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CHAPTER FOUR
a secret to the grave
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( holly, jolly, pt. i )

• °:.☆ . ₊°• ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

SNAP, SNAP, SNAP.

"Hey."

Snap, snap, snap.

"Hey, Fairer, wake up."

Snap, snap—

The voice sounds distant and kind of distorted, like her ears are plugged. But then, by the second sentence, it's like a sonic boom resounding in her ears, reverberating from eardrum to eardrum in a cacophony of noise.

"Fairer, come on. Wake up!"

A bright flash illuminates the darkness behind her eyelids, sending a sharp burst of pain to her brain. She turns her head sideways in an attempt to bury her face into her sleeve and whisk herself away into the comfort of slumber again. But then her stomach churns at the movement and she heaves a pitiful groan.

"Oh, no. Don't you hurl on my parents' rug. Get up."

Laura slowly blinks her eyes open. They feel like the heaviest weights in the world, reluctant to respond to her body's order to rise, peeling apart like they'd been glued shut to reveal blurry shapes in front of her. She winces again at the brilliant light pouring in from a nearby window. It illuminates the figure standing above her as she blinks, struggling to clear her vision.

"Yeah, that's it. Wakey wakey. Up and at 'em."

The person is Steve Harrington, Laura realizes when her vision finally clears. He's already dressed in a polo shirt with pastel stripes, gray pants, and a dark blue jacket. As always, his brunet hair is mussed to perfection, complete with one section falling over his forehead like a goddamn Disney prince.

She isn't sure if it's the sight of him or the abrupt swimming of her gut that has her slapping her hand over her mouth when her stomach tries to upheave itself.

"Oh, no, no, no, no—!" Steve's protests cut off when Laura scrambles to her knees and vomits into the potted plant beside the television. His arms raise over his head in dismay, a cringe on his face as he watches. "Okay, well, at least it wasn't the rug. But seriously, get up. School starts in, like, two hours."

School. What?

As Laura pauses with her face still inches from the soil of the ruined plant, struggling to recuperate, she starts to put the pieces of last night together. Nancy's stubborn refusal to listen to her and Barb, despite bringing them along to keep an eye on her. The argument with her and Steve. Steve pointing out that Laura isn't Nancy's girlfriend. Drinking anything she could find. And then... nothing.

And it's only Wednesday. Steve is right— they have school today.

Laura's vision does a complete one-eighty when she struggles to her feet. She stumbles a bit, but manages to remain standing. She finds that she's in the middle of the Harrington's living room. Judging by how little she'd had to move in order to vomit into the plant, she'd been passed out, tucked into the small table with the television on it.

Her eyes scour the room; every shift of her pupils sends stabbing agony to her throbbing head. But it's just Steve in here— no sign of any of the other partygoers.

"Where's Nancy?" she asks, her voice a croak.

"She left last night," Steve replies as he fiddles with his car keys. "She couldn't see you because you were trying to mold yourself into my furniture, so she thought you went home, too. Everyone went home yesterday. Well... or so I thought."

Last night begins to come back in little flashes. Barb's thumb getting sliced open. Their talk in the bathroom. Nancy refusing to accept her help and Steve hurling hurtful words into her face.

"I'll be out in a second," she'd said to Barb. And she hadn't. She'd drunk herself stupid and blacked out on the floor like an idiot. Had Barb left, thinking Laura had abandoned her, too?

Shit. She's a really, really bad friend.

Steve holds up a set of jingling car keys and tosses them into the air before catching them again. "If you promise not to puke in my car, I'll give you a ride home."

And so the two most unlikely people to end up alone in a car together wind up doing just that. Steve drives a dark red 1983 BMW, the paint so shiny that Laura can see her reflection in the door. Though he tries to relieve them of the painfully awkward silence by turning the radio on, allowing "Karma Chameleon" to play from the speakers, it doesn't stop both of them from being tense. Neither of them wants to be in this situation.

Laura does nothing except stare out the window as they glide down the residential streets in Steve's neighborhood. She can't even get lost in the music like she normally would due to her pounding headache, her temples throbbing at every thump of the beat.

Then something snaps her out of her daze. It doesn't process at first, but as the thought settles into Laura's brain, she blinks and takes her chin off of her hand, turning to look at what they'd just passed.

Barb's car is still parked on the side of the road.

"That's Barb's car," she says, wincing at how hoarse her voice still sounds. Maybe she should've asked for some water before they'd left.

"What?" Steve asks. "Why would she have parked there? We're, like, three blocks from my house."

"Nancy wanted to walk the rest of the way." Laura hardly focuses on the words coming from her mouth, her sluggish mind starting to whirl. "Are you sure Barb left last night?"

