guess what secrets they carry.

_______

a/n:

mike wheeler as an annoying little brother appreciation❤️

i'm really excited to write the party at steve's house! it's going to be a big plot point for multiple reasons, and it'll also lead to some important twists.

i hope you enjoyed the chapter, and thank you for reading!

—kristyn

TRANSLATIONS:

Jiji: Japanese nickname for "grandfather"

( word count: 3.8k )