Chapter 2
The “party” was in full swing at the Harrington house and Stephanie seemed to have thawed out from her earlier iciness with Tommy and Carol.
Her eyes were calmer and her shoulders less tense as she sipped on a beer and lit a cigarette.
“So is this all you guys do? Drink at the pool in 40 degree weather?” Nancy questioned as her and Barb watched the other two teenagers shriek and laugh at each other.
“The pool is heated if you want to jump in.” Stephanie lazily looked at her, blowing out a cloud of smoke.
“No that’s no-”
“If you want a rager, maybe don’t come over on a Tuesday, my parents may be out of town, but I’m not an idiot.”
Nancy was about to reply and defend herself more when their attention was stolen by Tommy ripping open the bottom of a beer can and jugging the contents.
“What is he doing?” Nancy laughed as the boy came up sputtering for air.
“Oh come on, don’t tell me Ms. Goodey Two Shoes doesn’t know what a shotgun is?” His voice boomed over to them as Carol encouraged him with her nasally laugh.
Nancy narrowed her eyes and stood up, grabbing a beer can and a small knife from a guffawing Tommy’s hand.
“Oh shit, Wheeler’s gonna show us how it’s done!” He yelled as Stephanie and Barb exchanged looks of concern.
Looks that proved to be unneeded as Nancy flawlessly executed the same series of moves that Tommy himself had done, chugging the beer and throwing the empty can down in victory to the cheers of the other teenagers.
“Holland, you wanna give it a go?” Tommy held the knife out to the red head who quickly started shaking her head.
“Oh no- no thank you.”
Stephanie smoothly cut into the conversation as Tommy opened his mouth with a smirk on his face, “ I want to swim, you guys can borrow some clothes to go home in.”
The other two started to protest when Stephanie did a graceful arch into the pool, making the girls kind of shrug and giggle, jumping in after her.
Tommy and Carol followed suit and the teenagers splashed and swam around laughing and joking with each other before Carol got out to start drying off.
‘Damn it, Tommy!” She shrieked as an open knife clattered to the deck and Carol clutched her bleeding hand.
“Shit, Carr, I’m so sorry.” Tommy jumped out of the pool and ran to his girlfriend who pushed him away from her.
“Maybe you should check your knife is closed before just leaving it lying there!” She yelled at him.
“Carol, come on babe, it’s just a cut, calm down.” The other girls flinched as Carol’s voice took on a shrill tone as she started yelling at her boyfriend in earnest.
“Okay, Tommy, there’s a first aid kit in the pool house, why don’t you go get that? Carol, we’re going to go upstairs and change, do you want to come with us, or wait for Tommy?” Stephanie smoothly stepped into the increasingly volatile conversation, making Carol huff and walk over to a pool chair in response to her question.
Tommy rolled his eyes at his dramatic girlfriend and walked to the pool house in a huff, and the three other girls walked off to change in the house.
“Sorry about them, they're always finding something to fight about.” Stephanie told the other girls as they made it into the house, causing Nancy to cover a snort as a cough.
“You can stay over if you want, I assume they’ll head out and go to Lover's Lake to makeup, I can give you a ride to school in the morning.”
Barb turned the color of her hair and Nancy let out another snort that she didn’t bother trying to hide.
They reached her bedroom door and Stephanie turned to the expectantly, waiting to hear their decision.
“Oh we-”
“A sleepover sounds really fun! We’d love to stay!” Barb quickly cut across Nancy’s stumbling refusal and got a small yet very sweet smile from Stephanie.
She gave them clothes to change into and showed them to the guest bathroom where they could dry off and change, before making her way to her own room.
Without turning on the light, Stephanie made her way past her unmade bed.
She grabbed her night clothes and started removing her wet shirt, not paying any mind to the open window at her back, with pool lights reflecting off her walls.
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“I thought you didn't even want to come tonight? Now you want to stay?" Nancy questioned her friend as they started toweling off.
"I didn't want to hang out with Tommy and Carol tonight, Nance. But they're leaving and Steph seems lonely doesn't she?"
Nancy paused scrubbing her hair and looked at Barb, not seeming to understand what she meant.
"I just mean- look at her, her parents are gone on a Tuesday? Her only friends are ditching her to go have sex in the woods! She looks tired all the time, like she's not sleeping and I don't know, I know I would be lonely."
Nancy sat on the bed and seemed to take in her friend's words.
"She did say that she didn’t know what Jonathon would see in her.” Nancy slowly responded. “I don’t think she has anyone who really cares about her.”
Barb sat next to the brunette and sighed, "She does now."
This made the two friends grin at each other and leave the room, catching Stephanie leaving hers too.
"I'm just gonna see if Tommy and Carol need anything before they head out."
The trio walked down the stairs together and saw that the pool was empty and so they looked out the front where Tommy's car was clearly gone.
"Well, looks like I was right. They're probably already at lovers lake." This made the girls let out a small giggle as Stephanie turned out the pool deck lights and they walked back up the stairs.
Stephanie was clearly surprised as the two followed her into her room, "We have guest beds, you can take your pick of them." She offered, not comprehending why both girls settled themselves on her bed.
Nancy rolled her eyes and flopped down, "This is a sleepover, Harrington! You don't sleep in a guest room at a sleepover!"
"You don't?" Barb paused as she realized Stephanie looked genuinely confused as she slowly sat down on her own bed.
"No! We stay up and talk to each other! Maybe watch movies." Barb grinned, trying not to let her sadness show at the blinking she was getting back from Stephanie.
"Talk about what?"
Barb let her grin grow wider at the perfect opening, "Boys mostly."
