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“Shit!” Max mumbled, sitting down on her bed, pulling the winter boot off her foot and inspecting it. Yep, she’d felt right. The bottom of the shoe was coming off nearly halfway, and when she felt the inside of the boot with her hand there was definitely a big hole there. Max groaned in annoyance, looking out the window and at the snowfall Hawkins had woken up to. It was a Saturday morning and she was just about to leave to go to the arcade, having planned on spending the whole day surrounded by distractingly loud cheery jingles and 8-bit characters. But now with a hole in her shoe, she wasn’t really looking forward to the trip down to the Palace. She looked down at the beat-up pair of boots, the brown material was all worn out and bleached with salt stains and the shoestrings had a couple knots in them from where they’d snapped and she’d tied them back together. Max had figured they’d still last through this winter, but apparently the shoes had other plans. And really bad timing.
Max sighed, getting up from the bed and walking out of her room. She could hear the radio from the kitchen, playing an oldie station and she figured her mom was in there, not hurrying with breakfast since it was her rare day off. Ever since Neil left town and all the shit happened with the move and all, Mom had had to get a second job, weighting tables at night after her secretary job, and Max knew that she was having a rough time with it. Max also knew that even if her mom was trying to not talk about it, their money situation wasn’t getting any better, despite the second job and the crappier house. So she really didn’t want to bother her mom even more by asking for new winter boots.
Back when they had moved into the new house a month or so ago, her mom had tried to make her feel better about it, giving her money for new cassettes and arcade trips, and saying how she could decorate her new room just like she wanted and pick a color she wanted to paint the boring beige walls. Feeling optimistic and wanting to embrace the fresh start, Max had started to plan it, debating if she should paint the walls seafoam green or coral red or dark blue, but when they went to a hardware store to get stuff to fix the bathroom sink and she’d mentioned getting paint, her mom had abruptly steered her away to another topic. She didn’t have to say it, Max still knew they couldn’t prioritize spending money on it right now. The beige would have to do.
Taking a deep breath in preparation, hoping that the news of her needing new shoes wouldn’t stress out her mom too much, Max walked into the kitchen. She’d been right, her mom was sitting at the kitchen table, her favorite long fluffy robe on, humming along to a song on the radio as she looked over a scattering of papers on the table, holding a big cup of coffee. She looked up as Max walked in, her usual smile rising onto her face; kind, but a little strained.
“Hi, hon!”
“So, what plans do you have for today?” she asked, curious but not really in a nosey way.
“I umm, was planning on going to the arcade,” Max replied, walking over to the table and taking a seat opposite her mom, who nodded, taking a sip of coffee.
“What’s all this?” Max couldn’t help but ask, nodding over at the papers on the table. Mom hummed, swallowing her coffee and setting down the cup.
“Oh I’m just taking a look at all the bills and such for the month to see how everything’s going,” she explained.
“And… how is it going?” Max asked tentatively, already gritting her teeth a bit. This was so not a good time to bring up the need for new shoes. Mom shrugged, picking up one of the bills.
“Well, the heating bill wasn’t as bad as I had feared, so that’s something,” she started, trying to find a bright side. But Max could sense there was a “but” coming.
“But with all the moving costs, living here isn’t as affordable as I had expected.”
Max nodded, looking down at the boots she was holding in her lap, the knotted shoelaces, the salt bleached material, the front of the sole that was hanging loose. Maybe she’d just say nothing, she could grit her teeth and wear them for a couple more months.
But it was like her mom could tell what she was thinking about, as she spoke up:
“What do you have over there?”
Max sighed, figuring she just needed to tell her.
“It’s uh, my snow boots,” she explained, raising them up in her hands for Mom to see.
“I was going to wear them today, but umm…” She grabbed the loose side of the sole, showing it. Mom’s face fell a bit and she sighed, going to pick up a notepad from the table.
“So we need to get you some new ones then,” she said, going to write it down.
“No, it’s fine, I’m sure I can use them until the winter is over. I could just glue them or something”, Max hurried to say but her mom shook her head.
“No, they’re saying we'll be getting even more snow for the end of the month, you need proper boots. I was thinking of driving over to that good thrift shop over in Plymouth next weekend, we can look for some there,” Mom explained, continuing to write things down. Even though she was saying it was fine and being all practical about it, Max could hear the mounting stress in her words. And she was so mad at herself. Why had she even brought this up? She could survive with boring beige walls, and she would survive with a broken shoe too. Things were hard enough on her mom without her constantly needing stuff. Even for today’s arcade trip she only had the quarters she’d found on the ground and in between couch cushions. She didn’t want to ask for any from her mom.
