Archive of Our Own ^beta

The sun is too bright. 

Erica leaves her curtains closed, but the light sneaks through the gaps and seeps into the thin fabric because her mother refuses to get her thicker ones. The sky isn’t cloudy today like it was yesterday, and Erica rolls over to hide her face in her pillow, blocking out the sun. But it’s useless a moment later when her alarm clock goes off, beeping loudly from her nightstand. Her pillow doesn’t muffle the sound at all. 

She gets up heavily, reaching over to smack it off as she squints up at the ceiling. It’s a pale yellow, bathed in sunlight, and it hurts her eyes. The star-shaped stickers she put up when she was little almost blend in as she looks at them, her vision blurred as her eyes adjust to the light. 

Lucas’s door opens down the hall, and she sighs, listening as he plods down the hallway quietly, the floor creaking under his weight. He always gets up before her now. He’s probably already dressed too. 

Her back aches as she sits up heavily, rubbing her face, blinking at the ground. She stares, tracing the blurred edges of her carpet before she looks away, searching her nightstand for her glasses. The sunlight is reflecting off the lenses, and she reaches for them, careful not to smudge them as she puts them on. 

The toilet flushes down the hall before the sink turns on, and she rubs her face again. 

Her whole body hurts as she gets dressed, tugging on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that she stole from Steve a year ago. It’s soft and worn, the design on the front faded, and it’s the most comfortable shirt she has. She wishes she could wear it every day. 

Her glasses slip down her nose as she descends the stairs, and she pushes them up, holding the handrail. She keeps her weight off her left leg, leaning open the handrail, wincing as pain shoots through her hip. Her backpack is on the last stair even though she asked her dad to stop putting it there, and she rolls her eyes, gripping the handrail tightly so she can step over it. 

“Good morning, freshman,” her mom says as she sits at the table, sliding a plate in front of her. The pancake has a smiley face on it, two blueberries and an orange slice. 

“I’ve been a freshman for a month,” she says dryly, smiling begrudgingly as her mom kisses her cheek obnoxiously. 

“I’m aware,” her mom says brightly. “Just excited for you. What have you got today?” 

“The usual,” Erica says, poking at her food with her fork. “Math. Reading. Avoiding jocks in the hallway.” 

“What’s that about jocks?” Lucas says, bouncing into the kitchen with all the energy Erica doesn’t have. He’s wearing a tank top, and his backpack seems too light as he swings it over his shoulder. 

“I said you all smell like dirty socks,” she says, leaning away as he leans in to kiss her cheek. “And mouldy trash cans.” 

“That’s discrimination,” he says dryly, still looking at her closely. She knows he’s analysing her. He does that a lot lately. Like he’s trying to find something. (He doesn’t smell like socks. He smells like cologne that Max likes.) 

“Incorrect.” He sticks his tongue out at her, and she does it back. “Take my orange slice.” 

“Gladly, thank you.” 

She watches as he takes it and sticks it in his mouth, the peel in front of his teeth, and he grins, finally going to his own chair. She rolls her eyes. 

“You roll your eyes a lot,” her mom says as she puts a plate in front of Lucas, kissing the top of his head. 

“I’m a teenager, it’s what we do.” 

——————

“You got anything after school?” Lucas asks. He’s holding the steering wheel with one hand even though their mom has told him multiple times to use both. Erica glances at him, facing the window. 

“No,” she says, biting her tongue. He knows she doesn’t have anything after school. She never does. 

“Okay,” Lucas says, sighing. Erica looks back out the window. Watches houses pass by them. Watches trees and the clouds. He’s quiet for a few moments, drumming the steering wheel in time with the music on the radio. “Uhm.” 

Erica exhales heavily, closing her eyes, wishing she could pretend to be asleep so he’d leave her alone. 

“How’d you sleep?” he asks stiffly. 

“…Fine.” 

“Really?” 

She pushes her glasses up, letting her head fall to the window. Her hair softens the thud and Lucas doesn’t seem to notice. 

“Yeah. Like a baby.” 

Lucas is quiet for another moment, and then she hears his tongue click. 

“I heard you last night,” he says quietly. She closes her eyes, sighing. “What was it about?”

She holds the ends of her sweatshirt in her fists. Squeezes the fabric. 

“The usual,” she says. “Monsters. Andrew Morrison.” 

Lucas is quiet, and Erica is subjected to George Michaels’s exasperating voice singing about faith. 

Well, I need someone to hold me

But I’ll wait for something more

“He isn’t here anymore,” Lucas says after a few moments. 

He doesn’t like talking about Andrew Morrison. Neither of them do. 

When they came across him after everything, Erica had grabbed Robin’s arm, and she wouldn’t let go. She’d started trembling, shaking like a scared dog, and she couldn’t talk, couldn’t explain why she couldn’t see clearly, why she couldn’t look away from him. He’d been looking at her. Staring. Daring her. 

All she’d managed was He…

Lucas pieced it all together. The bruise on Erica’s chin. The matching grass stains on her dress and Morrison’s pants. He’d seen red. He’d looked at Morrison. Said something under his breath. 

And then he was shoving him to the ground. Sitting on his chest and pummelling him, his voice loud and almost unintelligible as he yelled, his face already streaked with tears. 

—my fucking sister— 

—just a fucking kid, you piece of—

—gonna fucking kill you—

Erica doesn’t really remember the rest of it. Just that Lucas’s hands were covered in blood, and Morrison was screaming. 

“I know,” she says quietly. 

Morrison left town after his parents bailed him out of jail when he was arrested for assaulting a minor. Three weeks later he appeared in a nightmare one night, and he hasn’t left since. Every once in a while she’ll have a Morrison-less night and she hopes he’s gone for good, but she’s beginning to lose that hope. 

Her dream last night was dark. Night time in a playground. It wasn’t the same playground as that night; instead it was the one at Erica’s elementary school. Erica was trying to climb up a slide, but it was slippery. When she looked down at it, it was slick with blood, shining black in the moonlight. 

She’s startled and fell down, sliding to the ground, and then Andrew Morrison was on top of her, pulling her arm behind her sharply, his knee pressing into her back, and she was screaming. 

And then she was awake. Staring at the ceiling. Rubbing her leg, waiting for the pain to fade, for her tears to dry.

“You know you can come sleep in my room if you need to, right?” Lucas says. 

“I know,” she says again. 

She hasn’t done that in two years. She’d had a rough day, full of panic attacks and blank stares, and she couldn’t sleep. So Lucas pulled her from the sofa quietly, tugging her along up the stairs and down the hall to his room. She’d followed helplessly, silently, unable to argue or pull away. Not that she wanted to. 

He left his lamp on. He’s scared of the dark now too. 

Erica still hadn’t slept even though it was easier to breathe when Lucas hugged her tightly, running his hand up and down her back gently, his heartbeat pressing against her head. 

Lucas doesn’t say anything for the rest of the drive, fingers tapping the steering wheel in time with the songs on the radio, and Erica doesn’t have the energy to tell him to stop, or to turn down the radio because she hates this song. She stares out the window, watches the world go by, and she stares at the air freshener and braided thread that Max made for him as they swing from the rear-view mirror. 

The car slows to a stop in the parking lot outside the high school, and Erica reaches for her bag, snatching it up and hurriedly opening her door. 

“Hey,” Lucas says as she’s getting out, standing and looking at her over the top of the car, and she sighs heavily, looking at him. 

“What?” 

He pauses, looking at her. 

“…Tell me if anyone’s giving you trouble,” he says, looking at her tiredly. “Okay?” 

She looks at him. And then away, across the parking lot, at all the students laughing and jostling each other. It’s all muffled, cloudy like the sun isn’t shining down at them, like it isn’t a beautiful day. 

“Yeah,” she lies. “Sure.” 

She hears Lucas sigh as she walks away, because he knows she’s lying. 

——————

She’s gotten good at swerving around people in the hallways. She generally doesn't like being touched by people, especially when it’s by accident, shoulders bumping hers, backpacks knocking against her, jostled by people that she doesn’t want to look at. 

Unfortunately her locker is right in the middle of the hallway, in the midst of it all. She always fumbles with the lock on it, spins it past the 14 and has to start all over again as she tries to ignore the clamour of the students around her. She tries to drown them out with the headphones Max gave her last year, but they’re so loud she hears them over her music, and it all makes her hands shake. Which causes her to mess up with the lock again. 

