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“You’ll love it here,” Susan insists. She doesn’t look away from the road. She never looks away, never lets herself get distracted behind the wheel. “Out in the country, the heartland, folks are nicer. Salt of the earth. We’ll be closer to our family, too.”
“Great,” Max mutters. It’s been two years since she last saw her grandparents. She remembers cold eyes and pinched, scowling mouths, disapproval clear in their faces, hard, quiet people. They had a nice farmhouse, but Susan is moving them to the suburbs of Hawkins, a nowhere town in a nowhere state. Heartland, her ass.
Next to her, Billy makes a quiet snuffling noise, soft enough that she wouldn’t have caught it if she wasn’t hyper aware of him now, always listening, worried. When she glances over at him, nothing seems to be wrong. His head is lolling against his shoulder, and he’s drooling all over the modified seatbelt Susan rigged up to keep him in place. If he notices the change in scenery, she has no way of knowing.
Max used to pray he’d crash that stupid Camaro. He drove too fast, didn’t pay attention to the road. It was only on the worst nights that she really wanted him dead, but she often found herself hoping he’d wreck his beloved car, maybe break his leg. She never wanted this, never really wanted him dead no matter what she thought, certainly didn’t want- this.
“I think I’ll stop in a few miles,” Susan announces. “Should we… um, do you think… he probably needs to be changed, right? How should we… what would be the best…?” She’s always so nervous, always acting like Max should be the one making decisions.
Max never spared a thought for what her aunt calls the unfortunate reality of caring for someone as severely disabled as her stepbrother now is. She hardly ever saw people in wheelchairs at all, and when she did, they weren’t like this. People like this are in care homes, nursing homes, institutions- places that cost money Neil isn’t willing to pay, or horrible places, places where you never see the sun. Pleases where you rot away.
She remembers reading Pet Sematary behind her mother’s back, how Zelda had terrified her even more than the supernatural parts. Never get out of bed again! NEVER GET OUT OF BED AGAIN!
“Maybe if we park at, like, a picnic rest stop, we could just lay him down across the back seat?”
“Would that work?”
“I think so? Better than getting him in and out of the car.”
So that’s what they do. Billy whines when Susan begins awkwardly maneuvering him. “Shh, shh, shh. Nothing’s wrong, baby, we’re just gonna get you all clean and dry,” Susan murmurs in her new and uniquely annoying talking-to-Billy voice. If he’s still aware at all, he must hate it. Max certainly does.
“Mom. He’s not a baby,” she reminds her.
“The doctors said he doesn’t understand,” Susan says. “I’m just trying to calm him down. Wouldn’t you want people to be gentle with you?”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t want them to talk to me like that.”
“You don’t mind, do you, Billy?”
“Mom.”
While Karen sanitizes her hands, Max adjusts her stepbrother back into a sitting position. She’s getting stronger, better at handling his dead weight, but it’s still a challenge. “It’ll be easier when I’m bigger,” she says, not sure if she’s talking to him or Susan. Billy grunts in response, or possibly just at random. Probably. Hopefully. She doesn’t want to think he’s still there, mentally present for all of this. Depending completely upon her and Susan to live must have been his idea of hell, before.
Maybe not now, though, because when Max tries to move back to her side of the car, Billy’s fingers clutch weakly at her shirt. “Let go,” she says sternly. His eyes don’t look at her, he never focuses his gaze, but he whines and seems to hold on tighter. “I’m right here, Billy. I’m not going anywhere. Let go, now.” When he still doesn’t, she pries his hand off easily, remembering how it used to close around her wrist like a vise when he got in her face, yelling at her, lecturing her, making her life a living hell.
They’re driving from San Diego to Hawkins, almost a year after they were called to the emergency room at 2AM and told Billy would be dead before sunrise. Ten months after they brought him home, nine months and three weeks after Neil left. Left them with no money, abandoned his son to the care of a woman he knew he’d hated, and never reached out. Six months after all the adoption paperwork was finalized, after Neil and his long-gone ex-wife both signed over custody to Susan. Uncontested adoption of a stepchild was fast, faster than Max would have expected.
