I stumbled back into Dustin, holding my face from the pain that had just been inflicted upon me.
   "Steve, what the hell?" Dustin asked, holding my arm to make sure I didn't fall to the floor. I was okay, but he was really worried.
   Steve disregarded Dustin, glaring me dead in the eyes. "Don't you ever talk about Nancy that way again. Do I make myself clear?"
   I pushed Dustin off of me, standing up to my full height as I looked back at my brother. "She'll never love you. You know that, right? To her, you're nothing."
   "And to everyone else, so are you." Steve turned around and walked out of my room.
I can't believe he just said that to my me.
   Dustin look at me, waiting a minute before talking to me. "Well, you're obviously not okay, bu- oh my gosh, you're bleeding!"
I turned around and looked in my mirror to see a very small, very bloody scratch just below my eye. Damn it, Steve was wearing his class ring. "Shit." I put my finger to my cheek, only to have Dustin take it away.
   "Where's your first aid kit?" he asked, starting to walk into my bathroom. I followed him in, opening the cabinet under my sink to get the bright pink first aid kit I had created for myself but never had to use. I never got hurt.
"It's just a scratch, really-"
"A bleeding scratch." Dustin lifted a cotton ball covered in disinfectant on it. "Hold still."
He put the cotton ball on my cheek, making me wince a little bit. "Damn, that stings."
Dustin shushed me, getting a Band-Aid and putting it on his knee as he finished cleaning up the scratch. "Hey, about what Steve said..."
"What?" I asked, waiting for him to finish his sentence.
He sighed, putting down the cotton ball and looking me square in the face. "You're not nothing, okay? I mean, we haven't known each other that long, but already, I know that everyone in the party considers you part of our lives now. Mike may not like you now, but he'll come around in a few days. Will seems to love you already, and Max would love another girl in the group. Point is-"
   "Point is what, Dustin?" I interrupted. "They've all ignored me since fifth grade. They've forgotten who I was. You didn't even remember me from school!"
   "Okay, you need to tell me what the hell happened between you and my friends," Dustin said. "What happened, Nikki?"
   I took the Band-Aid from his knee, unwrapping it and going back to the mirror to put it on my face. "Nothing. It was a long time ago."
   Again, Dustin took my hand, taking back the Band-Aid and placing it carefully on my face. "It's obviously not nothing, Nik."
   "Yeah, well, it should be nothing," I murmured. "I'm just being a bitch."
Dustin scoffed. "You're only a bitch when you- I-I mean, you're not a bitch, Nikki. Not a bitch."
Smirking, I sat back down on my bed. "You should go hang out with your friends, Dustin. They probably miss you."
   "Look, I didn't mean-"
   "No, I'm not upset about that, I can be a bitch," I said genuinely, giving him a small smile. "They just... it's just that they might jump to conclusions like Steve did, and you don't need that."
   Dustin got up and closed the door to my room. "I don't care, they can think what they want. Now, tell me what happened between all of you."
   I looked out my window, praying that I could find another way to change the subject. "They're really awful at football-"
   "Nikki." Dustin looked at me seriously, obviously not giving up until he got an answer.
   I sighed. "Fine, but if you hate me for telling you, it's your fault.
   "When we were in kindergarten, Mike , Will, Lucas and I were really great friends. I loved hanging out with them and talking about the space shuttle and introducing them to Elton John (teaching them about real music). We were thick as thieves. In third grade, when I got D&D, I taught your little friends how to play. I was their fighter."
"You?" Dustin asked. I nodded. "Damn."
Laughing, I continued. "Everything was great. We were best friends, and I knew that they were always gonna be there.
"But then, in fourth grade, there was a new student at school. He was really cool and funny, and the boys were absolutely enchanted by him. I thought he was great, too, and we all agreed to invite him into the party. He was our Bard."
The realization on Dustin's face was clear. He looked at me with sad blue eyes. "Oh."
"It's not your fault, you know," I clarified. "That's why I didn't want to tell you. I agreed to letting you in, and I knew that I wouldn't be the outlier anymore; yeah, I was the only girl, but you were the new kid. I expected you to get a ton of attention. What I didn't expect was how easily the guys forgot about me.