She tries to steady her breath as she spins the lock a few more times, and she leans closer to the locker, eyes focused intently on the tiny notches, her fingers trembling as she twists the lock as carefully as she can. She exhales when the lock pops open, and she tugs it away, clicking her locker open and wincing as the metal scrapes. 

There’s a slip of paper on top of her textbooks, and she pauses when she sees it, hesitating. It wouldn’t be the first time she found a shitty note in her locker, the lined paper ripped, the handwriting carelessly un-disguised. 

But when she finally opens it, her shoulders fall. 

She recognises the dark blue ink of Will’s favourite pen before she sees his name at the bottom, next to a tiny heart. The sheet of paper is trembling in her hand as she stares at the drawing, her lips pursed in an almost-frown, like her body can’t decide how to react. 

It’s Lady Applejack. Wearing a cape like Erica used to wear her American flag, holding up a kukri, the blade bent and shining brightly, sparkling with doodled stars around it. Her ears are long and pointy, sharp as her knife, extending past her hair, which is styled the way it’s done today, tied back in a puff at the top of her head. She does her hair like this a lot these days. 

She refolds the drawing and slides it into her bag between her math book and her copy of Beowulf, taking another deep breath. She doesn’t often find drawings from Will in her locker, and she never really knows how to react when she does. Last time it was a sketch of Dustin laying on the ground, covering his face, captioned can’t believe you weren’t here to see him eat shit , as though she’s around at any other time. 

She isn’t. She doesn’t really like being around them anymore. 

She doesn’t really like being around anyone anymore. 

Will doesn’t seem to mind. He smiles at her in the hallways even though she immediately looks away like she’s trying to pretend she doesn’t know him. 

“Hi,” a voice says, and she startles, turning to find a boy from the basketball team standing by the door or her locker. He’s wearing a letterman jacket and a cap on his head, the rim flipped up. 

She holds back a grimace, shying away from him uncomfortably, glancing at him. She looks away.

The boy looks at her intently before he reaches out and moves one side of her headphones off her ear, and she shrinks back, sending him a dirty look. 

“Hey, is it true you’re Lucas Sinclair’s little sister?” he asks, his voice louder than necessary now that the music isn’t as loud. 

She pauses, glancing at him again. 

“What does it matter?” 

“That’s a yes.” 

She ignores him, pushing her textbook back into her locker, but it gets caught against another book, and she pushes harder, hands shaking. She hates how noisy the hallway always is, especially when she’s not wearing her headphones. Lucas is usually careful that he’s not too loud, not since he slammed a door and Erica locked herself in her room for four hours. 

“I’m trying to have a conversation with you,” the boy says, and she suppresses a scoff. 

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she says. “Leave me alone.” 

“Jesus,” he mutters. “Just trying to make you feel welcome and shit. It’s your first year, isn’t it?” 

Erica’s always had a short temper, but in recent years it’s gotten even shorter. She gets angry about everything, about the things that won’t stand up straight on her desk, the leaking faucet that taps in the sink, the fabric of her shirt when it gets caught on her doorknob. She snaps at everyone, though it’s usually her dad and Lucas. 

She isn’t as close to her dad anymore now that she’s angry all the time. He just can’t stand it. Can’t do anything about it. Her mom has always been the more patient one.

Lucas understands, obviously. He tries to stay out of her way when she’s having a rough day, tries to clean up after himself to make sure she doesn’t get pissed about his socks in the hallway or his music bleeding through their walls. 

Tina and the others don’t like her anymore. Because she’s so angry. Because she yelled at them to shut the fuck up one day when they were all talking over each other, over the music, over the clatter of Melissa digging through the bottles of nail polish, searching for her favourite shade of pink. Erica had been the first one of them to curse like that, so strongly, so relentlessly. 

That was a really bad day. Erica’s shoulder had been aching the way it always seems to, but it was more intense than usual, and she was pushing back the feeling of Morrison on top of her, gripping her forearm so tightly it bruised. She was cold, even though she was wearing a sweater and a hoodie on top of that, and Tina kept saying things. 

Tina isn’t as nice as she used to be. She acts more like her mother. 

That day, she’d been snide, making little comments about the way Erica had been sitting, tucked into herself like she was trying to hide, about the hoodie Erica was wearing (it was Eddie’s, and Tina doesn’t particularly like Eddie’s style), about the chipped nail polish on her nails that Erica hadn’t had to energy to fix. She’d complained that Erica was too quiet, asking her What’s wrong with you? in a tone that didn’t really convey much concern. 

And then she’d said something about Derek, or whatever his name is while suppressing a sly smile, and Erica had snapped. 

You know his name is Dustin. 

And Tina looked at her in faux-surprise, eyes wide, eyebrows raised. 

Oh, you wanna talk now! All I had to do was mention your dorky boyfriend—

He’s not my boyfriend, Tina, he’s my friend and I don’t like it when you talk about him like that—

Then why don’t you go hang out with him since you clearly don’t wanna be with us—

Which had struck a chord in Erica because she’d had to push herself out of bed that morning, had to force herself to brush her teeth and do her hair and get dressed. She’d paused outside Mary’s front door to take a deep breath and prepare herself, and she’d done all of it because she did want to hang out with them. She missed them. But she didn’t think they missed her nearly as much. 

Tina had kept talking. Complaining that Erica would rather hang out with a bunch of nerds, that they were stealing her from the girls, and Mary had been telling Tina to lower her voice, talking over her, because her mom was in the living room watching her soaps, and Mary didn’t want to get in trouble for being too loud, and Melissa was rummaging through the nail polish, and a jolt of pain shot through Erica’s shoulder, and she finally just—

Shut the fuck up!

And they’d all fallen silent. Stared. 

What’s your problem? 

You’re my fucking problem, Tina, I haven’t been doing anything wrong, and all you’ve done is bitch and moan and complain about everything you can think of— I like this hoodie, I don’t care if you hate it, and Dustin is my best friend, so I’m not gonna just fucking sit here and listen to you talk shit about him—

Mary’s mom had come in. Made Erica leave. Which she’s done glady, slamming their front door behind herself, stomping past her mom in the living room and slamming her door shut before Mary’s mom could call. And then when her mom tried to talk to her about it, to ask what happened, what prompted her to use that language against her friends, Erica had lost her temper again. Yelled at her to leave her alone. 

Tina and the others haven’t talked to her since. 

So. Erica has a short temper. 

“Isn’t it?” 

“Jesus, I said leave me alone,” she snaps, finally shoving the book into her locker, bending another book in the process, but her vision is starting to grow fuzzy the way it does when she gets too angry, overwhelmed with it. She slams the locker shut, hand shaking as she clicks the lock shut. And he’s still staring at her. 

“Jesus,” he says again. “What’s your problem?” 

She just lets out a huff and reaches down to grab her bag, swinging it over her left shoulder out of habit, avoiding the shoulder that hurts, and she turns away, pulling her headphones to fit over her ears again. 

She’s tilting her shoulders to avoid another student when a hand closes around her right forearm. 

And then she can’t see, can’t hear, can’t feel anything at all.

The boy hits the ground, stumbling into someone as he falls, and the stupid fucking hat falls from his head and skids across the ground as he looks up at her in shock, but none of it is going through her mind. He’s still wearing the fucking letter jacket, and he’s still Andrew fucking Morrison, with his strong arms and bruising hands and angry eyes, and Erica’s bag falls from her shoulder, hitting the ground hard. 

The boy’s cheek is bright red and Erica’s hand stings, her knuckles aching a little bit. 

“What the fuck—”

She watches as he pushes himself, up music still blaring into her headphones, and there’s a crowd around them now, students stuck on their way to class to gawk, to gape, to stare. Erica’s forearm hurts like it’s bruised even though he didn’t grab her that hard, and her hands tighten into fists, and her whole body is trembling. She wants to yell at him, to scream, to tell him to fuck off and leave her alone and not to fucking touch her, but her jaw is clenched tightly and she can’t speak. 

He steps towards her, eyebrows drawn, and for a brief moment, he looks like an animal, like a creature, like he isn’t human at all, and she feels like she’s ten years old again, like she’s facing the dark, watching fireworks, like she’s standing on a ledge—

And then Dustin, Dustin, steps between them, holding his cane up so it presses into the boy’s chest, keeping him back. 

He says something, but his voice is garbled, muffled like Erica’s head is underwater, and the boy responds, but Erica can’t hear that at all. Her vision is blurred like her glasses have fallen off, but she can feel them sliding down her nose as she stares, fists clenched and trembling.

