girls, will you please take the wheel?

Three nights with your notes spread across your desk, your pencil worn down to a nub, and your mother calling from downstairs that dinner was getting cold. Three nights reading through library clippings about school funding, college acceptance rates, and the way girls in Hawkins were politely encouraged toward “practical” futures while boys with half of your grades were told they had potential. You had interviewed four seniors, two teachers, one guidance counselor who had smiled at you with the concerned tenderness adults reserved for girls they planned to ignore. 

It was practically perfect.

You had written it carefully. Not angrily, though you had to admit that anger had lived under every line you wrote, warming the words from dpwn below. You had made it clean, sharp, and correctly sourced. You had imagined your byline on the front page. You had victoriously imagined holding the paper in your hands and seeing proof that all the hours you spent noticing things nobody asked you to notice had finally become something real.

The reaction to it, unfortunately, had left much to be desired.

Mr. Walsh held the pages in one hand and adjusted his glasses with the other. His voice was polite enough, but it held that familiar detachment.

“It’s very thorough,” he noted with a faint nod of his head towards the article.

You knew you were absolutely dead, or rather, any hopes of seeing a cover page was.

Across the table, Mark Ellison leaned back in his chair, tapping his pencil against his front teeth. His article was a soft little thing about “school spirit making a comeback,” built around three quotes from basketball players and one sweeping paragraph about how Hawkins High had ‘survived difficult years by pulling together’. He had written it during study hall. You had watched him do it while eating chips from a vending machine. You had also watched him pay more attention to his stupid Walkman than his article.

Mr. Walsh then gave Mark’s pages a fond pat from beside you. You had to physically stop yourself from letting the steam errupt from your expression, and curled your fingers into your palm. You didn't, however, hide the scoff when the teacher told the boy his next words.

“I think this is what we need above the fold this week. Something upbeat. The town’s had enough heaviness, don’t you think?”

The room moved on. You couldn't even get another word in before everything decided it was time to start up again. That only served further in building up your irritation. 

Someone asked about the sports column, someone else complained that the typewriter ribbon was fading again, and most annoyingly, Mark grinned without trying to look too pleased, which made him only look worse. You sat very still with your hands folded over your notebook, your nails continuing to press little moons into your palms.

“Maybe we can run yours inside,” Mr. Walsh added, almost kindly. You hated how he made it seem like it was somehow charitable of him to do so. After all, his excuses were always relatively  the same. “It’s strong work. Just a bit… intense for the front page.”

Intense.

You looked down at your notes until the letters blurred into a block of black.

That was what they always called girls who didn't make unfairness easier to swallow for others. Intense. Difficult. Ambitious in a tone that meant unattractive. Boys were driven. Boys were promising. Boys were leaders, even when they had to borrow a pencil to write a paragraph about pep rallies. Even when half of them couldn't even write clean enough for legitimacy on papers of loose leaf.

You smiled promptly then because you knew how to make adults comfortable. You weren't so sure your face was able to hide your growing annoyance, though. It was practically humiliating in its steady routine, but you'd learned over the years Mr. Walsh was as stubborn as the donkey he was named after.

“Sure,” you gave a small exhale alongside your smile, your tone was too light to be breezy and far too sweet to be real. “Inside is fine.”

Inside was not fine.

At lunch, you stabbed your fork into a pile of cafeteria mashed potatoes until they lost their shape entirely. With a cheek resting in hand, the sight of the sullen plate reflected your own inner turmoil. Conversational chatter flattered about around you.

“He said it was intense?” One friend asked, sitting across from you with a carton of milk she had not opened. “Everything's intense to that guy. Mr. Walsh wears the same brown sweater every day and once called Pat Benatar ‘too confrontational.’”

“He didn’t say Mark’s article was intense,” you muttered with poorly disguised disgust. Your brows twitched together and your eyes flicked up in a roll. The moment replayed in your head, Mark getting far too much praise for something he spent the better half of an hour listening to Olivia John-Newton, though he'd refuse the accusation vehemently if questioned.

“That’s because Mark’s article has the emotional range of a gym sock,” your friend Stacey said from beside you. She had bright blue eyeliner, a talent for gossip, and the terrifying confidence of someone who had never once doubted she deserved to take up space. You admired her for that.  “You need something undeniable.”

“I had something undeniable.” the response came almost petulant, and if you were still holding onto the leverage that you had a shoe-in for an article, you'd have refrained from saying it.

“No,” Stacey clicked her tongue, pointing her plastic spoon at you. “You had something true. That’s different. Truth makes people sleepy unless there’s blood on it.”

Leah made a face, looking down at the strawberry jam on her cake slice, and promptly pushed it forward. “Please never go into medicine.”

You tried not to laugh and failed halfway, the sound catching in your throat before it could become anything that felt good. For a moment, there was something besides that sense of annoyed displacement. 

The cafeteria around you churned with noise. Trays clattered, and somebody at the far end started chanting for reasons that probably involved a dare and milk coming out of someone’s nose. You let the spark of clear judgement light through your expression as you looked over to  the basketball table occupied its usual territory near the windows.

They were loud enough to own the room without having to ask, a result of years of indulged arrogance,  you could only assume. Tommy H. was telling a story with both hands, his laugh sharp and performative. A few juniors watched him the way freshmen used to watch Steve Harrington.

Steve did not sit with them anymore, that was something practically everyone noticed since last year.

He sat two tables away from the old crowd, alone with a slice of pizza gone stiff at the edges. His hair was still perfect in the way that seemed less accidental the longer you looked at it, all careful lift and feathered brown shine.

His shoulders filled out his yellow polo, but they were rounded inward today, one hand pressed against his temple while he stared at a textbook he did not seem to be reading. There was a bruise near his jaw, faded yellow at the edges. His eyes kept moving toward the basketball table and then away before anyone caught him looking.

King Steve, deposed but still dressed for court.

Stacey followed your gaze. Her mouth curved before you could shove it away off of her.

“If you want the front page,” she brightened up with a revived vigor, “you have to write about the biggest tragedy in Hawkins.”

Leah, unfortunately, looked too.

“Oh Stace’, I don't think that's a good—” she was swiftly cut off by your mutual friends voice dipped in delight

“The fall of King Steve,” Stacey finished and you gasped at her.

You snorted without ceremony promptly, her words did less to entice you and more to amuse you. If there was anything you couldn't find yourself caring less to write about, it would be about anything involving Steve Harrington. “That’s not an article.”

“It is absolutely an article! It’s got everything. Popularity. Masculine fragility. Hair products.”

Leah leaned forward then, lowering her voice. She looked besides you two with a more hesitant approach, her eyes flicked to the table a few feet away from you. “Also maybe just leave him alone? He looks one spilled pudding cup away from a complete collapse.”

“That’s the point,” Stacey had taken to promptly ignoring the two of you. “What happens when a guy builds his whole identity on being wanted, and then people stop wanting him?”

The words landed before the joke did.

You looked at Steve again. He dragged a hand through his hair, then immediately seemed to regret it, patting the front back into place with a reflex so automatic it made your chest pinch in spite of yourself. If you were to compare it to anything, it would be akin to a kid being filmed for a birthday party. It held the familiar awareness of being all too stiff, even in the singular companionship of just himself.

A whole identity built on being wanted.