“Seriously, Mom. I can just wear these a bit longer, I don’t need new ones,” Max repeated.
“Maxine,” her mom said, looking up from her writing and right at her with finality in her words. End of discussion. Max couldn’t help but notice the prominent dark circles under her eyes. She couldn’t usually see them that well, since her mom always wore makeup for the days she had work: a full look of rosy blush, colorful eyeshadow, and bright lipstick. Even now when things were kind of falling apart, she was still waking up early each morning to get herself ready to face the world, looking impeccably dressed and styled each time she walked out the door. Maybe it was for the same reason why she was being so adamant about getting Max the new shoes – she needed to give out the impression to everyone in town that they were still doing fine. Max bit the inside of her lip, feeling a bit guilty, thinking back to the old sweatshirt she’d worn to school three days in a row that past week.
Interrupting Max’s train of thought, mom continued: “We’ll get you new boots next week. I’ll have my next paycheck by then, it’ll be fine.”
“But for your arcade trip today you might have to still wear those, or maybe some rain boots,” she added, looking out the window at the snow outside, clearly thinking.
“I have those rain boots I got for that trip your dad and I took to Washington years ago, they should fit you fine. They’re in the hall closet if you want to try them on?”
“Okay, I’ll go get them,” Max said, getting up and walking out of the kitchen. She tried not to pay too much attention to mom’s casual mentioning of her dad, who she hadn’t spoken to in months, and who she wasn’t quite sure even knew about their move. Did he even have their new phone number? Trying not to think about it too much, Max opened the door to the closet at the end of the hallway. The floor of the closet was filled with still unpacked boxes labeled “shoes” and she picked up the first one to start her search.
“Are you just going by yourself today? Or are your friends going too?” Mom called out a question from the kitchen, her tone a bit more conversational now. Since she had been working so much lately, they hadn’t had a lot of time to talk about their daily lives, so Max figured she was taking the chance to ask now.
“Just going by myself,” she replied, rummaging through the box, mostly seeing flip flops and sandals. Not ideal for the snow.
“You’re not going with Lucas?” Mom asked from the kitchen and Max sighed quietly. Her and her mom hadn’t technically had a proper talk where she told her Lucas and her were dating, but she wasn’t dumb, and she’d probably figured it out by now. Especially since ever since Neil left and the move happened, she knew Lucas had been over a bit more, even if she had not been home for most of those times. Max still hated talking to her about it. It was so awkward.
“No. Just by myself,” she repeated, closing the sandal box and moving onto the box next to it. Upon first look it seemed more promising, having a pair of her mom’s heeled boots right on top of the pile.
“I saw him in the paper the other day,” Mom said after a moment and Max’s hands stilled where they were pulling an old pair of blue rain boots from the bottom of the box.
“I didn’t know he was on the school basketball team!”
Max knew the paper she was talking about. The Tigers were heading into the playoffs for the first time in years and that had been first page news in the Hawkins Post, along with a picture taken at a game, where Lucas could be seen running in the background. It was blurry, but you could still see it was definitely him, as he had pointed out the day the paper had come out and he’d showed it off to all of them at lunch.
“Yeah he is,” Max simply said. Because what else was there to say about it really? Ever since the disaster of the party at Jason’s house, even thinking about the basketball team made a whirl of anxiety form in the pit of her stomach.
“Well how nice, and he’s on a winning team at that! You must be so excited!”
Max didn’t say anything as she shoved the boxes back into the closet and went to pull the rain boots on. It was exciting. Lucas was excited, the whole school was excited, the whole town was excited, evident by it being front page news. And she tried to be too, she really did, but it all just felt so… useless. After everything they had gone through, hell, what the whole town had gone through, why did some stupid little regional championship game even matter? And yeah, she knew she should try to care about it because it was a big deal to Lucas, and no, she would never admit to him that she didn’t care about it one bit. But it didn’t help how uninterested she really felt. And that made her feel like shit.
