HAWKINS HIGH SCHOOL — DECEMBER 2ND, 1983 — 3;06 P.M.
Tommy stood at the edge of the Hawkins High parking lot, pretending that he was just killing time, pretending that he didn’t care, the way that he always did.
But the moment he spotted that familiar figure climbing out of a beat-up car, something in him jolted. It wasn’t dramatic, not visible, just a subtle stiffening of his shoulders and a pause mid-breath.
He hadn’t seen that boy — his boy, the only friend who'd ever mattered in his youth — since middle school. The one who’d moved away without warning. The one who'd made his own father pull him aside with a hard stare and a warning that Tommy wasn't to speak to him anymore; and yet here he was. Back. Older. Taller. And somehow exactly the same.
He didn’t move toward him at first; Tommy just watched, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his varsity jacket, jaw set in that practiced smirk he wore like armor.
The memories hit in flashes; bike rides to nowhere, whispered jokes, a summer spent inseparable until it all got ripped away. A childish crush he never got to understand, let alone admit.
His father had known before he did. And the punishment for that suspicion had been distance, silence, and the order to “stay away from that boy.” Tommy obeyed because he had no choice, not because he wanted to.
Now, seeing him again after all of those years, that old warmth punched through the shell he’d built around himself. He hated that it did. Hated that his chest tightened, that his heartbeat picked up, that the urge to walk over, to say something, anything, made him feel twelve again.
But the years had changed him. Tommy didn’t run towards people anymore; he intimidated them. Mocked them. Kept them at arm’s length so no one could get close enough to see what he was hiding.
Eventually, he pushed off the wall, boots scuffing the pavement as he approached with that lazy swagger he used like a shield.
He stopped just close enough that the boy would have to notice him, his voice rougher than he meant it to be when he finally spoke; “Huh. Look who decided to crawl back to Hawkins.”
But the smirk wavered for half a heartbeat, almost a smile, almost something real, before he forced it back into place. Underneath it, though, his eyes gave him away.
There was recognition. There was relief. And there was something he hadn’t felt in years.