29. Chapter 29

I know I updated quickly this time. I have two weeks off from work because of this virus thing and I've been writing almost nonstop - I love it (the writing part, not the virus part) I have not come into contact with it, I don't think, but I work at a school and it has been shut down for a while, so . . . I'm making the most of it. Hope you guys are safe and healthy!

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Steve got Jessica back by Easter Sunday as he'd said he would, and he spent the day with her family, for the most part.

Their schedule stayed pretty much the same as it had been before the trip to the lake house. Jessica still had to work, and Steve still had baseball practice.

The teachers were starting to stress upon the students how important it was to study because exams were coming up in a few weeks. This just meant that on days when Jessica didn't work Steve would come over right after baseball practice and they would study.

She could tell he was feeling anxious about the exams because he was having an even harder time focusing than normal – especially when it came to math and English. Steve had a hard time remembering all the formulas for math, and their English teacher had assigned them an essay for their final exam. It was a research paper; they could pick the topic as long as it was school appropriate.

One thing that had changed around the Henderson house was that now there were two animals inhabiting the place as well as the humans. Their mom had bought Dustin a turtle, mostly because he'd wanted one, and then a few days after Steve and Jessica had gotten back a cat had followed Dustin home from Mike's.

He'd claimed it as his own, but it really gravitated more towards their mom. Jessica was pretty sure it had been abandoned – it was used to humans and was really lovable. They ended up calling the cat Mews.

Dustin and his friends still had Dungeon and Dragons nights at Mike's house. Sometimes Jessica went with him for an hour or two just to see the others.

Jonathan usually just dropped Will off and left, so she didn't get to see much of him, but she talked to him at work and at school so that was okay. Nancy was usually busy studying, so Jessica didn't see much of her either. She was more worried about the kids, anyway.

She knew Dustin was okay because she lived with him; Lucas seemed okay too; Mike, however, was withdrawn and moody. It could've just been his age. He was twelve, going on thirteen, but he'd been through some serious trauma in November, and he'd lost someone on top of all of it. It didn't help that he was still getting in trouble at school, talking back to the teachers, not wanting to do his work, graffitiing the bathroom walls. It worried her because Mike was a smart kid; she didn't want him getting into any real trouble.

Whenever she tried talking to him, though, he shut her down almost immediately and tried talking about anything else but how he was feeling.

Will didn't really want to talk about anything either, but he seemed to be doing okay. He was still quiet and shy like he normally was. He had started seeing a new doctor, though, because of his not-very-frequent panic attacks. The doctor's name was Dr. Owens. Joyce said he was with the government, but he wasn't from the lab. He seemed to actually care about Will, so that was a plus. Will had to go see him every other week. The doctor made special trips to the lab for Will's appointments.

Sometimes when Jessica would go with Dustin to Mike's she would leave after an hour or two to go meet Steve somewhere. Sometimes it was at a diner to get dinner or even just ice cream, but sometimes it was at his house where they could be together without interruption. Jessica wasn't sure her mom knew about that, but her mom never asked either.

It wasn't like they didn't study when they were at his house; they were just able to do other stuff too, stuff they couldn't do at her house because of her mom or because of Dustin. They were still careful, Steve always used a condom, and Steve always treated her with the respect she deserved.

Jessica still had a curfew even though she was an adult now, but it was only because she was still in school. She always made sure she was back home by the time her mom wanted her there and her mom seemed okay with her being out more, so Jessica was not going to complain.

Steve had baseball games on Saturday nights and when Jessica didn't have to work, she would go to them. One particular Saturday night in late May, she ended up taking Dustin and Lucas along with her. Will and Mike weren't much into sports, so they had opted out of going with her.

They were in the bleachers behind the batter's fence, each of them with a soda and a hot dog. Dustin and Lucas weren't really paying attention to the game; they were having too much fun talking. Jessica switched attention from the game to the two boys every now and then, but only really focused when Dustin started talking about some camp he wanted to go to over the summer.

