Chapter Text
February 22, 1985
Neil and Susan were leaving for California and not taking Max. They weren’t taking Billy either, but somehow that seemed far more acceptable. Billy had nothing back in California, except for a few ex-friends. Max had her dad, whom she hadn’t seen since last summer. But Neil and Susan were going only to San Diego and were decidedly not bringing Max with them.
The reason for the trip was that Neil’s college roommate was getting married. Neil rarely spoke about or to “old friends,” so in general it wholeheartedly surprised Max that there was even someone in California to invite him to a wedding. It surprised her even more that Neil was going, considering he was the most pro-Hawkins of all of them. A sick part of Max wondered if it was some kind of test, if Neil was doing this just to see what Billy and Max would do without adult supervision. Well, mainly Billy, because Billy was the one who was supposed to “supervise Max.” As if.
“We’re leaving after school, honey,” Susan reminded Max for the sixtieth time. “Make sure you’re fast in leaving school.”
Max nodded vaguely, taking a drink of orange juice. Her fail-safe method for family breakfast was to sit silently and drink whenever she might be expected to talk. Granted, that was mainly her strategy for when Neil was there, but it also worked when she was too pissed at her mother to hold a conversation with her.
Neil had gone into work for the morning. This was his justification for why he and Susan were flying out of Indianapolis so late, but, again, Max had a feeling there was some ulterior motive. She almost always hung out with her friends after school, so the fact that she was expected to come home just to say goodbye seemed like a direct attempt to inconvenience her. Whether or not it was, the thought that it might be did nothing to improve her mood.
At some point while Max zoned out, Susan had begun speaking to Billy. “Before you go,” she was now saying, her voice three tones softer than it had been while speaking to Max, “your dad asked that you get the suitcases down from the attic for me. Can you do that?”
Max moved her unfocused eyes from the fuzzy image of her peanut butter toast to Billy. There was no way Neil had asked, but Susan was always making it seem like Neil was kinder than he really was. If Max hadn’t missed the stupidity of the terminology, Billy certainly hadn’t. “Max and I are going to be late to school,” he responded, not even looking at Susan.
Susan pursed her lips and said nervously, “Well, I can’t pack Neil’s and my suitcases if they’re not down from the attic.”
Maybe Max was supposed to be on her mother’s side, but she wouldn’t blame Billy even a little for not listening. Most of the time, it felt like there were three sides in their family: Neil, Billy, and Max. Susan was sort of grouped in with Neil and sort of nonexistent altogether. But when anything involved Neil specifically, there switched to being two sides: Neil and not Neil. That was when Max was on Billy’s side, and if Neil was using Susan to order Billy around and make him and Max late, this was one of those times.
“If I’m late to school I’ll get a tardy,” Max said. She could have just taken another drink of her orange juice, but that would be ignoring her small personal stake in the matter. From a quick glance at the clock, she could see that she and Billy needed to leave for school in two minutes.
“You can just explain the situation, Max, I’m sure they’ll understand,” Susan said. Her words were rushed, at least showing she understood the time sensitivity of the matter. “Billy, if you would just hurry, I would really appreciate it.”
Interestingly enough, Billy used this moment to take a drink of his own orange juice. Max could tell he was enjoying the fact that Susan needed something from him. Realistically, it wasn’t even Susan who needed something from him–all three of them knew this was from Neil and for Neil–but that didn’t mean Billy didn’t like whatever semblance of control he could claim.
“I think Neil could probably come home early from work and help you pack,” Billy said, setting his glass down. “Like Max said, we really shouldn’t be late.”
Billy pushed his chair back, the chair legs audibly scraping against the kitchen floor. Max did the same, unsure if Billy was really going to leave without doing what his dad said. He was more likely to rebel without Neil here, but he knew the consequences of his actions as well as Max did. They were going to see Neil later in the day, and he was going to be very angry if Billy hadn’t done what he said.
“Your dad was very insistent,” Susan said. She sounded anxious herself, like she’d suffer from Billy not obeying. It was unlikely that she would, but not technically impossible. Max’s allegiance shifted ever so slightly.
Billy picked his car keys up off the dining table and stared hard at Susan. “Are you going to call our schools to tell them why we’re late?” He asked. Max didn’t think Billy cared that much about his attendance record, so she recognized the question for what it was: Billy didn’t want to look like he was doing what his dad said without putting up a fight. It all came back to the that semblance of control he wanted.
Susan’s pale skin flushed red, but she nodded awkwardly. “Yes, I’ll call, if you’ll just-”
Billy gave Susan a curt nod and spun around, leaving the kitchen and heading down the hall. Max heard the garage door open. The entrance to the attic was in the garage, as well as Neil’s ladders.
Susan headed for the phone, lifting the receiver with a trembling hand and slowly punching in the school’s phone number. Max remained standing in the same spot, a step away from the dining table. She heard the phone ring quietly into her mother’s ear.
Susan called Hawkins High first and then Hawkins Middle. In both cases, she said that Billy was not feeling well. Max supposed that “Billy is helping his parents pack for a trip to California” was somewhat of a questionable excuse, but anyone who knew Billy would laugh at the idea of his stepmother calling him out of school because he didn’t feel well. Max couldn’t remember the last time Billy had been sick, or at least admitted to being sick.
When Susan finished making the calls, she sat back down at the dining table, tapping her foot nervously on the floor. The noise in itself wasn’t that annoying, but it began to irritate Max the longer it went on.
“Make sure you tell people you’re late because Billy’s sick,” Susan said to Max, looking embarrassed. “That’s what I told them.”
Max rolled her eyes. “I heard what you told them. And I’m pretty sure nobody I’d tell would care.” It wasn’t like Max planned to explain her lateness to anyone in any type of way. She wasn’t going to tell her friends she was late because Neil made Billy get suitcases from the attic. She generally refrained from discussing Neil with anyone, and even something as boring as this wasn’t an exception.
“Just tell them Billy’s sick, honey,” Susan repeated, continuing to tap her foot on the floor. “It’s not a big deal.”
Max sort of got why Billy liked feeling in control, because she enjoyed feeling that way with her mother, too. She didn’t really care that much that she was going to be late, nor did she care what reason her mother gave her school. She was a bystander in this whole thing, and she didn’t care that she was. But she was still angry with her mother for going to California without her, and because of that she enjoyed feeling a bit of power.
