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Fireworks lit up the dark summer sky over the road, annoying the hell out of Max, who still had two hours to drive till she got to Hawkins. It’s only the 3rd of July, morons, she thought, then turned up the volume on the radio to at least repress the noise of the explosions.
The radio guy gleefully announced the greatest hits of the ’80s for the next couple of hours. "You’ve got to be kidding me," murmured Max under her nose. This whole trip was rapidly getting on her nerves from the start. She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. She hated cigarettes but she needed something for her nerves, after everything that happened to them back in the days she needed this small relief, even if it was self-destructive.
She smirked when she realized how much she resembled her brother at the moment, driving fast with blasting music, a cigarette in her mouth, pissed off for no real reason.
Time After Time started playing on the radio and she suddenly felt a lot softer, and younger. She had her first dance with a boy for this song, and her first kiss soon followed. A boy named Lucas Sinclair, the stalker who’s an aging man now sleeping, and loudly snoring at their Chicago home with an empty pillow by his head, because his wife decided to drive straight back to hell again. She looked at herself in the rearview mirror and searched for that 13-year-old girl from the Snow Ball in her here-and-there wrinkling face. She at least still had her red locks, even if the color is a bit faded now – she thought. She thought of how her mother brushed it out and made a braided hairdo for the event. And she remembered Billy driving her there in this same car.
Max realized she barely let herself think of the nice little moments they had with Billy anymore, but the tragedies casted a long shadow over them, and she mostly tried to avoid those dark parts of her memories. But she would’ve hated to forget. For example, that thing he said to her that night when he dropped her off by the school for the ball: "Hey, shitbird! Have fun! I’ll be here by nine. Don’t make me wait or I’ll kick your ass!" He meant the wish, his smile was genuine and his eyes were kind. He was capable of being kind, she always knew that much, and with a little motivation, he was slowly learning to show it, too. She knew then that she should’ve threatened to smash his nuts with a bat way sooner. She, the Max of 35 years later smiled at this thought.
She still loved driving the Camaro, although she didn’t have too many opportunities to do so, it wasn’t exactly a family car. Neil gave it to her for her 16th birthday after he finally fixed it, he took his time with it. Billy crashed it in front of the burning mall when he decided to get in there to help people to get out of the building on that night of the 4th of July in 1985. The ceiling collapsed, crushing him to death. That was the cover story to sell to the Hargroves and to the world. At least the lie was still nice, made him a local hero, but he had been long forgotten since then. Not by everyone, of course.
She looked at her brother’s silver pendant hanging by the rare-view mirror and her heart felt a little bit heavier now. Although she hasn’t mentioned it in decades, the night at the mall was as vivid in her head as yesterday’s dinner with Lucas. The night Billy decided to die to save them, the night he was butchered by a nightmarish monster. She wished she could at least soften the edges of that memory, wipe some of the blood off of the image, turn the volume down on the screaming, his screaming and hers, too. She could still remember the strange smell of chemicals combined with the stench of rotting flesh. She remembered how Billy struggled to breathe.
She couldn’t remember how his laugh sounded like. It wasn’t fair. Or maybe it was. Maybe she deserved this.
She never talked about it to her mother or stepfather, they never learned the truth about his death, or that she was right by his side when it happened. She kept the nightmares to herself. And the years of panic attacks and paranoia. She stayed silent about the guilt, too, that she felt for not being able to help him or comfort him in his last moments.
She drove back to Hawkins once or twice a year to visit Neil. Susan died five years ago from liver cancer and they had to place Neil into a nursing home, because he couldn’t care for himself anymore by that time. His dementia was slowly but steadily getting worse ever since. She and Lucas wanted to take him to Chicago, but he didn’t want to hear a word about that. He didn’t want to leave Susan, or Billy.
Lucas came with her on the first couple of visits, but as Neil’s mental state deteriorated he was more and more awful to him, calling him names, telling him to stick to his own kind. They saw it was for the best if he just stayed at home, have some time with their friends. He had no one in Hawkins by that time anyway, his father died long ago and his sister, Erica moved to New York taking their mom with her.