The camp was called Camp Nowhere. If he went this summer, it would be the first time he went anywhere by himself for a long period of time.

"What is this camp thing anyway?" she asked.

"Well, it's a science camp. You can invent things and learn stuff you don't learn in school. Mr. Clarke gave me a pamphlet. I left it with mom. She said she'd think about it."

"Oh. That's . . . neat, I guess. How long would you be there?"

"About a month. It starts in June, a few days after school lets out."

"Oh. You really want to go?"

"Yeah, I think I do."

"Well, then you should definitely do it," she said and ruffled her brother's hair.

After the game was over, Hawkins winning by three, the team went to celebrate at the local diner. Jessica went with them, along with Dustin and Lucas, though the latter two decided to go to the arcade across the street about halfway through. Jessica was fine with it; she would go get them before she left to go home.

The guys were talking about some of the plays they had made during the game, including Steve hitting a home run in one of the innings and making a great slide home in another. Steve was a fast runner; it helped a lot with baseball.

Jessica wasn't all that into sports talk, but she still enjoyed being a part of it for the after-game celebration. It helped that the diner they went to usually offered free milkshakes if the team won, which they had.

The food was not free, however, and everyone had ordered fries and a burger. Jessica stole some of Steve's fries and he ate part of her burger, so it worked out pretty well.

"I can't believe you still dip your fries in your shake," Steve said as he watched her do it.

"I can't believe you still think it's gross," she shot back playfully. "It's the perfect blend of salty and sweet."

"I'll take your word for it."

The team and the people who had come to the diner to celebrate with them were piled around a few tables, packed tightly together. Jessica was almost on top of Steve, which she didn't mind, but she knew it was going to become overwhelming if she had to do it for a long period of time. All of the noise, plus being super confined in the crowd of people was a surefire way for her anxiety to start acting up.

It helped that Steve knew her enough to know that she would become overwhelmed at a certain point and that he was rubbing soothing circles over the legs of her jeans. His touch grounded her a bit. Still, it would eventually become too much and she would stop talking or not smile as much, and she knew Steve would then make up some excuse for them to leave or at least go outside for a few minutes to get away from it all.

She sort of loved that.

The closer exam time came, the more anxious Steve seemed to become. He started fidgeting more and was more easily agitated. Jessica didn't mind it because she knew it was not directed at her even if he did sometimes snap at her. He would always apologize after, and it wasn't like he ever yelled at her or really even hurt her feelings.

"Steve, you're going to do fine. We've talked about this before. You're doing much better since you've begun studying with me."

"Yeah, but you don't get it. I blank out on tests, okay? I can know the material and still fail because I just . . . I freeze. And I need to do well, okay? If I don't want to end up working for my dad, I have to, because he won't pay for me to go to college for anything other than what he wants me to study and . . . come on, do I really look like a business man? Like I could sell houses or land and do it well?"

"Well, I mean, no, but that's because you don't want to. I think that whatever you decide to do, you will do it really well if you decide to do something you like."

"Hm . . ."

They were at her house, in her room, sitting on her bed with their math books open in front of them.

"Have you thought about what you want to do?"

"Not really. Exactly. But . . . I was thinking of something to do with kids, maybe. Like a guidance councilor or a social worker, maybe a child psychologist. Like . . . I don't know. I saw what happened this past November and . . . I just remember the most important part was keeping the kids safe. Like . . . that was my priority, you know. Kids need to be protected."

"Wow," Steve said. "That's . . . that's a lot of schooling."

"Yeah. Six to eight years, I think."

"So . . . you want to go right after you graduate?"

Jessica shrugged. "I was thinking about it. I thought you wanted to, too."

"I do. I just don't know what I want to do yet."

"And that's okay. The first two years of college are just getting the core classes out of the way anyway. You have time to decide."

That seemed to make Steve relax a bit, so she smiled and kissed him quickly on the lips. She probably shouldn't have because that just made Steve want to deepen the kiss.