“I’ll tell them whatever I’ll tell them,” Max said, masking all emotion in her voice. “I mean, what are they going to do? Call you and Neil in California? I didn’t think so.”
Susan sighed, running her hands through her wispy red hair. “I’ve told you I’m sorry you can’t come see your dad. It just wouldn’t work with this trip.”
Max was about to respond when she heard the garage door shut and Billy’s footsteps in the hall. Knowing Billy wasn’t going to want to wait around for her, she scrambled to get her backpack. Billy’s car keys jangled in his hand as he walked through the kitchen without a word. Max trotted after him to the front door.
Before she exited the house after Billy, she turned around and said loudly, “Don’t say you’re sorry, because you’re not.” Then she stormed through the front door and slammed it shut, satisfied at the way it rattled.
It was only around twelve minutes later than when she and Billy normally left the house, but Max guessed that Billy was going to take advantage of the excuse Susan had given them. Once he and Max were both in the car, he started the engine but didn’t immediately switch the car into drive. Instead, he pulled a cigarette out of the pocket of his jean jacket and lit it, rolling down the window so he could hang the hand that was holding the cigarette out of it.
Max held her skateboard on her lap and said nothing. On the phone, her mother had told both school offices they’d be only fifteen or twenty minutes late. Billy had not heard that part, but Max knew it wouldn’t change anything about his behavior to tell him. She would sit quietly and use this time to wallow in the thoughts that had been plaguing her for the past few days.
When Billy finished his cigarette, he snuffed it and rapidly moved the gear shift, slamming hard on the gas pedal. He rolled up the window, trapping a small amount of smoke in the car. Max coughed slightly but tried to hide it, not wanting to look dumb.
“You hanging out with your little friends tonight?” Billy asked without even glancing at her. Max noted that he was driving slower than he normally did, and wondered if he was just trying to piss her off by making her even later. She willed herself not to let on that it annoyed her.
“Probably,” she replied flatly. Probably meant with that she was almost total certainty, but no formal plans had been made. The only reason no formal plans had been made was that she and her friends generally left school together and there was no necessity for them to make formal plans. Max had not told her friends yet that she had to go home after school to say goodbye to her mother and Neil, because she didn’t want to explain it to them. Even if they most likely wouldn’t recognize that she was angry she wasn’t going to California, the slim chance of it was too much for her. She didn’t want to talk about her feelings on this subject.
“I’m going to a party,” Billy informed her. She was surprised he was telling her his own plans, then she remembered that Neil and her mother were going to be gone. “So I’m not driving you anywhere,” he added, as if to clarify the intent of his statement.
“Whatever,” Max said. Her mind was not focused on her plans for later that day. She’d cross that bridge when she came to it.
The clock on the dashboard said 8:37. School started at 8:30. Max imagined her friends all sitting in their desks in Mr. Clarke’s classroom, wondering where she was. She wasn’t usually late, but seven minutes wasn’t that long. By her own mental calculation, however, she was not going to be sliding into her own desk until after 8:50.
“Do you seriously care that much about being late?” Billy said, obviously having seen her looking at the clock. “What, are your friends going to think you’ve been kidnapped?”
Max rolled her eyes exaggeratedly so that Billy would see it in his peripheral vision. “I don’t care about being late,” she said. It was mostly true. If her first class wasn’t with her friends, she wouldn’t care at all. Because it was, it was hard to not care a little. “You’re driving slow on purpose.”
The Camaro’s speed reduced by about five miles per hour. “Am I?” Billy said, a trace of humor in his voice.
Max felt her annoyance growing, transforming itself into low-grade anger. She squeezed the edge of her skateboard tightly with her fingers, trying to subtly release some of her pent-up emotion. Billy was baiting her. He’s not the one preventing you from seeing your dad, she reminded herself, struggling to clearly form the sentence in her head with the thought of Billy purposefully slowing down the car darting around in it. Jesus, it doesn’t even matter if you’re late. Get a grip.
They passed a speed limit sign that said 40. A cursory glance at Billy’s speedometer told Max that the Camaro was going thirty-seven. In her entire life Max didn’t think Billy had ever gone under the speed limit. Normally he went about sixty on this road.
“My mom said we’d be at most twenty minutes late,” Max said evenly.
The speedometer said 35. Max was going to scream.
“Oh my fucking god, just go faster,” Max snapped. She was very good at judging Billy’s moods, and she sensed that he was enjoying himself enough that he wouldn’t react dangerously to her being rude to him.
Sure enough, he laughed. Max squeezed her skateboard tighter. Her fingers physically hurt from the pressure of her own grip, but it was the only thing keeping her from punching something. “Relax, Max,” Billy said, turning the radio up a bit. “Nobody cares how late you are.”
Max didn’t know if he meant her friends or the school. He was wrong either way.
They were coming up to a stop sign. The stop sign was just a couple minutes from school, so at least the excruciating drive wouldn’t last much longer. Typically, Billy ran right through the stop sign, just barely slowing down. Today, he braked and came to a full stop.
A full fucking stop. Jesus. Max closed her eyes, but she gave up on resisting her own anger. Even if it was what Billy wanted, it no longer mattered to her.
She released her grip on her skateboard, letting it fall onto her lap, and swung her hand forward into the dashboard, hitting it with all the force she could manage. It ricocheted backwards, pain surging through every joint in her hand, but the feeling was more relieving than painful. She didn’t make a dent or anything, but the action made a dent in her obsessive thoughts. The moment that she concentrated everything on the movement of her fist, on the pain post-impact, her frustrated faded. Or maybe it didn’t fade but was simply the fuel for the action, used up in the heated moment.
Max held her hand in front of her, shaking it like she could shake away the physical hurt. Her knuckles were now red, but a weird part of her liked that. An even worse part of her wished she could have punched her mother rather than the car.
Unfortunately, though Billy had been goading her into getting angry, he apparently did not find Max hitting his car funny. “What the hell are you doing?” He boomed, slamming on his brakes again. They were in the middle of a street, not at a stop sign or a stop light or anywhere where it would be appropriate to stop the car.