Her breaths come sharp, piercing through whatever is blocking her voice in her throat, and her head feels like it’s hovering off of her neck, too light for her shoulders, and her shoulder hurts so badly it feels like it’s broken. Her vision clears a little bit when the boy finally walks away, snatching his hat from the ground, shoving past other kids until he disappears, and Dustin says something sharply, something that prompts their audience to disperse, to pretend they weren’t all standing around, hovering. 

And then Dustin is in front of her, looking at her carefully, and she hears his cane click when it meets the ground. Her eyes search him, flicking across his face, scanning his overgrown hair, and his mouth moves, but she can’t hear it. 

Erica?

“No,” she says sharply, her voice too loud, and some kids glance at them, looking away when Dustin turns to glare at them. “No, I don’t— I—”

“Hey,” he says softly, his voice still muffled. “I’m right here, you’re okay—”

“No,” she says again, looking up at him. She exhales sharply, and something like pain flashes across his face. 

“Erica,” he says gently. “You’re okay, he’s gone.” 

“I…” 

She inhales, looking around the hallway, her eyes flicking back and forth quickly as her vision clears, and she pushes her glasses up so quickly she misses the bridge, her finger pressing into one of the lenses. Some students are still eyeing them, and she becomes uncomfortably aware that they’re lingering in the middle of the hallway, standing so people have to go around them, like a rock in the middle of a stream. 

She exhales again and stoops to grab her back, swinging it onto her shoulder again, barely even processing the ache in her back, and she leaves, her vision blurring again as tears fill her eyes, the music in her ears drowning out the whispers of the kids watching her. 

The girl was never there

It’s always the same 

I’m running towards nothing 

Again and again and again and again…

——————

Her mom is in the living room when she gets home. Erica had forgotten she doesn’t work on Mondays.

“Erica?” 

Erica huffs, kicking her shoes off, and she’s still trembling, lightheaded, breathing hard. Her mom comes out of the living room into the entryway, looking at her with wide eyes as she takes it all in: the tears on Erica’s face, her harsh breathing, the way her entire body is trembling. 

“What…” 

“I—” Erica tries, but her voice catches. She rips her headphones off and struggles to unclip her Walkman from her jeans before she drops both.

“What happened?” her mom asks, her voice gentle, and she reaches down to pick them up from the ground. She wraps the headphones cord around the Walkman and sets them down on the table, next to the vase of dying flowers. 

“He— He grabbed my— my arm, and I—”

“Who?” her mom asks, keeping her hands to herself even though Erica knows she wants to hold her. Last time she tried to hug Erica during something like this, Erica had shoved her into the wall. “Who touched you?” 

“I don’t— He—”

“Honey,” her mom says softly. “Take a big deep breath, slowly…” 

Erica falls against the wall, slides to the ground, and she hides her face, hugging her legs to herself. Her breaths echo when she tucks herself away like this. They rattle in her chest. 

“Some guy,” she says finally, when her mom is sitting on the ground next to her, waiting patiently. Her voice is still shaking. “I don’t— I don’t know him, he just— he tried to talk to me, and he grabbed my arm when I walked away, and—”

She sniffles, hiccuping on her breath, and her mom exhales. 

“What happened?” she asks gently. 

“I— I think I punched him, I don’t— I, like, blacked out or something, I don’t remember—”

“Breathe,” her mom says slowly.”It’s okay.” 

Erica lifts her head and looks at her. Her glasses are fogged and smeared with tears, and her mom reaches out to take them carefully to clean them on her shirt. 

“Am I in trouble?” she asks in a small voice. 

“No, honey, of course not.” 

Erica exhales shakily, watching her mom clean the glasses, her figure blurry. She’s wearing Erica’s favourite blouse of hers; it’s blue and pretty, and Erica wants one just like it someday. 

“It’s not your fault,” her mom says when she finishes with the glasses, after Erica’s taken a few deep breaths. “Right? You remember what we talked about with Doctor Watson?” 

Erica nods, taking the glasses and putting them on slowly, still shaking. She shakes a lot. 

“You went through something traumatic,” her mom says slowly, leaning to meet her eyes. “How your brain responds isn’t your fault. Right?” 

She nods again. 

“And,” her mom continues, “if some boy was grabbing you, you have the right to defend yourself.” Erica cracks a smile, looking at her as she wipes her cheek. “You do what you gotta do.” 

“Thanks, Mom,” Erica says softly, her voice weak, and then she pulls away from the wall, leaning toward her mom, who takes her in her arms gently, running a hand over her head and kissing her temple. 

“You’re gonna be okay,” she says gently. 

“I’m so tired,” Erica whispers, closing her eyes, ignoring the way her glasses are pressed against her mom’s arm, crooked. 

“I know. Feeling things is exhausting, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah.” 

She goes upstairs when they finally detach, after stopping in the kitchen to drink a glass of water at her mother’s request, and she collapses into bed without even dropping her bag on the ground. It lands next to her, and she sighs heavily, hand still gripping the strap. She can hear her mom downstairs, sweeping the kitchen floor. 

She would be in algebra right now. She’ll have to go to Mr Weston to ask about what she missed, what she’ll have to make up. 

She sighs as she sits up heavily, her legs out in front of her, wincing as her shoulder aches, and she unzips her backpack, opening it to reach for Beowulf; she needs to finish it by next week. 

She stops when she sees the folded paper behind the book, and she looks at it, pausing before she takes it too. She holds them in her hand as she pushes her bag to the ground, hearing it thud against the floor, and she rolls onto her back, setting Beowulf aside as she unfolds the paper and looks at Will’s drawing. There’s a smudge on it, like he moved his hand against the wet ink before it could dry. 

It goes in the drawer of her bedside table with the other drawings he’s left her.

Lucas comes home while she’s still reading. She hears him come in and greet their mother, hears him come up the stairs and linger in the hallway. She rolls her eyes, waiting for his tentative knock on her door. 

“What.” 

The door swings open, and the way Lucas peeks at her from behind it is almost funny. He looks like a little kid, preparing to ask for something he knows he can’t have. 

“Hey,” he says lightly. “You good?”

“Fine,” she says, looking at her book again, but she doesn’t read any of the words her eyes skim over. 

“…Dustin told me what happened.”

“Who cares what Dustin says?” she snaps. “I said I’m fine.” 

He’s quiet for a moment before,

“Okay.” 

She stares at her book. 

“Uh, Mom and Dad are going out in a minute.”

“Okay.”

“I’m gonna make that frozen pizza in the oven for dinner if you want any.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

He closes her door behind himself, but she still hears his heavy sigh as he goes down the hallway to his room. She drops her book to her chest with a huff, and she looks at the ceiling, sliding down against the headboard of her bed until she’s laying on her back. Her glasses slip over the bridge of her nose until her eyelashes are bushing the lenses. 

It’s getting dark out when Lucas brings a plate of pizza up to her room and puts it on her desk. He holds eye contact with her as he reaches into the pocket of his hoodie and pulls out a can of 7-Up, swirling it in the air like he’s doing a magic trick, like he’s conjured it, and she snorts, shaking her head. He smiles proudly as he puts it down. 

She eyes the pizza and the soda. She isn’t particularly hungry even though she left school before lunch, and she hasn’t eaten since breakfast (which she didn’t even finish), but she knows she should eat anyway. Her doctor talked to her about this. 

She gets up to change first, tugging on some sweatpants and another hoodie she stole from Eddie. (This one is red, and it’s way too big for her, and she thinks he might have stolen it from Steve first.) 

Lucas’s voice reaches her from downstairs, muffled through the walls, as she’s wrapping her hair in the scarf her mom gave her last year., and she pauses to listen. She can’t understand him. 

But her stomach falls a few moments later when she hears someone coming up the stairs. 

Step, click, step. Step, click, step.

She exhales heavily, tugging the ends of the scarf to make sure it stays in place, and she turns toward the door just before there’s a gentle, firm knock. 

She’s quiet. Stares at the back of the door. 

“Erica,” Dustin says weakly. “Come on.” 

She tucks her hands into the ends of her sleeves. 

“What do you want?” she asks dryly, and the door opens. He steps in, his cane clicking on the ground, and he shuts the door behind himself before he looks at her, and it’s like he’s searching for her even though she’s standing right in front of him. People look at her like that a lot lately. Like she’s fading, like she’s a ghost. 

“Can we talk?” 

She exhales, looking away. 

“We haven’t talked in weeks,” Dustin says, looking at her intently. “ I…”

“Because I don’t want to talk,” she says sharply, looking back at him, her hands clenching in her sleeves.

