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013. 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿, 𝗶𝗻 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝗿.
𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐈 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐖𝐀𝐈𝐓. Her motto was always “wait for no one”, because sometimes you wait too long and realize that what you’re waiting for just isn’t coming. That motto started some time ago when she was a teenager, she didn’t really know when, but she’d said it so often to her mom, to herself — even to Dustin — and they knew she was serious about it. Lori did things on her own accord. All the time. Whatever it was, she did it how she wanted, even if how she wanted was by the directions of someone else. Whatever appealed to her liking, she used. She knew herself, to a certain extend, but at the same time she knew well that nobody had ever really known who they were.
So if she waited for nobody, why was she sitting in her own car, early in the morning, waiting for none other than Steve Harrington. She had the keys — she didn’t let Steve hold the keys — and she could well on just drive away. But she sat in the passenger seat, waiting with her feet up on the dash, as he pushed open the door of the jewelry shop.
He had the box in his hand, with the necklace in it, and his other hand shoved into his pocket. He stepped off the curb and walked against the wind to her car, his face scrunched from the cold breeze.
“Jesus, what took you so long?” Lori said, when he pulled open the driver’s door. There was no reason for him to be driving anymore — he’d only driven the way there because Lori fell asleep and he, well, it was his fault they were going anyway. “Did you make conversation with the man at the counter, or something?” she said, looking away.
He slid into the driver’s seat with a huff. “He was really talkative.” he said, simply, his voice monotone as he searched for the keys.
Lori reached for the keys in the pocket of her jacket. “I’m sure he was,” she said, not believing it. The keys jingled in her fingers but she didn’t pass them to him yet. “You still have the necklace, right? You didn’t back out of it.”
He caught her eye, and he stared for a second. “Course’ not. It’s in the box.” he said, with a sigh.
Lori adverted her eyes down to the little box sitting between them on the center console. She let the keys fall into his hand at that.
Steve grabbed the keys, twirled them for a moment and then started the engine. There was a grave look on his face, as Lori was observing, his face portraying the same kind of tense that it was when he’d been talking about Nancy on the docks. The engine roared and his hands fell onto the wheel.
Lori was looking forward as the car reeled backwards, and drove out of the parking spot, down the little hill away from the shop. She watched the shop disappear in her side view mirror, until it was gone and they were on the main road. She looked at the passing buildings, at the few people in town who were awake now— roaming the main street, going to work— and the blurs of falling leaves that obscured the yellow lines on the ground. Her throat was humming a mindless tune for a while, and Steve simply drove, his eyes pinned forward to where they were going.
When they passed the last building of Evansville, Lori let out a small, barely audible sigh. She was trying not to think about it, but they were heading back to Hawkins. Soon they would be in Hawkins again, and things would be shitty, she would have to dodge the burning questions of why she stole her mother’s car in the middle of the night. There was more to it than just the punishment, though — Lori wasn’t afraid of punishments — it was rather the fact that Hawkins made her feel stuck. It was a weird place, and there was always something, just… off. She didn’t want to go back to being curious every day and hating it.
Lori turned her head, to look out the back window as the little town slipped away from them. Or, as they slipped away from it. Figuring it was useless to dwell on it, she turned back around, but stopped her eyes at Steve. He hadn’t talked in a while, or made a stupid comment, or just said anything at all. She stared at the side of his face.
She hummed and looked away, newly shifting her eyes to the glove compartment in front of her. Technically, it was Maureen’s car, but Lori drove it often enough to have her own belongings scattered in random places of the vehicle — like the glove compartment, where she cluttered her miscellaneous cassette tapes and other random items. An idea coming to mind, Lori reached forward an pulled the compartment open, reaching a hand in.
Steve glanced to her, as she sifted through items that clacked when they hit each other. She was bent over just a bit, her eyes seeking out the thing she had in mind, her fingers pushing useless junk out of the way.
“I know what’ll cheer you up,” Lori finally said, with a joking tone to her words. She gripped her fingers around a cassette, bringing it close to her and shutting the glove compartment with a quick push.
“Since when do you care to cheer me up,” Steve said, his voice neutral. He looked down, only with his eyes, at Lori who was leaning over the center console.
“I am quite the versatile woman, Harrington,” she said distractedly. She lined the tape up with the slot, and pushed it in slowly, emitting a click. “Besides, we’re not in Hawkins yet— so let me enjoy this break until we reach the welcome sign.”