Max rubbed her knuckles with her opposing hand, not daring to look at him. Just like with anything in life, she had acted on impulse and now had to suffer whatever consequences came with that. She didn’t think she regretted it. It wasn’t like she’d punched out the window or something.
“You might be pissed at your own mother or some shit,” Billy said, his voice heavy, “but don’t you ever hit my damn car again or you will regret it. Do you understand me?”
Max would be lying if she said Billy didn’t still scare her a little, but he scared her like doing new tricks on her skateboard scared her. The threat was there, but it wasn’t enough to prevent her from doing what she wanted, and it wasn’t as much of a threat as people who didn’t understand skateboarding thought it was. Billy was vaguely threatening, but not enough to truly control her, and not like people who didn’t understand Billy thought he was. If he’d asked her to apologize, she wouldn’t have. But asking her to not hit his car was kind of reasonable.
“Yes,” she said, staring at her lap. He might think she was saying it because he was intimidating, but she wasn’t really. Her heart rate had slowed considerably since she’d hit the dashboard, and this whole thing now felt vaguely stupid.
Without acknowledging her response, Billy pressed the gas and the car rolled forward again. Though he continued to go far slower than he ordinarily did, Max noted that he was now going a couple miles per hour over the speed limit. Whether it was because he, too, was over his own joke, or because he got that Max was definitely not having a good day, she didn’t know. But by the time they were entering the high school parking lot, the Camaro was going a solid ten over the speed limit.
The instant Billy had parked, Max threw open the passenger side door and dropped her skateboard onto the cement. “You better not be late after school,” Billy said before she could shut the door behind her. “Otherwise you’re skating home, and I’ll tell Neil you told me you didn’t want to come. So you’d better not be late.”
“Who’s the late one,” Max said under her breath, starting to shut the door.
Before she could fully close it, Billy leaned across the middle of the car and used his arm to prevent the door from closing. “What did you say?” He said, making direct eye contact with her.
Max shook her head, fed up with him. “Nothing,” she replied. Without bothering to close the door all the way, she got on her skateboard and kicked off, soaring across the parking lot in the direction of the middle school.
Three minutes later, she was walking into the school office, her skateboard clutched to her chest. Her least favorite part about being late was going to get a late slip. Despite her tardiness being excused, she always felt like the office people were judging her. Most of this came from the office staff at her school back in California rather than here, seeing as she had only been late to Hawkins Middle a couple of times, but the feeling was the same either way.
“Ah, Maxine Mayfield,” the office secretary said, handing her a pre-written late slip. “Have a lovely day.”
Max grabbed the piece of paper and muttered a “you, too” that she wasn’t even positive the secretary had heard before spinning around and heading out of the office. The clock near the entrance to the office said 8:54. Good lord.
As Max had anticipated, her friends all stared at her with wide eyes when she entered Mr. Clarke’s classroom twenty-five minutes late. To be fair, it wasn’t just her friends; every single member of Mr. Clarke’s first period science class stared at her. It was just what happened when you were late.
Mr. Clarke accepted Max’s late slip and told her he was glad she was joining them. He said it genuinely, which made Max grateful that her mother had called the office.
A couple months ago, Max had negotiated with the girl who sat next to Lucas to trade seats, so fortunately her spot was at the front of the classroom. It was far more awkward to be late if you had to maneuver yourself around twenty people’s desks and belongings. She dropped into her seat, trying to be as casual as possible. Mr. Clarke went back to talking about solar noon and the spring solstice, while her friends all tried to simultaneously listen and look at her.
Max watched Lucas quietly tear off a piece of notebook paper and then scribble on it. When Mr. Clarke turned to face the chalkboard, he handed her the note. She opened it on her desk and read: Where were you? You didn’t say you’d be late.
Max was thankful they couldn’t have a verbal conversation right now, because it was much easier to be cryptic in a note. She carefully unzipped the front pouch of her backpack and fumbled around inside until she found a Ticonderoga pencil. Then she flipped over Lucas’s note and wrote on the back: Billy had to do something for my mom b/c she and my stepdad are leaving for the weekend. Mr. Clarke was still writing on the chalkboard, so she tossed the note to Lucas without much effort at slyness.
She expected that Lucas would have too many questions to articulate them in note form, and she was correct. Once he’d raised his eyes from her note, indicating that he’d read it, he looked at her questioningly but didn’t begin writing another response. “Talk later,” he whispered so quietly that she only guessed what he said from reading his lips.
Because she couldn’t exactly say no, she nodded. It was whatever. She didn’t feel like having a lengthy conversation about Neil and her mother and California and Billy with Lucas or her other friends, but none of it was actually a secret. Many times she hid small things from her friends just because the idea of discussing them exhausted her. It was her own fault and her own problem, but that, too, was whatever to her.
She pretended to listen to the second half of Mr. Clarke’s lecture but comprehended approximately nothing from it. Towards the end of class he called on her and asked her when winter began, and she said December first. Apparently the answer was December twenty-first, but she failed to be embarrassed that she’d gotten it wrong.
The bell rang finally. Max had English next, without her friends. As they flooded out into the halls they tried to ask her why she’d been late, but there wasn’t enough time to say much more than what she’d said to Lucas in the note.
Lucas's and Dustin’s math class was closest to Max’s English class, and they walked with her through the halls after Mike and Will said bye. “Where are your mom and your stepdad going?” Lucas asked, lingering at the door of Max’s classroom for a second. Dustin waited with him, looking impatient.
“California,” Max responded, “for a wedding.” Before Lucas could say anything more, she disappeared into the classroom.
The morning classes permitted Max to largely forget about being late. She didn’t have any more classes with her friends, so when the lunch bell rang she wove through the halls alone towards the cafeteria. She bumped into Lucas before she got to their usual table, and slowed her pace to talk with him while they walked.
“So your family’s going to California?” Lucas began, picking up right where he’d left off. “But they’re not taking you with them?”
Lucas was too good at predicting Max’s feelings. From an outsider’s perspective, there wasn’t a real necessity for Max to have been invited along, so she wouldn’t have expected her friends to read that much into the scenario. “Just my mom and stepdad,” Max responded, “not Billy. But no, obviously they’re not.” She didn’t mean it to come out bitchily, but it kind of did.
