Whatever You Want Me to Be

Back then he was a lowly barback, bobbing and weaving around the same group of drunks every night, clearing empties and wiping down sticky tables, attempting the Sisyphean task of keeping the bathrooms clean in exchange for his band being allowed up on their so-called stage.

Now he was acting manager and in the process of buying out the original owner so she could retire. He made a lot of changes already—not that you’d ever dared set foot in here during your tenure at Hawkins High back in the day. But you (rightfully) assumed it was your average hole in the wall, with barely any light coming through the dirt-streaked windows; all the walls papered so thoroughly with stickers and graffiti you couldn’t guess what color they were; furniture so rickety and shoddily built it fell apart if you so much as looked at it wrong.

The space was still divey, but he’d changed up some of the decor and added some light fixtures over the bar so people could actually see what they were drinking. He’d swapped out the older standing tables for black vinyl booths that lined the walls, leaving the middle open for shows.

He’d also managed to construct an honest-to-god stage in the corner with lights, and a sound system and everything. At present it was empty, but according to the fliers tacked up on the door quite a few bands were slated to play there over the next couple of weeks. His own included.

And it seemed the interior wasn’t the only thing that had been updated.

His height still afforded him the same gangly frame you remembered from high-school, but he’d filled out slightly with more muscle and a bit of softness around his formerly bony hips—which you were most definitely not checking out as he spun a bar key on his middle finger and slipped it smoothly into the back pocket of his black jeans.

You had fully been expecting just to slide onto one of the newly refurbished stools that ran along the side of the bar and drink in relative anonymity. Instead, you were stunned to find recognition in Eddie’s eyes as he turned to greet you and your name fell easily from his lips.

Like he’d been saying it for years.

“This is a surprise,” he said, leaning casually on his side of the bar.

Your mouth dropped open, but not to speak. You just blinked back at him in silent stupor.

His arms were turned out, his sleeveless tank showing off the sinewy muscles wrapped around them and the same tattoos you must have wasted hours of class time staring at. He’d cut it off at the bottom,its curled hem barely skimming the top of his handcuff belt, and your mouth watered at the thought of him reaching for something over his head to reveal a sliver of his pale stomach and the tantalizing patch of sparse hair that swirled just below his navel.

“You know me?” you asked, still blanched with confusion.

“‘Course I do.” He gave you a warm smile, deep dimples forming on either side of it. “I think I only passed Old McDonnel’s class because you let me copy your notes every morning.”

He paused and took a long moment to let his eyes wander appreciatively up and down your form. You felt your thighs press, grateful for the oak shield that hid your reaction from his view.

“Don’t you know me?” he purred.

Jesus. You thought you might slide right off the freshly re-upholstered seat under you.

“Oh– I…um,” you cleared your throat, “Yeah, of c-course I do. You’re Eddie. Eddie Munson.”

“Ding ding,” he grinned. “Remembering my name gets you a drink on the house. Whad’you like?”

He pushed off the bar and tipped his head at the rows of bottles lined up behind him, never taking his eyes off yours. They glinted like shards of onyx under the warm glow of the pendant lights.

“A rum and ginger?” you replied sheepishly, praying he didn’t think you were too lame for not going with the typical whisky. But Eddie just shot you a wink as he reached for a clean glass.

“Mm, something sweet with a little bite? Sounds about right for you.”

You’re glad to have a moment to collect yourself when he looks down to scoop some ice out of the bin, because you were not remotely prepared for this onslaught of charm. You also weren’t sure where he got the idea that there was any bite to you at all, but the implication alone makes your body buzz watching him pour out the liquor and then spray in your mixer with the soda gun.

He placed the drink down in front of you, bubbles effervescing as he set a lime on the rim and juices dribbled down its side. He then waited, expectant smile on his lips as he watched you take your first sip. Only when you had, giving an encouraging nod and a quiet thanks, did Eddie finally tear his eyes away, seemingly remembering the rest of the people in the bar existed.

In a flash, he’d done a quick check with the scant number of other patrons, closing out one’s tab and replenishing another’s drink before he returned to his spot in front of you.

“So, what brings you in?” he asked. “You moved, right? Haven’t seen you around.”

“Y-yeah, I left for school and just…stayed away,” you chuckled. “I’m here for my dad’s birthday.”

Eddie plucked a maraschino cherry from a jar he produced seemingly out of thin air and dropped it into your drink, giving you another smile as he licked sticky red juice from his thumb.

“Sounds festive,” he hummed, veins in his hand bulging as he screwed the lid back on the jar.

Fucking christ on a cracker.

Was he trying to kill you?

“Well, I guess…” you cringed inwardly at the words before they even left your mouth, “I guess it’s sort of my birthday too? They’re a couple days apart, but we always mash ‘em together.”

“Oh, shit. Way to bury the lede, sweetheart!”

Eddie leaned on the bar again, folding his arms under his chest this time so his eyeline was level with yours and he could lean a little further forward, edging his way into your space.

“It’s not a big deal,” you insisted. “I don’t really celebrate it.”

“Well, that’s no good.” He shook his head. “You’re definitely worth celebrating.”

Pure fire rose in your cheeks at his leading tone, and you felt your brain whirring trying to think of a response. Thankfully, a rumbly and disgruntled voice from the end of the bar called out for some attention and saved you from yourself. Eddie’s expression soured and his eyes rolled as he straightened up to full height.

“Wha-a-at?!” he brayed loudly, shooting you a sly wink when he caught your wide-eyed gaze.

Your panic turned out to be unfounded, the owner of the voice giving up a wry chuckle, evidently not phased in the slightest by this outburst. The older man huddled against the wall simply smirked and snarked about how he needed to ‘quit flirting long enough to serve some drinks.’

“Bah! You’re just jealous, Ray,” Eddie scoffed, flapping a hand at him that turned into a warning finger. “And I better not catch you trying to sneak her out from under me, alright? She’s mine.”

This time, it wasn’t just your cheeks that caught on fire. Your entire body was searing, engulfed by flames, tingling as if you’d been dunked in a vat of magma. And your mind was blank—devoid of any thought aside from those two words flashing like a neon sign on a loop in your head:

She’s mine. She’s mine. She’s mine.

It had to be a bit. Just an off-handed comment he threw around without giving any thought to who it was being prescribed to. Even so, you allowed yourself to bask briefly in the satisfaction.

It made something stir deep within your gut. Some slumbering giant who had lain dormant for so long you were certain it had fallen into legend. A creature you tended from a young age, only to seal it away in a cavernous tomb before it could grow too large to contain—strong enough to decimate whole villages in a single strike.

But now it was awake. And making itself known by the ache at the crux of your thighs.

“Can’t believe you weren’t going to tell me it was your birthday,” Eddie chuckled as he came back to you with a teasing smile. “You’re really racking up the free drinks tonight, huh?”

You sputtered on the sip you’d just taken of the cocktail in front of you.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to—”

He held a hand up to stop you, the other reaching blindly behind him to grab a bottle of rye he used to top off Ray’s drink. “Nope, uh-uh, don’t wanna hear it,” Eddie insisted. “It’s actually illegal for me to charge for a birthday drink. Unless, of course, you wanna see me in handcuffs?”

He leaned into your space again, lowering his voice for that last part.

His brow lifted in a suggestive arch, disappearing behind his scraggly bangs, and you felt like you might rip off a hunk of your stool you were gripping the seat so tight.

Was this real life?

Was Eddie Musnon…flirting with you?

The thought alone sets off a second heartbeat between your legs, practically throbbing.

Absolutely not, you answered yourself. He is a bartender and you’re at his bar. All he’s interested in is a good tip. Don’t be that guy at the strip club who thinks a lap dance ‘means something.’

“N…no,” you answered him meekly (also lying), “wouldn’t want that.”

Eddie nodded, still smiling as he grabbed a glass and started to dry it with a towel. Conveniently, remaining in the same spot in front of you.

“So, how’s the visit so far?” he asked.

“It’s good, um…just kind of strange being back,” you hemmed, hands wringing in your lap.

Eddie pulled his lower lip back with his teeth. A look you couldn’t quite name flickered in his dark eyes and he shrugged, his chin dropping to his chest as he watched his hands dry another glass.

“Yeah, well. You took off so fast after graduation I’m surprised you didn’t break the sound barrier.”

He kept his head bent, focused on his task, but he couldn’t stop his gaze darting up to watch you through the fan of his thick lashes. You felt your breath catch when your eyes met, and promptly looked away. You took another sip of your drink, mostly sucking air through your straw while you stared at the ice, and couldn’t help but wonder if he was thinking of the same thing you were…

Graduation night. The bonfire in the woods. The rows of trucks and cars parked haphazardly along the edge of the forest with their headlights shining into the treeline as the class of ‘86 reveled in the bacchanalia of their newly minted freedom.

The last high-school party any of you would ever attend.

You couldn’t say what ultimately possessed you to go. Maybe you’d been emboldened by the fact that it was most likely the last time you’d ever see any of these people again. Maybe it was just good timing that your friend from yearbook had offered you a ride seconds after you overheard some jock confirm with Eddie that he’d be there selling that night. Maybe you wanted, for once in your entire high school career, to do something a little bit reckless and decidedly un-like yourself.

Or maybe it was just the pure, unbridled hope you might run into him there.

Eddie’s lips parted to speak again, but he was cut off by a group of younger guys who had come in and immediately started asking him about drinks and where the darts were for the dartboards.

And while he dealt with them, you found yourself drifting back into the memory of that night…

Clutching the ringed hand he offered as you clumsily tried to navigate the roots that sprawled on the forest floor; making your way towards the outermost edge of the party. Still close enough to the blaze to be scantly lit, but far enough that no one would notice you with The Freak, standing behind the thick trunk of a tall, imposing oak.

You leaned back against it, the rough bark biting into your bare back and snagging slightly on the gauzy material of your sundress. You had talked yourself into buying the revealing garment by reasoning that no one would ever even see the spaghetti straps and the nakedness of your arms and shoulders and collar bones under the bulky cover of your emerald green robe.

But now, with Eddie’s gaze drinking in the sight of all your gloriously exposed skin, you were oddly pleased you hadn’t had enough time to change in between coming home from the dinner with your parents and rushing back out the door when you spotted your friend’s car pulling into the driveway.

The firelight flickered, reflecting in his eyes that were as black as the shadowy woods at his back, and you literally felt every thought in your head being obliterated. You tried to will yourself to speak but couldn’t manage so much as a squeak, having used up all your boldness to approach him at the fire and ask if he had anything to smoke. Stomach tying itself into knots with every word.

With a slow smile, Eddie pushed back the curtain of his long hair and revealed the joint he’d tucked behind his ear. He held it out in a quiet offering, but you made no move to take it from him.

“I, um…I don’t know h-how,” you admitted, heart thumping relentlessly against your ribcage.

“That’s okay,” he said before placing the joint in between his lips instead. God, his lips…

Your pulse jumped, temples throbbing so hard you could scarcely breathe while he dug around in his jacket pocket looking for a lighter. He took a couple short, shallow puffs to get it going and a cloud of its earthy smell imbued your senses, blending with the sharper scent of the bonfire.

He then pinched it in the middle and held up the smaller end to your mouth.

“Just…take it slow,” he murmured, heavy-lidded gaze transfixed somewhere on the lower half of your face. “Don’t inhale too hard.”

You nodded, even though you barely registered the words he was saying you were still so deeply distracted by his lips, and the fact that your own were now so close to his fingers. Trembling like a leaf and desperately trying not to look like you were, you touched your mouth to the paper.

Oh fuck, mother bitch, that burned—

Tears immediately sprang in your eyes and you sputtered, trying to smother the cough as it burst forth and failing. It came out in a relentless string of dry hacks, your nose stinging and your throat tightening as you whipped your head sideways to avoid spraying spittle directly in Eddie’s face.

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” he soothed, the tiny smile he was trying to hide coming through in his voice as he rubbed his hand across your back in a wide circle, coaxing you through your fit.

Not that you could even enjoy the sensation of his warm palm on your bare skin.

He kept it up, though, until you were able to catch your breath and stand up (somewhat) straight.

“So-sorry,” you wheezed, giving your chest a solid thwap trying to clear your throat.

“Nah,” Eddie waved off your apology, grinding the lit end of the joint into the bark of the tree before he placed it back behind his ear. “It’s really fine. Happens to the best of us. Honest.”

You felt yourself slump against the trunk in an attempt to hold yourself up. It was tough to say if the dizzy, floating feeling in your head was due to the singular hit you’d taken off that joint, or just a reaction to Eddie’s very presence. He’d stopped rubbing your back, but hadn’t yet moved away from you. Still standing close enough you were breathing in the smell of his cologne.

Slowly, his hand came up to the side of your face and he pressed the pad of his thumb to the skin just beneath your lashes, swiping away a stray tear that leaked from the corner of your eye.

In that moment, everything had seemed to slow practically to a standstill. No more breeze rustling the tree branches overhead, no more drunken teenagers stumbling into one another, no more beers sloshing out of plastic cups and splattering on the soft earth. The scope of the entire world had narrowed down to you and Eddie and the negligible number of inches between you.

“You want, uh…water? Or anything?” he asked, his thumb still idly stroking your cheekbone.

Your head shook slowly, barely conscious of the moment, your eyes never leaving his. He gazed back at you, soft and endearing, the corner of his mouth crooked up. Looking at you almost like he knew all the things you’d been thinking as you laid in your bed at night. Like he’d seen you touch your fingers to your lips in the softest, barely-there brush, imagining it was his mouth.

His shoulder shifted and you felt his other hand on your hip, gripping you purposely. Deliberately.

All at once, it was too much. The heavy pounding of your heart in your chest too rapid, turning from anticipation to terror. You felt like you were behind the wheel of a racecar whose speed had climbed too high without you noticing, teetering on the verge of spinning out of control.

Almost hearing the screech of tires, you slammed down on the brakes.

“I-I have to go.”

With the ghost of his hand’s warmth still on your cheek, you slipped out of the space in between the tree and his body. In short, uneven strides you stumbled back to the party and gripped your friend’s forearm as hard as you could when you found her, insisting ‘we need to leave.’

And seeing the wild, panicked look in your eyes, she didn’t dare argue.

You wished he kissed you that night. You thought about it for weeks afterward, reliving every step in your head, pinpointing every humiliating second.

It was a fool’s errand, honestly. From the moment you approached him, you should’ve known.

Eddie Munson had plenty of girls to kiss. Plenty of girls whose pits didn’t sweat and whose knees didn’t buckle at the thought of someone getting close to them. Who didn’t tremble with full-body shakes like a neurotic chihuahua when someone put a hand on their hip.

You and he weren’t even friends. You’d never had so much as a real conversation.

The best you could muster was a timid ‘you’re welcome’ whenever he’d returned your notes after copying them, or a small wave when your eyes unwittingly met his across the cafeteria.

He talked, sure. But he could talk to anybody. He could debate a brick wall if the occasion arose. Any time he’d spent making idle chatter with you was surely just an attempt to fritter away a couple hours of class time. And you’d hung on his every word, barely offering a pittance in return.

“Sorry about that,” Eddie grumbled.

He slid back into his place in front of you just as the door behind you smacked closed. The group of guys who came in left just as quickly, evidently unimpressed with his selection of Scotch.

Truthfully, you couldn’t say you were sad to see them go.

“You okay?” he asked, his head dipping to catch your eye. “You want water, or…”

Your eyes flicked up to meet his as he trailed off, his face clouding with some strange expression as his fingers drummed on the surface of the bar. His gaze was suddenly distant, almost as though he too was recalling the last time he’d asked you that. Impossible as that was.

“N…no,” you exhaled the sharp breath you were holding. “I’m alright.”

Eddie nodded, his head bobbing longer than was necessary as if to a song that only he could hear before he grabbed a pint glass and filled it with water anyway, setting it down in front of you.

Even without that group of guys to deal with, Eddie got annoyingly busy after that. Annoying to him, at least. He grimaced every time somebody called him away either for a refill or to order.

The bar wasn’t crowded, by any means, but there was a consistent flow of people who needed him, demanding the attention he seemed antsy to direct somewhere else.

You got down to the last of your drink, and just as you were debating whether you should commit to another, a new one had appeared in front of you, delivered with a wink and a smirk from a dark-haired blur as he moved past you on his way down to the other end of the bar.

Smiling around the straw, you snuck a glance at Eddie and found him already looking back at you while he counted out l change. Your neck twinged with the urge to turn away, embarrassed at being caught, until you remembered he was the one who’d been caught looking at you.

And he didn’t seem embarrassed at all.

The small rush petered out and Eddie came back to you, letting out an exaggerated ‘whew!’ as he dragged the back of his hand across his brow.

“That almost felt like work,” he groaned.

Maybe it was the rum going to your head, but you couldn’t help giggling at the terrible joke, a hand coming up to cover your face when a soft snort unwittingly escaped through your nose.

Your eyes met his again, twin pools of espresso just about twinkling at the sound.

The bar was much emptier now, and quieter too. It wasn’t like it had been loud before, but now its silence felt sort of daunting. The kind of silence that made you feel anxious about how to fill it.

Thankfully, Eddie was adept as ever at defeating awkward pauses.

“You know…there’s a bunch of stuff I never knew about you,” he said after a few minutes.

“Really?” you scoffed. “Like what?”

“I don’t know, lots of things,” he chuckled. “What about, like…your first kiss?”

Your fingers tensed around your glass. And you thought if you were a little stronger, it might have cracked open against your palm when every muscle in your face went still as stone.

You hated thinking about your first kiss.

Simply put, it was a mess. Brought on by a lethal mix of green apple vodka and your self-esteem at a record low. Sloppy and clumsy and too-quick. Over before you even had your bearings.

He just…attacked you. Pushed his face into yours, barely aiming. Like he was in a hurry to get it over with. Like you could’ve been anybody with a mouth and it wouldn’t make any difference.

It was a guy who was sort of friends with (and sort of wanted to fuck) your roommate. One you’d go with to parties or out to the bars. But he’d only ever engaged with you after he’d been drinking. Sober, you were lucky to get so much as a cursory greeting—assuming he got your name right.

The night it happened, you'd gone out with a big group and he’d been pestering you.

Not flirting, not as far as you could tell, just irking. Stealing sips of your drink, reaching behind you to pick up the hood of your sweatshirt and pull it up over your head, tugging on your sleeves, poking you, reaching behind his friend sitting in the middle seat of the cab to tickle your ear.

Then you got home and he started texting, asking for—no, telling—you to come over.

And to your credit, you tried to discourage it.

Begging him off with next time, some other time, another time. Because maybe if he could muster some of this enthusiasm when he was sober, you might find yourself a little more amenable to the idea. But then he hit you with the words you had no idea would still haunt you even years later:

honestly, it’s now or never.

You’d panicked. It had taken this long to find someone who was even willing to kiss you—who knew how long it would be before you could find another? Before you’d ever have another chance. So…you did it. Told him to meet you outside your dorm, and kissed him. And then he left. Because of course he didn’t just want to make out. But at least you had enough sense to shut that down.

You shook your head, mouth dry and your throat suddenly too tight for your words to get out.

“It, um…it was nothing to write home about.” you answered, staring at your lap.

Eddie, mercifully, either didn’t notice the immediate shift in your demeanor, or he simply elected to ignore it. “Okay, screw your first kiss,” he said daringly. “Tell me about your best one.”

Your fingers traced the edge of your glass, running down the ridges of the facets, freezing at his question. All ofthe air in your chest rushed out, leaving the cavity constricting as you struggled to breathe normally. The molten brown of Eddie’s eyes scanned over your expression, his features wrinkling with concern when he saw the pained look that came over your face.

“I don’t wanna do that,” you said quietly.

Something in your tone made Eddie’s gaze soften. He dropped down to his elbows, leaning in a bit closer and lowering his voice to a murmur. Something just for you to hear.

“How come?” he asked.

“Because I…” Your throat tightened in a thick, dry swallow and you had to take a swig of your drink before you could go on, “...because I’ve never really had a good one.”

The admission hangs in what little space there is between your faces. As soon as the words left your lips, you wished you could take them back. Suck them back into your lungs and rewind the whole evening until your feet carried you back out to the parking lot and over the gravel where your car was parked, back to your room at your parents house where you belonged.

“Never?” Eddie frowned.

And you can’t say if it’s the softness in his voice or the confusion in his eyes, but you keep going. Trying to shrug it off, trying not to sound so sad and pathetic. Broken and weary.

“They always kinda rushed it,” you said. “I didn’t get a chance to breathe or think, they just—”

“No drumroll,” Eddie finished for you.

His expression seemed to curdle like he’d just smelled something sour, his jaw ticking in a hard set frown. The veins in his arms stood out slightly as his grip tightened on the bar towel he’d been using to dry some glassware while you talked.

“That’s awfully disappointing,” he sighed, twirling the towel between his hands and then snapping it lightly against the edge of the bar with a soft tap. “Sometimes the lead-in is the best part.”

“Yeah, well,” you shrugged and swept the back of your hand across your cheek just to be sure you weren’t crying. “Clearly, I pick a lot of winners.”

Eddie chortled at that, his chest rising in a short puff. “Any of ‘em still live ‘round here?” he asked. “Gimme some names, I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Oh, no,” you shook your head rapidly, “this was in college. I never—”

You winced, cringing inwardly at what you’d been about to reveal: that you had gone most of your adolescent life without kissing anyone. That the thing most people had knocked out by the time they were pre-teens, you hadn’t managed until you were well into your twenties. And even when you did, it was always so dissatisfying. Lacking.

You let out a joyless laugh, glancing down at the drink in front of you. “I mean, nobody around here was ever interested, so—”

“Bullshit.”

“Huh?”

“I’m calling bullshit, sweetheart,” Eddie echoed himself, the sing-song words laced with a leading tone. “I know for a fact someone liked you.”

“Oh, really?” you scoffed in disbelief as you went to take another sip. “Like who?”

That devilish smile twisted up the corner of his lips again, and he tilted his head. “Me, for one.”

Your sinuses erupted with pain as you nearly shot ginger ale out of your nose. You blinked furiously and your hand shot up to cover your face.

“Yo—you what?” you sputtered, still half-choking.

“Always thought you were cute,” he shrugged. “Got a thing for smart girls.”

You felt your stomach drop, plummeting to the dingy floor underneath your feet.

Jesus. Were you really so pathetic that Eddie Munson had to dream up some imaginary crush just to make you feel better? This was a level of rock bottom you’d never imagined hitting. With a trembling hand, you reached for a napkin at the same time Eddie offered you one, your fingers meeting briefly when you took it, static crackling in the air and tingling where you’d touched.

You dabbed under your nose, still burning from the threat of fizzy ginger ale shooting through it.

“I wasn’t that smart,” you muttered, mostly to yourself. “Trust me.”

Eddie’s mouth popped open to respond, but he didn't get the chance. From the same spot he had not moved from all night, Ray’s voice cut through the low music playing over the sound system.

He said something about his chariot being on the way and having to cash out—assuming that Eddie actually wanted to get paid that night. The pair of them traded a few more friendly barbs you were starting to glean were par for the course for these two, and as Ray settles up it dawns on you.

Aside from him, you’re the only one left in the bar.

While you were distracted with Eddie, everybody else had steadily filtered out until it was down to just the three of you. And once Ray was gone, it would be just you and him. All alone.

Once he’d paid, Ray slid off of his stool and Eddie came out from behind the bar to help him over to the door. The two of them chuckled together as Eddie held it open for him and then pulled it firmly shut once they said their goodbyes.

But then, instead of returning to his side of the bar, he sidled up next to you instead.

You fought the instinct to jump when Eddie appeared at your side, the closest he’d been to you all night. His scent was even stronger, sweat and musk mingling with the aromas of bitters and liquor. It made you feel woozy, swaying on your stool like you’d taken a shot of 100-proof him.

“I need a break,” he said, nodding in the direction of the back door then tapping the pack of smokes rolled into his shirt sleeve that sat on his shoulder.

You blinked back at him mutely.

Was that your cue to get lost? If you weren’t here, would he be able to close up and go home? If he genuinely wasn’t going to charge you for your drinks, you had no tab to settle.

You could just tip him and go. Get out of his hair. God, his hair. His beautiful, beautiful hair.

“Oh…kay,” you said slowly, mentally flogging yourself for remaining in your seat when he was so clearly trying to get rid of you. But you couldn’t find the will to stand—not when you were being pinned down by his devilishly handsome smile and his penetrating, all-consuming stare.

He chuckled, letting his head fall to rest his cheek on his shoulder, his eyes shining as he smiled at you and then nodded at the back door again.

“Come keep me company, sweetheart.”

The back of the Hideout wasn’t all that different from the front.

Aside from the dumpsters and the wooden crates stacked next to them, it was nearly identical. And rather of an assortment of cars parked across the gravel lot, it was Eddie’s van pulled up next to the loading door, alongside the cinderblock structure.

A single flood light shone down on the two of you as he pushed the door open, brandishing his free arm with a flourish as though he was escorting you into a castle rather than an alley.

You giggled at the display, recalling how he used to do the exact same thing when you were leaving the one class you had in common—hanging back after the bell had rung so you and he were walking out at the same time, then scurrying ahead of you to grab the door and hold it before it closed.

Hugging yourself despite the balmy night air, your eyes darted about nervously, looking anywhere but at him, already mentally preparing an excuse for not taking a cigarette when he offered one.

Except Eddie didn’t even reach for his pack.

“So…” he said, spinning abruptly to face you, “I’ve been thinking about something.”

“Really?” you asked. “What’s that?”

“I just…” he sighed and tipped his head back, exhaling up to the sky. He brought his eyes back down and you swore tiny pieces of the moon had landed in them. “I think you deserve a good kiss.”

You stared back at him, speechless as you’d been when he recognized you the moment you came into the bar. Beneath you, your legs had started to tremble and you felt your breathing get heavier. Your shoulders tensed, thinking any minute you’d be hearing the blare of your alarm clock.

“Oh,” was all you could say.

Eddie licked his lips thoughtfully, taking a careful step closer to you. “And I,” he started with a thick swallow, “would really like to give you one.”

You felt your eyes widen, about ready to pop out of their sockets. The ‘YES’ you wanted to scream gets lodged so tight in your throat you think you might actually choke, mouth dropping open.

“Is that…okay?” he asked, tilting his head at you as he parsed your expression. It was more than okay. It sounded like a dream come true.

You took the deepest breath you could manage, chest shuddering with the effort, and nodded

“Okay,” Eddie said, letting out a breath of his own, as if he had been holding it. “Good.”

He took your hand in his and carefully brought it up to the nape of his neck. He helped you thread your fingers into his hair and encouraged you to grasp his curls firmly at the root. Your breathing hitched as his touch trailed over your knuckles and down your forearm to your elbow.

“Don’t be scared to hold on tight,” he burred low in your ear. “I like it when it hurts a little.”

Your grip tensed as his hands settled on your hips, squeezing gently as he backed you up to the brick wall. It felt gritty and cold against your back, but you couldn’t find it in you to care one bit.

Eddie’s hands squeezed again, sliding them up a little higher to your waist.

“Fuck, are you beautiful…” he murmured, his eyes flitting wherever they were able at such close proximity. The slope of your nose, the curve of your jaw, the graceful lines of your neck.

His voice was so soft, so adoring, you felt your knees liquifying. You wanted nothing more than to believe him implicitly, but you couldn't stop the little seed of doubt deep in your gut that quivered beneath the earth from peeking out through the undergrowth until it had sprouted.

“Really?” you whispered, hating how mousey you sounded. How timid and unsure.

He brought one of his hands up to cradle the side of your face. Your eyes fluttered closed, leaning in to the warmth of his palm, interrupted only by the cool bite of his rings that dissipated when they warmed to the temperature of your skin.

Still, you couldn't help but shiver when your eyes opened to find Eddie's gaze focused so intently on yours, squinting in a bemused sort of way.

“Do you honestly not know?” he asked you with a slow grin. “You really don’t see it?”

