The start of senior year was supposed to be the same old song—skipping first period, smoking by the van, and avoiding eye contact with jocks and authority figures alike. Hawkins High was a hellhole, always had been. But it was my hellhole. Comfortable. Predictable.

I was halfway through a cigarette, leaning against the rusted side of my van, boot scuffing the gravel like I had all the time in the world. And then I saw you.

You.

You were a fucking vision—if visions wore tight black denim mini skirts and had legs for days wrapped in ripped tights. Smokey eyes, red lips. Hair teased up just enough to make my stomach flip. I almost dropped my cigarette. Almost.

And then you had the nerve—the fucking audacity—to smirk at me.

“Got a light?” you asked, already holding a cigarette between those shiny lips like you’d been doing it for years.

I just stared at you for a beat. “Who are you and what the hell have you done with my best friend?”

You chuckled low in your throat. “Miss me, Munson?”

Miss you? I had spent the entire summer trying to distract myself with campaign prep and Metallica solos because my little pastel princess—yeah, the one who used to wear glitter socks and write poetry in her notebook with little hearts dotting her i’s—had gone ghost. A few letters, a couple short calls, and then radio silence.

Now here you were, looking like the cover of a punk rock zine and smoking like it was the only thing keeping you tethered to Earth.

I lit your cigarette, watching you lean in, your lips close to my fingers for just a second too long. It burned more than the lighter did.

“You, uh… join a coven over the summer or something?” I asked, trying to play it cool. My voice cracked. I did not play it cool.

You took a drag, then exhaled smoke like a femme fatale in a B-movie. “Nah. Just wanted to stop pretending.”

God. That answer. That voice. It rattled me in a way I wasn’t ready to admit—not to you, not even to myself.

The thing is, I remembered the girl who used to bring me band-aids when I skinned my knuckles, the one who cried when she accidentally stepped on a beetle. Now she looked like she ate beetles for breakfast and spat them out with black lipstick.

“You changed,” I said, more accusation than observation.

You flicked ash onto the pavement. “So did you. You just think no one noticed.”

And maybe you were right. Maybe I was hiding behind my rings and chains and devil horns. But you—you didn’t hide anymore. You owned your skin now. Like it was armor.

Later, I found out about the summer. About what happened. The guy who tried to take too much from you. The way your dad didn’t listen. The scars you learned to hide under dark eyeliner and sarcasm. You didn’t tell me everything. Not at once. But I got pieces. And when you care about someone enough, the pieces are enough to paint the picture.

You were fire now. Smoke and edges and midnight moods. And hell if I didn’t want to burn with you.

We’d hang out in my van, lights off, metal low in the background. Sometimes you’d crawl into the passenger seat, legs folded under you like a goddamn temptress. You’d lean over during late-night drives and whisper things that made me forget what gear I was in.

But other times, it was quiet. Your head on my shoulder, your fingers laced through mine, the two of us wrapped up in something neither of us could name. Not quite love. Not quite friendship anymore. Something hungry. Something real.

I didn’t know where it was going. I just knew I couldn’t look at you without wanting something—something dangerous, something more.

Maybe I was the only one who saw it—the cracks in your armor, the softness that still lived behind those sharp new edges. Or maybe you let me see it. Maybe that was the whole damn point.

All I know is, the girl who showed up at Hawkins that day wasn’t an angel anymore.

But God help me, I still worshipped you like one.