"Soon, they would be saying things like, 'We're having a sleepover, but it's a boys' sleepover,' or 'Sorry, Nik, we forgot to invite you to the last campaign.' I was the one they forgot about. By the end of fifth grade, I was done.
"You guys still loved D&D, and I had nobody else to play with, so I gave Mike all of the materials and things to keep and decided to leave quietly. You'd all pretty much already forgotten about me, so it was easy to phase myself out.
"In middle school, I decided that since everyone else was mean to you guys, I didn't want friends. Steve, of course, wouldn't let that go, so he let me hang out with him and all of his friends. They weren't crazy about the arrangement, but in time, they sort of adopted me as their little mascot. But at Hawkins Middle School, I succeeded in being exactly what I needed to be: invisible."
Dustin obviously didn't know what to say- he just sat there, staring at his hands. "I had no idea," he whispered. "I remembered there being a girl hanging out with us in fourth, but we all just sort of figured she'd moved away."
I nodded. "Except for Will. He seemed to remember me. But the other guys, I guess, blocked me out of their memories."
"Maybe they didn't," Dustin countered. "Maybe that's why Mike hates you so much."
That actually could have been true. When we were younger, Mike had a huge crush on me; even when he started ignoring me, he still liked me. When I left, he got really mad at everyone for a long time- just because I avoided them didn't mean I stopped paying attention.
   But no, Dustin couldn't know about that. "I don't know," I replied simply. "Maybe."
Knock, knock, knock.
   "Nikki? It's Will."
   I looked at Dustin nervously, but he just shrugged, walking over to my door and opening it.
   "Hey, I- oh. Hi, Dustin." Will looked between the two of us awkwardly, obviously thinking the same thing my brother had. "Wait, Nikki, are you bleeding?"
   The blood from my cut had smeared under the Band-Aid.
   "No," I said, wiping my cheek quickly. I walked over to the door, opening it more for Will to join our little party. "What's up, Will?"
   "I just wanted to know if everything was okay with you and Steve. What were you two-"
   "Everything's... well, it's not good. Steve's upset about something he shouldn't be. And no, we weren't... doing anything," I said, shuddering in disgust at the thought of such a thing.
   Will laughed. "Oh, okay. Hey, you should come downstairs. Everyone wants to talk to you."
   "Okay," I said with a smile. "Hey, Dustin?"
   "Yes, milady?" Dustin looked at me with those bright little puppy eyes.
I smirked in an attempt to stop the smile forming on my face. "Would you mind giving me and Will a minute?"
"Of course." Dustin opened the bedroom door, walked out and closed it behind him, obviously listening at the door. Twerp.
I turned to Will. "I told Dustin what happened to all of us," I said softly.
Will looked at his shoes, too uncomfortable to look me in the eye. "Yeah. About that... the guys and I-"
   "You know what, Will? Don't worry about it." I smiled at him softly. I meant what I said, I was over it. The boys had forgotten me, but I moved on.
   "Well, can you come downstairs with us? We really want to catch up."
   I nodded, opening my door for the two of us to go back downstairs. When I got there, everyone was talking on the couch. Steve sat on the armchair near the television, laughing along with all of them. But when he saw me, his smile faded, and everyone turned to stare at me.
   "Holy shit, Nikki, are you bleeding?" Lucas asked, looking at my cheek.
   I wiped it again. "I've gotta get this damn thing to stop bleeding," I mumbled. "I'm fine, Lucas, thanks. My brother just couldn't control himself."
   Everyone turned to Steve, but he just kept glaring at me. "Yeah? Well, my sister just couldn't resist being a bitch to make herself feel better."
  "Okay, both of you, knock it off!" Dustin yelled. "Steve, stop being a jackass. Nikki, here." Dustin took another Band-Aid out of his pocket, unwrapping it and putting it on my face, diagonally over the other one.
   "Where the hell did you get that?" I asked.
   Dustin smirked. "You don't think I took another just in case you had another clumsy moment?" I laughed as he made sure the Band-Aid was on well enough. "Stop making your face crinkle, Band-Aids hate smiles."
   I laughed again. "Thanks, Dustin."