Maybe it helped that Susan brought Billy to the courthouse when she initially filed. He cried the whole time, groaned loudly, screamed at the top of his lungs; he didn’t like new places anymore, didn’t understand as Susan had said, and it helped her case, this teenage boy sobbing in a wheelchair, abandoned and broken and utterly pitiful in the judge’s eyes. Before the accident, Billy’s blonde curls and blue eyes were sexy. After, they made him look innocent, sweet, and that helped, too. Cute blue-eyed blond-haired boy, good-looking, helpless, abandoned. Susan had reiterated that point constantly.
Neil abandoned him, abandoned all of us, in the middle of the night. I woke up and he was gone, came back to get his stuff and left again. Billy’s mother is out of the picture all together- she abandoned her family years ago. I want to move to Indiana, where my family is- they’ll help me take care of him- but if he’s not legally my child, I don’t know if I can…
Max wonders why Billy’s mother didn’t contest the adoption. She’s never met the woman herself but she knows Billy loved her, if her photograph in his room is anything to go by. Max wants to believe she wouldn’t have come back anyway, doesn’t want to think she let him go because he’s like this.
Indiana is cold. Only October and already cold. Billy started getting carsick eight hours into the trip and has been vomiting on and off ever since; Susan rolled the windows down and put a towel in his lap, tucked another into his shirt, and Max has been holding a bag under his mouth every time he starts gagging. It’s awkward, uncomfortable, miserable for everyone involved. Particularly miserable for Billy, Max has to assume, because he’s been crying for hours. His throat must be too sore to scream, but his eyes are red and wet, his nose is running, tears drip into his hair that Susan keeps in a mullet, out of his face but long, the way he used to like it.
“Welcome home!” Susan singsongs as they pass a WELCOME TO HAWKINS sign.
“Oh, boy,” Max deadpans.
They’re moving into a trailer. Max has always thought of trailers as rock bottom, embarrassing, indicative of extreme poverty, and she thinks sharing a room with Billy in a trailer is a fitting punishment for a girl who wished death on another person. She tries to tell herself she didn’t mean it; it does no good.
Cousins she may have met at some point wait outside. Susan wired them money to buy a wheelchair, or maybe they bought it outright and she needs to pay them back, because they couldn’t figure out how to fit one in the car. The first thing Max notices about their new trailer is the complete lack of a wheelchair ramp. The second is how run down it is.
“How are we gonna get him-”
“I told them to put the wheelchair inside.”
“Okay. So how are we gonna take him outside?”
“I’ll have somebody build a ramp. My uncle’s a handyman.”
“How long will that take?”
“I don’t know, Max.”
One of the cousins, a huge, burly man who reeks of sweat, opens Billy’s door. “This the stepkid?” he asks Susan, crouching to get a better look at him. Billy’s leg twitches, his throat clicks.
“Just my kid, now. I adopted him.”
“Sure, but that doesn’t make him yours. Can you hear me, boy?” He waves his hand in front of Billy’s cloudy, unfocused eyes, and Max reaches over to slap it away.
“He’s not deaf,” she snaps.
“What’s your problem, girl? Did ol’ Susie forget to teach you manners?”
“I’m sorry,” Susan says quickly. “She’s protective of her brother, that’s all.”
“Well, hell, all I did was ask a question.”
“Can you bring him inside?”
“Yup. What’s with the towels?”
“He’s been getting carsick. Don’t jostle his head too much when you lift him, okay?”
“If he pukes on me, I’m gonna drop him.”
“That’s not funny!” Max yells. Her cousin glares at her, amd Susan turns around in her seat to smack her thigh.
“Dan is your family, Maxine,” she hisses, “and he’s doing us a favor.”
“Not if he drops him!”
“It was a joke, kid,” Dan snaps. He grabs Billy roughly, tosses him over his shoulder and makes him cry out, maybe in fear, maybe in surprise.