“Oh,” Lucas said, sounding uncertain. “So what did Billy have to do for your mom?” At this point he was just being conversational, but Max wished he would be conversational about a different topic.
“He had to get the suitcases out of the attic,” she said, reflecting on how her mother had specifically instructed her not to tell anyone this. Unsurprisingly, no school official immediately swooped down on her to confront her mother’s lying.
Lucas nodded. They had reached the lunch table, where the rest of their friends were already seated. Mike and Dustin were engaged in a discussion about something entirely different, so Max pretended to be interested in this rather than her conversation with Lucas.
“What do you think, Max?” Dustin said, turning his head away from Mike to address her. “Do you think Return of the Jedi is better than The Empire Strikes Back?”
Despite Max’s attempts at appearing interested in Mike and Dustin’s conversation, she looked at him distractedly. “What?”
“Do you think Return of the Jedi is better than The Empire Strikes Back?”
Max lifted her backpack onto her lap so she could get her lunch out of it. “Why are you even talking about that?” She said, again sounding bitchier than she wanted to. She was getting sick of her own bad mood.
“It’s just a question,” Dustin said, plainly annoyed at her indifference to the topic. “You don’t have to be rude.”
“I think rude is just in her DNA,” Mike said.
“I think stupid is in your DNA,” Max said back sarcastically. She didn’t really feel bad about being bitchy to Mike. It was just what she did. But even she noticed that the weight behind her words was a little heavier than normal.
She focused her attention on her backpack, because she was struggling to locate her lunch in the mess of everything else in the bag. She dug around more aggressively, slamming her water bottle onto the lunch table. It occurred to her that she might have forgotten to grab her lunch from the kitchen counter before she’d hurried after Billy out the door that morning. She thought about it for a second and realized that she definitely had.
“Shit,” she said, more to herself than to her friends, “I forgot my lunch.”
“Who has stupid in their DNA now?” Mike retorted.
She flipped him off and started to get up from the lunch table. “I’m going to go buy it,” she said. “Carry on discussing Star Wars or whatever.”
Lucas probably would have offered her half his sandwich, but she figured she could use a moment to gather herself. At this point, she was in a bad mood simply because she was in a bad mood. It had little to do with anything else. Once she determined that a day was going to be bad, it was hard for her to come back from that. She was nothing if not stubborn, and she knew this about herself.
The lunch line wasn’t too long as most people had already bought their lunch. Max carried her dollar bills in hand and waited until she was at the lunch counter. The options were a brick-like pizza or a brick-like hamburger, so she asked for two thin slices of the pizza and grabbed a bottle of juice. She loaded both items onto a lunch tray and paid the lunch lady with one of her dollar bills.
As she was heading back to the lunch table, she saw her friends leaning in, looking like they were discussing something more intriguing than Star Wars. She slowed her gait a bit unconsciously, squinting at them as if she might be able to read their lips.
Because she’d slowed down, they didn’t notice her as she got closer to them–close enough to hear them. Lucas’s voice was the loudest, not loud but audible.
“They’re going to a wedding in California,” he was saying. “I think she’s upset she’s not going.”
Max abruptly halted, trying to appear inconspicuous. He was talking about her. About something she had told only him. To his friends. To her friends.
“Did she say she was upset?” Mike asked, his words harder to make out but still decipherable. “I bet that’s why she’s acting so weird.”
“She always acts weird about her family,” Dustin said. “Right? She doesn’t talk about them.”
“Yeah, kind of,” Lucas agreed. At least he had the audacity to sound mildly uncomfortable, but he was still agreeing. Still talking about her.
Before she had time to think critically about her own behavior, she rushed forward, slamming her lunch tray down on the lunch table next to Lucas. All of her friends jumped, looking up at her. If she hadn’t heard their conversation she probably wouldn’t have recognized the guilt on their faces, but because she had she saw that it was there.
“I would’ve thought talking about your friend behind their back was against ‘Party Code’ or some shit,” Max said icily, focusing mainly on Lucas. “Or do you guys just talk about me behind my back all the time?”
None of them responded, including Lucas. He had turned bright red.
“I may not have had a boyfriend before,” she continued, now focusing fully on Lucas, “but I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to talk about their girlfriend’s family behind her back to their friends.”
“He didn’t say anything about your family,” Will said awkwardly. Of course he was the one of all of them to speak up, when he was the only one she hadn’t heard talk about her. “He only said what you already told us.”
Granted, the content of what Lucas had said wasn’t that incriminating. Max didn’t know why she was so angry about it. It wasn’t because of the content as much as the fact that he’d talked about her and her family behind her back at all. She thought about the few things she had told him in confidence about Neil and Billy. Would he repeat those?
No, he wouldn’t repeat those. Max trusted that he wouldn’t. She trusted Lucas. But the way he was looking at her, like a deer in the headlights, felt right. He had to know that he couldn’t talk about her behind her back. She wouldn’t talk about him behind his back.
“What do you think girlfriends do when their boyfriends talk about them behind their back?” Max said, opening her bottle of juice to relieve some of the tension in her hands.
Lucas shrugged, watching her open the juice in lieu of looking at her face. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I didn’t mean it like that, Max, I swear. It’s not really a big deal.”
Max nodded. She knew she wasn’t a good person for saying it, but the idea had struck her and she couldn’t let it go. “I think they break up with them,” she said coldly, setting her bottle of juice back on her lunch tray. “So I’m going to break up with you. I’m dumping your ass. That’ll teach you to talk about me behind my back.”
Lucas’s jaw dropped. So did the rest of her friends’ jaws. Max felt a sick thrill of power run through her at their collective shock.
She stood up, swung her backpack over her shoulders, and lifted her lunch tray. Without another word, she marched away from their table, carrying the tray with her.
Max was able to avoid her friends, including Lucas, for the rest of the day. She realized she had never explicitly told them she couldn’t hang out after school, but figured they’d get the memo considering she had broken up with Lucas.