All you could do was shrug. You didn't think you were, like, hideous or anything. But you had never been particularly impressed by your looks. And no one had ever looked at you or acted like you were some ethereal being who'd fallen to earth just to grace these mere mortals with your face.

Well, at least not until now.

“Eddie, you…”

He shook his head, stopping your words on their way out of your mouth. Like somehow he’d heard the ‘don’t have to do this’ you’d been thinking.

“I know,” he whispered, close enough that his breath hit your skin in a soft puff. “I want to.”

He took a long moment, letting the edge of his thumb brush along the high points of your cheek. His gaze only grew more intense, his face inching closer as his eyes began to flutter closed. You felt your foot hovering over that imaginary brake pad, threatening to slam down on it just like it had all those years ago. But it never does.

You don’t let it.

His nose touched your face before his lips, its rounded tip pressing into the apple of your cheek before your mouth melds with his. It’s the softest, slowest, most tender kiss you ever experienced. He lets you have all the time in the world to think about it, to notice the ways his movements ebb and flow, his jaw and mouth all working together.

To feel the way his chest expands, taking the deepest breath of you he can and holding it inside his lungs like he can’t stand the idea of losing whatever part of you he just inhaled.

You have all this time to think, but your head has never been so empty. No, not empty. Quiet.

It’s as if sound itself ceases to exist. Not even your own rapid heartbeat pounding in your ears is enough to break through the pure peace of finally, finally getting to kiss Eddie Munson.

There’s no more cars whizzing past, speeding down the two-lane highway. There’s no more hum of the exhaust fan or relentless buzz of the bare bulb flickering over the back door.

There’s just…nothing.

Nothing but the feel of Eddie’s mouth tenaciously exploring yours, dragging every second out into a minute and savoring like it’s something precious—something he’s scared he’ll never get again.

He doesn’t dare pull back when your lips part with a quiet click, just stays right there with his face close to yours and his shaky breath expelling. It’s only as the world slowly leaks back into focus that you realize his fingers are trembling against your waist and his bottom lip is quivering.

“That was…wow.”

You can’t help but laugh gently at his words, dizzy with the elation that went straight to your head. His eyes flit across your face, his brows lifting in a silent request for more.

Your nod is shaky, but lacks no enthusiasm. And it’s all the permission he needs to dive back in.

He takes you faster this time, clutching you harder to pull you tighter against him. There’s a latent strength in his arms, a tension coiled in his corded muscles he’s working so hard to restrain.

Don’t, you wanted to scream at him. Don’t stop, don’t hold back, I want it all—

God, you wished you could will the words to leave your throat. They sat there, lodged firmly in your esophagus, practically cutting off air supply.

Eddie moved his hands upwards to cup your face, squishing your cheeks just a little as he cradled them tenderly in his calloused palms.

You hummed into his mouth, excited and anxious all at once, and Eddie sucks in a breath through his nose. Like he’s not gonna let something stupid like breathing get in the way of this.

You break apart just shy of your lungs bursting, the both of you panting heavily into one another’s mouths, trying to catch your breath. He blinks heavily, dazed and delirious as he asks,

“When’s your birthday?”

“Wh…huh?”

“Your birthday,” he repeated, still panting, “was it today?”

You tried to think—a Herculean sort of effort when you could still taste Eddie’s lips on yours—and finally sifted something from the primordial ooze he’d turned your brain into.

“N-no. It’s, uhh…” It took you a second to remember what day it even was. “It’s tomorrow.”

“Thank god,” Eddie grinned and breathed out in relief. “I want to take you out.”

“Out?” You blinked a couple times, brow pinching together. “Out…where?”

“Like for a date, out,” he couldn’t help but snicker. “Movie. Dinner. General revelry?”

Warmth exploded in the middle of your chest. “You…you’re not working?”

“Peg’ll cover for me,” he said assuredly. “If it’s for something important.”

“And I’m…” you looked back at him, hope shining in your gaze, “...important?”

He smiled at you again, eyes all peaceful and dreamy as he reached up to trace the side of your face, sweeping the tips of his fingers from your temple to the bottom of your chin.

“If you even have to ask,” he sighed and shook his head, “I didn’t do my job right.”

And then his mouth is on yours again, his hand sliding back to cup the nape of your neck, holding you in place as he kisses you deeply. It’s not, not a sweet kiss, but it’s not just sweet. There’s a little something more to it this time. Something dizzying and breath-stealing and…hot.

You feel his body press up against yours fully before he remembers himself, but the loss of heat and pressure makes you mewl pitifully into his mouth. No. Don’t. Stay, you want to beg.

Your hands moved out of their own volition and grasped fistfuls of his shirt, tugging him back into you. His laugh rumbles low in his throat and you can feel him smiling into your next kiss.

A smile that doesn’t dim one bit when you part.

“Should we, um…” you heard your own giggle, the twitterpated reaction semialien to your dazed and dopamine-addled brain. “Should we go back in?”

Eddie let out a tiny noise that sounded dangerous close to a whine. “What for?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” you tittered, “just to be sure you’re not being robbed blind or something?”

You glanced at the door, imagining the bar filled with big disgruntled men ransacking the liquor on the other side, descending into chaos with no one to stop them. Eddie’s teeth flashed in a grin, dark chuckle stuttering in his chest, a mischievous edge to the sound you remembered well.

Normally hearing it right before he did something particularly devious.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he exhaled, letting his forehead rest against yours, “the door’s been locked and the sign’s been off since Ray left.”

She’s just stubborn like that, always has been. If asked, she’d probably tell you that she doesn’t need it, she never needs it, and you’re the one that's really in need of help, so you’d better not get in her way while she provides it. She’s the fixer, the coordinator, the one to get it done; the uncanny mind-reader who could unravel the root of a bad mood before you even noticed you were in one and push you head-first into a remedy with no room for argument. Nancy gives, delivers, obliges, and proudly bullies from time to time, but getting her to admit that she needs a single thing from anyone else is a hard fought battle she’s worked all her life to make seem unwinnable.

That’s why, when you get a call from her at nearly one in the morning on a Tuesday, she doesn’t ask you for anything. 

You answer it on the second ring. It doesn’t wake you up, as you’ve been struggling at the precipice of sleep for the better part of an hour now, but the abrupt, shrill deletion of all your difficult progress is aggravating nonetheless. Your hand flies out blindly to pick up the phone on your bedside table, and you hold it to your ear with a squinty frown.

“Hello?” Hopefully you manage through tone to convey the sentiment of What the hell could possibly be so important at this hour?

There’s a brief, awkward pause on the other end before Nancy Wheeler calls your name with delighted recognition—as if dialing in every number of your landline was just some happy mistake. 

“Nancy?” You're already sitting up, blinking the sleep out of your eyes. “...What’s wrong?” It only took the one word to recognize she isn't sober.

“What’s wrong?” she repeats with grave offense. “What’s wrong is…I miss you. And I wanna talk to you.”

“Okay,” you say, blowing a stale laugh through your nose. She’s pushed it further than you're used to, speaking at half her normal speed with maybe a third of its coordination. “...You’re alright, though? Did something happen?”

Nancy scoffs at your prodding. “You always think…something happened,” she accuses, and she isn’t wrong. You can hear the overblown eye-roll in her voice. “...What if I just like you? And I wanna talk to you all the time? Huh?”

Her words zap you through the receiver, piercing deep and stinging in the back of your mind—if you weren’t wide awake already, you sure are now. All the time? Really?

It used to be true, maybe, but ever since the quarantine began, you’ve been seeing less of her than ever, and significantly more of the bubbly alter-ego on the phone with you right now. You sort of want to toss the words right back at her with every ounce of soreness they evoke, but it’d be petty at best and pointless at worst with the state that she's in.

And, really, you should probably count your blessings. Some days you wonder if you’ll ever hear from her again.

“…Where are you?” you try. “...Is Jonathan with you?” His name leaves an odd residue in your throat.

“You sound like Mom,” she complains. “Oh, no, is it past my curfew? Am I in big trouble?”

“Are you at home, at least?” you sigh with a glance at your alarm clock. 1:07. It's not the latest she's called.

There's shuffling on her end; her voice fades and swells like she's switching from hand to hand. “Ugh. No way.”

That’s more than enough to get you out of bed. A deep frown engraves your features as you fling the blankets off of you and switch on the light. “Then where the hell are you?” 

She stays quiet for so long you nearly ask again, impatient with stress. Usually, when she downs a few and decides to give you a call, it’s coming from the most secluded corner of the Wheeler house she can wedge herself into, half-whispering into the receiver until the concern of getting caught slips her drunken mind entirely. Once or twice she’s called from an undisclosed friend’s house, allegedly, and you can only hope that's the case for this one. Her next words are a mumble, quiet and slurred enough that it takes you a second to disentangle it.

“...I wanna see you tonight.”

Your brain stalls trying to filter out what she really means. “...If you tell me where you are, then you can see me.”

“You’re gonna come get me?” It rings out bright with a smile. 

“Yeah, Nance, I’ll come get you.” 

A deep thud resonates as you lose your balance trying to wrench your sleep pants off of your ankles and catch yourself against your dresser, banging it into the wall. It makes you suck in a breath, not from pain but in regret of the headache that would be waking your mother up at this hour. 

“What was that?” Nancy asks.

“Nothing." Your ears are wide open and don't hear a thing, so you must be in the clear. "Can you tell me where you are?”

“Are you okay?”

She sounds so sad, it puts a dumb smile on your face. “Yeah, I’m alright.” 

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” you laugh.

“…Okay." She lets out a little grunt of reluctance. “I’m…at the Hideout.”

One leg of your jeans scrunched up beneath your knee, you freeze in place as a little shard of ice lands in your stomach and splinters out in all directions. “...What the hell are you doing all the way out there?”

Nancy huffs at you. “Now you’re mad at me."

You move twice as fast now, jerking the pants up your legs, grunting in frustration while you wrestle with the stubborn button. “I’m not mad, I’m just— I’m on my way, okay?”

“...Okay,” she agrees airily. “...I don’t wanna go home.”

“You don’t have to go home. I can take you to my place. I just don’t want you wandering around drunk.” Especially not in that part of town.

“I’m not that drunk,” she complains, and you grimace. Both because she is, and because she probably wouldn’t be calling you otherwise.

There's no point in changing out of the tank top you were trying to sleep in, you decide. You'll grab your shoes and your keys and break as many traffic laws as you feel compelled to on your way across town. “…I have to hang up to come get you, alright? But Nancy, seriously, don’t go anywhere. I mean it.”

She hums in thought, rising and falling like a blow whistle, utterly carefree. “...Maybe I will.”

“Nancy, I—”

“Come and find me,” she laughs. “...And when you catch me, I’ll…give you something. So hurry up.”

… 

Whatever's causing her to drink this much isn't getting any better. 

It’s still weird to you, speaking to her like this. The Nancy you used to know would never have touched the shit—used to get on your ass for lifting a beer from your mom’s stash, or daring to take a swig from someone else’s flask, at least until her suburban ennui started to set in place. These days, you don’t have much taste for alcohol, but Nancy, on sheer frequency alone, could probably drink your ass clean out of the water. You wonder all the time when it started; if it’s as new as it still feels, or if she just hid it from you in its infancy with typical precision. You wouldn’t be surprised. She never was the same after what happened to Barb. 

Neither were you, but you aren’t sure she ever noticed.

These drunk dials, on some nights, are pleasant surprises. It’s hard to feel mad at her for hardly ever calling anymore when the rare times she does are so sugary sweet; keeping her company over the phone as she stumbles through barely-comprehensible accounts of what she’s been doing lately, or waxing slurred poetic about how much she likes you and misses you in mushy, embarrassing language she could never squeeze out of herself sober, all with a familiar, nostalgic sort of innocence that hurts your heart. But trying to imagine what the hell she must be dealing with to make her feel like slamming back drinks in the dead of night is her only escape unsettles you in a way that’s hard to ignore. She never tells you anything, not even when she sobers up, but that bruise is well lived-in by now. If she wanted to keep you that close anymore, you’d know enough already to piece it together on your own.

What you really want to know is, where the hell is Jonathan? How hard can it be to keep track of her when they’re living under the same goddamn roof?

You don’t dislike Jonathan, or at least you know you have no good reason to dislike him; as a person, an acquaintance, as Nancy’s boyfriend. When his family spent a year in California, you even sort of liked him for it—he left a hole in Nancy’s life so glaring, she was willing to try and plug it up with you. For the first time since middle school, really, it was you and her again. Your hips weren't stitched together in the way they once were, busy as she was with college apps, the school paper, and other unspoken dealings, but she kept you more or less around. Lunch together now and then, studying after school; tagging along for the odd journalistic endeavor, late afternoon talks in your room or hers. 

She still wouldn’t talk to you about it, what was obviously going on with her, making her so…short-tempered, vigilant. Apparently, you just wouldn’t get it. You heard it so often, you almost started to believe it. But once in a while, when you got lucky, she’d lower her overzealous hackles and drop the sweet burden of missing comfort and affection onto your shoulders, too, and none of your frustrations felt like a very big deal at all. The entire west coast could've plunged into the sea, for all you cared.

But then, of course, he came back. 

It was different after that. Before, once in a while, she’d still want to catch up, if you could call it that. She’d have it all planned out, when and where and for exactly how long, with a thorough enthusiasm that you could never quite stop yourself from giving the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this time, she really means it. Maybe this time it isn’t just pity—she’ll open the door, clip her leash back to your collar and whisper in your ear all the secrets she used to think were wasted on you.  

You aren’t sure if it was Jonathan’s return, the earthquake, or any number of quiet mysteries she’s been diligently hiding from you, but whatever it was, it crushed the little castle you’d finally started rebuilding into a thousand paling crystals. Now, all you get is this. Surprise calls in the middle of the night with a bottle close at hand.

But tonight might be the first time she’s said she wanted to see you and meant it.

You’d think that living under military quarantine would come with a hard curfew that's both stringently enforced and harshly punished, but the reality of the situation is, so long as you stay away from the center of town and the checkpoints at the very edges, you’ll probably have nothing to worry about. The ride is fairly eerie. No other cars on the street, no noise beyond that constant, distant drone that emanates from whatever sits where the library once was. Most houses are dark. It isn’t all that different from before.

The longer you drive, the hotter the cabin seems to get, and cracking both windows open doesn’t provide much relief. It isn’t very breezy tonight. You’d turn on the AC, but Nancy gets cold. Even with her drunken flush, you can already hear her whining at you to turn it down. No, not even that—reaching over silently to fiddle with buttons and dials herself until it goes off like she owns the truck, and you’re just the one driving it.  

By the time the ragged eyesore that is the Hideout comes into view at the end of the street, your heart is pounding. You tell yourself it’s out of worry.  When you see her, resting her entire body against the sole, crooked lamppost in front of the sketchy building, it forgets for a moment to keep beating. Her head is hung forward, dark curls obscuring her face, and she doesn’t look up as you stop the truck a little ways down the street and step out of it. With the Hideout’s windows snugly bricked shut, barricading in any signs of life, and the stillness of the grievously early morning only softened by the rustling corn field that the dissolving road plunges into, you’d think it was only her out here. The lone, lithe hauntress of a time-excluded ghost town. The only evidence to the contrary is the scattering of empty cars in the building's gravel parking lot.

“Nancy?”

The stuttered tug of a string seems to lift her lazy head, and as soon as she lays eyes on you, her face lights up with a smile. She pushes off of the post to meet you halfway with bouyant and hurried steps that raise your blood pressure. She’s wearing a long denim skirt with buttons down the front, a red tie-neck blouse, and a dark, patterned cardigan that swallows her up so egregiously, it isn’t hard to guess who it belongs to.

You hold your arms out in case you need to steady her, but Nancy misinterprets the gesture and clasps her cold hands around yours, spreading them wide to get a good look at you. 

 “Hi, pretty.” She smiles even wider as her glassy eyes flutter from head to toe and back up again. “You look so pretty.”

It isn’t true, so you don’t know why it makes you blush. You quite literally rolled out of bed to come get her. “I— What?” you sputter.

The next word you try to get out turns into a hoarse puff as Nancy releases your hands and lets herself fall right into you. As thin as she is, it still nearly knocks you off balance. Her arms enclose around your waist and her chin hooks over your shoulder, and you have a hard time doing much in return. She never hugs you like this sober. Hopefully, she's too drunk to notice your sweating.

"You came to get me," she murmurs happily.

"…Yeah, I came." Your voice comes out painfully stilted. "I wouldn't just…leave you out here."

Nancy shakes with a laugh that sends a chill down your spine. You wonder what's so funny. She never fully lets you go, her hands migrating to wrap tight around your arm instead as you guide her back to your mother's pickup truck.

You help her up the step and Nancy slumps into the passenger seat like her limbs have gone liquid, watching with bafflingly crinkled eyes and a big, dopey smile as you buckle her in, close the door behind her and hustle to the other side. As you settle into the driver's seat, she lolls her lazy head in your direction and stares up at you through thick and heavy lashes. She's so distant, the light in her eyes much more diffused than you're used to, but somehow, it's unnerving to meet her stare for more than a second at a time. Like allowing that connection means inviting her to glide the waters of every thought you've ever had.

You switch on the radio to relieve the pressure and drift right into Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You as you turn around and head for home. Nancy sucks in a soft breath as the melody kindles in her mind.

"Oh, I love this song," she sighs, and then she's singing along, endearingly off-pitch. Her eyes flutter closed, wispy and carefree.

It doesn't take long before it starts to drive you crazy—her voice, the state she's in, whatever the hell's gotten into her. "…Nance?" you call, gently cutting her off. She blinks her starry eyes back open and looks at you. “Why'd you drink so much?”

“I’m not allowed to?” she asks; neat brows pulling in, proud and skeptical. “I think I’m allowed to.”

You know as well as anyone that Nancy hasn’t cared what she is or isn’t allowed to do in a long time. “...But why'd you come all the way out here? You usually drink at home. Or—that's what you tell me, at least.”

She hums and thinks it over for a long moment—so long, you think she might be avoiding the question. Used to it as you are, you start to think on the next one.

“…Eddie worked there before,” she mutters. “And…his band played there. Mike told me. The old lady…Bev, knew his dad and…his uncle. …I had to go somewhere.”

“Eddie?” You don’t know any Eddies that she should be familiar with. The only one that comes to mind is, well… “You mean, Eddie the dealer?” 

A puzzled glance finds her faraway stare pointed down at her lap, silent, and your brow furrows.

“...As in, the guy who killed Chrissy, and—?” 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about at all,” she cuts you off in a jagged heap, “so just stop.”

You blink at the intensity of it—she nearly sounded sober just then—and settle your eyes back onto the empty road with a shrug. Your best guess is, you wouldn’t get it.

“...You’re the one that brought it up."

The song changes. You roll your window a little further down and decide to let your tongue move of its own accord.

“...Where’s Jonathan?”

Nancy's head tips back like the question exhausts her. “You keep asking that.”

“I asked if he was with you,” you correct. “And you said he wasn’t.”

“Cause he isn’t.”

A dry laugh bursts out of you. “Yeah, I can see that. Why isn’t he with you? Why were you out there all by yourself? I mean, how the hell did you even—?”

“Stop asking me questions,” she groans, turning towards you in her seat—fighting awkwardly with the seatbelt to allow it. “Who cares? I just wanna hang out with you, and talk, and do things. I never see you anymore.”

And whose fault is that? you think. “...Well, it’s not like I went anywhere."

She reaches out to you, then. You aren’t sure where she was aiming, but her hand lands on your thigh and startles your foot into pressing down, lurching you both in your seats.

“Whoa,” she says, wide-eyed and delighted. “Did I scare you?"

“You startled me.”

“Can I do it again?” she asks; an empty gesture, no doubt. “You should go faster.”

“No, I—” She starts to drag her hand higher, watching your face with mischief and a loose-hanging smile. Your thigh tenses up just before she squeezes, and anxiety rips your hand off the wheel to  shove hers away from you. “Nancy, what the fuck?”

It comes out excessively harsh—sincerely freaked out—but all she does is laugh until she snorts. “Wow, are you ticklish or something? I thought you weren’t ticklish.”

When you don’t respond to her teasing (too busy clenching your jaw so hard your ear starts ringing), her attention mellows out and wanders through her window.

“…We’re not going home, right?” she checks.

“No,” you huff. “I’m taking you to my place.”

“I can sleep over?” 

“Yeah. Of course.” You wouldn't want to be in her house, either.

Her head lolls back in your direction, and there's that deep-probing stare again; eyeing you up like a puzzle she's already solved in her head. Empty or not, your focus should be on the road anyway. “And we can sleep in your bed together?”

The question briefly flushes out your mind. “…Don’t we always?”

The answer should be obvious, but you feel childish giving it anyway—like it hasn't been close to a lifetime since your last slumber party.

…

Nancy, oddly, waits for you to help her out of the truck. Inebriated or otherwise, you'd gotten used to being raced to your front door and losing invariably for her modest head start. Instead, with amusement that seems to be at your expense, she takes your arm and then your waist, putting all her faith in your center of balance and laughing at each stumbling step you struggle to balance out for the both of you.

You open the front door as quietly as you can with one hand and awkwardly usher her past the threshold, met instantly with the drone of the TV playing Three's Company reruns, your mother's snoring; the stale haze of hours' old cigarettes. You try to deposit Nancy against the wall while you turn back around to close the door behind you, but she won't budge—clings onto you even harder.

“It smells like you in here."

“Keep your voice down,” you whisper. The door closes a little louder than you mean it to, but not any louder than the blaring sitcom bouncing off the walls. You start down the hall as fast as you can with Nancy dragging her feet so horribly.

“Mmm," she laughs, and in a sing-song, repeats: "Smells like you.”

Without warning, Nancy veers around to curl in on you and press her face into your neck, her cold nose and hot breath ticklish against your skin. It stops you in your tracks, sends another chill down your spine; you scrunch up your shoulder to squeeze her out and the reaction sends her giggling again.

“You’re acting weird,” you grumble, hot-faced, continuing to drag her along.

“You’re weird,” she counter-argues. She adjusts her hand, grabs a fistful of your shirt. “You’re…the weirdest person I know.”

“I kinda doubt that.”

“Don’t ever doubt me,” she scolds, bumping her hip into you on purpose, nearly sending you both tipping into the wall, and you can't help but snicker.

“Fine, sorry.”

But you must be right, because she hums and corrects herself. “…Okay, you’re not the weirdest. That's probably… Well, you don't know her. But I still think you’re the prettiest.”

That word is starting to make your skin crawl. “Would you cut that out?”

“What?”

She plants her feet in stubbornness while she waits for an answer and you stifle an eye-roll, glaring down the hall in annoyance. Your room, the last stop, is just around the corner, but you don't think getting there will offer much relief.

“…You’re making fun of me.”

“No, I’m not!" she reels back and nearly shouts, face contorted in outrage, and you try to smother it with a firm shhhh. "…Why would I even do that?”

“I don’t know, Nancy," you huff. "I don’t know why you do anything anymore.”

Apparently, she has nothing to say to that. You take a step and pull at her, trying to urge her onward, but Nancy roots her feet even deeper in place with mischief.

“...Carry me the rest of the way," she demands.

A odd laugh bursts out of you in surprise. “No.”

"You can still do it, I bet," she insists, clinging tighter, slumping even more weight onto you.

"When the hell have I ever carried you somewhere?"

Nancy hesitates with a frown until something clicks and pops her expression wide open. "Oh!" she exclaims, and this time regrets her careless volume, throwing a hand over her sheepish smile. "…I think I was dreaming."

Your mouth falls open, stumped. Not a single thought comes to mind before Nancy decides to take the lead, forsaking your steady hold in favor of dragging you both haphazardly down the hall, tottering, giggling, all the more eager for your mounting, stiff-limbed dread.

Picking her up was necessary. Bringing her here, a willing inconvenience—if no one else could keep an eye on her, then obviously, you would. You wouldn't be able to sleep a wink otherwise. But inviting her into your room like this makes your chest feel thick with anxiety. There's something about her tonight, an odd spark beneath the stupor, ruthless and even less relenting than you're used to—when the door closes behind you, it almost feels like you've sealed yourself in with a restless lion.

The lamp is still on from before you left. You make a beeline to your dresser to find her some clothes to sleep in—an old, worn t-shirt, big enough on you that she'll be swimming in it, and some drawstring shorts. When you turn back to face her, Nancy's busy idling around, humming to herself as she trails her fingers all over your things. Book spines, picture frames. A medal from freshman year regionals. She picks up the conch shell your aunt gave you in elementary school and holds it to her ear as she turns around.

"Careful with that," you warn.

"I know." Her face dips into a pout. "I can't hear anything."

"Yeah, cause there's nothing to hear."

"You're supposed to hear the ocean," she tells you. "The waves, and… Is that for me?"

"Yeah. You can sleep in this." You toss the clothes onto the foot of your bed. Her eyes follow the trajectory, and she spins back around to put down the shell.

"I like it in here," she muses. "…You never change anything. It's all the same, since we were kids."

"No, it's not," you scoff.

"Yeah, it is," she giggles, and points a slender finger at your wall. "Look. You've had that Janis Joplin poster so long, it's getting faded."

"No, it isn't," you argue. "Jesus, just…get dressed. I wanna go back to sleep."

"You're such an old lady."

Even still, she lets the cardigan slip off of her angled shoulders without a care. You catch it for her before it hits the ground and toss it over the back of your desk chair. Nancy's hands raise to fiddle with the top button of her skirt, and it only takes a few seconds of watching her struggle for the dread to set back in.

"Do you…need help?" you offer, but your stomach gurgles at the thought.

"No, I got it," she mumbles.

But her shoulders tense up and her brow wrinkles as she tries and tries and never succeeds in getting a proper grasp on the very first button. You pray with all you have that she manages on her own, and you aren't surprised in the slightest that it goes unheard.

"Ugh," she groans and rips her hands away, scrunching them into twitchy fists. "It's…stuck. Just do it for me."

You roll your eyes at how spoiled she sounds and hope it distracts from how tight your own fists clench to dispel your nerves. She stares you right in your face as you approach her, and maybe it's just the dim lighting or the general bizarreness of the occasion, but in your eyes, she looks so plainly aware that an irrational voice in the back of your mind wonders if she's even really drunk at all.

You do your best to ignore how warm she is as you carefully undo her first button, then the second. You're grateful at least that the fabric of her shirt tucked beneath it prevents you from touching the skin of her stomach directly. The third button is all it takes for the skirt to fall from her hips, and you flick your gaze back up to her grinning face. She reaches for you, and your let her take your hands for balance as she steps out of the garment and kicks it aside.

Then comes the blouse. The silk bow slips loose with a single tug, and that's all you need to see to trust that she can handle the rest on her own. You turn your back to her and swiftly trade out your jeans for the sleep pants you were wearing earlier, hesitating only when a tangle of red silk streaks through your peripheral vision as she tosses it to the carpet with her skirt. Even once you're finished, you wait for long enough to safely assume she must be done as well (by the lack of fabric rustling or her little grunts of effort) before braving a glance, and you jump out of your skin to find her still undressed with both hands behind her back, toiling at the clasp of her Alice blue bra.

“Nancy!”

“What?" She flares her eyes at your outrage, but seems pleased by it nonetheless—like she'd been stalling on purpose to make sure you caught her.

Your eyes bore a hole in the wall over her shoulder. "Do you really need to—?"

"It’s not comfortable,” she insists.  

This time, she manages it on her own, and as soon as those thin little straps start to fall from her shoulders, a surge of panic turns your back to her, your face flaring hot with shame.

“Seriously?” she cries out again, stretched wide and smiley with a laugh. “You act like you’ve never seen boobs before. I know you have.”

The feathery draw and release of each breath is all you try to focus on, more important than the newborn panic thriving, attention hungry, in the back of your mind. She knows, she knows and she's taunting you, and that's all that this is, and you're an idiot for thinking otherwise. You didn't save her. She's never once needed you, and she never will.