The cafeteria lights flashed across the windows as usual. Outside, October had pulled Hawkins into a cold, colorless stretch of afternoon. The trees beyond the parking lot shivered with half-bare branches, leaves gathered wetly along the curb. It was a domestic background that you've memorized in routine these past four years. 

You pulled your notebook from your bag suddenly. Stacy's words had flicked on a small lightbulb in your brain.

Leah's  brown eyes blinked wearily on you as the next few minutes were received in silence from your side, only the sound of pen to paper filling your ears. “Oh, God. Stacey, you broke her.”

You rolled your eyes at that.

“I inspired her.” Stacey gave a self assured correction, her fingers going up as if it would further solidify her point.

There was no real attention paid to your friends for the next whirlwind of time, and you clicked your pen every so often in an attempt to soften the strokes of ink.

At the top of a previous blank page, you had written:

The Lifecycle of a High School God: why a crown crushes a king.

Stacey leaned over your shoulder and let out a delighted gasp.

“That is disgusting,” Leah immediately. Her eyes widened and she threw you a look that your promptly avoided. 

“It’s not, it's anonymous… and a work in progress,” you murmured in weak retaliation, already thinking faster than you could write. “Stacy's  right, it'd be a good article. How we make gods out of boys and then act shocked when they don’t know how to be human.”

Leah’s expression softened in a way you did not want to look at too closely. Realistically, you realized this might be a bit too cruel. But you were already on your verge, and no matter how absurd the idea had seemed before – you could admit held strong potential. 

“And Harrington?”

You watched him push his tray away untouched, and your gaze was less detached than you had been before.

“Steve is the case study.”

You told yourself that made it cleaner, and you also told yourself a lot of things that week. Things that in hindsight, might’ve been necessary to proceed with caution.

—

You approached him after basketball practice on a Wednesday, when the hallway outside the gym smelled most strongly of rubber, sweat, and floor wax. Most of the team members had already spilled toward the locker room, their voices echoing against the cinderblock walls. Steve came out last, a gym bag slung over one shoulder, and damp hair falling looser than usual around his forehead.

He looked tired enough that the sight of him made your plan wobble. It was one thing to think this out carefully and assume control, and it was another to actually act it out. 

Then, finally, he glanced up and saw you waiting by his locker.

You pushed off the wall before you could think better of it. Any further delay would only serve in faltering you more. 

“Harrington,” you called out firmly, letting your voice carry the boldness you had practiced in your mirror. Though, you weren't entirely sure you properly hid the wince that came with addressing him like that. “I’ve been looking for you.”

His eyebrows lifted then, that was what you'd noticed first. His face seemed to twitch in a complicated way, his face didn't hold a smirk, not right away at least. Surprise was there first. Real surprise, open and unguarded enough to make you feel briefly cruel. Your tried not to ponder on him for too long.

“For me?” his voice held a sincere curiosity that had you irritated at repeating yourself.

“No, the other guy with gravity-defying hair and a tragic aura.”

That got him.

A breath left him, almost a laugh, you saw the movement happen in real time. He leaned his shoulder against the locker, trying to recover his balance by looking casual. His thumb hooked into his belt loop. His shining eyes flicked over your face, landed on your mouth for half a second too long, then jumped back up.

You really had to refrain from the scoff that wished to escape you. 

“Tragic aura,” he repeated, his eyes twisted in a regained stability. His voice was more awkward than you remembered it being,  strangely that'd been your first true thought of him. “Wow. That’s, uh… that’s new.”

You gave a low hum in response.  “I’m a journalist. We notice things.”

“Is that why you’re here? To notice me?”

The line should have been smooth. You could actively hear him reaching for an older version of himself, the one who would have tilted his head and let girls do the work of melting. But his voice caught on the last word. Not much, but it was just slightly enough that you felt something in you feel successful.

You smiled, the formation stretched across your face as you cleared your throat softly. “I need help.”

Now, he seemed a bit confused,  his head tilted slightly in a way that reminded you of the neighborhood poodle. You let a smile turn slightly genuine at the semblance found between the two. 

“With?”

You stepped closer finally, and you stepped close enough to see the faint line where his tan had started to fade at his throat, and certainly close enough to catch the smell of clean soap beneath sweat and cologne.

“Understanding someone.” the words came out a bit hesitant, not at all like the suaveness you had practiced by standing in front of your bathroom mirror.

His gaze sharpened a little. Instinct took over him well. “Someone?”

“A boy,” you said quickly. Whatever it was that appeared in your face seemed to have gotten to him.

You saw the ghost of King Steve ever so slightly stir in movement in him. His mouth curved, one corner first, then another. It was almost unfair how quickly he could change expressions, and even worse so, that each expression of his seemed to cause your nerves to fray.

“Well, lucky for you, I happen to be an expert.”

Your eyes flickered to his, though not before you let your gaze find the small details of his face that were only exposed up close. “You do?”

“Former expert,” he amended, and something dry entered his voice. “My credentials are under review.”

You laughed before you meant to. You couldn't help it at the moment. It came out too genuine and his face changed with it. Not entirely dramatic, though. He just went still, the way people did when a sound touched some starved part of them. His own pools of hazel seemed to be too flittery for someone you were sure had done this plenty of time before. Still, against your better judgment, you kept staring into his eyeline.

You should have written that down later, a faint voice echoed through your head. Not the eyes part, you quickly denied and even got upset at yourself for supplying the image. You really should have been memorizing any small part he'd exposed, even more of the behavior you were out to conquer.

Instead, you remembered the exact angle of his shoulder against the locker, the wet curl slipping toward his eyebrow, the way he looked at you with confusion and cautious interest and a kind of bruised hope that had no place in your article.

You tilted your chin, chewing on the bottom of your lip by pure instinct. By now, you were close enough to have to tilt your head up to meet his gaze. You blinked, breaking whatever power he seemed to have had momentarily to have you swept up and cleared your throat.

Your voice was back to being confident again, since practice made perfect. “Pick me up Friday?”

His mouth caught in a faint sputter, you could tell you had caught him completely off guard. Faintly, as if it were a bodily response, you softened your smile into something smaller, tilting up at him for the silent moment.

“Friday,” he said after a beat. Steve’s voice seemed to have taken a breathless edge now. It did something all weird and wonky to you. “Yeah. I can do Friday.”

“Seven.”

“Seven,” he repeated, and appearing to remember he wasn't an apparition, Steve's body seemed to lean toward yours as he continued. “Where are we going?”

You hadn't thought that far. Instead of deciding on the spot, you bit the inside flesh of your cheek as an amused exhale escaped your lips.

“You’re the expert, Harrington. Impress me.”

You walked away before your nerve gave out. You could feel him watching you down the hall, could feel the whole plan beginning to take shape behind your ribs. You had even taken to looking through your sosters old magazines for inspiration. Hot and cold. Interest and withdrawal. Private sincerity, public disruption. All those where supposed to be tactics to reuse interest in relationships,  but you figured that the same could also be said for an indirect character study. 

Observe the subject under changing social conditions. Note responses. Analyze, that had been your plan split up into groups.

You were very good at making terrible ideas sound academic.

—

On Friday, his Beamer waited by the curb under a sky the color of sad, wet cement.

He got out when he saw you, which you hated because it was exactly the kind of performative gentleman routine you had expected, and also because he did it without checking if anyone was watching. That complicated your observations, causing a flutter to go through you. He wore a brown leather jacket over a striped shirt, jeans that fit him too well, and that expensive cologne that seemed built into the mythology of him.

