The Inside Out Series

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“Chris, it’s fine,” Steve promised. “I just changed my mind.” “About being a lifeguard? Like you’ve been for the last three years?” Steve sighed and dropped his head back on the couch. Chrissy grabbed one of his hands and gave his fingers a gentle squeeze; then she waited until he gave in. “I ran into Billy.” “At the pool?” Chrissy asked with a frown. “What was he doing there?” “Uh, signing up. To be a lifeguard.” “Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me.” “Nope. And—God, I know it’s stupid. I mean, it’s like you said! I’ve been working there for three years and I’m just gonna let him walk in and take my job?” “Steve—” “Well, he—he didn’t take my job. Trevor still wanted me to work, I just—I couldn’t make myself do it. I don’t want to sit there all summer worrying about when he’s gonna show up and what he’s gonna say and how he’s gonna piss me off—” “Hey,” Chrissy cut in, squeezing his hand again. “That’s not stupid. I get it. I wouldn’t want to stay there either.” Steve groaned, squeezing his eyes shut as hard as he could until his face started to hurt. Then he sighed and let his head loll to the side to look at Christine. “Are you just saying that so I feel better?” “No,” she assured him. “I don’t want you anywhere near Billy. If he’s a lifeguard now, as far as I’m concerned, the community pool is a quarantine zone.” “And that doesn’t annoy you? Like, what if you want to swim?” “Steve, there’s literally a pool party at your house today.”

“Come on, bumblebee," Christine's dad announced, a little less than gentle as he shook her shoulder to drag her into consciousness. Enough’s enough.” “Mhn?” Christine batted his hands away, deciding it was too difficult to open her eyes. “Dad, stop—m’tired—” “Yeah, clearly, since you’re sleeping through this rock concert.” Christine scrunched her nose in confusion. She knew she was tired, but she was pretty sure that her dad had said “concert.” She was also pretty sure she was still lying in her own bed in the middle of Hawkins. “Dad, what are you talking—” “Your boyfriend is making a scene.” “He’s not my boyfriend,” she replied automatically. Laboriously, Christine pushed herself up onto her elbows, blowing the hair out of her face as she tried to get her bearings. Now that her dad had pointed it out, she could hear the dull hum of music from outside—quiet enough from indoors, but probably blasting in the street. She frowned as he brain booted up, trying to reconcile the strange sounds and sentences. Then she sat bolt upright in her bed. “It’s May first.” “It’s May first,” her father confirmed. “Now, will you please go outside before Old Lady O’Connor calls the cops? I don’t think you want Hopper getting involved.”

“Are you ready?” Chrissy asked warily. “No.” Steve rubbed his hands down his face and dropped his head between his knees, groaning in defeat. “Who am I kidding? I can’t do this.” “Yes, you can,” Chrissy said soothingly. “It’s the last one, and then—” “No, I can’t do any of this! Chris, I’m not getting into college! No one wants a C-passing, high school athlete who’s just gonna flunk out after one semester. I can’t even open the stupid envelope.” “Hey!” One of Chrissy’s Converse shoved his knee, jolting him out of his misery. “Stop talking about yourself like that. We’ve been over this.” “I know, I know—” “You worked hard for this, Steve. You’re not just a high school athlete. You’ve played baseball and basketball, captained the swim team—and don’t think I forgot about the year you did football. Your grades are only getting better and, more than that, they’re steady. That shows consistent progress, and that’s something colleges want to see. And you know you killed that essay. You can do this. Even if you don’t get in, it just means that…I get to keep you to myself for a year.”