“...I barely even have any,” she goes on lightly. “Not big ones like you. …Steve liked the big ones. He didn’t say it, but… I think he did.”

You chew on your lip and wait and breathe. You don’t hear any fabric rustling.

“...Maybe you should’ve dated him.”

A tug on the back of your shirt makes you jump, twitching back in her direction on instinct, and you wince preemptively, but it isn't the transgression you expect. She’s holding the shirt's fabric up to lazily cover her chest, staring at you with big, guiltless eyes, and a smile so fine you aren't convinced it’s really there.

“What’s the matter?” she asks. “...Last time I checked, we're both girls. You don't have to be embarrassed.”

A ripple of goosebumps spills down the back of your neck, along each arm. The heat in your face expands, overflowing into your chest, and in a quiet voice, you ask, “Would you please just put it on?”

Nancy rolls her eyes, and you look away again as she finally does what you ask. She grunts as the collar pops over her head.

"There," she announces. "It's on, so you can stop being shy, now."

She didn't bother with the shorts, but you know a losing battle when you see one. Your eyes catch for a moment too long on her discarded bra, thrown indifferently over your footboard, but you wrench them away when she seems to notice.

"Jeez," she sighs again for show. "I thought I was supposed to be the prude."

Then, she snatches up the bra again, hooking a finger under each strap, and closes the distance between you with enough confidence to lock up your limbs in anxiety.

"What— what are you—?"

You go still as Nancy raises the dainty little garment and drapes it over your chest. Her smile grows sharper at the sight of it—much too small to be of any use for you, and certainly to preserve any modesty—and she stares for so long that your blood freezes cold enough to burn.

"…You should try it on," she teases.

You can hardly part your teeth enough to speak. "Cut it out."

With a sigh, she eases off of you, tossing the lacy little thing to the floor with the rest of her clothes—very unlike her—before sitting herself on your bed. No longer held hostage, you rush towards the lamp to turn out the light and put an end to this disturbing evening as soon as possible.

"No, wait!" she spits before you make it, and you stop in your tracks. "Don't turn it off."

"Nancy, it's like two in the morning."

"So what? I'm not tired at all. I wanna do something with you, like we used to."

"Well, I'm tired."

"No, you're not," she scoffs, and a moment later, she's batting her eyelashes at you. "…Bring the stereo in here. I wanna put on music."

"No way. My mom'll wake up, and—"

"Your mom doesn't care what we do," she groans, but a sudden spark turns her eyes razor-sharp. "We could be…snorting drugs and shooting guns and having sex in here, and she'd still be snoring in that ugly chair."

Your neck and shoulders tense up in stress and your heart tries sincerely to bust through your sternum. "Jesus, would you— Why do you keep joking like that?"

Nancy blinks her lazy eyes at you, no longer feigning innocence. The corner of her mouth twitches upward. "…Like what?"

She knows. How or when or why doesn't matter when it's this obvious, and, shit, it's Nancy, so maybe she's always known and just been kind enough to spare you. What the hell changed?

"Just…stop it, okay?" you mutter, as firm as you can manage. You feel about two feet tall. "You're freaking me out."

She pouts at you. Then, she stands up again and heads for the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To get the stereo."

You dart towards her to wrap a careful hand around her arm and tug her back in your direction. Nancy turns back around with a proud little grin, like all she really wanted was for you to have to stop her.

"Fine, c'mere," you say, guiding her towards your dresser where sits your Walkman and your modest tape collection. "Just a couple songs, okay? What do you wanna hear?"

Nancy chews on a fingernail. "…You still have Bella Donna?"

Your heart sinks in your chest, but you nod and fish it out for her, wiping the dust off on your pajama pants. Nancy sets herself up on your bed, crawling to the other side to make room for you and sitting on her knees, and you slot the tape in place and sit beside her to place the headphones over her ears.

"You don't wanna listen?" she asks. You shake your head.

Nancy startles a little as the music starts playing, and you cycle through the tracks by memory.

"No, I wanna hear—"

"I know, I got it."

Edge of Seventeen starts to play and a ripple of nausea permeates your gut. You can't hear the song, only Nancy's clumsy, captivating rendition of it as she lays back on your bed and begins to sing along with a smile, but it's still enough to lurch you right back to the same night she must've been seeking to conjure.

Late summer nineteen eighty-one, all three of you together in Barb's bedroom, probably no earlier than it is right now. She was the first one to get her hands on the tape between you and her parents were off on an anniversary trip, so naturally, a sleepover was in order. Nancy went crazy for the song, even more than the two of you combined. It was probably nearing the tenth straight listen—performance, more accurately, with all the singing and shouting, dancing and miming, and pillow warfare sprinkled in-between—when Barb had to tap out, flopping onto her bed for a breather. You tried to join her, but Nancy dug her tireless nails into your arm to keep you up with her and sang to you (not at you, but to you) with a stubborn, ridiculous insistence that had you, as always, primed and spellbound to do her bidding.

"You don't have to listen to her, y'know," Barb had teased, and you couldn't even spare her a glance.

Your arm raised almost thoughtlessly to allow Nancy a twirl, and the pleasure on her face pleased you just the same. "Yes, she does," Nancy corrected, reaching one hand out to summon her back into the action. "And so should you. C'mon, you can't be tired already."

"Why should I get between the lovebirds?" Barb's keen eyes found yours and stayed there, and a beam of pure, impossible sunlight seemed to burn straight through the ceiling to set your face alight. Nancy scoffed and you aren't sure what else before she bullied you around to send you both swinging into a clumsy, giggling waltz.

Barbara scared the shit out of you at first, and it might be the greatest shame of your life. The thought that in that tiny piece of each day where you and Nancy had decided to be without each other—her time in yearbook, yours at practice—mere weeks into the seventh grade, she had gone and found someone other than you, completely outside of you, that she wanted to be around just as much. You decided internally, simmering like the child you were, that you hated Barb, and it took her months to convince you otherwise. By a year, you couldn't remember what you'd ever done without her.

You don't really know what happened that night, how the hell a ride to Steve Harrington's house could've possibly resulted in an accidental death by chemical spill, and if Nancy knows anything more, she hasn't shared a word of it with you. All you do know is that it's your fault. If, for a second shameful time, you hadn't been such a child—moping in the shell-shocking betrayal that was Nancy's first boyfriend, bitter, moody, and distant from the very first sign—and coldly turned down the invitation, it would've been you chauffeuring her there, and Barb wouldn't have been anywhere near the negligence that stole her. At the very least, she would've had someone watching her back while Nancy was preoccupied with King Steve.

Nothing at all was ever the same. You would’ve done anything to bring her back, to trade places with her, you still would. Sometimes you wonder if that’s the root of it all; if it’s hard for Nancy to look at you without wishing that you had.

Barb was the only one that knew—that you admitted it to, at least. She knew, and you know she never told her, and she should be here, and you should not. 

Your thoughts shatter to pieces at the sound of the first sniffle. She isn't singing anymore, too overcome with it—her bottom lip bitten hard between her teeth and perfect little brows wrinkled up, reaching high; glistening beads of aquamarine collecting in the corners of her eyes, trembling along with the rest of her. The sight almost takes your breath away.

"…Nancy?"

And that's all it takes for her voice to burst out, a moan that stutters like a sob and makes the hair on your arms stand on end. It goes on until she's out of breath and then she gasps, drawing in a thick inhale that chokes back out of her as a laugh. It shocks you in place, fuses your joints rigid until the tears in her eyes well over and pure urgency knocks them loose again. You clamber up to your nightstand for tissues and return to her feeling completely useless.

"Nancy," you call again, but she either ignores you or doesn't hear it. Setting the box aside, you carefully reach down to ease the headphones off of her (the muted, tinny voice sings on: Sometimes to be near you, is to be unable to feel you… my love), and her eyes stay glued to the ceiling. Piercing right through it, too far for you to reach. Her chest still shakes with odd, muffled laughter, like something is desperate to burst out of it but she's fighting it with all she has. "…What is it? What's wrong?"

Her mouth opens with another inhale and stays there, choking out fragments of syllables until she grasps onto a sliver of her voice. "…I don't know what to do."

"About what?" It cuts you up that you even have to ask. You pluck a tissue from the box and, realizing she probably won't take it, you try to make use of it yourself, dabbing at tear trails that disappear down into her hair.

Her gaze finally recedes from the clouds and flickers to your face hanging over her, and she withers at the sight. She doesn't say anything, and her withholding does what it always does—wraps a tight, thorny vine around your throat.

"…Nancy, I'm begging you to just—"

"I can't tell you," she insists.

"Why not?" Her silence starts to grate on you, frustration building pressure between your ribs. How can she be this miserable in front of you, breaking down crying in your bed, and still refuse to let you in? She called you, she wanted to see you, and still, she won't even... "…It's been fucking years like this. I don't know…what I did, why you don't trust me anymore, but—"

Nancy's sullen face twitches in shock. "I trust you."

"No, you don't, Nance."

"I do!" she cries. Your hand falls away as she wrenches herself upright, and her eyes shake over your face, thrumming with an urgency she struggles to get out in words. "I trust you about…everything, and I miss you all the time—"

"Stop it," you cut her off. You ball up the tissue in your hand, let your eyes wander down to the wrinkles in your old shirt, shifting endlessly with her agitated breaths. "You don't need to try and spare my feelings. Maybe you do miss me sometimes, but if you trusted me or actually wanted me in your life anymore, I would know something, anything at all about what's going on with you, what's…doing this to you. You'd fucking talk to me like you used to. Not just when you're too wasted to think better of it."

She says your name, so distraught that it makes your eyes sting. "…I'm sorry."

"Whatever," you sigh, rubbing a hand down your face. You squeeze out as much tension as you can with a deep breath. "…I just wanna go to sleep."

"I wanna tell you," she says.

You slump with the weigh of it. Is it for your sake, or for hers? You aren't sure how much more you can take.

"No, I mean it!" she goes on before you can deny it. She pulls herself higher to sit on her knees again and holds onto your arm with both hands. "I wanna tell you everything, every day I think about it. About you, and what you would say and do, and I want you to…hold me, and tell me it's okay. And that I'm being paranoid, and dumb, but I'm not. It's all…real."

Whatever she's taking about, it has tears welling up in her eyes again, and they flicker all over your face with enough dread to make your stomach sick. Her hands might be trembling, but it's hard to tell when she's squeezing so tight, her nails gouging little crescents into your skin. "…What the hell does that mean, Nancy?"

She shakes her head. "It's all real, and I need you. I need you to…stay like this, and be here, so I have to… I have to. Even if it makes you hate me."

"I don't hate you," you let her know, but it doesn't quell her distress much. "I just…don't understand."

"That's good," she breathes. "I promise, that's good. I don't want you to."

"…Can you tell Jonathan about it?"

Nancy's face falls dim. Relenting on your arm, she raises one limp hand to scrub tears from her cheek. "It's different."

"How is it different?"

She opens her mouth and flounders. "I… It's just—it is. He…knows, already, and—"

"He gets it, right?" you jeer. "Did Steve get it, too?"

Reluctantly, she nods, and your tongue presses into your cheek. Everyone but you, apparently.

"…Christ. I know you like being the smart one, Nance, but I'm not as stupid as you seem to think I am."

You take your arm out of her grasp and stand up then, gather your discarded Walkman and set it back on top of your dresser.

"I don't think you're stupid. Not at all."

You pop the tape out, return it to its case. Maybe in the morning, she'll explain herself better, say what she's trying to say in a way that makes a little more sense. In a better mood, you might laugh at the thought.

"…It's not just that," Nancy says with another sniffle. "It's him, too. It's Jonathan, and…he doesn't know."

"What doesn't he know?" You start towards the lamp again, but she won't go on until you turn to look at her.

"…Come back," she asks softly, patting the bed beside her. "Please."

She won't let you sleep in peace until she's said whatever she needs to, so you figure there's no point in acting stubborn. You sit yourself beside her once again and resolve to keep your eyes on the duvet between you.

“…I'm mad at him all the time," she begins. The words come out low and breathy, like her lips are nervous to form them. "I don't mean to be. He…loves me, and I thought it was…good this time, and that I wanted it, but… I just get so angry.”

Already, you break—your eyes tear straight to hers as a pit starts to form in your stomach.

“What are you getting angry about?” She just stares at you, helpless, and a shiver goes down your spine. “...Is he doing something to you, or— Are you…fighting about something?” Is he hurting you? Is he hurting you, Nancy? It’s screaming on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t make yourself ask. 

Her lip quivers. She shakes her head. “It's not him. …It's not because of him, I mean, he's— I like him, a lot. It's not his fault. It's because…”

She embarks again; her eyes travel, in one short moment, a million miles away, and her soft brow furrows in focus.

“It's…all of them," she decides. "I think it's just…all of them.”

You're…hearing things, seeing things; you must've fallen asleep after all, and this entire night has just been one horrible, sadistic, belligerent fucking dream, but your mouth opens anyway.

"…All of them?"

She nods and grounds herself again, focusing on the present, on you. Her stare curls over your lap, your stomach, the curve of your chest; streaks across your collarbone and seems to get lost in your face, swirling round and round. “…You get it," she says. "…Right?”

With nothing else to do—a thousand unbelieving questions on your tongue, wrapped and entangled too tight for even one of them to be spelled out in words—you nod. Her eyes look clearer and brighter than you've ever seen them; like in all the years you've known her, you've never quite been brave enough to look directly into them.

She reaches for you, no longer anxious. She wants it, she'll have it, she knows you want it, too. She grabs on to the strap of your tank top to pull you in and her name flies out of you, stilted, panicked. You don't know if it's a question, a warning, pure disbelief, or a desperate, bone-deep fucking plea, but she holds you by your jaw with her warm, warm hand, and you've never been less confident in your grasp on reality.

"Please," Nancy asks. Her eyes are caught unambiguously on your mouth. "Just…let me—"

Her lips don't taste like the watermelon chapstick she used to wear—the one you'd take a quick and shameful taste of every time you could convince her to let you borrow it—but nothing in the world could be less disappointing than the feeling of them pressed into yours. You don't know if it's real, but it feels real, so you thread your fingers into her hair the way you've always wanted to and you kiss her back like you're trying to etch the sensation into your skin, steal as much of it as you can before she comes to her senses. Nancy pulls back first, with hardly an inch of space between you.

"Oh, shit," she gasps like ecstasy. Bursting through the water's surface to take the first full, unimpeded breath of her life.

And you get it. You've felt it before; with an older woman, a librarian, nestled down in the restricted archives, and you remember well the relief, the vindication, the dizzy thrill that, in the moment, far outweighs the sinking terror it anchors in the back of your mind.

And when she kisses you again, you can't taste the alcohol on her tongue, so maybe it's alright, and it really is her, and this isn't some terrible, terrible joke that she's taken much farther than you'd ever be able to forgive her for. Your mind is a screaming void but Nancy knows what she wants. She eases you down and lays herself on top of you, and her tongue traces a needy map of the inside of your mouth even as yours remains too fearful to do the same, and it goes on, and on, and on. Endless wet clicking and smacking in the refuge of your silent bedroom. No amount of it seems to relieve her of the craving.

“You smell so good,” she whines, and she dips her face into your neck to breathe in and sigh. “So pretty.”

You don't know what to do with yourself, terrified that you'll ruin it, touch her wrong, break the spell, so Nancy decides for you. Her hands find yours and guide them to her thighs, drag them up, up until they rest on her hips, and all you dare to do beyond that is stroke the lacy trim of her panties with your thumbs, grounding yourself with the feeling.

Nancy kisses your neck, drags her tongue along it until your skin starts to buzz and a shiver rolls down your spine. Odd little stings of arousal zap down between your legs, warm and sensitive, beating in time with your heart. You start to squirm, unsure of how to deal with being touched by her like this, and your legs shift around until, by accident, your thigh presses hard between hers, and she gasps against your skin.

"Sorry." You jerk it away on instinct as your face floods with mortified heat, but her disappointed whine comes immediately.

"No, please."

So you put it back, press yourself into her, and with an eagerness that makes you feel like the world has fallen out from under you, she grinds the thin fabric of her panties into your thigh. Clueless and duty-driven, you use your grip on her hips to help her, and the breathy moan she lets out sends you soaring, your eyes itching to roll back into your head. How is any of this happening? Nancy kisses you again, wet and sloppy and uncoordinated in her distraction, but she can't keep it up for long. She shifts down to chase the pleasure and her hand climbs up to idly fondle your breast—even through the fabric, the brush of her finger over your nipple is almost more than you can bear.

“I think about you,” she admits. You've never heard her voice so frail and wrecked, pitching high with strain. “Every time, I think about you.” And then she whimpers; her thighs squeeze around yours, her cheek falls to your chest in weakness. “…It’s the only way it feels good.”

Her words click something into place—your staticky mind starts to race with tangible thoughts again. Every time, I think about you. It only feels good when she thinks about you, not just a woman, any woman, but you. She knows what you are and she's figured out that she's the same. She couldn't have just realized it tonight—she called you earlier, knowing.

But that can't be right. Because if she knows how she feels, if she has known for God knows how long and never said anything—treated you like this, held you at twice her wingspan, punished for the best friend you both lost; second to Steve fucking Harrington, a seven-month replacement for yet another boyfriend she left you out in the cold for, and she only ever calls you when she's out of her mind in the middle of the night, like speaking to you at all has become too shameful to face sober—and now that she's ready, she thinks she can just…have you?

Just like this, on a whim, dancing around it all night before springing it on you. Knowing she'd get exactly what she wanted, because she always gets exactly what she wants from you without even lifting a finger.

Years like this, waiting for her, making peace with the pure impossibility of it, and Nancy throws it all on its head in one night. Not for your sake. For hers.

And despite it all, the spell—the fucking fairy tale playing out on top of you—shatters and falls away.

"Stop it," you gasp. Your hands fly off her hips, grab onto her arm and her shoulder instead. "Stop, stop— Nancy, stop it! What the fuck?"

You push her up and off of you, held at arm's length, and she stares at you like a deer in headlights; panting, wet-lipped. "…What's wrong?"

What's wrong? "I can't…do this with you right now. Not when you're drunk, and confused—"

The word scalds her, makes her recoil. "I'm not confused!"

"I don't know that, Nance," you spit. "…I never see you, you only ever talk to me when you're—fucking plastered. I don't know."

The problem is, you believe her. Even if she isn't fully in her right mind, the distress, the anger, the desire—it's all laid bare with such clear truth that every bone in your body aches in recognition. Of course she'd need to drown herself in alcohol to come out with it. There's a reason you stopped drinking altogether.

It was a set-up from the start, and the realization smooths out all the knots in your flesh. She stranded herself on purpose, drank until her tight grip loosened up enough to call you. And she knows you, knows at least a fraction of how you feel about her, so she knew that you'd pick up, that you'd come find her and bring her home, take care of her. And maybe by then she'd be brave enough to admit it.

You pull yourself out from under her with a haggard sigh and Nancy falls beside you, something like fear in her eyes.

"…I'm sorry," she says, barely voiced at all. "…I just…wanted to—"

"It's not your fault," you cut her off. The wanting isn't, at least. "You want to…talk about it, we can. Just…not now. Not when you're like this."

With downcast eyes, she nods. You can hardly look at her like this, so you stand up and make your way towards the door. She doesn't try to stop you from going through it.

In the bathroom, you take your time and try to let the droning, whirring chaos in your mind settle down. When you wash your face, the skin feels almost numb beneath your fingers. You dry it off, brush your teeth, and return.

She's still sitting right where you left her—a sad-eyed doll that only animates in front of you. Without another word, you switch off your lamp and slip beneath the covers, laying with your back to her. It takes a while before Nancy is ready to do the same, but no sooner than she does, her quiet voice murmurs from behind you.

“...Can I hug you?”

There's no world in which you would be able to ignore or deny the request; not from her, not when she sounds so hurt and hopeless.

Nancy sidles up to you, a blanket of heat along the back of your body. She snakes her slim arms around you, and each warm, shuddering breath she takes wafts over the skin of your neck. The thin little hairs that emerge from it pull straight and tight, magnetized in her direction. You won't be able to sleep like this, but weren't really expecting to, anyway.

In time, she can't help herself. She fidgets with the hem of your shirt and eventually slips her fingers beneath it, stroking her warm hand over the skin of your stomach. She pushes it even further, gliding higher—slowly, so slowly, as if you might not notice—and you bite down on your bottom lip just as her finger brushes against the underside of your breast. You don't stop her so she keeps exploring, grazing along the underside and deeper, picking up sweat in the crease.

Your skin beneath her touch feels molten, and when she can't resist the urge to brush her finger against the hardened bud of your nipple, it hits you like lightning. You suck a gasp through your teeth and Nancy answers with an exhale of her own, and in the pathetic solitude of your mind, you beg her to keep it up as long as she can.

The gentle throb between your legs returns and Nancy does not disappoint you. She doesn't stop, caressing the underside of your breast and toying with your nipple, back and forth, driving you out of your mind. Now and then she cups and squeezes and your thighs do the same, and she doesn't stop, again and again, back and forth until, inevitably, she dozes off against your back.

…

You only briefly manage to pass out, and you come to with Nancy's hand still plunged deep into your tank top. It's like a game of Operation trying to extract it without rousing her.

On the way to the kitchen, you hear your mother in the shower and smell the coffee she set to brew beforehand. You open the fridge and sigh. There's a few eggs left, some ham you can fry. It doesn't take long. You plate the food and then make a call. On return, you fill up a mug, add a splash of creamer, take a couple bites off of the plate, and head back to your room.

As small as she looks like this, passed out in your oversized tee with her tousled and flattened curls, standing over her feels like approaching a sleeping bear. You're scared to touch her, scared you've lost your mind, that you really did dream it all up, or maybe that you didn't; terrified that she'll open her eyes and wonder what she's doing here, whether you laid beside her all night, what you did to her while she was indisposed. But the fear won't leave whether she wakes up now or later.

"Nancy," you say, about as loud as you normally speak. She doesn't react. "Nance," you try again louder, and when that doesn't work either, you decide to suck it up.

Setting the coffee mug on your nightstand, you reach out to shake her shoulder, moving slow with reluctance. Just before you connect, she jerks. Her face turns towards you and scrunches up like it always does in the morning with a quiet little "hm?" and you snatch your hand back to yourself, straightening your back as your heart starts to pound in surprise.

"Nancy," you say again, awkward. You aren't sure why.

She turns onto her back and stretches her entire body in a long, feline arc. With immense difficulty, she squints her eyes open and, at the sight of you, smiles. You let out your first full exhale of the morning.

"…Hi," she says, and the sight of your offering only makes her smile wider. "What's this?"

"Breakfast," you say. "The best I could scrounge up."

Nancy sits up and accepts the plate with an unusually bashful smile. "Thanks."

"Coffee on the table."

She glances towards it, then right back at you. "Aren't you gonna eat?"

"Already did," you lie.

Nancy frowns. "What? Why'd you eat without me? You could've woken me up."

"I figured you needed the rest."

She eyes you for a while; confused, suspicious. It's hard to tell what all she knows. Then, something hits her—she squints her eyes shut and grunts, grinds one palm into her eye.

"Headache?" You're already digging in the drawer of your nightstand for your bottle of Tylenol.

"Yeah." She smiles around her grimace as you hand it to her, and she tosses back twice the recommended dose, washing it down with coffee.

As she starts picking at her food, you're still stuck in place, standing there like an overzealous butler, waiting for her to give your existence meaning through some other task to complete on her behalf. You don't know how to bring up what happened, how to ask what all she remembers—how to tell her what you did. She watches you watching her as she takes another sip, amused and puzzled.

“Did I…say something weird last night?” she asks, and you receive it like a punch to the gut. Exactly what you were scared of. “You’re acting…weird.”

“…No,” you try to say, but your intonation takes on a mind of its own.

She makes a face at you, loosely smiling. “That doesn’t sound like a no.”

"What, um… Do you…?" There's no way to ask Do you remember how you felt about me last night? that isn't utterly humiliating, so you give up on it altogether. “…Are you and Jonathan still together?”

Her frown only deepens. “...Yeah,” she says. “...Did I say that we weren’t?”

“…Why?”

“What?”

“Why are you still together?”

“...What do you mean?”

You bite your lips between your teeth. If it’s all of them, then why are you still with him? If you can’t even get off without thinking about me, then why the fuck are you still dating him?

“...Nevermind.”

"…Okay," she agrees, pitch rising in uncertainty. "…Are you working today?"

You shake your head and a switch seems to flip. Nancy's face beams with a girlish little smile.

"Good," she says, and her eyes twinkle in thought. "…Do you still have that picnic blanket we used to use, the baby-blue gingham? Cause I was thinking later we could go down to Bradley's and pick up some things for sandwiches, maybe some fruit and those shortbread cookies you like, if they have any, and we could drive to that little clearing on Danford Creek to have lunch."

It shakes you up too deep to even process—there's no way she just came up with that on the spot. "…I don't think so, Nance."

"No?" she sort of pouts, but she doesn't lose any steam. "Well… Maybe we could rent a movie, just stay in and—"

"No, that's not—" You breath in as deep as you can. "I just… I think you should go home."

"What?" She seems to think you're joking. "…I mean, already?"

"You can finish eating, change," you assure her. "But, um… I already called your house. He'll be here in…thirty minutes, maybe."

"…What?" she gasps, mostly air, and her disappointment sinks and hardens into insult. You've said all you have to, so she scoffs, blinking her affronted eyes around like she can hardly believe what she's hearing. “…So, what, you're kicking me out? After all that, you're just gonna—?” 

“All what, Nancy?” 

It stops her short. She pauses, stares at you with her face taut and blank. You wait, and you wait—to hear that she's lying, pretending, that she remembers every moment or none of them at all, that she isn't ready yet but she still needs you anyway—and like always, she gives you utterly nothing.

You shrug your shoulders, helpless to help either of you. “...What did you think was gonna happen?”

A frigid pause and Nancy tosses her half-eaten food aside. She stares you right in the eye as she downs the rest of the coffee (some of it streaking down her chin, staining your shirt) and stands up in front of you. Your deep-fried, near-woozy brain provides the silly thought that she might kiss you again, but she doesn't.

Her face is strained with frustration that ebbs and flows in directions you don't recognize, and she gives you no warning before ripping your shirt over her head. You're startled by it, don't manage to flinch away in time, so the sight of her bare chest (sweet and supple, dotted with rose pink) singes itself in your mind like a brand.

"Christ," you mutter, eyes squinted shut, as she walks around you. When you dare to open them, she has her blouse on, collar untied. "…I'm still here," you offer blandly. "Not going anywhere."

She doesn't respond, just steps back into her skirt, yanking at the buttons with a violent urgency.

"…You should talk to him," you go on. "…About the drinking, too. I'm sure he's worried about you."

"Thanks for the advice," she bites. She whips around to leave without another word or glance.

"Nancy," you call at the last moment. And she waits in the doorway, hesitantly looking over her shoulder to meet your eyes. It takes a moment to swallow your heart down from your throat. "…If you need something from me, I need you to ask for it."

Still staring, she takes a breath, her head held high and proud. Her eyes are still as clear as the night before—different and more familiar than ever.

And then she leaves. The door slams behind her hard enough to make you jump.

"What the hell have I told you about slamming doors?!" your mother's muffled, croaky voice shouts from the other room. "You're goddamn old enough to—! Whuh— Nancy?!"

Her voice continues on, too quiet to hear distinctly. You tell yourself it's for the best. What really matters is that you know, now, but you can't figure it out for her if she still won't let you in, and you definitely can't sit around playing house like it's nothing out of the ordinary—like she hasn't hurt you in ways you're still struggling to wrap your head around.

You lift the plate off of your bed and start picking at her leftovers, cooling fast in the icy morning air. And when you turn around, with a single, disbelieving laugh, you notice what she left behind.

A thin, dainty, Alice blue bra, strewn out carelessly on the tawny brown carpet.

-

thanks for reading! feedback is always welcome 💞 if you liked my story, please like/comment/reblog!