That wasn’t anything rare these days though, since she was finding herself feeling some level of angry, frustrated or mad on most days. She tried to keep it in check, but it just kept coming up. Even if there wasn’t really a reason for it, it could strike at the smallest inconvenience, being aimed at someone accidentally bumping into her in the school hallway, or the batteries that wouldn’t seem to fit into her Walkman no matter how hard she jammed them in, or the cold wind clinging to her as she biked to school. But most of the time, she could feel the anger pointing its aim right at her. How she couldn’t do a better job pretending to be excited about basketball for Lucas’s sake, how she couldn’t keep up with her schoolwork, how she would find herself getting annoyed at her friends over some small pointless thing that didn’t even matter. She wanted to stop feeling angry, she just didn’t know how.
Mom continued the conversation even without any reply from Max:
“Oh I remember going out with a guy on the football team back when I was in school.”
“I was a Sophomore, he was a Senior, I thought I was the luckiest girl in the whole world, getting to cheer for him at the Friday night games,” she mused, letting out a light laugh, clearly on memory lane.
“Mom, I keep telling you, I’m not going to try out for the cheer squad,” Max pointed out, tired of her mom bringing up her perfect all-American high school experience in an idyllic beachfront California town back in the sixties.
“Oh I know, I know,” she waved it off with a laugh. “Just reminiscing.”
“But it seems like Lucas is doing really well in high school, good for him,” she continued, sounding like she wanted to make sure to come off as supportive. But Max couldn’t really focus on that right now, a wave of annoyance rising within her once again, like white noise buzzing in her ears.
“Yeah,” she replied, finished pulling on the clunky rain boots.
“I’m gonna head out, I’ll be back for dinner,” she added quickly, zipping up her coat and then she was out the door, faintly hearing her mom wish her to “have a nice day” before the front door swung closed after her. Max shuddered against the cold air, stomping down the stairs and picking up her bike, brushing snow off the seat and handlebars. She jumped on and started to bike down the snowy street, trying to not think too hard about what her mom had just said, but it kept playing over and over in her brain.
Good for him. It sure was.
By the time that she pulled into the slush-filled parking lot in front of the Palace arcade, Max’s fingers were numb from the cold and her hair was sticking to the back of her neck, wet from the effort of biking through the snow as well as from the snow itself. She jumped off the bike, brushing snowflakes off her face and clothes as she headed for the bike racks, ready to get inside to the warmth and distracting sounds and colors of the arcade. She always felt better there, the bright blips and dings and catchy tunes and the colorful 8-bit characters were always a great distraction to whatever it was that was going on in her life. Unlike divorce, or moving across country, unlike death and guilt and the supernatural, the games in the arcade had clear rules, simple directions you moved in, and once you learned the right moves, you could rule the game. If only the rest of the world was as simple as that.
“Oh, hey Max!”
Max quickly turned towards the voice, having just started to lift up her bike into the rack. Well shit.
“Hi,” was her short reply to Mike, who was walking towards her from the doors of Family Video, zipping up his coat against the snow.
“What are you doing?” he asked, reaching her, and although his tone was casual, it still managed to grind her gears. Don’t get her wrong, her and Mike got along fine now, it was just that she hadn’t planned on seeing any of her friends today. So of course Mike was here right now.
“Minding my own business,” she replied dryly, finished setting her bike onto the rack, brushing her wet palms onto the fabric of her coat as she continued:
“It’s pretty great, you should try it sometime.”
“Funny,” Mike replied, just as dryly, digging out a beanie from somewhere, putting it on. Jesus, his hair was getting long. Someone should’ve gotten him a pair of scissors for Christmas.
“You going to the arcade?” he asked, turning back to look at her. Max just nodded, crossing her arms across her chest. Mike echoed her nod, then lifted up his hand, showing a plastic bag with the Family Video logo on it.
“My mom’s at the dry cleaners down the street so I just ran in to rent Rocky IV. It just came out on video like yesterday so Dustin had Steve set it aside for us. Him and Lucas are coming over later to watch it,” he explained. Max nodded along, trying her best to act like this was brand new information to her. Like she hadn't heard about the plan about the movie night, like Lucas hadn't told her all about it yesterday when he'd managed to catch her on the way to class and asked her if she wanted to come watch the movie with them. When she'd lied and told him that she was going to be busy today.
“If you want you can come over too?” Mike asked. Max figured he probably wouldn’t be too surprised to hear her say no, given that she hadn’t hung out with all of the guys in a while. He had probably just asked to be polite, knowing she’d most likely say no.
"Thanks, but I have stuff I need to do today with my mom," she told him. She quickly added, seeing his unconvinced expression, glancing back at the arcade behind her:
"After this, I mean."