Steve had noticed the way Lori was acting in the last hour — the smiling in the jewelry shop, the joking without implicating actual offense — and he’d only realized now that it was because they were away. Away from their town, away from school, away from Nancy, away from it all. And suddenly, as Lori pressed the buttons on the car’s cassette player, he realized with great confliction that when they got back to Hawkins, both of them would return to their pissed-off, loathsome selves. He bit down on the inside of his cheek.
Lori pressed the play button, and then a second later, out played the intro to David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane album. It played through the speakers, the first track, only for a moment before Lori was pressing buttons again. She clicked fast-forward until the familiar electric guitar of The Prettiest Star buzzed through the speakers, and her face enlightened.
“I fuckin’ love this song,” she said, her lips creasing into a smile at the satisfaction. She sat back in her seat.
Steve looked over at her, as they turned onto the long, long one-way road that led back to Hawkins. He looked at the smile on her face, and her hands that began to strum on an air-guitar, her mouth moving along with the humming of the song.
Steve tightened his grip on the wheel, biting his lip before deciding to speak. “Y’know this is my favorite Bowie album,” he said.
Lori didn’t say anything as she smiled at that with an open mouth, catching his eye for a moment. “Cold fire, you’ve got everything but cold fire,” she sang out, her voice loud— she wasn’t a great singer, but that didn’t fucking matter. “You will be my rest and peace, child. I moved up to take a place,”
She paused, turning her head to Steve. He looked at her briefly, with a growing side-smile that she could point out.
“Near you,” he finally said, through slightly closed lips.
Lori let out a loud laugh and closed her eyes, “So tired. It’s the sky that makes you feel tried,”
Steve tapped his hands on the wheel to the beat. “It’s a trick to make you see wide, it can all but break your heart,” he dragged the word out.
“In pieces,” Lori continued, at the same time that he did. They both weren’t the greatest singers, but it didn’t matter at all. Not at all.
Steve let out a laugh as the chorus rolled in, and it felt good, to laugh. He caught himself realizing for a moment, just a moment, that it felt genuine. Really genuine. He turned his head to look out his window, laughing as his hands tapped the wheel and as Lori leant her head against her headrest.
She belted out the words of the chorus with her eyes closed, blending in with the volume of the music that she turned up. She felt the music slip into her veins, and it felt good, it felt different than any other time she’d listened to Bowie. He joined in, Steve, leaning forward on the wheel and belting to the front window at his own. Their voices mashed together, a horrible, voice-cracking harmony that only fools portrayed.
When the chorus ended, Lori opened her eyes and let out a refreshing sigh. She’d only ever screamed song lyrics when she was alone in her car. But she suddenly didn’t care, as she reached for the volume dial and turned it down just a little bit.
“So what’s the plan, Harrington,” Lori said, her voice loud.
He glanced to her, his lips in a side-smile. “For what.”
“How are we gonna win the girl back,” she said, with a joking roll of her eyes.
“Oh, that,” Steve said, and looked back to the road. “You’re gonna help me?”
Lori shrugged. “I seriously have nothing else to lose.”
He narrowed his eyebrows. “But we’re even now. I gave you your cassette and you let me borrow your car,” he said, with a confused tone of voice, “We’re squared.”
“We’re about as squared as a circle.” she claimed.
“The hell does that mean,” Steve looked at her.
“I just wanna know what your plan is,” she said, honestly. “We came all this way, so you better have a good plan to follow it up.”
He shrugged, “Well, I dunno,” he said. “I guess I was just gonna give her the necklace— maybe, like,”
“Just give it to her? Like at school,” Lori furrowed her eyebrows. “That’s one hell of a plan, lover boy.”
“You have any better ideas?” he said, while reaching for the volume dial and turning it up just a tad, as a song he liked came on.
“Yes. This is what’s going to happen.” Lori turned a bit in her seat, staring at the side of his face. “You’re going to drop us off at our houses, you’ll take your car to the store, buy some flowers — maybe some roses, girls like roses, I think — and you’ll drive to her house. Show up on her doorstep, confess your undying love, the whole nine yards.” she rolled her eyes sarcastically.
“Isn’t that — a bit cheesy?” Steve said, hesitantly.