Ralph Lauren, Stacey had said with the authority of a girl who knew these things and lived vicariously through others. It mixed with the leather and the faint sweet smell of cherry chapstick when he opened the passenger door.

"Aren't you going to get in,” Steve gave you a wounded look. His head was tilted down slightly towards you and it seemed like he was more offended you had even made an attempt to reach for the door. 

You looked at the open door in his hand, feeling less like a mastermind and more like a nervous girl.  “Do you do that for all your dates?”

Steve's hand went up to run the back of his neck as he let out a weak exhale,  the ghost of a smile on his face. “Only the intimidating ones.”

You slid into the car after that, tucking your notebook deep inside your bag where he would not see it. The seats were cold through your skirt. The dashboard glowed amber when he turned the key, washing his face in soft light as the engine rumbled awake.

He didn't take you to Enzo’s, where everyone went to be seen. He drove past the diner, past the arcade, past the bright places where Hawkins pretended it had a pulse. The town fell away into dark stretches of road bordered by skeletal trees and damp fields. Eventually he pulled into a small overlook above the park, where the swings moved gently in the wind below and the streetlamps made small gold circles on the path.

“This is your idea of impressive?” you couldn't help the baffled tone that took over as you asked, but your voice had taken a softer lift.

He shrugged, fingers resting on the steering wheel. “You said you wanted to understand someone. Hard to do that while watching someone like Tommy try to fit an entire breadstick in his mouth.”

“You’re not friends with him anymore?” you didn't really need the answer, everyone practically knew the answer by now. But still, it's different to have someone tell you something by choice than admit knowledge by association.

His thumb moved along the stitching of the wheel. Back and forth. Back and forth.

“Not really.”

“Why?”

He gave you a sideways look. “Wow. Straight to it.”

“I told you. Inquisitive.”

“Right.” He exhaled through his nose, not quite laughing. The smile on his face was soft in its hesitancy. “I don’t know. Stuff happened. I got tired. He got meaner. Or maybe he was like that, and I just stopped thinking it was funny.”

The words fell between the two of you in a hush.

You watched him in the dashboard light. Away from school, he seemed younger and older at once. Without the noise around him, without the audience, the space he occupied seemed to changed shape. He rubbed a hand over his face, then caught himself before he ruined his hair and dropped it to his lap. He did that a lot.

“You okay?” he asked suddenly, breaking you out of your trance. You quickly gave a few hard blinks to refocus, you seriously had to stop doing that around him.

“What?”

“You’re shivering.”

Were you? You hadn't noticed much besides him. “I’m fine.”

“You’re obviously not fine.”

Before you could answer, he shrugged out of his leather jacket and draped it over your shoulders. The weight of it settled around you, warm from his body, lined with the smell of him so completely that your next breath came slower than the last.

“You’ll get cold,” you said, a frown finding its way on to your face. It was a cold evening in Hawkins, the chill more prominent than usual. Your worry was quickly shoved down by him.

Steve seemed to just fidget by habit now. The muscle in his forearms tensed and gained your attention as his arms crossed against his chest. He gave a slight shove and his smile was all teeth and unintentional charm.“I’m tough.”

Now, you didn’t even bother to hide your scoff. A challenging twist of your brow appeared and you pointed out the faults in his words. “You just complained about the heater not working.”

“I’m selectively tough,” his grin stayed and was backed up by a small chuckle. 

You looked at him, and he looked back, and something quiet opened in the car.

The conversation shift quickly after that. You asked questions you had meant to use later. What did he want after graduation? He did not know. Where did he want to go? Away, maybe. Or nowhere. What was he afraid of? He made a joke at first, something about being left unsupervised with fireworks, and then he went quiet long enough for the windows to begin fogging at the edges.

“I don’t think I’m good at anything,” Steve told you after that. He said it plainly, almost casually, which made it worse. It was easier to dissect him clinically when he didn't wear that expression that caused you faltering to gain back control. 

You shifted toward him, eyes dragging over him.  They seemed darker with the setting say, but somehow they had something stored away that made you want to push back on his words.  “That’s not true.”

He gave you a look that unnerved you. “You don’t know that.”

You didn't let it get to you. You pushed through because for some reason, you felt like you couldn't stay silent. “I know you noticed I was cold before I did.”

The words had you faltering from the truth it held.

Steve gave a wry exhale, his head tilted back against his seat with his eyes on you. “That’s not a skill.”

Your voice felt firmer now. “It is, actually.”

He stared out through the windshield. Below, the park sat empty and silvered by frost. You couldn't really focus on that, not when Steve sat besides you looking less like the king you knew and more like a boy you wanted to know. You couldn't even process the words before Steve continued in. “Nancy used to say I had good instincts when I got out of my own way.”

Nancy.

There it was. The bruise beneath the bruise. It wasn't  one you were exactly shocked to hear, the whole sum of Hawkins new about the romance between the Wheeler daughter and him. Still, you weren't going deny the tinge of discomfort you felt at the mention.

What? Why were you uncomfortable? You immediately shut down the thought. A hard clearing of your throat helped stabilize yourself. You had to remind yourself that you weren't here for whatever reason that your body seemed to mistake. Instead, you focused on the task at hand, or at least tried to. You should have leaned in then when his head bowed slightly. You should have gathered the quote, traced the wound back to its social function, and built your thesis brick by brick.

You settled on something else, because strangely, anything else seemed harsh. “She sounds smart.”

“She is.”

The words carried no bitterness. That threw you off. You'd have known guys to turn completely hostile after break-ups, and you couldn't even remember a time where someone from Steve’s circle stayed genuine for the moment. You'd completely expected him to talk badly about her, about the situation, and frankly just about anything and everything that came up. To place blame in everything that never warranted it. 

You'd have felt more comfortable if he reacted like that. He didn't notice your turmoil.

“She’s also right,” he added, turning back to you. His hazel eyes mesmerizing in its softness. “I get in my own way a lot.”

You wanted to ask how. You wanted to ask why. What came out was a stupid joke about how his hair probably counted as a separate obstacle. “How, by looking in the mirror and not finding your face under all that hair?”

His laugh wasn’t loud, it certainly was not the cafeteria laugh you'd have known, not the old one that announced him from across the room. It was small and startled and breathless, given to you without polish. It didn't help you when he leaned back against the seat, smiling at the roof of the car, and your pulse betrayed you completely.

What happened next made you feel less like you were playing him and more like he was playing you. When he reached over to tuck a loose piece of hair behind your ear, he did it slowly enough that you could have stopped him.

You didn't. You didn't stop him.

You told yourself it was because you were playing an act.

His knuckles brushed your cheekbone, working in breaking you out of your mind. Steve’s hand lingered there, his thumb moving once over your skin, it barely had any pressure. He watched the place he touched instead of your eyes, and the careful uncertainty of it burned through you harder than confidence would have.

For one long second, you wanted him to kiss you so badly that you forgot why you were there.

Then a car passed on the road behind you, headlights cutting through the windows, and both of you shifted apart.

Steve cleared his throat, his head turning to look out the driver's side.  He seemed to have looked aware of just how vulnerable the moment was,  and didn't know how to navigate it.  “So. Did I help?”

You looked down at his jacket wrapped around you. It made feel warm in ways you almost wished it didn't. 