Their daughter, Elinore was 26 now, she got her name from El, her godmother. She came to visit on her own when she had the time, too, she loved Neil. She used to come to stay at her grandparents for the summer breaks, they baked the best cookies with Susan, and Neil taught her how to ride a bike and took her fishing. It was surprising from the man who made a habit out of slapping the shit out of his son for not being respectful enough back in the days.
Max never actually saw him hit Billy, he was careful like that, but she picked up on it from the obvious noises, Billy’s reddened cheeks, watery eyes, and occasional bruises. One time she caught Billy crying on the back porch of their house back in San Diego. He was probably around 12 or 13. His upper lip was split and his right eye was badly swollen. When Max asked him what happened, he said he was in a fight with one of the boys from school. "But it’s none of your business anyway," he added quickly, his voice hoarse. She knew he lied because he never cried after fights, ever. Also, he barely ever lost. She went into the kitchen and took some frozen peas out of the freezer, that was what she saw her mother do other times this happened, to give it to Billy. Then she headed back outside, but then changed her mind and turned back for a cupcake that her mother had just freshly baked, thinking Billy would like that. She gave him the package and sat down beside him, and they sat there in silence, the boy pressing the bag of veggies to his lip and eye and holding the cake in his other hand, Max observing the birds playing around the bird feeder in their backyard until Susan called them in for dinner. Another one of the nice moments, if she could call it such.
Her mother told her about the abuse in her last couple of years. About that day, too, when he had the split lip. She said Neil caught Billy and another boy kissing under the grandstands after baseball practice. He was furious, slapped him real hard then and there, then dragged him all the way home and hit him some more, calling him a little faggot, and yelling he’s gonna beat it out of him, God, help him, he will. They had to take Billy to the ER later that night because his eye was getting worse, he almost lost his vision. They told the doctor that he fell off of his bike. The doctor didn’t really care.
When her mother told her about this, Max’s heart sunk a little, she thought about how she got her first kiss on a school dance like in some fairy tale, and how Billy almost got partially blinded for his.
It all weighed on Susan’s conscience, and got especially hard when she got sick. She felt like she should’ve tried harder to stop Neil, change him, and to be more like a mother to Billy. Max kept telling her she was doing what she could, and Neil would’ve probably turned on her too, if she was bossing him around too much. It didn’t seem to satisfy Susan’s heavy heart. Max understood that, she really did.
When Neil wasn’t angry, and there weren’t too many times like that, he was actually fun to be around. He showed Billy and Max how to fix their bikes, repairing small things on cars, and he took them to the McDonald’s sometimes, and even fancy restaurants on birthdays. They rented movies on VHS cassettes and ate popcorn on Saturday nights. Max still remembered the shine in Billy’s eyes on those days, and how kind he was to her on those occasions, like a real brother. But it was all over when Billy became a teenager, Neil was always on the edge about something.
Taking a trip down memory lane took Max’s mind off of the time, she didn’t realize she was almost there. Another mile. When she passed the Hawkins sign her hands grasped the wheel a bit more tightly. She hasn’t had a panic attack in years but she always felt like she was on a verge of one when she was back here in Satan’s butthole. Bruce Springsteen just finished singing Dancing In The Dark on the radio when she turned right and parked the Camaro in front of Cherry Lane 4819.
They kept the house on Cherry Lane. Neil didn’t need the money, nor did they, and it was nice to have a place to stay when they came to visit. Max stumbled out of her room in her pajamas to get a glass of water. She wanted to head out early to have a quick breakfast and then visit Neil, maybe take him to the cemetery if he was well enough.
As she headed to the front door she checked her phone for messages, but there was none, Lucas was probably still asleep. She sent him a firework and a vomiting emoji. They mostly celebrated the 4th of July by hating it together. Before she stepped out of the house she took a look at the door of Billy’s room. It was a guest room now and looked nothing like in the ’80s. For Max, it always stayed Billy’s, and she guessed she wasn’t alone with this feeling since her daughter got Max’s room any time she came. It was where Billy played his metal so loud that she could hardly hear her own thoughts, and where he made his many girlfriends make happy screams when Neil and Susan were out. Sometimes they came home earlier than they should’ve. Neil always politely asked the visitor to go, then closed Billy’s door from the inside. Max heard his yelling, heard Billy’s body being slammed against the wall or the bookshelves every time. And that was just for being with girls when he was supposed to babysit her. Billy probably thought his father would’ve killed him if he ever caught him with a guy instead. Steve, for example.