“You’re a walking cliché. Clichés need cliché ways of winning their cliché relationships back.” she stated, shrugging as she leant her elbow on the window ledge. She leant her head against her open palm.
“Okay, and where will you be?” Steve squinted his eyes at her. “Keying somebody’s car?”
“I’ve never keyed a car in my life, I don’t know why you still think that I have and will,” she said, calmly.
He let out a laugh, looking to his side.
“You’ll be winning Nancy back while I, take the car to the Henderson’s so I can avoid my mother’s wrath.” she finished, her lips in a tight line.
“And what if Nancy isn’t home later?” he asked. He lifted a hand off the wheel, putting it up.
“Then you’re shit out of luck,” she chuckled, looking at the road.
“D’you really think I need a grand gesture,” he asked, seriously.
She shrugged nonchalantly. “I was literally kidding about all of that, but if you want to, then I say just go for it.”
He stared at her for a moment, “I can never tell when you’re telling the truth,” he said. That was Lori in a nutshell.
“Good.” She said, simply.
Steve formed his lips into a line, and rubbed a hand through his hair.
Lori sighed, and reached for the volume dial. “Tell you what— a final note of advice to conclude this whole morning of advice-giving,” she said, shifting her eyes up to him. “It’s not good to have regrets. It’ll only end up shittier in the long run than any outcome you can think of now. So just do it.” she concluded, and turned up the volume.
And then there she went, singing along to the music again. Steve watched her for a second, really taking in what he’d discovered about Lori Philbin that day. She was random, she gave good advice when she wanted to— only if she wanted to— but within a moment, her advice-giving mood was gone and she focused her attention on something else. He thought about what she said about regrets, as he stared out at the road in front of them and listened to her voice against the music for the rest of the ride.
It was approaching the afternoon when Lori’s black car pulled up in the Henderson driveway. The sky was grey, per usual, and it was colder here than it was in Evansville. The rest of the car ride played out the same way— the Bowie tape playing in the background, they would sing the lyrics too loud or sometimes too quietly, as they drove down the long road, back to where they came from. They’d gone through nearly four Bowie tapes, almost reaching the limit of what Lori even owned, in the two and a half hours it took to drive back.
Lori tried not to think about it now, but the displeasure she felt when the ‘Welcome to Hawkins’ sign came into view was truly consuming, and made her upset just like how it did the very first time she’d seen it. And as soon as they passed the town line, she felt peculiar. Now that they were back, they were supposed to return to their normal, boring lives of hating each other, they both thought that. But the more they drove into town, she was getting confused at the thought of not wanting things to go back to how they were.
Whatever that meant, Lori was now stepping up the front steps of the Henderson home. Steve had dropped himself off between their houses, and Lori had taken the car, driving down their suburban road, past the pumpkin patch, to where her aunt lived. There was no car in the driveway when she pulled up, which was weird, because Claudia seemed to always be home.
Now, Lori pushed open the door, opening it to a quiet home. She’d seen Dustin’s bike in the laneway, so she knew at least he was home.
“Hello?” she called into the quiet house. Her voice was loud against the stillness.
Nobody answered, and that was when she heard the sound of a garbage bag being fluffed, from outside the back door. She figured her cousin was just taking out the trash, and he’d be in soon. Not that she needed company, all she planned to do was stick around until her mom loosened up about her midnight escapade.
Lori walked over to the phone, sitting on one of the antique cabinets in the living room. She picked it up and brought it close to her ear, biting her tongue in concentration as she dialed the number Steve had given her before he left. She listened to the rings, each one longer than the last, until they stopped.
“Hello?” The voice on the other line spoke out.
“Hey— Steve, it’s Lori,” she said, as she moved to lean her shoulder against the wall.
“Hey, Philbs,” he said, sounding almost refreshed to hear it was her.
“You got everything?” she asked, her finger twirling the cord mindlessly by her ear. “Remember the plan?”
There was a shuffling on the other line. “Yeah,” Steve said, the word short. He let out a breath. “Pretty sure.”
“The flowers,” she asked.
“Check,” he responded.
“Necklace?” she asked.
“Yeah, check,” he confirmed. “I’m heading over a bit later, though, I’m running into some stuff right now,”
She sort of guessed that it was his dad, maybe mad at him for sneaking out. But she didn’t really know anything about his family. “Yeah, okay, just checking.”