"You have got to be kidding me." "Okay, now hold on," said Steve, dropping the bags and turning to face her fully. "I promise this isn't what it looks like." "It's not? Because it kinda looks like you brought me out to Skull Rock to hook up with me on my birthday." Christine crossed her arms over her chest, surveying the rock figure that took up most of the clearing. Obviously, she'd never been to Skull Rock before, but the dips and holes in the face of the boulder were a pretty good indicator. It looked a lot more like a skull than she'd imagined. The way all the other girls in her grade seemed to exaggerate the stories of their mind-blowing make-out sessions, Christine had assumed it was all just made up. "I promise, that's not why we're here," Steve pleaded. "I just—my parents are home, and your dad's home, and even if he wasn't, Dustin just walks in whenever he wants, and I didn't want you to celebrate your birthday in a car, so this was the first place I thought of. You know, just so we could get away for a while." "Right," Christine said with a wry smile. "I'm pretty sure that's what you said to the dozens of other girls you've brought out here." "It's not. And I understand if you don't believe me, but they—okay, they—they did not get a picnic."

"Aren’t you supposed to be Mister Romance or something?" Max snickered. "And you’re really telling me you didn’t make plans for Valentine’s Day?” “I wanted to make plans for Valentine’s Day,” Steve said tersely, “but Chrissy said no.” “What? Why?” “Because I’m not dating Chrissy,” he repeated. “Not—not officially, anyway. She wants to take things slow after everything that happened with Nancy and—and you know what? I agree. I’m okay with that. I’ve been a real dick to her before, so she wants me to earn it.” “How do you expect to earn it if you don’t do anything?” Steve floundered, gaping as Max raised a challenging eyebrow. Her lips pulled into a smirk, which only grew with every second he didn’t answer her. Finally, Steve huffed and slouched in his seat. “Shut up, okay? I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.” “Because I’m a girl,” she answered, “and you need help.”

“We didn’t invite you to movie night, Dustin! Tonight we were gonna—” “Take advantage of Mr. Walcott not being home?” Steve choked on the rest of his sentence. Dustin continued to stare at him, coolly popping another piece of popcorn in his mouth. Steve looked back at Christine for help, but she’d already accepted defeat. She gave him a hopeless shrug and Steve shook his head again. “N-no. No! We weren’t—this isn’t about—you don’t get to do this! You can’t just crash our plans because you feel like it! If you wanna have a movie night, fine. Let’s plan a movie night. We can watch whatever nerdy-ass movies you want to watch, but not tonight. Go home.” He folded his arms over his chest, standing his ground and asserting his dominance. Dustin considered him for a moment, grabbed some more popcorn, then sighed dramatically. “Okay.” “O-okay?” Steve blinked in surprise and hastened to recover. “I mean—yeah. Okay. Now, leave.” “I’m going,” Dustin assured him. He walked slowly around the couch, taking his time to get to the door. “I guess I can just hang out with my mom. I told her we were all gonna watch a movie together, but I’ll just tell her that you guys kicked me out because you wanted the house to yourself. Have fun!” Dustin smiled as he walked past them, only to have Steve yank him back at the last second. “You’re not gonna say shit, Henderson.”

“Hey, so, uh—are you excited for tonight?” Steve asked Eleven. She nodded eagerly and took a bite of her burger. As she chewed, her eyebrows tugged together like she was thinking, and she waited until she’d swallowed to ask, “Why tonight?" “Um…because of the party…?” he said uncertainly. “It’s New Year’s Eve.” “No, why tonight?” She repeated herself for emphasis and tapped the table, which somehow made more sense to him. Steve’s mouth fell into a small “oh” as he nodded. “Why tonight? Right, uh—I don’t know. Because a bunch of old guys said so.” He yelped as Chrissy flicked him on the arm, rolling her eyes again. “Because of science,” she answered Eleven. Chrissy reached across the table, grabbing the salt and pepper shakers and holding them up for her to see. “See, if this is Earth and this is the sun, we’re constantly moving around it in space. It takes us a year to go all the way around, so whenever we get back to the start, we celebrate.”