   Mike cleared his throat. "So, are we gonna start talking, or are you two just gonna keep flirting?"
   "Jealousy is an ugly color on you, Mike Wheeler," I muttered, sitting on the floor next to where Will had taken a seat on the couch.
   "What?" Mike looked pissed. More than usual. "Jealousy?"
   "See what I mean?" Steve asked. He gestured to me. "Bitch."
   "Leave her alone, Steve," Max spoke up. She and El had been watching nervously this whole time, and now decided to defend me.
   "Are you guys really sticking up for her?" Steve was standing up at this point, his face red with anger. "I've protected you dipshits longer than you've even known my sister!"
   "Not true," Will interjected. "We were friends with Nikki in elementary school."
   "We were?" Lucas asked. Will elbowed him in the ribs, and the realization seemed to hit him. "We were! And OW, Will!"
   Mike looked at me. "We were friends. But then you ditched us."
   "She did not!" Lucas said. "She... she... why did you leave the party, Nik?"
   Max and El were even more confused now. "Wait- you guys knew each other? And you forgot about it?" El exclaimed.
   I was looking at Will, who looked at Lucas, who looked at Mike. We were all trying to think of something to say, but no words came to any of us. Before any of us could think, the four of us all just burst into laughter, shortly followed by Max, El, and Dustin.
   "I told you-you guy-guys," I stuttered through my giggles. "I'm Invisible Girl! It's my thing!"
   Lucas kept laughing. "Your-you're right. We were best friends, too. How did you get so good at becoming invisible?"
   "I've seen The Karate Kid over ten times," I pointed out. "Maybe I've just mastered all that Kung-Fu mumbo jumbo."
   Max looked at me. "So, if they all had roles in the party, what were you?"
   "Nikki was our fighter," Will answered. "She could kick some major monster ass!"
   "She was pretty good at kicking our asses," Mike said, finally lightening up, making me smile at him.
   "Yeah, and I could still do it just as easily," I joked, lightly punching his shoulder.
   El looked at me. "You can fight? Without powers?"
   I raised my eyebrows. "Powers?"
   "How do you think El stopped you from leaving the Wheelers' basement?" Dustin asked. "She's a telepath. And our new Mage."
   "What's Max?"
   "I'm their Zoomer," Max said proudly.
   Will knew my next question and answered it before I asked. "She can drive."
   "Get out," I said in disbelief.
   "She's pretty fast," Lucas said.
   Mike laughed. "Yeah, it's just the accuracy she has to work on."

   We spent a long time catching up on everything we'd missed in each other's lives the past four years. Dustin told me about all of their science fair wins. Lucas's sister Erica still had the doll I gave her when she was a toddler. Jonathan Byers had been accepted to a few colleges for photography, but was going wherever Nancy- who was now considering a literary career- ended up going for college next year.  Max's brother Billy is a grade-A jackass. And El... well, El is really something else.
   All the while, Steve hadn't spoken once. I turned around to see what he was doing, but when I looked to the armchair, he was gone.
   "Guys, I'll be right back." I got up to go upstairs, stopping at the end of the hallway, where my older brother's room was. I knocked on the slightly-opened door and proceeded with caution. "Steve?"
   There he was. Steve Harrington, sitting on his bed, reading. Now, Steve isn't a dumb guy, but he doesn't exactly read a lot. No, my older brother only reads when he's really upset... or when the school assigns a book. And the latter is really only when he feels like it.
   But here he was, reading Watership Down, sitting on his bed with a pained expression on his face. When I said his name again, he glared up at me. "What the hell do you want?"
   I took a breath before continuing. "Look, Steve, about everything that's happened today. I was way out of line when I was talking about Nancy, and I shouldn't have said... well, anything that I've said to you today, really. My point is... my point is that I'm sorry. You've been nothing but helpful to me these past few years, and I know that if you didn't tell me about all of this, you had good reasoning."
   Steve put the book down, his expression unreadable. He walked into the doorway, making me back up a little bit, afraid of what might happen next.
   Finally, he spoke.
   "Stay away from me."

   He then slammed the door in my face, leaving me alone. Standing in the hallway. All. Alone.