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chapter three: have you seen barb?

also know as

chapter three: holly jolly

  ONCE SOLEIL GOT- to school she went to find Barb and Nancy. She only found Nancy towards the end of the day and once they saw each other they both had the same question.

"Have you seen Barb?" They asked each other in unison.

"No, I haven't seen her since last night. I went inside to get her another bandaid then I came back out and she was gone." Soleil explains.

"Well, the last time I saw her was when we were talking by the staircase." Nancy says guiltily, thinking back to there argument.

"I don't know, but I have a bad feeling about this. At first I thought she was joking around. That she just wanted to scare me. But then I heard something in the bushes. Like some sort of animal, but I couldn't see anything. So then I went back inside to see if she was there. She wasn't. There was no trace of her." Soleil rants nervously.

"I don't know, I'm worried about her. She seemed upset last night. I don't know what happened, but I think I was upsetting her." Nancy says.

"Well, let's not dig too deep into this she probably wasn't feeling well and stayed home today. I should be getting to class anyway." Soleil suggests trying to reassure herself that Barb was okay. That Barb hadn't gone missing.

"Yeah, yeah you're right. Let's go, I'll walk you." Nancy agrees, even though she knew something was off. Just as she was about to close her locker Steve walks up to the two and greets Nancy with a kiss.

  "How about I see you after school." Soleil says, not wanting to be around the couple. She knew something bad happened to Barb and all her friend cared about was her boyfriend.

  "Uh, yeah. For sure." Nancy says before looking back to the boy. Before Soleil walked away there was a lingering gaze between Steve and her. She broke the eye contact, walking to her class.

  Steve's eyes were still lingering on the girls figure as she walked away, Nancy snaps him out of his daze asking him if he was okay. He replied with a quick, "Yeah," blinking quickly as though to wipe the image of his girlfriend's best friend from his head.

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  After the last period of the day the two girls met up again and headed for the pay phone to
call Barb.

  "Hello?" The small voice of Mrs. Holland was heard on the other side instead of Barb like the girls were hoping.

  "Hi. Hi, uh, Mrs. Holland, it's Nancy."

  "Oh, Nancy how are you?"

  "I'm good, I'm good. Um, I was just wondering, uh, is Barb there?" Nancy asked and Soleil look at her friend expectantly hoping for a sigh of relief or a thumbs up.

  "Umm, nope. She hasn't come home yet."

  "But she did come home, right? After the vigil?" Nancy continued.

  "No, she said she was staying with you last night."

  "Right, yes. She did, sorry. I meant, did she come home this morning? I think she left some textbooks and she was gonna go pick them up." Nancy explained, and Soleil got more and more worried by the second.

  "Oh, um, no, I haven't seen her."

  "Do you know what? I just remembered... she's as the library." Nancy lies.

  "Nancy, will you please have her call me as soon as you find her?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, I will. Sorry to bother you." Nancy says before hanging up the phone.

  "So?" Soleil says.

  "She's not home none has any idea where she is. What if she's gone missing? I mean with everything that's happening I wouldn't be surprised." Nancy says worriedly.

  "Look lets not assume anything I know it seems easy to say that, but we gotta have hope, right? Let's just try to not assume the worst." Soleil said, though she was in fact assuming the worst. She just put up this strong front so that Nancy wouldn't freak out, cause if she did so would Soleil.

  "Yeah, you're right. Can you come with me to Steve I promised I'd go to his basketball game and I don't know how much longer I can sit with Carol and Tommy." Nancy says with a slight laugh.

  "...Okay." Soleil says with a small smile.

  Just as the two girl walk up to Steve and his friends they see Jonathan with them too. That couldn't be good.

  "Here's the starring lady!" Tommy exclaims.

  "What?" Nancy says, confusion laced her voice.

"This creep was spying on us last night. He was probably gonna save this one for later." Carol explains handing Nancy the photo. Soleil looks over to see a photo of Nancy in a bra and she lightly gasped looking back up to the boy before looking back to Nancy who wouldn't look up from the photo.

  "See, you can tell he knows it was wrong, but... Man, that's the thing about perverts... It's hardwired into them. You know, they just can't help themselves." Steve says, patting Jonathan's shoulder harshly before ripping up the photo he had in his hands.