“You’re incredible, you know that?” Christine’s head snapped up from the page. Steve had folded his arms on top of the car, resting his head down so he could look at her. His smile was half-hidden behind his maroon sleeve, but it was still enough to make Christine’s heart skip a beat. “Steve,” she said in a warning tone. “What? That’s just a fact. You’re incredibly smart and, if nothing else, it’s kinda incredible you haven’t given up on me yet.” Christine didn’t dignify that with a response, just gave him a flat look until he deflated. Steve rolled his eyes and pretended to scream into the crook of his elbow, then stood up with a dramatic sigh. “Okay! I’m sorry. I’m done.” “Thank you.” She turned back to his essay, tapping the pen against her chin. “Do you mind if I take this with me? Otherwise, I can write out my own copy. I want to get the edits back to you fast, but I’ve got work tomorrow and I’m staying over at Hopper’s tonight. El’s been bugging him about letting me sleepover and—” “You know what? No.” Christine stopped again, turning to Steve in surprise. “No…I’m not staying with Hopper…?” “No, I’m not sorry.” Steve folded his arms over his chest in defiance. “I’m done apologizing for shit when I’m being serious. I think you’re incredible. Deal with it.”

“Pretty?” Eleven asked Christine hopefully. “Definitely pretty. Yeah, I think that’s the one Nancy wore in the eighth grade. I asked if I could borrow a few dresses so you’d have more to choose from.” To her surprise, that made Eleven's face fall into a disappointed frown. “Wait, what’s wrong?” “Which are yours?” Eleven asked sheepishly. “Oh…” Christine swallowed the lump in her throat, but it still took a few seconds to find the words. “El, you—you don’t have to wear my stuff. You should wear what you like. It’s just…it’s like favorites, remember? You like whipped cream, and I like syrup. It’s okay.” Eleven’s lips twitched up into a smile. She looked down at the dress again, her fingers ghosting over the puffy shoulders, her eyes longing but still uncertain. “Go on,” Christine urged. “You loved the pink dress too, and that was Nancy’s. You’re gonna look way better than I did at my last Snow Ball. Course, I wore a jumpsuit so that’s not saying much…” “Jumpsuit?” El repeated curiously. “Yeah, it’s like—it’s a top that’s connected to your pants and it was bright red and—and I had my hair all curled because I was trying to look like this actress from Charlie’s Angels, because that’s what Nancy, Barb, and I had done for Halloween, only everyone was staring at me and I looked like a total weirdo so I called my dad so he could pick me up early and…yeah…” Christine trailed off, blushing at the embarrassing memory until she was about the same color the jumpsuit had been. Eleven’s big brown eyes were still watching her, so she cleared her throat and continued, “Anyway, that’s why I didn’t bring that as an option. I’m not the kind of person you take fashion advice from."

“I’m sorry, Barb. I know I said it that night, and I know I’ve said it a million times since then, but…I’m sorry. I’m sorry Nancy and I were so wrapped up in our own bullshit that we weren’t there for you when it mattered. Every day I wonder what would have happened if—if we’d just gone back to your car. If I’d just cried in the passenger seat while you drove us back to my house. We would’ve watched The Exorcist, and you would’ve hated every second, but you’d suffer through it for me and…you did that a lot. Suffered for me, or Nance, or anyone else. You were so incredibly selfless and…I’m just so, so fucking sorry, Barb…” Her hand closed on the edge of the box, gripping the wood like it was the only thing keeping her standing, which that wasn’t far from the truth. She swayed on the spot, ready to start bawling again—but she didn’t. It still felt like Barb was standing there with her, smiling but still exasperated. “Chris, I know you’re sorry—and you know it’s okay. None of us knew what was gonna happen, and we don’t know that anything would’ve changed. I mean, if you’d been in the car with me, maybe it just would’ve gotten us both. But it’s my funeral, so can we please talk about something else?” Christine sighed and shook her head. “Fine. I’m sure I’m boring you with my endless apologies, but…I'm not ready to let go...”

