Chapter Text
Steve Harrington has a list.
He can’t remember when he started it, at least, not anymore, and he never bothered to write down dates. Looking at the first few numbers, he thinks it’s something his parents told him to do a long time ago. Similar to the way parents would tell their kids to start a journal, or make a to-do list with all their tasks and chores. Or maybe he’d decided to start it on his own, with all his prepubescent wisdom. It didn’t matter much how it started though, because even after he’d grown up enough for his parents to stop giving him tasks, assuming that ‘he was a man now and would do what needed to be done,’ he’d kept writing.
It was something of a habit now, he thought. When something went wrong, when he made a mistake, or just when he was feeling shitty enough about himself to pull out the tiny, leather bound notebook.
It fit quite comfortably in the palm of his hand, probably some gift from his father’s company. The cover was cracked and peeling, definitely over a decade old at least, especially when he looked at the first page.
1. I’m bad
It was written in green crayon, the same green crayon that could still be seen just above the baseboard behind his mother’s favorite couch. He didn’t remember scribbling on the walls, didn’t remember the beating that most likely came after. His childhood turned into one indistinct blur. When he tried to look back, it was like he was looking through the haze of tears, right before they spilled over, his vision watery and shifting.
But reading his list, that helped him remember. He didn’t have any other keepsakes, no fridge art or beloved stuffed animals he saved in the back of his closet. His parents hadn’t even kept his baby teeth. Between his birth and high school, the only thing they kept was his birth certificate.
He’d probably written number one the day he wrote on the wall, wrote it with the same damn green crayon. Number two was in pencil.
2. I don’t listen
He never did, not when he was really young. His parents would remind him of his more rambunctious days, mouths twisted into sneers as they spoke to their ‘friends’ at functions, pretending they hadn’t brought him along even as they talked about him.
“He never listens you know,” His mother would say, delicate fingers dancing along the edges of her silk kerchief, the one that Steve knew hid yellowing bruises. “Always off in his own little world. Such a lazy child.”
3. I’m lazy
Steve didn’t have many toys, they were messy. But he did have a few Weebles, little egg shaped people he’d put on the floor, flicking with his finger just to watch them bob back up. He wanted to collect them, he remembered vaguely. Would beg his parents for a few more. His father would scoff, kicking the little man with the toe of his shoe, making it skitter across the tiles until it hit the wall with a soft clang. It didn’t bob back up. Steve had been certain the box said that they were indestructible. Maybe his father was just good at breaking things.
“Keep your damn toys out of the walkway Steven. God, you’d think you’d know how to clean up after yourself by now.”
4. I don’t clean up
“I have a trip that I’m going on tomorrow. I don’t believe I have to call Lori.”
His mother had prickled at the name of his babysitter, wrapping the scarf tighter around her neck.
“No, he doesn’t need a babysitter anymore. He’s a big boy. And big boys can take care of themselves.”
She’d taken his father’s arm, gloves tight on the fabric of his suit jacket, her grip tight enough to break her fingernails. Her smile was stretched, a too-wide pink scar across her face. It made Steve want to cry.
“But I don’t want to be alone here!”
“Your mother prepared you food enough for the week. You know how to use the phone if there’s an emergency.”
“But daddy I–”
“Quiet!” His mother hissed, the muscles in her cheeks pulling down, turning her smile-scar crooked with distaste. Her fingers curled tighter into his fathers arm, like Steve’s words would rip her from it, anchor her to this house, to Steve, to the bad, lazy, messy child she was stuck with.
“Don’t talk back Steven. We expect you to have a better attitude when we return.”
5. I talk back
So he watched them pack their matching suitcases. Tried not to pull back as his mother planted a rough kiss on his forehead, smearing his skin with pink lipstick. He’d pushed the curtains aside to watch the car back out of the driveway, watched until he couldn’t read the license plate anymore, and then stared at the empty road until the sun set.
He didn’t even realize he’d been crying until he was curled up on the couch, furiously trying to wipe away the tears and snot before they stained the fabric, rubbing his sleeve against his face again.
