32. Chapter 32

Chapter Thirty-Two

The first two weeks of July went by slowly for Jessica. She came down with a cold, and summer colds were the worst and hardest to get rid of. She felt so bad she missed a week of work. The first two days she had a stomach bug and couldn't keep anything down and just felt like she was going to die. Just getting up to go to the bathroom made her feel like she'd run a marathon, she was so weak. After that, she still had to deal with congestion and a cough, and why did she have to get sick in the summer?

She spent most of the time in her room those first two days because she didn't want to give her sickness to anyone else. Her mom and Dustin did what they could to help her feel better and keep her hydrated. After the stomach bug passed, she still had to deal with the residual weakness from not being able to eat for two days. She had to be careful what she ate while recovering, because she still got nauseated easily.

She didn't come out of hiding until she was sure she wasn't contagious, which meant she hadn't really seen anybody but her mom and brother for a while – she had refused to let Steve into her room even though he had come over twice just to check in. He could've used the phone, but he'd come over on the off chance she would've let him see her.

After the two weeks that seemed to last forever, the rest of the month flew by. When she wasn't working, she was either at home or hanging with Steve, Nancy, or Jonathan. To be fair, the only time she spent any real time with Jonathan was if she took Dustin to the Byers' house to visit or if they met up to drop the kids off somewhere.

Near the end of July Jessica took the kids to see The Never Ending Story. She wanted to see it too, though, so it wasn't just for them. She hoped they enjoyed it because it seemed to be the only good movie coming out for a while.

Ever since Steve's birthday party if Jessica wanted to go swimming, she would suggest going to the community swimming pool. Steve didn't seem to have a problem swimming there, and it was a good way to spend a few hours when they both were free. The kids usually went with them, of course, and sometimes Nancy and Jonathan did as well.

It was one of those times when everyone was at the pool that Nancy brought up the fact that Barb's parents, the Hollands, were thinking of hiring a private investigator to look into their daughter's disappearance.

"Is that really a good idea?"

"I don't know," Nancy admitted. "I just know they really want to know what happened."

"Well, you haven't –" Steve started.

"I haven't said anything. I wanted to, but I didn't."

"Well, good, because it wouldn't end well if they became involved or got anyone else involved," Jessica said. "They don't know what happened, but if anyone came close to the truth . . . you know what Hopper said happened to Theresa Ives. We don't want that happening to anyone else."

"I still wish the lab could be shut down."

"Will goes there for therapy," Jonathan said. "The ones who ran the lab last year aren't there anymore."

"Yeah, but there are still people there. They're probably just as shady."

Jessica didn't doubt that. Government types were shady anyway.

August was a pretty uneventful month for everyone – not uneventful as in nothing happened, but uneventful as in nothing bad happened. Jessica, Dustin, and her mom drove to Chicago for a week and stayed with Ms. Henderson's side of the family, but they also got to see their grandparents from their dad's side of the family.

Dustin's front teeth had started coming in, so they were bothering him a little, but he was also glad they were coming in. They would probably be completely out by the time school started.

That week was the first time Jessica had been away from Steve for so long since becoming his girlfriend, and even though she enjoyed spending time with her family she did miss him a lot. She called him before bed every night. That was what she was doing right at that moment. She had to sit at a kitchen chair and talk to him, but that was okay . . . even if it did mean that everyone could hear what she was saying.

"I miss you," Steve said. "It sucks not having you here."

"I know. I miss you too. It's only a few more days."

Everyone had a lot to do once they got back home. Jessica had to go back-to-school shopping, as did Dustin, but he was going to go with their mom. Jessica could do it on her own.

She and Steve were going to start looking into colleges. They didn't really want to go too far and definitely not out of state – the cost of tuition was much higher if you decided to go to an out of state school. She could probably swing an academic scholarship if she tried hard enough and signed up for enough, but she was still going to have to end up getting a loan once she figured out where she wanted to go.

They were also going to have to look into taking their SAT at some point before applying.

She'd always thought senior year would be her best year, but just thinking about it kind of made her brain feel overwhelmed. There was just so much to do.

"Are you having fun over there at least?"

"Yeah, I mean, it's great seeing everyone again. It's just, you know . . . you're not here."

Dustin gave her a look and fake gagged and she rolled her eyes at him.

"So, how are things on the home front?"

"Well, my parents are home again. They have some function nearby, so they actually get to be here for a while."

"I'm glad you're not alone," she said.

"Yeah. Dad's finishing up the paperwork for that new mall they're going to build. I think they start working on it in a couple weeks. They've already cleared the property, so they can start as soon as all that stuff is done."

"Does that mean your parents will be home more often?"

"Not really."

"Hm. Okay, well, I have to go to bed. I'll talk to you tomorrow night. I love you."

"I love you too. Good night."

They were not the type to have the "You hang up," "No, you hang up," type of conversation, but they did both wait a few seconds before actually hanging up.

Dustin was shaking his head at her when she finally did put the phone down, but he was also smiling, so it was okay.

The first thing Jessica did when she got back home was go see Steve, obviously. His eyes just about lit up when he saw her and it made her smile so big it hurt her cheeks.

He picked her up and swung her around before placing her back on her feet. Even though it had only been a week, they were acting like it had been much longer.

They went to go get dinner at a burger place and then went back to her place just to hang out a little. They went to her room then and Jessica started on a project she'd been meaning to get to for a while and just hadn't gotten around to – sorting through her dad's pictures so she could decide which ones to put in an album and which ones to keep in the box they'd been in since she didn't know how long.