“I didn’t sleep with Billy.” It was stupid, but for some reason, Christine felt like that was the most important thing to establish. Nicole surprised her again by waving off her concern. “Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about that. No one’s gonna believe that shit, not with your reputation.” “…Psycho Bitch…?” “Ha, no—not that one.” Nicole smiled, somehow managing to seem genuine and patronizing at the same time. “Look, say what you will about Tommy—he’s a total pig, I get it—but you can thank him for one thing. He’s been joking about you and Harrington for so long that no one at this school is gonna believe you slept with Billy.” Christine scoffed. “Wow. Thanks, that—that makes me feel loads better.” “I guess you could’ve been trying to make Steve jealous,” Nicole mused as if Christine hadn’t interrupted, “but after everything with Nancy that’s not exactly your style. Steve starting the fight, that’ll probably still stick. In the end, it boils down to Billy hitting on you and Steve going off the deep end. Maybe he was jealous, maybe he was being protective—it’s actually better to leave it up to interpretation.” Nicole stared thoughtfully into space, oblivious to Christine fidgeting uncomfortably beside her. She knew the rumor mill with ruthless, but it was unsettling to watch Nicole at work, testing different stories to see what would be the most compelling. It was like she was the lead editor of the school’s verbal newspaper.

Christine cleared her throat. “Hey, I’m not gonna leave my best friend high and dry while he’s trying to get into college. And you’re right: that essay was garbage, which means you need my help.” She wrinkled her nose at him, hoping it might knock him down a peg or two; it didn’t work. Steve’s grin only spread, wide enough that the cut on his lip was tugging at the skin again. “Yeah. I really do.” His tone was enough to make her blush. It was infuriating how much influence he still had over her, the way he could short-circuit her brain with an easy smile. “Don’t do that,” Christine said quietly. “I’m not doing anything,” said Steve. “What am I doing? I don’t think I’m—” “You know exactly what you’re doing because you used to do it on purpose all the time. Only these days, I can’t tell when you’re joking or when you’re being serious or when you just want something from me, so I need you to stop. No flirting.” The way Steve’s jaw dropped, she might as well have told him to stop breathing. “Oh, come on, Chrissy! I—” “Nope,” she interrupted. “If you’re focusing on yourself, then you’re focusing one hundred percent on yourself. No flirting. I’ll help with the essay, but those are my terms. Deal?”

“…You brought pizza?” “I didn’t want to come empty-handed.” Christine shrugged, looking almost sheepish. “I wrapped all the slices individually, so if we—if you don’t eat them all at once, you can save some for tomorrow. I knew you’d be mad so—” “So you’re bribing a cop with beer and pizza.” And hard as Christine tried to hide it, Hopper could still see her smile. He pursed his lips, pinched the bridge of his nose, and resigned himself to the inevitable. “Fine. You can stay for dinner, but you’re not staying the night and you never come by unannounced again. Next time, I shoot.” “Deal,” she agreed at once. The bathroom door slid open again and Eleven emerged, marginally more dry than she’d been before. Her hair was still dripping onto her grey T-shirt, but it didn’t stop her from beaming as she scurried back to Christine’s side. “Here,” El began, grabbing ahold of her hand. “I want to show you my room!”

“You know,” Dustin announced, “this was fun. Like, in a weird kinda way. We should do this again sometime. Obviously not the whole other dimension, punch a racist in the face, almost dying part, but just like—hanging out. The three of us. I feel like we make a good team, you know? We could go to the arcade, or the movies, or you guys could show—” “Get out of my car, Henderson.” “Yup, you got it, buddy. Talk to you tomorrow.” Dustin gave Steve a salute and hurried out of the car. Christine watched in the mirror as he lolloped up the driveway, bag thumping against his back, and hopped up the front steps. Even once she was sure he was safely inside, her eyes stayed glued to the door. She wasn’t sure if she was waiting for him to come back out or just looking for an excuse to stay in the car a little while longer. “So,” Steve sighed. “Um…long day, huh?” “Yeah,” said Christine, cracking a grin. “Yeah, long day.” They both chuckled quietly. Christine scratched at the inside of her wrists and Steve began fiddling with the volume on the stereo, quietly humming along with some song on the radio. She wondered if he was stalling for himself or if he was politely waiting for her to spit out the words she’d been rehearsing in her head for the last twenty minutes.