“Did I do something?” he asks, and his voice sounds so weak, so brittle.

“No,” she says, her voice louder. “I just— I just don’t want to talk to anyone, it’s not personal, Dustin, I just don’t want to.” 

“But you have to,” Dustin says strongly. 

“The fuck do you mean I have to?” 

“You’re traumatised, Erica!” he finally shouts, and his eyes look like they’re glistening with tears, but so are Erica’s, and she can’t see clearly. “You’re traumatised. We’re all traumatised, but we talk about, and we— we support each other.” His voice breaks, and Erica grits her teeth, trying to stop her chin from quivering. “You act like if you just ignore it, it’s just gonna go away, but it’s not.” 

“Dustin—”

“We’re right here,” he says adamantly. “And we love you, and we wanna help you—”

“I don’t want you!” 

Dustin finally falls silent, his eyes wide, shining with unshed tears. Erica’s never yelled at him like this. Her voice is rough, and tears finally fall down her cheeks. She wipes them away roughly, jostling her glasses, trying to swallow the lump in her throat, but it doesn’t go anywhere. 

“I wanna be left alone,” she says, trying to speak steadily, but her voice wavers anyway. “That’s all I want.” 

“Erica,” Dustin says brokenly. “I don’t want to leave you alone, I wanna help you—”

“You can help by fucking off,” she says sharply, and he startles like she’s smacked him in the face. “I don’t want your help. I want to be alone.” 

“Erica,” he says again. 

“Every time I look at any of you, I am right back in there,” she says, her voice heavy and thick as she holds back a sob. “Every time I look at Max, she is covered in blood and dying , and you are always covered in Eddie’s blood, and Eddie is always falling apart at the fucking seams , and Steve is always broken and bruised, and— and El’s nose is always bleeding, and I—”

She cuts off with a sharp breath, and there are tears on Dustin’s face now. 

“I just can’t anymore,” she says, her voice breaking again, and she wipes her tears away so roughly it hurts. “Okay? Just… Just go.” 

He blinks at her, hesitating, and as they look at each other, she sees that he’s trembling too. The end of the bandana that’s tied to the top of his cane is shaking. 

“I…”

“Go,” she snaps, gesturing to the door, and he goes. 

He doesn’t shut the door behind himself, and Erica can watch him leave, can watch him go unsteadily down the hall, his cane clicking, and she hears Lucas’s voice again before the front door slams shut, and she wipes her face again even though there’s no one there to see her cry. 

She exhales shakily, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. 

“What just happened?” Lucas says when he comes upstairs, hovering in Erica’s doorway, and Erica’s blood runs hot as her vision blurs.

“ What is so fucking hard for you all to understand about leave me alone?” she yells, her trembling hands forming fists as she looks at him. He’s leaning back a little bit, like her voice has formed a strong gust of wind, and his eyes are wide and shining, and guilt stabs at the walls Erica is putting up around herself, but she’s too fucking angry right now to feel it. “Just go away!” 

Lucas gives a slight nod and looks away, blinking his eyes hard in the way he does when he’s trying not to cry, and he steps back, closing her door with a quiet thud. His footsteps recede down the hallways and down the stairs, and the front door opens and closes. 

And the house is silent. 

She stands there, holding her breath like she’s waiting for something, and she can hear the house settling, the quiet creaking outside her bedroom like the house itself is mocking her, taunting her, daring her to follow them. 

A bird sings outside, and the tree by her window blows in the wind, the branch tapping against the glass, and the sun is shining brightly, mocking her as tears slide down her face. 

She hates crying. She’s tired of it. But it doesn’t matter how much she hates it, how tired of it she is; the tears don’t stop falling, cascading down her cheeks and smearing on the lenses of her glasses. It feels like they’re burning her.

She blocks the sun out when she lays in bed, her glasses on her nightstand, the wood under the lenses wet with her tears. She hugs a stuffed animal to herself under her blankets, the blankets pulled up over her face to hide, to block out the light. Her throat hurts from sobbing, and as her breathing finally slows, the skin on her face feels tight as her tears dry. She doesn’t hear Lucas come home, and she doesn’t hear her door creak open as he comes to check on her tentatively. 

He doesn’t talk to her in the morning when they get up for school. They sit in silence as he drives, as she looks out the window, nibbling the Eggos that her mom shoved into her hands as she was grabbing her backpack. She gets out of the car before Lucas has even turned it off, swinging her bag on and getting out of the car as he looks at her. She hears the radio cut off as she walks away, pulling her headphones on. 

She sees Will in the hallway as she goes inside. And she can tell that Dustin and Lucas have told him what happened, because he smiles hesitantly at her with a half-wave, and he looks sad. Erica doesn't like it when he looks sad. 

And even though she knows it’s her fault he looks sad, she looks away and walks past him, tilting her shoulders to avoid touching him. 

Her voice is rough when she’s called on in class to read from her textbook. And she wishes she never has to talk again. 

——————

Their parents don’t seem to notice anything different in the following days.

Erica supposes she always seems like this. 

When she rubs her shoulder with a wince during dinner, her mom silently gets up to get her a painkiller and to microwave the bag of rice and lavender that Erica usually uses when she’s on her period. Erica mutters a soft Thank you under her breath when she takes them. 

She can feel Lucas’s eyes on her as she pops the pill in her mouth and swallows it with a sip of water, but she doesn’t look back. 

It’s too quiet when she goes to bed. She can hear everything: the wind blowing the tree branch against her window, the cars passing in the distance, the neighbour’s dog barking. Lucas’s walkie crackling, and Lucas’s muffled, hushed voice. Erica knows he’s talking to Max, and she knows they’re probably talking about her. Maybe she’s just paranoid. 

Lucas falls silent after a while, and it feels even more quiet without his voice, without the static, and it’s an awful quiet, the kind of quiet that seeps into Erica’s dreams and turns into the eerie silence of a playground at midnight, of an abandoned house with a blood staining the dusty floor. 

She breathes slowly, looking at the ceiling, staring at the dim glow of the stars that blurs into the darkness, waiting for sleep to take her. But it doesn’t, and she really doesn’t want it to. The same thing is always waiting for her at night. 

She’s restless tonight, fingers twisting in the hem of her blanket, legs bending and unbending, feet rubbing against her sheets. She finally pushes her blankets away, squinting at her digital clock, sighing heavily when she sees that it’s past midnight. 

Her feet make the floor creak as she crosses her room as quietly as possible, and she lets out a sharp breath when she sees the hallway. It’s always so dark at night, like nighttime has taken up residence in their house. 

Lucas’s light is on. It’s bleeding into the hall through the crack under his door. 

Erica lingers in her doorway, looking at the fuzzy light. She forgot to put on her glasses. It doesn’t occur to her that she can’t see in the dark. 

She finds herself in front of Lucas’s door before she can even think, standing so close she can see the L she coloured for him when she was little. She knocks gently, tapping her knuckles on the wood lightly, and his voice sounds a moment later. 

“Yeah?” 

He sounds awake, his voice steady.

She pushes the door open, squinting across the room. She can’t see him clearly, but she can see his shape, laying in bed, a book laying across his chest. Erica lingers there for a moment, looking at him, silent, and then he sets his book aside and lifts his arm, holding up the end of his blanket. 

Erica exhales, her eyes stinging as she closes the door and rushes to him. 

She feels small as she falls onto his bed, tucking herself into his side, as he gathers her up and holds her gently, carefully pulling her bonnet back into place when it slides up against his arm. She squeezes her eyes shut, curling into a ball, and she only realises her breath is stuttering when Lucas’s voice says, “Breathe,” softly, almost whispering. 

His hand runs across her back slowly, rubbing back and forth steadily, until her breath slows, and his cheek presses to the top of her head. 

The first time Erica slept in Lucas’s room, she was six. It was Christmas Eve. 

She was going to sleep on his floor in a sleeping bag, but Lucas had insisted that they share. He hadn’t wanted her back to hurt when she woke up in the morning, and he’d insisted that it wasn’t fair that she sleep on the floor when she was a guest in his room. Their parents thought it was funny. And in the morning, when their mom went to wake them up, she’d brought a camera and taken a picture of them in Lucas’s bed, and that photo was framed and put up in the living room. 

Lucas and Erica both hate the photo, though Erica begrudgingly agrees that it is cute. Not that she’d ever tell anyone. 

