tempt·ing

adjective

appealing to or attracting someone, even if wrong or inadvisable.

Between classes the halls were packed full, elbows jutted into the arms of others, books fell to the ground and were followed by angry mutters. Lockers slammed and people shouted, laughed, chatted with their friends while pushing the time they had to get to class. Teachers announced that the kids had to get to class quickly, and some ignored the teachers while others began to scramble, for they were too scared to walk into class late and had likely never missed a day of school without a doctor's note. If there was any place with people who were so different from the person next to them, it was a high school hallway.

Jonathan and Emilia were in no rush, seated upon a bench together. Emilia sat cross legged and leaned forward, while Jonathan had his feet planted on the floor and leaned back. Emilia was too short to touch her feet to the ground while sitting all the way back, she had noticed once. Cocking her head to the side, Emilia watched a goth-looking student ram through the crowd, which split like she was a leper.

Emilia pointed, "I should have went Goth after my mum died."

Jonathan laughed, "You still could, you know? I think you'd really pull off the black eye liner, the all-black clothing."

"Well, obviously," she giggled. "Just look at how they move out of her way like that! You could bet Carol wouldn't have been such a hag to me if I'd looked like that. She might worry I'd sacrifice her cat to Satan or something."

"I'm surprised you never did anyways," Jonathan scoffed as he said it.

Emilia snorted, "It's the vegetarian in me, just couldn't do it to the cat."

A teacher stepped out of his classroom and clapped his hands together, gaining the attention of a few kids, but not many. He grumbled something to himself, and then he shouted, "You kids have thirty seconds before the second bell! You must be in your classes or else I'm giving late slips to everyone still out here! We're only two months into the year, where have your ambitions gone?!"

Someone shouted in the crowd, "Public Education drains our creative energy! You're to blame for our lack of ambition!"

"Smartass," the teacher retorted, then stood there with his arms crossed.

Emilia uncoiled her legs and let them dangle over the edge of the bench. She sighed, a tiredness in her bones. She'd not been sleeping well since learning about what Billy said about her, and she knew she should have told Jonathan, but didn't want him to stress out any more than he already was. Will was getting worse, but luckily for Emilia, she hadn't had another episode. She wondered if she'd simply faced the issue and it finally decided to stop haunting her. But Will was younger, Will would suffer for so much longer.

"I guess that's our cue," Emilia caved.

"Movie night tonight?" Jonathan asked, standing up and then turning to face Emilia. He reached his hands down and she gripped them, her fingers cold and clammy. She stood before him, looking up into his eyes and wondering what could possibly go wrong between them. She wanted to stand there, his arms around her, for the rest of the day, but they had about fifteen seconds before the bell would ring.

"You bet!" She kissed his lips and was on her way to class.

When school came to an end, Steve walked with his backpack slung over his left shoulder. He didn't want to draw attention to himself, he just wanted to find Nancy and see her before they split ways for the day. A few nights prior they had had dinner with Barb Holland's parents, and Nancy had been distant since then. It was an awkward dinner, to say the least, listening to them talk about all the conspiracy theories they had about her disappearance, while Steve and Nancy knew she was lying dead in some weird other world.

But Steve didn't make it as far as Nancy's locker, for he was shoved into the lockers right beside him. Billy had his jacket in his thick grasp, pinning Steve against the wall. The metal dug into Steve's back, locks jutted out and prodded him.

"What do you think you're end game is, huh?" Billy growled.

Steve shoved Billy back, successfully, to his surprise. "Get the hell off of me, Billy, what the hell is your problem?"

The two boys had already gained quite the crowd, some eyeing them suspiciously as though they might go get a teacher to calm the situation, and the others all eager to see a fight break out. But nothing was going to happen right then; Steve straightened his jacket out and stood tall, though still so much shorter than Billy. Steve felt the strong temptation to punch Billy, but learned the year prior that punching people didn't often fix the problem. It usually got him in trouble.

"Why do you give a damn about Emilia, huh? You got the rich-bitch, why can't you leave some for the rest of us, okay?"

"Hey, hey!" Steve raised his hands, "I'm just trying to warn you, that girl can take care of herself. You know she broke some guy's nose this summer, yeah?"

Billy scoffed, "Just stay out of the way, Harrington."

Steve made his way through the congested hallways and found Nancy's locker. Eager to see her and get his mind off of other things, he embraced her and kissed her; she shrieked in surprise, but kissed back quickly, briefly. Maybe too briefly, he felt. He ignored that feeling deep down inside of him, putting the blame on her difficulty moving on from Barb's death.

"Hey Nancy!" a cheerful voice filled the air between them. Tina rushed up with a piece of paper and shoved it into Nancy's hands, "Come to the party, yeah?"

"Sure," Nancy grabbed the yellow flyer, wondering how these kids got away with hosting such huge parties at their parents house. But she also didn't want to complain, in case these parties stopped happening. It was a Halloween party, which meant dressing up.

Jonathan happened to be walking by, alongside Emilia.

"Hey Jonathan, Emilia," Nancy said.

Steve felt an anger, at himself and at Billy; he should have said something to the two of them right there, but he was too much of a coward to. He gritted his teeth as Nancy handed the invite to Jonathan and Emilia, telling them that they should definitely come and have fun. It appeared Nancy forgot that the last time Emilia went to a party, it didn't go well for her. However, Emilia took the paper without anything less than a genuine smile on her face; maybe when she changed, she realized that the world wasn't out to get her, even if people like Billy were.

Steve had a bad feeling about this party, but his tongue refused to move. 

So, it's officially connected with the show! I'll be writing the party in the next few chapters, and I'm honestly so excited for it! Just a reminder, if anyone is interested, I have started a Kylo Ren story!

Question of the Day: What's your take on parties? Do you enjoy them? Hate them? Host them?