“Alright,” Steve concluded, tiredly. “I’ll see you later, then,”
“Au revoir,” she said into the phone, and then placed the handset back down, hanging up.
With that, she let out a breath and pushed off the wall, walking right over to the couch. She plopped herself down on it. Dustin still didn’t know she was in his house yet, but she didn’t bother, because he would find out soon enough. He was doing something outside, which sounded like rustling through a shed or gathering garbage bags.
The leaden sun that was spilling between the eggshell curtains in the Henderson home, bathed Lori’s shoulders in a prickling warmth as she huffed and dug the heel of her converse into the carpet floor. Many minutes had passed, and the aching boredom was beginning to crawl up from her stomach, and she could hear Dustin doing whatever it was that he was doing, which filled in the background noise. Except, usually there was a more defined background noise. And that’s when Lori flickered her eyes over to Claudia’s rocking Lay-Z-Boy across from her spot on the couch.
The spot where beloved Mews was supposed to be sitting— was unexpectedly vacant.
He was always the background noise. The cat was always sitting there when Claudia wasn’t home, every waking and sleeping moment of the day. When it was empty, that could only mean Claudia was in possession of the poor thing, cradling it in her arms like an infant. But Claudia was not home. And Mews was nowhere to be seen.
Lori sat up a bit in her slouching spot. With narrowing eyebrows and a brain spiraling with new curiosity, she wanted to call for Dustin, but straining her vocals chords so he could hear her from all the way in the back didn’t seem necessary. And so she crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the empty rocking chair, at the lines and patterns engraved between the material of it. The toe of her converse was digging into the carpet more now.
When a minute passed, staring at the empty chair, she’d had enough. Mews never trotted around the house for fun. He was a fat, lazy cat. Lori stood up on her feet as she heard a faint “shit!” from Dustin in the back. She rose to her feet, narrowing her eyebrows.
Suddenly, she halted in place. A weird, almost like a slush sound came from somewhere down the hall.
She recognized it instantly— it was the same sound she’d heard in her car that morning she drove Dustin to school, from inside his bag. She remembered him dodging her questions about it. She remembered the sound that his bag had made— it sounded like this, now. The noise came form somewhere down the hallway, and so she furrowed her eyebrows and walked towards it. She approached the threshold of the hallway.
It was only when she reached the threshold, that she heard a growl. Not a swish or anything else, it was a growl. One of an animal.
“Hey, uh— Dustin!” Lori shouted, turning her head to the side a bit, angling it towards the back door that was at the opposite end of the hall. “Did you leave your window open last night?”
She kept her eyes pinned forward, and stepped slowly down the hallway. Her steps were small.
“Not now, Mom!” She heard him shout from the backyard. “Wait— Lori?” he called, and then he realized something. “Lori! What the hell are you doing here!”
Lori was barely listening as another growl erupted, this time more aggressive. She felt her stomach tighten when she laid eyes on Dustin’s door, closed shut unlike every other door that was open. She knew instantly, that was where the sound was coming from.
“Lori! You can’t be here right now!” Dustin was yelling, his voice quick approaching the back door. “You really can’t be here right now!”
She didn’t answer as she swallowed the air in her throat, and kept on stepping cautiously towards his bedroom door. Her shoes squished on the carpet, each step cause a creak in the floor.
Right when she reached his door, her feet stopping in front of it, Dustin was ripping open the back door. She whipped her head in his direction.
“What the hell are you wearing, Hagar?” she didn’t laugh, because she was too focused on what was in his room. Dustin was decorated to the T with hockey equipment, baseball equipment, and sports sticks as weapons.
“Don’t go in there!” he called, from the opposite end of the hall. He didn’t move, just put his hands out as a warning in fear that if he moved, she would do it. “I repeat— do NOT go in there!”
A growl sounded from the other side of his door, causing Lori to look back at it. It couldn’t be that bad. “The hell d’you have in here, kid.” she said, her voice low.
Before he could say anything else, she placed her hand on the latch of his sliding door, and gripped hard. She pulled it open, expecting to see some sort of animal.
But what she did see, made her scream. Louder than she’d ever screamed before. Lori Philbin even let out a scream that was louder than the time she’d landed right on those fucking thumbtacks.
𝙅𝙐𝙇𝙄
lori is nosy deal with it
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