In the picture, they’re sprawled across the bed, the blankets twisted and tangled around their limbs. Erica’s arm is stretched across Lucas’s belly, and Lucas’s face is pressed to the top of her head, his cheek squished, just like it is now. 

“‘S okay,” Lucas says softly. 

She lets herself believe him. 

——————

It’s a Saturday. 

Erica’s parents are gone for the weekend to go to her aunt’s baby shower, which means neither of them wake her up just because the way they usually do. She wakes up at 11:37, but she doesn’t get out of bed for a while, wrapping a blanket around herself and facing the wall, hiding herself from the sunlight as she tries to fall back asleep. 

It doesn’t work. 

She gets up after a while, rolling her shoulder back with a wince, grappling for her glasses as she yawns. 

Max is in the kitchen when she gets downstairs, and she stops in the doorway, looking at her.

She’s at the sink, filling a glass with water, holding herself up on one crutch. The other is leaning against the counter, propped up within reach. 

Her hair is short now. She cut it when she got out of the hospital, frustrated beyond words with the way her hair had matted despite the braids the nurses and Nancy gave her. She’d chopped it off herself in her mom’s new apartment, and then she’d called Nancy, who took her to a hair salon a town over to fix it up. And she’s kept it short since.

 It looks nice like this, reaching just above her shoulders. It’s more wavy now that it’s shorter, the front strands curling just right to frame her face, feathery and light. She has a habit of pushing her hand through it, pushing it back out of her face even though it falls back into place a moment later. Lucas likes to play with her hair, too. He always runs his hands through it while they watch movies together and if Max is having a bad day. 

Max turns as she sips her water, leaning against the counter, and her eyes catch Erica in the doorway. She wears glasses too. They’re thicker than Erica’s. They make her eyes look smaller than they are. 

“Hey,” she says lightly. 

“Hi,” Erica says quietly, her voice rough. She clears her throat and passes through the doorway, rubbing her cheek as she avoids Max’s eyes. Max finishes her water as Erica reaches for a glass, lifting onto her tiptoes because her dad always forgets that she can’t reach them. “Where’s Lucas?” she asks as she fills it at the sink. 

Max takes a seat at the island, propping her crutches up against the counter as she watches Erica.

Everybody does that. 

Watches. Instead of looks. 

“He forgot his wallet at the grocery store somehow,” Max says. “So he went back to get it.” 

Erica scoffs, sipping the water before she sets it down, reaching for the bottle of painkillers on the shelf above the sink. She takes one instead of her usual two. If she takes two without eating anything, it messes with her head. Makes her feel fuzzy inside, makes her bump into walls and tables, makes her forget what she’s talking about, makes her forget to listen when others are speaking. She could take two and eat breakfast (or lunch, she guesses), but her appetite is nowhere to be found. 

“On brand,” she says after swallowing the pill, and then, for some reason, she sits across from Max, the corner of the island separating them.

She’s still avoiding her gaze, looking down at the counter between them. Max crosses her arms on the counter, leaning over, and Erica looks at them. They’re tanned and freckled, kissed by the sun after all the days she’s spent outside this past summer with Lucas and the others. Her skin is disfigured in some places, scarred from her bones piercing her skin. 

Erica swallows, staring at her scars. An image flashes in her head. Lucas on the ground, holding Max’s body in his arms. Because it wasn’t Max for a while. It was her body. 

Erica exhales, looking away, turning her head to look across the kitchen, pushing up her glasses. 

“What’s up?” Max asks lightly. It sounds like she knows. 

Erica shrugs. 

“Nothing,” she says, her voice hushed. “Just…” 

She pauses, swallowing again, rubbing her shoulder, waiting for the ache to fade, and Max waits quietly, patiently. (Every time Erica talks with her, she’s reminded that Lucas is in love with her, and she gets it. Max is great.) 

“I keep having nightmares,” she says quietly, her hands tangled in her lap like she’s in trouble, like Max is going to scold her. 

“Do you wanna talk about them?” Max asks gently. 

Erica looks at her arms again. 

She wonders how long it took for Max to get used to her scars. To see them and not get scared. 

“Just…” She hesitates. “The usual.” 

She glances up at Max, who nods, like she gets it, like she’ll drop it if that’s all Erica wants to say. She hasn’t told anyone else about them, except Lucas. But even he just got the bare gist of them. 

Monsters. 

Andrew Morrison. 

“I just—” She lifts her hands and then drops them again, setting them on the counter, a small outburst of frustration. “I don’t get why Andrew Morrison keeps showing up.” 

Max blinks at her, visibly surprised, and she tilts her head. 

“In your nightmares?” 

Erica nods. 

“It just…” She huffs, crossing her arms, mirroring Max. “It doesn’t make any sense. I mean— The Mind Flayer is objectively scarier, it— it was this huge monster… flesh thingy. It was gross. And terrifying. But I never dream about that, it’s always just this stupid jock with his dumb hat.” 

Max nods, inhaling slowly, and she looks away, her mouth twisting like she’s thinking. 

“I…” She pauses. “I have a lot of dreams about Billy.”

Erica looks at her. 

She looks far away for a moment, like she’s faded away, and then she blinks, looking at Erica. 

“I dream about him more than Vecna,” she says, half-smiling. “Even though, you know—”

They both laugh lightly even though it isn’t really funny.

“Objectively scarier,” Max says, scoffing. “I mean…” She shrugs. “Billy was just some guy. That’s what everyone says, you know, that’s how they all saw him. But…”

She goes quiet, staring at the counter, and she presses her hands to the surface, spreading her fingers. Her right pinky is crooked. Erica wonders when that happened. 

“On my first day at Hawkins Middle,” Max starts, her voice slow, careful. “Billy tried to hit the guys with his car.” 

Erica blinks.

“The guys,” she repeats.

“Yeah,” Max says. “I had to grab the steering wheel to stop him. And, I mean… If anyone else was there, or— or if I had told anyone, he… He would have just played it off as a prank, like he was just trying to freak me out, but…” She pauses again, her expression shifting like she’s wincing, like she’s in pain. “I saw the look in his eyes. And that— that was real.”

She looks at Erica, blinking the wince away. 

“It wasn’t exactly that he looked… empty,” she says hesitantly, like she’s thinking through every word. “There was something there, it just… I don’t know. Like he wanted to laugh, but also like he was dead serious, it just… God, it was fucking eerie,” she says, her shoulders shifting like she’s suppressing a shiver. “And for some reason, it just stuck.” 

She’s quiet again, eyes trained on the counter. And then she blinks. 

“Even when I dream about Vecna,” she says quietly. “He has Billy’s eyes.”

Erica’s chest hurts. 

She wishes she could take it all away from Max, that she could pull her scary memories and bad dreams away like a loose thread. Maybe then Max could sleep better. Erica knows that she struggles with it too. Max spends the night with Lucas sometimes. They watch movies in the living room until she falls asleep, her head on his shoulder or in his lap, his hand in her hair. Sometimes they stay there all night, tangled on the sofa, and other times Lucas carries her up to his bed, murmuring to her as she stirs, legs weakly wrapped around his waist. Erica can hear their voices through the wall. Quiet and gentle and soothing until they fall silent. And she loves them. 

“Anyway,” Max says after exhaling. “I don’t know why our brains decided that the humans are more scary than the monsters.” She shrugs. “But… Andrew Morrison is a piece of shit. And what he did to you was… Unforgivable.” 

Erica looks at the countertop. Stares at the crumbs left behind from Lucas’s toast. 

It’s not often that she hears anyone talk about Morrison like this, the way that she thinks about him. 

“I don’t know,” Max continues. “Maybe we just subconsciously are more scared of what’s more rational, or something. Men instead of monsters.” She looks at Erica again, catching her eye. “But what’s important is that you remember that he’s gone,” she says intently, her voice slow, careful, her eyes trained on Erica like she’s trying to read her mind. “Even if he keeps showing up in your dreams, you don’t have to worry about him. And if he does come back, for whatever reason, none of us will let anything happen to you.” 

Erica’s eyes sting. She blinks tears back. 

“I’ll beat his ass with my crutches,” Max says, and a little laugh bursts out of Erica. “Lucas would fucking strangle him. El would make his head explode, probably. Nancy would feel a shift in the atmosphere,” she says dramatically, gesturing with a hand, and Erica laughs harder, scrunching her nose. “And she’d be on the next bus to town. That shotgun would come out of retirement.” 

Erica laughs. Her cheeks are sore. She doesn’t laugh very often anymore. 

“How’s school going?” Max asks after a few moments of quiet. Erica shrugs. 