“Yes,” your voice came out all wrong,  small and breathless. “You did.”

You wrote three pages that night and hated all of them. It was as frustrating as it was complicated.  The problem was not that Steve failed your test. You found that out quickly. 

The true problem was that he kept passing in the wrong direction.

—

In public, you performed coldness with the sharp dread of a person setting a match to her own sleeve. Or at least, you truly hoped it looked like that. 

Monday morning, Steve found you near your locker with a bright, almost boyish smile that made you glance away before it could hit directly.

“Hey,” he leaned besides you near the locker. “I was thinking maybe after school we could—”

You shut your locker too hard.

“Can we not do this right now?”

His hand, halfway extended toward yours, stopped in the air. He dropped it quickly, trying to make the movement look natural.

“Do what?” his voice had you wanting to falter. God, since when were you this weak?

“This.” You gestured between you, impatient and vague. “The whole thing.”

People moved around you in the hallway, a current of denim jackets and textbooks and perfume. Someone bumped your shoulder. Before you could stumble, Steve stepped closer, placing himself between you and the rush of bodies. It was an unconscious movement. Protective without announcement.

Your stomach turned. You bowed your head to ignore looking into his enrapturing eyes. A warmth came instinctive in your stomach standing in such close proximity with the boy in front of you. You tried to push it down.  

Keyword, tried.

His voice dropped, his head leaning down to yours in an attempt to meet your gaze. “Hey. What did I do?”

His voice had you feeling weak already. “Nothing.”

“Okay, well, I’m getting a pretty strong not-nothing feeling here.”

You looked past him toward Stacey at the end of the hall. She watched with wide eyes, silently mouthing something that might have been commitment or abort. Her hands moved in front of her in a weaving gesture. You weren't sure what she'd been trying to convey, so you only assume she wanted to to keep going.

You crossed your arms, forcing your tone to turn cold and far away. No words really landed cleanly in your head for inspiration, so you took the first ones that would stick. “Maybe you don’t have to be so… much.”

Steve blinked.

His jaw tensed with movement,  your eyes drew to the action by unfortunate reflex now. He glanced down, then back up, searching your face with a focus that made your skin feel too thin and your act feel too hesitant. 

“I’ll fix it,” the words came quietly. You were sure your expression was dumbfounded, sure you had been acting like this on purpose – but what did he gain from doing that? You were so rapidly expecting a textbook fit. Instead, you got patient murmurings. That was worse than any possible anger.

“I don’t need you to fix it.”

“Then tell me what you need.”

His breath warmed your forehead. His hazel eyes showed no sign of any true hostility. They were worried and confused, and there was something heartbreakingly earnest in the way he tried to solve the version of the problem you had invented. You liked that. You liked that he seemed to act like that by instinct.

And so, because of that, you almost reached for him.

You willed yourself to iron quickly. Wetting your bottom lip, you finally looked up at him. eyes. The action had you remembering just why you were so hesitant to meet his gaze, having a look that could melt anything in them. Instead, you stepped around him and walked to class with your throat tight enough to hurt.

At lunch later, you made notes that took up new space in your writing notebook.

He responded to social rejection not with aggression but accommodation. Attempts repair. Shows confusion when expected script fails. Public status seems less motivating than personal connection.

You underlined personal connection so hard the paper tore.

Even detached on paper didn't feel right.

— 

The next test, as the girls had dubbed it, was supposed to be funny. You were sure it was meant to be, but it still held an underlying issue. It was Stacey’s idea, though you were the one foolish enough to do it.

The party was at some fellow senior’s house on Maple Street, loud enough to rattle the windows from the street. Steve picked you up with his hair arranged into what could only be called architecture. He seemed nervous about the party in a way he tried to bury under commentary about the radio, the road, and the fact that you were late even though you had been ready for ten minutes and had simply stood in your room wondering when exactly you had become the villain in your own story.

It was a rough start to say the least.

When you got there, he came around to open your door.

You stood and tried not to let the deep inhale of breathe be heard. The last thing you needed was to look as nervous as you felt. And quickly after that, you took one look at his carefully styled hair, and before you could lose courage, reached up and ran both hands through it. A smile found its way on your face, practiced and teasing, mirroring the girl in the catalogue of your People magazine.

The brush through his hair wasn't gentle, although his hair certainly was. Seriously, you had to ask later on what his secret was. 

The structure of its volume collapsed instantly, and Steve froze. His head still remained in its bowed position from where he leaned down from the passenger seat door of his car. His brows twitched together as your hands ran along his temple. You froze too, fingers still threaded into his hair.

For one second, you waited for the familiar snap. For the old King Steve to step forward with wounded pride and a cruel mouth. The porch light hummed above you. Inside, someone shrieked with laughter. His friends, or former friends, or whatever they were now, could see you from the living room window.

Steve looked at his reflection in the dark glass of the car. He let out a small sigh, and the familiar heart fluttering charming grin appeared on his face. Steve's eyes shut for a moment but his expression didn't falter, even as a series of laughter escaped him. The sound felt warm to you, and your body responded in turn.

“Better?” Steve then fluttered his pretty eyes back open, his head tilting with curiosity. “It was exhausting keeping that up anyway.”

Your hands fell quickly, your finger tips missing the way his hair felt against your skin instantly. The joke died so completely that you could almost hear it hit the pavement.

He glanced at you, the ruined hair falling soft around his face only enhancing him.  “Does it look terrible?”

“No,” you denied, and it came out too quickly. You winced at that, a small noise escaped Steve. 

His mouth twitched. “That was very convincing.”

“I mean it.” you did. 

He looked younger again. Not smaller, exactly. Just less fully arranged. Another strand fell over his forehead, and you had the sudden, awful urge to smooth it back with care instead of strategy.

The party behind you roared alive, and Steve heard. His shoulders tightened, but he didn't turn toward them like you thought. He looked at you instead, waiting for your reaction, which somehow made you responsible for the whole fragile moment.

You reached up and fixed one piece of hair near his temple. Something in you liked doing that. 

“There,” your voice was stronger now, and your smile had turned real moments ago. “Better.”

The smile he gave you was crooked and private. It really was nothing in comparison to the rest of the party, but it lingered. You spent the next few hours trying to get him to smile like that again.

You didn't take notes that night, or any of the other future nights.

You just remembered things instead.

You remembered the blue flicker of a movie screen across his face two nights later, when he sat beside you in the theater and kept his arm over your shoulders for the first half hour because that was what Steve Harrington knew how to do. Smooth. Easy. Practiced. Then, sometime after the second reel started rolling, his fingers stopped drumming against your sleeve and settled there with a hesitant weight, not claiming, only asking.

You remembered the way he drove with one hand when he was showing off, then switched to both hands when he told you about the time he forgot about his gym clothes and his coach made him wear an extra one two sizes too small. You remembered that he kept cherry chapstick in his glove box beside a flashlight, two old cassette tapes, and a receipt from a gas station outside Indianapolis. You remembered him stealing fries from your plate at the nearby diner and pretending to be wounded when you kicked his shin under the booth.

And in the next important memory, you remembered rain.

It came hard one random Thursday night, turning Hawkins into a blur of headlights and slick black roads. Steve’s house was empty in the way large houses could be empty even before you stepped inside. It was too clean, and far too quiet. The kind of place where expensive furniture sat untouched, waiting for adults who came home late and left early.