Max caught them once on that last summer, she was sent to check on Billy at the pool because he didn’t make it home right after work and Susan was nervous that Neil would get upset if he wasn’t home for dinner. She sneaked in and wanted to yell his name when she heard the splashing of the water and the giggles, she recognized their voices. She took off after a couple of minutes. She was probably the only person who knew about them and she didn’t mention it to anyone, not even Lucas. A few weeks after the funeral, Steve asked her if he could look around in his room because Billy borrowed some of his textbooks. She left him in there, gave him time. She didn’t know what to say or not to say. She went back in and saw Steve smelling one of Billy’s black hoodies. He jumped back and started rumbling incoherently. Max peacefully walked up to him, took the hoodie out of the shelf and gave it to him. "Keep anything you would like.” That was all, they haven’t talked about it ever since.
She was sitting in the car in front of the nursing home, smoking. The visit went well, considering the fact that it was one of Neil’s bad days. There was no cussing and he didn’t try to hit anyone, but he did ask for Billy. He forgot sometimes that he was gone, got confused about time, too. This time he thought he was being punished for dislocating Billy’s wrist, that he’s angry with him, that’s why he wouldn’t come with Max to visit. But Neil’s father broke his arm when he was a kid just for playing baseball with black kids and he worked on his mother, too, for letting him play with them. Snapping a wrist is nothing, and it wasn’t even on purpose. Max heard these things before, stories about Neil’s sad excuse of a father, and his excuses for being a shitty one.
She remembered that incident. It happened after the driving lesson Billy gave her in a parking lot. It got to Neil, he was furious. He confronted them that evening, yelling mostly at Billy than grabbed his left hand, the way sometimes Billy grabbed hers to get her full attention, but Neil twisted it a bit more violently than he intended to. They heard a popping sound and Billy cried out. Neil quickly let go with a sudden flash of terror on his face. "Enough of the whining. It’s just dislocated,” he said then coldly, while his son held his injured hand to his chest, trying hard not to let the tears fall from his eyes. When Neil left the room to get his car keys Max went up to Billy to comfort him but he brushed her off. "Leave me the fuck alone!” He gave her hell for that one for months.
Max was wondering if this cycle of abuse would have ever ended if Billy survived. She liked to imagine it would have. Tragedies change people, sometimes for the better.
"She has to toughen up, life goes on." That’s what Neil shouted at Susan when she tried to comfort Max a couple of days after the mall. He snapped at Susan for everything and yelled at employees of insurance companies and the local government on a daily basis. Both of them felt like walking on eggshells at home, they couldn’t mention Billy’s name because then all hell broke loose. Billy’s room was untouched, his bed unmade, piles of dirty clothes on the couch, cigarette butts, empty beer cans on the furniture. Susan was scared to change anything. Max went in and sat there a couple of times, but only when Neil wasn’t home.
Two weeks after they buried Billy, Neil stormed in his room dragging Susan with him by her arm and scolded her for the mess in there. He ordered Max to bring trash bags but she didn’t move from the door, just watched them with wide eyes. He went to get bags himself rambling angrily the whole time about how Billy won’t need any of his shit anymore and started to throw out everything in reach without exception. His clothes, his records. Susan seemed shaken, but not the usual way, Max saw some of herself in her mother’s eyes. She looked angry, furious, as the tears started to roll down on her cheeks. "You’re not gonna treat his stuff like garbage, I won’t let you!" She then tore the bag from his hands. Max never felt more proud or scared for her. Neil visibly wanted to scream something at her, he probably even thought about hitting her judging by the way his body tensed, but only managed to let out a big shaky breath.
He dropped down on Billy’s bed, covered his face and started crying. Her mom gently sat down beside him and rubbed small circles against his back. At first, it was a quiet sob, then it became a sound a wounded animal would make. Max left them there, went to the kitchen and wrote a note to her mom that she went to the Sinclairs.