“Got homework,” she says. “Reading Beowulf. Punched a guy in the face. Y’know.” 

Max doesn’t look surprised, but she smiles. 

“The guys told me about that. Dustin said it was a pretty solid punch.” 

Erica shrugs again. 

“I guess. I don’t remember it.” She pauses, and Max seems to be able to tell that she wants to say something, waiting in silence until Erica speaks again. “Did they tell you about…” 

“Yeah,” Max says softly. 

Erica looks at her without lifting her head. 

“…Dustin was really upset,” Max says softly. “…He said you hate him.” 

“I don’t hate him,” Erica says quickly, desperately, lifting her head. “I don’t hate him, I just…” 

Can’t stand to look at him. 

She doesn’t say that. But Max seems to know anyway.

“He really loves you,” Max says softly. “And he knows you want space, so he’s giving it to you. But if you change your mind, or…” She shrugs. “If you miss him. He’s waiting for you. Very patiently.” 

Erica lowers her head again, letting it fall until her forehead presses to her crossed forearms, and she squeezes her eyes shut. She feels like shit. 

“Lucas told me you spent the night in his room the other day,” Max says lightly. 

“I couldn’t sleep,” Erica says, her voice muffled. 

“It made him really happy,” Max says. “He was crying.” 

Erica snorts and lifts her head to look at her. 

“He’s so mushy.” 

“He really is,” Max giggles. “He acts all macho but I’ve heard him whispering to me when he thought I was asleep more than once.” 

Erica laughs harder, scrunching her nose again. 

“Is that how he confessed his love for you?” she asks dreamily. 

“The first time,” Max confirms, laughing. “Later on, he said it when I was awake-awake. It was cute.” 

“Did he stutter through it?” 

“You know him so well.” 

The door opens down the hall as they’re laughing, and then Lucas steps into the kitchen, holding up his wallet. 

“The cashier kept it for me, he promised he didn’t steal anything.” 

His eyes find Erica sitting next to Max, and he falls silent, looking at her before he looks at Max, and then back at Erica. His eyes narrow.

“Are you talking about me?” 

“Oh, never,” Max says sarcastically just as Erica says, “Obviously.” 

Lucas rolls his eyes, suppressing a smile, and he tosses his wallet to Erica, who catches it against her chest, fumbling with it as she makes a face at him. 

“You eaten?” he asks Erica, pausing on his way across the kitchen to kiss Max’s cheek. Erica shakes her head as he’s reaching into a cabinet, looking at her over his shoulder. “You want pancakes? I got chocolate chips.” 

“Yeah, sure.” 

Lucas turns on the radio, and he makes the pancakes himself, and Erica wonders if he doesn’t make her help because he doesn’t want her to leave, because he wants to keep her in her seat next to Max. She stays here, watching the way Lucas sways his hips absentmindedly with the music, and she and Max take turns tossing chocolate chips to Lucas for him to catch in his mouth. 

——————

There’s another drawing in her locker today. 

It’s a sketch in pencil, a little bit smudged, little parts darker than others in a line like the paper was on top of something while Will drew on it. It’s a drawing of Mike, laying with his head down on a table, his hair falling to hide his face. There are zig zags around his head, and Will’s neat handwriting reads Mike giving up on life because he took physics.

Erica suppresses a smile as she looks at it, her other hand hovering as she holds one of her textbooks up. She’s curious about how long it took for him to do, about if he did it while Mike laid there. If he did it and then decided to give it to Erica, or if he saw Mike lower his head and immediately needed Erica to see it. 

She’s startled when there’s a tapping on her locker, and she lifts her head, swinging the locker closed a little bit. Her face hardens.

“Hi.”

He’s wearing the stupid hat again. Erica eyes it for a moment before she meets his eyes. 

“What do you want?” she asks dryly, opening her locker again and pushing her book in, sliding it between the other textbooks. 

“I’m not… I’m not trying to start anything,” he says. “I just wanna talk.” 

She sends him a glare and closes her lock, locking it as she raises her eyebrows. 

“Talk.” 

“I mean, like…” He tilts his head. “Somewhere quieter?” 

Her stomach twists, and she stares at him, but he just stares back earnestly, eyes shining. 

“Fine,” she cedes, gesturing for him to lead the way, grabbing her bag. “But you try anything and I’ll break your kneecaps.” 

He nods, wide-eyed. 

He leads her to an empty classroom down the hall, and he holds the door open for her as she follows him in. It’s quiet in this room. There’s no furniture except a table on the other side of the room, and Erica leans against it, her bag resting so the weight isn’t on her shoulders. 

“So?” she says, crossing her arms across her chest. She looks at him. 

“Uh.” 

He looks nervous. Awkward. He pushes his hands into the pockets of his jacket, glancing at her. 

“I wanted to apologise,” he says. 

Erica blinks. 

“Oh.”

“I…” He hesitates, looking at her intently. “Someone told me. About— About what happened to you.”

Her stomach flips over, and she stares at him, unblinking, her throat tight. 

“And I— I’m really sorry if I— I brought anything back up or anything,” he says in a rush. 

“You did,” she says quietly. 

He takes a breath, nodding. 

“I’m really sorry,” he says softly. “I— I shouldn’t have grabbed your arm like that, it was fucked up, and— and I shouldn’t have even been talking to you when you made it clear you didn’t wanna talk to me, I— I was so rude, and I’m really sorry.”

Erica blinks in disbelief. 

She can’t even remember the last time someone apologised to her like this, so honestly, so authentically. She nods slowly. 

“…Thank you,” she says after a moment. 

“It won’t happen again,” he says. “With you, obviously, or— or anyone else, I was a dick.”

“Sorry I punched you in the face,” she says, but he shakes his head, eyes wide. 

“Don’t be,” he says intently. “You should’ve punched me, are you kidding?”

Erica scoffs, and he does the same, smiling crookedly. 

“It was a good punch, too,” he says. “In hindsight. Pretty solid.”

“Thanks,” she says with a light laugh. 

They look at each other. He’s standing kind of far away, giving her space, and she’s grateful. He’s wearing the hat with the rim flipped up a little bit, his hair sticking out from under it; it reaches his eyes rows, pressed down over his forehead from his hat, almost reddish in colour. 

It’s quiet for a few moments, awkward, the sounds of the kids in the hallway, the shutting of lockers, the squeaking of rubber shoe soles on the floor, are muffled from the shut door. 

“You made me think of him,” she says abruptly. 

He blinks. 

“When I…”

“Before that,” she says, shaking her head. “When you— you ran into me, it…” She stops, looking at him, and he looks back, listening intently, eyes wide and shining, and he suddenly looks nothing like he did in the hallway. He just looks like a boy. “He was on the basketball team,” she says, her voice softer. “He— He wore his hat like you.” 

He blinks again, and his shoulders fall a little bit. 

“That was why I didn’t wanna talk to you,” Erica says, glancing away. “You just— resembled him for a moment, I guess. It freaked me out.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“It’s not— You couldn’t control that, I— I was really rude when I, like, dismissed you, it—”

“No,” he says, furrowing his eyebrows and shaking his head. “Don’t do that.” 

She raises an eyebrow.

“Don’t…apologise?” 

“Yeah,” he says, like it’s obvious. “You don’t have to. I was weird.”

She scoffs again, shrugging. 

“Fair enough.” 

“What’s your name, by the way?” he asks hesitantly, hands pushing further into his pockets. 

“Erica,” she says quietly. “Sinclair. You knew that.” 

He smiles crookedly again. 

“I’m Adam.” 

The first syllable forces another twist in her stomach, and he seems to see it on her face even though she looks away. 

“Uh— Some of my friends call me Monty,” he offers. She looks at him in confusion. “My last name’s Montgomery. At my last school there were three other guys named Adam, so…”

She nods, half-smiling. 

“Nice to actually meet you like a normal person,” Monty says, tilting his head, and she scoffs. 

“Yeah, you too.” 

“…We cool?” 

“Yeah,” she says softly. 

He nods, leaning over and stepping toward the door, and she follows, wincing when the weight of her bag drags on her shoulder. He holds the door open for her, standing so she can stoop under his arm to pass by him into the hallway. 

“Hey, uh…”

She pauses, looking back at him before they step into the stream of students. He pauses, looking at her. 

“…If  anyone gives you or Lucas any trouble, just… let me know.” 

She looks at him, and then she nods. 

“Okay.” 

He does the nod again, the exaggerated one with the side step, and he smiles at her. She doesn’t get smiled at very often. It’s nice. 

