beth :)

It always starts the same way, in your memory — with the smell of rust and rain and the world somehow too quiet.

Hawkins had a way of pretending it was fine. The sidewalks got swept, lawns got mowed, people waved at one another in the grocery store and asked about the weather as if they didn’t all feel it too, that strange pressure in the air, like the town itself was holding its breath. The sun still came up over the same houses, the same roads, the same basketball courts and school buses and diner windows, but there were nights when you swore something was wrong with the dark. Nights when the shadows looked too deep, the silence too deliberate.

Before all of it, you thought Hawkins was just small. Boring, even. The kind of place people escaped from and swore they’d never miss. But then Dustin Henderson happened to you, and Hawkins felt a lot bigger.

You met him the way you met most things that mattered in your life then: by accident, in the middle of something stupid.

It was detention. You and Dustin, both fourteen and both irritated at the world, had been sent to sit in a classroom after arguing with a science teacher, a substitute for Mr. Clarke, over whether a mineral sample was calcite or quartz. You had been right. He had been insufferably proud that you were right, as if he’d won something by association. You’d spent the first ten minutes pretending he was unbearable, and the next twenty laughing so hard you had to hide your face in your hands while the teacher glared at both of you from the front of the room.

After that, you were basically doomed.

He was your best friend in the kind of way that felt inevitable. It wasn’t forced or dramatic. Dustin talked like his thoughts were racing each other, full-speed, and you listened because he made even the most ridiculous things sound like discovery. He would ramble about science kits and theories and Dungeons & Dragons and radio frequencies and you’d pretend not to care just so he’d keep talking. You liked the way his brain lit up when he was excited. You liked how he never talked to you like you were less than because you didn’t know something. He only ever acted like he couldn’t wait to teach you.

You spent entire summers at each other’s houses, crouched over comic books and half-finished board games, even went to Camp Know-Where together. You shared cassette tapes and candy and secrets you both swore were “totally serious” and then ruined with laughter. You sat on his porch in the muggy evenings with your shoes off and your knees touching, the air full of crickets and distant car engines and the kind of stillness that only existed before everything went wrong.

He made Hawkins feel less like a trap and more like a starting point.

That’s when the world split open.

At first it was just weirdness. Minus the fact that Will went missing, then returned completely different. That was just devastating. There were strange noises. Power flickers. The kind of thing adults explained away too quickly, like if they said “probably nothing” enough times the fear would go away on its own. But fear never left, it just got smarter.

You remember the first time Dustin and his—now your— friends dragged you into one of his theories and you actually believed him. It was late, the sky bruised dark above the trees, and he was all frantic hands and wide eyes and flashlight beams. You remember telling him he was insane, that there was no such thing as monsters, and hearing your own voice shake while you said it.

Because the thing was, you didn’t really mean it.

You were scared that he was right.

And he was.

You remember running through the woods so fast you could barely feel your legs. Mud soaked through your shoes. Branches snagged at your arms. The dark swallowed the edges of everything, and every sound seemed to come from too close. The first time you saw something move in the trees that shouldn’t have been there, your stomach dropped so violently you thought you might be sick right there in the leaves.

There were flashlights and screaming and the awful crackle of radios. There were doors that wouldn’t stay closed. There were places under Hawkins that should never have existed, tunnels that smelled like rot and wet earth and something worse. There were moments when you were convinced you were going to die, and the awful thing was that you didn’t always think that was the scariest part.

The scariest part was how normal everything felt sometimes in between.

That was what got to you the most, in the end. Not the monsters. Not even the blood. It was the way the town kept moving around the horror like it was just another inconvenience. School on Monday. Homework on Wednesday. It twisted your brain in ways you didn’t know how to explain.

And Dustin was there through all of it.

He was there with his wild plans and his endless talking and his stupid courage. He was there when the radios hissed and when the lights went out and when your hands shook so badly you could barely hold a flashlight. He was there when you both had to pretend bravery was just another thing you could put on like a jacket. Sometimes, when the fear got too bad, he’d make a joke so bad it made you laugh through the panic. Sometimes, when you were too tired to speak, he’d sit beside you anyway, shoulder to shoulder, as if silence was another kind of promise.

You slept at his house more than once after everything got worse. Sometimes because you couldn’t stand the dark alone. Sometimes because his mother’s porch light was the only thing in town that felt stable. Sometimes because you both came back from some nightmare of a night shaking and half-hysterical, and there was nowhere else to put the fear except in the space between two kids on a couch with the television hissing static in the background.

You remember one night especially clearly.

You were curled up sideways at the end of the Henderson couch, knees pulled to your chest, hair still damp from rain. Dustin sat beside you, one knee bouncing, staring at the glow of the TV like he could force the world to make sense if he stared hard enough. Neither of you said much. Every now and then he’d glance at you like he wanted to ask if you were okay, and every time you gave him a look that said clearly not, but I’m still here.

Eventually, he leaned back and muttered, “We made it another day.”

You laughed then, but it came out thin and tired, because the truth was that neither of you really believed it. You just believed it enough to keep going.

And then it kept going.

It kept going through more monsters, more gates, more government people and lies and blood and people you loved getting hurt in ways you couldn’t fix. It kept going through the kind of trauma that rearranges the inside of you and leaves no visible mark for anyone else to see. By the time Hawkins finally stopped shaking, you were so tired it felt like your bones had filled with sand.

Dustin, somehow, kept talking.

Not because he wasn’t broken. You knew better than that. He was broken in ways he would never fully admit. But he carried it differently. He wrapped his fear in motion, in jokes, in plans, in constant forward movement. If he stopped too long, you think he might have had to feel everything all at once, and maybe he knew that. Maybe that was why he kept himself busy. Maybe that was why he acted like he was fine.

You weren’t fine at all, and you were even worse at pretending.

The final gate closed and people started saying words like “over” and “closure” and “back to normal,” as if anything about your life could ever be that simple again. Hawkins began to heal in the fake way towns heal after disaster: freshly painted fences, cleaned-up streets, people lowering their voices when they passed the places where too much had happened. But nothing in you had the luxury of pretending.

Every loud sound made your body flinch. Every power outage sent your pulse spiking. Every stretch of silence felt loaded with something waiting to happen. You didn’t sleep well. You didn’t eat right. You started avoiding basements and dark hallways and the little woods outside town that used to feel like home. You stopped answering when Dustin called unless you absolutely had to. And every time he tried to talk about the future, about what came next, about how things were “finally getting back to normal,” you felt something cold crawl up your spine.

Normal was a lie.

Normal was what Hawkins had been before everything started.

Normal was how people described the town while children were disappearing.

Normal was a word that made you feel sick. 

Dustin wanted to believe in nexts. You wanted out.

And one day, without any of the drama anyone later might have imagined, you just left.

You remember that night in fragments. A duffel bag half-packed on your bed. A box of things that mattered less than they used to. The headlights of your car throwing pale light across the driveway. The acceptance letter from a university far away, tucked into the same folder as all the brochures and forms and scholarship papers you’d filled out in secret because you knew if you told yourself too early, you might back out.

You hadn’t planned to say goodbye the way you did. You’d meant to leave a note. Something simple. Something kind. Something that wouldn’t make you cry before sunrise.

Then Dustin showed up on the porch because of course he did. He always knew. He had this awful, uncanny ability to sense when something was off, like he’d been tuned to your frequency for years. He saw the car, saw the box, saw your face, and all the colour drained out of his expression.

“You’re leaving?” he said, and the words were so small you almost missed them.

You told him the truth in pieces. That you couldn’t do it anymore. That staying felt like waiting for the next terrible thing. That Hawkins had become a place your body associated with panic and that you were tired of feeling haunted while still alive. You told him you needed to go before the town swallowed you whole.

He looked devastated in the soft porch light.

“You don’t just disappear,” he said, voice rough. “Not from this. Not from me.”

You hated that line for years.

You hated it because it made you feel selfish for leaving. You hated it because you knew he meant it. You hated it because part of you wanted to stay just from the look on his face alone.

“I’m sorry,” you said, and you were.

He didn’t beg. That was the worst part. He didn’t make a scene. He just stood there with this awful, stunned grief written all over his face, like he didn’t know where to put it. Like you’d reached into his chest and taken something with you when you left.

You drove away before sunrise.

At first, distance felt like relief. There were no gates there. No flickering lights. No familiar roads that led back into trauma. You got through classes. You found a routine. You learned how to smile at people who had no idea that you’d survived things that would have broken them.

When they asked about home, you said Hawkins was quiet.

It was easier than saying it had teeth.

But being somewhere new didn’t make you new. You still woke up sweating from dreams that smelled like dirt and rust. You still flinched when someone dropped something loud. You still checked windows twice. Sometimes three times. You still found yourself thinking of Dustin in the middle of mundane moments — at the grocery store, in the library, on the bus, in the middle of a lecture when your mind drifted and suddenly you could hear his voice in your head explaining something absurd with far too much enthusiasm.

You wondered if he hated you. 

You wondered if he had stopped wondering about you. 

You wondered if it was possible to be that important to someone once and then become a closed door.

Then you saw him again.

It happened in a café on campus, on a day that had otherwise been so ordinary you almost missed the significance of it. You were standing in line with a cup in your hand, half-awake, half-lost in your own thoughts, when a laugh cracked through the room and your body reacted before your brain did.

That laugh.

You knew it before you even looked up, before your chest tightened and your pulse stumbled and your fingers went cold around the paper cup. You stared down at the lid like it might save you. Maybe if you didn’t look, it wouldn’t be real. Maybe if you held still enough, the sound wouldn’t reach you again.

But of course you looked.

Dustin was there, across the room at a table with two other students, talking with his hands like he was conducting a symphony only he could hear. He looked older, but only just. His hair was shorter than you remembered, but still fell in those impossible curls. He had stubble now, which somehow made him look even more like a person the world had gotten to instead of a kid it had spared by accident. There was a backpack tossed haphazardly by his feet, a notebook open in front of him, and that same restless energy in every line of his body.

For a second you were fourteen again. Then fourteen and terrified. Then seventeen and running. Then nineteen and gone. All of it layered over one body standing in front of you, alive and breathing and looking up at the exact same time you were trying not to break.

His eyes found yours.

Everything in him changed in an instant. Recognition. Shock. Something like hope that he clearly didn’t want to let himself feel too strongly. He stared for a second too long, mouth half-opening like he was about to say something, and then you moved.

You turned. Fast. Coffee sloshing in your cup, threatening to spill. You were out the door before he could stand, before he could call your name, before the weight of those eyes could pin you in place. The cold air hit your face like a slap. You kept walking, head down, heart hammering so loud you could feel it in your teeth.

You didn't look back.

He didn't follow. Not then. But you felt the shape of him watching you go, the same way you'd felt him watching you drive away from Hawkins all those years ago.

After that, you became a ghost on purpose.

You avoided him with the kind of precision that came from too much practice at disappearing. You memorized his schedule without meaning to — physics lab on Tuesdays, coffee runs after lectures on Thursdays, the quad at lunch when the weather wasn't miserable. You took stairs instead of elevators. Ate in your dorm instead of the dining hall. Switched library tables when you caught a glimpse of curly hair in your peripheral vision.

Every time you saw him from a safe distance, laughing with new friends, scribbling in notebooks, existing with that same bright energy that used to anchor you, something twisted sharply in your chest. Relief that he seemed okay. Guilt that you'd left him to be okay without you. Fear that if you got close again, you'd drag him back into your mess.

He noticed you avoiding him. You could tell. Once or twice you caught him looking your way across a crowded lecture hall, hesitation written all over his face, like he was weighing whether to wave or let you keep running. Each time, he chose to let you go. It hurt more than if he'd chased.

The campus felt smaller every day, choked with the possibility of running into him again. You started flinching at laughs that sounded too much like his. Started taking longer routes home even when it meant walking alone in the dark. Started telling yourself that this was better, safer, necessary — that he was better off with someone who wasn't still half-buried in Hawkins.

The panic attack happened three weeks after the café.

Those three weeks had been a slow unraveling, each day tightening the knot in your chest a little more. You’d gotten good at the art of evasion while slipping through side doors, lingering in stairwells until the coast was clear, mapping out the campus like it was Hawkins all over again, full of places to hide from what might hurt you. Dustin was everywhere and nowhere, a constant peripheral shadow: crossing the quad with his backpack slung low, head thrown back in laughter with people who didn’t know him the way you did; hunched over a textbook in the dining hall, curls falling into his eyes as he muttered equations under his breath; waving absently at someone while his gaze flicked your way, hesitant, like he was still deciding if chasing ghosts was worth the risk.

You avoided his eyes every time. Turned corners too sharply. The guilt gnawed at you worse than the fear—guilt for leaving Hawkins, for the stunned look on his face that last night under the porch light, for running now when he hadn’t even tried to close the distance. You told yourself it was mercy. That he deserved friends who weren’t fractured, who didn’t wake up tasting rust and hearing echoes in the vents. But mercy felt a lot like cowardice when you caught yourself staring at the empty side of your bed, remembering nights on his couch with the TV static blurring the edges of too many close calls.

Campus life pressed in harder those weeks. Midterms crept up silently, turning the library into frantic whispers of panic. You pushed yourself there every evening, burying under stacks of notes and highlighters, chasing numbness in the glow of the tables lamp. Sleep had become a gamble—some nights you’d drift off only to jolt awake with your heart slamming, convinced you heard claws scraping plaster. Other nights you stayed up until dawn, staring at the ceiling.

You started noticing little fractures in your routine. Coffee didn’t sit right anymore; it sloshed acidic in your stomach. Your hands trembled when you typed too long. Conversations with roommates blurred into white noise—you’d nod along, smile on autopilot, but your mind was always half in the tunnels, half waiting for the chime of the clock again. Dustin’s presence amplified it all. Once, you’d overheard him in the lecture hall two rows back, explaining quantum entanglement to a study group with that familiar passion. You’d packed your bag silently and left before the professor even dismissed class.

By the third week, exhaustion had carved hollows under your eyes. You were in the library again that night, tucked into a corner cubby on the second floor, surrounded by biology textbooks and crumpled cups. The air smelled like old paper and stale coffee, the kind of sterile quiet that amplified every rustle, every cough. Your notes swam on the page—cell structures blurring into root systems. You rubbed your temples, willing focus, but your body betrayed you with a low, insistent hum of dread.

Then it happened.

A stack of books hit the floor somewhere across the room—heavy, splintering, the kind of crash that echoes like glass on concrete. Your pen skittered across the table. The world inverted. It wasn’t textbooks falling; it was gates ripping open, vines thrashing, the guttural roar of something too big for the dark. Your chair scraped back as you lurched to your feet, heart exploding in your ribs, vision spotting black at the edges. Whispers turned to stares as you knocked over a water bottle, pages scattering, your bag thudding to the floor.

“Shit—fuck—sorry—” you gasped to no one, already stumbling toward the stairs, one hand clamped over your mouth to trap the sob clawing up your throat. The fluorescent lights strobed like failing power grids. The stairs blurred under your feet, too steep, too endless. You burst through the side door into the night, gulping cold air that tasted like freedom and failure, knees buckling halfway across the lawn before you hit grass.