They ended up lying side by side, hands caressing each other's bodies, math book forgotten.

The exams were held the last week of school, and the only one Jessica couldn't really help Steve with was the English one and that was because they had done all the research for the paper before going to class. She had gone over his rough draft to fix any mistakes, but she couldn't help him with the final one because that was going to be written in class during the exam.

They had studied together for the other classes, though, and as long as he didn't freeze like he thought he was going to he would be fine.

Each of the exams, aside from English, were one-hundred-and-fifty questions, mostly multiple choice, but there were a few short answer questions thrown in there as well.

Jessica was fairly certain she'd done great on her math, history, and English exams, but she'd never been great with science. She was sure she'd passed, but maybe not with flying colors.

The last day of school was when they got their exam scores back, and Jessica could tell that Steve had passed them all just from the way he reacted when he met her at her locker at the end of the day. He was all smiles.

She had passed all of hers as well, but she was glad Steve had. It would show him that he wasn't stupid, no matter what anyone else had said to him.

"We should totally celebrate," he said. "Last day of school. Start of summer."

"Sounds good."

She had cleaned out her locker already, having given the text books back to the appropriate teachers; the only thing she'd needed was her bag.

"So . . . what do you want to do?"

"Well, I have to work today," she reminded him. "But we can meet after for food. And tomorrow I'm dropping the kids off at the theater. That Indiana Jones movie is still there. Dustin really wants to see it, so I suggested he ask the others. There's also Ghostbusters and Gremlins. They're coming out soon. The Karate Kid comes out at the end of the month."

"Since you're mentioning them, am I to take it you want to see them?"

"Maybe." She leaned up to kiss him. "Come on, I have to go home and change for work."

The first few days after school ended, Jessica spent most of her time with Dustin since he was going to be leaving for camp soon. Sometimes Steve was with them and sometimes he wasn't.

She helped Dustin pack for his trip. He had all the clothes he needed, but he needed some supplies for being outdoors, such as sun screen and bug spray. She and her mom took him shopping.

Luckily, the camp supplied the science stuff he would need, and he would have three meals a day there. They had vending machines, though, in case the kids suddenly wanted a snack between meals, so he needed money for that.

From what Dustin had read in the pamphlet about the camp, the kids would be introduced to a new science project every week, and he would be there for a month. That was the part that Dustin was excited about the most. The kids would also have chores, some would help in the cafeteria, some of them would be in charge of helping keep the bunks clean. Nothing major and nothing Dustin couldn't do if he set his mind to it.

All in all, Jessica could tell he really wanted to go.

When the day came for him to finally go, Jessica got up with him and their mom so she could ride with them to the drop off point about thirty minutes away. From there he would get on a camp bus and it would take him the rest of the way.

Dustin was excited on the way to the drop off point and kept talking about what he was going to learn at the camp. Jessica listened because she was happy he'd found something to be excited about.

There were other kids Dustin's age on the bus, Jessica was glad to see. It was good he'd get to meet other people his age that liked the same things he did.

She noticed that her mom was misty-eyed – it made sense; Dustin had just gotten out of school for the summer and he was already leaving to do something else. Jessica thought it was good for him, though, even if she was going to miss him.

Dustin hugged both of them before boarding the bus and waved at them from the window once he'd found a seat.

They stayed there until the bus left and then Jessica had to nudge her mom to get her moving again.

"This will be a good thing, Mom. Dustin needs more people like him in his life."

"You're right. I know you're right." They made it to the car. "He's just . . . he's young and he's going off by himself."

Dustin would be fine. Of course, their mom had no clue what he could withstand because she had no clue what he'd been through last November. Dustin would be more than fine.

Okay, so . . . yes, this was mostly filler. I want to summarize their summer vacation and all that so bear with me for a few more chapters of filler stuff before I get around to starting Season 2. I'm going to enjoy writing Billy if I can ever figure out how I want to write him. I like unpredictable, borderline psychotic characters!