“Be careful,” Susan says quickly.
“What did you just tell your kid? I’m doing you a favor.”
Inside, it smells like mildew. Dan sets Billy in his wheelchair none too gently, and Billy reaches out, not for Susan but for Max, opening and closing his hand, crying again. It might be a coincidence. It might not. “You’re safe, Billy,” Max tells him. She holds his hand, rubs the back of it with her thumb, and he seems to relax, his tears slowly come to a stop.
“You two are gonna be in the bigger bedroom,” Susan says. Another cousin, shorter than Dan, laughs.
“Really, Susie? You’re spoiling them.”
“There’s two of them, they need more space.”
“You could put that one in the backyard and he wouldn’t notice,” the cousin sneers.
“I don’t like the idea of a boy and a girl sharing a room,” the only woman in the group chimes in. “It’s inappropriate, especially at their age.”
“Well, Jenna, as you might have noticed, there are only two bedrooms in this trailer,” Susan says tiredly.
“So? Keep the boy in the living room, he won’t care.”
“Pennhurst Asylum is state-funded,” Dan cuts in.
“We’re not putting Billy in an institution!” Max yells. Her relatives glower at her.
“That’s your mother’s choice, not yours,” the woman scolds.
“I choose not to,” Susan says quickly.
“Well, we’ll talk about it. You’re asking a lot of us just by having him here, you know that, don’t you? You want my dad to build a ramp, had us come all the way out here, all for a stranger’s kid. You don’t have any obligation to him, you know that, don’t you?”
“Billy is my son,” Susan says. Max, knowing she’ll start yelling if she stays, takes Billy into their new room. It’s almost set up already, furnished by the last occupant, except there’ s one king bed instead of two twins. She shared with Billy in the motels they stayed at along the way, and those were smaller beds, so really, she tells herself, this isn’t bad. It’s just until Susan can afford to buy them their own beds.
“Aren’t you glad we came out here, huh?” Max mutters. Billy smacks his lips together, but offers no further response.
Max gets less than a week off before she’s sent to school. Hawkins Middle is right next to Hawkins High, and there is, miraculously, a special ed program. Less miraculously, there is no way to actually get Billy to the damn school, since the problem of a wheelchair not fitting in Susan’s car still exists.
Most miraculously of all, this problem solves itself their second night in Hawkins.
Max is feeding herself with one hand and Billy with the other, a task she’s become quite adept at, when there’s a knock on the front door. “Who’s that?”
“I’m not expecting anyone,” Susan responds. “Must be a neighbor come to say hello.” She goes to open the door, and from the kitchenette table Max sees a tall young man with long, messy hair grinning at her mother, hands in his pockets. He’s dressed like the kind of person timid Susan crosses the street to avoid, baggy black jeans, ripped up denim vest over a leather jacket, Metallica T-shirt, chains hanging from his studded belt.
“Hey,” he says casually.
“Hello,” Susan squeaks. The stranger looks over at Max and she realizes he’s younger than she thought.
“I’m Eddie. I live across the road, there, and I, uh, I saw you guys moving in earlier. Is your son still in high school?”
“Um, yes. Yes, Billy is a junior this year.”
“I have a van,” Eddie says. Suddenly, Susan stops looking at his ragged punk clothes and looks at his face, at his big brown eyes and easy, genuine smile. “I’m friends with some of the special ed kids, too, and I’m a senior at Hawkins High. So, uh, if he needs a ride to school, it’s no problem.”
“That’s… that’s so kind,” Susan whispers.
“Nah. My uncle’s the one who thought I should ask.”
“Still. Anyway. Yes, that- yes. Thank you so much.”
That’s how, on her first day of school in this new, tiny, cold town, Max ends up in a random guy’s van, squished between him and her brother in the front seat. She’s pretty sure Susan used to warn against getting in vans with strangers, but she’s too focused on keeping Billy upright to care. “My mom put together, like, a special seatbelt for him in her car,” she says.
“We could figure something like that out here,” Eddie responds. “Is Max short for anything?”