You curled in on yourself, fingers digging into the wet earth, breaths coming in ragged wheezes that didn’t reach your lungs. The ground pulsed beneath you—breathing, alive, waiting to swallow. Flashes hit in waves: Dustin’s flashlight cutting through spore-choked air, screams over radio static, the wet snap of teeth too close. You rocked forward, choking on a whine, dirt caking under your nails as you tried to anchor, tried to breathe, tried anything but break completely.

Footsteps crunched grass behind you—heavy, hurried. “Hey! Wait—”

Dustin.

You didn’t look up. Couldn’t. He must have been on the other side of the library, heard the commotion, put it together like he always did. His shadow fell over you first, then his voice, sharp with alarm. “What the hell—whoa, okay, talk to me—”

“Go,” you rasped, voice shredded. “Leave. Dustin, just—go.”

He dropped to one knee beside you, close enough that you smelled his laundry detergent mixed with the night damp, but not touching. “Like hell I’m leaving you like this. What happened?”

Your body rebelled, shaking harder, vision fracturing into Hawkins overlays—the lawn became tunnel floor, his silhouette a demogorgon silhouette. “I said go” you snapped, louder, shoving blindly at the air between you. “You don’t—you can’t—I’m fine, just leave me alone.”

He rocked back on his heels, hands up like you were holding a weapon. Hurt flashed raw across his face, mingled with that stubborn Henderson resolve. “You’re not fine. You’re hyperventilating on the goddamn grass. Yelling at me won’t make that go away.”

“Please,” you begged, hating the crack in it, tears hot on your cheeks. “You’ll make it worse. Everything’s worse with—with you here. Hawkins. All of it. Just go.”

He went still, the words landing like blows. For a second you thought he might actually listen—walk away, let you shatter in peace like you deserved. His jaw clenched, eyes dark with something fractured—anger? Grief? The same stunned echo from your porch that night years ago. He dragged a hand through his curls, exhale shaky. “Fine. You want me gone? I’m gone. But this—” he gestured vaguely at you, voice rough, “—this isn’t over. Not for me.”

He stood, slow, like it cost him. Lingered one beat too long, silhouette etched against the library lights, then turned and walked away—stiff shoulders, hands jammed in his pockets, disappearing around the corner without looking back.

You broke harder after he left. The anchor you hadn’t wanted was gone, and the dark rushed in unchecked. You don’t know how long you lay there—minutes, maybe an hour—until the shaking ebbed to shivers and your breaths evened to something human. Crawling back to your dorm felt like miles, every step a reminder of what you’d just thrown at him. Everything’s worse with you here. Cruel. True, in the moment. 

Sleep didn’t come. You stared at the ceiling once again, replaying his face—the flinch, the resignation. By dawn, regret had woven into the exhaustion. You skipped class. Avoided leaving your dorm, even. But campus wasn’t big enough for forever.

You saw him two days later, sitting alone on the science building steps, notebook open but untouched, coffee gone cold beside him. He looked smaller somehow, curled into his hoodie, gaze distant on the lawn like he was solving a problem no one else could see. When his eyes lifted and met yours, there was no wave. No smile. Just quiet assessment, weighted with the memory of your words.

You walked over anyway. Stopped a few feet away, hands twisting in your sleeves. “I’m sorry.”

He closed the notebook slowly, not speaking right away. “For what part?”

“All of it.” Your voice wobbled. “Pushing you away. The café. Telling you to leave. I didn’t mean—”

“Yeah, you did.” He wasn’t angry, exactly. Tired. Honest in that cutting Dustin way. “In the moment. I get it. Hawkins messes with your head like that.”

You sank onto the step below him, head bowed. “It’s not just Hawkins. It’s me. I see you and it’s all there again. The running. The tunnels. The—the leaving. I can’t breathe around it.”

He was quiet long enough you thought he might stand up and walk away for good. Then: “You think it’s easy for me? Seeing you duck around corners like I’m the monster? I’ve been trying to give you space, but space feels a lot like you disappearing all over again.”

The words stung because they were true. You’d hurt him twice now—once by leaving, once by surviving it wrong.

“I don’t know how to do this,” you admitted, barely audible.

He sighed, long and ragged. “Neither do I. But yelling ‘go away’ at someone who’s already lost you once? That’s a dick move.”

You laughed, wet and broken. He huffed something like one too—a small, ragged sound that didn’t quite reach his eyes but cracked the tension just enough to breathe.

Neither of you moved for a long moment. The steps felt colder now, the morning air sharper, carrying the faint bite of upcoming rain. Students milled in the distance, voices blurring into white noise, but here it was just the two of you, suspended in the aftermath of too many unsaid things. Dustin stared at his closed notebook, thumb tracing the edge absently, like he was mapping out an equation he didn’t know how to solve. You watched the way his shoulders curved inward, the way exhaustion had etched faint lines around his mouth that hadn’t been there before Hawkins. Or maybe they had, and you’d just stopped looking long enough to notice.

“I don’t know how to do this,” you repeated, quieter now, the words settling like dust. Not an apology this time, just truth—bare and jagged.

He exhaled slowly, tilting his head back against the stone wall behind him. “Yeah. Me neither.” His voice was low, stripped of its usual energy, and in that moment he looked every day of the couple of years you’d been apart. Not the bright kid with endless theories, but the man who’d carried the weight of gates and grief and still woken up swinging. “I keep waiting for it to get easier. Like one day I’ll wake up and Hawkins is just… background noise. Not this thing that lives in my chest.”

You swallowed, the ache spreading. “It’s not background for me. It’s foreground. Every time I see you, it’s like flipping a switch. Tunnels. Lights. Your voice over the radio, telling me to run when I couldn’t move.”

He winced, eyes squeezing shut for a beat. “I hated that radio. Hated how it sounded like the last thing I’d ever say to anyone.”

The admission hung there, fragile. You wanted to reach for it, to hold it steady, but your hands stayed twisted in your lap. “I’m sorry,” you whispered again, uselessly. “For the porch. For the café. For—for making you feel like I erased you.”

Dustin shook his head, but didn’t look at you. “You didn’t erase me. You just… left a hole. And I filled it with projects and clubs and pretending I was fine because stopping felt like admitting we lost more than the town.”

You nodded, even though he couldn’t see it. The silence stretched, not uncomfortable but heavy with the kind of understanding that only came from shared scars. Eventually, he pushed off the wall, standing with a stretch that didn’t hide the tension in his frame. “Come on. Not here.”

You blinked up at him. “Where?”

“Somewhere not public. My room’s empty—roommate’s at class till noon. Or the old storage room behind the theatre. No one goes there.” He paused, rubbing the back of his neck. “Unless you want me to leave you alone again.”

The echo of your own words from the lawn twisted in your gut. “No. Please.”

He nodded once, sharp, and led the way without another word. You followed, keeping pace a step behind, the campus blurring past in patches of grey sky and hurried students. He didn’t take you to the dorms—too exposed, too many eyes. Instead, he veered toward the arts building, down a dim side hall that smelled faintly of dust and forgotten props. The storage room was tucked at the end, door unmarked and slightly ajar, spilling weak light from a single bulb.

Inside was a cramped haven of chaos: stacked chairs, rolled-up backdrops, a sagging couch shoved against one wall that looked like it had survived worse than college parties. Dustin flicked on a second light—a bare bulb dangling from a cord—then dragged the couch away from the wall, creating a pocket of space that felt almost safe. He dropped onto one end, knees splayed, elbows on thighs like he was bracing for impact.

You sank onto the other end, the springs creaking under you. The door stayed cracked just enough for air, but the world outside muffled to nothing. For a minute, neither of you spoke. The quiet wasn’t empty; it hummed with everything waiting to spill.

“I still check the vents,” Dustin said finally, voice barely above a murmur. He stared at the floor, tracing a crack in the concrete with his eyes. “Every new place I move. First thing I do. Shine a light in, listen for… I don’t know. Breathing. Movement. Stupid, right?”

“No.” Your throat tightened. “I check closets. Windows. Under beds. Like it followed me.”

He let out a breath that might have been a laugh, bitter-edged. “It did. We carry it. All of us.” A pause, heavier. “I dream about Eddie sometimes. Not dying. The after. Like he’s still telling me to promise him, and I turn around and he’s just… gone. Every time.”

The name landed soft but sharp, pulling at the frayed edges of memory. You’d all lost him in fragments, but Dustin had held the pieces longest. “I dream about the gates,” you whispered. “Closing, but not all the way. Something pink and fleshy pushing through. And you’re there, yelling my name, but I can’t find you.”

His head snapped up, eyes meeting yours for the first time—red-rimmed, raw. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

He dragged a hand down his face, shoulders shaking once, twice. “I thought if I got out, if I buried it in school and science, it’d let go. But it doesn’t. It just… waits. And then I see you, ducking around like I’m the reminder, and it all rushes back. The porch. You driving away. Me standing there like an idiot, thinking maybe you’d turn around.”

Tears welled hot in your eyes, spilling before you could stop them. “I wanted to. Every mile. But I was drowning. Hawkins wasn’t home anymore. It was teeth and tunnels and—and I couldn’t take you down with me.”

“You think you took me down?” His voice cracked, the first real fracture. He leaned forward, elbows digging into his knees, curls falling wild. “You were my best friend. The one who got it. Who laughed at my dumb theories and stayed when shit got real. And then you were gone, and I was left pretending to the others that it was fine, that people just leave after saving the world. But it wasn’t fine. I called. Wrote. Nothing. Radio silence. Like I wasn’t worth a goodbye.”

“I’m sorry,” you sobbed, the dam breaking fully now. Your hands flew to your face, shoulders heaving as the weight of years poured out—guilt for leaving, for running in the café, for shoving him away on the grass. “I thought it’d hurt less if I cut clean. Stupid. So stupid. I missed you every day. Thought about calling a thousand times. But what if you hated me? What if I dragged you back into it?”

Dustin’s breath hitched, and then he was breaking too—face crumpling, a choked sound escaping as he pressed his palms to his eyes. “I didn’t hate you. I was pissed. Hurt. But never hate. I just… kept waiting for you to come back. Like maybe the world needed us together one more time.” A wet laugh. “God, we’re messed up.”

You scooted closer on the couch, hesitant, then closed the gap fully. Your arms went around him first—awkward, trembling—and he folded into it like he’d been starving for the contact. He clung back fiercely, face buried in your shoulder, both of you shaking with the force of it. No words now, just the messy rhythm of sobs and hiccups, hands fisting in hoodies and shirts, the couch creaking under the shift.

He pulled back first, just enough to look at you, eyes puffy and earnest. “We made it through worse than this. Monsters. Gates. The actual end of the world.”

You nodded, swiping at your face with your sleeve. “Barely.”

“Barely counts.” His hand found yours, squeezing—solid, warm, no expectations. “You don’t have to run anymore. Not from me.”

“I won’t.” The promise felt real this time, fragile but rooted.

You stayed like that for what felt like hours, though the wall clock said minutes. Talking in fits and starts—naming fears, laughing through tears at stupid memories, piecing together the wreckage without trying to rebuild it perfect. But the laughter faded fast each time, swallowed by the heavier truths that clawed their way back up, leaving you both raw and hollowed out. Dustin’s hand stayed locked in yours, grip tightening whenever the silence tipped too far into ache, his thumb brushing your knuckles like it was the only steady rhythm he could find.

“I still hear it sometimes,” you whispered, voice cracking as fresh tears welled. Your free hand pressed against your chest, right over the spot that never stopped hurting. “The growls. Low and wet, like it’s right behind me. I’ll be walking alone, and suddenly my legs won’t move. I freeze, waiting for it to grab me. And you’re not there to yell ‘run’ anymore. I still hear the clock, like it’s back in my mind again. Like I’m suddenly back in the graveyard with Max literally fucking levitating.”

Dustin’s breath hitched, his eyes squeezing shut. “God,” he choked out, voice thick and breaking. “Yeah. The static first—crackling in my head, like the radio’s about to go dead and everyone’s gone quiet. Then the vents. I swear I hear scratching, every night in a new place. I get up, shine my phone light in there, heart slamming like it’s the trailer park all over again. Eddie’s voice, but he’s not there. Just empty dark.”

The name shattered something in you both. Tears spilled hot down your cheeks, and you curled forward, sobs ripping loose—ugly, gasping things that shook your whole body. Dustin pulled you in without a word, arms wrapping tight around your frame, one hand cradling the back of your head as he rocked you slowly. “Hey, hey,” he murmured into your hair, his own voice wobbling, tears soaking into your shoulder. “I’ve got you. It’s not real. Not now.”

But he broke too, mid-sentence—a choked sob escaping as his hold turned desperate, face pressed hard against your neck. You felt him unravel, shoulders heaving, fists clutching at your shirt like you were the only thing keeping him from falling apart completely. “I can’t—Jesus Christ, I can’t do this alone anymore,” he gasped, words muffled and wet. “The porch. You driving away. I stood there till the taillights were gone, thinking if I waited long enough, you’d come back. Every bad night after, I kept thinking ‘she’d get it, she’d know how to breathe through this.’ But you weren’t there. And I was so damn scared you were out here breaking worse than me.”

You clung to him harder, your sobs tangling with his, the couch creaking under the force of it. Snot and tears smeared between you, but neither cared—hands stroking backs, fingers digging into arms, breaths syncing in between fits. “I was drowning,” you cried into his chest, voice muffled against the damp fabric of his hoodie. “Hawkins wasn’t a place anymore—it was teeth in my throat, shadows that moved. Leaving you was the knife I used to cut free, but it carved me open too. I dreamed of you every night, yelling my name in the tunnels, reaching but I couldn’t—couldn’t grab your hand.”

He shuddered violently, a whine breaking from his throat as he pulled you closer, almost onto his lap, foreheads pressed together in the dim light. “I tried calling,” he whispered, tears streaming freely now, eyes locked on yours—red, wrecked, so painfully open. “Letters too. Stupid kid shit, like ‘we beat the world, come back.’ Nothing. I told myself you were better off, thriving somewhere clean. But I was lying on the floor some nights, flashlight on, shaking so bad I couldn’t stand. Pretending to the group I was fine—the genius holding it together. But I wasn’t. I’m not.”

You cupped his face, thumbs swiping desperately at the tears carving tracks down his cheeks, your own vision blurred to fragments. “You were always the strong one. The plans. The hope. I left because I couldn’t be that for you anymore. Didn’t want you seeing me shatter.” Another sob tore through you, and he pulled you flush against him, rocking harder, his chin hooked over your shoulder as his body trembled with suppressed cries.

“We’re both shattered,” he rasped, hand fisting in your hair, holding you like a lifeline. “But we’re here. Still breathing. Together.” His voice cracked on the last word, dissolving into quiet sobs again, and you held him through it—murmuring broken reassurances into his curls, “Shh, I’ve got you, we’re safe, it’s over”—even as your own chest heaved, grief pouring out in waves that left you both limp and spent.

The bulb flickered overhead, casting unsteady shadows that made you both flinch once, instinctively huddling closer. Time blurred until the tears slowed to hiccuping breaths, then exhausted sniffles. You stayed tangled, forehead to forehead, hands stroking damp hair and trembling arms, the air thick with salt and shared ache. No rush to speak, no need to fill the quiet. Just the raw comfort of bodies pressed close, hearts pounding in sync, proving you weren’t alone in the dark anymore.