You ended up in his bedroom because the living room felt too much like a showroom for you.

His room was warmer than you expected, messier in an unapologetically human way. A baseball glove rested comfortably on the nearby dresser. Records stacked crookedly near the stereo. A half-open drawer with socks spilling out. Hair products lined along the bathroom counter with an intensity that might have been funny if it did not now seem faintly sad. Still, you had gotten a few quips out in hopes of cracking a smile from him.

The storm rattled the windows deeper into that even when conversations died down. You sat on the floor with your backs against the thick wooden frame of his bed, sharing a blanket that smelled faintly of detergent and his cologne. It was a familiar scent to your mind now. His knee pressed against yours beneath the fabric. 

Neither of you moved away. 

“I used to think this place was cool,” Steve had mentioned offhandedly after a moment, looking around the space of his room.

You didn't quite follow why his tone seemed far away, to you, his words were still holding up. “It is cool.”

“It’s big.”

Your head turned to face him, a hum on your lips. “That’s usually part of cool.”

He shook his head, the slight shake of his hair reminded you of how you missed touching it. You shook your head and focused once more when he spoke again. “No, I mean… it’s just big.”

You understood what he meant.

Near his large bedroom window, thunder rolled low over the town. The room flashed pale for a second, then settled back into the lamplight.

You rested your cheek against the edge of the mattress, warm eyes pouring into yours as he mimicked your actions. “Are your parents gone a lot?”

“Yeah.” Steve then picked at a loose thread in the blanket. His next words came out short and detached, so unlike the guy you've known. “Dad travels. Mom goes with him when she’s tired of pretending she likes Hawkins.”

You didn't like how his eyes dimmed.  “And you?”

“I stay.”

The word sat between you.

He laughed once, it was without humor, and rubbed at his eye with the heel of his hand. His voice held that rasped edge that sent tingles down your spine.  “God, that sounded pathetic.”

“It didn’t.” The reassurance came so quick it shocked you. You attempted to play it cool, repeating the words slower. 

“It did.” He looked down at his hands, the same ones you found yourself wanting to hold without the premise of a lie. “I just… I don’t know what happens when this is over. School. All of it. Everybody keeps acting like we’re supposed to know.” You didn't know what to say, it was the first time you've seen him so visibly wrecked.  “College, jobs, whatever. And I’m sitting there thinking—what if this was it? What if being King Steve was the only thing I was ever good at, and I wasn’t even good enough to keep it?”

Your chest tightened, it seemed like the world was laughing at you. Her he was, sitting on his bedroom floor besides talking about his insecurities all while you were actively trying to back on them. 

The article was in your bag downstairs. A draft. A title. A guillotine made of clever sentences.

“Steve,” the name came of gentle from your lips. 

He would not look at you, he kept staring at a spot on the floor. 

“Nancy figured it out before I did,” he went on, his voice lower now. His shoulders carried his tension clear as day. “That all the stuff people liked about me was just… noise. Parties, basketball, the car, the hair. The Harrington house. I thought that meant something. Then it didn’t, and it was—”

He stopped and didn't continue any further. You knew the signs before it came, and the room quieted down. 

His throat moved, a small, forcefully restrained noise finding its way out. The rain that thudded against his window filled the silence for him. And for you. 

You reached for his hand quickly.

He looked at your fingers covering his, then turned his palm upward and held on. You opened your mouth to speak, but not much came out. His grip was still foreign to you,  but it was different right now. It wasn't smooth, and it didn't feel like it held any kind of plan. His grip tightened once, almost too much to be soft, but then he quickly loosened it.

You shifted closer.

That was all it took.

He pulled you into his lap with a suddenness that stole your breath, then seemed to realize what he had done a second after doing it. His hands hovered at your waist.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

You settled there instead of moving away. Your own eyes were blown wide and mirroring his. You tried to speak but it came out all airy. “It’s okay.”

His breathing changed when yours did. Steve's eyes seemed to track your face, and the air seemed to turn into something deeper. 

For a moment, neither of you spoke up again. He lowered his forehead to your shoulder,then to the curve of your neck, his breath warm against your skin. The response that you gave was instantaneous, a rapid rising and falling of your chest went through the warmth of your body. His hands gripped your waist through the blanket, not possessive necessarily, you thought it felt more like clinging. Tethering.  The storm made the windows tremble. His hair brushed your jaw.

You lifted a hand and threaded your fingers into the back of his hair. The return of the welcome feeling was pleasant in your grasp.

He went still under your touch, and for a moment. Then he exhaled, deep and unsteady, and held you closer. Your faces were breaths away now, the bridge of his nose softly touched yours.

“Hey,” your voice came out weak. It was too soft to be teasing like you'd hoped. 

Steve’s eyes softened instantly. You saw it happen. You saw the moment the small, genuine grin stretched across his face. His voice came back whispered, as if scared to break the moment. “Hi there.”

When he finally pulled back, his eyes searched your face with an openness that made lying feel entirely  impossible. You knew he was about to kiss you. You knew that you really should stop him. You knew the truth should come out before his mouth touches yours, before this became another thing you had stolen under false pretenses.

But you'd been stupid, and so you didn't stop him.

The kiss began softly, almost carefully. His lips were brushing yours once before returning with more certainty. He tasted faintly sweet from the chapstick he pretended not to use. The kiss felt like it was bewitching your body whole. His hand rose to your hair, fingers sinking in with a restraint that kept breaking and returning. You gave a slight laugh against his lips before calming down. You felt him trying not to rush, trying not to take more than you gave, and the effort undid you more thoroughly than any practiced confidence could have. Because it was just so him.

You kissed him back.

Not for the article. Not for the headline. Not because Stacey would demand details or because Mr. Walsh would have to admit you knew how to find a story

You wanted to, you truly wanted to..

You kissed him because his hand was warm against your back and his breath caught when you touched his face. Because the room smelled of rain and leather and laundry soap. Because his mouth moved against yours with need and care tangled together, and your whole body answered before your conscience could organize a defense.

When you pulled away, his forehead rested against yours. The faint flush from his skin felt nice against yours

He smiled, small and dazed. You added that of the list of expressions you liked to see on him.

“Does this mean I’m helping with your boy problem?”

A laugh broke out of you, shaky and real. You pressed your face into his shoulder to hide it. With a lightness in you chest you lifted your head up as you rolled your eyes. Your hand moved on its own account now. It slid up to grasp the side of his face, your fingers sliding against the shape of his jaw.

“Shut up, Steve.”

His arms tightened around you, and his lips found yours once again. His own lightness expressed through the laughter that filled the echoing bedroom. "Ouch, you wound me."

For a few minutes, the world narrowed to the storm, his heartbeat beneath your palm, and the terrible knowledge that you had done something you could not write your way out of.

—

The article sat unfinished for two days.

You told yourself you would kill it. You also told yourself that you had time. Then you told yourself you would revise it.

So you sat in the newsroom after school, staring at the draft title until the faniliar letters turned cruel.

The Lifecycle of a High School God: why a crown crushes a king.

It sounded brilliant in the cafeteria. You distinctly remember thinking that. But now? Now it sounded mean. 

No, mean was too light of a word. It felt cruel.