“Nothing I wanna be called. Is Eddie short for anything?”
“Nothing I wanna be called.” He grins at her, and she smiles back hesitantly. “So, why Hawkins? You’re from… where was it, New York?”
“California.”
“Even farther. I knew it was somewhere cool like that. What the hell brings a family from Hollywood to bumfuck nowhere?”
“My mom’s family lives here. She wanted to be closer to them after, um. After Billy got hurt.”
“Oh.” Eddie nods. “Cool.”
“Not really. They suck. They want her to put him in Pennhurst.”
“Fucked up.”
Billy makes a sudden ahh noise, almost like he’s agreeing with Eddie.
“So, uh, Max, I gotta warn you about something before we get to school,” Eddie says, driving ever closer to a brown brick building. “I’m happy to give you guys a ride every day, but you should know it might not make you Miss Popularity. I’m not… I’m kind of, uh, the opposite of well-liked.”
“Dude, you’re bringing my crippled brother to school every day. I don’t care what a bunch of jackasses think about you.”
“It’s a small town. People are dicks. Just… sorry, if they say anything.”
“I can handle it,” Max says shortly.
“Right on.” Eddie holds his hand out to fist bump, and Max accepts with a grudging eyeroll.
Billy starts whimpering as soon as they get him into his wheelchair, eyes darting around faster than usual. “You’ll be alright,” Max says. She strokes his hair, and he reaches for her wrist but can’t lift his arm high enough, makes a series of frantic little ah, ah, ah sounds. “I know it’s crowded out here, but you’re gonna be in a small classroom, okay? I’ll come in with you ‘cause it’s our first day, but I gotta go to my school after that.”
People are staring openly, Max notices. She pretends she doesn’t. Eddie is bouncing on his heels- she’s already noticed he’s always moving. “Can you push him? It might help if I hold his hand.”
“No problem.”
Billy continues to make quiet noises of complaint, but, thankfully, doesn’t scream. Max glowers at everyone they pass, everyone staring blatantly at him, whispering, giggling. “Who’s your new friend, Munson?” some asshole in a letterman jacket calls.
“Fuck off,” Eddie responds lightly.
The special ed classroom is small, consisting of an elderly teacher, an exhausted aid, and a girl with Down syndrome who waves at them as they walk in. The aid raises her eyebrows when she sees Billy. “I didn’t know the new student was so…”
“The principal said he could be here. Legally, you have to let him be here,” Max snaps. She’s done research since the accident, knows exactly what to say to people like this, and she’s not exactly thrilled that the person who’s supposed to be taking care of Billy is immediately questioning his presence. “Haven’t you heard of the EHA? Education for All Handicapped Children Act. He has a legal right to be here.”
“I’m familiar with the law, young lady,” the aid snaps, “but if we don’t have the resources-”
“Margaret,” the teacher interjects, sighing. “We were told ahead of time.”
“I hadn’t realized-”
“You were told. This is your job.” The teacher nods politely to Max. “I’m Miss Grant. Nice to meet you both.”
“And what brings you here, Mr. Munson?” Margaret asks coldly.
“Max and Billy are my new neighbors,” he says.
“First bell is about to ring. Here, Max, I’ll write a note for your teacher,” Miss Grant chimes in. She waves Max over, writes an arduously slow note, and hands it to her. “You’d better head out.”
“Bye, Billy,” Max mutters. She pats her brother’s head and leaves before he can cause too much of a scene, but she can still hear him shrieking as she runs down the hall.
“Are you new? I mean, I- I know you’re new, but, um, I meant, y’know-”
“Hello,” a dark-haired boy interrupts irritably. Four boys have approached Max’s lunch table, two of them nervous, one bored, one annoyed. “I’m Mike, these are my friends Dustin, Lucas, and Will. Dustin and Lucas thought we should say hi to you.”