She’s just stubborn like that, always has been. If asked, she’d probably tell you that she doesn’t need it, she never needs it, and you’re the one that's really in need of help, so you’d better not get in her way while she provides it. She’s the fixer, the coordinator, the one to get it done; the uncanny mind-reader who could unravel the root of a bad mood before you even noticed you were in one and push you head-first into a remedy with no room for argument. Nancy gives, delivers, obliges, and proudly bullies from time to time, but getting her to admit that she needs a single thing from anyone else is a hard fought battle she’s worked all her life to make seem unwinnable.

That’s why, when you get a call from her at nearly one in the morning on a Tuesday, she doesn’t ask you for anything. 

You answer it on the second ring. It doesn’t wake you up, as you’ve been struggling at the precipice of sleep for the better part of an hour now, but the abrupt, shrill deletion of all your difficult progress is aggravating nonetheless. Your hand flies out blindly to pick up the phone on your bedside table, and you hold it to your ear with a squinty frown.

“Hello?” Hopefully you manage through tone to convey the sentiment of What the hell could possibly be so important at this hour?

There’s a brief, awkward pause on the other end before Nancy Wheeler calls your name with delighted recognition—as if dialing in every number of your landline was just some happy mistake. 

“Nancy?” You're already sitting up, blinking the sleep out of your eyes. “...What’s wrong?” It only took the one word to recognize she isn't sober.

“What’s wrong?” she repeats with grave offense. “What’s wrong is…I miss you. And I wanna talk to you.”

“Okay,” you say, blowing a stale laugh through your nose. She’s pushed it further than you're used to, speaking at half her normal speed with maybe a third of its coordination. “...You’re alright, though? Did something happen?”

Nancy scoffs at your prodding. “You always think…something happened,” she accuses, and she isn’t wrong. You can hear the overblown eye-roll in her voice. “...What if I just like you? And I wanna talk to you all the time? Huh?”

Her words zap you through the receiver, piercing deep and stinging in the back of your mind—if you weren’t wide awake already, you sure are now. All the time? Really?

It used to be true, maybe, but ever since the quarantine began, you’ve been seeing less of her than ever, and significantly more of the bubbly alter-ego on the phone with you right now. You sort of want to toss the words right back at her with every ounce of soreness they evoke, but it’d be petty at best and pointless at worst with the state that she's in.

And, really, you should probably count your blessings. Some days you wonder if you’ll ever hear from her again.

“…Where are you?” you try. “...Is Jonathan with you?” His name leaves an odd residue in your throat.

“You sound like Mom,” she complains. “Oh, no, is it past my curfew? Am I in big trouble?”

“Are you at home, at least?” you sigh with a glance at your alarm clock. 1:07. It's not the latest she's called.

There's shuffling on her end; her voice fades and swells like she's switching from hand to hand. “Ugh. No way.”

That’s more than enough to get you out of bed. A deep frown engraves your features as you fling the blankets off of you and switch on the light. “Then where the hell are you?” 

She stays quiet for so long you nearly ask again, impatient with stress. Usually, when she downs a few and decides to give you a call, it’s coming from the most secluded corner of the Wheeler house she can wedge herself into, half-whispering into the receiver until the concern of getting caught slips her drunken mind entirely. Once or twice she’s called from an undisclosed friend’s house, allegedly, and you can only hope that's the case for this one. Her next words are a mumble, quiet and slurred enough that it takes you a second to disentangle it.

“...I wanna see you tonight.”

Your brain stalls trying to filter out what she really means. “...If you tell me where you are, then you can see me.”

“You’re gonna come get me?” It rings out bright with a smile. 

“Yeah, Nance, I’ll come get you.” 

A deep thud resonates as you lose your balance trying to wrench your sleep pants off of your ankles and catch yourself against your dresser, banging it into the wall. It makes you suck in a breath, not from pain but in regret of the headache that would be waking your mother up at this hour. 

“What was that?” Nancy asks.

“Nothing." Your ears are wide open and don't hear a thing, so you must be in the clear. "Can you tell me where you are?”

“Are you okay?”

She sounds so sad, it puts a dumb smile on your face. “Yeah, I’m alright.” 

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” you laugh.

“…Okay." She lets out a little grunt of reluctance. “I’m…at the Hideout.”

One leg of your jeans scrunched up beneath your knee, you freeze in place as a little shard of ice lands in your stomach and splinters out in all directions. “...What the hell are you doing all the way out there?”

Nancy huffs at you. “Now you’re mad at me."

You move twice as fast now, jerking the pants up your legs, grunting in frustration while you wrestle with the stubborn button. “I’m not mad, I’m just— I’m on my way, okay?”

“...Okay,” she agrees airily. “...I don’t wanna go home.”

“You don’t have to go home. I can take you to my place. I just don’t want you wandering around drunk.” Especially not in that part of town.

“I’m not that drunk,” she complains, and you grimace. Both because she is, and because she probably wouldn’t be calling you otherwise.

There's no point in changing out of the tank top you were trying to sleep in, you decide. You'll grab your shoes and your keys and break as many traffic laws as you feel compelled to on your way across town. “…I have to hang up to come get you, alright? But Nancy, seriously, don’t go anywhere. I mean it.”

She hums in thought, rising and falling like a blow whistle, utterly carefree. “...Maybe I will.”

“Nancy, I—”

“Come and find me,” she laughs. “...And when you catch me, I’ll…give you something. So hurry up.”

… 

Whatever's causing her to drink this much isn't getting any better. 

It’s still weird to you, speaking to her like this. The Nancy you used to know would never have touched the shit—used to get on your ass for lifting a beer from your mom’s stash, or daring to take a swig from someone else’s flask, at least until her suburban ennui started to set in place. These days, you don’t have much taste for alcohol, but Nancy, on sheer frequency alone, could probably drink your ass clean out of the water. You wonder all the time when it started; if it’s as new as it still feels, or if she just hid it from you in its infancy with typical precision. You wouldn’t be surprised. She never was the same after what happened to Barb. 

Neither were you, but you aren’t sure she ever noticed.

These drunk dials, on some nights, are pleasant surprises. It’s hard to feel mad at her for hardly ever calling anymore when the rare times she does are so sugary sweet; keeping her company over the phone as she stumbles through barely-comprehensible accounts of what she’s been doing lately, or waxing slurred poetic about how much she likes you and misses you in mushy, embarrassing language she could never squeeze out of herself sober, all with a familiar, nostalgic sort of innocence that hurts your heart. But trying to imagine what the hell she must be dealing with to make her feel like slamming back drinks in the dead of night is her only escape unsettles you in a way that’s hard to ignore. She never tells you anything, not even when she sobers up, but that bruise is well lived-in by now. If she wanted to keep you that close anymore, you’d know enough already to piece it together on your own.

What you really want to know is, where the hell is Jonathan? How hard can it be to keep track of her when they’re living under the same goddamn roof?

You don’t dislike Jonathan, or at least you know you have no good reason to dislike him; as a person, an acquaintance, as Nancy’s boyfriend. When his family spent a year in California, you even sort of liked him for it—he left a hole in Nancy’s life so glaring, she was willing to try and plug it up with you. For the first time since middle school, really, it was you and her again. Your hips weren't stitched together in the way they once were, busy as she was with college apps, the school paper, and other unspoken dealings, but she kept you more or less around. Lunch together now and then, studying after school; tagging along for the odd journalistic endeavor, late afternoon talks in your room or hers. 

She still wouldn’t talk to you about it, what was obviously going on with her, making her so…short-tempered, vigilant. Apparently, you just wouldn’t get it. You heard it so often, you almost started to believe it. But once in a while, when you got lucky, she’d lower her overzealous hackles and drop the sweet burden of missing comfort and affection onto your shoulders, too, and none of your frustrations felt like a very big deal at all. The entire west coast could've plunged into the sea, for all you cared.

But then, of course, he came back. 

It was different after that. Before, once in a while, she’d still want to catch up, if you could call it that. She’d have it all planned out, when and where and for exactly how long, with a thorough enthusiasm that you could never quite stop yourself from giving the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this time, she really means it. Maybe this time it isn’t just pity—she’ll open the door, clip her leash back to your collar and whisper in your ear all the secrets she used to think were wasted on you.  

You aren’t sure if it was Jonathan’s return, the earthquake, or any number of quiet mysteries she’s been diligently hiding from you, but whatever it was, it crushed the little castle you’d finally started rebuilding into a thousand paling crystals. Now, all you get is this. Surprise calls in the middle of the night with a bottle close at hand.

But tonight might be the first time she’s said she wanted to see you and meant it.

You’d think that living under military quarantine would come with a hard curfew that's both stringently enforced and harshly punished, but the reality of the situation is, so long as you stay away from the center of town and the checkpoints at the very edges, you’ll probably have nothing to worry about. The ride is fairly eerie. No other cars on the street, no noise beyond that constant, distant drone that emanates from whatever sits where the library once was. Most houses are dark. It isn’t all that different from before.

The longer you drive, the hotter the cabin seems to get, and cracking both windows open doesn’t provide much relief. It isn’t very breezy tonight. You’d turn on the AC, but Nancy gets cold. Even with her drunken flush, you can already hear her whining at you to turn it down. No, not even that—reaching over silently to fiddle with buttons and dials herself until it goes off like she owns the truck, and you’re just the one driving it.  

By the time the ragged eyesore that is the Hideout comes into view at the end of the street, your heart is pounding. You tell yourself it’s out of worry.  When you see her, resting her entire body against the sole, crooked lamppost in front of the sketchy building, it forgets for a moment to keep beating. Her head is hung forward, dark curls obscuring her face, and she doesn’t look up as you stop the truck a little ways down the street and step out of it. With the Hideout’s windows snugly bricked shut, barricading in any signs of life, and the stillness of the grievously early morning only softened by the rustling corn field that the dissolving road plunges into, you’d think it was only her out here. The lone, lithe hauntress of a time-excluded ghost town. The only evidence to the contrary is the scattering of empty cars in the building's gravel parking lot.

“Nancy?”

The stuttered tug of a string seems to lift her lazy head, and as soon as she lays eyes on you, her face lights up with a smile. She pushes off of the post to meet you halfway with bouyant and hurried steps that raise your blood pressure. She’s wearing a long denim skirt with buttons down the front, a red tie-neck blouse, and a dark, patterned cardigan that swallows her up so egregiously, it isn’t hard to guess who it belongs to.

You hold your arms out in case you need to steady her, but Nancy misinterprets the gesture and clasps her cold hands around yours, spreading them wide to get a good look at you. 

 “Hi, pretty.” She smiles even wider as her glassy eyes flutter from head to toe and back up again. “You look so pretty.”

It isn’t true, so you don’t know why it makes you blush. You quite literally rolled out of bed to come get her. “I— What?” you sputter.

The next word you try to get out turns into a hoarse puff as Nancy releases your hands and lets herself fall right into you. As thin as she is, it still nearly knocks you off balance. Her arms enclose around your waist and her chin hooks over your shoulder, and you have a hard time doing much in return. She never hugs you like this sober. Hopefully, she's too drunk to notice your sweating.

"You came to get me," she murmurs happily.

"…Yeah, I came." Your voice comes out painfully stilted. "I wouldn't just…leave you out here."

Nancy shakes with a laugh that sends a chill down your spine. You wonder what's so funny. She never fully lets you go, her hands migrating to wrap tight around your arm instead as you guide her back to your mother's pickup truck.

You help her up the step and Nancy slumps into the passenger seat like her limbs have gone liquid, watching with bafflingly crinkled eyes and a big, dopey smile as you buckle her in, close the door behind her and hustle to the other side. As you settle into the driver's seat, she lolls her lazy head in your direction and stares up at you through thick and heavy lashes. She's so distant, the light in her eyes much more diffused than you're used to, but somehow, it's unnerving to meet her stare for more than a second at a time. Like allowing that connection means inviting her to glide the waters of every thought you've ever had.

You switch on the radio to relieve the pressure and drift right into Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You as you turn around and head for home. Nancy sucks in a soft breath as the melody kindles in her mind.

"Oh, I love this song," she sighs, and then she's singing along, endearingly off-pitch. Her eyes flutter closed, wispy and carefree.

It doesn't take long before it starts to drive you crazy—her voice, the state she's in, whatever the hell's gotten into her. "…Nance?" you call, gently cutting her off. She blinks her starry eyes back open and looks at you. “Why'd you drink so much?”

“I’m not allowed to?” she asks; neat brows pulling in, proud and skeptical. “I think I’m allowed to.”

You know as well as anyone that Nancy hasn’t cared what she is or isn’t allowed to do in a long time. “...But why'd you come all the way out here? You usually drink at home. Or—that's what you tell me, at least.”

She hums and thinks it over for a long moment—so long, you think she might be avoiding the question. Used to it as you are, you start to think on the next one.

“…Eddie worked there before,” she mutters. “And…his band played there. Mike told me. The old lady…Bev, knew his dad and…his uncle. …I had to go somewhere.”

“Eddie?” You don’t know any Eddies that she should be familiar with. The only one that comes to mind is, well… “You mean, Eddie the dealer?” 

A puzzled glance finds her faraway stare pointed down at her lap, silent, and your brow furrows.

“...As in, the guy who killed Chrissy, and—?” 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about at all,” she cuts you off in a jagged heap, “so just stop.”

You blink at the intensity of it—she nearly sounded sober just then—and settle your eyes back onto the empty road with a shrug. Your best guess is, you wouldn’t get it.

“...You’re the one that brought it up."

The song changes. You roll your window a little further down and decide to let your tongue move of its own accord.

“...Where’s Jonathan?”

Nancy's head tips back like the question exhausts her. “You keep asking that.”

“I asked if he was with you,” you correct. “And you said he wasn’t.”

“Cause he isn’t.”

A dry laugh bursts out of you. “Yeah, I can see that. Why isn’t he with you? Why were you out there all by yourself? I mean, how the hell did you even—?”

“Stop asking me questions,” she groans, turning towards you in her seat—fighting awkwardly with the seatbelt to allow it. “Who cares? I just wanna hang out with you, and talk, and do things. I never see you anymore.”

And whose fault is that? you think. “...Well, it’s not like I went anywhere."

She reaches out to you, then. You aren’t sure where she was aiming, but her hand lands on your thigh and startles your foot into pressing down, lurching you both in your seats.

“Whoa,” she says, wide-eyed and delighted. “Did I scare you?"

“You startled me.”

“Can I do it again?” she asks; an empty gesture, no doubt. “You should go faster.”

“No, I—” She starts to drag her hand higher, watching your face with mischief and a loose-hanging smile. Your thigh tenses up just before she squeezes, and anxiety rips your hand off the wheel to  shove hers away from you. “Nancy, what the fuck?”

It comes out excessively harsh—sincerely freaked out—but all she does is laugh until she snorts. “Wow, are you ticklish or something? I thought you weren’t ticklish.”

When you don’t respond to her teasing (too busy clenching your jaw so hard your ear starts ringing), her attention mellows out and wanders through her window.

“…We’re not going home, right?” she checks.

“No,” you huff. “I’m taking you to my place.”

“I can sleep over?” 

“Yeah. Of course.” You wouldn't want to be in her house, either.

Her head lolls back in your direction, and there's that deep-probing stare again; eyeing you up like a puzzle she's already solved in her head. Empty or not, your focus should be on the road anyway. “And we can sleep in your bed together?”

The question briefly flushes out your mind. “…Don’t we always?”

The answer should be obvious, but you feel childish giving it anyway—like it hasn't been close to a lifetime since your last slumber party.

…

Nancy, oddly, waits for you to help her out of the truck. Inebriated or otherwise, you'd gotten used to being raced to your front door and losing invariably for her modest head start. Instead, with amusement that seems to be at your expense, she takes your arm and then your waist, putting all her faith in your center of balance and laughing at each stumbling step you struggle to balance out for the both of you.

You open the front door as quietly as you can with one hand and awkwardly usher her past the threshold, met instantly with the drone of the TV playing Three's Company reruns, your mother's snoring; the stale haze of hours' old cigarettes. You try to deposit Nancy against the wall while you turn back around to close the door behind you, but she won't budge—clings onto you even harder.

“It smells like you in here."

“Keep your voice down,” you whisper. The door closes a little louder than you mean it to, but not any louder than the blaring sitcom bouncing off the walls. You start down the hall as fast as you can with Nancy dragging her feet so horribly.

“Mmm," she laughs, and in a sing-song, repeats: "Smells like you.”

Without warning, Nancy veers around to curl in on you and press her face into your neck, her cold nose and hot breath ticklish against your skin. It stops you in your tracks, sends another chill down your spine; you scrunch up your shoulder to squeeze her out and the reaction sends her giggling again.

“You’re acting weird,” you grumble, hot-faced, continuing to drag her along.

“You’re weird,” she counter-argues. She adjusts her hand, grabs a fistful of your shirt. “You’re…the weirdest person I know.”

“I kinda doubt that.”

“Don’t ever doubt me,” she scolds, bumping her hip into you on purpose, nearly sending you both tipping into the wall, and you can't help but snicker.

“Fine, sorry.”

But you must be right, because she hums and corrects herself. “…Okay, you’re not the weirdest. That's probably… Well, you don't know her. But I still think you’re the prettiest.”

That word is starting to make your skin crawl. “Would you cut that out?”

“What?”

She plants her feet in stubbornness while she waits for an answer and you stifle an eye-roll, glaring down the hall in annoyance. Your room, the last stop, is just around the corner, but you don't think getting there will offer much relief.

“…You’re making fun of me.”

“No, I’m not!" she reels back and nearly shouts, face contorted in outrage, and you try to smother it with a firm shhhh. "…Why would I even do that?”

“I don’t know, Nancy," you huff. "I don’t know why you do anything anymore.”

Apparently, she has nothing to say to that. You take a step and pull at her, trying to urge her onward, but Nancy roots her feet even deeper in place with mischief.

“...Carry me the rest of the way," she demands.

A odd laugh bursts out of you in surprise. “No.”

"You can still do it, I bet," she insists, clinging tighter, slumping even more weight onto you.

"When the hell have I ever carried you somewhere?"

Nancy hesitates with a frown until something clicks and pops her expression wide open. "Oh!" she exclaims, and this time regrets her careless volume, throwing a hand over her sheepish smile. "…I think I was dreaming."

Your mouth falls open, stumped. Not a single thought comes to mind before Nancy decides to take the lead, forsaking your steady hold in favor of dragging you both haphazardly down the hall, tottering, giggling, all the more eager for your mounting, stiff-limbed dread.

Picking her up was necessary. Bringing her here, a willing inconvenience—if no one else could keep an eye on her, then obviously, you would. You wouldn't be able to sleep a wink otherwise. But inviting her into your room like this makes your chest feel thick with anxiety. There's something about her tonight, an odd spark beneath the stupor, ruthless and even less relenting than you're used to—when the door closes behind you, it almost feels like you've sealed yourself in with a restless lion.

The lamp is still on from before you left. You make a beeline to your dresser to find her some clothes to sleep in—an old, worn t-shirt, big enough on you that she'll be swimming in it, and some drawstring shorts. When you turn back to face her, Nancy's busy idling around, humming to herself as she trails her fingers all over your things. Book spines, picture frames. A medal from freshman year regionals. She picks up the conch shell your aunt gave you in elementary school and holds it to her ear as she turns around.

"Careful with that," you warn.

"I know." Her face dips into a pout. "I can't hear anything."

"Yeah, cause there's nothing to hear."

"You're supposed to hear the ocean," she tells you. "The waves, and… Is that for me?"

"Yeah. You can sleep in this." You toss the clothes onto the foot of your bed. Her eyes follow the trajectory, and she spins back around to put down the shell.

"I like it in here," she muses. "…You never change anything. It's all the same, since we were kids."

"No, it's not," you scoff.

"Yeah, it is," she giggles, and points a slender finger at your wall. "Look. You've had that Janis Joplin poster so long, it's getting faded."

"No, it isn't," you argue. "Jesus, just…get dressed. I wanna go back to sleep."

"You're such an old lady."

Even still, she lets the cardigan slip off of her angled shoulders without a care. You catch it for her before it hits the ground and toss it over the back of your desk chair. Nancy's hands raise to fiddle with the top button of her skirt, and it only takes a few seconds of watching her struggle for the dread to set back in.

"Do you…need help?" you offer, but your stomach gurgles at the thought.

"No, I got it," she mumbles.

But her shoulders tense up and her brow wrinkles as she tries and tries and never succeeds in getting a proper grasp on the very first button. You pray with all you have that she manages on her own, and you aren't surprised in the slightest that it goes unheard.

"Ugh," she groans and rips her hands away, scrunching them into twitchy fists. "It's…stuck. Just do it for me."

You roll your eyes at how spoiled she sounds and hope it distracts from how tight your own fists clench to dispel your nerves. She stares you right in your face as you approach her, and maybe it's just the dim lighting or the general bizarreness of the occasion, but in your eyes, she looks so plainly aware that an irrational voice in the back of your mind wonders if she's even really drunk at all.

You do your best to ignore how warm she is as you carefully undo her first button, then the second. You're grateful at least that the fabric of her shirt tucked beneath it prevents you from touching the skin of her stomach directly. The third button is all it takes for the skirt to fall from her hips, and you flick your gaze back up to her grinning face. She reaches for you, and your let her take your hands for balance as she steps out of the garment and kicks it aside.

Then comes the blouse. The silk bow slips loose with a single tug, and that's all you need to see to trust that she can handle the rest on her own. You turn your back to her and swiftly trade out your jeans for the sleep pants you were wearing earlier, hesitating only when a tangle of red silk streaks through your peripheral vision as she tosses it to the carpet with her skirt. Even once you're finished, you wait for long enough to safely assume she must be done as well (by the lack of fabric rustling or her little grunts of effort) before braving a glance, and you jump out of your skin to find her still undressed with both hands behind her back, toiling at the clasp of her Alice blue bra.

“Nancy!”

“What?" She flares her eyes at your outrage, but seems pleased by it nonetheless—like she'd been stalling on purpose to make sure you caught her.

Your eyes bore a hole in the wall over her shoulder. "Do you really need to—?"

"It’s not comfortable,” she insists.  

This time, she manages it on her own, and as soon as those thin little straps start to fall from her shoulders, a surge of panic turns your back to her, your face flaring hot with shame.

“Seriously?” she cries out again, stretched wide and smiley with a laugh. “You act like you’ve never seen boobs before. I know you have.”

The feathery draw and release of each breath is all you try to focus on, more important than the newborn panic thriving, attention hungry, in the back of your mind. She knows, she knows and she's taunting you, and that's all that this is, and you're an idiot for thinking otherwise. You didn't save her. She's never once needed you, and she never will.

“...I barely even have any,” she goes on lightly. “Not big ones like you. …Steve liked the big ones. He didn’t say it, but… I think he did.”

You chew on your lip and wait and breathe. You don’t hear any fabric rustling.

“...Maybe you should’ve dated him.”

A tug on the back of your shirt makes you jump, twitching back in her direction on instinct, and you wince preemptively, but it isn't the transgression you expect. She’s holding the shirt's fabric up to lazily cover her chest, staring at you with big, guiltless eyes, and a smile so fine you aren't convinced it’s really there.

“What’s the matter?” she asks. “...Last time I checked, we're both girls. You don't have to be embarrassed.”

A ripple of goosebumps spills down the back of your neck, along each arm. The heat in your face expands, overflowing into your chest, and in a quiet voice, you ask, “Would you please just put it on?”

Nancy rolls her eyes, and you look away again as she finally does what you ask. She grunts as the collar pops over her head.

"There," she announces. "It's on, so you can stop being shy, now."

She didn't bother with the shorts, but you know a losing battle when you see one. Your eyes catch for a moment too long on her discarded bra, thrown indifferently over your footboard, but you wrench them away when she seems to notice.

"Jeez," she sighs again for show. "I thought I was supposed to be the prude."

Then, she snatches up the bra again, hooking a finger under each strap, and closes the distance between you with enough confidence to lock up your limbs in anxiety.

"What— what are you—?"

You go still as Nancy raises the dainty little garment and drapes it over your chest. Her smile grows sharper at the sight of it—much too small to be of any use for you, and certainly to preserve any modesty—and she stares for so long that your blood freezes cold enough to burn.

"…You should try it on," she teases.

You can hardly part your teeth enough to speak. "Cut it out."

With a sigh, she eases off of you, tossing the lacy little thing to the floor with the rest of her clothes—very unlike her—before sitting herself on your bed. No longer held hostage, you rush towards the lamp to turn out the light and put an end to this disturbing evening as soon as possible.

"No, wait!" she spits before you make it, and you stop in your tracks. "Don't turn it off."

"Nancy, it's like two in the morning."

"So what? I'm not tired at all. I wanna do something with you, like we used to."

"Well, I'm tired."

"No, you're not," she scoffs, and a moment later, she's batting her eyelashes at you. "…Bring the stereo in here. I wanna put on music."

"No way. My mom'll wake up, and—"

"Your mom doesn't care what we do," she groans, but a sudden spark turns her eyes razor-sharp. "We could be…snorting drugs and shooting guns and having sex in here, and she'd still be snoring in that ugly chair."

Your neck and shoulders tense up in stress and your heart tries sincerely to bust through your sternum. "Jesus, would you— Why do you keep joking like that?"

Nancy blinks her lazy eyes at you, no longer feigning innocence. The corner of her mouth twitches upward. "…Like what?"

She knows. How or when or why doesn't matter when it's this obvious, and, shit, it's Nancy, so maybe she's always known and just been kind enough to spare you. What the hell changed?

"Just…stop it, okay?" you mutter, as firm as you can manage. You feel about two feet tall. "You're freaking me out."

She pouts at you. Then, she stands up again and heads for the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To get the stereo."

You dart towards her to wrap a careful hand around her arm and tug her back in your direction. Nancy turns back around with a proud little grin, like all she really wanted was for you to have to stop her.

"Fine, c'mere," you say, guiding her towards your dresser where sits your Walkman and your modest tape collection. "Just a couple songs, okay? What do you wanna hear?"

Nancy chews on a fingernail. "…You still have Bella Donna?"

Your heart sinks in your chest, but you nod and fish it out for her, wiping the dust off on your pajama pants. Nancy sets herself up on your bed, crawling to the other side to make room for you and sitting on her knees, and you slot the tape in place and sit beside her to place the headphones over her ears.

"You don't wanna listen?" she asks. You shake your head.

Nancy startles a little as the music starts playing, and you cycle through the tracks by memory.

"No, I wanna hear—"

"I know, I got it."

Edge of Seventeen starts to play and a ripple of nausea permeates your gut. You can't hear the song, only Nancy's clumsy, captivating rendition of it as she lays back on your bed and begins to sing along with a smile, but it's still enough to lurch you right back to the same night she must've been seeking to conjure.

Late summer nineteen eighty-one, all three of you together in Barb's bedroom, probably no earlier than it is right now. She was the first one to get her hands on the tape between you and her parents were off on an anniversary trip, so naturally, a sleepover was in order. Nancy went crazy for the song, even more than the two of you combined. It was probably nearing the tenth straight listen—performance, more accurately, with all the singing and shouting, dancing and miming, and pillow warfare sprinkled in-between—when Barb had to tap out, flopping onto her bed for a breather. You tried to join her, but Nancy dug her tireless nails into your arm to keep you up with her and sang to you (not at you, but to you) with a stubborn, ridiculous insistence that had you, as always, primed and spellbound to do her bidding.

"You don't have to listen to her, y'know," Barb had teased, and you couldn't even spare her a glance.

Your arm raised almost thoughtlessly to allow Nancy a twirl, and the pleasure on her face pleased you just the same. "Yes, she does," Nancy corrected, reaching one hand out to summon her back into the action. "And so should you. C'mon, you can't be tired already."

"Why should I get between the lovebirds?" Barb's keen eyes found yours and stayed there, and a beam of pure, impossible sunlight seemed to burn straight through the ceiling to set your face alight. Nancy scoffed and you aren't sure what else before she bullied you around to send you both swinging into a clumsy, giggling waltz.