You pulled the pages from the typewriter, folded them once, and shoved them into your folder. You would tell Mr. Walsh you had changed direction. You would write something else. Anything else. A review of the cafeteria pizza. A profile on the marching band. A blank page with sorry written in the center.

The front page spot didn't seem so enticing anymore when the cost came so harsh.

You were reaching for your bag when Mark appeared in the doorway, looking over at you. You didn't bother to hide the deep exhale you gave, you whole body tensing on on instinct.

“Working late?”

You stiffened and corrected him. “Leaving, actually.”

His eyes dropped to the folder in your hand. You immediately shut the folder, not liking the look in his gaze. “Is that the mystery column everyone’s whispering about?”

“No.”

“So yes.”

You tucked it against your chest. You had truly no paitence for the boy. You had been feeling horrible all last night yesterday, well, even more so last night than usual. “Move, Mark.”

He held up both hands, smiling. You didn't like his smile. It was nothing like the comforting presence of Steve's. The thought only made your mood worsened. “Relax. I just wanted to see what was so important that Walsh was considering bumping my school spirit piece.”

“He wasn’t.” You wished you sounded as steady as you needed to, but the flicker in your voice betrayed you.

Mark noticed. Boys like Mark always noticed weakness when it benefited them. And Mark himself no doubt would revel in any chance of taking an empty shot at you.

“Come on,” he clicked his tongue in a way that made your blood boil from its condescension. “We’re all on the same staff.”

“No, we’re not.” You pushed past him quickly. 

You did not know, however, that then one folded carbon copy had slipped from your folder and landed beneath the table, half-hidden by the trash can. You did not know Mark found it ten minutes later. You did not know he read it standing under the buzzing lights with his mouth slowly opening into the delighted shape of opportunity.

If you knew, you certainly wouldn't have lived through the reoccurring nightmare you've been having for the past few weeks.

You found out the next morning when Hawkins High came alive with your words.

Not the final version of your words, for it surely would've had a different result. It wasn't even the whole draft.

It was the worst version, the sharpest version.

The version written before you knew the way Steve looked when he gave away his jacket and pretended not to be cold.

Copies appeared on lockers before first period. Someone had run them fast and dirty, the ink uneven, the margins crooked. The title screamed from the top in bold type.

By second period, everyone had read it. By lunch, they were reading it aloud. You pushed through the hallway with your heart hammering so hard your vision pulsed at the edges.

A boy near the trophy case laughed. “Listen to this part—”

You snatched the page from his hand and you were sure the rhythm of your heart could be heard from miles away.

There it was.

Your article.

Your voice, sharpened into a blade that you couldn't even begin to imagine dulling.

The Lifecycle of a High School God: why a crown crushes a king

Every high school builds a throne, though no one admits to carrying the wood to make it. We vote with our eyes, our invitations, and our laughter at jokes that are not funny enough to deserve it. We create a boy and call him a king because it is easier than admitting we are the kingdom that is faulty.

The high school god is rarely born exceptional. He is assembled meticulously. A good car. A good face. The right jacket. The right table. Enough people saying his name in the right tone until even he begins to believe there is something sacred in being wanted. These continue to enforce how sincerity rarely makes the cut.

But worship is not love. Anyone will tell you that, and those who disagree would be dumb enough to face the consequences. Popularity feeds on performance, and performance rots whatever is underneath the layer given. A boy taught to survive by being admired will eventually mistake attention for affection, control for confidence, and loneliness for proof that everyone else has failed him

When a crown falls, what remains is often not a villain, but something more ordinary and more frightening: a boy with no language for himself beyond what other people once applauded and now isolate.

Hawkins High should ask why we keep making kings out of boys who do not know how to be human — and why we act surprised when the weight of a crown crushes them to dust.

You had written every word. It would have been easier to say that Mark embellished over your words, and exaggerated for journalist effect. But he didn't,  you were the one to do that. It was the worst part of the draft he could have chosen, simply because of the fact that you had left out everything you saw after.

You had also left out every human thing that would have saved him.

You found Steve in the print room a few hours later. And before you could assume any sort of hope of a clean explanation, it was shot and dead in front of you. You almost wished he hadn't gone there.

But of course he would have gone there, and of course the place where your betrayal had been made public still smelled of ink and metal and hot paper. It was proof of the now posted article that you didn't even want out. Faintly, you could hear something loud with the clacking press that someone had forgotten to turn off. Steve stood near the long table, one of the copies in his hand, the page trembling slightly between his fingers.

He looked up when you entered and you almost wished he hadn't. 

His eyes were red.

Not crying, not exactly. Worse. It made your heart drop and panic spike up into you. It seemed he intended to hold back so hard that the effort had hollowed out his face.

“Steve–” you didn't recognize your voice. It was so desperate and and pleading. You opened your mouth and tried to stammer out any explanation that came into your head, but there was nothing you found coming to mind. 

“Steve, please! Just listen, I–” He interrupted you and laughed, but it shook you. It wasn't like the laughter you had come to live,  this one had no warmth in it. It was so unlike him and you hated it. You hated causing that. 

“Was any of it real?”

You stopped short, any explanation does quickly in the tip of your tongue. 

He held up the article for you to see. As if you needed to be reminded of what you'd have done, a small breath part of you mouthed off bitterly. 

“When you looked at me like that. When you stayed with me. When you—” His voice caught, and he looked away, jaw tight. You immediately took to shaking your head, the implication of his words just. Because they were true.  And because they weren't. “Was that just material for your front page?”

“No!”

“No?”

“It started—” You hated yourself before the words finished forming. “It started as an article, but—”

His face changed and your heart seemed perpetually lodged into your ribcage. There were some truths that did not deserve the dignity of a full explanation. Steve just exhaled out sharply, his head finally facing you. The reaction wasn't what you wanted, you wanted–no, needed to explain yourself.

He nodded slowly, eyes dropping to the floor. Steve didn't give the you the chance to continue. “Right.”

“Steve, I was going to stop it. I didn't even turn it in! I swear, I wasn't going to hand it over. Mark found an old draft, and he—”

“Don’t.” He looked at you then, and the quiet in his voice hurt more than shouting would have. The word held so much that you froze on instinct. Your eyes stung viciously as you opened your mouth but nothing came out. “Don’t make this about him.”

Your mouth closed then. You felt utterly helpless, which might have been deserved. You desperately wanted to tell him everything,  wanting him to understand that it was real – is real. But your eyes, wide and frantic, just froze. He stepped closer, the paper crumpling in his fist.

“Everyone else wanted to see me for my status,” Steve began with a sharp inhale. You felt the stinging turn more prominent in your eyes, you tried to take a step forward but that was rejected when he almost flinched back two steps himself.. “The car, the parties, the game. Whatever. I got that. I was stupid, but I got it.” His breath shook. Steve’s voice cracked  nearing the end, and that was the last thing you heard before your vision blurred into spots. “I thought you were the only one who didn’t care about it.”

“I did! No, I mean–I do, you have to believe me, Steve.” Your voice was surely pathetically small. Everything else seemed to turn into static silence in the empty printing room and you desperately needed to fix it. You wanted to, but you felt so utterly unsure of your next steps. You reached for him on instinct.

Steve flinched back.

The movement was small. Instinctive. As if his body no longer registered you as a comfort, and that split something open in you. You felt the first few tears fall from your lashes, each blink dropping tiny little pearls. Steve made a noise you couldn't properly translate, his eyes were on yours but they held a thousand words and emotions in a single look. His own hand twitched open and shut before being brought up to bury itself in his hair, Steve then forced his eyes shut and his head turned to the side. He couldn't decide what hurt more, being hurt by you, or seeing you hurt.

