╭ ╮
━━━━  " 📂 "

𝙏 𝙃 𝙀 𝘾 𝙃 𝘼 𝙄 𝙉

╰ ╯

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
1983

SHE WAS SAT IN THE CORNER BOOTH AGAIN, and it seemed like common knowledge amongst the waiters dotted around the diner that she was breaking up with the boy in front of her. It was the fourth time it had happened in the year she had frequented it, and one of them was convinced it was the second boy she had brought there all over again.

It wasn't though, Josie wasn't that cruel, she was just... indecisive and regretful, trying to fill a void she had created when she left her hometown behind for the city the year before. This one was Matthew, the one who smiled at her up on the bleachers whilst she stood on her tiptoes to talk to her friend sat there, who had bumped into her in the hallway the next day and asked if she wanted to come watch one of his games. He ignored his friends shoving his shoulder and the warnings that came because she had indeed dated one of them before because he was one to chance things.

And from the looks of things, his jump into the dark hadn't exactly panned out. A tense conversation has risen between the two teens, the girl cross-legged and hostile as she surveyed the growingly irate appearance of the boy in front of them, her eyes not flickering away even to signal for a server to ease the situation. She was speaking calmly and didn't seem to feel the awkwardness that the realities of the conversation brought; the two people in the corner booth were in the midst of a breakup.

It was almost ritualistic now. First it was Bobby, the initial boy in the high school she had newly joined the year before after transferring away from Hawkins. He had taken it in his stride with a smile and were still friends even after the pattern emerged. They had ordered a plate of pancakes and shared afterwards, and he had even driven her home. Then it was Charlie, and then Steven and now Matthew.

Two of them were just Josie being an entirely awful person, that she was breaking up with them because she simply didn't want to be in that relationship anymore and she didn't like them as she thought she did - that was Bobby and Matthew, and Josephine was yet to gain the ability to tell whether the latter would react in the same mellow way as the former. Another, Charlie, wasn't even really a breakup. They had met at a party, drunk, and gotten together then and another time at a party the following week, with a brief interlude of purely the benefits of being two single people in high school, but Josie truly preferred relationships than whatever it was they had garnered.

Steven was the longest of them all. He had begun sweet, a member of the school's football team and the recommendation of one of her friends. They had seen each other over summer, joined him on his family trip up to Lake Michigan and then, after that, when Josie had found herself falling into old habits of closing up against those, he had grown angry and restless and nothing like the boy who was her boyfriend. They had broken up out of necessity, and he had left as he accused her of being nothing but a whore who was playing games with everyone for fun.

She supposed it did seem that way, to most, but it was at least evident to her as she found ways to excuse her hopelessness at finding someone who actually truly meant anything more to her, that she was struggling with something that wasn't initially apparent, but would instead show with time as she became more comfortable. It was reason, rather than excuse, really, because it wasn't far on anyone else for them to suffer due to her helplessness.

Matthew had smiled at her, like always, and nodded when he heard her say it, telling her that he had expected it because she wasn't talking as much and had been different since the start of school. He didn't get angry, but she could see it in his expression that he was suppressing any of the upset he felt deep down and told her that he was sorry and he couldn't stay to eat.

Just like Bobby, except he wouldn't offer her some sort of complimentary drive home. She hadn't expected him to, of course, but she was just glad he hadn't thrown some sort of childish fit like Steven did as he stomped his way out to the parking lot.

Left alone, her head lowered as she stared at the table, some sort of awful gut feeling lifting as she was lightened of the load that was a boyfriend. It was unfair, she knew, but the ritual was something she was a slave to, bored otherwise in a city she didn't belong.

At the sight of her alone, the mutterings between servers ceased as someone put forward themselves to approach her, asking what she might want to drink or ate before she left without.

Her eyes were bright as the waitress approached, not reflective of the situation she had just surpassed at all. "So, who won the pool this time?" She asked, before the poor woman could even get a word out.

"Pardon?"