Dustin broke the silence first, voice hoarse and small. “Don’t leave again. Please.”

“Never,” you promised, fierce despite the tears. Your fingers traced his jaw, memorizing the new lines etched by years apart. “I’m staying. I can’t run anymore.”

Hawkins High runs on colours. Green and gold rule the hallways, where the air smells of expensive cologne and the laughter comes pre-packaged, loud enough to fill any silence. Shades of black and gray own the corners—the back door propped open with a cinderblock leading to the outside stairs where cigarette smoke curls up from hidden hands. Between those territories stretch beige expanses: empty benches, forgotten lockers, spaces no one claims because they're too ordinary to fight over.

Your world is pink and glitter. Not the absolute top of the pyramid—that's the green-and-gold girls with their letterman-jacket boyfriends—but close enough to count. You're liked without being envied, admired without being dissected by the school population. The pink starts pale and pristine, like the inside of a seashell: a bubblegum cardigan folded neatly over your arm, a white pencil case detailed with light pink ribbons and and hearts, lip gloss that tastes like Strawberry Shortcake and leaves everything shimmering. You wear it like a second skin, skirts swishing in perfect rhythm with your heels, hair tied back with your staple satin bows that match your outfit and never seem to slip. It's comfortable in its predictability. People know what to expect from you: a smile at the right moment, a laugh that doesn't overstay its welcome, and you know your place in the palette.

You first notice Dustin Henderson because he defies the code. A backpack sits on his shoulders with a radio in the side pocket, with an antenna that bobs when he walks, his hat sits crooked over curls that spring back no matter how many times he tugs it down, and his voice cuts through the hallway like a signal trying to find its frequency—quick, precise, packed with questions that make the people around him lean in despite themselves. He fits into a colour code that you can’t quite place, with his Hellfire dice clinking in his pocket, sneakers scuffed from bike pedals and whatever experiment he was working on that particular day.

You spot him at the vending machine one morning, quarters slipping through his fingers. Then again by the gym during a sudden downpour.

The rain traps you both under the narrow overhang, water sheeting off the roof in gray curtains. You're clutching your sweater to your chest, kitten heels sinking slightly into the wet grass. He's holding a cardboard box like it's fragile cargo, rain dripping from the brim of his hat. He glances over, grins through the downpour. "You look like you’re terrified to step out.”

You laugh before you can stop it—a full, unguarded sound that surprises you both. He tilts his head, studying you for a beat, then nods like he's cataloged something important. The rain lets up eventually, but that one moment lingers.

After that, your paths keep crossing. The vending machine by the science wing becomes routine—he feeds in quarters, sometimes leaving one balanced on the edge for you. You never mention it, just slip it into the slot when he's not looking. In the parking lot after school, his bike tires crunch gravel as he coasts past your car, slowing just enough to wave. Your hand rises automatically, a pink-polished nail catching the light. It's nothing overt, no grand gestures, but the beige spaces between colors start feeling less empty.

Word spreads, of course. Hawkins High thrives on it. It’s a small town, after all. Carol corners you in the bathroom one afternoon, eyeshadow brush hovering mid-stroke, her green-and-gold friends clustered behind her as if it was their duty. "One of the freaks tutoring you now, hm? I’m not surprised.”

You cap your gloss slowly, meeting her eyes in the mirror. "Does that really matter to you, Carol?"

They exchange glances, lips pursing. You grab your bag and leave them to their reflections.

Your pink-and-glitter friends don't press as hard. They just mention the A.V. and Hellfire club with a delicate shudder, like the names alone carry germs. "Those boys are so... intense," one says over lunch, picking at her food. You nod, and let the topic drift to weekend plans. Inside, though, your curiosity hums louder.

Dustin talks to you like none of that exists. No sidelong glances for approval, no subtext layered under every word. He asks about your favorite song one day by the lockers, and returns a few days later with a cassette, containing your favourite song and his, “for your Walkman”. One afternoon, he pulls a copy of The Hobbit from his bag and hands it over. “Borrow it,” he says. “It’s one of my favorite books. See what you think.” You mark the pages you love with tiny pink tabs, your notes neat and precise in the margins. A week later, you slide it back to him. He flips through it slowly, lingering over your choices, and lets out a quiet chuckle. The annotations are so perfectly arranged, so you, that it makes him smile before he can stop himself.

His room is the first real interaction you’ve had outside of school. You follow him to his basement after school one day—he'd mentioned wanting to show you D&D, his voice lighting up in the hallway as he told you all about his friends in Hellfire. The stairs creak under your feet as you descend, the wood worn smooth in the center from years of footsteps. No posters line the walls down here, just a comfortable mess of projects: a half-built spaceship model sitting on the desk; tangled radio cords across the floor; a fan whirring lazily in the corner. It holds a lot of character, you thought. You liked that about him.

You note that the room smells faintly of hot solder and pencil shavings as you lower yourself cross-legged onto the thin carpet, smoothing your skirt flat out of habit even though no one's watching to judge. Dustin dumps his backpack with a thud, rummages inside, and pulls out a handful of dice that clatter like loose change. He launches into an explanation of different spells and the campaign he’s currently playing, the words tumbling out fast and eager, his hands gesturing to demonstrate.

"Slow down a little," you say, smiling up at him.

He pauses mid-sentence, cheeks flushing a warmer shade than your pale pink polish. "Sorry. I get going." He takes a breath, starts again more measured, rolling the dice across the table to show points. You watch him more than listen, drawn to the sure, quick way his fingers move.

That night, after you get home, your phone rings, cutting through the quiet house. His voice crackles through the line. "Forgot to explain that math thing from class." It's a weak excuse and you both know it, but neither of you call it out. You talk for what feels like hours, his laughter breaking warm and scratchy across the line, your words softening as the house settles into sleep around you. When you finally hang up, the darkness in your room feels less heavy, tinged now with something new and faintly electric.

Pink begins seeping into his world in small, unremarked ways. A silk hair tie from your wrist sits on his desk during a study session. The sparkly gloss you wear smudges the eraser of a pencil you borrow from him. He never complains, just takes it back with a half-smile. One day after class, he digs into his pocket at the vending machine and pulls out candy with a bubblegum-pink wrapper. "Saw this at the store. The colour reminded me of you. They’re strawberry too, I know they’re your favourite.”

You take it, the foil cool and shiny. "You remembered that? Thanks.” It's sweet without being overdone, a quiet acknowledgment. You’ve never experienced anyone noticing you the way he does.

The whispers build steadily. You catch them in passing, “pity date," "what's her deal?", most coming from the green-and-gold clusters. One day by the lockers, you see Dustin stiffen, facing down Jason in his varsity jacket. Dustin's jaw sets, voice low but firm. You can't hear the words from around the corner, but he eventually backs off. Dustin stalks away, shoulders tight.

Later, at your locker, Dustin lingers in the hallway's fluorescent hum, his fingers tugging the brim of his hat down low over his forehead. His sneakers scuff the floor once, twice, eyes fixed on a crack in the floor tile as if it holds some answer. The air between you feels thick with whatever happened earlier—whatever Jason said, and Dustin's clipped words you didn't quite catch. "They talk loud around here," he says finally, voice low, almost lost in the locker slams echoing down the corridor.

You dig into your bag, fingers closing around the bubblegum-pink candy he'd given you days ago. You pull one out, the foil of it catching the light like a tiny prism, and hold it toward him, offering. “So do we."

He looks up then, surprise flickering in his eyes before his mouth quirks into a half-smile. His hand closes over yours for a split second longer than necessary, warm and calloused from soldering irons and bike handles, before he takes the candy. He unwraps it, popping the candy in his mouth, folding the foil meticulously—first one way, then the other—tucking it into his palm. He nods once, slow and deliberate, the tension easing from his shoulders. "Yeah," he says, and it's enough.

Your nails shift shades over the weeks that follow, a subtle rebellion you don't even plan at first. Pale blush from last month's bottle gives way to a brighter rose, the kind that gleams under hallway lights and leaves faint traces on the pages of notebooks. He notices one lunch period by the bleachers, the football field stretching empty and green behind you, cut grass sharp in the air. You're sitting side by side on the metal slats, books balanced on your knees, the sun warming the back of your neck. A breeze tugs at the ribbons in your hair. "New polish?" he asks, glancing at your hand where it rests on the bench between you, rose-tipped fingers drumming lightly.

"Yeah. It’s called Kiss Me on the Tulips," you say, flexing them in the sunlight so they catch the glare, the color deepening from a baby pink to something warmer, more alive.

He chuckles, studying them for a beat before his shoulder bumps yours lightly, deliberate but casual, the fabric of his jacket rough against your cardigan sleeve. "It suits you. It’s nice." The contact lingers, as chatter from the track team drifts over from the far field.

You start skipping the usual pink-and-glitter tables at lunch more often, the ones where conversations circle endlessly around weekend parties and whose boyfriend said what. Instead, you drift closer to his group some days, tray balanced precariously on your lap as you sit on the edge of their bench in the courtyard or the far end of the cafeteria. Your friends shoot looks at first—curious arches of perfectly plucked brows, then cooler, sidelong glances that turn into silence when you don't explain. No one calls you out directly; they just fill your seat with someone new, their laughter a little sharper when you walk by. The pink on you deepens with time: a brighter, more vibrant pink cardigan draped carelessly over the back of his chair during basement hangouts, picking up faint solder dust along the hem; a satin ribbon tied loosely around his walkie-talkie antenna, fluttering when he clips it to his belt. He never unties it, the pink standing out like a small, defiant flag against the canvas of his world.

One evening in his basement, he fiddles with wires on the cluttered table while you read yet another book he recommended, legs crossed on the chair across to him. A single desk lamp pools low, golden light over your open pages and his half-finished circuit board, leaving the rest of the room in soft shadow. Silence settles easily between you, broken only by the occasional snap of his pliers or the quiet turn of a page. His knee brushes yours under the table, the denim rough against the smooth cotton of your skirt, which was accidental at first, but then lingers there, warm and steady, neither of you acknowledging it or pulling away.

"You get quiet when the sun goes down," he says after a while, not looking up from the circuit board, where a bead of solder glows molten under his iron.

You close the book softly, the cover thumping against your thigh as you lay it in your lap, and watch the tiny sparks fly up—brief, pink-white flashes that dance for a split second before dying into darkness. "It sets too early this time of year," you reply, your voice matching the room's hush.

He nods, blowing gently on the cooling metal, the sparks' afterglow fading. "Yeah," he agrees, and the fan's rhythm fills the quiet again, comfortable as breathing.

The air soon turns thick and sweet with spring, holding the kind of warmth that sticks to your skin. You drive Dustin home once after school, your mother's old but well kept car rumbling down back roads, radio murmuring some classic rock song low enough to talk over. His hand rests near the gearshift on the vinyl console, fingers splayed just inches from yours, close enough to feel the heat radiating. They touch, your pink-polished tips grazing his knuckles, tentative, then sure. They don't move away, even as the car sways around a curve, the world outside blurring into green fields and picket fences.

That same week in the cafeteria, the sound of trays clattering and voices overlapping like static, Eddie Munson leans across a Hellfire-crowded table, his rings flashing as he spears a tater tot. His voice carries deliberately over the noise, drawing heads. "Heard Henderson's got himself a princess."

Dustin doesn't look up from pushing the cafeteria food around his tray. "That's right," he says evenly, fork pausing mid-air.

Eddie grins, all teeth and mischief, curls falling wild over his forehead as he leans back. To Dustin, it feels like the room quiets for a single heartbeat now that he’s said it out loud for the first time.

Friday after the final bell cuts through the chaos, Dustin waits by your locker as metal doors slam and footsteps hurry past. “Hellfire tonight,” he says, adjusting the stack in his arms. “You should come.”

Your stomach gives a small, nervous twist—equal parts dread and excitement at the thought of stepping into that dark, fluorescent world of battle maps and whispered rules. You turn your locker key slowly in your fingers. “Are they expecting me?”

“Not yet,” he says, and a grin tugs at his mouth. “But they won’t complain when you show up.” His eyes stay on yours, steady beneath the brim of his cap, warm without pushing. “I’d like you there.”

You nod, heart kicking up. "Okay."

The school at night feels hollowed out and strange, a skeleton of daytime bustle—lights buzzing faint overhead, your shoes echoing sharp down empty halls that smell of floor wax, chalk dust, and rain seeping through cracked windows. Lockers line the main hallway, half-hidden in shadow. The drama room glows at the far end of the corridor, voices spilling out in bursts of laughter and argument, warm light pooling under the door. You push it open and it creaks long and low.

Nine heads turn as one. Eddie mid-sentence, frozen with rings glinting as he gestures wildly over a table littered with hand-scribbled papers, miniature figurines clustered together, crumpled soda cans, and dice scattered across. Mike and Lucas are hunched over their character sheets, pencils clenched tight in white-knuckled fists, faces etched with mid-game focus.

You step fully into the room, the pink of your cardigan catching the harsh fluorescent lights and glowing almost otherworldly against the dim clutter of the drama room. The pizza boxes feel warm and heavy in your hands, their cardboard edges damp from steam curling faintly from the seams, carrying the rich, greasy scent of pepperoni and melted cheese. Dustin stays right behind you, close enough that the fabric of his sleeve brushes your arm with every small movement.

Eddie blinks once, then twice, his dark eyes narrowing as he processes the sight. A slow, wicked grin spreads across his face, all teeth and mischief, his rings glinting as he lowers the hand he'd been gesturing with. "Henderson... what the hell?"

"My girlfriend," Dustin says clearly, his voice cracking just once on the *r* before it firms up with resolve. He squares his shoulders, standing a little taller. "She brought dinner."

The pizza boxes thump solidly onto the table's edge, lids flipping open to reveal circles of pepperoni glistening under thick, bubbling cheese. The tension in the room snaps quickly, shattering into laughter and the sudden scrape of chairs pushing back. Their hands dive in immediately—grabbing slices with eager fingers, thanks muttered around mouthfuls of hot crust and sauce, paper towels crumpled in haste. You slide into the empty chair beside Dustin, your shoulders pressing against his, and knees bumping lightly under the table's edge. The pepperoni steam curls thick and savory around you; you take a slice for yourself, cheese stretching in long golden strings as you pull it free, and settle back to watch.

Mike hesitates on his turn, frowning deeply at the scribbled grid on his graph paper, his pencil tapping an erratic rhythm against the table. You lean over Dustin's shoulder, close enough to smell the faint cologne on his shirt, and trace a faint line through the inked corridors with your fingertip. "What about invisibility? The one that’s too expensive, or something like that?”

Heads snap up in perfect unison—Mike's eyes widening, Lucas's pencil slipping from his fingers to roll across the table, Gareth’s chew pausing with sauce smeared at the corner of his mouth. Dustin's face lights up with pure, unguarded pride. "She's right," he says, turning to Mike. "Do it!”

Eddie swallows his bite, wiping sauce from his chin with the back of his hand, and nods slow. "Not bad for a first go."