“What made them think that?” Max asks. When she sat down at the end of a cafeteria table, the four girls sitting at the other end got up and left, glaring, whispering to each other. She caught Eddie, freak, and contagious. All day long, people have been shooting her side glances, muttering, giving her a wide berth in the hall. She’s heard constant snatches of conversation about the high school parking lot.
“Well, uh, we heard- we thought- I mean, we noticed-”
“My older sister saw you in the parking lot this morning,” Mike interrupts again.
“And, y’know, there’s a lot of bullies here,” Dustin adds.
“So many bullies, it- it’s crazy,” Lucas says, nodding.
“We thought you might want people to sit with,” Dustin concludes. Mike rolls his eyes. Will, who hasn’t looked at her once, remains silent.
“If you’re offering to sit with me, does that mean you guys are the losers?” Max asks drily.
“You’re the one without any friends,” Mike snaps.
“We’re nerds, not losers,” Dustin says.
“We’re kind of the losers,” Will finally says, voice soft.
“You can sit with me,” Max tells them. A quartet of weird, nerdy boys is better than no friends at all, even if one of them seems to hate her already.
“Where are you from?” Lucas asks.
“California.”
“What brought you to Hawkins? It’s, like, nowhere.”
“My mom wanted to be closer to her family.” She can tell Dustin and Lucas are dying to ask about what that asshole Mike’s sister saw, so she adds, quickly, “My brother was in a really, really bad car accident, and he got… hurt. Seriously hurt. Mom wants to be with her family so she has a ‘support system’, but it turns out they’re a bunch of jerks who want her to have him institutionalized, so, y’know. Not super great.”
“Oh, that sucks,” Dustin says, genuinely sympathetic.
“What’s his name?” Will asks quietly.
“Billy. He’s actually my stepbrother, or he used to be, but his dad ran away after the accident and Mom adopted him.”
“My dad left, too,” Will tells her.
“Mine’s dead,” Dustin says absurdly.
“Well, mine’s in California, but Mom’s got custody of me and she says he’s a deadbeat, so, y’know.” When Susan announced the move, Max had asked her father to stay with him. He refused.
“Do you and your brother get along?”
“I guess we do now.”
Hawkins is a shithole.
They’ve only been here… not long, Billy knows that much, but he can’t be sure how many days, exactly. If he had to guess, more than a week, less than a month. It’s October now, he knows that because the goddamn sped teacher repeats it every morning in a voice like nails on a chalkboard, and they’ve been engaged in almost exclusively Halloween-themed activities.
“Good morning, class,” Miss Grant says, infuriatingly perky. The Down syndrome girl, the only other student who’s here all day- and “student” is a strong word for what they are, Billy thinks ruefully- repeats her happily. Billy tunes out the rest of what she’s saying, pretends he’s back in California. He closes his eyes, either to fall asleep or just to zone out, he’s not sure. (If anyone tried, he could probably communicate a little by blinking, but no one, not even Max, has thought to try.)
“No sleeping in class,” Margaret snaps. She smacks his arm to wake him up, and Billy bats at her weakly, whining. Bitch. Hope you die. Leave me the hell alone.
“We’re making jack-o-lanterns today, my dears,” Miss Grant continues, “real jack-o-lanterns, so we’re going on a bit of a trip.”
“Where?” the girl asks eagerly. Her name is Marcia or Maria or something, Billy can’t be bothered to remember.
“The picnic area.” Billy groans, partially involuntarily; he can’t contain his emotions, expresses them, to the best of his ability, whether he wants to or not. The picnic area is right next to the track field; people will see them. He used to crave attention like water, but now all he wants to do is hide in his room, especially since he really can’t stop himself from screaming or crying when he’s distressed. It’s not like he wants these people staring at him, that’s the last thing he wants, but crowds of people, people judging, he panics completely.
“Yay!”
“And we’ll go during third period,” Miss Grant adds. That actually is a relief, and Billy smiles. Turns out, Eddie knew exactly where the special ed classroom is because he’s in it, at least for third period. Hawkins High shoves remedial courses and special ed together; while Marcia/Maria and Billy are here all day, in this stupid room that looks like a kindergarten classroom, the problem children file in and out for remedial lessons. Eddie is one of them, as he’s failing everything. Billy’s never heard of anyone getting a D- in art, but Eddie’s somehow managed it.