She’d broken up with Lucas. The thought had buzzed around in her mind for the entire second half of the school day. At first, she had felt totally justified in what she’d done. Lucas had talked about her behind her back, and now he would learn from this mistake by her doing the worst thing she could do to him: break up with him. But as the day wore on, the finality of breaking up began to dawn on her more and more. She didn’t mean it with finality, didn’t actually expect her and Lucas’s relationship to be over, but that was technically what breaking up meant. That was why it was so scary.
Max didn’t want to regret it, because that would be admitting to herself that she was wrong. She was not in the mood to be wrong or to admit that she was wrong, so she repeated a mantra of you don’t regret it, you don’t regret it over and over in her head as she headed out of school at the end of the day.
Remembering what Billy had said about her being late, Max picked up her pace, climbing onto her skateboard the moment she reached the cement outside school. She skated along the path to the high school lot from Hawkins Middle, and a minute later she was stopping in front of Billy’s Camaro.
Billy did not greet Max, but unlocked his car and got in. She went to the passenger side and climbed in. She hadn’t ridden home from school with him in a while, and there was a weird nostalgia in it she didn’t like. It reminded her of her early days in Hawkins, when she had been a loner, and at one point at odds with the Party. Even though she’d be coming home with him regardless of whether or not she’d broken up with Lucas, it was difficult not to connect the loneliness she felt in her chest with what she’d done over lunch. She screwed everything up.
The car ride was not silent, because no car ride with Billy was silent, but it was free of dialogue. The sunlight coming through the windshield blinded Max, so she turned her head to stare out the side window and squinted her eyes to block out some of the sunlight. When Billy turned onto Cherry Lane, she unfastened her seatbelt prematurely and waited for him to come to a stop. She wanted to get the goodbyes to Neil and her mother over with.
Inside the house, there were two fully packed suitcases propped against the living room wall. Neil and Susan were both standing in the living room, obviously waiting for Billy and Max to get home. Susan looked anxious while Neil looked the way he always looked.
“You really took your time coming home, didn’t you?” Neil said somewhat confrontationally when Billy had shut the door behind himself. Max didn’t know what he meant by this; she and Billy were home in nearly record time.
Max didn’t answer Neil, because she never answered Neil. Billy didn’t answer Neil because he likely had no idea what to say.
“Your mother and I are going to be late to the airport if we don’t hurry,” Neil continued, facing Max. “Dare I presume that you have plans tonight?”
Max shrugged noncommittally, because it was usually best not to confirm something either way until she knew what answer Neil wanted to hear. On the one hand, Neil would probably be thrilled to learn she wasn’t spending her Friday night with her group of male friends he knew nothing about but plainly didn’t approve of. On the other hand, Max knew he would raise issue with Billy going out if Max wasn’t.
“She’s hanging out with her friends,” Billy said. Max felt his eyes on her but didn’t look at him. He was clearly judging the scenario in the second possible way, and he was probably right: if anyone was a better observer of their family dynamics than Max, it was Billy.
“Is that correct, Maxine?” Neil pushed, still facing Max.
She nodded. Whether or not Billy was right, the wrong thing to do would be to contradict Billy. She would never call Billy out on lying in front of Neil. She wasn’t crazy, and she wasn’t evil. “Yeah, it’s correct,” she said. Neil preferred English to nodding.
“All right,” Neil said gruffly. “Billy, Maxine is your responsibility this weekend. Don’t forget that. If I hear that you’re partying or drinking instead of watching her, there will be consequences. Do you understand?”
Max watched Billy out of the corner of her eye. His expression was flat as he answered, “Yes, sir.”
Neil gave a curt, abrupt nod to them both and went to get both suitcases. Susan remained where she was.
“You’re going to be all right here alone, aren’t you Max?” Susan asked quietly. She appeared worried, but Max didn’t know why; there was an equal chance of it being about leaving Max and Billy here alone, or it being about leaving Max behind when she wanted to go to California. At least Susan had the decency to seem mildly sorry.
Max shrugged, not wanting to give her mother the satisfaction of a straight answer. Of course she’d be all right alone. She’d be all right even if Billy were leaving, too. It wasn’t that hard to make your own food and sleep in an empty house.
“She’ll be fine, because Billy will make sure she’s fine,” Neil said loudly, pulling the suitcases towards the front door. “There’s no need to worry, Susan.”
Susan’s cheeks flushed red. Max immediately wished she’d done more than shrug at Susan. She didn’t want to be as bad as Neil, making her mother uncomfortable.
Neil opened the front door and started pulling the suitcases through it. “We need to leave now,” he informed all of them, voice still loud. “We’ll miss our flight if we don’t.”
After making it clear that Max and Billy needed to come home to “say goodbye” to them, Neil hadn’t even said goodbye. As much as this annoyed Max, she was glad she didn’t have to hug Neil and pretend to care that he was leaving.
Susan paused, continuing to focus on Max. “I’ll miss you, honey,” she said, reaching her arms out to hug Max. Max hugged her back, just in case the plane’s engine failed and her mother and Neil died. She had read a story like that in the newspaper. Billy didn’t move from his spot next to Max, and though she couldn’t see his face while hugging her mother, Max figured he was judging her.
After Susan withdrew from the hug, she turned to Billy, looking in the direction of his face but definitely not into his eyes. “Have a good weekend, Billy,” she said. The friendliness in her voice was definitely fake, but at least she was trying.
Neil had already left the house to load the suitcases into the car, so Susan headed towards the door. Max watched awkwardly as she waved to Max and Billy, then left through the door like she wasn’t really sure where she was supposed to be.
Billy waited for Susan to clear the last of the porch steps, then shut the front door behind her. Max wasn’t exactly surprised that Neil hadn’t said any kind of goodbye to Billy, but she did think it was a little sad. Billy didn’t look like he cared, but Max figured even if he did (there was no way he did) he wouldn’t show it on his face.
Without a word to Max, Billy marched out of the living room, towards the kitchen, and then down the hall, presumably to his bedroom. She listened for the sound of his bedroom door shutting, then collapsed on the living room sofa. Normally she wouldn’t spend her time in a public space of the house, but Billy was going to be in his room for at least an hour getting ready for whatever party he was going to. And because he was spending the night out, the house was hers for most of the next twelve hours.