Barbara scared the shit out of you at first, and it might be the greatest shame of your life. The thought that in that tiny piece of each day where you and Nancy had decided to be without each other—her time in yearbook, yours at practice—mere weeks into the seventh grade, she had gone and found someone other than you, completely outside of you, that she wanted to be around just as much. You decided internally, simmering like the child you were, that you hated Barb, and it took her months to convince you otherwise. By a year, you couldn't remember what you'd ever done without her.

You don't really know what happened that night, how the hell a ride to Steve Harrington's house could've possibly resulted in an accidental death by chemical spill, and if Nancy knows anything more, she hasn't shared a word of it with you. All you do know is that it's your fault. If, for a second shameful time, you hadn't been such a child—moping in the shell-shocking betrayal that was Nancy's first boyfriend, bitter, moody, and distant from the very first sign—and coldly turned down the invitation, it would've been you chauffeuring her there, and Barb wouldn't have been anywhere near the negligence that stole her. At the very least, she would've had someone watching her back while Nancy was preoccupied with King Steve.

Nothing at all was ever the same. You would’ve done anything to bring her back, to trade places with her, you still would. Sometimes you wonder if that’s the root of it all; if it’s hard for Nancy to look at you without wishing that you had.

Barb was the only one that knew—that you admitted it to, at least. She knew, and you know she never told her, and she should be here, and you should not. 

Your thoughts shatter to pieces at the sound of the first sniffle. She isn't singing anymore, too overcome with it—her bottom lip bitten hard between her teeth and perfect little brows wrinkled up, reaching high; glistening beads of aquamarine collecting in the corners of her eyes, trembling along with the rest of her. The sight almost takes your breath away.

"…Nancy?"

And that's all it takes for her voice to burst out, a moan that stutters like a sob and makes the hair on your arms stand on end. It goes on until she's out of breath and then she gasps, drawing in a thick inhale that chokes back out of her as a laugh. It shocks you in place, fuses your joints rigid until the tears in her eyes well over and pure urgency knocks them loose again. You clamber up to your nightstand for tissues and return to her feeling completely useless.

"Nancy," you call again, but she either ignores you or doesn't hear it. Setting the box aside, you carefully reach down to ease the headphones off of her (the muted, tinny voice sings on: Sometimes to be near you, is to be unable to feel you… my love), and her eyes stay glued to the ceiling. Piercing right through it, too far for you to reach. Her chest still shakes with odd, muffled laughter, like something is desperate to burst out of it but she's fighting it with all she has. "…What is it? What's wrong?"

Her mouth opens with another inhale and stays there, choking out fragments of syllables until she grasps onto a sliver of her voice. "…I don't know what to do."

"About what?" It cuts you up that you even have to ask. You pluck a tissue from the box and, realizing she probably won't take it, you try to make use of it yourself, dabbing at tear trails that disappear down into her hair.

Her gaze finally recedes from the clouds and flickers to your face hanging over her, and she withers at the sight. She doesn't say anything, and her withholding does what it always does—wraps a tight, thorny vine around your throat.

"…Nancy, I'm begging you to just—"

"I can't tell you," she insists.

"Why not?" Her silence starts to grate on you, frustration building pressure between your ribs. How can she be this miserable in front of you, breaking down crying in your bed, and still refuse to let you in? She called you, she wanted to see you, and still, she won't even... "…It's been fucking years like this. I don't know…what I did, why you don't trust me anymore, but—"

Nancy's sullen face twitches in shock. "I trust you."

"No, you don't, Nance."

"I do!" she cries. Your hand falls away as she wrenches herself upright, and her eyes shake over your face, thrumming with an urgency she struggles to get out in words. "I trust you about…everything, and I miss you all the time—"

"Stop it," you cut her off. You ball up the tissue in your hand, let your eyes wander down to the wrinkles in your old shirt, shifting endlessly with her agitated breaths. "You don't need to try and spare my feelings. Maybe you do miss me sometimes, but if you trusted me or actually wanted me in your life anymore, I would know something, anything at all about what's going on with you, what's…doing this to you. You'd fucking talk to me like you used to. Not just when you're too wasted to think better of it."

She says your name, so distraught that it makes your eyes sting. "…I'm sorry."

"Whatever," you sigh, rubbing a hand down your face. You squeeze out as much tension as you can with a deep breath. "…I just wanna go to sleep."

"I wanna tell you," she says.

You slump with the weigh of it. Is it for your sake, or for hers? You aren't sure how much more you can take.

"No, I mean it!" she goes on before you can deny it. She pulls herself higher to sit on her knees again and holds onto your arm with both hands. "I wanna tell you everything, every day I think about it. About you, and what you would say and do, and I want you to…hold me, and tell me it's okay. And that I'm being paranoid, and dumb, but I'm not. It's all…real."

Whatever she's taking about, it has tears welling up in her eyes again, and they flicker all over your face with enough dread to make your stomach sick. Her hands might be trembling, but it's hard to tell when she's squeezing so tight, her nails gouging little crescents into your skin. "…What the hell does that mean, Nancy?"

She shakes her head. "It's all real, and I need you. I need you to…stay like this, and be here, so I have to… I have to. Even if it makes you hate me."

"I don't hate you," you let her know, but it doesn't quell her distress much. "I just…don't understand."

"That's good," she breathes. "I promise, that's good. I don't want you to."

"…Can you tell Jonathan about it?"

Nancy's face falls dim. Relenting on your arm, she raises one limp hand to scrub tears from her cheek. "It's different."

"How is it different?"

She opens her mouth and flounders. "I… It's just—it is. He…knows, already, and—"

"He gets it, right?" you jeer. "Did Steve get it, too?"

Reluctantly, she nods, and your tongue presses into your cheek. Everyone but you, apparently.

"…Christ. I know you like being the smart one, Nance, but I'm not as stupid as you seem to think I am."

You take your arm out of her grasp and stand up then, gather your discarded Walkman and set it back on top of your dresser.

"I don't think you're stupid. Not at all."

You pop the tape out, return it to its case. Maybe in the morning, she'll explain herself better, say what she's trying to say in a way that makes a little more sense. In a better mood, you might laugh at the thought.

"…It's not just that," Nancy says with another sniffle. "It's him, too. It's Jonathan, and…he doesn't know."

"What doesn't he know?" You start towards the lamp again, but she won't go on until you turn to look at her.

"…Come back," she asks softly, patting the bed beside her. "Please."

She won't let you sleep in peace until she's said whatever she needs to, so you figure there's no point in acting stubborn. You sit yourself beside her once again and resolve to keep your eyes on the duvet between you.

“…I'm mad at him all the time," she begins. The words come out low and breathy, like her lips are nervous to form them. "I don't mean to be. He…loves me, and I thought it was…good this time, and that I wanted it, but… I just get so angry.”

Already, you break—your eyes tear straight to hers as a pit starts to form in your stomach.

“What are you getting angry about?” She just stares at you, helpless, and a shiver goes down your spine. “...Is he doing something to you, or— Are you…fighting about something?” Is he hurting you? Is he hurting you, Nancy? It’s screaming on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t make yourself ask. 

Her lip quivers. She shakes her head. “It's not him. …It's not because of him, I mean, he's— I like him, a lot. It's not his fault. It's because…”

She embarks again; her eyes travel, in one short moment, a million miles away, and her soft brow furrows in focus.

“It's…all of them," she decides. "I think it's just…all of them.”

You're…hearing things, seeing things; you must've fallen asleep after all, and this entire night has just been one horrible, sadistic, belligerent fucking dream, but your mouth opens anyway.

"…All of them?"

She nods and grounds herself again, focusing on the present, on you. Her stare curls over your lap, your stomach, the curve of your chest; streaks across your collarbone and seems to get lost in your face, swirling round and round. “…You get it," she says. "…Right?”

With nothing else to do—a thousand unbelieving questions on your tongue, wrapped and entangled too tight for even one of them to be spelled out in words—you nod. Her eyes look clearer and brighter than you've ever seen them; like in all the years you've known her, you've never quite been brave enough to look directly into them.

She reaches for you, no longer anxious. She wants it, she'll have it, she knows you want it, too. She grabs on to the strap of your tank top to pull you in and her name flies out of you, stilted, panicked. You don't know if it's a question, a warning, pure disbelief, or a desperate, bone-deep fucking plea, but she holds you by your jaw with her warm, warm hand, and you've never been less confident in your grasp on reality.

"Please," Nancy asks. Her eyes are caught unambiguously on your mouth. "Just…let me—"

Her lips don't taste like the watermelon chapstick she used to wear—the one you'd take a quick and shameful taste of every time you could convince her to let you borrow it—but nothing in the world could be less disappointing than the feeling of them pressed into yours. You don't know if it's real, but it feels real, so you thread your fingers into her hair the way you've always wanted to and you kiss her back like you're trying to etch the sensation into your skin, steal as much of it as you can before she comes to her senses. Nancy pulls back first, with hardly an inch of space between you.

"Oh, shit," she gasps like ecstasy. Bursting through the water's surface to take the first full, unimpeded breath of her life.

And you get it. You've felt it before; with an older woman, a librarian, nestled down in the restricted archives, and you remember well the relief, the vindication, the dizzy thrill that, in the moment, far outweighs the sinking terror it anchors in the back of your mind.

And when she kisses you again, you can't taste the alcohol on her tongue, so maybe it's alright, and it really is her, and this isn't some terrible, terrible joke that she's taken much farther than you'd ever be able to forgive her for. Your mind is a screaming void but Nancy knows what she wants. She eases you down and lays herself on top of you, and her tongue traces a needy map of the inside of your mouth even as yours remains too fearful to do the same, and it goes on, and on, and on. Endless wet clicking and smacking in the refuge of your silent bedroom. No amount of it seems to relieve her of the craving.

“You smell so good,” she whines, and she dips her face into your neck to breathe in and sigh. “So pretty.”

You don't know what to do with yourself, terrified that you'll ruin it, touch her wrong, break the spell, so Nancy decides for you. Her hands find yours and guide them to her thighs, drag them up, up until they rest on her hips, and all you dare to do beyond that is stroke the lacy trim of her panties with your thumbs, grounding yourself with the feeling.

Nancy kisses your neck, drags her tongue along it until your skin starts to buzz and a shiver rolls down your spine. Odd little stings of arousal zap down between your legs, warm and sensitive, beating in time with your heart. You start to squirm, unsure of how to deal with being touched by her like this, and your legs shift around until, by accident, your thigh presses hard between hers, and she gasps against your skin.

"Sorry." You jerk it away on instinct as your face floods with mortified heat, but her disappointed whine comes immediately.

"No, please."

So you put it back, press yourself into her, and with an eagerness that makes you feel like the world has fallen out from under you, she grinds the thin fabric of her panties into your thigh. Clueless and duty-driven, you use your grip on her hips to help her, and the breathy moan she lets out sends you soaring, your eyes itching to roll back into your head. How is any of this happening? Nancy kisses you again, wet and sloppy and uncoordinated in her distraction, but she can't keep it up for long. She shifts down to chase the pleasure and her hand climbs up to idly fondle your breast—even through the fabric, the brush of her finger over your nipple is almost more than you can bear.

“I think about you,” she admits. You've never heard her voice so frail and wrecked, pitching high with strain. “Every time, I think about you.” And then she whimpers; her thighs squeeze around yours, her cheek falls to your chest in weakness. “…It’s the only way it feels good.”

Her words click something into place—your staticky mind starts to race with tangible thoughts again. Every time, I think about you. It only feels good when she thinks about you, not just a woman, any woman, but you. She knows what you are and she's figured out that she's the same. She couldn't have just realized it tonight—she called you earlier, knowing.

But that can't be right. Because if she knows how she feels, if she has known for God knows how long and never said anything—treated you like this, held you at twice her wingspan, punished for the best friend you both lost; second to Steve fucking Harrington, a seven-month replacement for yet another boyfriend she left you out in the cold for, and she only ever calls you when she's out of her mind in the middle of the night, like speaking to you at all has become too shameful to face sober—and now that she's ready, she thinks she can just…have you?

Just like this, on a whim, dancing around it all night before springing it on you. Knowing she'd get exactly what she wanted, because she always gets exactly what she wants from you without even lifting a finger.

Years like this, waiting for her, making peace with the pure impossibility of it, and Nancy throws it all on its head in one night. Not for your sake. For hers.

And despite it all, the spell—the fucking fairy tale playing out on top of you—shatters and falls away.

"Stop it," you gasp. Your hands fly off her hips, grab onto her arm and her shoulder instead. "Stop, stop— Nancy, stop it! What the fuck?"

You push her up and off of you, held at arm's length, and she stares at you like a deer in headlights; panting, wet-lipped. "…What's wrong?"

What's wrong? "I can't…do this with you right now. Not when you're drunk, and confused—"

The word scalds her, makes her recoil. "I'm not confused!"

"I don't know that, Nance," you spit. "…I never see you, you only ever talk to me when you're—fucking plastered. I don't know."

The problem is, you believe her. Even if she isn't fully in her right mind, the distress, the anger, the desire—it's all laid bare with such clear truth that every bone in your body aches in recognition. Of course she'd need to drown herself in alcohol to come out with it. There's a reason you stopped drinking altogether.

It was a set-up from the start, and the realization smooths out all the knots in your flesh. She stranded herself on purpose, drank until her tight grip loosened up enough to call you. And she knows you, knows at least a fraction of how you feel about her, so she knew that you'd pick up, that you'd come find her and bring her home, take care of her. And maybe by then she'd be brave enough to admit it.

You pull yourself out from under her with a haggard sigh and Nancy falls beside you, something like fear in her eyes.

"…I'm sorry," she says, barely voiced at all. "…I just…wanted to—"

"It's not your fault," you cut her off. The wanting isn't, at least. "You want to…talk about it, we can. Just…not now. Not when you're like this."

With downcast eyes, she nods. You can hardly look at her like this, so you stand up and make your way towards the door. She doesn't try to stop you from going through it.

In the bathroom, you take your time and try to let the droning, whirring chaos in your mind settle down. When you wash your face, the skin feels almost numb beneath your fingers. You dry it off, brush your teeth, and return.

She's still sitting right where you left her—a sad-eyed doll that only animates in front of you. Without another word, you switch off your lamp and slip beneath the covers, laying with your back to her. It takes a while before Nancy is ready to do the same, but no sooner than she does, her quiet voice murmurs from behind you.

“...Can I hug you?”

There's no world in which you would be able to ignore or deny the request; not from her, not when she sounds so hurt and hopeless.

Nancy sidles up to you, a blanket of heat along the back of your body. She snakes her slim arms around you, and each warm, shuddering breath she takes wafts over the skin of your neck. The thin little hairs that emerge from it pull straight and tight, magnetized in her direction. You won't be able to sleep like this, but weren't really expecting to, anyway.

In time, she can't help herself. She fidgets with the hem of your shirt and eventually slips her fingers beneath it, stroking her warm hand over the skin of your stomach. She pushes it even further, gliding higher—slowly, so slowly, as if you might not notice—and you bite down on your bottom lip just as her finger brushes against the underside of your breast. You don't stop her so she keeps exploring, grazing along the underside and deeper, picking up sweat in the crease.

Your skin beneath her touch feels molten, and when she can't resist the urge to brush her finger against the hardened bud of your nipple, it hits you like lightning. You suck a gasp through your teeth and Nancy answers with an exhale of her own, and in the pathetic solitude of your mind, you beg her to keep it up as long as she can.

The gentle throb between your legs returns and Nancy does not disappoint you. She doesn't stop, caressing the underside of your breast and toying with your nipple, back and forth, driving you out of your mind. Now and then she cups and squeezes and your thighs do the same, and she doesn't stop, again and again, back and forth until, inevitably, she dozes off against your back.

…

You only briefly manage to pass out, and you come to with Nancy's hand still plunged deep into your tank top. It's like a game of Operation trying to extract it without rousing her.

On the way to the kitchen, you hear your mother in the shower and smell the coffee she set to brew beforehand. You open the fridge and sigh. There's a few eggs left, some ham you can fry. It doesn't take long. You plate the food and then make a call. On return, you fill up a mug, add a splash of creamer, take a couple bites off of the plate, and head back to your room.

As small as she looks like this, passed out in your oversized tee with her tousled and flattened curls, standing over her feels like approaching a sleeping bear. You're scared to touch her, scared you've lost your mind, that you really did dream it all up, or maybe that you didn't; terrified that she'll open her eyes and wonder what she's doing here, whether you laid beside her all night, what you did to her while she was indisposed. But the fear won't leave whether she wakes up now or later.

"Nancy," you say, about as loud as you normally speak. She doesn't react. "Nance," you try again louder, and when that doesn't work either, you decide to suck it up.

Setting the coffee mug on your nightstand, you reach out to shake her shoulder, moving slow with reluctance. Just before you connect, she jerks. Her face turns towards you and scrunches up like it always does in the morning with a quiet little "hm?" and you snatch your hand back to yourself, straightening your back as your heart starts to pound in surprise.

"Nancy," you say again, awkward. You aren't sure why.

She turns onto her back and stretches her entire body in a long, feline arc. With immense difficulty, she squints her eyes open and, at the sight of you, smiles. You let out your first full exhale of the morning.

"…Hi," she says, and the sight of your offering only makes her smile wider. "What's this?"

"Breakfast," you say. "The best I could scrounge up."

Nancy sits up and accepts the plate with an unusually bashful smile. "Thanks."

"Coffee on the table."

She glances towards it, then right back at you. "Aren't you gonna eat?"

"Already did," you lie.

Nancy frowns. "What? Why'd you eat without me? You could've woken me up."

"I figured you needed the rest."

She eyes you for a while; confused, suspicious. It's hard to tell what all she knows. Then, something hits her—she squints her eyes shut and grunts, grinds one palm into her eye.

"Headache?" You're already digging in the drawer of your nightstand for your bottle of Tylenol.

"Yeah." She smiles around her grimace as you hand it to her, and she tosses back twice the recommended dose, washing it down with coffee.

As she starts picking at her food, you're still stuck in place, standing there like an overzealous butler, waiting for her to give your existence meaning through some other task to complete on her behalf. You don't know how to bring up what happened, how to ask what all she remembers—how to tell her what you did. She watches you watching her as she takes another sip, amused and puzzled.

“Did I…say something weird last night?” she asks, and you receive it like a punch to the gut. Exactly what you were scared of. “You’re acting…weird.”

“…No,” you try to say, but your intonation takes on a mind of its own.

She makes a face at you, loosely smiling. “That doesn’t sound like a no.”

"What, um… Do you…?" There's no way to ask Do you remember how you felt about me last night? that isn't utterly humiliating, so you give up on it altogether. “…Are you and Jonathan still together?”

Her frown only deepens. “...Yeah,” she says. “...Did I say that we weren’t?”

“…Why?”

“What?”

“Why are you still together?”

“...What do you mean?”

You bite your lips between your teeth. If it’s all of them, then why are you still with him? If you can’t even get off without thinking about me, then why the fuck are you still dating him?

“...Nevermind.”

"…Okay," she agrees, pitch rising in uncertainty. "…Are you working today?"

You shake your head and a switch seems to flip. Nancy's face beams with a girlish little smile.

"Good," she says, and her eyes twinkle in thought. "…Do you still have that picnic blanket we used to use, the baby-blue gingham? Cause I was thinking later we could go down to Bradley's and pick up some things for sandwiches, maybe some fruit and those shortbread cookies you like, if they have any, and we could drive to that little clearing on Danford Creek to have lunch."

It shakes you up too deep to even process—there's no way she just came up with that on the spot. "…I don't think so, Nance."

"No?" she sort of pouts, but she doesn't lose any steam. "Well… Maybe we could rent a movie, just stay in and—"

"No, that's not—" You breath in as deep as you can. "I just… I think you should go home."

"What?" She seems to think you're joking. "…I mean, already?"

"You can finish eating, change," you assure her. "But, um… I already called your house. He'll be here in…thirty minutes, maybe."

"…What?" she gasps, mostly air, and her disappointment sinks and hardens into insult. You've said all you have to, so she scoffs, blinking her affronted eyes around like she can hardly believe what she's hearing. “…So, what, you're kicking me out? After all that, you're just gonna—?” 

“All what, Nancy?” 

It stops her short. She pauses, stares at you with her face taut and blank. You wait, and you wait—to hear that she's lying, pretending, that she remembers every moment or none of them at all, that she isn't ready yet but she still needs you anyway—and like always, she gives you utterly nothing.

You shrug your shoulders, helpless to help either of you. “...What did you think was gonna happen?”

A frigid pause and Nancy tosses her half-eaten food aside. She stares you right in the eye as she downs the rest of the coffee (some of it streaking down her chin, staining your shirt) and stands up in front of you. Your deep-fried, near-woozy brain provides the silly thought that she might kiss you again, but she doesn't.

Her face is strained with frustration that ebbs and flows in directions you don't recognize, and she gives you no warning before ripping your shirt over her head. You're startled by it, don't manage to flinch away in time, so the sight of her bare chest (sweet and supple, dotted with rose pink) singes itself in your mind like a brand.

"Christ," you mutter, eyes squinted shut, as she walks around you. When you dare to open them, she has her blouse on, collar untied. "…I'm still here," you offer blandly. "Not going anywhere."

She doesn't respond, just steps back into her skirt, yanking at the buttons with a violent urgency.

"…You should talk to him," you go on. "…About the drinking, too. I'm sure he's worried about you."

"Thanks for the advice," she bites. She whips around to leave without another word or glance.

"Nancy," you call at the last moment. And she waits in the doorway, hesitantly looking over her shoulder to meet your eyes. It takes a moment to swallow your heart down from your throat. "…If you need something from me, I need you to ask for it."

Still staring, she takes a breath, her head held high and proud. Her eyes are still as clear as the night before—different and more familiar than ever.

And then she leaves. The door slams behind her hard enough to make you jump.

"What the hell have I told you about slamming doors?!" your mother's muffled, croaky voice shouts from the other room. "You're goddamn old enough to—! Whuh— Nancy?!"

Her voice continues on, too quiet to hear distinctly. You tell yourself it's for the best. What really matters is that you know, now, but you can't figure it out for her if she still won't let you in, and you definitely can't sit around playing house like it's nothing out of the ordinary—like she hasn't hurt you in ways you're still struggling to wrap your head around.

You lift the plate off of your bed and start picking at her leftovers, cooling fast in the icy morning air. And when you turn around, with a single, disbelieving laugh, you notice what she left behind.

A thin, dainty, Alice blue bra, strewn out carelessly on the tawny brown carpet.

-

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The job wasn't glamorous. You spent most mornings answering phones, sorting papers, filing reports, and occasionally being sent to pick up lunch for people who treated interns like an exotic species that existed solely to fetch things, especially if the lowly interns had a perky chest and bouncy hair.

Still, you loved parts of it. Maybe you secretly seethed in the bathroom after each snide remark about your blouse, or after each aggravated chuckle from your bosses who, for some reason, believed they would always be much more capable than you. But it paid, and after rejection after rejection, the steady flow was like hose water on a blistered summer day. Soothing and relaxing. That and you enjoyed how it got you out of the house.

Still, summer in Hawkins felt endless. It was the kind of summer that baked sidewalks until the air shimmered above them, the kind that left skin sticky with humidity before noon. You recalled most summers growing up being this way, but something about the late June heat was creeping up the back of your neck differently, sweat beading between your meticulously styled curls.

Most of your friends spent their days at the community pool, or the brand new mall making eyes at Steve Harrington, the resident pretty boy who’d fallen far fast, all gathered to waste entire afternoons in luscious air conditioned ice cream parlors.

You did those things too, just not every day.

You liked having somewhere to be, something to do, a reason to wake up before ten.

Which was exactly why you were sitting behind the reception desk on a Wednesday morning while everyone else your age was probably sleeping, tights pulled flat beneath your long purple skirt, and heals just a half size too big covering your feet.

You twirled a pen between your fingers. The clock ticked. A phone rang somewhere in the building. Someone yelled for coffee.

Normal.

Boring.

Predictable.

Until the front door opened, and the bell overhead jingled.

You glanced up automatically. A boy stepped inside carrying a camera bag, shoulders raised awkwardly beside a slightly shorter girl with a shoulder length perm. Nancy Wheeler. You recognized her from the school papers your younger brother brought home sometimes.

Still, your eyes flickered back over to the boy. He was familiar in a way that you couldn’t seem to place.

Tall.

Thin.

Dark hair.

Flannel shirt despite the heat.

The second he entered the building, he looked like he regretted it.

Interesting.

Very interesting.

He moved through the newsroom without saying much, and a few people greeted him. He nodded.

One reporter asked him a question, he answered with exactly three words, then he disappeared toward the photography department. You watched him go.

"Him?"

You nearly jumped.

The receptionist beside you smirked.

"What?"

"You're staring." She clicked her freshly manicured nails against the thick keyboard. Secretly, you thought the mustard yellow color was an insult to her hands.

"I wasn't." You scoffed, already focused back on your work.

"You were."

You rolled your eyes. "I was observing."

"Sure." She laughed.

"That's Jonathan."

Jonathan.

The name settled somewhere in your brain. You didn't think much of it, not yet. Still, the name sounded familiar. You’d only just graduated high school, not yet even committed to a college, though secretly you knew you’d end up at your local community school, and yet you found the many names that once filled the background were already slipping from you.

Jonathan…Jonathan….had he gone by Johnny maybe?

It wouldn’t be until later that night you finally came to. Zombie boy, Will Byers. You recalled the way he pinned up the flyers all those years ago, and at the time, while you’d given him a few sympathetic looks, you’d always just been…you.

Standing confidently on the other side of the hallway, not quite close with Carol and Tommy, but familiar with the faces that roamed the halls enough to earn friendly smiles.

You wondered secretly if he had placed you yet, or if, like him, you had just been another girl to slip into the background noise while he navigated high school.

The second time you noticed Jonathan Byers happened three days later.

Over a cup of coffee.

Technically, because of a spilled cup of coffee. Specifically, yours.

The morning had already been terrible, clouds overcast and dripping with rain that refused to fall. A thick haze covered Hawkins, leaving surfaces damp and akin sticky.

You'd slept through your alarm, burnt your toast, forgotten your purse, and worst of all, arrived to work exactly three minutes late. That was the part that unsettled you the most.

Most days, you showed up over fifteen minutes earlier, and even then, sometimes your boss would heckle you while strolling in just before he was on the clock. Mentally, you were already scratching off a list of insults you would mutter at him in the cramped bathroom stall.

You’d barely had time to pull yourself together that morning, hair a little out of place, and wrinkles still littering your shirt. Your heels tapped against the tiled floors with a new found urgency, your body weaving through the newsroom with a practiced ease, a cup of hot coffee, black as requested, balanced precariously in one hand and a stack of folders in the other, neat and organized. You nearly made it, an excuse building when disaster struck.

One collision.

One surprised noise.

One catastrophic splash.

Coffee everywhere.

All over the floor.

All over your shoes.

All over someone's flannel sleeve.

"Oh my God." You looked up. Jonathan stared back.

For a moment neither of you spoke, and you felt horror spreading through every inch of your body.

"I am so sorry."

Jonathan looked down at his sleeve, then at you, then back at his sleeve. Annoyance flickered across his face, then, between the furrow of his brows down to the pull of his lips, he took a second to study the situation, and his frustration resolved itself quietly.

"It's okay."

"It is absolutely not okay." You spoke all too fast, already moving around frantically.

"It's fine."

"It's all over you."

"It's coffee." His voice was impossibly flat.

"I know it's coffee."

You sounded increasingly distressed, Jonathan seemed increasingly confused, which somehow made everything worse.

"I'm really sorry." You couldn’t seem to stress it enough.

"It's okay." He nearly laughed, choking on a breath when your fingers pressed against the fabric, dabbing at the ruined material with thin napkins.

"I'm buying you a new shirt."