“Shouldn’t that be study time?” Margaret snaps. The remedial classes are essentially just supervised study hall; Miss Grant is less than helpful, and all Margaret does is shout at the students to stay on task.
“It’s almost Halloween, give the kids a break,” Miss Grant laughs. “They can help Marcia and Billy carve pumpkins.”
“That’s hardly productive.”
“Margaret, relax. One day off won’t kill them.”
“I’m gonna make mine a dragon,” Marcia announces.
Third period rolls around. Eddie is late, as always, but Miss Grant never cares. Margaret certainly does. “Thank you for finally gracing us with your presence, Mr. Munson,” she snaps.
“You are welcome,” Eddie replies, smiling at her. He has a nice smile, not that Billy’s paying attention or anything.
“Shall we go, then?” Miss Grant asks brightly. Eddie pushes Billy’s wheelchair without being asked to, and Billy likes knowing he’s there, feels a little calmer in the thankfully empty halls. They’ve never gone on an outing like this before, although he hasn’t been here long. He doesn’t want to go. Doesn’t want anyone to see him.
Someone set up pumpkins already, and Margaret, thank God, busies herself helping Marcia. “I used to have contests with my uncle to see who could make the scariest jack-o-lantern,” Eddie tells Billy, grabbing a pumpkin and attacking it with relish. Billy wants to tell him he’s never made a jack-o-lantern before, because Neil thought holiday decorations, decorations of any kind, were for women to manage. He coos instead, a soft murmur, to let Eddie know he’s listening contentedly.
Once the top is off, Eddie pulls out a handful of pumpkin innards and holds it out to Billy. “Feel this, dude, it’s gross as hell.” Curious, Billy touches the stringy pumpkin guts, giggling at the weird texture. “Crazy, right? How do they even get pumpkin pie outta this?” Eddie talks nonstop, babbling on and on and on about nothing in particular; it’s soothing, in a way.
“Check it out, Miss Grant,” he finally says, showing her “their” jack-o-lantern. It’s impressive by any standard, and Billy wonders how the hell Eddie can possibly be failing his art class.
“Lovely! Very nice,” she praises.
“That’s awfully creepy,” Margaret huffs.
“I like it,” Marcia chimes in.
I like it, too, Billy thinks. Eddie writes both their names on the bottom in permanent marker and gives it to Billy to take home.
The girls in Hawkins are nothing to write home about, but Billy doesn’t have a home anymore and he knows he’ll never be desirable again. He misses California beaches, suntanned men in swim trunks, model-beautiful women fawning over him, misses being wanted. Women and girls still like him now, like him more, perhaps, than they would if he wasn’t cute, undeniably pretty even when he’s drooling on himself in a wheelchair.
A group of girls his age have cornered him and Max after church. Church was Susan’s idea, something she insisted on to make them “feel normal”, and as long as they sit in the back Billy doesn’t mind it so much. People stare at him, yes, but not as much as they do at school, and church is familiar. Neil dragged them to church all the time.
It’s the after-service that Billy hates, Susan desperately trying to make friends in the cramped little dining hall while him and Max are left to fend for themselves. Max tears a donut hole into teeny-tiny pieces and sneaks them into his mouth when no one’s looking; he can’t chew anymore, and Max and Susan disagree on whether or not donuts are safe for him to eat. Max says they’re soft enough, fine in small pieces.
Max says. Max says. Billy feels like a child talking about a cool older sibling with how often he finds himself internally repeating them, Max says we can stay up to midnight when Susan works late, Max says caramel is safe to eat, Max says this, Max says that. Stupid. Humiliating. She’s younger than him and not even his sister, but they’re together all the time, she takes care of him. He hates that she takes care of him. He’s reluctantly grateful. He hates her. She’s his best friend.