The thought would have been more enticing if the reason for it were different. Nearly all of the cool, powerful feeling Max has gleaned from dumping Lucas had faded away now. She reminded herself that whatever she was feeling, Lucas had to be feeling it fifteen or twenty times worse. That was her goal, wasn’t it? Not to make him miserable, but to teach him a lesson.
Was she a bad person? God, was she?
Max reached for the remote, flipping on the TV. It was on the news; Neil had evidently been watching them earlier. It was of no interest to Max, so she sped through the channels until she settled on a channel playing I Love Lucy. The episode was already halfway finished, so she stared at the TV with unfocused eyes, pretending to care about the plot.
In the back of her mind, the image of Lucas wouldn’t fade. It didn’t occur to her to call him, except when it occurred to her that there was no way she would ever call him. The whole point of breaking up with him was for him to realize his mistake and fix it. As much as she wanted him to hurry up and do just that, she couldn’t speed up the process by tampering with it.
If there was one thing she’d learned from her mother, it was how not to be in a relationship. Probably twice a week, Neil did something that would warrant Susan challenging him. She had never challenged him, ever. The idea of Susan dumping Neil and holding power over him was positively laughable, but that was exactly why Max knew what she was doing was the right thing to do. Or, if it wasn’t the right thing, it was the sensical thing. After Lucas won her back, there would be no question as to who had the control in their relationship.
Well, there was no question before. And Max didn’t want to control Lucas like Neil controlled he mother. But there were two roles in any relationship–the one who did the breaking and the one who submitted and apologized–and Max had no intention of being the latter.
The episode of I Love Lucy ended, and another one promptly began. Max sank into a stupor, telling herself she cared about Lucy’s and Ricky’s lives until she became invested enough to zone out of her own life.
“Are you not going to the Wheelers’?”
Billy’s sharp voice made Max jump. She hadn’t heard him come out of his bedroom. She fumbled for the remote to mute the TV, moving like a clock was counting down the seconds she had to do so. She was on her third episode of I Love Lucy, so it had been a little less than an hour since Susan and Neil had left.
“I said, are you not going to the Wheelers’?” Billy repeated, voice even sharper. Max succeeded in finding the remote, and muted the TV.
“No,” she said, like there was nothing weird about this fact. “So?”
“So my dad better not find out that you’re staying here,” Billy said. “What, is there trouble in paradise?”
Max knew she had turned red by the burning sensation in her face. She looked away, hoping Billy wouldn’t notice, or at least wouldn’t comment. “He’s not going to find out,” Max responded. “And none of your business.”
Billy took a step closer to Max. She ran her fingers over the TV remote, refusing to react nervously. Telling Billy something was none of his business was risky, but whatever he did to her today didn’t matter to her. She was more concerned about other things unrelated to him.
“I can’t pretend to care about your stupid friends and your boyfriend,” Billy said, “but if I say something’s my business then it’s my business.”
“Can’t pretend to care?” Max challenged, still not looking fully at him. “You seemed to care a lot a few months ago, and it didn’t end too well for you.”
She didn’t often mention what had gone down between her and Billy with the bat in the Byers’ living room. There was an unspoken understanding between them about the implications of that, and part of that understanding was the fact that it was unspoken. But as time wore on, the implications had seemed to wear off. Billy could use a reminder.
Billy laughed. “I wouldn’t threaten the person who’s in charge of this house for the next four days,” he replied coldly. “And the only person who can drive your ass around Hawkins.”
“I don’t need you to drive me around,” Max said. It was the truth: if Lucas didn’t try to win her back before the weekend was up, she wouldn’t need Billy to drive her anywhere.
Billy took another step forward, but Max realized it wasn’t towards her but instead towards the front door. “Ah, so there is trouble in paradise,” he said lazily. He placed his hand on the doorknob, but then spun around abruptly to make direct eye contact with Max. “If whatever trouble you’re having ends and you decide to go hang out with your friends, you’d better be home before I am.”
Max wasn’t sure if it made any difference to Billy when she got home, or if he was just taking advantage of being in charge. She failed to be frustrated by such a restriction placed on a potentially nonexistent version of her future self, so she just shrugged. “Okay, sure.”
Billy began to unlock the front door, and Max glanced at the living room clock. It wasn’t even five o’clock yet. “Where are you going so early?” She asked, curious.
Billy squinted at her, like he was on the fence about giving her any information about his personal life, but said, “Tina asked for help getting the drinks. I have a way with the liquor store. And Tina.”
Max immediately recognized the only reason that Billy would be interested in helping Tina, and made a face at him. “Gross,” she said. She rarely inquired about Billy’s personal life for this reason.
“You asked,” Billy responded, sounding vaguely amused. He opened the front door and swung his car keys in his hand just so they would make noise. “Don’t wait up.”
Max watched as he exited the house, pulling the door closed behind him. She heard him lock the door with his house keys, and then the sounds of his footsteps going down the porch steps until it was silent. The silence was broken by the noise of the Camaro zooming off down the street, but then returned soon after. Max unmuted the TV, which was still playing I Love Lucy, and settled back. She was in for a long, boring night.
Only a few minutes later, Max heard a car coming up the street. Cherry Lane was not particularly busy, so the sound caught her interest for a split second. She would have tuned it out in favor of continuing to focus on I Love Lucy, but she noticed that the car was slowing down in front of the house.
Had Billy forgotten something? Max had never known him to leave and then come back. He wasn’t really the type of person to forget something and come back for it. Anyway, the car couldn’t be Billy, for the simple reason that she knew when the Camaro was coming up the street. It was not the Camaro.
Interest piqued, Max hopped up from the sofa. She accidentally banged her foot on the coffee table, cursed in pain, and hopped to the front window. The curtains were drawn as usual, but she pulled one of the drapes slightly to the side and peeked through it as inconspicuously as possible.
Neil’s car was parked in front of the house.
Max’s heart started beating before she really processed what this meant. The sheer presence of Neil when she was not prepared for it was disarming. A moment later, the real issue occurred to her: Billy had left and she had not. If Neil found out that Max was not actually going out and Billy was going to a party, he would be pissed. Like, violent pissed.
Not that Billy was here to be his punching bag. He didn’t typically view Max as a suitable alternative, but in this case…well, it didn’t matter. To Max, both possibilities were equally alarming.