He’d spent the week like that. Occasionally walking to the bathroom or the kitchen, where his mother had left seven carefully wrapped sandwiches, numbered one through seven. One for each day. He tried not to eat them all before they came back, but he had gotten too hungry. The milk had gone bad too, and he’d made a mess when he tried to cook the frozen ground beef.
His parents came back, his father taking one look at the mess and Steve’s red-rimmed eyes, and gave him exactly six spanks before sending him to his room upstairs. He told him that he needed to be a man now, and that crying and acting out was not to be tolerated, even when they were gone.
Steve had sat on his bed, cradling his little notebook in his hands.
6. I cry too much
After that, most of the time his parents left, he had school to occupy his days. Elementary was as much of a blur as everything else, maybe more so. He probably struggled through it as much as he struggled through all his school years.
He wasn’t supposed to find it hard, the smiling childlike faces in the margins encouraging him to just ‘do his best’. If only his best was enough.
He would blink and the numbers would dance on the page, plus and minus signs shifting and switching. He’d miss the first few words of a sentence and get half way through the page before he even realized he’d missed something important. He tried his best not to cry when the evening came and he was still sitting at the dining room table, his dinner across from him, within arms reach, cold on his plate. He couldn’t eat until he finished, couldn’t finish until he had something to eat, growling stomach making his handwriting shaky on the page.
He’d bring it in the next day, his teachers looking down their nose at his face, eyes crinkled in mock kindness as they quietly asked if this was all he managed to do. That he’d had so much time to finish, and that it was such a shame, it really was.
His parents were called for a parent-teacher conference, and he’d sat at the table, legs dangling above the floor on the too-high wooden chair his mother had insisted on buying from the antique store. He kept his eyes on the door.
When it opened, hours later, he was already ready. He thought about putting on thicker pants, but he knew it wouldn’t help. He kept his mouth closed as his father removed his belt. Kept his eyes on the floor so they didn’t notice that he couldn’t keep them dry. He swallowed every hiccupping sob and waited, counting. Let his mother’s voice wash over him.
1
“I can’t believe what Mrs. Williams told me about your performance.”
2
“What are you doing with your time anyway? Everyone else in your class was able to finish.”
3, 4
“I suppose we’ll just have to take away your toys. Maybe that will get you to focus on your schoolwork.”
5, 6
“You will learn that it is not acceptable to be slow, Steven.”
7. I’m slow.
But kids are resilient. Steve learned he had other talents. Maybe he couldn’t write an essay in an hour, or sit down and read a book without fighting through every page. Homework was to be completed with as little effort as possible, wrong answers explained away with an apologetic smile. He perfected his smile. It could say a thousand things when his words failed, and they always did. It was better not to be too–
8. I’m too loud
His smile was his weapon, his only tool, and school became his only escape. The other children didn’t know him, not really. They didn’t know about the list, about how bad he was, all the mistakes he made. They only knew his name and his smile, the words he used, carefully picked to soothe and satisfy.
A lot of it he learned from his mother.
“Of course, I love it!” He didn’t, he hated it. But they wanted him to love it, wanted to be loved. So he gave them that.
“Whatever you need.” Anything they needed, at any time. If he wasn’t there he wasn’t useful, wasn’t important. It was why his mother never left his father’s side. Because if she wasn’t there, she didn’t exist to him.
When Steve’s parents weren’t there, he didn’t exist. All he wanted was to exist.
It was everything, to be wanted, to be needed, to be loved. So he did everything he could to stay that way. For most of them, it wasn’t hard. He just had to listen and nod, tell them what they wanted to hear. But it didn’t always work. And every time he failed, he grew more desperate.
9. Kimberly doesn’t like me
10. I don’t study enough
11. I didn’t make the track team
12. I’m still on the bench
It was always too much, always not enough. But he smiled, he smiled and he walked through the halls like he wasn’t fighting back every single thought in his head. He wished he could read minds. But as much as he hoped and prayed that he could do better, be better, nothing happened. So he stopped trying to be good.