"The pool for how long it would be until he left. I noticed everyone doing it last time I was here with someone." Josie replied, looking up expectantly at her. It had, admittedly, been obvious this time, to see out the corner of her eye the marking down of small sums of money and the slipping of notes between fingers. "Did someone get it?" She glanced down at the watch on her wrist. "It was only about seven minutes? Correct?"

"Eight." The woman told her. "Johnny got it, the chef?" Josephine nodded. "He's offered fries on the house."

"Yeah, I'll take that." Josie accepted and let out a sigh, easing back in her chair. "Could I get a chocolate milkshake as well? With whipped cream and sprinkles?"

The waitress nodded. "Sure, I guess. I'll be back with them in just a second."

And once again, Josie was left alone in the corner booth, focus only on the table in front of her as cars passed by outside.

✧

There was something from MTV playing when she returned home. Her father's car was in the driveway but there was only Cynthia in the living room when she pushed her keys in the lock and pulled the door open.

"Jesus, Josie, you almost gave me a heart attack." Her father's girlfriend exclaimed, a hand clutching to the chunky, particularly ugly necklace around her neck. "Knock first next time, okay?"

"Maybe if you turned the volume down and looked away from the screen for a moment then you wouldn't have this problem." Josie replied with a shrug, because she had never expected herself to be nice to someone like Cynthia who was only a few years older than herself and had most likely met Lonnie when he was in the midst of running some scam or something. She didn't know, she had never felt the need to ask.

"Well you don't have to be so... what's the word..." Another thing about Cynthia that cast an immediate doubt to how positively Josie viewed her: she never seemed to know what to say.

"Cynical?"

"No, no... ironic."

Josie stared at her for a moment, before turning to hang her coat up and kick her shoes off. "They're synonyms." She informed her. At the blank look she shook her head. "Cynical and ironic mean the same thing, except you can't use ironic in this context because it doesn't make sense at all. It would be ironic or perhaps hypocritical of me to tell you that if I shared your TV habits but I actually care about spatial awareness, so I don't."

"Well you don't have to be rude about it." Cynthia scoffed, smacking her gum as she spoke. "What got your panties in a twist this time?"

Before Josie could come up with some kind of clever retort, her father appeared in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. "You're back late." He remarked. "Matthew drop you off?"

"No, I walked." Josie replied, taking a step forward to try and get past him but found that he was blocking the doorway. "Come on, I just want to go to bed."

"You shouldn't be walking back alone this late. Why didn't Matthew drive you?" Lonnie asked, as some kind of phantom of a caring parent overrode whatever his usual asshole instincts were.

"We broke up." Josie shrugged. "Can I please go to bed?"

Lonnie didn't say anything, hands dug into his pockets as she pushed past him and made her way to the small room she had managed to make her own in the short period of time she had been there.

"Your mother called." He said, as she was just about to slam the door behind her in a fit of rage akin to that of a toddler. She did that sort of this a lot when she was pissed off with Cynthia.

But, interest prevailed and she wedged her foot between the frame before it could slam. Her bag chucked onto the bed, Josie took a step out into the hallway. "Why?" She asked. Joyce called often - more often than she liked but somehow less often than what was expected of her, and Josie still didn't know where she stood with her mom.

"Your brother's gone missing, apparently."

Josie's limbs felt sticky as she looked up at him, moving to fold her arms across her stomach. "What do you mean he's 'apparently' missing? He's either missing or he isn't. You can't 'apparently' be missing." She said, disapproval and accusation evident into her tone.

"God, you sound like your mother."

"Well, that's hardly surprising." She scoffed. "So is he missing or not?"

"Will probably just ran off." Lonnie dismissed. "He'll be at one of his friend's houses or something. Your mom is just worried about nothing. And even if he is really missing there's no chance of him being found if Hopper's still chief. The man's a loose canon."

Josie stared at him in disbelief. "I can't believe you." She whispered, shaking her head. "Mom isn't worried about nothing - she can't find her son! That is a perfectly valid reason to be worried! And you know her, you know her better than I do, and she most certainly will have already checked his friend's house." She paused, taking in a deep huff of a breath to calm her agitation. "You should be more concerned about this. He's your son too."

