As if being stuck in this place with Steve Harrington isn't bad enough to begin with.

Seeing him is always a dubious prospect for Barb, too, an unsettling mix of desperately-needed familiarity and remembered trauma, and it's easier to settle into the old way of doing things, to let her instinctive annoyance push out the rest. If she was actually nice to him, actually stopped to consider he's not the worst person in the world despite the horrific things in his pool, she's not sure she could cope with the doors that might open in her mind.

So she shoves him back as her face pinches in disgust, even though some small part of her can see why Nancy would like that kind of attention from him.

"Ew, no," she says, warding him away with an uplifted palm.