She called Dustin into the room because he probably wanted to see them too. He had barely started the second grade before their father passed away, so he didn't have as many memories as she did. She would let him look and then tell him stories if he wanted her to.

She remembered the first time she'd seen these when she'd been cleaning out the guest room for Steve. She hadn't been expecting to see her dad's face staring back at her from the pictures and she hadn't been able to keep from crying. They didn't surprise her this time, so she was able to keep it together and look at them without feeling overwhelming sadness.

Most of the pictures were just of holidays and birthdays – hers and Dustin's – and she tried to sort them by year by comparing ages.

She'd have to go to Melvald's General Store to pick up a photo album when she went out to shop for school stuff. She really did want to put the pictures in an album; she felt they belonged in one.

Melvald's really was the place to go if you need just about anything dealing with school supplies and things like that.

Jessica had decided to make it a getting-ready-for-senior-year day. She was going to meet Steve at the library later, but at the moment she was stocking up on pencils and paper, notebooks and binders. She picked up a photo album just like she'd planned to.

It was on her way out that she first saw Joyce coming out of the back room. Someone who definitely did not work there came out of the back with her. Jessica recognized the person as Bob Newby, the manager of the Radio Shack in town.

Joyce made her way behind the counter, where Jessica had already placed the things she wanted to purchase. She looked a little disheveled. Jessica could only guess what she and Bob had been doing in the back room together to make her look that way.

"Hey, Ms. Byers," she said, smiling at her. Then when Bob walked by her, she said hi to him as well.

Bob didn't stay around long and after he left, Jessica looked at Joyce again and grinned.

"You seem to be doing well."

"I am, for the most part."

"Good. Uh . . . how long have you and Mr. Newby . . . ?"

"A few weeks. He's very nice."

"He's always seemed to be, yeah."

Jessica wondered what Joyce had told Bob about what had happened to Will the year before. He'd had to have wanted to know, he'd had to have asked questions. And Joyce wasn't allowed to tell the truth when it came to that.

"Is this everything for you today?"

"Uh, yeah,"

In the end, she ended up with three bags.

She said good-bye to Joyce and then went to her car to drive to the library to meet with Steve.

Steve had been at the library for about fifteen minutes when Jessica got there. He'd already gotten a few brochures of the nearby colleges so they could look at them together. He'd even pulled a practice SAT book from one of the shelves. He hadn't looked at it yet. He was already feeling overwhelmed by the concept of looking at colleges. Add in the fact that he didn't test well and he was not looking forward to studying the book at all.

"Hey," she said as she reached him, giving him a quick kiss before sitting down. "You okay? You look a little pale."

"Yeah, I – this is a lot."

"It really is. If it makes you feel any better, I feel the exact same way. Probably everybody does if they're planning on going to college next year."

Steve took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It did sort of help that he wasn't the only one feeling the way he did.

"So, what college brochures did you pick up?"

"Mostly the ones nearby. They're maybe an hour or two out."

"Okay. Sounds good. How are the prices looking?"

"Uh . . . about ten-thousand a year, so five per semester. That doesn't include the dorm prices or book expenses or food."

"Right."

This time Jessica was the one who took a deep breath. Steve knew the price was what was bothering her. Her grades were there; she'd have no problem getting into whatever college she wanted to. It was the thing of her not having the money on hand to go. Sure, her family was well off enough not to have to worry about money, but not well off enough they could just offer up that much money at once for her to go to school.

"Remember scholarships and grants," he said.

She nodded. "Yeah. Okay."

They found out that the next scheduled SAT was in January, so at least they had some time to study, and there were later dates they could choose from if they decided to.

The librarian took a look at what they were doing and then brought them a book that had a whole list of different scholarships you could sign up for depending on what you wanted to study. It was very helpful. Most of the scholarships required an essay to sign up, but Steve knew Jessica could easily do that, and she would help him with his if she could.

That was how they spent most of the rest of August – looking into colleges and getting ready for senior year.

Steve just hoped he could keep up with her.

The first day of school finally arrived and despite the fact that Jessica had made a big deal out of it, it was just like any other first day of school she'd had.

The first week was the same too. All the teachers had to go through the rules and regulations of the classroom, send all the required papers that needed to be signed home, and all that stuff.

Jessica shared math, science, and gym with Steve and they had the same lunch period, but other than that they were mostly on opposite sides of the building, which sucked because they couldn't always meet up between classes like they had the year before.

Jessica had a few classes with Tina, the cheerleader that liked to throw parties. The girl was a partier, but she still did well in school, and they knew each other enough to want to sit together when they could.

They received a syllabus for each class, of course. English that year was going to be a lot of reading and a lot of papers – Steve was going to love that. History seemed like a lot of book work, just like normal, and science was a mix of biology and chemistry. Math was just a more advanced form of Algebra – Steve was going to have fun with that too.

Steve still had to talk her through gym class, but she knew he kind of enjoyed that, so it was okay. They were switching between gym and health every other week, so at least she would get a break.

The fact that senior year felt just like any other helped Jessica feel more confident about the future. She could do this. Steve could do this.

They would get through it together.

Okay, so, this chapter was pretty much just tying things up so I could start Season 2 in the next chapter. It may take me a while to update because Spring Break is over and I am not working again - even if I am working from home. I will write when I can, but I can promise it will be quicker then those month long waits - or even longer waits. I won't be doing that as long as I can get time to write between tasks at work.

If I had been going to separate this story into separate parts, this is where I would've ended the first part, but I really can't be bothered to think of another title, so . . . yeah. Titles are sometimes the hardest part of writing for me. The reason I would've ended it here would've been that hopeful little comment at the end of this chapter, and then start the next story because all hell breaks out pretty soon.