“...and then Dustin said there’s only four Ghostbusters but I can still go trick-or-treating with them. That’s how he phrased, like they were doing me a favor. As if I need those dorks.” Max has been harping on these guys for a while now- how long, two weeks, three? Halloween is soon, possibly next week. Billy is going to find a way to kill himself if Susan dresses him up. He couldn’t care less about Max’s preteen drama, but he hums anyway. Apparently, that’s a sign of agreement. “Exactly. I don’t need them. If anything, they need me- I bet a girl’s never even looked in their direction before.”
And speaking of girls, a cluster of them are approaching right now, not terribly ugly girls. They’re what passes for pretty in Hawkins, Billy thinks, then reminds himself that they’re so far out of his league it’s not funny. They’re not even playing the same sport as him. Hell, he’s not playing at all, and with that he loses track of the metaphor and realizes the girls started talking to Max while he was zoned out.
“Where in California?” one is asking. Another girl cautiously steps closer to Billy and pets his hair, and Billy smiles despite himself. She smiles back.
“Your brother’s adorable,” she tells Max, completely bursting his bubble. Billy wishes she’d stayed quiet a little longer and let him pretend she was attracted to him, hitting on him, the way girls used to be.
“Look at his hair!” another girl exclaims, tugging one of his curls and letting it bounce back into shape. Girls used to play with his hair flirtatiously, but now he feels like a doll. He whines loudly, can’t steady his gaze enough to make eye contact with Max but she gets the point.
“Don’t touch him,” she snaps.
“Oh, sorry…”
“What part of California are you guys from?”
“San Diego.”
The girls keep talking to Max, completely ignoring Billy now that they’re not allowed to play with his hair. He’s getting so damn sick of people talking over his head, hadn’t realized how boring conversations were when you can’t participate at all.
Some guy Billy’s seen at school approaches them, wraps an arm around the prettiest girl’s shoulders, the girl who thinks Billy is adorable, not handsome or sexy. “You two are new, right?” he asks Max.
“Yeah,” she mutters.
“I’m Jason.”
“Max. Billy.” Jason shakes her hand like this is some kind of formal meeting, and then, to Billy’s surprise, he holds out a hand to him, too. Slowly and shakily, Billy manages to weakly grasp it.
“Does he understand us?” Jason asks Max.
Yes, Billy thinks.
“Not really, but I think he likes it when I talk to him,” Max says, shrugging.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, man,” Jason says to Billy.
On Tuesday, Billy sees Jason in the parking lot. Jason shoots Eddie, who is pushing his wheelchair and rambling incessantly about Iron Maiden, a suspicious look. “That guy’s such a prick,” Eddie mutters in Billy’s ear.
On the next Sunday, Jason approaches Max and Billy. “How do you guys know Eddie Munson?” he asks. Max rolls her eyes.
“He’s our neighbor. He’s nice.”
“Oh. Oh, yeah. Sure. I was just wondering, ‘cause he’s…”
“Got a bad reputation. I know. Trust me, I’m really, super aware, but we like him a lot.”
“Alright. Hey, maybe he’s turning over a new leaf.”
And then it’s Halloween, and Max is running out the door dressed as Michael Myers. Either Eddie is giving her a ride to one of her friend’s houses or she’s skating, and Billy is left with Susan, who mercifully does not put him in a stupid costume. She brings him out to the porch and settles down with a bowl of candy on her lap, as if Max isn’t the only trick-or-treating aged kid in the trailer park, and stares at the wheelchair ramp Eddie’s uncle built for them.
“Nobody in my family would build that,” she says. She’s talking to herself; when she talks to Billy, it’s always in an infuriating baby voice that makes him want to hit her. “Our neighbors are nicer than my own damn family.”
Margaret is rapidly becoming the bane of Billy’s existence. She hates him, complains about him constantly to Miss Grant, always fully within earshot. “It’s just not fair to us. They’re not paying us any extra for, what, being nurses? I’m not a nurse, I didn’t sign up to be a nurse, and now I’m being told to act as a nurse.”