She stays by the door, watching Monty go down the hall curiously, and as she watches, he reaches up and pulls his hat off.

——————

Technically, Erica isn’t allowed to sit here during lunch. 

Freshmen are required to eat in the cafeteria. Upperclassmen can eat outside. Some of them even go off campus, to the sandwich shop that opened last year (which probably gets most of its income from high schoolers) or to their own houses. 

But nobody bothers Erica when she sits here, at the top of the bleachers facing the baseball field. It’s around the back of the high school, facing a kind of emptiness that looks like something else was meant to be built, but nobody ever got around to it. Erica’s eyes scan the vastness, looking at the trees in the distance like she’s waiting for them to blow in the wind. 

She lets her head fall back against the railing at the top of the bleachers, the chill of the metal nice on the back of her neck as the sun shines down at her. It’s finally starting to get colder out, just enough that she’s wearing a sweatshirt that she doesn't want to take off the second she steps outside. There’s a light breeze blowing across her face. It’s nice. 

She opens her eyes when footsteps sound on the bleachers, blinking in the sudden sunlight to find Mike coming toward her, his long legs stretching over the steps. She watches, her heart falling a little bit. 

It’s not that she doesn’t want to see him, that she doesn’t like seeing him. It really is nice to see him. 

His hair is almost as long as Eddie’s now. It’s gotten curlier because he’s actually been taking care of it with instructions from Steve and Nancy, always falling in his face and getting pushed out of the way absently. It’s tied back today, knotted carelessly on the back of his head with a red hair tie that Erica sees flash from under his curls as he turns to sit next to her silently. 

They’re both quiet, sitting side by side, looking out across the field. The wind blows over them, and she smells him in it, the same smell that lingered whenever he went over to the Sinclairs’, the same one that Erica could smell whenever she went over to the Wheelers’ or sat near Nancy. 

“Hey,” Mike says lightly. 

“Hi.”

“‘S nice up here,” Mike says, sounding thoughtful, and Erica nods even though she knows he’s not looking at her.

“Yeah,” she agrees quietly. “Quiet.” 

“How’ve you been?” 

Mike looks at her, and she’s suddenly overly aware of herself, of her expression, of the way she looks so fucking sad.

She shrugs. 

“Okay,” she says, her voice weak, breathy. She clears her throat. “I guess.” 

He’s quiet, like he’s waiting for something, and she looks down, twisting her fingers together, tugging the sleeves of her hoodie down over her hands. 

“I don’t sleep very well,” she says finally. She glances at him and looks away. “It just… I have nightmares a lot.” 

“Yeah,” Mike says, nodding, and he lets his head fall back to the railing. “Nightmares suck.” 

It’s so blunt. So stupid to say. So Mike. Erica scoffs.

“Yeah,” she says. 

Her eyes trace the horizon, eying the clouds. 

“You okay?” Mike asks after another quiet moment, looking at her, and Erica’s chest aches. She looks away from the sky, fingers tightening on each other. She shrugs weakly, but Mike doesn’t say anything. 

“I don’t know,” she says softly, almost whispering. She can feel his eyes on her, and it’s like he’s looking through her skin, like he’s peering into the parts of her that are hidden behind her heart, in the deepest caverns of her chest. She takes a shaky breath. “I…” She hesitates, blinking her eyes as the wind blows again. “I’m not, like… the same.” 

Mike is quiet for a moment. 

“I don’t think any of us are,” he says quietly. 

Her eyes sting, and she wants to roll them because she’s so sick of feeling like this. Her throat feels tight, and her whole body feels sore, and she’s tired. She wants to lay down. 

“I—” She cuts off, and she looks at the sky again, wiping a tear that falls down her cheek, and she wants to snap at Mike to leave her alone, to fuck off, that she’s fine, and she wants to leave, to stomp off, slamming her feet on the bleachers as loud as she can, making every step a loud fuck you to every tear she’s shed, every word anyone’s spoken to her. 

But Mike is quiet, waiting patiently, and she suddenly feels so small again, like she did in Lucas’s bed, nestled into his arms, like she’s sitting at the dinner table next to Mike, waiting for her parents to finish serving everyone. She’s kicking her feet because they don’t reach the floor yet, and Mike is rocking back and forth, pushing his fork so it’s even with his knife, but Lucas reaches over and messes with them to annoy him. It smells like what Erica’s parent’s made for dinner, like roast chicken and garlic. And Erica’s mom is muttering a complaint about them, because Erica kicks at Lucas under the table but misses and hits Mike instead, who kicks Lucas, like he’s transferring what Erica meant for him, and Erica is giggling and Mike is laughing and Lucas is trying to kick them both, but he hits the leg of the table instead, which just makes them laugh harder. 

“I’m always angry,” Erica says quietly. “Just…” She shakes her head, her lower lip quivering. “So fucking angry, all the time, and I— I’m so tired of being angry, I don’t wanna be angry anymore.” 

She swallows the lump in her throat. Mike bumps his shoulder into hers. 

“I get it,” he says gently. 

She shakes her head. 

“I’m mean,” she says adamantly. “I’m mean and I’m angry and I hate everything, and I’m sick of it.” 

“I know,” Mike says softly. “Me too.” 

She looks at him. He’s blurry in her vision like she’s not wearing her glasses, but even through her tears she can see the small smile on his face. He sighs, looking at the sky, the sun shining on his face, and he doesn’t generally seem like someone that spends much time in the sun, but he relaxes in the light, like a cat lounging in a sunbeam. 

“I…” He pauses, sighing. “It’s not so bad now. Because I’ve, like, talked to people. And stuff. But for a while I was… Especially when the Byers moved to Lenora, I was— I was always angry. And mean, and I— I would get pissed at every little thing, no matter how, like, insignificant it was, I— I felt like I was losing my mind. And everyone thought I was just this asshole, and I was just a teenage boy, you know, but…” 

He stops, exhaling, and Erica stares at him, at the side of his face. There are faint freckles dusting his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. 

“I was just scared,” he says softly, looking at her. 

Her lip quivers again, and her eyes flood with a fresh wave of tears. 

“I wasn’t an asshole,” Mike says, and it sounds like he might be crying too, but it also sounds like he’s smiling. “I was just scared, and I— I didn’t know where to put it all, so I kept it all on this shelf in— in my chest, and I took it out on everyone, but I was just a scared little kid, Erica, I wasn’t doing anything wrong.” 

Erica’s head falls forward, and her shoulders shake, because she remembers when Mike was a dick, when he would roll his eyes at everything and when he would make comments and when he would be sarcastic and shitty, and he was just scared the whole time. 

“I don’t wanna be like this anymore,” she says weakly, taking a shuddering breath. “I’m so tired, all— all the time, and I…” 

“I know,” Mike says softly. “It’s okay.” 

Erica wipes her face, looking out at the field. She takes a breath, hiccuping, exhaling shakily, and she feels like such a child, but Mike just sits there with her, listening to her, patient and kind, and he isn’t mean or angry at all. 

“I…” She pauses, wiping her face again. “I miss little Erica.” 

Mike is quiet for a moment. 

“She’s still there,” he says softly, almost whispering to her. “She’s just scared.” 

Erica squeezes her eyes shut, dropping her head, and then Mike is moving closer, and his arm is gently wrapping around her shoulders, and he smells just like his bedroom does, but the smell of the Byers’ house is lingering on his shirt as Erica lets herself fall against him, and as she takes a slow breath, it smells like her childhood, like she’s sitting at the top of the stairs and listening to the boy argue over each other about how to defeat a monster, back when they were fearless and their bruises and scraped knees were from sidewalks and childish clumsiness.

“It’s okay,” Mike says softly, hugging her, and she presses closer, wrapping an arm around his waist, hiding her face in his bony shoulder. He runs a hand over the top of her head the way Lucas does, and she hears his breath shudder and feels his arms tighten around her, squeezing. “‘S gonna be okay.” 

“I don’t wanna be angry anymore,” she says weakly, her voice muffled by his shoulder, and his chest shudders again. 

“I know,” he says, his voice weak. “You’re gonna be okay.”

When she stops crying, she lifts her head and looks away, embarrassed, but he leans close and wipes her cheeks carefully, tenderly. She lets him. 

“It’s okay if you need time,” he says gently, wiping the last tear away. She looks at him. “But you… you can’t just isolate yourself and expect everything to get better. Speaking from experience, I know that won’t work.” 

She smiles weakly, looking away again, exhausted. His hand touches her back, rubbing up and down gently. 