“Okay then,” he said and Max hoped he bought her excuse. She really hoped Lucas hadn’t mentioned their conversation to him. He probably hadn’t since he’d been busy with practice and an away game after school yesterday. And in any case, her turning down his invitation to hang out wasn’t exactly anything new or worth mentioning. It happened all the time these days.
The two of them stood in silence for a moment, the snow still falling, people rushing in and out of cars around them on the parking lot, lifting up their arms to guard their faces from the snowfall long enough to get inside the arcade and the video store. Finally Mike said, looking behind him at the direction of the dry cleaners that was down the street:
“Well, I guess I need to get going so my mom doesn’t make me walk back.”
“Yeah, probably,” Max replied, starting to take a step back and towards the arcade doors.
“Oh, by the way, Lucas said he wanted to talk to you about something,” he added, also starting to walk away too. Max felt herself freeze up. Oh no.
“About what?” she asked, trying to sound casual and not like she was freaking out, like her brain wasn’t currently reeling with all the possible things he would want to talk to her about.
“Something about a History project I think? I don’t really know, he just mentioned it at lunch yesterday, figured I’d mention it. You should call him when you’re not busy,” he explained.
“Okay, will do,” Max replied, starting to turn away, relieved that it wasn’t anything serious. She was just about to head inside and say bye to Mike, when she stopped with a realization.
“Hey, can I ask you a favor?” she asked Mike, turning back to face him, having to raise her voice a bit since he’d already started to walk away too.
“What is it?”
Max bit her lips together, trying to think of a way to word this. But she figured she should just be blunt about it.
“Could you not mention to him that you saw me today?”
“Um, I guess?” Mike replied, seeming confused, his brow knit.
“I really am busy today, I’m just here for a bit. So you know I don’t want him to think–” Max tried to explain, hoping Mike got what she meant. How embarrassing it would be for her if he found out she’d told him she was too busy to hang out with him, only to be seen at the arcade.
“Got it. I won’t mention it, if you’ll remember to call him,” Mike offered and Max nodded along, relieved.
“I’ll call him,” she assured him and with some final “see you on Monday”s, he turned away. And then she finally walked into the arcade, trying to focus on the bright colors and cheery sounds instead of how she already knew in the back of her mind that she probably wouldn’t make that call.
She only ended up managing to stay at the arcade for an hour before heading back out. There was only so much the flashy animations and cheery jingles could distract her from the growing sense of annoyance and guilt seeing Mike had caused, reminding her of the movie night and her lie. On top of the conversation she’d already had with her mom, she didn’t need all this. She was already feeling guilty about needing to ask her mom for new shoes when she was clearly struggling with the bills, so no, she didn’t want to add onto that by also feeling guilty about telling Lucas that white lie just because she needed a day to just be by herself. So thanks a lot Mike for ruining it.
The annoyance kept on growing with every push of a pedal of her bike as she headed back home along the snowy streets, and she tried to come up with anything else to think about. And at that, her mom’s words from earlier flooded her mind again. “It seems like Lucas is doing really well in high school, good for him.”
Max screw her eyes shut briefly, trying to ignore the thought, but it was no use. The words kept on looping around in her brain, bringing with them all her thoughts and feelings about the whole thing. Because her mom was right. High school really was treating Lucas well. He had really sort of reinvented himself, finally getting on the good side of the popular crowd after years of bullying he’d had to go through. Good for him . He always looked so happy and proud when he walked into school after a won game, brimming with excitement, wanting to tell them all about it. Good for him. Ever since that disaster of the party at Jason’s he’d assured her that she wouldn’t have to go to one of those again, and she could just say if she didn’t want him to go either. Good. But she told him that he didn’t have to worry about her, that of course he should go to the parties with his teammates if he wanted to.
Good. When she still went to the home games sometimes, he’d wave at her during warmups and look over at her with a dopey proud grin after he scored a point. Too good. She had stopped going to the games. She didn’t want her reputation as the weird girl who probably had something to do with the Starcourt explosion, but was lying about it, to affect his place in the team and in the eyes of his teammates. Too good. He’d said that he didn’t care about what they thought, but of course he did. Max knew how much it meant to him, finally being recognized by the popular kids after years of them calling him names. She knew how badly he wanted to belong, to feel like an equal member of the team. She wouldn’t mess things up for him. Too good for her . But even after she made a scene at the party, embarrassing him in front of the whole team, he still wanted to hang out with her, like he didn’t even mind. Too good for her . He’d invite her to do stuff and when she would say that she was too tired to go out (which was most of the time these days), he’d instead show up at her house after practice, all covered in snow and out of breath after the long bike ride but still smiling, jogging up the steps, holding a new comic, or a video tape or a cassette to lend her. And they’d watch movies on the couch or do homework in her room, or just lay around reading comics and listening to music. Too good for her. And she’d catch him looking over at her with that soft look of his, and say something sarcastic to deflect, to snap him out of it. Because seeing him look at her like that, it made a pit of dread open up in her stomach. Not because she didn’t like it. Because she really did. But because she knew that one day he’d wake up and finally realize that she wasn’t worth that look. Because she’d come to a realization that had been a long time coming.