"Yeah. After I found you, I checked everywhere for more stragglers, but you were the only one." He must realize that Laura isn't convinced, because he adds, "Unless she somehow found her way into my attic, she definitely isn't still at my house."

Weird. Maybe Barb hadn't felt well enough to drive, so she'd walked? The thought of her friend strolling alone in the dark sends her nerves abuzz with apprehension. It isn't far geographically to get to Barb's neighborhood, but the woods around here give Laura the heebie-jeebies. And why hadn't Barb taken Laura with her?

These questions and more torment Laura for the remainder of their drive to Laura and Nancy's street. Everything about this morning is terrible, but it's only six a.m. She'll feel much better when she sees Barb at school. She'll be able to apologize for losing her grip on her sense of control and getting blackout drunk. It's very unlike her to do something like that, especially when one of her friends is relying on her.

Steve is quiet while she mulls this information over. He presses his lips into a line, his brown eyes flickering around their surroundings as he appears to ponder something. It's like he's debating whether or not to say what's on his mind. In the end, he does, breaking the quiet again.

"Look," Steve sighs as he turns onto her road, "I was a jerk last night. I said something I shouldn't have, and Nancy chewed my ear out afterward. So, I guess, what I'm trying to say is... I'm sorry." He chuckles, tapping his fingers against his steering wheel in a rhythmless pattern. "It's not like you actually like Nancy. That would be crazy."

He looks over at her, an amused smile on his face, as he extends an olive branch between them. This is the out Laura needs. She should just agree— laugh along and say, Yeah, completely crazy. What were you thinking? so she can move on from this uncomfortable conversation. She isn't sure if it's her raging bitch of a hangover, her concern about Barb, or some other third thing, but Laura stays silent.

Steve's smile fades. His brow creases, amber eyes briefly flickering back to the street before asking, "Right?"

Another out. Haha, yeah, right. Bananas! Bogus! Totally bonkers!

All of the words are coming to Laura's head, so why can't she say them out loud? Why is her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth now of all times? Why at this moment, when it matters the most? Why can't she play along like she has for the past sixteen years?

Steve stops in front of Laura's house and puts the car in park, killing the engine so there's nothing but silence ringing in their ears. The music hadn't been loud, but now she realizes just how much of an impact it had had on making their trip tolerable. It's stifling without it. The early morning quiet is deafening.

He stares at her — she can feel it more than she sees it, like pinpricks all over her body, stifling her — but she refuses to meet his gaze. Her eyes stay pointedly trained on the dashboard. They can't stay out here forever lest her parents see Nancy's boyfriend dropping her off, so Laura has an excuse to leave.

"Fairer?"

"Just drop it, Steve," Laura mutters. She opens the car door and still doesn't look at him when she adds, "Thanks for the ride," and slams it shut.

Laura marches across the frost-coated lawn, through her front door, up the stairs, and to her room, where she shuts the door, before she realizes the gravity of that moment. She squeezes her eyes shut and grinds the heels of her palms against them until colors dance behind her eyelids. Her head thrums with agony. Why, why, why did she do that? Why couldn't she say anything?

She may not be great at reading social cues, but Steve had been loud and clear without even needing to speak. Between his questions had been realization. Her silence had puzzled him at first, but its meaning had slowly dawned on him. He'd given her many opportunities to correct herself and she hadn't been able to take them. Hadn't been able to lie. Steve's eyes had asked questions that she hadn't wanted to answer, which was why she refused to look at him, fearful that her own eyes would reveal everything.

He knows. Steve Harrington knows her deepest, darkest secret.

What has she done?

—°• ☆ . °—

Barb is not at school.

Upon her arrival, Laura had gone straight to her friend's locker, hoping to see her familiar red hair and apologize profusely for her behavior last night. But she hadn't been there. And she hadn't been in the library to cram in some last-minute studying, either.

Maybe she's running a little behind her usual schedule. She's probably picking up her car, so her commute to school would be longer than it normally takes. These are the things Laura tells herself to keep her stomach from twisting into painful, intricate knots the closer time ticks to the first bell. She already feels vaguely nauseous from her conversation with Steve earlier this morning. Worrying too much is surely going to make her ill.

She's grabbing her History textbook from her locker when a voice behind her says, "Hey."

In spite of everything that had happened last night, Laura's pathetic little heart leaps in her chest. She turns to see Nancy standing timidly to her right. Her posture is antsy, both hands gripping tightly onto the strap of her cross-shoulder bag and her feet pointed slightly inwards. Her mouth is pinched like she's bracing herself.

"Hi," Laura greets back.

"You okay? I couldn't find you last night. Did you get a ride with Barb?"

Laura would rather run into the parking lot and get hit by a school bus than admit she'd gotten a ride from Steve after passing out like an alcoholic in his living room. That would lead to questions about why she'd been drinking so much. But she can't lie about going with Barb, either, because she's not here.