"What?" He scoffed.

"A new shirt." You were dead serious.

"No." He shook his head.

"Yes."

"No."

"Jonathan—" You huffed. He hesitated, stepping back defensively.

"How do you know my name?"

You stopped, blinking slowly. The question caught you so off guard that you forgot about the coffee entirely. "What?"

"How do you know my name?" His expression wasn't suspicious, just curious, genuinely curious, like the possibility had never occurred to him.

You stared, then laughed, actually laughed.

"Jonathan." You said it more matter-of-factly.

His eyebrows lifted slightly.

"You work here."

"Yeah." He shrugged.

"People say your name." You mirrored his movement.

"Oh."

You laughed harder.

For some reason, he looked embarrassed, you noticed that first, how easily he got flustered. Not necessarily because of attraction, but because maybe it had been conditioned. The second thing you noticed was the tips of his ears turning faintly pink.

Cute.

The thought arrived suddenly, unexpectedly, pressed tightly beside the dull ache of wanting to notice more about the walking mystery of a boy in front of you.

You ignored it immediately, or tried to, and somehow, he had made it impossibly easy to do.

With another soft mumble, he was gone, barely brushing past with an apologetic expression. Red light illuminated from the cracked door, liquid moving slowly from the bins.

The door clicked, and in the absence of him came the boisterous shout of your boss in the other room.

—

After that, you saw Jonathan less, or, you saw less opportunity to talk to Jonathan. He was always weaving in and out of conference rooms, well liked enough by the staff there to get away with minimal conversation before he disappeared with his camera slung around his neck, skin bathed in a sliver of red light before the door would once again click.

The thing about Jonathan was that he didn't fit, not in the way people usually meant anyway.

He simply felt disconnected from everything around him, and for a while, that had been the problem.

The newsroom buzzed with conversations, always busy, always shifting and changing and taking and taking.

Deadlines.

Arguments.

Laughter.

Jonathan existed just outside all of it, like someone standing behind glass. Never unfriendly, just separate. Most people accepted it.

You found it fascinating.

Because you couldn't imagine living that way, you talked to everyone! Cashiers, neighbors, teachers, random strangers in line at the grocery store. Anyone who’d ever known you would cling to your side in awkward moments because in a world of extended pauses and the unsure atmospheres, you always seemed to have an answer.

Silence made you nervous, to put in plainly.

Jonathan seemed comfortable inside it, maybe even preferred it.

You wanted to know why. Why in a world full of conversation and knowing people that revolved around small talk, he would rather sit in silence and simply not know.

The opportunity arrived two weeks later entirely by accident, as most of your interactions occurred.

You were sorting photographs in one of the back rooms when you heard music.

Not loud. Just enough to drift through an open doorway.

Curious, you followed the sound, abandoning the small shiny paper somewhere on a nearby counter. You didn’t even bother to clip it up, which you knew if Jonathan, or god forbid, your boss were to stumble across it, you’d never hear the end. But if curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction had always brought it back.

The darkroom sat partially open, and inside, Jonathan stood alone developing photographs. The red safety light cast strange shadows across the room, and for a perfect moment, he didn't notice you.

His attention remained fixed on the image slowly appearing in a tray of chemicals, and for the first time in a while, you watched from the doorway, completely silent.

Something about the scene felt private, not secret, just...personal.

It felt like catching someone in the middle of a conversation with themselves, mumbling senselessly in a way that made sense in their head, but sounded crazy when out in the open.

Jonathan finally looked up, and his expression shifted immediately. At first, he had been annoyed, a soft huff about the light ruining the photos on the tip on his tongue, then, he softened, and there was a flicker of uncertainty. Then that familiar awkwardness.

"Sorry." You leaned against the doorframe. "I was curious."

"Oh." Even now, he didn’t say much.

You pointed toward the tray.

"Can I see?"

He hesitated. Not because he didn't want to, more like he wasn't used to people asking. That was another thing you began to notice. Jonathan was built off of conditioning. Each action and every conversation, or lack of, seemed to be a direct result of how he’d been molded growing up. The ache returned.

Finally he stepped aside, and you moved closer.

A photograph emerged from the chemicals in black and white. It was downtown Hawkins in late afternoon sunlight. There were people crossing the street, cars parked along the curb. Nothing special, and yet, you stared.

Not with a fake smile or faux interest, but with a small furrow between your brows like you were trying to figure something out.

"It's pretty."

Jonathan looked down.

"It's just downtown."

"No." You shook your head. "It's..." You searched for the right word. Different, important, alive?

"It's nice." Brilliant observation.

Jonathan's mouth twitched, almost a smile.

Almost.

"You can say if it sucks."

"It doesn't suck."

"Most people think it's boring."

You looked at the photograph again, then at him.

"Most people are boring." That earned an actual smile.

Small.

Brief.

But painfully real, and for some reason, seeing it felt weirdly rewarding, like winning something.

You left the darkroom smiling.

Jonathan spent the next ten minutes staring at the doorway after you disappeared.

Though neither of you would admit that later.

…

The rides home started in August, because your car decided to betray you.

The engine had made a noise that sounded suspiciously expensive, and when you got the estimate, it was far too much for your shitty job to cover.

Your father refused to let you drive it, but still refused to drive you, and suddenly, where you stood halfway across town, transportation became a problem.

You were complaining about it in the newsroom one afternoon with a boy a year younger. He had an awful bowl cut and far too much ambition for a small town. You’d learned his name was David, but the older receptionist called him Davie, which always made him blush. David didn’t necessarily care about your complaints, but he always responded.

You had been halfway through your ramble when a voice spoke from behind you.

"I can drive you."

The room went silent, scarily so.

You turned around.

Jonathan immediately looked like he wanted to disappear.

"What?"

His expression suggested he regretted speaking immediately.

"Oh."

You smiled. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure?" You blinked.

"Yeah."

"You don't mind?"

"No." He sighed, taking a step back despite the gaping distance already settled between the two of you.

"Because I talk a lot."

A pause.

"I know."

You laughed, and Jonathan looked away, but not before you noticed the smallest hint of amusement in his eyes, and maybe beneath it all, a hint of relief. As if he had been working up the courage to find a reason to talk to you for a while now. Somehow that made your stomach flutter. Just a little, only a little.

Nothing serious. Nothing worth thinking about. Nothing worth lying awake later that night replaying repeatedly.

Absolutely nothing, you told yourself, though in the back of your mind you were certain the smell of the old leather in his beat up car would linger in your mind for a few hours long after he’d drop you back at home that evening.

That first ride home had been awkward.

Not painfully awkward, not the kind where silence stretched so long it became suffocating. Just...different. Different in the way where both people itched to know more, but somehow neither of them knew how to search for what they wanted. Hands twitched, and fingers tapped lightly against the wheel, and between shaky breaths, small conversations swirled.

Jonathan's car smelled faintly like film chemicals, old leather, and something woodsy that clung to the flannel hanging from the backseat. The radio barely worked, one speaker crackled whenever he hit a bump, which was often considering Hawkins seemed determined to preserve every pothole in existence.

You filled the silence immediately, automatically. Of course you did.

"So."

Jonathan glanced over briefly.

"So," he repeated.

You smiled.

"I've never actually been in your car before." It was an obvious fact, and even more so, an overly obvious olive branch. An invitation for him to speak more.

Instead, he looked genuinely unsure how to respond to that.

"Okay."

You laughed. "You are terrible at conversations."

"I know."

"No, seriously."

"I know." His hands tightened slightly around the steering wheel.

You couldn't tell if he was embarrassed or amused. Maybe both.

The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the windshield, washing everything gold. Outside, Hawkins rolled past slowly. Inside, you talked. About work, about customers, about the community pool, about the mall, about how your friend Denise had nearly broken her ankle attempting to flirt with a lifeguard. Most of it was stupid, small things that meant nothing and in the grand scheme of things, were useless.

But Jonathan listened, mostly. Occasionally he offered a quiet comment. Sometimes single sentence, sometimes only a word. But he listened, really listened.

You could tell.

Most people waited for their turn to speak.

Jonathan actually paid attention.

The realization settled somewhere unexpectedly deep and by the time he pulled into your driveway twenty minutes later, you felt oddly disappointed.

"Thanks."

He nodded.

"No problem."

You opened the door, then paused.

"You know."

Jonathan looked over.

"You could tell me something."

His brow furrowed.

"About what?"

You thought earnestly for a moment. You’d spent nearly the entire ride telling him all about your life, and still, you were groveling for just the small details of his life.

"Anything."

The confusion on his face was almost adorable.

"What do you wanna know?"

Everything.

The answer arrived immediately.

You swallowed it.

Instead you smiled.

"Never mind." This time, embarrassment flushed across your skin like red hot shame. You swallowed it down with a sweet smile.

His eyes lingered on you for half a second longer than normal, then you climbed out.

Neither of you noticed him watching until you reached the front porch.

You’d only turned to be polite and wave, half expecting him to already be peeling out of your driveway. But instead, he sat there, an unreadable expression on his face, soft and hard all at once.

It was somewhere between that prolonged silence and the softness of his gaze that the rides became routine, and in that routine, they had become your favorite part of the day.

Neither happened intentionally.

One morning had become three, three had become a week, a week turned into nearly every shift.

Just quiet offers when the day neared the end, just before he knew you’d go out to stand and wait for the bus that was always fifteen minutes early or nearly an hour late.

You didn’t mind the wait, often familiarizing yourself with the people who rode it consistently. You’d made friends with an older lady, who had even dropped off some cookies once for you at lunch time, and a younger boy who spoke more than you somehow. But nothing was ever the same as the way Jonathan spoke to you. It never was.

At first it was practical, then it wasn't.

You both knew it. Neither of you acknowledged it.

Every afternoon, around five o'clock, Jonathan would appear near the front desk, never announcing himself, never asking, just appearing, like a ghost who knew he was always welcome. He was, most certainly and without a doubt, always welcome in your bubble, and in the new dance you learned, you hoped he knew that.

You'd gather your purse, and he'd grab his camera bag, and somewhere in that lazy shuffling you'd end up together.

Again, and again, and again.

The conversations grew longer.

Stranger.

More personal.

You learned he loved music.

Not normal music, at least not by your standards.

One afternoon he nearly drove off the road when you admitted you liked Madonna.

"Don’t scoff at me Byers! You act like its a crime to like Madonna."

He glanced over.

"It's not a crime."

"You’re looking at me like I committed a felony."

He shrugged. "I just don't understand it." He spoke almost uninterestedly. But you knew him better now, and beneath that indifference sat excitement.

"Oh?"

"No offense." He added, it didn’t offer much.

"Already offended."

"Okay."

You laughed.

“Well you must like one Madonna song?” You pried, and he only responded with a sweet, tight lipped grin that he wore so proudly. It was moments alone that his confidence became unearthed, and each time his charm caught you off guard.

"What do you listen to then?"

His fingers tapped against the steering wheel.

"The Clash."

You stared.

"The what?”

His expression immediately flattened.

"Oh my God."

"No." You bit back a laugh. "No, seriously."

He fought off his own, though while yours was pure amusement, his felt more incredulous.

"What is that? Seriously, it sounds angry."

Jonathan groaned.

Actually groaned.

You laughed so hard your stomach hurt.

“All that pop music is rotting your brain, I swear.” He claimed, hands tightening around the cracked leather of his steering wheel ever so slightly.

You rolled your eyes playfully, then, let out your own scoff.

“Just because you listen to the Clang—“

“The Clash!” He huffed.

“The Clash, doesn’t make you more well rounded, you know. Madonnas not even my favorite musician, and still I can accept that her perspective on modern art is just as important and impactful as what you enjoy.” You spoke proudly.

“Sure, so what? You’re saying you’re different? That I read you wrong?” He snickered, and his eyes flickered towards you for a moment before they settled back on the road stretching ahead.

He had taken the long way. Funny.

“No, I’m saying I have depth.” You had argued. “Liking popular things doesn’t make me some zombie of societal conformity, you know. And even if it did—things are popular for a reason.” You rambled, hands moving wildly in the small space between the two of you.

“Because they’re safe?”

There was a pause, and for a second, Jonathan had almost looked embarrassed for his joke. Truly, it wasn’t like him to just shut people down and not hear them out. But still, you had smiled at him. Softer this time, but just as sweet.

“Because they’re not.” You had argued calmly. “Sure, maybe the last decade has been a build up to something more eccentric, and yes, on their own, these artists hold their own right, but would Madonna be half as enticing if not for the costumes and the glitz, and the glam? Shes a performer, and she does it well, and thats why people love her. Just because the crowds are too big for you, doesn’t make her talent any smaller.” You huffed finally, and your shoulders sunk back into the passenger seat comfortably.

There was a proud pause. Jonathan pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, you had noticed that first, then, the playful banter continued, the old routine falling back into a steady place.

“So who is it then?Whitney? Or Michael Jackson?” He teased, and for some reason, his assumption that his taste in music made him deeper than you pulled at something deeply rooted inside of you. In a vision of perfect man, his only unredeemable flaw was the way his awkwardness often brushed over your opinions. Sometimes, it didn’t matter, but this? This felt like he hadn’t truly listened to you, and if he did, he couldn’t care less. An argument stirred, but instead, it came out as a strained laugh.

“Just because they’re popular doesn’t make them soulless.” You shot him a look, and your brows had furrowed more deeply across your face. He had simply shrugged.

There was a pause, the car filled with nothing more than the crunching of gravel and synched breaths.

“And for your information my favorite musicians are The Beatles.”

The silence broke instantly with heavy laughter and groans.

“Oh my god, the tip of the ice burg!” He joked, and in that moment, the defensiveness slipped away into a fit of giggles.

“Shut up!” You swatted at his arm. He shifted away before pushing back.

This time, a comfortable silence took over, calm smiles stuck on both of your faces.

Then, “And Ringo is my favorite so!” Jonathan nearly crashed the car then with the way laughter tore through his ribs.

“Nobody’s favorite is Ringo!” He argued, and your hand struck his shoulder light.

“Well he’s mine! Yeah, the others are talented, but without Ringo, the tracks wouldn’t be the same!”

He didn’t argue that time, just sat back and smiled to himself like a dork. Maybe that was your redeeming quality. How you found the importance of everything.

“Like a Virgin.” He finally confessed, and you had gasped so loud, it hurt your throat.

“I knew you liked Madonna! everyone likes Madonna!”

…

The car ride didn’t last much longer after that. Somewhere between the arguing, and the banter, and the uncontrollable laughter, Jonathan caught himself looping around your neighborhood endlessly. You thanked him quietly, slipping back into that polite voice reserved for him, and he shot back that bashful wave that was made just for you. Things fell back into a casual place, but still, for the next week he made you listen to cassette tapes every afternoon.

You thought you’d hate most of them, confidently so. The truth was more complicated, because once you stopped expecting something upbeat and popular, stopped expecting songs you could dance to, you started noticing things, things you liked, things you brought up to Jonathan in passing that made his ears perk up with excitement.

Lyrics.

Stories.

Feelings.

Rawness.

There was something honest about the music Jonathan liked. Something unpolished. The songs sounded like they had scraped knees.

You secretly liked that.

You never told him, not directly anyway.

Not yet.

But he could see it, the quiet admiration in your eyes, and the bubbling excitement when he offered another tape for you to borrow. He wasn’t entirely used to it, to people wanting to explore his interests, and even more, someone enjoying them.

That had been the problem with Nancy. He loved her, and he knew she loved him, but they were always at odds. It began to feel more like the love had become desperation, and the thread had long weathered away.

Maybe that should have scared him, and in a way it had. He still had a lot of love for Nancy. She knew things you would never, and he would make sure of that. His secrets were dangerous, and he found with unwavering certainty that you needed to stay away.

August melted onward, and the blistering Indiana heat refused to break.

The town felt suspended in syrup, and everything moved slower, everything felt softer, and somehow, despite being complete opposites, you and Jonathan kept drifting closer.

Nobody understood it. Not even you. Especially not you.

You were sunshine.

Jonathan was cloudy days.

You loved shopping, Jonathan spent his money on film. You liked crowded parties, Jonathan looked physically uncomfortable whenever more than four people occupied the same room and yet, you found yourself seeking him out constantly.

The darkroom.

The newsroom.

Lunch breaks.

Coffee runs.

Anywhere.

Every interaction became easier, more natural, like two balls looped around the same rope, smashing together no matter how high they were pulled apart.

It was friendship, a solid base that formed over months of quiet conversation. It was steady, warm, and something that molded perfectly into your life.

It wasn’t until one afternoon you found yourself sitting beside him on the curb outside the Hawkins Post eating melting ice cream. He had vanilla in a cup while you licked at the sweet strawberry in a cone. Teeth marks scraped against the other side. You’d given Jonathan a bite. He pretended not to like it, you knew he did.

You found your eyes glued to the marks, the conversation fading in and out of your ears, tucked behind the dull ringing. At some point, Jonathans hand cupped your shoulder, and beneath his touch, your muscles relaxed.

The realization struck suddenly.

You couldn't remember the last time you'd felt nervous around him.

Comfortable. That was the word. Dangerously comfortable. The kind that sneaks up on you, the kind that settles into your bones before you realize what's happening.

Jonathan sat beside you quietly.

You talked.

He listened.

Occasionally smiling, always fighting it, and always losing immediately. The sight still felt rare enough to make your chest tighten.

You looked over after having lost yourself in your ice cream for a minute too long, but for once, Jonathans eyes weren’t looking at you.

Often, you caught him tracing the slope of your nose down to the freckles that dotted your skin. But his eyes weren’t emptier now, distant.

He was staring across the street, lost somewhere, as if he himself was coming to some kind of revelation.

You recognized the expression immediately.

Sadness.

Not overwhelming sadness, just lingering swell.

Old sadness, the kind that never fully leaves.

Your smile faded, because you knew the feeling. Once, that look had been pressed deep into your face, etched into the worry lines of your forehead. Tommy Hagen, freshman year.

He was a sophomore, and oh so charming. Naturally, you clung to him, fell for him deeply. He was soft with you in ways he refused to be with others. Then came Carol, and the softness turned to stone. He was relentless, his sweet words suddenly sharp and cold. The small group that had formed around you in that time shot sympathetic looks until you couldn’t take it anymore.

It had been for the best, you knew that, you saw it every day in the way he and Caroline teased the less fortunate in the halls, Steve trailing behind like a morally correct puppy dog. But still, the hurt sunk deep, and sometimes, in the quiet, you missed the feeling of him silently.

"Nancy?" The reaction was immediate.

Jonathan blinked. His jaw tightened slightly.

You regretted asking almost instantly, the cone crunching slightly beneath your firm grip. The edges broke into sharp pieces. For a moment you thought he wouldn't answer.

Then, "Yeah."

Simple. Quiet. Honest.

You looked down at your ice cream.

"Oh."

A breeze drifted between you, as if it knew what to do with the heaviness and you didn’t.

The silence felt different this time. Not uncomfortable, just careful.

"Do you miss her?"

The question slipped out before you could stop it. Maybe it was because you wanted to know, or maybe it was because you were scared not to.

Jonathan stared at the pavement for a while, long enough that you thought maybe he hadn't heard. Then, "Sometimes."

Something inside you twisted.

Small. Sharp. Unexpected.

You hated it immediately because you had no right to hate it. None. Nancy Wheeler had been part of his life long before you appeared. Long before you’d opened that dark room door and his eyes met yours.

She was smart, pretty, ambitious, outrageously beautiful, honestly.

Everyone knew it.

But beneath it all, she was tough. Stronger than anyone you’d ever met, not afraid to fight, not like you anyway. The comparison made your cheeks hot, and suddenly you became aware of your own pink skirt.

Your curled hair.

Your glossy lips.

Everything that made people assume they knew who you were, everything that made people underestimate you.

You looked away. The ice cream suddenly tasted too sweet.

Jonathan noticed. Of course he noticed.

"What?"

You forced a smile. "Nothing."

He studied you. You hated how observant he was, even if it was one of his most admirable qualities. Sometimes you wished he would just ignore you like Tommy.

"You got quiet."

"No I didn't." You argued softly.

"You did."

You rolled your eyes.

He almost smiled.

Almost.

The bastard.

…

The first time jealousy appeared, you didn't recognize it. Not immediately. You only knew you hated the feeling. Twisting deep inside like something truly ugly.

A week later you arrived at work carrying coffee.

Your usual. One for yourself, one for Jonathan. One sugar for you, and almond milk for him. Somewhere along the habit that had somehow developed, you learned how he liked his coffee, and that made your chest jump.

You found him near the photography department, talking casually, talking closely to another girl.

She wasn't even doing anything wrong, that was the worst part.

She was pretty.

Tall.

Confident.

Laughing at something he'd said. Something he'd actually said, and for some ridiculous reason, your stomach dropped.

Dropped at how casually he seemed to fall into place with her. Maybe it had been work conversation, and maybe he was just being polite, but it stung. Stung because it took you weeks to break down his walls enough to let you in, and here he was laughing so easily with a stranger.

Jonathan looked up then, maybe at the sound of your feet scuffing the carpet, saw you, and immediately smiled. A real smile.

Small.

But real, and somehow that made everything worse.

Because it meant the smile wasn't yours anymore, and a sick thought crossed your mind. Was all the closeness just niceties? Did he care the way you did? Would he ever?

The realization lingered long after the girl walked away, long after Jonathan thanked you for the coffee, long after the conversation ended and the girl disappeared through the glass double doors, slipping snuggly into the side of another man in the conference room.

Oh.

It didn’t make it better, if anything, it made it worse.

That night you lay awake staring at your ceiling.

Thinking.

Thinking.

Thinking.

Jonathan.

Nancy.

The girl from work.

Jonathan.

Jonathan.

Jonathan.

Then the horrifying truth finally arrived. Not softly, not gentle, like getting hit by a truck.

You liked him. Not casually. Not a little. Not maybe. You liked him.

A lot.

The realization should have felt exciting.

Instead it felt terrible.

Because Jonathan Byers had just spent the last month slowly stitching himself into every corner of your life, and worse? You weren't entirely sure he noticed, and if he did? You weren't sure it mattered.

Because every now and then, when he thought nobody was paying attention, you'd still catch him looking sad, looking distant, looking somewhere far beyond Hawkins. Far beyond you.

It was like a piece of him was still standing beside Nancy Wheeler.

Still hoping.

Still hurting.

The worst part was how you couldn’t even be mad at him. You’d been there once too. Because sometimes, when the sting fades, letting someone else in is the very thing that brings it back.

The pain that settled between your ribs made your heart flutter. It was like suddenly the words of every ridiculous love song you'd ever listened to felt painfully true.

Because no matter how much you smiled, no matter how much you talked, no matter how much time you spent together, you couldn't compete with a ghost.

It hit somewhere deep, twisting into something ugly before shattering completely because the first time all summer, you found yourself wondering if Jonathan Byers would ever see you the way you saw him.

All the almosts, all the longing stares, all the soft touches he held for just too long, all the what ifs. You replayed each moment tenderly, and in a painful epiphany, you sighed. You were completely smitten, and completely his.

If he were to kiss you now, you might just drop dead.

…

The next morning felt wrong, not bad, in fact, your hair had curled perfectly, and your lipstick felt smooth against your lips. If anything, the morning should have felt perfect. Instead it was heavy with something unspoken.

Just... wrong.

Like something had shifted overnight, and you hadn't quite figured out how to stand on the new ground beneath your feet.

You sat behind the reception desk at the Hawkins Post, staring at a stack of papers you hadn't actually read in almost ten minutes.

Outside, the summer heat was already beginning to settle over Hawkins, making the pavement shimmer beyond the windows. Inside, typewriters clacked away and phones rang and reporters shouted to one another across the room. The day had barely begun, and yet, while you caught up, the world was already buzzing. The world kept spinning, and you were in love.

Everything was exactly the same, but somehow, it wasn't, because yesterday had happened. Yesterday, you'd sat in your bedroom and finally admitted something you'd spent months trying not to think about.

You loved Jonathan Byers.

Not a little, not a crush, not something fleeting, or stupid and childish like the crushes the blossomed in elementary school when a classmate lended you his crayon, but something real. You loved him, and now that you'd finally allowed yourself to say it, even if nobody else knew, you couldn't stop thinking about it, which was unfortunate because Jonathan Byers worked approximately thirty feet away from you.

You glanced up before you could stop yourself, lip drawn between your teeth so hard you nearly drew blood. His desk sat near the photography department.

Empty.

Your stomach sank, and you immediately felt stupid for letting him hold that power over you. Of course his desk was empty. It wasn't even eight-thirty yet.

You looked back down at the papers, then back up.

Still empty.

"Get a grip," you muttered.

The words earned a strange look from one of the reporters passing by.

You pretended to be very interested in organizing paper clips.

A few minutes later the front door opened, you looked up automatically, shoulders draw tight and brows raised. You had been on edge, silently praying that the bell that chimed softly wasn’t another coworker you barely knew the name of.

But it wasn’t, because there he was.

Jonathan stepped inside carrying his camera bag, his hair a little messy, and his spare hand already carding through the strands in a lazy tug.

Your heart immediately forgot how to function, which felt odd in itself.

He looked tired, which wasn’t unusual. Jonathan always looked a little tired.

His hair was still messy from the humidity after his fingers pulled at the flat brown strands, and his sleeves were rolled up to the point where the thin fabric was beginning to crease. Across his body, his camera bag was slung over one shoulder, pressing down against his tie.

Normal. Entirely normal. Yet somehow seeing him made every thought you'd spent all morning trying to suppress come rushing back.

Because you knew the shape of his smile, you knew the sound of his laugh, you knew how he took his coffee, you knew which songs he listened to when he thought nobody was paying attention, you knew how he got quiet when something was bothering him.

You knew him, and that was the problem.

Because loving someone was one thing, you’d loved your parents, you loved your friends, you had even loved Tommy, your insignificant boyfriend who had once been the center of your world.

But the thing was, all of the people you had given your love to, had loved you just as fiercely back. They had chased after you in a way that made you hungry for it. This wasn’t that. This was loving someone who didn't love you back.

Jonathan glanced toward the reception desk, and your eyes met. No one said anything, and for a moment, you wondered if you were even breathing.

For a second, neither of you looked away, then Jonathan smiled. A small one, the kind that was only ever reserved for you. No— the kind one you had once thought was reserved for you.

Your stomach flipped.

Great.

Fantastic.

You were doomed.

You offered a smile back before looking down at your papers again, because apparently eye contact had become dangerous.

The morning dragged. Every minute seemed longer than the last.

You answered calls, filed paperwork, pretended to listen to conversations, and spent most of the day trying not to look at Jonathan.

Which only made you more aware of him.

You noticed every time he walked across the room, every time he laughed at something another photographer said, every time he disappeared into the darkroom, and even more, every time he came back out.

It was exhausting.

Around lunchtime, you were attempting to alphabetize a stack of folders when a shadow appeared beside your desk. You didn’t have to look up, you knew who it was from the woodsy scent of the cologne alone. You knew him.

You looked up anyway, unable to help yourself, and there he stood, crooked smile and sweet eyes as always.

Jonathan.

Immediately, every coherent thought vanished.

"Oh." Brilliant. Fantastic response.

"Oh." Jonathan smiled nervously, and that was strange, because Jonathan was usually calm around you.

Quiet, slightly reserved, but calm.

Now he looked...terrified.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Neither of you said anything and the silence stretched again, wearing thin over time. Still, the clock ticked on in the distance almost as if it was baiting a conversation.

Jonathan shifted his weight uncomfortably, then looked away, then back. His fingers tightened around the strap of his camera bag.

You frowned.

Why was he being so odd? You couldn’t place him, and that scared you. Scared you because for one horrible second, you thought maybe he could read you. Maybe he knew about your revelation the second he saw you, and maybe he hated it.

"Everything okay?"

He laughed once, a nervous little sound, strained around the edges.

"Yeah." There was a pause. "Maybe."

He wasn't very reassuring, and the way he twisted his thumb around in his palm made your stomach twist.