Hours slip into the game's steady rhythm. Dice tumble across the table, clattering over the solid wood. Arguments spark and fade fast. Mike debates rules. Lucas cites old campaigns. Eddie turns disputes into theatre, which makes you watch in awe. You enjoy how into it they all get, loving the passion for what they’re into. Your pink-and-glitter friends never did have interests as intense as this, or interests at all, really. Minus the obvious boy-talk and about weekend plans. Rain drums against the windows. It seals the room from the world.

The space carves its own pulse. The smell of ink from markers sharpens the air. Jokes between everyone overlap naturally. The vibe blends your bright colour with their darker. Your laugh threads into theirs now.

When Eddie calls time just after midnight, you begin to gather your things slowly. Outside, streetlights buzz overhead. The lot gleams slick with rain. Puddles mirror neon streaks from the school sign. Dustin's bike slumps wet against the curb.

He leaves it there. He falls into step beside you instead as his hands stay deep in his pockets. Gravel crunches underfoot while he walks you to your car through the mist.

"They liked you," he says after a moment, voice low and warm in the misty air.

"Pizza's a good bribe," you reply, smiling as you fish the car keys from your bag.

He lets out a soft laugh, the sound blooming into a cloud of breath in the damp night air, then quiets again. His eyes flick toward the dark silhouette of the school building looming behind you both, windows black and empty, the faint buzz of dying fluorescents still echoing. "Monday's gonna have a lot of talk," he says, voice low but steady. "Everyone's gonna talk. The whole school's gonna have something to say."

You aren’t prepared for how cold the rain is.

Well, you thought you were. You watched it through your bedroom window all evening, silver lines streaking past the glass, smearing the outside world into something soft and far away. You sat on the edge of your bed with your knees pulled up to your chest, counting the seconds between thunder and lightning the way Jonathan taught you when you were small, telling yourself that going out there would shock you awake. Shake the fog out of your head. Make you feel something other than this tight, humming numbness under your skin.

But standing at the bus stop now, soaked through your jeans and your too-thin hoodie, you realize you miscalculated.

The rain is a living thing. It slaps at your cheeks, crawls under your collar, clings to your eyelashes. It turns the gravel at the side of the road to mud that tries to eat your shoes with every shifting step. You shiver, arms wrapped around yourself, fingers digging into your own ribs as if you could hold your skeleton together by force of will alone.

The bus finally groans up to the curb, headlights cutting through the downpour. You climb on without looking up, fumbling for damp bills in your pocket, mumbling your destination.

“Hopkins,” you say. Your voice sounds wrong in your own ears, thin and papery, like it might tear if you push any harder.

The driver glances at you, at your dripping hair and the way you’re hugging yourself, then looks away. “You got it, kid.”

You stare at the floor the whole ride, watching rainwater trail off your shoes and carve dark pathways in the dingy rubber mat. Each bump in the road rattles your teeth. Every time the brakes squeal you flinch, thinking, This is stupid, this is stupid, this is so stupid, turn around, get off, go home—

But home is Joyce pacing the living room, wearing a path into the floor with worry about Will’s latest nightmare. It’s Jonathan snapping at her because he’s exhausted and because snapping at her is safer than snapping at the world. It’s Will apologizing for things that aren’t his fault, shoulders hunched, eyes focused on some point very far away.

Home is you, pressed thin against the wallpaper, watching. Always watching. Never daring to speak up because the last time you did, Lonnie’s words hit you like a belt. Girls don’t talk back, girls don’t know better, girls keep quiet, and the echo of that still rings in your ears years later.

You are so tired of being quiet.

So you stay on the bus.

You stay when Hopkins grows close enough that you recognize the sagging porches and flickering streetlights. You stay when your stomach twists so hard you think you might throw up. You stay until the driver calls, “End of the line,” and you realize you’re the only one left.

The door hisses open. Cold air sneaks in around your ankles as a gust of wind makes the hems of your jeans flap.

“You okay, kid?” the driver asks.

“I’m fine,” you lie, because it’s easier than the truth. You shuffle down the steps and back into the rain.

Lonnie’s trailer sits at the end of the street, its porch light burned out, the screen door hanging a little crooked. The last time you stood here was before a custody hearing two years ago. You remember trying to make yourself invisible beside Joyce, your hand swallowed in hers, your heart clawing at your throat when Lonnie looked at you like you were something stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

You remember promising yourself you’d never come back, but yet here you are.

Your shoes squelch on the warped boards of the porch. For a second you hover there, one hand hovering over the tarnished doorknocker. Then you knock before you can talk yourself out of it.

Nothing.

You knock again, harder. The impact stings your knuckles. You’re about to turn away when the lock clicks and the door swings inward.

Lonnie fills the doorway, beer can dangling from one hand, the other braced above his head. The TV blares behind him, light strobing over the stains on his undershirt. His gaze drags over you, confusion furrowing his brow.

“Hey,” he says, like he can’t quite place you.

You hate that he looks at you like a stranger. You square your shoulders, which is almost funny given how they’re rounded against the cold.

“Hey, Dad.”

His expression flickers, cycling through surprise, annoyance, something softer you refuse to name, then back to annoyance again. “What the hell are you doing here? It’s past midnight.”

“I—” The words choke. You swallow them down and try again. “I wanted to talk.”

“Talk.” He says it like it’s a foreign language. The corner of his mouth twists. “Your ma send you?”

“No.”

“Well, then.” He steps aside, jerking his chin toward the living room. “Get in here before you catch pneumonia and Joyce sues me for child endangerment or some crap.”

You slip past him, trying not to shrink from the smell of stale smoke, spilled beer, and something oily and burnt. The living room is worse than you remembered, cluttered with crushed cans and overflowing ashtrays, a pizza box fossilized on the coffee table. The TV shows static-gray reruns, the laugh track loud and hollow.

“Sit,” Lonnie says.

You perch on the edge of the sagging couch, hands folded tightly in your lap. Your clothes cling to you, damp and chilly, leaving dark patches on the fabric. He drops into the armchair opposite of you, grabbing another beer off the floor.

“So,” he says, popping the tab with a hiss. “Talk.”

You thought about this conversation on the bus. Told yourself a thousand times how it would go. How you’d finally say all the things you swallowed from the age of eight onward. How you’d explain what it did to you, being there for every argument with Joyce, every time he called Jonathan a sissy and Will a freak and you a waste of time. How you’d make him see you.

But under his stare, all those practiced speeches shrivel.

“I… I wanted to know,” you start slowly, “why you never wanted us. Why you never wanted me.”

He barks out a laugh, sharp and humorless. “Oh, Jesus Christ. That what this is about? Your ma filling your head with her sob stories?”

“No.” The word comes out stronger than you expect. Your nails bite into your palms. “I was there. I remember.”

He waves that off. “You were a kid. You don’t know what you remember.”

Heat flushes up your neck. “I remember you telling Joyce she should’ve tried again for a boy instead of getting stuck with ‘two little brats and a useless girl.’”

The beer pauses halfway to his mouth.

“I remember you yelling that ‘girls are supposed to obey,’ that I should keep my mouth shut when I tried to defend Will.” Your voice shakes, but you keep going. “I remember you saying it was a waste sending me to school, because I’d just end up knocked up like Mom.”

His jaw tightens. “You watch your mouth.”

“Why?” The word bursts out before you can stop it. “Why should I? You never watched yours. You said horrible things, and you never even—” Your breath stutters. You blink hard, vision swimming. “You never apologized. You never called. You never asked how I was. So why should I care about your feelings?”

Silence hums over the laugh track.

Lonnie sets the beer down too slowly, metal scraping the table. When he looks at you, his eyes are flat.

“You think you’re some kind of martyr?” he asks. “Little girl, suffering in silence in that circus your ma calls a house? You have any idea how hard I worked for you kids? How much I put up with from her? But I’m the villain, huh? I’m the big bad sexist monster because I don’t coddle you like she does.”

“It’s not coddling to not call your daughter useless,” you snap.

“It is when she is.”

The words hit harder than the rain ever could.

You actually sway. For a moment the room tilts, the TV sliding sideways. You dig your fingernails into the couch, grounding yourself.

“I get it,” Lonnie continues, waving his hand as if brushing away smoke. “You come here looking for me to apologize. You want me to say I’m sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t mean it, I’ve changed.” His lip curls. “Newsflash. Life is hard. People say things. You either toughen up or you spend your life whining about how mean Daddy was.”

You stare at him. You think, wildly, That’s it? That’s all?

Something inside you snaps.

“I am tough,” you say quietly. “I grew up watching you tear our family apart. I watched Mom patch us back together every time you left us with nothing. I watched Jonathan give up his life so we’d have one. I watched Will die and come back and still somehow be kinder than you’ve ever been in your entire life.” Your throat burns. “So don’t you dare tell me I’m not tough enough.”

He laughs again, but there’s an edge to it now. “Look at you. Parroting all of Joyce’s crap. You’re just like her. Always emotional. Always playing the victim. No wonder you like that Henderson kid so much. You need someone to coddle you.”

The air leaves your lungs.

“Don’t talk about Dustin,” you whisper.

“Why not? He’s the one always sniffing around, isn’t he? Acting like some knight in shining armor. Bringing over little gadgets to ‘fix’ things around the house, pretending like he’s the man of the family.” Lonnie sneers. “Kid’s got no father at home, so he’s gotta play house with someone else’s, I guess.”

“Shut up.”

“You really think he’s gonna stick around when he realizes what a mess you are?” Lonnie leans forward, eyes glittering. “When he figures out you’re clingy and broken and desperate for attention? Boys don’t like that. They want a girl who knows her place. Who doesn’t whine about her Daddy issues.”

“Shut up,” you say again, louder.

He stands.

You go very still.

“You come into my house,” he says slowly, “in the middle of the damn night, soaking wet, demanding I grovel at your feet, and now you tell me to shut up?” His voice rises with every word. “You don’t talk to me like that, you hear me? I am your father.”

The old instinct kicks in. Your body remembers the timbre of his anger, the way it used to fill the walls and make the windows rattle. Your muscles brace for impact.

“I am not a kid anymore,” you force out. “You don’t get to talk to me like that. Not after everything you did. Not after—”

“After what?” He steps closer. The smell of beer and sweat makes your stomach turn. “After I put food on your table? After I kept a roof over your head while your ma ran around hysterical? You ungrateful little sl—”

He moves too fast for you to see it coming.

His hand clamps around your upper arm, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. Pain lances up to your shoulder. You gasp, instinctively trying to yank back, but he tightens his grip.

“You come into my house and disrespect me,” he snarls, “and you think you can just walk away?”

Fear floods your veins, hot and electric. Your heart slams against your ribs. A sound bubbles up in your throat, something small and animal.

“Let go,” you breathe.

He doesn’t.

Instead he shakes you, hard. Your teeth clack together. The room blurs.

“You gonna run back to your ma and cry about how Daddy hurt your feelings?” he mocks. “Maybe that little curly-haired friend of yours will come try to fight me. That what you want?”

That sparks something.

You twist, adrenaline sharpening your movements. Your heel connects with his shin. It isn’t much, but it makes him curse and loosen his grip just enough.

You tear free.

You stumble backward, knocking over an empty bottle. It shatters across the floor. Lonnie attempts to lunge for you again, but you’re already moving, your body operating on a single mantra:

Get out.

You bolt for the door, slipping on the linoleum, catching yourself on the wall. Lonnie’s footsteps thunder behind you. Your hand fumbles for the knob, slick with rain from earlier. When you finally wrench it open, cold air blasts your face.

“Don’t you dare walk out that door,” he roars.

You fling yourself through it.

The screen slams into your shoulder as you push past, the metal edge biting into your skin. You stumble down the steps, knees hitting the muddy yard. The pain flares through your body, but you scramble up anyway despite your lungs burning and your throat raw.

“You come back here!” he bellows from the porch.

You don’t look back.

You run.

The rain swallows everything. His voice, the world, your thoughts. It hammers at you, trying to shove you down. The mud sucks at your feet. Your breath rasps in your ears, ragged and too loud. You’re shaking so hard your teeth chatter, but you keep going, because stopping means giving him a chance to catch up, and you can’t.

You don’t know how long you run. The streets blur together. Your hands sting, and you realize at some point you must’ve fallen; blood streaks your palms, diluted by the rain, washing pink trails down your wrists.

You don’t stop until your body forces you to, until your legs buckle and you collapse under a flickering streetlight.

You hit the pavement hard, knees and palms screaming. For a second you just kneel there, gasping, water pooling around you, the world spinning.

You are so tired.

You could sit here, you think. You could stay right here, in the middle of the street, and let the rain soak you until you disappear. Maybe that would be easier.

But another image pushes through the fog: Joyce’s face when she realizes your bed is empty. Jonathan tearing through his jacket sleeves as he storms out into the night. Your twin, Will, panicking because his sister is no where to be found.

And Dustin.

Dustin pacing, phone pressed to his ear, calling your house over and over when you don’t pick up. Dustin’s voice cracking when he tries to speak your name. Dustin, who has always been your safest place, standing on his porch in the rain, looking out at the road as if he could will you into existence.

You don’t have your wallet. Your bus fare is gone. You don’t know what time it is, but it feels like the night is closing in around you.

You push yourself to your feet, every muscle protesting, and turn toward the only place you want to be.

Dustin’s house is farther than it seems in your mind. The walk stretches on forever, each step heavier than the last. Your hoodie clings to you like a second skin, soaked and cold. You wrap your arms around yourself and keep your head down, letting the streetlights guide you.

By the time you round the corner onto Dustin’s street, your body is one long, dull ache. You’re not sure how you’re still moving. The houses on this block are dark and quiet, windows glowing softly behind drawn curtains.

Except one.

Dustin’s porch light burns bright.

You almost sob with relief.

Your vision blurs as you stumble up the driveway. You trip on the front step and catch yourself on the railing, knuckles scraping. You shake your head, sending water flying, and lift your hand to knock.

The door opens before you can.

Dustin stands there in a faded t-shirt and flannel pajama pants, socks mismatched, hair a wild halo around his head. His eyes go wide behind his glasses when he sees you.

“Woah.”

You manage a sound that might be his name, but it comes out garbled. Your throat is tight, like you swallowed a fist. The world lurches sideways.

Dustin’s arms move faster than your brain.

You feel hands—warm, solid—catch your shoulders, steadying you. His face swims in front of you, all freckles and fear.

“Hey, hey, woah.” His voice is soft but urgent. “I got you, okay? C’mere, baby. I got you.”

Your knees finally give up. You sag forward, and he takes your weight without hesitation, dragging you up against his chest. You bury your face in the damp cotton of his shirt, breathing in that familiar mix of shampoo and something sweet you can never quite identify.

You tremble so hard your teeth clack against his collarbone.

“Jesus, you’re freezing,” he mutters. He kicks the door shut behind you and calls over his shoulder, “Mom! I need towels! Big ones!”

Claudia responds from the hallway, and then she’s there, eyes wide, pressing towels into his arms and fussing over you with gentle hands. There’s a flurry of movement as Dustin’s steering you down the hall, Claudia turning on lights, asking questions you can’t fully process.

You end up sitting on the closed lid of the toilet in the bathroom, the fan humming overhead. Dustin kneels in front of you, wrapping a towel around your shoulders, tucking the edges in like a blanket.

“Can you look at me?” he asks quietly.

You try. His face is blurry, eyes magnified by his glasses, worried and soft.