She couldn’t be here.
Max lingered at the window for a second longer, just long enough to see the driver’s side door of Neil’s car open, Neil stepping out. She let go of the curtain she was holding and backed quickly away from the window, mind whirring. As stressed as she was, years of being in this family had taught her how to handle treacherous situations. She couldn’t be here, so she wouldn’t be.
As Max scurried through the house, from the living room all the way to her bedroom, she spotted the most likely cause of Neil’s and her mother’s return: Susan’s purse sat in the middle of the kitchen table. Marveling that neither Neil nor her mother had realized it was missing sooner, Max continued to her bedroom, shutting the door very quietly behind her.
Just seconds after Max had shut her door, she heard the front door swing open. Was it too much to think that Neil would just grab her mother’s purse and leave again? Max didn’t know when their flight was, but Neil had made it seem like they were at risk of being late a full hour ago. But Neil was obsessed with punctuality, meaning he and Susan were probably only now at true risk of being late.
Max heard Neil’s heavy footsteps carry into the kitchen. He was getting the purse. No big deal.
Her heart was beating like a Demodog was in the house and she was praying it didn’t discover her. Neil’s footsteps had stopped, which was a good sign.
Then Max heard laughter. It wasn’t loud, but it was audible. A laugh track. I Love Lucy. She’d left it on. She was screwed.
Max scanned her room frantically, like a portal to hide in might magically appear. But there was only one portal in her room, and it was her window. She probably had about ten seconds to disappear through it.
She scrambled forward, tugging on the base of the window with all her might. Normally she would deliberate for a moment before jumping directly out of the window, but today she had no time. She swung both legs out of the window in quick succession, then pulled the window back down so Neil wouldn’t see that it was open in the middle of February. Without waiting to see her bedroom door burst open, she dropped onto the ground and took off running along the side of the house.
Max’s heart was now beating from running as well as anxiety. She leaned against the side of the house, breathing hard through her nose. From where she was, she couldn’t hear anything taking place inside or in front of her house. All she could do was wait.
Because she didn’t have a watch, Max didn’t know how much time passed between when she’d escaped through her window and when she decided to check if Neil was gone. She killed the time by picking pieces of wet, dying grass from the ground and tying them in knots. When her fingers started to go numb from the cold, she took a deep breath and walked back to her window.
If Neil were savvy and had unlimited time on his hands, he could have stood at her window and awaited her return. Fortunately, he wasn’t, didn’t, and hadn’t. Max lifted herself onto the structure below her window and peered inside. Sure enough, her bedroom door was visibly cracked open–Neil had checked to see if she was there. A strange part of her was glad he had, because it meant her rash escape had been a wise choice.
Before reentering her bedroom, Max wanted to make sure Neil and her mother were totally gone. She jumped back onto the ground and approached the corner of the house, where she could see the front. She flattened herself against the siding and inched her head around the corner just enough to get a full view of the front yard and the street. Neil’s car was nowhere in sight.
Max sighed with relief. In addition to relief, pride filled her. She felt like an escape artist. She wished she could share her own skill at evading Neil with someone, but she doubted that she should tell Billy about this. He would probably focus more on his dad’s coming back than on anything she’d done about it, and knowing that his dad had come so close to catching him breaking a rule would only affect him negatively. Alas, she would be the only one to know about this.
Mentally indulging her own pride by replaying her escape in her mind, Max headed back to her bedroom window. Kneeling in front of it, she went to hook her fingers under the gap she’d left to get back in.
She had left no gap.
In the rush to get out of her room, she’d fully shut the window behind her. She remembered doing it, now that she was confronted with it. She could still feel the sensation of her hands guiding the base of the window all the way to the windowsill.
She couldn’t get back in.
Shit.
If she hadn’t panicked about Neil coming home just some minutes earlier, she might have lost her cool completely. As it was, she simply stared at the window, part of her screaming inwardly while the rest of her quickly resigned itself to her fate. She was not going to be reentering the house until Billy got home.
It could have been worse. She could have not been wearing shoes. There could have been actual Demodogs on the loose in Hawkins. She could have had to pee.
It could have also been a lot better. It could have been summer, not February. She could have been wearing a proper coat instead of a thin hoodie. And she could have been on speaking terms with the Party.
Seriously, where was she supposed to go? Already halfway to the front of the house, she started considering her various options for destinations. After all, she couldn’t very well sit on the front porch for the next eight to ten hours. The neighbors would talk. She didn’t have a single penny on her, so that ruled out the arcade. And she had broken up with Lucas, so that ruled out the most obvious solution: going to the Wheelers’ or the Sinclairs’.
Not for the first or even the fifth time in her life, Max was glad that she had left her skateboard outside the house. It was on the front porch. She climbed up the steps two at a time, first halfheartedly trying to open the front door. It was locked, because of course it was. She scooped up her skateboard and abandoned any hope of getting into the house before Billy came home.
Max took off skating down the street before selecting her destination. The act of skating tended to clear her mind, and she had narrowed down her options by the time she reached the end of Cherry Lane: 1) go hang out with the Party and extend an olive branch to Lucas before he extended it to her, 2) stay outside all night and pray the temperature didn’t dip below freezing and kill her, or 3) go to some heated public place.
The first option was off the table before it was ever on the table. She wasn’t going to forgive Lucas just because she needed him. That was even weaker than going back on her breakup because she missed him.
The second option was the stupidest option, and Max felt she was above such stupidity. She wasn’t Steve. Even Steve wouldn’t allow himself to freeze to death to avoid social embarrassment. Okay, he might. But, again, she wasn’t Steve.
The third option was therefore the best option. The only free heated public place Max knew of was the Hawkins Public Library, so that’s where she was off to. At the crossroads with Cherry Lane, she turned left.
There was something oddly relaxing about the Hawkins Public Library. Well, the something wasn’t really a mystery: it was the fact that there was virtually nobody there. Max had found a reasonably short novel on the “Popular Reads of February” shelf and settled herself at a table in a corner of the large one room library. The librarian had looked at her curiously when she entered with her skateboard under her arm and no coat, but she hadn’t asked any specific questions.
