You ever have that feeling like the walls of Hawkins High are just slowly closing in on you? Yeah. That’s how Senior Year Round Three felt. By now, I knew everyone and everything in this place. Or I thought I did.

That was before you walked in.

Fifteen. Tiny. Quiet. Big eyes like she was always watching, calculating. Everyone said you were some kind of prodigy — one of those rare freaks of nature who could probably solve nuclear equations in your sleep. Should’ve been a freshman, but nope. There you were, dropped right into Senior Year like some kind of lab experiment gone rogue.

People talked. A lot. Yeah, ‘cause Hawkins High always loved anyone even slightly different.

You didn’t care, though. That was the thing. I could see it in the way you moved through the halls, like none of the crap around you even touched you. I kind of respected that. No—scratch that—I admired the hell out of it. I mean, I spent years trying to drown out the judgment with noise and metal and Hellfire, and here you were doing it with silence.

Then came that moment. God, I’ll never forget it.

Jason Carver — local golden boy, varsity jerk — decided to play hero in the hallway one morning. I was at my locker, minding my business, when I heard him.

“Hey, genius girl,” he said, swaggering up to her with his usual pack of hyenas trailing behind. “You doing everyone’s homework for fun now? Or just Eddie’s?”

I didn’t even have time to turn around before you shut him down. You looked at him — actually looked, like he was a specimen in a jar — and then said, in the calmest voice I’ve ever heard:

“Your GPA is lower than the temperature of a freezer. I wouldn’t do your homework even if it was the last thing preventing the extinction of the human race.”

I choked on my own spit. Jason blinked, caught completely off-guard. You weren’t done.

“Also, considering the fact that you think steroids count as a ‘brain supplement,’ I wouldn’t exactly throw stones. Eddie may be weird, but at least he has a personality. You? You’re just… generic.”

Boom. Dead silence.

And then, I laughed. Couldn’t help it. Loud and full and real. You walked right past Jason like he didn’t even exist. And when you passed me, you raised a brow and said:

“You’re welcome.”

After that, I started paying more attention. you weren’t just smart — you saw things. Not in a nosy way, more like… observant. Like you were constantly collecting data, processing, understanding everything better than the rest of us ever could.

We got paired for a history project a few days later. I figured it would be awkward — I’m all chaos and jokes and you’re all quiet precision. But it worked. Like, weirdly well.

“Did you even read the assignment?” yoj asked, eyeing the half-crumpled sheet I pulled from my backpack.

“Define ‘read,’” I replied, and you actually smirked. Not a lot, but enough.

We started meeting up after school. Library, sometimes the Hellfire room when it was empty. We didn’t talk about much at first — mostly the project, until you made an offhand comment about how absurd the Revolutionary War was. I countered with a rant about powdered wigs and how George Washington probably listened to metal in an alternate universe. You laughed. Like, a real laugh.

And that was it. We just… clicked.

Of course, my friends noticed.

“Eddie, man, you’re hanging out with her now?” Gareth asked one day. “The little robot girl?”

“She’s not a robot,” I said, a little sharper than I meant to.

“Yeah?” Jeff smirked. “Then why does she blink like once every five years?”

“She’s just… different,” I muttered, “You guys wouldn’t get it.”

And they didn’t. Not yet. But I did. I got it.

You didn’t need people to understand you — hell, you’d survived years being misunderstood. But something told me you appreciated being seen. Really seen. And I did.

It wasn’t a romance. Not yet, maybe not ever. But it was something. And in a place like Hawkins High, that’s rare. A real connection.

And together, somehow, we made sense.