“Hey,” he says again, like the word itself is a hand on your cheek. “You’re safe here. Okay? You’re okay.”

Something in you cracks.

A choked sob slips out before you can stop it. You slap a hand over your mouth, but it’s too late. The sound ricochets off the tile. Your shoulders curl in on themselves.

“Sorry,” you gasp. “Sorry, I’m—I’m—”

“Don’t,” Dustin says immediately. He reaches up, gently prying your fingers away from your mouth. “Don’t apologize. You’re allowed to cry, you know that?”

You shake your head, tears burning hot against your frozen skin. “He said—he said—”

“Hey, hey.” He squeezes your hand. “Can you tell me where you’re hurt?”

You blink at him, thrown. “I’m not—what?”

“You’re bleeding,” he says, nodding toward your knees, where dark blossoms spread through your soaked jeans. “And your hands. Did you fall? Did someone,” His jaw clenches. “Did someone do this to you?”

Lonnie’s face flashes in your mind. His fingers digging into your arm. His voice, oily and cruel, wrapping around Dustin’s name.

You flinch.

Dustin’s expression darkens. “Okay,” he says quietly. “Okay. Let’s get you cleaned up first. Then you can tell me as much or as little as you want. Deal?”

You nod because you don’t know what else to do.

He moves carefully, like you’re made of glass. He helps you peel off your soaked hoodie and t-shirt, averting his eyes like it hurts, cheeks flushed as he hands you one of his old camp shirts and a pair of shorts Claudia brought up from the laundry room. You change with clumsy fingers, every brush of fabric against your skin raising goosebumps.

Dustin smiles weakly when you emerge from the bathroom, hair dripping, clothes hanging off you.

The joke is thin, but you latch onto it.

“I look great, don’t I?” Your voice is rough.

He huffs out a laugh, not saying anything.

You shuffle your way to his room, sit on the edge of his bed while he kneels at your feet with a first-aid kit, dabbing antiseptic on your scraped knees, your sliced palms, eyeing the angry bruise already blooming on your upper arm.

“Sorry,” he murmurs every time you flinch. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you say, even though the word feels foreign after tonight. “I’ve had worse.”

He looks up at that, eyes sharp. “From who?”

You swallow. Your throat feels raw, like you’ve been swallowing gravel.

“Dustin—”

“Because if this is from some stupid jerk from school,” he barrels on, “I swear to god, I will fucking—”

“Dad.”

The room stills.

Dustin’s hands freeze on your leg. His eyes search your face, like he’s hoping he misheard.

“Lonnie?” he asks, voice suddenly quiet.

You nod, staring at your scraped palms. “I went to see him.”

“Why?” The word isn’t angry, just bewildered and scared.

“I don’t know.” You huff out a humorless laugh. “I thought… I thought if I talked to him, if I said everything I never got to say, maybe I could make it make sense. Or make him apologize. Or something.” Your voice wobbles. “I just wanted him to see me. I was tired of him not seeing me. Or Will. Or Jonathan. Or Mom.”

Dustin sits back on his heels. You hear him swallow.

“And?” he says softly.

“He didn’t.” The admission tastes bitter. “He said I was useless. Again. Said I was broken. Clingy. That I’m just like Mom, always playing the victim.” Your chest tightens, the words digging in like barbs. “He said you were only nice to me because you feel sorry for me. That once you realize how much of a mess I am, you’ll leave too.”

The last sentence slips out before you can stop it.

You keep your eyes on your lap because you’re suddenly terrified of what you’ll see on his face. Pity. Disgust. Agreement.

Instead you feel his hand, warm and steady, cover yours.

“Look at me,” he says gently.

You shake your head.

“Please.”

You force yourself to look up.

His eyes are wet. His lower lip trembles.

“First of all,” he says, voice rough, “your dad is a grade-A dick. That’s not news. But I’m saying it out loud because apparently it needs repeating.” He squeezes your hand. “Nothing he said to you tonight is true. Not even a little. It’s like… like he took the concept of truth, set it on fire, and threw it into the Upside Down.”

A broken laugh escapes you.

“Second,” he continues, eyes locked on yours, “I am not nice to you because I feel sorry for you. I am nice to you because I like you. Because you’re my best friend. Because you’re the only person who truly laughs at my jokes. Because you bring me coffee when I’m up all night working on things. Because you danced with me at the Snow Ball when no one else would. Because you make this whole ‘almost dying every year’ thing slightly more bearable.”

Your throat closes up. “Dustin—”

“And third,” he says firmly, “if you think I’m going to ‘realize’ you’re a mess and then leave, you clearly don’t know me at all. Have you seen my room? I thrive in mess. Mess is my natural habitat.”

You glance around at the scattered comics, the half-assembled tinkered projects, the pile of clothes on his chair. “That is… true.”

“Exactly.” He leans in a little. “I’m not afraid of your mess. I’m not going anywhere.”

The sincerity in his voice cuts straight through you, clean and bright. Tears sting your eyes again, but this time they don’t feel like they’re dragging you under.

“Okay,” you whisper. “Okay.”

“Good.” He exhales like he’s been holding his breath since you knocked. “Because, um, I had this whole plan, and it would’ve been super awkward if you decided to bail now.”

You blink. “What plan?”

His cheeks flush. He scrubs a hand over his face, leaving a smudge of antiseptic on his chin.

“Not, like, a plan plan,” he backtracks. “Just—I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about saying some stuff for a while, and then you showed up here looking like you walked straight out of hell itself, and I thought, ‘Wow, timing, am I right?’ but also ‘Maybe don’t make this about you, Dustin,’ so I waited, but now you said you think I’ll leave, and that’s just—no. Absolutely not.”

You stare at him, half dazed, half fascinated by the way his words tumble over each other when he gets nervous.

“Dustin,” you say carefully, “You’re rambling again.”

“Maybe a little.” He clears his throat. “It’s a side effect of, um… liking someone a lot.”

Your heart stutters.

“Like… friendship liking?” you ask, because you need him to say it. To define it, so you don’t accidentally shatter yourself on hope.

“No.” He takes a breath, shoulders squaring. “Like… like, liking liking. Like the kind where your stomach does that stupid rollercoaster thing every time they smile, and you start memorizing their schedule without meaning to, and you get irrationally mad at anyone who makes them cry, and you want to punch their dad in the face for saying horrible things because they deserve so much better than that.”

Your brain misfires. Static fills your ears.

“Me?” you manage.

He huffs. “No, the other drenched, emotionally devastated girl on my bed right now.” His eyes soften. “Yes, you. It’s you. It’s been you for a while.”

“You like me,” you repeat, as if tasting the words.

“Yeah.” He swallows. “I do. A lot. Which is, you know, terrifying. But also… kinda great? From my perspective, at least. Your perspective might vary, and that’s fine, you don’t have to—”

“I like you too.”

You don’t realize you’ve interrupted him until his mouth snaps shut. He stares at you, blinking fast.

“You… what?”

“I like you too,” you say again, a nervous laugh bubbling up. “Like, liking liking. Like the rollercoaster stomach and the memorizing-your-schedule and the wanting-to-punch-anyone-who-makes-you-cry. All of that. I just didn’t say anything because I thought…” You swallow. “I thought I was too much. That you’d get tired of dealing with… me.”

His face crumples in a way that makes your heart ache.

“You could never be too much,” he says, voice thick. “You’re—” He flails a hand, searching for the word. “You’re exactly the right amount.”

You let out a shaky breath that feels like it’s been trapped in your chest for years.

“Okay,” you whisper. “Okay.”

A small smile tugs at his mouth. “Okay.”

You sit there for a moment, just looking at each other. The rain drums softly against the window, muted now. The buzzing in your veins settles into something calmer, warmer.

“Can I hug you?” he asks suddenly. “Properly, I mean. Not just, like, a courtesy hug. A real one.”

You laugh, the sound a little wet. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d really like that.”

He moves carefully, like he’s afraid you might bolt, and slides onto the bed beside you. His arms wrap around your shoulders, drawing you against his chest. You tuck your head under his chin, breathing in the familiar scent of him. His heart thumps steady against your ear.

You feel small in his hold, but not in the way Lonnie made you feel—shrunk, belittled, erased. With Dustin, small feels safe. Contained. Like you could fall apart and he’d keep all your pieces.

His hand rubs soothing circles on your back. “You’re shaking again.”

“I know.” You curl your fingers in his shirt. “It’s… starting to hit me.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Adrenaline crash. Happens after big fights.”

A fragile smile ghosts across your lips.

He hesitates. “Do you want me to call Joyce?”

Panic flares. “No. Not yet. Please.”

He immediately nods. “Okay. We won’t. Not until you say so.” He tilts his head, pressing his cheek lightly against your hair. “But I’m gonna call her eventually, because she loves you, and she deserves to know you’re safe. And also because if we don’t, she might actually murder me when she finds out you were here and didn’t tell her.”

“True.” You exhale slowly. “Just… give me a little while. I don’t want to see that look on her face yet.”

“I get it.” His voice is soft. “We’ve got time.”

You sit like that for what feels like forever, wrapped in his warmth, listening to the rain and the slow, even beat of his heart. The storm outside starts to ebb, thunder fading to a distant grumble.

After a while, you pull back enough to see his face.

“Thank you,” you say quietly.

“For what? My incredible bandaging skills?” He gestures at your knees, where Mickey Mouse bandaids cheerfully clash with the bruises.

“For… everything. For being awake. For opening the door. For not… not making me feel crazy for going there. For not treating me like I’m broken.”

His gaze softens. “You’re not broken,” he says, like he’s stating a scientific fact. “You’re hurt. There’s a difference.“

Your eyes sting again. “You really believe that?”

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t.” He clears his throat. “Also, I’m pretty sure if we can survive interdimensional monsters and government conspiracies, we can handle this. Promise.”

Silence settles between you again, comfortable this time. You trace patterns on the blanket with your fingertip, mind finally starting to quiet.

“Do you think,” you begin hesitantly, “it’ll always feel like this? Like I’m… waiting for him to show up in my head and tell me I’m worthless?”

Dustin thinks for a moment, not rushing to fill the space.

“I think,” he says slowly, “that his voice is really loud right now because he’s been in your head for a long time. Longer than anyone should be.” He taps a finger gently against your temple. “But I also think there are other voices in here. Yours. Joyce’s. Jonathan’s. Will’s. Mine. And if we keep saying the good stuff, over and over, eventually his voice gets drowned out. Like turning up the volume on good music until you can’t hear the static.”

You watch him, something fragile and hopeful unfolding in your chest.

“You’re really good at this,” you say. “You know that?”

“Good at what? Emotional pep talks? Yeah, I’ve been practicing in the mirror.” He grins when you roll your eyes. Then his expression grows serious again. “I meant what I said, by the way. I’m not going anywhere. Not just tonight. Not ever, if I can help it.”

“Even when I’m a mess?”

“Especially when you’re a mess,” he says, with such certainty it steals your breath. “That’s when people need you the most. That’s when I needed you the most. Remember after Dart? When I wouldn’t stop blaming myself? You sat on my bedroom floor with me for, like, five hours and listened to me list all the ways I messed up, and then you told me I was still a hero.” He shrugs, eyes dropping. “I believed you. So now it’s my turn.”

Your throat closes up. You reach for his hand, lacing your fingers with his.

“Okay,” you whisper. “Deal.”

His grip tightens.

He glances at the clock on his nightstand and winces. “It’s, uh, two in the morning.”

“Sorry,” you say automatically.

He nudges your shoulder. “Stop with the apologizing.”

You huff a laugh. “Sorry.”

He narrows his eyes at you and he flops back on the bed, tugging you down with him so you’re lying side by side, still holding hands. “You should try to sleep. Doctor Henderson’s orders.”

“Doctor Henderson is not a real doctor.”

“Doctor Henderson is offended.” He adopts a faux British accent. “I’ll have you know I have my PhD.”

You smile into the pillow, the expression small but real.

“Will you stay?” you ask softly. “If I… if I fall asleep?”

He turns his head, nose brushing yours. “Always.”

The word settles around you like a blanket.

You close your eyes, focusing on the weight of his hand around yours, the warmth of his body next to you, the slow in and out of his breathing. Your mind tries to replay the night—Lonnie’s grip on your arm, his words—but every time the memories surface, Dustin’s voice cuts through, louder, steadier.

You’re not broken.

You’re exactly the right amount.

I’m not going anywhere.

The storm outside finally dwindles to a gentle patter. Somewhere down the hall, Claudia’s footsteps move around the kitchen, the comforting clink of mugs and the soft murmur of the radio grounding you in a world where people care if you’re cold or hurt or scared.

You drift.

You wake sometime later to the soft glow of early morning creeping around the edges of the curtains. Dustin is still there, lying on his side facing you, his curls a chaotic halo against the pillow. His glasses are off, lashes dark against his cheeks. He snores quietly, lips parted.

Your fingers are still intertwined.

For the first time in a long time, you don’t wake up braced for impact. There’s fear, yes—about what comes next, what Lonnie might do—but it’s tempered by something steadier.

You survived.

You got out.

You came here.

Dustin stirs, eyes fluttering open. When he sees you watching him, he smiles, slow and sleepy.

“Hey,” he rasps. “How you feeling?”

You consider the question carefully.

“Sore,” you admit. “Tired. Kinda like I got hit by a bus and then the bus reversed over me for good measure.”

“That’s accurate,” he says. “Emotional buses are the worst.”

“But also…” You search for the word. “Lighter. Maybe.”

His smile widens. “Good.”

You hesitate. “Do you… do you still…?”

“Like you?” he supplies. “Didn’t change overnight, if that’s what you’re asking.” He squeezes your hand. “If anything, I like you more now.”

“More?”

“You faced your dad.” He shrugs. “That’s badass.”

“You saw me ugly-cry on your bathroom floor.”

“Also badass,” he insists.

You laugh, the sound easier now. He beams.

Claudia knocks gently on the door a few minutes later, poking her head in. Her gaze sweeps over you, over the bandaids and the borrowed clothes and the way you and Dustin are still holding hands. Her expression softens.

“I made pancakes,” she says. “And I think we should call your mother, sweetheart.”

Your stomach flips, but you nod. “Okay.”

Dustin sits up beside you, shoulders squared. “We’ll do it together,” he promises.

You believe him.

The conversation with Joyce happens over the phone first—messy and loud and tearful through the receiver pressed to Dustin’s ear. She cries; you hear her voice crack from across the room and cry too, burying your face in your hands. Dustin relays her words gently, promising she’s on her way but begging for time to calm down first. Claudia takes the phone then, her voice steady as she reassures Joyce you’re safe, cared for, not alone.

You tell her it’s not her fault, shouting the words into the mouthpiece when Dustin holds it out to you. For once, she listens—or at least, she says she does, her sniffled agreement cutting through the static.

She doesn’t blame you for going. She doesn’t call you stupid or dramatic or ungrateful. She just keeps saying she loves you, over and over, until the line clicks dead.

Through it all, Dustin stays by your side, a constant presence. His hand finds yours under the kitchen table. When your voice wavers, he gently squeezes it.

Afterward, you and Dustin slip out to the front steps, watching the last remnants of the storm drip from the trees. The air smells clean, washed.

Dustin bumps his shoulder into yours. You feel the warmth of him, steady and close, even without words.