When Neil first forgot that Billy was dead, she told him as coldly as she could. She wanted him to know, it wasn’t fair that he got to forget when she had to live with it. He was hurting him all his life and Billy died before he could've gotten out of his grasp. Neil went terribly quiet.
Then it happened again, but that time Neil reacted like it just happened, like he just lost him. Max never felt as cruel in her life as she did then watching the sobbing old man repeating his son’s name like a prayer. So she decided to handle it differently.
"He took off to Cali to surf, it’s the perfect weather," she said this time. She actually loved doing this, making up stories about Billy’s whereabouts. Pretending he’s with some girl or a guy – not mentioning this part to Neil -, having fun at the beach, or on his way home in his Camaro. On these occasions, Billy was alive somewhere. "I’m sure he’s gonna come next time."
Neil was a little hurt that the waves were more important to him than his old man. But then they decided to watch TV and he forgot about that, too. She asked Max what day it was just before she left. He looked out the window, lost in his thoughts, trying hard to find that seemingly important thing in there that he should've remembered about this date. "I hate fireworks,” he said finally. Max smiled.
Billy’s grave was kept neat and tidy, Max made sure of that. The white stone was surrounded by green grass, the top of the stone and some of the grass was covered in seashells. She sat down in front of it and took out two cigarettes. One for Billy and one for herself. None of them were the dying-flower-to-the-dead type of people. She loved talking to him, just some stuff she thought he would find amusing: about cars, bands, her friends, family. While talking she picked up some of the shells and thought about Billy’s mom. Max never saw her at the grave but she was pretty sure she was the one bringing the shells. One each year. But they stopped coming a few years back. She wondered if she got sick, or passed away. She wondered if Billy was angry with her for leaving him with Neil. It didn't matter in the end. His happiest memory was with her.
Even after Billy died, some of the relatives, his grandparents and aunts talked poorly about him. And they often told Max she was just like her brother. She was angry, not because they said that, but because of the way they said it. Max wanted to tell them to shut their mouth, to fuck off, sometimes she did. Back then she didn’t have the right words to tell them what it felt like, but even if she had they wouldn’t have understood. That Billy was much more than just a stupid misbehaving, rebelling kid, he wasn’t just reckless, he was brave, and he was strong, stronger than anyone Max ever knew because, in spite of everyone failing him through all his life and turning him into something he didn’t want to be, he still didn’t hate them. He didn’t hate his mom for leaving, not even his dad for abusing him, nor the world in which everyone turned a blind eye to what he has to endure, especially in his last few days. She knew this, no matter how many times he mistreated her or her friends, because his last words were "I’m sorry."
And Max didn’t say anything in return, she couldn't find the words for that either. If she could go back she would tell him it wasn’t his fault, that he was just a kid, she thought. They were children, none of that should have happened to them. That’s what she should tell the child in herself, too.
Without taking Neil to the graves, the trip was shorter than expected so Max headed back to Chicago early in the afternoon. Some of the parks she passed were already filled with people to celebrate Independence Day. As she turned her gaze back at the road she looked at Billy’s pendant, it was glowing now in the summer sunshine, like a second sun on the endless blue skies in front of her. She was thinking about his belongings that she kept and stored in their attic. She had a box of old photos, too, somewhere up there, pictures she found in Billy’s room, from yearbooks and polaroids from his friends, some snapshots of the family, too, even of his mum. Maybe she could show them to Elie. They could laugh at the hairstyles together if nothing else. But no one had more glorious ’80s hair than Steve Harrington. She decided to get in touch with Steve. She hadn’t had the courage to ask him about his relationship with Billy when they were kids, she didn’t want to force Steve to talk about things that might hurt, then life just drifted them away. But a lot of time passed, maybe he would be happy to hang out with her and dust down those memories. Worths a try, she thought. She always wondered what Billy was like when he got to be himself freely, but even just the thought of learning anything new about him after all this time made her feel warm inside.
A text message got her out of her thoughts. It was from Lucas. He wondered if they could both celebrate with the Hendersons at the Independence Park now that she would be back earlier. To her surprise, she didn’t hate the idea.