"No," she says. "I ... walked."

"You walked all the way home?" Nancy's eyes almost bug out of her head.

Laura shrugs and closes her locker, the metallic clang making her aching skull throb. "It's not that far. I walk home from work all the time during my day shifts."

"Still. It was cold and dark and — and you could've—" Nancy cuts herself off after noticing her friend's blank expression. She exhales, pressing her lips into a firm line and looking down before saying, "Laura, I'm really sorry about last night. I said some horrible things and I made you and Barb feel like outsiders when I'm the one who begged you to tag along. It was eating me up all night. I was a jerk."

"Yeah, you were."

Nancy nods. "You have every right to keep being mad at me. I just want to let you know that I'm sorry."

Laura can't lie and say that she isn't a little bit angry. Being so easily dismissed last night had stung, maybe even more so than Nancy had intended thanks to her hopeless crush, but Nancy hadn't been the one to truly hurt her. That was Steve.

She doesn't think the bitterness that lingers in her chest will ever go away unless Steve is out of the picture. It's always there — a constant sensation that ebbs and flows depending on his proximity, a reminder that he has everything she doesn't in more ways than one. So yes, she's mad. But isn't she always?

Laura looks at Nancy. Her wide, crystal-blue eyes. Her upturned brows. The way her prominent jawline tightens like her entire body is braced for a verbal blow. She's truly apologetic; Laura can see it in every fiber of her being.

She sighs. "Buy me a cookie at lunch?"

Nancy nods again, earnestly this time. "I'll buy you two."

In spite of herself, Laura's mouth twitches into a small grin that Nancy shares, the tension dissolving from her small frame until she looks less like she's preparing for war. The air between them is no longer crackling with the tension of last night.

Movement from behind Nancy causes Laura to look behind her. Steve appears through the double doors at the end of the corridor, almost fashionably late even though he has no reason to be— he'd been up and ready to go at six a.m. when he'd woken her up. His eyes scan the Sophomore hallway for Nancy. They find her, but end up flickering to Laura instead, and a spasm of fear lurches in her chest.

"Gotta go," she blurts. Nancy's brow furrows at her abrupt haste. "I'll see you at lunch."

Her friend turns around to see what has Laura so panicked. Laura spins on her heel and scurries away like Steve is a monster coming to attack her. Really, it's not him she wants to get away from, but what he knows. And a conversation that could follow. Talking about her feelings with Steve Harrington is the last thing on her bucket list.

Laura's endeavors to avoid Steve go smoothly until lunchtime rolls around and Barb still hasn't shown up. She and Nancy try to recall a time in recent memory when their friend has missed a day of school, but come up blank— she's been striving for a perfect attendance award every year since the sixth grade. She'd even come to class with a terrible case of pink eye once. It's so out of character for her to stay home that the pit of worry in Laura's stomach gapes wider with every minute that ticks by.

Then there's the matter of Barb's car still parked in the same spot they'd left it. That fact remains balanced on the tip of Laura's tongue, but she doesn't know how to inform Nancy about it without explaining how she'd noticed the car or why she'd left without Barb. She and Steve are the only ones who know about it. It's one more secret tying them together.

Nancy and Laura share twin expressions of concern as they carry their plastic lunch trays away from the line. They linger in the middle of the crowded room for a moment, feeling Barb's absence more potently than ever now that she isn't saving them a seat at their usual table. Barb always brings a packed lunch from home and holds Nancy's seat — along with Laura's if she's buying lunch that day — for her so the chess team doesn't take them. Now that she isn't there to guard their chairs, the members have taken over the entire table as if the girls haven't been sitting there daily for the past two years. Forgettable as always.

Nancy seems to ponder something before grabbing Laura's elbow and pulling her along as she marches decisively toward a table in the middle of the cafeteria. Laura notices where she's being led and attempts to dig her heels into the floor like a petulant child, hissing through her teeth, "No. No. No. No."

"We don't have anywhere else to go," Nancy reminds her in a whisper.

She casually pulls out the chair next to Steve like it's the most natural thing in the world. Laura takes the one beside hers like a pig waiting for slaughter.

Carol has her foot up on the table, showing off a gross, peeling, red welt on her ankle that makes Laura's nose scrunch in disgust. "No, I swear. Look at this. It's totally frostbite."

"Oh, thanks, man," Tommy says through a mouthful of food when Steve passes him a cup of chocolate pudding. To his girlfriend, he remarks, "It's a heated pool."

"Well, if it's not frostbite, then what is it?" Carol presses.

Steve groans. "Ugh, I don't care what it is, it's disgusting! Get it off the table. We're eating, here."