“You’re still shaking a little,” he says quietly, his voice cutting through the quiet drip of water from the eaves.

“Yeah.” You exhale, the tremors easing just from saying it out loud. “But it’s different now.”

“How so?”

You look at him—at the boy who opened his door in the middle of the night without hesitation, who wrapped you in towels and reassurance, who turned the storm in your chest into something you could weather.

“Because,” you say, letting your pinky brush against his, “I finally feel like I’m not alone in it anymore.”

He doesn’t pull away. Instead, his fingers curl loosely around yours. “You’re not. You never were,” Dustin murmurs.

You don’t hear from him for eight days.

For the first day or two, you’re sure it has to be a joke, some over-the-top Dustin scheme to crack you up. It would be just like him to show up at your door with a fistful of hand-picked flowers and that unstoppable grin, grabbing your hand to whisk you off into a whole day he’d planned down to the last detail, just for you two.

But he misses your routine ‘good morning’ on Monday, and he isn’t at your locker before first period, and by lunch your stomach is twisting in tight, confused knots.

By Wednesday, you aren’t sure if this is a joke anymore.

You are popular in the way that counts at Hawkins High; your name gets called across the hallway, you sit in the middle tables at lunch, you get invited to parties at the quarry and the big houses out past the tracks. People notice when you walk into a room. They always have something to say to you.

The thing is, most of the time it is shallow, like skimming stones over water. Compliments about your hair, your outfit, the way you laughed at someone’s joke. Invitations that mean they want you there as proof, as decoration, not as a person.

Dustin has never been like that.

Dustin waits in the cold outside as you finish up your last class with his bike leaning against his hip. Dustin sits way up in the bleachers during games that you’re cheering at just so you can see him waving his arms when you look up from the field. He calls you by your name in a way that makes it feel new and important every time.

He’s a nerd, which isn’t a secret to anyone. He plays Dungeons & Dragons, corrects teachers under his breath, and knows practically every quantum physics theory that’s possible. He’s also yours.

At least, he was.

The next time you saw him, he was standing in your driveway with his hands jammed into the pockets of his jacket, eyes wide and shiny in the glow of your porch light.

“We should break up,” he said.

You were halfway through a sentence about movie night. You still remember the way the words died on your tongue, how the air suddenly felt too thick to swallow.

“What?”

He swallowed. “I think we should… take a break. Or, you know. An actual break up. I just— I think it’s better if I give you some space.”

Your mind had gone immediately, stupidly blank. “Space from what? From you?”

“From us.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat like he was trying to swallow the sound. “I don’t want to be all over you all the time if it’s annoying you. If it’s too much.”

“That’s not—” you started, but he shook his head, curly hir flopping into his eyes.

“It’s okay,” he said, too quickly. “Really, it’s okay. I get it. You don’t have to explain. I just… I care about you, and I don’t want to make things worse than they already are.”

“Dustin, what are you talking about?”

He flinched like the words hurt. “I just think this is the right thing.” He’d stepped back, away from you, the distance between you feeling like a physical thing. “I’ll, uh… I’ll see you around.”

And then he was on his bike, wheels crunching over the gravel, tail light blinking red until he turned the corner and vanished.

You waited for him to call that night. You waited the next day. You waited for him at your locker, at the bench under the big oak where you always sat before heading home. You stared at the phone on the wall so long the it started to blur your eyesight, willing it to ring.

Nothing.

You replay the last week over and over in your head, looking for something you did, something you said. You didn’t fight. You didn’t even bicker in that way you both found secretly fun. Everything was fine. He kissed you goodbye before the ghosting started, which tasted like popcorn and soda. He told you he’d call.

And then Monday afternoon, you hear it.

You are in the girls’ bathroom between third and fourth period, fixing your lip gloss, when you hear your name followed by a whispery giggle.

“I told you,” a girl says from the stalls. You recognize the voice immediately—April, who sits two rows over in English and has never bothered to hide the way she watches you. “She said he’s, like, obsessed with her. Follows her around like a puppy. It’s gross.”

Your heart catches.

“It’s Henderson, what did you expect?” another voice replies. “He probably sends her, like, science facts instead of love notes.”

They laugh. Nails click against the metal of the stall door.

You tell yourself you’re going to walk out, that you’re not going to listen, but your feet root to the tile.

“I mean,” April continues, “she said he’s sweet or whatever, but she feels like he’s always there. Like, clingy? She can’t even breathe.”

Your blood goes cold.

“She told you that?” the other girl asks.

April hums. “Yeah. Said he’s kind of annoying. That she wishes he’d… I don’t know. Chill.”

They wash their hands, still talking about someone’s hair, someone’s shoes, some boy’s car. The door creaks open and slams shut and you are left alone, staring at your reflection in the mirror.

You did not say that.

You would never say that.

You grip the edges of the sink so hard your knuckles ache. Your face looks wrong: too pale, eyes too wide, mouth a thin, shocked line.

They’re lying, you think. Or, no, they’re exaggerating. Maybe they misunderstood something you joked about once. Maybe someone else said it and they put your name on it because that’s what people do; they trade stories like currency, and your name spends well.

But Dustin believed them.

That’s the only thing that makes sense. He heard that you thought he was annoying, that he was clingy, that you wanted space, and instead of talking to you, he decided to give it to you.

The thought lands heavy in your chest. It makes your eyes sting.

You barely make it through the rest of the day. The halls feel too bright, too loud. People keep talking to you, keep asking why you look “off,” but you brush them off with practiced smiles and non‑answers.

When the final bell rings, you don’t wait under the oak tree.

You walk straight home, close your bedroom door, and do not come out again except when you absolutely have to.

By Friday, your mother stands at your doorway with her arms crossed, her frustration barely hiding her concern.

“You’ve missed two days now,” she says.

You sit on your bed with your knees pulled to your chest, comforter wrapped around you like armor. “I think I’m sick.”

“You don’t have a fever.”

“Maybe it’s, like, a stomach thing.”

“You’re not throwing up.”

You shrug, looking down at the fraying edge of the blanket. “Maybe it’s emotional.”

She sighs, the sound softening around the edges. For all her exasperation, she is not unkind.

“Is this about that boy?” she asks. “The one with the hair?”

“The one with the hat,” you correct automatically, and then your throat clamps shut.

She comes to sit at the edge of the bed. “Sweetheart, you can’t just stop living because a boy broke your heart.”

“He didn’t break my heart,” you say, except it comes out thin and small and painfully unconvincing. “He… he just left.”

Her hand lands on your ankle through the blanket, a grounding weight. “That’s what breaking your heart looks like.”

You press your forehead to your knees. You are so tired of trying not to cry that you no longer have the energy to pretend you are okay.

“Can I just… have the weekend?” you ask, the words muffled against your legs. “Then I’ll go back on Monday. Promise.”

She hesitates, then squeezes your ankle. “You’re going on Monday,” she says, which is as close to a yes as she is willing to give.

You nod without lifting your head.

You do not sleep much that night. Or the night after. You lie awake and stare at the glow‑in‑the‑dark stars on your ceiling, tracking constellations Dustin once traced with his finger, humming some made‑up song under his breath.

You think of his hands, always warm and fidgeting, drumming patterns on your knee in math class, twisting the fringe on your scarf, tugging you gently closer when you stood too far away. You think of his voice, the way it always found you in a crowd, anchoring you even when you pretended not to notice.

You think of how quiet everything is now.

Eventually, you stop counting.

You stop changing out of pajamas. You stop doing your hair. You stop answering the phone. Your mother stands in your doorway again, worrying at her bottom lip, but she lets you be when she sees the way your shoulders shake under the covers.

You aren’t that dramatic, normally. You have bad days, sure, but you bounce back fast, always. There are people watching, after all. There is a rhythm to being you that you rarely let slip.

But nothing feels right without him.

The worst part is not knowing why. Not hearing it from his own mouth. If he told you he did not love you anymore, that he woke up one day and realized you were not who he wanted, it would hurt, but at least it would be an answer. Instead, all you have is a half‑explained “I think you want space” and the echo of gossip you never started.

You are still in bed on the eighth morning, curtains drawn tight against the light, when your mother knocks again.

“Sweetheart?” she calls. “You have a visitor.”

You do not move. “Tell them I’m sick.”

“He says he’ll leave if you really want him to,” she replies, oddly precise.

He.

Your heart stutters.

You shove the blanket back, limbs suddenly heavy and shaky all at once, and stumble to your feet. You catch sight of yourself in the mirror—a mess of hair, eyes red‑rimmed, sweatshirt wrinkled and too big—and you almost retreat, almost grab the covers and disappear again.

But Dustin is downstairs.

The boy who hasn’t called, who hasn’t written, who cut himself cleanly out of your life like pulling a stitch and letting the wound gape.

You square your shoulders.

“Okay,” you say, voice unsteady. “Okay. I’m coming.”

The hallway feels longer than it ever has. The stairs creak under your weight. You hear low voices—your mother’s, polite and concerned, and his, higher and rougher than you remember, like he has been yelling or crying or both.

You turn the corner into the living room and there he is.

Dustin stands just inside the doorway, hat clutched nervously in both hands. His hair curls madly without it, haloing his head. He wears his usual layered t‑shirt and jacket, but he looks smaller in them somehow, shoulders hunched, gaze fixed on a point somewhere around your mother’s shoes.

When he senses movement, his head snaps up.

For a moment, neither of you say anything.

His eyes sweep over your face, your hair, the oversize sweatshirt hanging off your frame. Something like horror flashes across his expression.

“Hey,” he says softly.

Your throat tightens. “Hey.”

“I’ll be in the kitchen,” your mother says, squeezing your shoulder as she passes. “Call if you need me.”

You nod, not taking your eyes off Dustin. The sound of her footsteps retreating down the hall feels like a curtain dropping, leaving the two of you on an unfamiliar stage.

Dustin shifts his weight from foot to foot, then steps closer. “You look…” He hesitates, eyes flicking to yours. “You look tired.”

You let out a breath that is half laugh, half broken thing. “Wow. Thanks.”

He winces. “I didn’t mean— I just… Are you okay?”

The question hits you like a physical blow.

“Am I okay?” you repeat. Your voice comes out hollow. “I don’t know, Dustin. Let’s see. My boyfriend dumped me out of nowhere and then disappeared for a week. My friends are talking about me behind my back. I haven’t been to school in days. So, yeah, I’m fantastic.”

His face crumples. He takes another step forward, then stops, as if afraid you will push him away.

“I’m sorry,” he says. The words tumble out of him, tripping over each other. “I’m so, so sorry. I messed up. I messed up so bad.”

“For what?” you demand. The anger climbs up through the fog of your sadness, sharp and bright. “For leaving? For not talking to me? For believing a bunch of stupid rumors instead of asking me?”

His eyes widen. “You know about the rumors?”

You scoff. “Of course I know. Hawkins isn’t that big, Dustin.”

He looks like he might be sick. “I didn’t want you to know.”

“Well, I do,” you snap. “I heard them in the bathroom. Apparently I think you’re clingy and annoying and I wish you’d leave me alone.”

The words taste poisonous on your tongue.

Dustin’s jaw clenches. “You never said that,” he says quietly, like he is reminding himself as much as stating a fact.

“No,” you say. “I didn’t.”

He sucks in a sharp breath. “I know that now.”

You stare at him. “Now?”

He nods, curls bouncing. “I— Can I sit?” he asks, gesturing jerkily to the couch.

You shrug, crossing your arms over your chest as you sink into the armchair across from him. The distance between you feels deliberate, a line drawn in carpet. He perches on the edge of the cushion, hat still twisting between his fingers.

“Okay,” he says, inhaling deeply like he is about to jump into cold water. “I need to tell you what happened. And you can hate me after, and I’ll leave, I promise, but I need you to at least have the whole story, because the version in my head clearly wasn’t the truth and I’ve been walking around with it like an idiot.”

You nod stiffly. “Go ahead.”

“So.” He licks his lips. “Last week, I was at the arcade with Mike and Lucas and Will. Just, you know, normal stuff. After, we went to get fries at Benny’s, and that’s where I heard them.”

“Heard who?”

“Amanda and her friend. I was coming back from the bathroom and they were at the table behind us, and I heard your name. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, I swear, but then they said my name and I…”

His shoulders sag. “I heard them saying that you thought I was clingy. That I was always around. That I was—annoying.” His voice catches on the word like it hurts to say. “That you wished I’d back off. That you were embarrassed to be seen with me sometimes.”

Your breath stutters. “Embarrassed?”

He nods, eyes fixed on his hands. “They said you didn’t want to hurt my feelings, because I’m… me.” He pulls a face, self‑conscious. “But that you didn’t know how to tell me without making it weird. So you were just kind of waiting for me to take the hint.”

It feels like someone is squeezing your lungs in a fist.

“I never said that,” you whisper.

“I know.” His voice is raw. “But at the time, it sounded… possible. I mean, look at you.” He gestures at you helplessly. “You’re you. You’re… popular. People like you. You could date literally anyone. And I’m… Dustin. I play board games in a basement and get into arguments about movie physics. I’m not exactly the guy people expect to see holding your hand in the hallway.”

“You are exactly the guy I want holding my hand in the hallway,” you shoot back, the words leaving you before you can stop them.

He freezes.

Something fragile sits in the air between you.

He looks up slowly, eyes glossy. “Yeah,” he says hoarsely. “That would’ve been good to know before my brain decided to throw a self‑sabotage party.”

You stare at him. “So you just… believed them? Some random gossip from girls who barely know me?”

“Not random,” he says miserably. “They… they said they heard it from you. That you told them. And I know we’ve talked about me being… a lot. I get excited. I talk too much. I want to be around you all the time. And you’ve made jokes about it, which, like, I know, I laughed too. But I started thinking… what if they weren’t just jokes to you? What if you really were suffocating and I was too into my own feelings to notice?”

Your mind flickers through memories: how you tease him for calling you so often he was running up his phone bill; joking that he was going to wear a path into the hallway outside your homeroom

They were jokes. You always smiled when you said them. You always curled closer, not farther, when you called him clingy in a fond voice.

But if someone took those words without the context, without the warmth…

Your chest aches.

“So,” Dustin continues, “I panicked. I thought, okay, if I really care about her, I should give her what she wants. Space. A chance to breathe. And if that hurts me, then that’s the price. Because the last thing I want is to be some annoying guy you feel trapped by.”

He laughs, a short, humorless sound. “I told myself I was being noble. Like some hero in a comic book sacrificing his happiness for the greater good or whatever. In reality, I was just… cowardly. Too scared to ask you and hear you confirm it.”

“You should have asked me,” you say, voice trembling. “You’re supposed to talk to me.”

“I know.” His hands clench in his hat, knuckles white. “I know that now. I’ve had a week of the guys yelling at me about it.”

You blink. “The guys?”

He nods, face flushing. “Mike noticed first that you weren’t at school. Then Lucas. They thought you were sick, but then they saw your friends whispering and… I don’t know. Mike Wheeler can be weirdly observant when he wants to be.” His mouth twists. “He cornered me at lunch yesterday and asked what I did. When I told him, he called me an idiot for, like, twenty solid minutes. Lucas joined in. Will just looked disappointed and sad, which was worse.”