He was the one that came back sharp and strained.

“Turns out,” Steve’s voice was so rough, it could have been unrecognizable. You opened your mouth immediately to shut down whatever he would say, but he beat you to it.  “you just used me for a headline.”

The press clattered behind him. A sheet slid loose and fluttered to the floor.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, your voice cracking and stinging from feeling utterly defeated. Because he was right, you did. You did get to know him for a chance at a headline, so that was why you could only apologize. But you wanted nothing to do with that stupid article, and regret washed over you at the thought of him thinking none of it was real. Because yes, it was messy, but it was real for you. “But–fuck, Steve... please you have to understand that–” you were cut off before you could even continue. 

He stared at you for a long moment, and you could see the part of him that wanted to believe you fighting with the part that had learned too many times what wanting cost.

Then he turned and walked out.

The room didn't become empty when he left, there was no relief that came with him leaving. And the room didn't become calmer in his disappearance; instead, it filled with him.

The absence of his cologne. The missing warmth of his jacket. The ghost of his hand at your cheek, careful and uncertain, before you had earned any of it. All of the little things that were so present just a moment ago were gone and let the physical trail of what happened.

You were left alone with the faint clacking of the room's machinery. And for a moment, you were so ready to run out to try and plead. To explain, to tell him every complete thing he was missing in hopes of him understanding. But you couldn't do that, not when you were already reason enough that he was hurting all over again.

With a loud curse, you found yourself feeling completely lost in a room that you've only ever compared with a haven. 

— 

For two days, Steve Harrington became visible to you in a way he had never been as king.

You saw him at his locker the next Friday morning, hollow-eyed and quiet, pretending not to hear the whispers. You saw him in the cafeteria, sitting with a younger boy you didn't know for exactly six minutes before the younger boy said something animated enough to make Steve almost smile. Then Steve caught sight of you across the room and the almost vanished.

That hurt like a stab to the heart. 

Then came the other little things that made you feel significantly worse.  He stopped coming to the parking lot after school until the buses had left. He stopped looking down your hallway. He stopped being available to your guilt.

You tried to corner Mark. He denied leaking it with the loose, oily confidence of someone who knew proof mattered more than truth. Mr. Walsh gave a speech to the staff about journalistic ethics while refusing to meet your eyes. Stacey apologized three times, then stopped because the apologies had nowhere to land when she held you while your sobs filled your bedroom. Leah sat beside you at lunch without talking much. That was the kindest thing anyone did.

By Friday afternoon, the newsroom felt smaller than it ever had for you. More suffocating. 

The printing press sat under the window, still and waiting. Dust turned in the late sun. Your original ambition lay around you in stacks of paper and headline sketches and discarded layouts.

You looked at the front page proof with Mark’s article on school spirit and felt nothing.

Not disappointment. Not anger.

Nothing.

That truly scared you more than pain did.

You had thought giving up the article would be enough. You had thought killing the story would count as a moral act. But the story was already alive, crawling through Hawkins High with your fingerprints around its throat. You didn't know what to do, the words were already there for everyone that listened. 

You sat at the typewriter.

For a long moment, you did not move. Shortly after a fit of tense silence, you finally rolled in a clean sheet. The keys struck hard enough to ache in your fingers.

This time, you did not write anonymously because you were clever. Or because you were trying to be witty or cruel. You wrote anonymously because the confession was not meant to redeem your name. It was meant to give him back his.

By the final bell, the flyer was everywhere, curtesy of your desperate and frantic efforts. 

It wasn't approved, it certainly also wasn't polished. Id didn't become formatted with Mr. Walsh’s careful little rules. It was just a single page copied until the machine jammed twice and your hands were black with ink that you couldn't scrub off

Students grabbed them from the tables, from the lockers, from the floor where they skidded under shoes. After all, no one loved potential hidden stories more than Hawkins High

You didn't wait to watch them read. That had been the least of your priorities. There was more important things that you cared about than who read a piece of your work now, and he had been gone from your sight long enough.

So, you ran.

The hallways exploded around you with the annual end-of-week chaos of Hawkins High School. Lockers slammed open, someone yelled about a shared ride, and a freshman dropped an entire stack of books and cursed with such feeling that a teacher shouted his name from twenty feet away. The sun poured through the front doors in a white-gold sheet, way too bright after the fluorescent dimness of the hall.

Steve was not at his locker. He was not outside the gym. He wasn't by the trophy case or the pay phones or even the side entrance near the band room. Your lungs burned by the time you shoved through the heavy double doors and stumbled into the afternoon.

The parking lot sprawled ahead of you, shining under the cold sun. Cars backed out in crooked lines. Girls shouted through open windows. The air smelled of gasoline, damp leaves, and somebody’s cigarette. It was all nothing that you cared about. The one thing you did seemed to be missing from the scene. Your eyes squinted in the light as it traveled across the parking spaces of the lot, failing to find what your heart desperately wanted to see.

At the far end, the BMW’s engine roared to life.

“No,” you breathed with pure adrenaline rushing through your veins. Steve sat behind the wheel, one hand on the gearshift, his profile hard through the windshield. 

Before you even knew it, you started running. 

It was stupid, rushed, and entirely filled with desperation. Your shoes slapped the asphalt. You heard Leah faintly calling your name, but you didn't turn back. The wind tore at your hair. Your bag bounced painfully against your hip but you paid it no mind. You cut between two parked cars and nearly slipped on loose gravel.

“Steve!”

He did not hear you, or pretended not to. You gave a groan of loud annoyance, but it still did little to deter you.

You reached the car just as the reverse lights flashed.

Without thinking, without dignity, and definitely without any plan beyond the awful certainty that if he drove away now something inside you would never forgive you, you threw yourself in front of the driver’s side door.

The car jerked to a stop and Steve froze behind the wheel.

Through the glass, his beautifully bright eyes  widened. Hurt, shock, and stubborn pride moved across his face so quickly you could barely separate them. Then his mouth tightened. You could tell he wasn't expecting your actions, and you couldn't exactly say you were the most sane person now.

The window rolled down slowly, the crank turning under his hand with mechanical, agonizing patience.

“What are you doing?” his words came loud and filled with unresolved frustration. Steve’s voice was rough. Thick in its tension. He wouldn't look straight at you. You refused to settle for that, the days spent with the familiar feeling practically left you numb and empty. 

“Go back inside,” Steve’s eyes and words seemed to contradict each other. He shifted back into looking into his dashboard instead of you. “Go celebrate your front page.”

You shoved the crumpled paper through the open window. It landed in his lap.

“I don’t care about the stupid article, ” you said, breathless enough that the words broke apart. “I don’t care about the front page. Just–read it. Please.”

His jaw flexed. For a second, you thought he would throw it back at you. Then Steve looked down at the copy of printed words.

You watched his eyes move over the page.

Correcting mistakes:

There was an article circulating this week about a king. It was clever in the cruel way people mistake for intelligence when they are too afraid to admit they have been wrong.

The girl who wrote it thought she was exposing a system. She thought it clever and brilliant. She told herself the boy at the center of it was an idea, a symbol, a lesson with good hair. She thought distance made her fair and judicial. She thought observation made her honest.