"That fag isn't my son." Lonnie hissed, shaking his head as though she had just accused him of a heinous crime.

"You're an asshole." Her heart thudded in her ears, face pale. Cynthia had wobbled up from her seat on the couch, moving to stand by the fridge to watch them. "He's your son - you shouldn't... I can't believe you're being like this. Will is missing and you're calling him... calling him that? Shouldn't you be driving to Hawkins right now to go and try and find him. Do you really not care?"

"You're just like them, you know. Too fucking sensitive, too fucking cynical, it's pathetic." Lonnie shook his head, fingers curled into a fist by his side. He wouldn't hit her, she knew that, but he had been drinking and half the posters on the wall were covering punched holes. "I let you come with me here. One argument with your mother and you're wanting to run away too, but ever since being here you've been nothing but a bitch, Josephine, you're nothing like the girl in Hawkins. She was someone I could be proud of."

"Fuck you, Dad, fuck you." She spat, finger pointed at him. "I don't know why I spent so long trying to please you because unless I end up like her-" she jabbed her thumb towards Cynthia "-with a waster of a guy who peaked in high school who drinks through his shitty paycheck and doesn't care that his own kid goes missing, then you're never gonna be happy with me."

"Don't talk about her like that." Lonnie glared at her, the fist by his side beginning to swing. She was right, he had already spent a good chunk of money on the beer in the fridge. "You don't get to talk about her like that."

"She can speak for herself, can't she?" Somewhere deep down, Josie knew it was wrong to involve Cynthia in this, but a bubbling anger that had grown since the very moment she had met her dad's new girlfriend - not yet a month after divorcing her mother - was flooding her veins.

"Don't involve her in this, Josephine." He shook his head. "This is about your mother and the fact that she let her son go missing."

"He's your son too." She replied, because what else could she say? The blatant disregard of his paternity towards Will was further than disappointing, and a year of regret was beginning to formulate her own idea. "And even if you deny that, he's still my brother. If you're not going back I will."

"No, you won't." His words were harsh; pointed. "You're not going back there. Why should you? Will is fine, your mom just hasn't seen him for a day."

"Why are you doing this?" Josie couldn't care less if she was beginning to sound hysterical, her voice raising and emotion bleeding through. "Why are you brushing away the fact that Will had gone missing? You're acting like Mom just lost some... some... I don't know, she lost her keys or something. She didn't just misplace him - he's lost, Dad, gone!"

"You're not going back there, Josephine. You have yourself to think about, there's no point wasting time-"

"He is my brother, Lonnie." She said, and for the first time in a year she truly sounded exactly like her mother, the same tone, the same blazing anger in her eyes, the mournful regret that somehow she had ended up with him. Because really, Josie and Joyce had fallen into the exact same trap; somehow they had trusted him, believed him, and exchanged meaningful glances because a point had been missed and a point of pride had been shared over time. Josie had found herself leaving with him, leaving her family behind, but yet she was not saved from suffering the same fate as her mother.

It had been building since she left Hawkins, the regret. Because she didn't know why she had done it, why she had left everything behind just because her mother worried that she wasn't living life as she wanted and was instead living to curate pride from her father. Joyce had known exactly what was wrong, but Josie, egotistical and utterly convinced she was right in thinking she was doing things for herself too, and had left with her drunken father like anything would change.

Nothing had changed, except her, because she had come to the realisation that ultimately, everything about the person she had created was false. She did enjoy cheerleading, she did enjoy her time with her friends and she did love Steve, but nothing had been for her. It had been all for him.

The feeling of physical hesitation shattered any anger. "If you knew better, Cynthia, you would leave as well." Josie felt a bitter bile in her throat and she swallowed it back. "I'm going back tomorrow Dad, even if you couldn't care less about your son. He's my brother and I'm going to make sure he comes back home."

"Don't you dare, Josephine." Lonnie shouted after her as she disappeared past the door frame. "If you go back there do not even think of returning here."

And as he raised his fist to thud yet another hole into the wall that Cynthia would rush to clean up, Josie slammed the door closed and clicked the lock. Her mind was made up.