"Jonathan?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. You'd seen him do that a thousand times, usually when he was uncomfortable, sometimes when he was embarrassed, or trying to find the right words.

His face was flushed, the tips of his ears a little pink like he was completely overwhelmed but pushing himself to speak. His tongue didn’t seem to work, all words falling flat, dying before he could form a real sentence. His awkward shift sent a jolt of uncertainty down your spine, and the shock rippled up quickly when your eyes flickered over his again. Suddenly you realized something.

Jonathan looked exactly the way you felt, which made absolutely no sense.

"Can we talk?" he asked quietly.

Your heart jumped.

"Sure."

He glanced around the newsroom. Too crowded, too hot, too many prying eyes and loose lips.

"Outside?"

You swallowed.

"Okay."

The walk outside felt impossibly long, the summer air thick with humidity and something heavier neither of you could name. The wall of moisture hit immediately, warm and bright and even more uncomfortable. It was fitting really.

Traffic drifted down the street, a dog barked somewhere nearby, and somewhere around the corner a mother was dragging her toddler along the sidewalk impatiently.

Jonathan led you around the side of the building where it was quieter, then stopped and stared at the ground as if he was expecting you to speak first.

For a long moment, neither of you spoke.

Finally, you broke. "You're kind of freaking me out."

Jonathan laughed, a real laugh this time, not some soft, pity laugh to fill the space.

"I know."

Another silence.

Then he took a breath, the kind people took before jumping off cliffs, before doing something that was impossible to undo or take back. For a moment, Jonathans face paled, and you thought he might just drop dead right in front of you.

"I've been trying to ask you something."

Your pulse immediately sped up. "Oh."

He nodded.

"For a while, actually."

You blinked.

"A while?"

Jonathan laughed softly.

"Months."

Months.

Your brain stopped working.

Months? "What?"

He looked embarrassed. "Yeah."

"Months?"

"Yeah."

You stared.

Jonathan looked away. A faint blush appeared on his face, and somehow that made it feel even more real.

"I just..." He sighed. "Every time I thought about doing it, I'd convince myself not to."

"Why?"

The question escaped before you could stop it.

Jonathan hesitated. For a moment he seemed to be choosing his words carefully, biting his lip, smoothing it over with his tongue, then pulling it back again. He always was a little indecisive when he was nervous. He lacked a steadiness in his composure.

"When things ended with Nancy..." He trailed off, but not because he was still in love with her, you realized that immediately.

This wasn't longing, this wasn’t him dancing with a ghost that he clung to for warmth, it was hurt. Old hurt. The kind that lingered long after everything else faded.

Jonathan looked down.

"I think I got scared." The admission came quietly, honestly.

"I cared about her a lot. And when it ended..." He shrugged. "I don't know. It made me feel like maybe I wasn't very good at this."

Your chest tightened.

Jonathan gave a small laugh.

"I kept thinking if I asked you out and things went wrong, I'd lose my favorite person here."

Your breath caught.

Favorite person.

The words settled somewhere deep inside you, sending a pulsing warmth down your neck to your toes. You felt your sun-warmed cheeks blossom into something more red.

Jonathan looked up then, meeting your eyes, as if he was finally convincing himself to not be afraid. This was real, and fear couldn’t chase that away.

"I didn't want that." He confessed, and just like the minutes that had stretched on before, everything hit deeper.

Every conversation was played back, every touch, every breath, every compliment that tip toed the line between friendly and more. Always genuine, and always searching for more. You replayed it all, dissecting the places you could have read him wrong.

Somewhere in the distance, a car honked loudly at another, and hot rubber skid across the pavement. Neither of you moved because despite it all, the world felt impossibly still.

Then he smiled. Small, nervous, hopeful.

"So." His voice cracked slightly, which was adorable, and apparently terrifying for him.

"So..."

You couldn't stop smiling. Jonathan noticed immediately. The corners of his mouth twitched.

"Would you maybe want to go out with me?"

The question hung between you.

Months of late-night drives. Months of conversations. Months of stolen glances. Months of wondering, all leading here. Sweat stains dark in dripping splotches under his dress shirt arms, his toe wrinkled and shirt ruined. Your hair slightly frizzy now and lipstick bitten into a mess.

You laughed softly, not because it was funny, but because you genuinely couldn't believe this was happening.

Jonathan's face immediately fell.

"Oh my God, that was a bad sign—"

"Jonathan."

He stopped, shoulders tensing before dropping quietly. You stepped closer, still smiling.

"Yes."

His eyes widened.

"What?"

"Yes." The grin that spread across his face was unlike anything you'd ever seen.

Bright. Unrestrained. Happy. Completely happy, and for the first time since you'd met him, Jonathan Byers looked lighter.

Like he'd finally put something down he'd been carrying for a very long time.

"Really?"

You laughed. "Really."

His smile grew even wider somehow, and suddenly you understood something, another realization piled on top of all your others.

All those months you'd spent worrying you were the only one falling, you hadn't been. Not even close.

Jonathan had just been standing on the other side of the same fear, trying to find the courage to cross it, and now he had.

Finally.

At the same time, your future felt wonderfully, terrifyingly uncertain. But when Jonathan reached for your hand, his fingers brushing yours carefully like he still couldn't quite believe he was allowed to, one thing felt certain.

Whatever happened next?

The job wasn't glamorous. You spent most mornings answering phones, sorting papers, filing reports, and occasionally being sent to pick up lunch for people who treated interns like an exotic species that existed solely to fetch things, especially if the lowly interns had a perky chest and bouncy hair.

Still, you loved parts of it. Maybe you secretly seethed in the bathroom after each snide remark about your blouse, or after each aggravated chuckle from your bosses who, for some reason, believed they would always be much more capable than you. But it paid, and after rejection after rejection, the steady flow was like hose water on a blistered summer day. Soothing and relaxing. That and you enjoyed how it got you out of the house.

Still, summer in Hawkins felt endless. It was the kind of summer that baked sidewalks until the air shimmered above them, the kind that left skin sticky with humidity before noon. You recalled most summers growing up being this way, but something about the late June heat was creeping up the back of your neck differently, sweat beading between your meticulously styled curls.

Most of your friends spent their days at the community pool, or the brand new mall making eyes at Steve Harrington, the resident pretty boy who’d fallen far fast, all gathered to waste entire afternoons in luscious air conditioned ice cream parlors.

You did those things too, just not every day.

You liked having somewhere to be, something to do, a reason to wake up before ten.

Which was exactly why you were sitting behind the reception desk on a Wednesday morning while everyone else your age was probably sleeping, tights pulled flat beneath your long purple skirt, and heals just a half size too big covering your feet.

You twirled a pen between your fingers. The clock ticked. A phone rang somewhere in the building. Someone yelled for coffee.

Normal.

Boring.

Predictable.

Until the front door opened, and the bell overhead jingled.

You glanced up automatically. A boy stepped inside carrying a camera bag, shoulders raised awkwardly beside a slightly shorter girl with a shoulder length perm. Nancy Wheeler. You recognized her from the school papers your younger brother brought home sometimes.

Still, your eyes flickered back over to the boy. He was familiar in a way that you couldn’t seem to place.

Tall.

Thin.

Dark hair.

Flannel shirt despite the heat.

The second he entered the building, he looked like he regretted it.

Interesting.

Very interesting.

He moved through the newsroom without saying much, and a few people greeted him. He nodded.

One reporter asked him a question, he answered with exactly three words, then he disappeared toward the photography department. You watched him go.

"Him?"

You nearly jumped.

The receptionist beside you smirked.

"What?"

"You're staring." She clicked her freshly manicured nails against the thick keyboard. Secretly, you thought the mustard yellow color was an insult to her hands.

"I wasn't." You scoffed, already focused back on your work.

"You were."

You rolled your eyes. "I was observing."

"Sure." She laughed.

"That's Jonathan."

Jonathan.

The name settled somewhere in your brain. You didn't think much of it, not yet. Still, the name sounded familiar. You’d only just graduated high school, not yet even committed to a college, though secretly you knew you’d end up at your local community school, and yet you found the many names that once filled the background were already slipping from you.

Jonathan…Jonathan….had he gone by Johnny maybe?

It wouldn’t be until later that night you finally came to. Zombie boy, Will Byers. You recalled the way he pinned up the flyers all those years ago, and at the time, while you’d given him a few sympathetic looks, you’d always just been…you.

Standing confidently on the other side of the hallway, not quite close with Carol and Tommy, but familiar with the faces that roamed the halls enough to earn friendly smiles.

You wondered secretly if he had placed you yet, or if, like him, you had just been another girl to slip into the background noise while he navigated high school.

The second time you noticed Jonathan Byers happened three days later.

Over a cup of coffee.

Technically, because of a spilled cup of coffee. Specifically, yours.

The morning had already been terrible, clouds overcast and dripping with rain that refused to fall. A thick haze covered Hawkins, leaving surfaces damp and akin sticky.

You'd slept through your alarm, burnt your toast, forgotten your purse, and worst of all, arrived to work exactly three minutes late. That was the part that unsettled you the most.

Most days, you showed up over fifteen minutes earlier, and even then, sometimes your boss would heckle you while strolling in just before he was on the clock. Mentally, you were already scratching off a list of insults you would mutter at him in the cramped bathroom stall.

You’d barely had time to pull yourself together that morning, hair a little out of place, and wrinkles still littering your shirt. Your heels tapped against the tiled floors with a new found urgency, your body weaving through the newsroom with a practiced ease, a cup of hot coffee, black as requested, balanced precariously in one hand and a stack of folders in the other, neat and organized. You nearly made it, an excuse building when disaster struck.

One collision.

One surprised noise.

One catastrophic splash.

Coffee everywhere.

All over the floor.

All over your shoes.

All over someone's flannel sleeve.

"Oh my God." You looked up. Jonathan stared back.

For a moment neither of you spoke, and you felt horror spreading through every inch of your body.

"I am so sorry."

Jonathan looked down at his sleeve, then at you, then back at his sleeve. Annoyance flickered across his face, then, between the furrow of his brows down to the pull of his lips, he took a second to study the situation, and his frustration resolved itself quietly.

"It's okay."

"It is absolutely not okay." You spoke all too fast, already moving around frantically.

"It's fine."

"It's all over you."

"It's coffee." His voice was impossibly flat.

"I know it's coffee."

You sounded increasingly distressed, Jonathan seemed increasingly confused, which somehow made everything worse.

"I'm really sorry." You couldn’t seem to stress it enough.

"It's okay." He nearly laughed, choking on a breath when your fingers pressed against the fabric, dabbing at the ruined material with thin napkins.

"I'm buying you a new shirt."

"What?" He scoffed.

"A new shirt." You were dead serious.

"No." He shook his head.

"Yes."

"No."

"Jonathan—" You huffed. He hesitated, stepping back defensively.

"How do you know my name?"

You stopped, blinking slowly. The question caught you so off guard that you forgot about the coffee entirely. "What?"

"How do you know my name?" His expression wasn't suspicious, just curious, genuinely curious, like the possibility had never occurred to him.

You stared, then laughed, actually laughed.

"Jonathan." You said it more matter-of-factly.

His eyebrows lifted slightly.

"You work here."

"Yeah." He shrugged.

"People say your name." You mirrored his movement.

"Oh."

You laughed harder.

For some reason, he looked embarrassed, you noticed that first, how easily he got flustered. Not necessarily because of attraction, but because maybe it had been conditioned. The second thing you noticed was the tips of his ears turning faintly pink.

Cute.

The thought arrived suddenly, unexpectedly, pressed tightly beside the dull ache of wanting to notice more about the walking mystery of a boy in front of you.

You ignored it immediately, or tried to, and somehow, he had made it impossibly easy to do.

With another soft mumble, he was gone, barely brushing past with an apologetic expression. Red light illuminated from the cracked door, liquid moving slowly from the bins.

The door clicked, and in the absence of him came the boisterous shout of your boss in the other room.

—

After that, you saw Jonathan less, or, you saw less opportunity to talk to Jonathan. He was always weaving in and out of conference rooms, well liked enough by the staff there to get away with minimal conversation before he disappeared with his camera slung around his neck, skin bathed in a sliver of red light before the door would once again click.

The thing about Jonathan was that he didn't fit, not in the way people usually meant anyway.

He simply felt disconnected from everything around him, and for a while, that had been the problem.

The newsroom buzzed with conversations, always busy, always shifting and changing and taking and taking.

Deadlines.

Arguments.

Laughter.

Jonathan existed just outside all of it, like someone standing behind glass. Never unfriendly, just separate. Most people accepted it.

You found it fascinating.

Because you couldn't imagine living that way, you talked to everyone! Cashiers, neighbors, teachers, random strangers in line at the grocery store. Anyone who’d ever known you would cling to your side in awkward moments because in a world of extended pauses and the unsure atmospheres, you always seemed to have an answer.

Silence made you nervous, to put in plainly.

Jonathan seemed comfortable inside it, maybe even preferred it.

You wanted to know why. Why in a world full of conversation and knowing people that revolved around small talk, he would rather sit in silence and simply not know.

The opportunity arrived two weeks later entirely by accident, as most of your interactions occurred.

You were sorting photographs in one of the back rooms when you heard music.

Not loud. Just enough to drift through an open doorway.

Curious, you followed the sound, abandoning the small shiny paper somewhere on a nearby counter. You didn’t even bother to clip it up, which you knew if Jonathan, or god forbid, your boss were to stumble across it, you’d never hear the end. But if curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction had always brought it back.

The darkroom sat partially open, and inside, Jonathan stood alone developing photographs. The red safety light cast strange shadows across the room, and for a perfect moment, he didn't notice you.

His attention remained fixed on the image slowly appearing in a tray of chemicals, and for the first time in a while, you watched from the doorway, completely silent.

Something about the scene felt private, not secret, just...personal.

It felt like catching someone in the middle of a conversation with themselves, mumbling senselessly in a way that made sense in their head, but sounded crazy when out in the open.

Jonathan finally looked up, and his expression shifted immediately. At first, he had been annoyed, a soft huff about the light ruining the photos on the tip on his tongue, then, he softened, and there was a flicker of uncertainty. Then that familiar awkwardness.

"Sorry." You leaned against the doorframe. "I was curious."

"Oh." Even now, he didn’t say much.

You pointed toward the tray.

"Can I see?"

He hesitated. Not because he didn't want to, more like he wasn't used to people asking. That was another thing you began to notice. Jonathan was built off of conditioning. Each action and every conversation, or lack of, seemed to be a direct result of how he’d been molded growing up. The ache returned.

Finally he stepped aside, and you moved closer.

A photograph emerged from the chemicals in black and white. It was downtown Hawkins in late afternoon sunlight. There were people crossing the street, cars parked along the curb. Nothing special, and yet, you stared.

Not with a fake smile or faux interest, but with a small furrow between your brows like you were trying to figure something out.

"It's pretty."

Jonathan looked down.

"It's just downtown."

"No." You shook your head. "It's..." You searched for the right word. Different, important, alive?

"It's nice." Brilliant observation.

Jonathan's mouth twitched, almost a smile.

Almost.

"You can say if it sucks."

"It doesn't suck."

"Most people think it's boring."

You looked at the photograph again, then at him.

"Most people are boring." That earned an actual smile.

Small.

Brief.

But painfully real, and for some reason, seeing it felt weirdly rewarding, like winning something.

You left the darkroom smiling.

Jonathan spent the next ten minutes staring at the doorway after you disappeared.

Though neither of you would admit that later.

…

The rides home started in August, because your car decided to betray you.

The engine had made a noise that sounded suspiciously expensive, and when you got the estimate, it was far too much for your shitty job to cover.

Your father refused to let you drive it, but still refused to drive you, and suddenly, where you stood halfway across town, transportation became a problem.

You were complaining about it in the newsroom one afternoon with a boy a year younger. He had an awful bowl cut and far too much ambition for a small town. You’d learned his name was David, but the older receptionist called him Davie, which always made him blush. David didn’t necessarily care about your complaints, but he always responded.

You had been halfway through your ramble when a voice spoke from behind you.

"I can drive you."

The room went silent, scarily so.

You turned around.

Jonathan immediately looked like he wanted to disappear.

"What?"

His expression suggested he regretted speaking immediately.

"Oh."

You smiled. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure?" You blinked.

"Yeah."

"You don't mind?"

"No." He sighed, taking a step back despite the gaping distance already settled between the two of you.

"Because I talk a lot."

A pause.

"I know."

You laughed, and Jonathan looked away, but not before you noticed the smallest hint of amusement in his eyes, and maybe beneath it all, a hint of relief. As if he had been working up the courage to find a reason to talk to you for a while now. Somehow that made your stomach flutter. Just a little, only a little.

Nothing serious. Nothing worth thinking about. Nothing worth lying awake later that night replaying repeatedly.

Absolutely nothing, you told yourself, though in the back of your mind you were certain the smell of the old leather in his beat up car would linger in your mind for a few hours long after he’d drop you back at home that evening.

That first ride home had been awkward.

Not painfully awkward, not the kind where silence stretched so long it became suffocating. Just...different. Different in the way where both people itched to know more, but somehow neither of them knew how to search for what they wanted. Hands twitched, and fingers tapped lightly against the wheel, and between shaky breaths, small conversations swirled.

Jonathan's car smelled faintly like film chemicals, old leather, and something woodsy that clung to the flannel hanging from the backseat. The radio barely worked, one speaker crackled whenever he hit a bump, which was often considering Hawkins seemed determined to preserve every pothole in existence.

You filled the silence immediately, automatically. Of course you did.

"So."

Jonathan glanced over briefly.

"So," he repeated.

You smiled.

"I've never actually been in your car before." It was an obvious fact, and even more so, an overly obvious olive branch. An invitation for him to speak more.

Instead, he looked genuinely unsure how to respond to that.

"Okay."

You laughed. "You are terrible at conversations."

"I know."

"No, seriously."

"I know." His hands tightened slightly around the steering wheel.

You couldn't tell if he was embarrassed or amused. Maybe both.

The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the windshield, washing everything gold. Outside, Hawkins rolled past slowly. Inside, you talked. About work, about customers, about the community pool, about the mall, about how your friend Denise had nearly broken her ankle attempting to flirt with a lifeguard. Most of it was stupid, small things that meant nothing and in the grand scheme of things, were useless.

But Jonathan listened, mostly. Occasionally he offered a quiet comment. Sometimes single sentence, sometimes only a word. But he listened, really listened.

You could tell.

Most people waited for their turn to speak.

Jonathan actually paid attention.

The realization settled somewhere unexpectedly deep and by the time he pulled into your driveway twenty minutes later, you felt oddly disappointed.

"Thanks."

He nodded.

"No problem."

You opened the door, then paused.

"You know."

Jonathan looked over.

"You could tell me something."

His brow furrowed.

"About what?"

You thought earnestly for a moment. You’d spent nearly the entire ride telling him all about your life, and still, you were groveling for just the small details of his life.

"Anything."

The confusion on his face was almost adorable.

"What do you wanna know?"

Everything.

The answer arrived immediately.

You swallowed it.

Instead you smiled.

"Never mind." This time, embarrassment flushed across your skin like red hot shame. You swallowed it down with a sweet smile.

His eyes lingered on you for half a second longer than normal, then you climbed out.

Neither of you noticed him watching until you reached the front porch.

You’d only turned to be polite and wave, half expecting him to already be peeling out of your driveway. But instead, he sat there, an unreadable expression on his face, soft and hard all at once.

It was somewhere between that prolonged silence and the softness of his gaze that the rides became routine, and in that routine, they had become your favorite part of the day.

Neither happened intentionally.

One morning had become three, three had become a week, a week turned into nearly every shift.

Just quiet offers when the day neared the end, just before he knew you’d go out to stand and wait for the bus that was always fifteen minutes early or nearly an hour late.

You didn’t mind the wait, often familiarizing yourself with the people who rode it consistently. You’d made friends with an older lady, who had even dropped off some cookies once for you at lunch time, and a younger boy who spoke more than you somehow. But nothing was ever the same as the way Jonathan spoke to you. It never was.

At first it was practical, then it wasn't.

You both knew it. Neither of you acknowledged it.

Every afternoon, around five o'clock, Jonathan would appear near the front desk, never announcing himself, never asking, just appearing, like a ghost who knew he was always welcome. He was, most certainly and without a doubt, always welcome in your bubble, and in the new dance you learned, you hoped he knew that.

You'd gather your purse, and he'd grab his camera bag, and somewhere in that lazy shuffling you'd end up together.

Again, and again, and again.

The conversations grew longer.

Stranger.

More personal.

You learned he loved music.

Not normal music, at least not by your standards.

One afternoon he nearly drove off the road when you admitted you liked Madonna.

"Don’t scoff at me Byers! You act like its a crime to like Madonna."

He glanced over.

"It's not a crime."

"You’re looking at me like I committed a felony."

He shrugged. "I just don't understand it." He spoke almost uninterestedly. But you knew him better now, and beneath that indifference sat excitement.

"Oh?"

"No offense." He added, it didn’t offer much.

"Already offended."

"Okay."

You laughed.

“Well you must like one Madonna song?” You pried, and he only responded with a sweet, tight lipped grin that he wore so proudly. It was moments alone that his confidence became unearthed, and each time his charm caught you off guard.

"What do you listen to then?"

His fingers tapped against the steering wheel.

"The Clash."

You stared.

"The what?”

His expression immediately flattened.

"Oh my God."

"No." You bit back a laugh. "No, seriously."

He fought off his own, though while yours was pure amusement, his felt more incredulous.

"What is that? Seriously, it sounds angry."

Jonathan groaned.

Actually groaned.

You laughed so hard your stomach hurt.

“All that pop music is rotting your brain, I swear.” He claimed, hands tightening around the cracked leather of his steering wheel ever so slightly.

You rolled your eyes playfully, then, let out your own scoff.

“Just because you listen to the Clang—“

“The Clash!” He huffed.

“The Clash, doesn’t make you more well rounded, you know. Madonnas not even my favorite musician, and still I can accept that her perspective on modern art is just as important and impactful as what you enjoy.” You spoke proudly.

“Sure, so what? You’re saying you’re different? That I read you wrong?” He snickered, and his eyes flickered towards you for a moment before they settled back on the road stretching ahead.

He had taken the long way. Funny.

“No, I’m saying I have depth.” You had argued. “Liking popular things doesn’t make me some zombie of societal conformity, you know. And even if it did—things are popular for a reason.” You rambled, hands moving wildly in the small space between the two of you.

“Because they’re safe?”

There was a pause, and for a second, Jonathan had almost looked embarrassed for his joke. Truly, it wasn’t like him to just shut people down and not hear them out. But still, you had smiled at him. Softer this time, but just as sweet.

“Because they’re not.” You had argued calmly. “Sure, maybe the last decade has been a build up to something more eccentric, and yes, on their own, these artists hold their own right, but would Madonna be half as enticing if not for the costumes and the glitz, and the glam? Shes a performer, and she does it well, and thats why people love her. Just because the crowds are too big for you, doesn’t make her talent any smaller.” You huffed finally, and your shoulders sunk back into the passenger seat comfortably.

There was a proud pause. Jonathan pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, you had noticed that first, then, the playful banter continued, the old routine falling back into a steady place.

“So who is it then?Whitney? Or Michael Jackson?” He teased, and for some reason, his assumption that his taste in music made him deeper than you pulled at something deeply rooted inside of you. In a vision of perfect man, his only unredeemable flaw was the way his awkwardness often brushed over your opinions. Sometimes, it didn’t matter, but this? This felt like he hadn’t truly listened to you, and if he did, he couldn’t care less. An argument stirred, but instead, it came out as a strained laugh.

“Just because they’re popular doesn’t make them soulless.” You shot him a look, and your brows had furrowed more deeply across your face. He had simply shrugged.

There was a pause, the car filled with nothing more than the crunching of gravel and synched breaths.

“And for your information my favorite musicians are The Beatles.”

The silence broke instantly with heavy laughter and groans.

“Oh my god, the tip of the ice burg!” He joked, and in that moment, the defensiveness slipped away into a fit of giggles.

“Shut up!” You swatted at his arm. He shifted away before pushing back.

This time, a comfortable silence took over, calm smiles stuck on both of your faces.

Then, “And Ringo is my favorite so!” Jonathan nearly crashed the car then with the way laughter tore through his ribs.

“Nobody’s favorite is Ringo!” He argued, and your hand struck his shoulder light.

“Well he’s mine! Yeah, the others are talented, but without Ringo, the tracks wouldn’t be the same!”

He didn’t argue that time, just sat back and smiled to himself like a dork. Maybe that was your redeeming quality. How you found the importance of everything.

“Like a Virgin.” He finally confessed, and you had gasped so loud, it hurt your throat.

“I knew you liked Madonna! everyone likes Madonna!”

…

The car ride didn’t last much longer after that. Somewhere between the arguing, and the banter, and the uncontrollable laughter, Jonathan caught himself looping around your neighborhood endlessly. You thanked him quietly, slipping back into that polite voice reserved for him, and he shot back that bashful wave that was made just for you. Things fell back into a casual place, but still, for the next week he made you listen to cassette tapes every afternoon.

You thought you’d hate most of them, confidently so. The truth was more complicated, because once you stopped expecting something upbeat and popular, stopped expecting songs you could dance to, you started noticing things, things you liked, things you brought up to Jonathan in passing that made his ears perk up with excitement.

Lyrics.

Stories.

Feelings.

Rawness.

There was something honest about the music Jonathan liked. Something unpolished. The songs sounded like they had scraped knees.

You secretly liked that.

You never told him, not directly anyway.

Not yet.

But he could see it, the quiet admiration in your eyes, and the bubbling excitement when he offered another tape for you to borrow. He wasn’t entirely used to it, to people wanting to explore his interests, and even more, someone enjoying them.

That had been the problem with Nancy. He loved her, and he knew she loved him, but they were always at odds. It began to feel more like the love had become desperation, and the thread had long weathered away.

Maybe that should have scared him, and in a way it had. He still had a lot of love for Nancy. She knew things you would never, and he would make sure of that. His secrets were dangerous, and he found with unwavering certainty that you needed to stay away.

August melted onward, and the blistering Indiana heat refused to break.

The town felt suspended in syrup, and everything moved slower, everything felt softer, and somehow, despite being complete opposites, you and Jonathan kept drifting closer.

Nobody understood it. Not even you. Especially not you.

You were sunshine.

Jonathan was cloudy days.

You loved shopping, Jonathan spent his money on film. You liked crowded parties, Jonathan looked physically uncomfortable whenever more than four people occupied the same room and yet, you found yourself seeking him out constantly.

The darkroom.

The newsroom.

Lunch breaks.

Coffee runs.

Anywhere.

Every interaction became easier, more natural, like two balls looped around the same rope, smashing together no matter how high they were pulled apart.

It was friendship, a solid base that formed over months of quiet conversation. It was steady, warm, and something that molded perfectly into your life.

It wasn’t until one afternoon you found yourself sitting beside him on the curb outside the Hawkins Post eating melting ice cream. He had vanilla in a cup while you licked at the sweet strawberry in a cone. Teeth marks scraped against the other side. You’d given Jonathan a bite. He pretended not to like it, you knew he did.

You found your eyes glued to the marks, the conversation fading in and out of your ears, tucked behind the dull ringing. At some point, Jonathans hand cupped your shoulder, and beneath his touch, your muscles relaxed.

The realization struck suddenly.

You couldn't remember the last time you'd felt nervous around him.

Comfortable. That was the word. Dangerously comfortable. The kind that sneaks up on you, the kind that settles into your bones before you realize what's happening.

Jonathan sat beside you quietly.

You talked.

He listened.

Occasionally smiling, always fighting it, and always losing immediately. The sight still felt rare enough to make your chest tighten.

You looked over after having lost yourself in your ice cream for a minute too long, but for once, Jonathans eyes weren’t looking at you.

Often, you caught him tracing the slope of your nose down to the freckles that dotted your skin. But his eyes weren’t emptier now, distant.