Nancy popped up almost as if on cue, "yes! Boys, like Jonathan Byers!" She sing-songed as Stephanie let out a groan and threw her head back.
"You guys will never let me live that down will you?"
Barb and Nancy giggled and shook their heads.
"Absolutely not! I didn't even realize someone like him would be in your radar! I mean have you even talked to him?" Barb questioned and gasped in delight when Stephanie's cheeks went pink.
"He wasn't until last semester, we had a class together and I came in late one day when they were picking partners for a project so..."
The Harrington house was full of giggles and small shrieks for the rest of the night, a night no one would soon forget.
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The next morning saw the trio of girls all clustered around Stephanie's locker, talking about how Nancy's mom wasn't exactly happy with her when she got home that morning to change for school.
"She's freaking out over Will and like I get that but why am I being-"
Nancy trailed off when they caught sight of Tommy walking towards them without Carol next to him.
"Hey, where's Carol?" Stephanie questioned when he got within ear shot.
The red headed boy shot her a confused look, "what do you mean? Is she not with you?"
All three girls shook their heads, looking bewildered.
"When we got done changing your car was already gone, we figured you had taken her home. " Stephanie answered slowly, starting to get nervous.
Tommy started shaking his head, "no I went to look for the first aid kit but I couldn't find it so I went to grab the one from my car. When I got back she wasn't at the pool so I assumed she went inside with you. You know how she gets when she's pissed at me so I just left."
The girls all shared a worried look before Stephanie relaxed slightly, "She only lives like a block away, she probably walked home or made her sister come and get her."
This made the group relax and Tommy gave a smirk.
"You're right, I bet she decided to ditch because of Kaminsky's test today. You know she hates him." Stephanie let out a little laugh in agreement and the group split up when the bell rang for class.
The relief they all felt was short lived however, when after the second period, Nancy grabbed Stephanie and Barb, looking worried.
"I don't think Carol made it home last night." Barb and Stephanie shared a confused look at Nancy's words.
"What do you mean?"
Nancy started tugging on her bag strap in a show of anxiety before starting to talk again.
"Her sister, Sarah, is in my gym class. I mentioned to her Carol's cut and asked if she was okay after last night and she looked confused. She said she never picked her up and Carol wasn't in her room this morning, she said she assumed she had spent the night with you Stephanie. She never came home."
All the girls looked around nervously, like Carol would jump out from behind something and yell "gotcha!"
"Okay, is there anywhere Carol would've gone last night? I mean she was upset, maybe she just wanted to be alone."
Stephanie was already shaking her head at Barb's nervous questions,
"Carol doesn't do anything alone. She always has either me or Tommy with her."
Nancy started biting her lip in concern, but she shook her head when the bell rang, "Maybe we should go back to your house, look around the pool, see if there's anything there."
Stephanie seemed to shrink a little, "my parents are back this afternoon so we won't be about to go inside, but we can look around the pool and the woods."
The girls quickly split up with the plan to go to the Harrington house after school, before the game and went to class.
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The trio was walking to the parking lot, discussing the plan to look for Carol or at least clues when a loud voice could be heard taunting someone.
A loud voice that was very familiar.
Stephanie quickened her pace up the hill to see Tommy holding a bundle of pictures and a camera while Jonathan Byers was being held back by Patrick Tollmey.
"What is going on here?" All the boys froze when Stephanie's icy voice cut through their laughter and Tommy let a nasty grin take over his face.
"Oh look! The starring woman herself! Here, see for yourself what that pervert was doing last night."
By this time Nancy and Barb had caught up to Stephanie and were sharing a concerned look as they crowded around the pictures that Tommy had given her, to the protest of Jonathan still being held back.
Nancy gasped and Barb covered her mouth when they saw the pictures of the Harrington's dark house, the clear figure of a topless Stephanie in the middle of the window.
Jonathan looked away in shame when he saw Stephanie's eyes fill with tears and it made Tommy let out a harsh laugh.
"You know that's the thing about perverts, they just can't help themselves. So you have to take away their toys."
Jonathan's eyes flew to Tommy in a panic, "not the camera, please."
Tommy started laughing but was cut off by Stephanie's voice.
"Give him the camera."
Tommy's grin fell as all the attention went to Stephanie.
She was looking at Tommy, her eyes completely dry and her tone as cold as it had ever been.
"What? He took nude pictures of you!"
Stephanie passed the stack of photos to Nancy and stood up straighter, "exactly. They're pictures of me, not your freckled ass, Hagen. So give him the camera back."
Tommy stared at her in disbelief for a long moment before slamming the camera into Jonathan's chest as he walked by muttering an insult to him as Patrick released him and followed.
"Steph-" Jonathan had taken a step towards her but stopped when Nancy and Barb stepped in front of her, giving her enough time to turn around and walk away from the group.
Barb and Nancy shared a look and the red head took off after their friend, Nancy staying behind and turning her angry stare to the boy clutching his camera, watching the two girls walk away.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" She hissed at him, startling out of whatever he was thinking about.
"I-I didnt-"
"Didn't what? Didn't lurk in the woods taking pictures of us? Didn't wait for Stephanie to take her clothes off so you could photograph it? Or just didn't think you'd get caught? You're a piece of work, you know that? I thought you were different from the other assholes in this school, but you're just like them, aren't you?"
Jonathan dropped his eyes in shame, not willing to meet the fiery blue of Nancy's hard stare.
With that she stalked by him to follow her friends but not before pausing to look him in the eye and hiss, "If those pictures had been of me, I would have let him break it."