Then the boy gave her his jacket when she was cold.

Then he admitted he was afraid of being forgotten, and the girl realized she had been so busy studying the crown of his that she had ignored the weight of it on his own head.

The first article was right about one thing: Hawkins High School makes kings out of boys and then punishes them for not knowing how to be anything else. That wasn't the mistake here. But it was wrong to confuse a boy’s damage with his character. It was wrong to turn trust into evidence. And it was wrong to take the softest things he offered and sharpen them for public consumption.

This is not an apology meant to earn forgiveness. This is meant, instead to fix the record.

The boy was never a god. 

He was kinder than any story allowed him to be, and he was kinder than she deserved. 

Steve stared at the paper.

His chest rose and fell under his yellow polo. His rings glinted where his fingers gripped the page. Around you, students slowed. A few openly stared. You could feel the parking lot turning toward you with the appetite of a place that loved spectacle.

For once, you really, truly, couldn't care.  

Steve’s eyes lifted to yours,  and you could weep just from that alone. “Why should I believe you?” he asked.

The question was quiet enough that no one else could hear. You stepped closer, hands gripping the edge of the open window. Your own voice want any better, it was loud and messy, and undeniably real. A breathless bount of laughter escaped you “Because I was playing a game and I lost, Steve.”

“I lost.”

His throat moved but you hadn't seen it.

“And I lost you,” you sighed with your head hanging low in shame near the open window, voice shaking now, “and I regret it. I was supposed to push you away, but every time you held my hand, every time you looked at me like I actually mattered, I—”

Your breath caught, and you forced it down in order to continue.

“I don’t care about King Steve. I don’t care about the crown or the table or the stupid front page. I want the guy who gets cold in his own car because he gave me his jacket. I want the guy who pretends he doesn’t use cherry chapstick. I want the guy who worries too much and fixes his hair when he’s nervous and acts tough until somebody he cares about needs him to be gentle.”

The words were embarrassing in their vulnerability, and it didn't help that Steve just stared at you. But even small battle wins were tremendous to those who were cautious.  The defensive hardness in his face trembled.

You leaned closer, not touching him. Though God knew you wanted too. But you wouldn't take what he had not offered.

“I just want you,” you said and the words hung there in the bright afternoon.

For a second, nothing happened. That scared you.  Because if even though all of this, he didn't believe you, you were sure that would break you entirely. You didn't understand how looking at him now, with his beautifully enrupturing genuine gaze and constellations of freckles so faint kissing his skin with blessings, you could have been so stupid.

Your panicking monologue was cut off when Steve let out a breath that broke halfway into a laugh.

It made you falter momentarily. You wouldn't exactly describe it as fully happy or clean. Instead, it was more ragged. Disbelieving. Full of relief that came so sudden it seemed to knock the strength out of him. He looked down at the crumpled printed again, then back at you. You saw the exact moment when whatever he had been holding together for two days came apart in his hands.

“You’re insane,” Steve held his head in his hands. The heels of his palms dragged to his eyes, and that when you noticed the concealed redness there. Your panic was a quick guest arrival as your hand hesitantly went over the threshold of the open window and found its spot tangling through his hair at his temple.

Your voice came out soft. “I know.”

“You ran in front of my car.” Steve's was returned in a disbelieving laugh. The sound on instinct made you smile.

“I know.”

“I could’ve hit you.”

You weren't quite so sure you believed that. And it seemed like neither did he fully either. The both of you stared through the air between you “You're not exactly driving donuts with your Beamer in a school parking lot, Harrington. You were going four miles an hour, max.”

His mouth twitched and your heart found its comfort. There he was. That was the boy you wanted to see, the one who was sincere and silly and all of the words in between.

The moment didn't truly feel fixed all the way, and it didn't feel so easily forgiven so neatly that the hurt could be vanished beneath a kiss. But there, beneath the bruised pride and the red eyes and the stubborn set of his jaw, was the boy from the park. The boy from the rainstorm. The boy who had laughed quietly when nobody asked him to perform.

He shoved the car door open.

You barely had time to step back before he was out, hands catching your waist. Steve lifted you clean off the pavement, and a startled sound escaped you as your hands grabbed his shoulders.

“Steve—”

“Shut up,” he rasped, but his voice broke around the smile. Then kiss that came next didn't surprise you. But it certainly didn't prepare you for it either.

It was not exactly graceful, but it was completely and utterly impassioned.

Someone in the parking lot whooped. Someone else yelled something that sounded suspiciously like “Harrington!” A horn blared because a car was stuck behind his open door. The reminder of just how crazy this whole situation was roared in your ears. 

Steve didn't seem to hear any of it. You had a feeling that he did, but just pretended he didn't. That made you smile on reflex against him.

His hands held your waist with desperate certainty, then slid up your back, pulling you close enough that the cold afternoon disappeared between you. Your fingers tangled in his hair, ruining it again, and he made a sound against your mouth that was half laugh, half relief. He tasted the same sweet cherry chapstick you started buying for yourself and breathless warmth. The kiss carried every unsaid thing neither of you knew how to organize yet. Anger. Want. Hurt. Forgiveness beginning somewhere far off and walking slowly toward you.

When your feet touched the ground again, you were dizzy. It was a good dizzy, and the pounding in your side was a welcome pleasure now. 

Steve rested his forehead against yours, breathing hard. His hands stayed anchored at your hips, refusing to let you drift away. Up close, you could see the faint details scattered along his neck, the tiredness under his eyes, and the careful hope he was trying not to show too quickly.

“You really printed that?” The question broke you out of your stupor. You were still so dazed from his touch that you distantly found yourself nodding. Your hands refused to leave their spot in reaching for him now that there wasn't a lie justifying it.

“Over Mark’s stupid school spirit thing?”

Your words came mechanical,  as if offended he'd even question it. “Technically under it. Around it. On top of some of it.”

“I made a stupid amount of copies.” The confession came paired with you momentarily dropping your hands where they were wrapped around him to hold up the black ink stains on your fingers.

His smile spread, crooked and real enough to hurt. And you swore that it was the most beautiful sight in the world.

“Good.”

You laughed weakly, your hands finding their way back into sliding to the back of his nape. “That’s what you took from the public confession?”

“I’m processing.” His thumb moved along your jaw, slow and familiar. “Also, I liked the cherry chapstick line.”

“I hoped you would,” you felt like a cat relishing in caresses. The smile that mirrored his came quick and teasing on your mouth.  His eyes stayed on yours, and his smile softened at the edges.

“You’re a terrible writer.”

Your brows lifted in instinctive defensiveness of your craft. “Excuse me?”

He brushed his thumb beneath your chin, eyes bright with that old Harrington charm, gentler now, and clearly worn in rather than performed.

“You didn’t even come close to losing me.”

The ache in your chest loosened all at once.

It would not be so easy for you to say it was gone, you would still have to apologize without speeches. He would still have to decide what trust looked like after being turned into copy. 

But Steve was standing in front of you with his hair wrecked by your hands and your confession folded against his car seat. He was looking at you, really looking, not the way a king looked over a crowd, but the way a boy looked at the girl he was still willing to let close enough to hurt him.

You rose onto your toes with a soft shake of your head and grin. “Just shut up and kiss me, Harrington.”

His grin flashed.

“Yes, ma’am.”