He was staring across the street, lost somewhere, as if he himself was coming to some kind of revelation.

You recognized the expression immediately.

Sadness.

Not overwhelming sadness, just lingering swell.

Old sadness, the kind that never fully leaves.

Your smile faded, because you knew the feeling. Once, that look had been pressed deep into your face, etched into the worry lines of your forehead. Tommy Hagen, freshman year.

He was a sophomore, and oh so charming. Naturally, you clung to him, fell for him deeply. He was soft with you in ways he refused to be with others. Then came Carol, and the softness turned to stone. He was relentless, his sweet words suddenly sharp and cold. The small group that had formed around you in that time shot sympathetic looks until you couldn’t take it anymore.

It had been for the best, you knew that, you saw it every day in the way he and Caroline teased the less fortunate in the halls, Steve trailing behind like a morally correct puppy dog. But still, the hurt sunk deep, and sometimes, in the quiet, you missed the feeling of him silently.

"Nancy?" The reaction was immediate.

Jonathan blinked. His jaw tightened slightly.

You regretted asking almost instantly, the cone crunching slightly beneath your firm grip. The edges broke into sharp pieces. For a moment you thought he wouldn't answer.

Then, "Yeah."

Simple. Quiet. Honest.

You looked down at your ice cream.

"Oh."

A breeze drifted between you, as if it knew what to do with the heaviness and you didn’t.

The silence felt different this time. Not uncomfortable, just careful.

"Do you miss her?"

The question slipped out before you could stop it. Maybe it was because you wanted to know, or maybe it was because you were scared not to.

Jonathan stared at the pavement for a while, long enough that you thought maybe he hadn't heard. Then, "Sometimes."

Something inside you twisted.

Small. Sharp. Unexpected.

You hated it immediately because you had no right to hate it. None. Nancy Wheeler had been part of his life long before you appeared. Long before you’d opened that dark room door and his eyes met yours.

She was smart, pretty, ambitious, outrageously beautiful, honestly.

Everyone knew it.

But beneath it all, she was tough. Stronger than anyone you’d ever met, not afraid to fight, not like you anyway. The comparison made your cheeks hot, and suddenly you became aware of your own pink skirt.

Your curled hair.

Your glossy lips.

Everything that made people assume they knew who you were, everything that made people underestimate you.

You looked away. The ice cream suddenly tasted too sweet.

Jonathan noticed. Of course he noticed.

"What?"

You forced a smile. "Nothing."

He studied you. You hated how observant he was, even if it was one of his most admirable qualities. Sometimes you wished he would just ignore you like Tommy.

"You got quiet."

"No I didn't." You argued softly.

"You did."

You rolled your eyes.

He almost smiled.

Almost.

The bastard.

…

The first time jealousy appeared, you didn't recognize it. Not immediately. You only knew you hated the feeling. Twisting deep inside like something truly ugly.

A week later you arrived at work carrying coffee.

Your usual. One for yourself, one for Jonathan. One sugar for you, and almond milk for him. Somewhere along the habit that had somehow developed, you learned how he liked his coffee, and that made your chest jump.

You found him near the photography department, talking casually, talking closely to another girl.

She wasn't even doing anything wrong, that was the worst part.

She was pretty.

Tall.

Confident.

Laughing at something he'd said. Something he'd actually said, and for some ridiculous reason, your stomach dropped.

Dropped at how casually he seemed to fall into place with her. Maybe it had been work conversation, and maybe he was just being polite, but it stung. Stung because it took you weeks to break down his walls enough to let you in, and here he was laughing so easily with a stranger.

Jonathan looked up then, maybe at the sound of your feet scuffing the carpet, saw you, and immediately smiled. A real smile.

Small.

But real, and somehow that made everything worse.

Because it meant the smile wasn't yours anymore, and a sick thought crossed your mind. Was all the closeness just niceties? Did he care the way you did? Would he ever?

The realization lingered long after the girl walked away, long after Jonathan thanked you for the coffee, long after the conversation ended and the girl disappeared through the glass double doors, slipping snuggly into the side of another man in the conference room.

Oh.

It didn’t make it better, if anything, it made it worse.

That night you lay awake staring at your ceiling.

Thinking.

Thinking.

Thinking.

Jonathan.

Nancy.

The girl from work.

Jonathan.

Jonathan.

Jonathan.

Then the horrifying truth finally arrived. Not softly, not gentle, like getting hit by a truck.

You liked him. Not casually. Not a little. Not maybe. You liked him.

A lot.

The realization should have felt exciting.

Instead it felt terrible.

Because Jonathan Byers had just spent the last month slowly stitching himself into every corner of your life, and worse? You weren't entirely sure he noticed, and if he did? You weren't sure it mattered.

Because every now and then, when he thought nobody was paying attention, you'd still catch him looking sad, looking distant, looking somewhere far beyond Hawkins. Far beyond you.

It was like a piece of him was still standing beside Nancy Wheeler.

Still hoping.

Still hurting.

The worst part was how you couldn’t even be mad at him. You’d been there once too. Because sometimes, when the sting fades, letting someone else in is the very thing that brings it back.

The pain that settled between your ribs made your heart flutter. It was like suddenly the words of every ridiculous love song you'd ever listened to felt painfully true.

Because no matter how much you smiled, no matter how much you talked, no matter how much time you spent together, you couldn't compete with a ghost.

It hit somewhere deep, twisting into something ugly before shattering completely because the first time all summer, you found yourself wondering if Jonathan Byers would ever see you the way you saw him.

All the almosts, all the longing stares, all the soft touches he held for just too long, all the what ifs. You replayed each moment tenderly, and in a painful epiphany, you sighed. You were completely smitten, and completely his.

If he were to kiss you now, you might just drop dead.

…

The next morning felt wrong, not bad, in fact, your hair had curled perfectly, and your lipstick felt smooth against your lips. If anything, the morning should have felt perfect. Instead it was heavy with something unspoken.

Just... wrong.

Like something had shifted overnight, and you hadn't quite figured out how to stand on the new ground beneath your feet.

You sat behind the reception desk at the Hawkins Post, staring at a stack of papers you hadn't actually read in almost ten minutes.

Outside, the summer heat was already beginning to settle over Hawkins, making the pavement shimmer beyond the windows. Inside, typewriters clacked away and phones rang and reporters shouted to one another across the room. The day had barely begun, and yet, while you caught up, the world was already buzzing. The world kept spinning, and you were in love.

Everything was exactly the same, but somehow, it wasn't, because yesterday had happened. Yesterday, you'd sat in your bedroom and finally admitted something you'd spent months trying not to think about.

You loved Jonathan Byers.

Not a little, not a crush, not something fleeting, or stupid and childish like the crushes the blossomed in elementary school when a classmate lended you his crayon, but something real. You loved him, and now that you'd finally allowed yourself to say it, even if nobody else knew, you couldn't stop thinking about it, which was unfortunate because Jonathan Byers worked approximately thirty feet away from you.

You glanced up before you could stop yourself, lip drawn between your teeth so hard you nearly drew blood. His desk sat near the photography department.

Empty.

Your stomach sank, and you immediately felt stupid for letting him hold that power over you. Of course his desk was empty. It wasn't even eight-thirty yet.

You looked back down at the papers, then back up.

Still empty.

"Get a grip," you muttered.

The words earned a strange look from one of the reporters passing by.

You pretended to be very interested in organizing paper clips.

A few minutes later the front door opened, you looked up automatically, shoulders draw tight and brows raised. You had been on edge, silently praying that the bell that chimed softly wasn’t another coworker you barely knew the name of.

But it wasn’t, because there he was.

Jonathan stepped inside carrying his camera bag, his hair a little messy, and his spare hand already carding through the strands in a lazy tug.

Your heart immediately forgot how to function, which felt odd in itself.

He looked tired, which wasn’t unusual. Jonathan always looked a little tired.

His hair was still messy from the humidity after his fingers pulled at the flat brown strands, and his sleeves were rolled up to the point where the thin fabric was beginning to crease. Across his body, his camera bag was slung over one shoulder, pressing down against his tie.

Normal. Entirely normal. Yet somehow seeing him made every thought you'd spent all morning trying to suppress come rushing back.

Because you knew the shape of his smile, you knew the sound of his laugh, you knew how he took his coffee, you knew which songs he listened to when he thought nobody was paying attention, you knew how he got quiet when something was bothering him.

You knew him, and that was the problem.

Because loving someone was one thing, you’d loved your parents, you loved your friends, you had even loved Tommy, your insignificant boyfriend who had once been the center of your world.

But the thing was, all of the people you had given your love to, had loved you just as fiercely back. They had chased after you in a way that made you hungry for it. This wasn’t that. This was loving someone who didn't love you back.

Jonathan glanced toward the reception desk, and your eyes met. No one said anything, and for a moment, you wondered if you were even breathing.

For a second, neither of you looked away, then Jonathan smiled. A small one, the kind that was only ever reserved for you. No— the kind one you had once thought was reserved for you.

Your stomach flipped.

Great.

Fantastic.

You were doomed.

You offered a smile back before looking down at your papers again, because apparently eye contact had become dangerous.

The morning dragged. Every minute seemed longer than the last.

You answered calls, filed paperwork, pretended to listen to conversations, and spent most of the day trying not to look at Jonathan.

Which only made you more aware of him.

You noticed every time he walked across the room, every time he laughed at something another photographer said, every time he disappeared into the darkroom, and even more, every time he came back out.

It was exhausting.

Around lunchtime, you were attempting to alphabetize a stack of folders when a shadow appeared beside your desk. You didn’t have to look up, you knew who it was from the woodsy scent of the cologne alone. You knew him.

You looked up anyway, unable to help yourself, and there he stood, crooked smile and sweet eyes as always.

Jonathan.

Immediately, every coherent thought vanished.

"Oh." Brilliant. Fantastic response.

"Oh." Jonathan smiled nervously, and that was strange, because Jonathan was usually calm around you.

Quiet, slightly reserved, but calm.

Now he looked...terrified.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Neither of you said anything and the silence stretched again, wearing thin over time. Still, the clock ticked on in the distance almost as if it was baiting a conversation.

Jonathan shifted his weight uncomfortably, then looked away, then back. His fingers tightened around the strap of his camera bag.

You frowned.

Why was he being so odd? You couldn’t place him, and that scared you. Scared you because for one horrible second, you thought maybe he could read you. Maybe he knew about your revelation the second he saw you, and maybe he hated it.

"Everything okay?"

He laughed once, a nervous little sound, strained around the edges.

"Yeah." There was a pause. "Maybe."

He wasn't very reassuring, and the way he twisted his thumb around in his palm made your stomach twist.

"Jonathan?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. You'd seen him do that a thousand times, usually when he was uncomfortable, sometimes when he was embarrassed, or trying to find the right words.

His face was flushed, the tips of his ears a little pink like he was completely overwhelmed but pushing himself to speak. His tongue didn’t seem to work, all words falling flat, dying before he could form a real sentence. His awkward shift sent a jolt of uncertainty down your spine, and the shock rippled up quickly when your eyes flickered over his again. Suddenly you realized something.

Jonathan looked exactly the way you felt, which made absolutely no sense.

"Can we talk?" he asked quietly.

Your heart jumped.

"Sure."

He glanced around the newsroom. Too crowded, too hot, too many prying eyes and loose lips.

"Outside?"

You swallowed.

"Okay."

The walk outside felt impossibly long, the summer air thick with humidity and something heavier neither of you could name. The wall of moisture hit immediately, warm and bright and even more uncomfortable. It was fitting really.

Traffic drifted down the street, a dog barked somewhere nearby, and somewhere around the corner a mother was dragging her toddler along the sidewalk impatiently.

Jonathan led you around the side of the building where it was quieter, then stopped and stared at the ground as if he was expecting you to speak first.

For a long moment, neither of you spoke.

Finally, you broke. "You're kind of freaking me out."

Jonathan laughed, a real laugh this time, not some soft, pity laugh to fill the space.

"I know."

Another silence.

Then he took a breath, the kind people took before jumping off cliffs, before doing something that was impossible to undo or take back. For a moment, Jonathans face paled, and you thought he might just drop dead right in front of you.

"I've been trying to ask you something."

Your pulse immediately sped up. "Oh."

He nodded.

"For a while, actually."

You blinked.

"A while?"

Jonathan laughed softly.

"Months."

Months.

Your brain stopped working.

Months? "What?"

He looked embarrassed. "Yeah."

"Months?"

"Yeah."

You stared.

Jonathan looked away. A faint blush appeared on his face, and somehow that made it feel even more real.

"I just..." He sighed. "Every time I thought about doing it, I'd convince myself not to."

"Why?"

The question escaped before you could stop it.

Jonathan hesitated. For a moment he seemed to be choosing his words carefully, biting his lip, smoothing it over with his tongue, then pulling it back again. He always was a little indecisive when he was nervous. He lacked a steadiness in his composure.

"When things ended with Nancy..." He trailed off, but not because he was still in love with her, you realized that immediately.

This wasn't longing, this wasn’t him dancing with a ghost that he clung to for warmth, it was hurt. Old hurt. The kind that lingered long after everything else faded.

Jonathan looked down.

"I think I got scared." The admission came quietly, honestly.

"I cared about her a lot. And when it ended..." He shrugged. "I don't know. It made me feel like maybe I wasn't very good at this."

Your chest tightened.

Jonathan gave a small laugh.

"I kept thinking if I asked you out and things went wrong, I'd lose my favorite person here."

Your breath caught.

Favorite person.

The words settled somewhere deep inside you, sending a pulsing warmth down your neck to your toes. You felt your sun-warmed cheeks blossom into something more red.

Jonathan looked up then, meeting your eyes, as if he was finally convincing himself to not be afraid. This was real, and fear couldn’t chase that away.

"I didn't want that." He confessed, and just like the minutes that had stretched on before, everything hit deeper.

Every conversation was played back, every touch, every breath, every compliment that tip toed the line between friendly and more. Always genuine, and always searching for more. You replayed it all, dissecting the places you could have read him wrong.

Somewhere in the distance, a car honked loudly at another, and hot rubber skid across the pavement. Neither of you moved because despite it all, the world felt impossibly still.

Then he smiled. Small, nervous, hopeful.

"So." His voice cracked slightly, which was adorable, and apparently terrifying for him.

"So..."

You couldn't stop smiling. Jonathan noticed immediately. The corners of his mouth twitched.

"Would you maybe want to go out with me?"

The question hung between you.

Months of late-night drives. Months of conversations. Months of stolen glances. Months of wondering, all leading here. Sweat stains dark in dripping splotches under his dress shirt arms, his toe wrinkled and shirt ruined. Your hair slightly frizzy now and lipstick bitten into a mess.

You laughed softly, not because it was funny, but because you genuinely couldn't believe this was happening.

Jonathan's face immediately fell.

"Oh my God, that was a bad sign—"

"Jonathan."

He stopped, shoulders tensing before dropping quietly. You stepped closer, still smiling.

"Yes."

His eyes widened.

"What?"

"Yes." The grin that spread across his face was unlike anything you'd ever seen.

Bright. Unrestrained. Happy. Completely happy, and for the first time since you'd met him, Jonathan Byers looked lighter.

Like he'd finally put something down he'd been carrying for a very long time.

"Really?"

You laughed. "Really."

His smile grew even wider somehow, and suddenly you understood something, another realization piled on top of all your others.

All those months you'd spent worrying you were the only one falling, you hadn't been. Not even close.

Jonathan had just been standing on the other side of the same fear, trying to find the courage to cross it, and now he had.

Finally.

At the same time, your future felt wonderfully, terrifyingly uncertain. But when Jonathan reached for your hand, his fingers brushing yours carefully like he still couldn't quite believe he was allowed to, one thing felt certain.

Whatever happened next?

as if on cue, the shrill bell rang and piles of students filed out. steve only had his eye six- dustin, lucas, will, mike, el and max headed towards his car with identical looks of determination and he sighed. his beamer, despite its beauty, couldn’t take all of them. would they care? no.

bickering relentlessly, the children filed themselves messily into the car.

“where are we going?” steve asked, resigned.

“arcade,” max replied, as she put her feet up against his headrest, red converses smashing into the back of his head, messing up his styled hair. “and make it quick.”

steve shook his head in exasperation. how he had landed a job as a personal (unpaid, may he add) chauffeur for a group of 14-year-olds was unbeknownst to him. although, his fingers tapped fondly against the wheel as the kids fought manically to who was taking the middle seat. (“dustin, you go, you don’t have collarbones.” “that’s ableist.”)

“can we have some change?”

steve turned. lucas grinned, a picture of innocence, wide-toothed smile that was almost contagious. “you come to my car, you make me drive you around and you ask for my money?”

six heads nodded, scarily in sync.

steve rolled his eyes, but his hand reached for his wallet and he handed them every coin he had. the lights of the arcade painted their faces with childlike wonder, and steve had to hold back a smile of his own. the kids clambered out of his car, will and el, ever the angels, thanked him profusely for the drive, while max wrapped her arms around his neck for a quick hug, dustin and lucas giving him a fist bump, mike a high-five.

“be careful,” he shouted after their retreating figures, hands tapping nervously on the steering wheel.

el gave him a thumbs up and max grabbed her wrist, dragging her into the arcade, hand filled to the brim with steve’s pennies.

as steve observed the aftermath- the shoeprints on his headrest, boys’ spit all over the car-seats, max and el’s long hair shedding all over- it was all worth it, steve realised. realised that despite growing up in an empty house, he had now found a family of his own.

-

“wha- dude!” steve cried as a rather hazardous pair of jeans lay right outside his bedroom door, where he almost slipped and smashed his head in. “dustin!”

when no reply came, he echoed in frustration. “dustin!”

strolling through the house, steve finally acquired his target. bursting through the door, six pairs of eyes settled on his panting, fuming self, where they sat on the floor, surrounding his parents’ 40 inch tv, snacks and sleeping bags piled up all over them.

“i told you guys you could have a sleepover here,” he scolded. “not try and murder me with your bad taste in clothes.”

“what did i do?”

“you!” steve gestured wildly at dustin, arms flailing. “you put your jeans right outside my room and i almost died, man!”

dustin scoffed. “it’s not my fault you’re so clumsy.”

“me? i am not clumsy.” offense flooded steve’s features, eyes darting around to seek reinforcements from the others.

he did not receive any.

“yes, you are.” a chorus rang across the room and steve exhaled, trying to keep his composture. betrayal at its finest. he let six kids in his house and for what, to gang up on him?

“he’s not exactly wrong, you know,” will, who was normally silent during steve’s gentle bullying, piped up. “you do lose a lot of fights.”

steve spluttered in embarrassment while the kids listed out every single fight he had lost, due to his bad luck, of course. it didn’t say anything about his clumsiness, of course.

“there was billy…”

“even jonathan.”

“that random guy who tried to get us to buy his candles on the street…”

“i can fight,” steve said defensively, an almost whining tilt to his voice. “henderson, if you’re so cocky about it, take me down.”

“what?” surprise arose on dustin’s face. “me?”

“yeah, come on,” steve said, bouncing on his heels, fists tightly clenched. “me, you, let’s go.”

the boys started chanting, “dustin, dustin, dustin.”

max murmured under her breath, “stupid shits.” el echoed the sentiment hesitantly, and seemed to be proud of herself by the end of it.

dustin stood, innocent hands going to dust away the crumbs on his lap, when suddenly he charged towards steve, causing him to almost topple over. the boys roared in support, and dustin tilted his head ever so slightly, like he was saying “i told you so.” 

max and el were focused on the movie playing, but steve could tell that they were invested- no matter how much they pretended it wasn’t of interest to them. the way every time he glanced towards max, a ripple of red hair flicked away, like her neck was rapidly snapping away. the way when his gaze flickered towards el, her eyes would rapidly avert back to the bright tv screen, cheeks flushed.

they circled each other. seeking weaknesses, seeking distractions. dustin crouched into an awkward squat while steve brandished his fists like it would scare dustin into submitting. again, dustin was the more impulsive out of the two, and he dashed towards steve with a renewed passion, and all steve saw was a mop of curly hair before steve’s hands wrapped around dustin’s body on instinct.

catching dustin in an awkward hold, steve attempted to somewhat launch him onto the floor, but unfortunately for dustin, steve’s fingertips dug into his stomach so ferociously that he let out a mangled screech, and everyone went quiet.

“wahait, steve-” was all he could get out before steve suddenly clawed into his sides, terrifyingly precise and dustin burst into uncharacteristic, high-pitched giggles.

the boys jeered, and mike cried out, “get the ribs!” 

dustin, upon hearing this, immediately let squirmed in panicked laughter and something evil overtook steve’s eyes as he let the boy sit on the floor, steve’s fingers crawling up his body onto his ribcage. the whole room shook with his laughter, and the others joined in, painting the harrington house with a newfound happiness.

“plehehase,” dustin howled as rough fingers dug into the crevices of his ribs, shaking deep into his flesh.

when steve glanced down at the hysterical child, he saw dustin's baby teeth, wrapped in a cackle, all pearly and half-grown and gap-toothed, and steve damn near melted. when he first lay his eyes on this toothless, troublesome, bratty boy, he had no idea how much he would grow to like him. to love him. to love all of them, no matter their flaws, or messiness, or tendency to leave everything right outside his bedroom door.

steve didn’t notice, but he had long ago stopped tickling dustin. his arms were still tightly wrapped around dustin’s panting form. it felt nice, steve thought, to love someone like a brother. dustin seemed to enjoy the tenderness, too, until he realised all his friends were fuckin’ watching him cuddle steve harrington of all people.

“gross, get off me!”

he shoved steve off before opening another bag of doritos, grubby fingers touching every inch of the harringtons’ leather couch. max and el continued their debate on unicorns- “el, they’re not real”, and the boys screamed the house down, laughter occasionally erupting from their mouths. it was pure chaos.

as if on cue, the shrill bell rang and piles of students filed out. steve only had his eye six- dustin, lucas, will, mike, el and max headed towards his car with identical looks of determination and he sighed. his beamer, despite its beauty, couldn’t take all of them. would they care? no.

bickering relentlessly, the children filed themselves messily into the car.

“where are we going?” steve asked, resigned.

“arcade,” max replied, as she put her feet up against his headrest, red converses smashing into the back of his head, messing up his styled hair. “and make it quick.”

steve shook his head in exasperation. how he had landed a job as a personal (unpaid, may he add) chauffeur for a group of 14-year-olds was unbeknownst to him. although, his fingers tapped fondly against the wheel as the kids fought manically to who was taking the middle seat. (“dustin, you go, you don’t have collarbones.” “that’s ableist.”)

“can we have some change?”

steve turned. lucas grinned, a picture of innocence, wide-toothed smile that was almost contagious. “you come to my car, you make me drive you around and you ask for my money?”

six heads nodded, scarily in sync.

steve rolled his eyes, but his hand reached for his wallet and he handed them every coin he had. the lights of the arcade painted their faces with childlike wonder, and steve had to hold back a smile of his own. the kids clambered out of his car, will and el, ever the angels, thanked him profusely for the drive, while max wrapped her arms around his neck for a quick hug, dustin and lucas giving him a fist bump, mike a high-five.

“be careful,” he shouted after their retreating figures, hands tapping nervously on the steering wheel.

el gave him a thumbs up and max grabbed her wrist, dragging her into the arcade, hand filled to the brim with steve’s pennies.

as steve observed the aftermath- the shoeprints on his headrest, boys’ spit all over the car-seats, max and el’s long hair shedding all over- it was all worth it, steve realised. realised that despite growing up in an empty house, he had now found a family of his own.

-

“wha- dude!” steve cried as a rather hazardous pair of jeans lay right outside his bedroom door, where he almost slipped and smashed his head in. “dustin!”

when no reply came, he echoed in frustration. “dustin!”

strolling through the house, steve finally acquired his target. bursting through the door, six pairs of eyes settled on his panting, fuming self, where they sat on the floor, surrounding his parents’ 40 inch tv, snacks and sleeping bags piled up all over them.

“i told you guys you could have a sleepover here,” he scolded. “not try and murder me with your bad taste in clothes.”

“what did i do?”

“you!” steve gestured wildly at dustin, arms flailing. “you put your jeans right outside my room and i almost died, man!”

dustin scoffed. “it’s not my fault you’re so clumsy.”

“me? i am not clumsy.” offense flooded steve’s features, eyes darting around to seek reinforcements from the others.

he did not receive any.

“yes, you are.” a chorus rang across the room and steve exhaled, trying to keep his composture. betrayal at its finest. he let six kids in his house and for what, to gang up on him?

“he’s not exactly wrong, you know,” will, who was normally silent during steve’s gentle bullying, piped up. “you do lose a lot of fights.”

steve spluttered in embarrassment while the kids listed out every single fight he had lost, due to his bad luck, of course. it didn’t say anything about his clumsiness, of course.

“there was billy…”

“even jonathan.”

“that random guy who tried to get us to buy his candles on the street…”

“i can fight,” steve said defensively, an almost whining tilt to his voice. “henderson, if you’re so cocky about it, take me down.”

“what?” surprise arose on dustin’s face. “me?”

“yeah, come on,” steve said, bouncing on his heels, fists tightly clenched. “me, you, let’s go.”

the boys started chanting, “dustin, dustin, dustin.”

max murmured under her breath, “stupid shits.” el echoed the sentiment hesitantly, and seemed to be proud of herself by the end of it.

dustin stood, innocent hands going to dust away the crumbs on his lap, when suddenly he charged towards steve, causing him to almost topple over. the boys roared in support, and dustin tilted his head ever so slightly, like he was saying “i told you so.” 

max and el were focused on the movie playing, but steve could tell that they were invested- no matter how much they pretended it wasn’t of interest to them. the way every time he glanced towards max, a ripple of red hair flicked away, like her neck was rapidly snapping away. the way when his gaze flickered towards el, her eyes would rapidly avert back to the bright tv screen, cheeks flushed.

they circled each other. seeking weaknesses, seeking distractions. dustin crouched into an awkward squat while steve brandished his fists like it would scare dustin into submitting. again, dustin was the more impulsive out of the two, and he dashed towards steve with a renewed passion, and all steve saw was a mop of curly hair before steve’s hands wrapped around dustin’s body on instinct.

catching dustin in an awkward hold, steve attempted to somewhat launch him onto the floor, but unfortunately for dustin, steve’s fingertips dug into his stomach so ferociously that he let out a mangled screech, and everyone went quiet.

“wahait, steve-” was all he could get out before steve suddenly clawed into his sides, terrifyingly precise and dustin burst into uncharacteristic, high-pitched giggles.

the boys jeered, and mike cried out, “get the ribs!” 

dustin, upon hearing this, immediately let squirmed in panicked laughter and something evil overtook steve’s eyes as he let the boy sit on the floor, steve’s fingers crawling up his body onto his ribcage. the whole room shook with his laughter, and the others joined in, painting the harrington house with a newfound happiness.

“plehehase,” dustin howled as rough fingers dug into the crevices of his ribs, shaking deep into his flesh.

when steve glanced down at the hysterical child, he saw dustin's baby teeth, wrapped in a cackle, all pearly and half-grown and gap-toothed, and steve damn near melted. when he first lay his eyes on this toothless, troublesome, bratty boy, he had no idea how much he would grow to like him. to love him. to love all of them, no matter their flaws, or messiness, or tendency to leave everything right outside his bedroom door.

steve didn’t notice, but he had long ago stopped tickling dustin. his arms were still tightly wrapped around dustin’s panting form. it felt nice, steve thought, to love someone like a brother. dustin seemed to enjoy the tenderness, too, until he realised all his friends were fuckin’ watching him cuddle steve harrington of all people.

“gross, get off me!”

he shoved steve off before opening another bag of doritos, grubby fingers touching every inch of the harringtons’ leather couch. max and el continued their debate on unicorns- “el, they’re not real”, and the boys screamed the house down, laughter occasionally erupting from their mouths. it was pure chaos.