The only really unfortunate thing about the library was that it closed at eight. Max had seen the hours sign when she came in, but she’d hoped it was a sort of soft rule. She glanced at the clock every now and then, keeping track of the time.
It was 8:03 now. The fact that Max hadn’t yet been kicked out of the library seemed like a good sign. She stopped watching the clock and started sneaking glances at the librarian, who appeared to be lost in a book of her own. She’d probably forgotten Max was in the library. How long did librarians read? That was a stupid question.
This librarian apparently read until eight-fourteen. That was the time on the clock when she set her book down on her desk with a hard thud, switched off her reading lamp, and scanned the library with her eyes. About halfway through her library scan, she made direct eye contact with Max.
Max got up from the table without being told, closing her book without marking her spot. She left it on the table, suddenly vaguely self-conscious at the gaze of the librarian.
“The library’s closed now,” the librarian said loudly, her voice carrying easily from the middle of the library to where Max stood.
Max lifted her skateboard off the floor and walked briskly to the middle of the library so that she was standing in front of the librarian. “I know,” she said. “Thank you.”
The librarian raised her eyebrows at Max. The expression of curiosity she had bestowed upon Max earlier was now ten times stronger. “Do your parents know you’re at the library so late?”
Max forced her mouth to curve upwards into a smile. She’d liked the librarian better when she wasn’t asking questions, but any time she spent conversing was time she didn’t have to kill elsewhere. “You know how parents are,” Max responded innocently. “Growing my knowledge is…very important to them.”
The librarian nodded. “It’s good to see kids still interested in books,” she said, making herself sound older than Max guessed she really was. “But unfortunately the library has to close now. We’ll be open again tomorrow morning.”
Max was probably going to sleep until noon tomorrow. She didn’t say this. “Have a good night,” she said. Before the librarian could make it any more clear that she was no longer welcome, she spun around in place and headed out the door of the library.
So now she was back to her first and second options. She either submitted herself to Lucas or she froze to death out here.
She would freeze to death.
Well, hopefully she wouldn’t actually freeze to death. The air was crisp, quickly numbing Max’s fingers and chilling her face. But it wasn’t freezing. As long as she survived, she’d survive.
Not wanting the librarian to come out of the library and find her sitting outside like a stray puppy, Max took off skateboarding again. She was in downtown Hawkins, not too far from the Palace Arcade. She’d shut down the arcade as an option earlier because she had no money, but its warmth was very tempting as her skateboard transported her closer and closer to it.
Pretty soon, Max was rolling into the parking lot. She stopped near the entrance, figuring she might as well double-check her pockets for any spare change. A few people milled about, smoking cigarettes. Max ignored them; the arcade at night was her scene as much as anyone else’s. When she determined that she had absolutely no money, she kicked her skateboard up into her hand and started for the door anyway. Only when her hand was fully closed around the door handle did she notice something she hadn’t before.
Bikes. Her friends’ bikes, to be specific. They were parked in front of the arcade in their usual spot, which could only mean one thing: her friends were inside. There went that plan.
Max began backing away from the entrance, disappointment racking through her. She was annoyed at her friends for being here. Though she tried to tell herself it was because she’d wanted to go in the arcade, deep down she knew it wasn’t. It was because they were having fun without her. She had dumped Lucas and he was having fun without her rather than trying to win her back.
Frustrated, she dropped her skateboard hard onto the ground, oddly satisfied at the noise it made. It wasn’t enough. She climbed onto it and kicked the ground as hard as she could, instantly whizzing across the cement of the parking lot. The feeling of truly kicking the ground relieved a tension within her, so she did it again, striking the cement with the full force of her sneaker. Again, she whizzed forward. She was achieving the dual purpose of getting away from her friends and relieving her frustration, so she kicked the ground a third time.
At least, she intended to kick the ground a third time. In her haste, she didn’t swing her foot out as widely as before. Instead of striking the cement, she struck the back of her skateboard behind her other foot. The weight of the kick pushed the bottom of the board into the ground, and sent her hurling downwards.
She squeezed her eyes shut as she saw the grey of the cement hurtling towards her. She reached her hands out instinctively, one of them closing wildly over the skateboard itself. She gripped it, the other hand reaching downward to find the cement before her face did.
Her face did not find the cement, but it found her skateboard. The hand holding onto the skateboard pulled it backwards, rolling it in front of her face as she came down. Her head banged into the board. Most of it was a flat, clean hit, but her nose smashed into the edge of the skateboard.
Pain shot through her entire nose at the impact, so intense she almost cried out. She jerked her head backwards as her knees and hands steadied her on the ground. She could already feel blood coming out of her nose. It was pouring from both nostrils, dripping onto her chin before she could reach her hand up to wipe it away.
Max turned herself around so that she was sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the concrete, and wiped at her face with the back of her right hand. She was so far to the edge of the arcade’s parking lot that the lights from the arcade barely gave her any light at all, but the arcade’s light combined with the glow from a street light across the street permitted her to confirm that it was definitely blood covering her face.
As a skateboarder, Max was no stranger to injury. She had fallen so many times that there wasn’t a place on her legs or forearms that hadn’t been bruised at one point or another. She had scraped both her knees on the sidewalk in the same day, and split open her chin on the curb. But she had never gotten a bloody nose from skateboarding before.
It wasn’t that a bloody nose in itself was a big deal to Max. It was more the fact that she was sitting in the corner of the Palace Arcade parking lot with blood streaming from her nose, hiding from her friends and locked out of her house. She was cold, covered in blood, and out of ideas.
A weaker Max would get up, go inside the arcade, and apologize to Lucas for breaking up with him. A smarter Max would do that, despite the shame of the inevitable pity towards her bloody nose.
Apparently, she was neither of those. There was no way she was facing her friends like this. The whole point of breaking up with Lucas was being the Alpha. An Alpha, whatever that was, solved her own problems. The strongest thing to do in her predicament might have been to stay outside and kill time fifteen minutes ago, but her bloodiness had expedited the urgency of her situation.
It wasn’t like there wasn’t someone in Hawkins who had a key to the house. Billy did. And she knew where Billy was.
She would never have predicted that she’d attend her first high school party in the eighth grade while covered in her own blood.