  "So... we'll just have to take away his toy." Steve says while throwing the ripped up pieces into the air.

  "Steve..." Nancy says quietly.

  "No, please not my camera." Jonathan said. Soleil felt somewhat sorry for the boy knowing he was going through a lot, but that didn't justify what he did. And what he did was wrong and an invasion of her friends privacy. But she also didn't agree with the way Steve handled it.

  "Here you go, man." Steve says handing the camera to the boy. As Jonathan reached out to take it Steve dropped the camera to the floor. The camera shattered on the floor. Soleil stepped back only slightly.

  "Come, let's go. The games about to start." Steve said before walking away swiftly. As the rest of his crew walked away Nancy and Soleil stayed. They watched as the boy quickly dropped to the ground picking up the pieces. Then both girls bent down to help him. Soleil saw a picture of herself that was ripped. It was from when she was sitting at the pool next to Barb.

  "Hey, Nance! Come on." Steve yelled after the girl. Nancy quickly picked up some photos and put them in her bag before walking away.

  "I'm really sorry about all of this. Steve, he, uh, can be a real ass sometimes." Soleil says to Jonathan.

  "Yeah." He says quietly.

  "Well, I'm gonna go." Soleil said looking back at Nancy who was tucked under Steve's arm waiting for the girl. She turned around and picked up the pace, jogging slightly to catch up.

  "Sorry to make you wait. We can go now." Soleil says following after the two.

  The five of them waited in the hallway for the game to start and listened to Carol talk about absolute nonsense.

  "So I told Mr. Mundy... The solution of ten plus Y equals... blow me." Carol says as Soleil pays no mind to the girl.

  "Can we go." Soleil whispers to the girl next to her.

  "Hold on." Nancy whispers back.

  "Bull, if you did that, you'd be in detention right now." Steve says.

  "Saturday." Carol says almost proudly.

  "I bet Mr. Mundy's still a virgin." Tommy says.

  "For sure." Carol agrees.

  "Maybe you should blow him, Carol. Help your grades a bit." Tommy jokes.

  "Now." Nancy whispers to Soleil and the two girl start to walk off.

  "Whoa, Nance, where are you going?" Steve asks as he starts to stand up.

  Both girls turn around and Nancy stutters looking for an answer.

  "We, uh, we just remembered that we have to babysit our brothers and their friend for the night." Soleil lies to the boy.

  "Well, what do you mean? The games about to start." Steve complains.

  "I'm sorry." Nancy says. Before walking off rather quickly. Soleil purses her lips looking at the boy letting out a small, "Sorry," before turning around running to catch up with Nancy.

  Once the girls got to Soleil's car Nancy says they have to go back to Steve's house to find Barb. Soleil agreed even though she knew Barb wasn't at Steve house or in the woods. When they arrived they saw Barb's car parked and quickly walked up to it. Only to find the car empty. They then walked into Steve's backyard calling out for Barb.

  "Are we sure this is a good idea? I mean isn't this like breaking and entering?" Soleil says concerned.

  "No, it is not and don't you want to find Barb?" Nancy guilts the girl.

  "Of course, but I don't think she would be in Steve's backyard!" Soleil exclaims.

  "Soleil, come on let's just keep looking."

  "Okay, okay."

  Again the girls heard rustling in the woods. Just like Soleil had heard the other night. The girls call out for Barb as the look around the woods. They hear branches crunching and suddenly something runs past the two. Soleil shreiks in fear and Nancy falls to the ground.

  "Nancy!" The girl yells, helping her up before the two run out of the woods and back to the car.

  Once they're in all that is heard is their heavy breaths. Soleil's shaking hand reaches for her car keys, starting the car she quickly swerves onto the road and drives to the Wheelers house definitely past the speed limit. She drops the girl off saying a quiet goodbye. Then making her way to her own house.

Today was a long day.

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word count: 1,628

JAYDA
so that's this chapter
i've been pretty consistent lately
we're getting slightly more steve and soleil's content 😍
and some less sibling bonding😞
but next chapter we'll see more lucas and soleil bonding🙌🏽
i accidentally skipped an episode so i wrote the next chapter before this one and got myself really confused cause i was like isn't this supposed to happen now🤨🤨
but yeah
don't ghost read🥱🥱

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