Despite everything, a flicker of humor sparks in your chest at the mental image of Dustin being tag‑teamed by his friends. It fades quickly, but it is there.

“Steve somehow got involved too,” Dustin adds.

Your eyebrows jump. “Steve?”

“Yeah.” He grimaces. “Apparently he’s some kind of self‑appointed relationship guru now. Said how I shouldn’t even doubt our relationship with the way you look at me.” Blush rises to his cheeks as he quotes Steve.

You remember catching sight of Dustin across the parking lot, the way your whole body lit up, how you could not stop yourself from grinning. Maybe Steve has a point.

“Anyway,” Dustin says, barreling on, “it took me too long, but I finally realized that even if you did want space, I owed you an actual conversation. I wanted to talk to you at school today, but you weren’t there. And you weren’t there yesterday. And you weren’t there the day before. And then your friend Jenna said she hadn’t seen you all week and that you weren’t answering your phone and—”

He breaks off, swallowing hard. His voice cracks when he continues. “I got scared. Like, really scared. So I biked over here. Your mom said you’ve barely left your room. That you haven’t been eating much. That you… that you cry a lot.”

Your cheeks burn. Humiliation tangles with hurt. “Oh my God.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again, urgent. “I’m not trying to embarrass you. I just— I did this. I did this to you. I thought I was doing the right thing, and instead I… I hurt you. More than I ever wanted to. And I am so sorry.”

The anger drains out of you as fast as it came, leaving something heavy and exhausted in its place.

“I was confused,” you say quietly. “You were the one person who actually, like… cared. Who wanted to be around me for me, not for what I look like or who I sit with at lunch. You were the one person who hugged me just because, who held my hand because you like it, not because it looks good. And then you were just gone. No explanation. No warning. I thought I did something. I thought I—”

Your voice cracks. You pull your knees up on the chair, hugging them to your chest like you did in bed.

Dustin’s eyes shine. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he says fiercely. “This wasn’t about you messing up. This was about me being insecure and stupid and letting other people’s words get into my head.”

You sniff, wiping at your nose with your sleeve. “You really thought I was embarrassed of you?”

He winces. “I didn’t want to. But I thought… why wouldn’t you be? You’re so…” He gestures vaguely at you, flushing. “You. And I’m… me.”

“You keep saying that like it’s a bad thing,” you mutter.

“It’s not,” he says quickly. “It’s just… different. And people talk. They always have. I hear them too, you know. The comments. The jokes. How they ask you what you’re doing hanging out with the nerd from AV club.”

You think of the glances, the little smirks, the questions half‑asked in hallways. You had brushed them off. You thought he did too.

“I guess I thought you’d eventually get tired of defending me,” he admits. “Or that you’d realize they were right and want someone… cooler. Someone who looks like they belong in your world.”

You stare at him, stunned. “Dustin, you are my world.”

The words slip out, unpolished and raw. You do not try to take them back.

He goes very still.

“I—” he starts, then stumbles over his tongue. “You… what?”

You drop your gaze, cheeks burning. “When I’m at those parties or whatever, I’m just… there. People like the idea of me. They like that I laugh at their jokes and pose for their pictures and show up where they want me. But it’s like being a poster on a wall. They don’t… see me.”

You glance up, eyes locking with his. “You see me. You ask how my day is and actually listen to the answer. You remember how I take my coffee. You noticed when I got quiet in November and you didn’t stop asking what was wrong until I told you about my grandfather. You’re the only person who’s ever really made me feel like I’m not just… decoration.”

Dustin’s lips part. His eyes shine so bright they almost glow.

“Decorations are important,” he says automatically, voice wobbling. “They make things… festive.”

A watery laugh huffs out of you. “You know what I mean.”

“I do,” he says. “I really do.”

Silence stretches between you, heavy but not suffocating. You can feel the shape of something shifting, like tectonic plates grinding slowly into a new alignment.

“So what now?” you ask finally. “You came here to apologize. You’ve apologized. A lot.”

He nods. “I’m not done.”

You blink. “You’re not?”

He shakes his head. “No. Because I didn’t just hurt your feelings. I also broke a promise. I promised I’d be on your side. That I’d always talk to you. That if something bothered me, I’d tell you, not listen to some girls who survive on gossip at the diner.” His fingers tighten around the brim of his hat, voice catching just a little. “I let them make me doubt us, and that was the worst part.”

“Anyway.” His expression sobers. “I broke that promise. And I can’t undo it, but I can promise that I won’t do it again. I can promise that next time I get in my own head, I will drag my ridiculous self over to you and say, ‘Hey, my brain is being dumb, can we talk about it?’ instead of disappearing like an idiot.”

You duck your head. “I’m still mad at you.”

“I know,” he says. “You should be. I’m mad at me too.”

“Good.”

He fiddles with the brim of his hat, then inhales deeply. “I also… would like to un‑break up with you. If that’s something you’d even want. Which I know you might not. And if you don’t, I get it, and I’ll leave you alone, and I’ll still help you with math homework if you want—”

“Dustin.”

He shuts up instantly. “Yeah?”

“Did you actually just come into my house and ask if I want to get back together with you while also offering to be my math tutor?”

His ears burn red. “I thought it was a good package deal.”

An unexpected warmth unfurls in your chest. It feels like sunlight after days of rain.

“You’re ridiculous,” you say, but there is no heat in it.

“I know,” he says again, faintly hopeful. “But I’m your ridiculous. Or, I was. And I’m hoping maybe I could be again. If you’ll let me. I’ll do better. I’ll… I’ll be better. For you. And for me. And for our hypothetical math grades.”

You study him.

He looks nothing like the confident, loudmouthed Dustin who strides down the hallways cracking jokes and high‑fiving people. He looks small and nervous and heartbreakingly earnest, like a kid who broke his favorite toy and is begging for a chance to fix it.

You could say no. You could protect your heart by wrapping it in barbed wire and handing it to no one ever again.

But the truth is, he never really stopped being yours. Even when he was gone. Even when you were furious and hurt and hollow.

“On one condition,” you say.

His eyes light up. “Anything.”

“You talk to me next time,” you say. “No more breaking up with me because some girl at Benny’s wants to stir drama. If you think I’m embarrassed of you, you ask. If you’re worried you’re too much, you tell me. If your brain starts doing that thing where it lies, you come to me and we fact‑check it together. Deal?”

His smile cracks through, hesitant at first, then growing. “Deal,” he says instantly. “Absolutely. Cross my heart, hope to— Actually, maybe I won’t finish that sentence.” He mimes zipping his lips. “Deal.”

“Also,” you add, because the hurt still smarts, “you have to forgive yourself, eventually.”

He startles. “What?”

“You keep putting yourself down,” you say. “I’m allowed to tease you. You’re not.”

He stares at you. “That seems like a double standard.”

“It is,” you agree. “Live with it. You messed up. But you came here. You apologized. You were honest. That counts for something.”

His throat works. “I don’t deserve you,” he murmurs.

“Maybe not,” you say lightly. “But you have me, so don’t waste it.”

He laughs, a little breathless. “I won’t. I swear.”

You uncurl slowly from the chair, your muscles stiff from days spent huddled in a ball. When you stand, the room tilts for a second. Dustin is on his feet in an instant, hands hovering at your elbows.

“Whoa,” he says. “Careful.”

“I’m fine,” you say, but you do not pull away when he steadies you.

The aftershave you got him for Christmas lingers on his skin, something clean and warm that has become comfortingly familiar. Your heart stutters, then settles.

“Can I hug you?” he asks. His voice is quieter than you have ever heard it.

You swallow hard.

For eight days, you have missed the weight of his arm around your shoulders, the way his chest feels under your cheek, the steady thump of his heart against your ear. You have missed the way his hoodie smells like fabric softener and junk food and pine needles, a scent you associate with safety.

“Yes,” you say. “Please.”

His breath leaves him in a shaky rush, as if he has been holding it since he walked through your door. Then his arms are around you, awkward for half a second and then sure, solid, familiar.

You sink into him like a magnet finding its pair. Your fingers curl into the back of his jacket. You press your face into the crook of his neck and breathe.

He squeezes you, one arm banded tight across your shoulders, the other hand splayed warm against your back. He is shaking a little. You realize he has been just as scared as you have.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmurs into your hair. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“I know,” you whisper. “I know, Dusty.”

He makes a soft, wounded noise at the nickname. “I missed you,” he says. “Like, physically. My chest hurt. My hands didn’t know what to do if they weren’t holding yours. It was very inconvenient.”

You huff a quiet laugh against his skin. “My bed felt too big,” you confess. “And way too cold.”

He leans back enough to look at you, hands still framing your shoulders. His eyes search your face, drinking you in like he does not want to look away ever again.

“I love you,” he blurts.

Everything inside you goes very still.

You know it. You have known it for a while, in the quiet way you know when summer is ending or when a storm is coming. You have felt it in the way he looks at you, in the care he takes with even the smallest parts of your life. But he has never said it out loud.

He looks terrified. “You don’t have to say it back,” he says in a rush. “I know I picked a really bad week to drop that word, and I know I haven’t exactly been, like, Boyfriend of the Year material, but I needed you to know. Even if you never talk to me again after today. I needed you to know that I love you. That I didn’t leave because I stopped. I left because I was stupid and scared and—”

“I love you too,” you say.

He stops mid‑ramble, mouth hanging open.

“You do?” he breathes.

“Obviously.” You roll your eyes, though it comes with a smile this time. “Why else would I let you drag me into dangerous nerd adventures and listen to you talk about radio frequencies for, like, an hour?”

He beams, the kind of grin that takes over his whole face, lighting it from within. “Because radio frequencies are fascinating?”

“That too,” you admit.

He laughs, giddy. Then his expression sobers, eyes softening.

“Can I… kiss you?” he asks. “Properly this time. Not a terrified ‘we’re breaking up on your driveway’ kiss. A ‘I love you and I messed up but I’m going to make it up to you’ kiss.”

Warmth floods your chest.

“Yes,” you say, heartbeat loud in your ears. “You can.”

He leans in slowly, giving you every chance to change your mind. When his lips finally meet yours, it is gentle at first, tentative, as if he is afraid you might vanish if he presses too hard.

You kiss him back, looping your arms around his neck. He makes a small, surprised sound against your mouth and relaxes into it, his hands sliding to your waist, fingers curling in the hem of your sweatshirt.

The kiss deepens, still soft but surer now. It feels like a promise knit into every brush of his lips, every exhale shared between you.

When you pull apart, a little breathless, his forehead rests against yours. His eyes are closed. He smiles, slow and peaceful.

“Okay,” he whispers. “That… that felt like a restart button.”

“A good one?” you ask.

“The best,” he says. “Way better than the reset buttons on my old consoles. Those just erase your progress. This one kept all the levels we cleared and just fixed the glitch.”

You laugh, shoulders loosening for the first time in days. The room feels brighter, the air easier to breathe.

“Stay?” you ask impulsively. “For a while? We could order pizza or something. Watch a movie. Not a sad one.”

His smile widens. “Stay here? With you? Obviously yes. I was going to suggest it if you didn’t.” He glances toward the hallway. “Think your mom would let me?”

“I think she’ll be relieved I’m not hiding in my room anymore,” you say. “She’ll probably make us snacks.”

“Your mom is a saint,” he says reverently.

“You have no idea.”

You lead him toward the kitchen, your fingers intertwined with his, the simple contact flooding you with warmth. Your mother looks up from the sink when you walk in, eyes darting from your joined hands to your faces.

“You two okay?” she asks carefully.

You meet Dustin’s gaze. He squeezes your hand, a silent reassurance.

“We’re getting there,” you say. “We’re going to order pizza and watch something dumb.”

Your mother’s shoulders visibly relax. “I’ll get the phone,” she says. “And some blankets for the couch.”

As she moves around the kitchen, Dustin leans close to murmur in your ear, “Dibs on being the blanket burrito.”

“You always are,” you whisper back. “I’ll allow it.”

He grins, bumping his shoulder lightly against yours.

You keep catching your breath on the way the air carries wood‑smoke and that faint chill that never quite goes away. The town looks normal again—at least from a distance—but there’s a weight in every familiar street corner. Too much silence where noise used to be.

You still meet Dustin almost every evening, more out of routine than plan. Sometimes it’s his basement, sometimes yours, and sometimes you’ll sit in your backyard where there’s a fire pit that’s barely been used since everything ended.

Tonight the wind scrapes along the fence, dry leaves scraping against the wood. He’s crouched over the fire pit with his hood up, attempting to coax the flame back to life. “You ever think it’s weird we don’t have anything to fight anymore?” he asks, voice half‑swallowed by wind.

You throw in a stick, watch the ember edge it into orange. “We’re allowed to be bored, Henderson.”

“I know.” His tone evens out, but his eyes flicker away. “Guess I just don’t know what to do with quiet.”

You know exactly what he means. The quiet holds too much memory—Max’s steady breathing when you weren’t sure she’d wake up; Eddie’s guitar before the squeals of the demobats; Eleven standing at the last gate, staring at you all as she bid her goodbye. The quiet reminds you who’s missing.

Dustin blows on the fire again until the smoke turns blue. Then softly, “You ever seen the northern lights?”

You blink. “Out of nowhere, man.”

He grins, the quick flash of it older now but still pure. “No, seriously. I read this thing— about Banff, a place in Canada. It’s apparently beautiful, and great for the Aurora. I’ve been watching the data.”

“You’ve been watching space weather.”

“It’s real science,” he says, mock‑defensive, and you can’t help laughing.

When the laughter fades, you catch that look in his eyes again—the restless one. The one that says he’s chasing something he can’t quite name. You sip from your thermos. “You wanna go?”

“What, to Canada?”

“Yeah.”

He blinks, waiting for you to retract it. When you don’t, his smile shifts, almost uncertain. “You’re serious?”

“Dead serious.” You poke at the fire until sparks scatter. “Road trip. Nature therapy. Why not?”

He studies you. “You think we’re actually gonna feel better looking at the sky?”

“Maybe we’ll at least feel different. Maybe we just need to get away from here for a second.”

The wind surges, a hollow howl through the trees. After a long beat he nods. “Okay then. Northern Lights.”

The planning takes over his brain within hours. He sends you links to train schedules, bus routes, a spreadsheet of Aurora forecasts with color‑coded levels of intensity. You just shake your head, typical Dustin, and show up.

The drive north unfolds in shades of winter. Hours slip by, the highway stretching endless between fields crusted white. Dustin takes the wheel half the time, radio low, murmuring fragments about geomagnetic storms—charged particles, collisions, and the magnetosphere, riddling off what he calls ‘fun facts’ in his true Dustin way. You don’t answer, just watch the trees blur past, but you’re grateful that he’s with you.

Past Minnesota, the conversation fades into comfortable silence. He taps the steering wheel in rhythm with songs neither of you can name but somehow know all the lyrics to. The rest is quiet with just the hum of the tires and the soft scrape of the wipers passing time. You drift between thought and half-sleep, letting the road pull itself forward.

By the time the mountains come into view, you’ve forgotten how to describe beauty. Dust‑white peaks cut straight into sky; clouds thread around them. Tiny towns cling to valleys full of frozen rivers. You press your palm to the window, breath fogging glass.