Tommy moves his spoon closer to the offending red mark. Carol slaps his hand away with an exclamation of, "Ew!" and finally puts her foot back under the table like a normal person.

Laura's fork pokes aimlessly at her tasteless green beans and mystery meat. Even if she hadn't seen that atrocity on Carol's ankle, she wouldn't have had an appetite. Not even for the two chocolate chip cookies that Nancy had bought her just as promised.

Lunch at school has always been a difficult time for her. The food prepared by the lunch ladies isn't exactly high-quality or healthy, especially due to their insistence on serving milk cartons with portions of meat like lunatics. But her food at home... she tries not to bring it, painfully reminded by the way her peers' noses had wrinkled at the authentic Japanese cuisine her mother would pack her. Nancy had always encouraged her to keep bringing it, insisting that her mother's cooking was phenomenal, but being surrounded by her white friends and their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches versus her udon bowls was too much.

It's a battle she can't seem to win. The cup of off-brand chocolate pudding on her tray mocks her.

"Hey, Tommy," Nancy says slowly, "when you left, did you see Barb?"

He stares at her blankly as he shoves a spoonful of mashed potatoes into his mouth. "What?"

"Barbara. She's not here today."

"I seriously have no idea who you're talking about."

He and Carol snicker, proving Laura's suspicions from last night that they hadn't even been aware of her and Barb's presence at the party. They had acted like they weren't there, because to them, they actually weren't.

Laura stares hard into her lap, blinking back a sudden rush of tears in her eyes. This day has been too much and their snideness is starting to tip her over the edge. Her head, still aching from that hangover, gets stuffy with the additional discomfort that comes from withholding tears.

"Come on, don't be an ass, man," Steve chastises. "Did you... Did you see her leave last night or not?"

He tries to glance around Nancy to meet Laura's gaze for a second, but the girl doesn't notice, too preoccupied with attempting to use her forgettableness to her advantage this time and melt into the background. If the two demons across from her notice she's on the verge of crying, she'll never hear the end of it.

Tommy catches onto Steve's mirthless tone and cuts the shit. "No, she was gone when we left."

Carol rolls her eyes. "Probably couldn't stand listening to all that moaning." She pinches her face in mimed ecstasy, crying, "Oh, Steve! Oh, Steve! Steve!"

Tommy joins in on the joke and begins moving his hips so the entire table rattles. Nancy doesn't react, but Steve can't keep himself from grinning, and Laura's cheeks burn a shamed, embarrassed bright red. Their behavior is so crass. Don't they care that they're surrounded by people?

Launched into a fit of laughter at their comedic genius, Tommy pounds his fist on the table while Carol throws her head back through a cackle.

Laura blinks harder. A lump grows in her throat, painfully restricting her airflow until she has to let out a breath from her mouth. It feels like the walls are pressing in on her. She's not going to make it out of this lunch period alive.

"Okay, chill," Steve commands the two. He turns to Nancy, assuring her, "Listen, I'm sure she's fine. She's probably just... she's probably just, like, skipping or something."

Nancy looks down, plastering a fake smile onto her face. "Yeah. Yeah, probably."

Her tone doesn't sound convinced. It's out of the ordinary for any of the members of their trio to skip a day of school for no reason.

Laura abruptly stands, the metal legs of her chair scraping noisily against the tile, and announces, "I'm going to the bathroom."

She leaves without looking at any of them lest they see how much this conversation has affected her. Even though a horde of people mills around her on her journey to the hallway, they fade into the background until they may as well be transparent as ghosts. The indistinct chatter filling the large room doesn't register in her brain.

Laura flings the door open, finding the bathroom empty. She heads to the nearest sink and rests her hands on either side of the ceramic bowl. When she looks in the mirror, she finds that the washed-out lighting has emphasized the flush in her cheeks and the blotchiness of her complexion, her angled eyes lined with silver. Short breaths puff from her lips as her chest constricts.

Then her figure blurs and the first hot tear spills down her face. Laura lowers her head and leans her weight on the sink, the first sob wrenching itself from her gut, guilt and worry at war in her heart.

_______

a/n:

me: i'm so excited to develop staura's dynamic in this chapter!

also me: *makes things worse between them than they were before*

i could honestly picture the scene from the first half of the chapter so vividly and i had a LOT of fun writing it. i can picture steve finding laura passed out, curled into his living room furniture, like "wtf" and nudging her with his foot. then realizing he's gonna have to do more than that and snapping his fingers. then being like this when she starts to vomit

also, just to clarify, things aren't 100% back to normal between laura and nancy and they probably won't be for a while. they still have things to work out about Last Night. but laura loves chocolate chip cookies so she's being civil for now.

thank you for reading and i hope you liked this chapter!

—kristyn

( word count: 3.9k )