She wasn't good enough for him .
Because he was good, and kind, and funny, and crazy smart. He was from Maple Street, and he was popular, and quickly on his way towards a basketball championship trophy. And she wasn’t any of those things. She wasn't good enough for him . She wasn’t like her mom had been in high school; an outgoing and happy popular cheerleader, cheering for her boyfriend on the sidelines every Friday night. She was lonely, and anxious, and angry all the time, and her mind was all messed up, and she lived in a trailer park, and everyone at school looked at her with pity and morbid curiosity as she walked past. And that was if they looked at her at all. She wasn’t someone somebody like Lucas was supposed to be with. She wasn't good enough for him . He should be with someone who would go to his games and to the parties, someone who could hang out with his teammates without wanting the earth to swallow her whole. Someone who was fun, and pretty, and outgoing. Someone who could spend all her energy on him, not having so much of her energy used up by all the shit she had to drag around every day. Someone who was better than her at pretending she fit in with the popular jock crowd, or better yet, didn’t have to pretend at all.
She wasn't good enough for him. And any day now he'd realize it and break up with her. And Max was holding her breath, preparing herself for it, sure he'd do it anytime they hung out together, anytime he called her. But he still hadn't. Not after she’d moved to a trailer park, or embarrassed him at Jason’s party, or sometimes gone weeks ignoring him and not picking up his calls. And Max should’ve felt relieved by that but honestly she was just starting to get increasingly annoyed. Because she couldn't keep this up much longer. She felt like any time they hung out she was going to finally snap, yelling at him, asking him if he was aware that he was making a huge mistake, still letting her tag along. She wasn't good enough for him. So she'd started avoiding his calls more, coming up with excuses as to why she couldn't hang out, avoiding him at school. But then when they would spend time together, he wouldn't mention it, acting like everything was good. And it was starting to drive her insane. She wasn't good enough for him. He'd told her that she could tell him everything, but how could she, when she knew the crushing weight of everything that was going on in her mind, getting heavier and heavier every day. She knew how it felt – she wouldn't push that burden onto him. He didn't deserve it. He was already busy and stressed enough with the upcoming playoffs, and he’d gone through all this even more times than she had, he had plenty of trauma and shit to deal with on his own without her piling even more on. He didn’t deserve it because it was him. Lucas. And he was good. And she would not drag him down to sink with her.
Max stopped with a screech of the breaks, guiding her bike to the side of the road and planting her feet onto the ground on either side of it. She tried to catch her breath, not sure if her quick ragged intakes of air were from the effort of guiding her bike through the slushy streets, or from the welling up of her frantic, racing thoughts. She pushed out a big, frustrated breath of air, tilting her head back, looking up at the gray sky, the snowflakes hitting her face.
She had tried to use the new year and the new house as a chance to get her life back together, to start over and forget the past and move on with her life, just like Lucas seemed to be doing. But she’d failed. And she was mad at herself for not being able to get her shit together. And she was also jealous at Lucas for how easily he seemed to be moving on, school and basketball being a breeze for him. It was like to him, last summer never even happened, all his focus was on normal everyday things like school and his games. Well good for him . But all that annoyance and jealousy just made her feel even worse. She hated herself for feeling that way, it wasn't like Lucas had done anything wrong, or was annoying her on purpose. It was all on her for letting herself get mad and jealous instead of just following his lead and moving forward too. But she just couldn't, no matter how hard she tried. And even though she was jealous, the last thing she wanted was to ruin all the good Lucas had going for him. Which was then why she kept on avoiding him, figuring that sooner or later he would stop trying to reach out and completely move on, leaving her behind since she wasn’t able to do the same. And that, if anything, would be what would be good for him. To fully embrace his perfect high school life and not have to look back. And if helping him move on would mean having to stay behind herself, then so be it.