“Here,” Dustin murmurs, leaning forward as you pass the ‘Welcome to Banff, Alberta’ sign. “Banff.”

It doesn’t feel like arrival—more like stepping into another world entirely. Streets are narrow, bright with snow. Log cabins cling close together. Pines hold their breaths under layers of frost. The air smells clean, sharp, a world rinsed new.

You park outside a cabin near the edge of the forest. The sign says Pine Lodge in cheerful green letters. Inside, wood paneling shows amber as you flick on the lamps and the heater groans in protest as Dustin cranks it.

“Home base,” he declares, setting his backpack down.

You kick your boots free of snow, laugh low. “You’re something else.”

He shrugs out of his parka, the curls on his head dusted with snow. For a moment, standing in that slanted golden light, he looks too young and too old at once—your best friend and the kid from middle school who figured everything out before anyone else.

“So,” he says, quieter now. “We actually did it.”

You nod. “Yeah. We did.”

There’s a beat where you both just stand there listening to the heater click. Then he grins, familiar mischief flickering back. “Priority one: find snacks. Priority two: check the sky graphs.”

“Of course,” you deadpan. “Wouldn’t want to miss a solar wind or whatever it is.”

He laughs, bright and earnest, and something inside you unclenches. Maybe it’s the altitude, maybe it’s the silence, but for the first time in a long while, breathing feels simple.

He steps to the window, looking out at twilight pooling blue across the mountains. “Tomorrow,” he says, almost to himself. “Maybe we’ll see them tomorrow.”

You join him at the glass. The peaks fade into shadow, and the first stars prick through—small, steady, patient. The snow reflects them like tiny mirrors. You can feel his shoulder barely brushing yours. Neither of you pull away.

“Tomorrow,” you echo.

Outside, night folds over Banff like a curtain, clean and quiet, waiting.

Morning light filters through the cabin blinds in slender stripes, pale as paper. You wake to the steady hiss of the heater and the muted rattle of pans in the kitchen. Dustin’s humming—something half‑remembered, but you think he has the voice of an angel. The sound warms the room faster than the heater.

He’s already dressed in layers and thick socks when you shuffle out. He grins, holding out a mug. “Canadian coffee. Yours with extra cream.”

You take it, watch the steam curl. “Smells deadly.”

“Tastes that way, too.”

The day spills into a messy sort of rhythm: walking through streets lined with shop windows dressed in frost, breath forming clouds around every word. He drags you from tourist site to site, then to the frozen edge of Lake Louise, eyes alive with that restless curiosity that never really left him. He still analyses everything—the way light refracts on ice, the acoustics of the valley, the pale sun glancing off his skin.

When clouds roll in mid‑afternoon, you both retreat inside a small bakery. You sit near the window watching snow fall, hands wrapped around mugs of cocoa far too sweet. He leans back, sighs like he’s trying to forget years of noise.

“You think the others ever do this?” he wonders. You furrow your eyebrows at him. “Take little trips. Just to remember the world’s bigger than Hawkins.”

“Maybe,” you say. “I hope so.”

Later, back at the cabin, silence settles easily. He fusses with the stove until it crackles right; you sit cross‑legged on the rug sorting postcards. The fire paints everything in uneven amber. Snow keeps tumbling beyond the window, soft and relentless.

He lowers himself beside you after a while, legs stretched toward the warmth. His voice comes quiet: “I dreamed about Eddie last night.”

You look over. He’s staring at the fire place.

“We were playing that dumb song again, in the Hellfire room before one of the campaigns started. The one we never got right. He was laughing at me for missing the harmony.”

“That sounds like him.”

Dustin nods, eyes glassy. “It’s weird. For so long I wanted to believe he made it—some crazy survivor story. But seeing him still hurts even in a dream, like my brain knows the truth.”

The logs shift, sending sparks up like tiny meteors. You reach out without thinking, touch his sleeve. “He’d like that you still remember the dumb songs.”

“Yeah,” he whispers. “He’d probably say my rhythm still sucks, and probably lecture me for never remembering the names of them.”

You both laugh, shaky at first then easier. The sound fills the little room.

After a beat he says, “Do you think El ever—?” He stops himself.

“Thinks about us?” you finish for him.

“Yeah.”

“All the time, probably. She used to worry about everyone even when she couldn’t save herself.”

He nods slowly. “I keep wanting to write her a letter even though there’s no address for… wherever she is.”

“Maybe that’s what talking to the sky is for,” you say.

He smiles—small, tight-lipped, grateful. Then quieter, “Sometimes I miss being the kids who believed she’d fix everything.”

You stare into the flames. “I think she did, in a way. Just not the way we expected.”

The silence that follows isn’t heavy. It’s the quiet of shared weight finally balanced. The heater hums, wind slips around the eaves. The snow thickens outside, swallowing the world until there’s only orange fire and two people taking turns breathing.

Eventually he murmurs, “You okay?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Getting there.”

You sigh, but you believe him.

Hours glide by before he checks the sky again. Through the window the snow has thinned, now falling lightly in contrast to the heaviness of it earlier on; faint color stains the far horizon. He stands touching the glass like he’s afraid to break the spell. “I think it’s starting.”

You pull on boots and coats, fumbling with zippers, following him out into the still night. Snow hushes underfoot. The world beyond the treeline feels like breath held too long.

Then it happens—green light ghosting across the stars, thin sheets folding over one another, slow and silent.

“Holy shit,” he whispers. “It’s real.”

The aurora thickens, curls of purple drawing through the green, each pulse dancing effortlessly. The mountains glow faintly along their ridges. The frozen river mirrors it all, rippling color across ice.

You glance sideways; his head is tilted upward, in awe at the sight in front of him. He’s silent now, maybe finally out of science words. You slip your hands into your pockets and just stand beside him.

After a long stretch he says, “You think they’d like this? Eddie, El, all of them?”

“Yeah,” you say as tears brim your eyes. “I think they would.”

He snorts softly, then falls quiet again. “I miss them,” he admits.

“Me too.”

The words hang there, warming the air more than the parkas can. Light spills over both of you. For a heartbeat it feels like all the lost voices hum inside the sky, saying see, we were here.

You take a deep breath, cold slicing sweet through your lungs. “Guess we found something good again.”

Dustin glances over, eyes shining, cheeks flushed red under the fur‑lined hood of his parka. “Yeah. Guess we did.”

You linger until your fingers ache, until the aurora begins to fade into faint ribbons. On the short walk back he talks about sending the photos he took on his camera to Steve, about how he’ll probably make fun of the matching coats. You laugh, and it sounds normal.

Inside, once your boots are kicked off and gloves drying by the stove, he collapses onto the couch with a groan. “That’s checked off the bucket list.”

You drop beside him, legs touching, exhaustion blooming soft and pleasant. The fire throws low light across his face; his eyes drift half‑shut.

“You tired?” you ask.

“More like… calm,” he says around a yawn. “Haven’t felt that in forever.”

You watch the flames flicker until they blur. “Yeah. Me too.”

Somewhere between one heartbeat and the next, his head tips onto your shoulder. You let it stay there. The cabin creaks, wind hums. Outside, Banff rests under blankets of snow.

You think of all the lost things that brought you here, and for once they don’t feel like open wounds—just something you carry, just out of reach but always there.

Dustin breathes steady against your arm. You whisper into the quiet, unsure if you mean for him or anyone at all, “We’ll be alright.”

You notice him before you actually meet him.

It’s the first week of the semester—full of syllabus days, icebreakers, overpriced lattes from the university cafe, and the bustle of students in a ‘new beginnings’ mindset. You spot him outside the student centre, arms full of what seems to be robotics parts and a half-spilled coffee, laughing as his friend shouts at him to watch where he’s going. He laughs with his whole face, head tipped back. That laugh sticks with you, even after you walk away.

You don’t think about him again until the following Monday; your first lab session in Introductory Physics. That’s when you see him the second time. Dustin Henderson.

He’s standing just inside the door, scanning the room in quick, nervous bursts until his eyes land on the empty seat beside you. For a second, he hesitates—like he’s debating whether you’ll tell him to keep walking, then makes his way over anyway.

“Uh, hey,” he says, setting his bag down a little too loudly. “Is this seat taken?”

You shake your head, smiling. He sits, fumbling with his pen and nearly knocking his notebook off of the desk before catching it midair. “That’s a great start,” he mutters under his breath, then clears his throat. “Cool. Hi. I’m Dustin. Supposed to be your lab partner, unless you’d like to drop the class now.”

You laugh, “That depends, Dustin, are you always this smooth?”

“Only when I’m trying to make a terrible first impression,” he says, smiling like he means it and hates that he does. “You look like you know what’s going on. I just figured I’d sit next to someone who seems like they have their life together.”

You huff, giving him a small smile. “It’s literally the first lab.”

He grins, brushing a curl from his forehead. “Then you’re already doing better than me. I spilled coffee on my syllabus twenty minutes ago.”

Something in the way he says it, like he’s half embarrassed, makes you smile wider than you mean to. He notices, but doesn’t say anything, just looks down, suddenly bashful, tapping his pen against the table like he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands.

You end up partners for the entire semester.

──────────────────────────

Classes grow heavier, but being around him only makes the weeks feel lighter. You start to memorize the rhythm of it—the way he drums his fingers on the desk before a lecture, the scrawl of his notes looping into your half of the table, the way he hums bits of songs when the room gets quiet. He turns every lab into a conversation, every confused calculation into teamwork.

He always gets there early, sliding into your usual spot with a grin.

“Reserved seating,” he jokes, nodding to the chair beside him. “Gotta make sure my partner doesn’t trade up for someone smarter.”

It stops feeling like coincidence. Soon you find yourself waiting for him—for the sound of his laugh in the hallway, that confident ‘hey, partner’ tossed your way. He makes every formula less daunting, every dull afternoon something brighter.

It’s the small things that start to undo you: the way he keeps a spare pen for you in his pocket; how he never mocks your messy handwriting; how he frowns when you forget to eat lunch. It’s in those little pieces, stacked so quietly one on the other, that you start falling for him, not all at once, but slowly, the way sunlight spills across a windowpane.

Sometimes he catches your gaze mid-lab, raises an eyebrow and teases,

“You’re staring again. Is it because I’m brilliant, or because you think I might electrocute myself?”

“Fifty-fifty,” you reply easily.

He laughs, and afterward his focus lingers on you just a moment too long.

One afternoon, he’s waiting outside the campus café, two mismatched cups clutched tightly in his hands.

“It’s not that fancy place you like,” he says, voice a bit rushed, “but it’s the only one open after our lab. Here. Extra sugar, right?”

You raise your eyebrows, touched. “You actually remembered?”

He shrugs, his grin tugging at the corners. “Guess I was paying attention.”

You both sit by the window as snow drifts across the quad. The talk bounces back and forth, until he mentions Hawkins. His voice softens as he speaks about home, the woods, his mom, his friends.

“Sometimes it’s weird being here,” he admits quietly. “Like I’m supposed to already know who I am, what I’m doing. But mostly I just miss when things were different.”

You rest your hand close to his on the table. “You don’t have to rush it. You’re already doing fine.”

He looks up from his drink, eyes round and earnest. “You really think so?”

“Yeah,” you say, and it comes out softer than you intend. “I really do.”

He smiles, small and grateful, his pinky grazing yours where your hands nearly touch. Neither of you moves for a long moment.

The weeks settle into a kind of easy rhythm that feels dangerously close to domestic. Study sessions blur into shared snacks, quick walks turn into long detours. He’s always doing something thoughtful—printing both of your pre labs, fixing your broken pencil case, saving you a seat in the front of the lecture hall. Somewhere along the line, his presence becomes your favourite part of every day.

And then, like flipping a switch, the tone shifts.

You spot him walking through the courtyard with a girl from his robotics club. They’re close, talking fast and laughing the way you do together, and your stomach twists before your mind can catch up. You tell yourself it’s fine and that he’s friendly with everyone, but the image sticks anyway, sharp and unshakable.

That night, you stay late in the library, trying to bury the thought under equations. The quiet hum of fluorescent lights does nothing to help.

When a familiar voice breaks the stillness, you look up too fast.

“You weren’t at dinner,” Dustin says softly. “I, uh, saved you a seat.”

You blink. “You didn’t have to do that.”

He drops his bag and shrugs. “Yeah, but I wanted to.”

He sits beside you, uncharacteristically quiet. No jokes, no fidgeting—just long moments of comfortable silence. He opens his notebook and starts working, humming faintly under his breath, the sound grounding you more than the steady ticking clock ever could.

When your eyes meet, there’s something new there—hesitant but achingly familiar. You both smile without saying a word.

And later, when you leave the library, his hand bumps yours once, then again. This time, he doesn’t pull away.

The next morning, everything looks the same, but somehow feels entirely different.

He still greets you with his usual grin ‘Hey, partner!’ but his voice carries something softer now. When he leans close to help you line up measurements or makes a joke under his breath, it feels like every word is layered with all the things neither of you has admitted yet.

The air between you hums quietly, alive with a possibility you can almost—but not quite—reach.

Finals week brings you closer again. Long nights, caffeine-fuelled ranting, the hum of something almost romantic hanging between lines of equations and late-night takeout.

One night, he starts talking about what makes a good partner—the kind of person who notices details, keeps promises, shows up.

“Like, I’d want to remember all the little things,” he says, eyes unfocused, voice softer than usual. “Their favourite meal, what day they had a bad test, stuff like that. I’d wanna make them feel seen, y’know?”

You nod, your throat thick. “You would.”

He glances over, smiling. “You think so?”

You swallow hard. “Yeah. You already do.”

He doesn’t comment—but something flickers in his eyes, something unspoken but far from unnoticed.

By the time finals are over, he’s practically a fixture in your daily routine. You start to anticipate his footsteps in the hallway, his grin, the warmth that follows him.

And then—it happens. The evening you never expected and somehow always knew would come.

It’s Friday. You’re half-asleep over your laptop when someone knocks. You drag yourself to the door, and there he is—Dustin, cheeks pink from the cold, holding a paper bag that smells like fries.

“Your favourite,” he says proudly. “From that food truck you love down the street.”

You blink, startled. “How do you even remember that?”

He shrugs, smiling. “You mentioned it once forever ago. I pay attention.”

You stare at him for a second too long, warmth building in your chest before you pull him inside. You end up sitting together on your bed, eating the fries out of the bag, your knees touching, a movie playing quietly in the background. He stretches a hand across the space between you, palm up. You hesitate for a second before slipping your fingers into his. His thumb brushes lazy circles against your skin, soft and unhurried.

“You know,” he says after a few minutes, “if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you like me.”

You laugh, eyes falling to his hand on yours. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re trying to make me say it out loud.”

He grins, leaning closer. “Maybe I am.”

And you cave. You’ll always cave for him.

“Fine,” you whisper. “I like you.”

His grin widens, curling at the edges until it’s brighter than the flickering screen. “Good. 'Cause I’ve been trying to make you say that for weeks.”

When he kisses you, it’s exactly what you expected and somehow so much more. Soft, a little clumsy, but full of warmth. The kind of kiss that feels like every late-night conversation, every quiet laugh, every almost-touch that led to this. When he pulls away, he doesn’t completely let go. His hand rests on your knee; yours play with his hoodie strings.