“We love you,” Mike says, and it sounds odd in his mouth, but it makes Erica kind of want to melt. She wants to cry again. “Okay? Even if you don’t wanna let us.” 

She gives him a look, and he gives her one back, tilting his head and raising his eyebrows. 

“You think I don’t love you?” he says sassily, and she scoffs, rolling her eyes, starting to pull away, but he pinches her cheeks and shakes her head. “Erica-a-a-a…”

“Sto-o-o-p,” she complains, trying to shoo him away, suppressing a giggle, but he just taps the end of her nose fondly, poking her cheek again. 

“I’ve known you your whole life,” he says lightly. “I love you. Okay?” 

She blinks her eyes as they sting again, and she nods. 

“Okay.” 

He hugs her again, rocking her back and forth like she’s a baby, and she lets him. 

——————

It’s midafternoon when Erica wakes up again. 

It’s always disorienting to wake up from naps, especially when she didn’t intend on taking one. Her book falls to the side as she sits up, squinting across the room, listening intently. There’s no one home. 

She sighs heavily, falling onto her back, rubbing her face, pushing her hands under her glasses. Her body aches. 

The sun is dim, hiding behind clouds, and she wants to roll back over and go to sleep, but she can’t. Her hands are shaking a little bit, and her neck feels damp with sweat, but she can’t even remember what it was that scared her so much. If it was monsters or men. 

She exhales slowly, fluttering her fingers, pressing her hands firmly against her stomach, tightening the muscles in her legs and arms and holding them before she releases them, following Lucas’s directions on how to ground herself, how to feel like she’s in her body. It doesn’t really work. 

So she sits up, lets her legs dangle over the edge of her bed. Her bed frame is tall, and her feet don’t touch the floor. She fell off her bed once when she was little, and she’s been scared of doing it again ever since, but she hasn’t. She kicks her legs, lets her feet bump against the bed frame. That doesn’t work either. 

She rubs her face again, taking a deep breath, and she stands shakily, a hand pressing to the top of the nightstand. 

The sunlight is too bright. Her head hurts a little, but she knows she’ll get used to it in a few minutes. The floor under her feet feels muffled, like she’s wearing thick socks. 

And she suddenly aches. 

The house is so quiet. 

Her parents are gone, probably running errands or at work, and Lucas is taking Max on a date. 

Erica’s walkie-talkie is sitting on the top of her dresser, with her perfume bottles and action figures, and her fingers itch to reach for it, to call to ask if someone, anyone, is available to just go to her. To hold her. 

But she can’t move, and she exhales sharply, closing her eyes, almost wincing even though nothing really hurts right now. (Everything hurts right now.) 

And then she stumbles forward to find her shoes and tug them on, tying them too tightly, knotting the laces, and she barely even feels conscious, like she’s stuck in a dream that she can’t wake up from. 

Her bike is resting by the front door. It used to be Lucas’s bike, but he gave it to her when he got his car. She’d been excited, even though there aren’t any sparkly tassels on the handlebars. 

Her vision blurs as she takes off down the empty road, and she blinks tears out of her eyes so she can see. She didn’t grab a jacket before she left, and the wind around her is cold, but she doesn’t care. 

And then she’s at the Hendersons’ house, and she spots Dustin’s bike at the end of the driveway, leaning against a wooden beam under the sidewalk. She hops off of her bike, letting it fall to the side, and she blinks tears out of her eyes again as she goes to the front door, knocking tentatively.

It opens after a few minutes, and Ms Henderson’s smile lights up the doorway. 

“Erica!” she says brightly, her eyes scanning Erica’s face, finding the tear tracks. “I haven’t seen you in ages, how are you?”

“I—I’m okay,” Erica says, keeping her voice steady as best she can. “Uhm, is— is Dustin home?” 

“He is,” Ms Henderson says, stepping aside so Erica can come in. “He’s in his room. He said he’s doing homework, but he bought a new comic book this week, so I assume he’s reading that.” 

Erica laughs lightly, politely, toeing her shoes off, and she smiles at her before she goes down the hall to Dustin’s room. 

His door is closed. Erica hesitates, approaching it quietly, and her fist hovers over it for a moment before she knocks. 

“Yes?” Dustin calls tiredly, and Erica’s throat tightens at the sound of his voice as she pushes the door open. 

He’s sitting up in bed, papers scattered in front of him, and Erica hasn’t been here in a long time, but it hasn’t changed much. Clothes scattered across the floor, books stacked on the desk, curtains open to let the sunlight in. Turtle tank in the corner of the room, the light glowing red, posters on the walls. Star Wars bedspread. Hairspray on the top of his dresser, framed photo of Suzie on his nightstand, robots and radios and mismatched tools and electrical bits and pieces on his desk. 

Dustin looks at her. Meets her eyes. 

He blinks at her, lips parting like he wants to speak, but nothing comes out of his mouth. He lowers his pencil, sitting up straight, and it’s quiet. But it’s not the same quiet that made Erica’s body hurt at home, the deafening silence of solitude. She can breathe in this quiet. 

She’s running at him before she can even think, and he tosses the pencil away, shoving his homework aside as she throws herself into his arm, letting out a weak sob. 

Dustin’s arms wrap around her tightly, and she melts against him, squeezing her eyes shut. His hand runs over the top of her head, and she aches, tucking herself into a ball, as small as she can, letting him gather her into his arms like Lucas did when she couldn’t sleep. He rocks her back and forth like Mike did, whispers something that she can’t hear over her own crying. She rests her head against his shoulder, shoulders shaking as she sobs again. His arms tighten around her. 

She falls asleep. 

It takes Dustin a minute to realise that she’s fallen asleep. She falls quiet, her breathing slowly becoming even, steady, and he tilts her head to look at her face, at her peacefully closed eyes, her relaxed expression. 

He smiles. 

He shifts slowly until he’s laying down with her, kicking his homework until it falls off his bed, scattering to the floor, and Erica shifts in her sleep, pressing closer, hands tucking under her chin, and she looks like she’s a little kid again. Dustin looks at her, his throat tightening, reminded of the time she fell asleep while he and the guys were working on their science projects. They’d all been on the floor of the Sinclairs’ living room, and Erica had insisted on staying with them, but she’d fallen asleep on the sofa, her cheek squished against the cushion. Mike noticed first, shushing Dustin and gesturing, whispering not to wake her up. Will had gotten a blanket and covered her, and they’d all cooed as she nuzzled into the sofa. 

Erica’s eyes flutter open a little bit and she reaches for him, still mostly asleep, so he lifts his arm and wraps it around her, letting her come close. enough that her face presses against his chest, squishing, and he smiles again. Her glasses become crooked, and he takes them off her face as gently as he can, reaching to set them on his nightstand. 

He stays as still as he can, holding her as she breathes slowly, steadily, and he really should be doing his homework, but he wouldn’t want to move even if he could. 

His mom comes in as the sun starts setting, tentatively peeking into the room and finding Erica tucked against Dustin’s chest. 

“Is she okay?” she whispers quietly, coming close and moving Erica’s glasses from where they’re sitting dangerously close to the edge of the nightstand. 

“I don’t know,” Dustin says as quietly as he can. Erica nuzzles against his chest. “She didn’t say anything.” 

“She seemed upset when she got here,” his mom says, looking at the side of Erica’s face. She’s frowning a little bit, like she wants to reach down and touch the back of her hand to Erica’s forehead. 

“She’s been…” Dustin hesitates, looking down at Erica’s sleeping face. “She hasn’t been great.” 

His mom hums softly, thoughtfully and she reaches down to Dustin’s forehead instead, brushing his hair back from where it’s falling across his forehead. 

“She’ll be okay,” she says lightly, whispering. “Erica Sinclair is a tough cookie.” 

“I know,” he whispers. She smiles brightly, touching his cheek, and Dustin can’t suppress a smile. He feels like a little kid here, looking up at her, sleepy. 

She flicks the light off on her way out, and Dustin closes his eyes against the dark, exhaling. Erica’s breaths are steady, and usually Dustin can’t sleep if there are any sounds while he’s trying to let himself drift off, because every sound startles him, keeps him up, like every creak of the house settling or leaves rustling in the wind are a demogorgon.

But Dustin listens to the soft rush of Erica’s breath with every exhale, and he wants to know what happened, why she was crying, why she’s been so angry, but he decides that none of it really matters right now. Because she’s sleeping peacefully, face squished against his chest, and they can talk when the sun comes up.