“Billy’s a sweetheart,” Miss Grant says idly. Billy laughs- no one, not even his mother, has ever said that about him.
“He’s a problem is what he is.” Yeah, that sounds more familiar, but not for the reasons Margaret means. “The amount of time, the resources-”
“Margaret, all he does is sit there and mind his own business.”
“Exactly! I have to feed him-”
“You don’t feed him,” Marcia laughs. Margaret jumps; obviously, she didn’t realize Marcia was following their conversation. She’s right, though. Eddie shows up at lunch, accompanied by the gaggle of losers that follow him around like ducklings, and hangs out the entire period, feeds Billy, chats with Marcia. Margaret tried to banish them back to the cafeteria, but Miss Grant lets them stay.
“Don’t interrupt,” Margaret snaps. Marcia widens her eyes at Billy, mimes zipping her lips. “He has to be spoonfed, watched all the time- I have to deal with- I did not sign up to change a teenager’s diapers.” The revulsion in her voice is so palpable it’s almost a physical presence in the room. She makes it clear every time she has to change him, an already embarrassing process- they have to go to the nurse’s office next door, where she and the nurse lay Billy on a cot and Margaret makes a big show of putting on gloves, grimacing, whispering that he’s disgusting.
Somehow, Margaret knows how he got hurt, heard it through the grapevine, he supposes. She knows he was speeding at night, and has decided that makes everything his fault. Billy figures she’s not entirely wrong, but he wishes she’d stop reminding him every chance she gets.
“Actually, I think you’ll find you did,” Miss Grant says calmly. “You’re an aid in a special education classroom. Your job is to assist the children with everything they can’t do on their own, and in some cases, that includes hygiene, toileting, things of that nature.”
“Children can’t start kindergarten unless they’re potty trained. Shouldn’t that be a requirement for high school, too?” Margaret asks bitingly.
“There’s a difference between toilet training and continence-”
“It’s gross!” Margaret shrieks. Marcia glances up from her Boxcar Children book, makes sure Margaret isn’t paying attention, and scoots her chair closer to Billy.
“You’re the one in diapers, but she’s the one who sounds like a baby,” she whispers in his ear. Billy laughs despite himself, and Marcia sits back, giggling. She’s unfailingly, bluntly honest, a trait Margaret hates.
“What’s so funny over there?” Miss Grant calls, obviously desperate to get out of her conversation with Margaret.
“Nothing! They’re just laughing, it doesn’t mean anything!” Margaret yells.
“I told Billy a joke,” Marcia says primly.
“Oh? Was it very funny?” Miss Grant asks.
“He wouldn’t know!” Margaret insists. “I’m telling you, this is unfair. If the government really needs kids like that to sit in a classroom, they should pay for special schools, not-”
“The point of the EHA is that disabled children deserve a normal school experience,” Miss Grant says calmly.
“They’re not normal kids!”
“Don’t listen to her,” Marcia says, patting Billy’s arm. “She’s a mean big baby. I’m glad you’re here, ‘cause last year there was a girl here with me but she graduated, so I was really lonely for a while.”
Marcia isn’t the worst company in the world, Billy supposes.
“You know what day it is?” Max asks. Billy assumes it must be Thanksgiving, unless something else is happening. Miss Grant has replaced the classroom’s ghosts and bats with turkeys and friendly scarecrows. Marcia loves decorating and insisted on helping, practically did the whole damn thing herself. At one point, she started putting things in Billy’s hands just so he could give them right back to her, which he thought was asinine until she finished and announced that they’d done it together. “It’s Thanksgiving. Mom’s taking us to my- to, uh, to our grandma’s house.”
My grandma’s in California, Billy thinks. He’s not on board with being adopted. Adoption is for, like, African orphans and foster kids, not him, not someone who’s almost an adult and already has a mother. A mother who, he’s sure, couldn’t be found after the accident because she’s off on some adventure, traveling around the country like she always wanted, but she’ll be back for him once she realizes what happened. She wouldn’t have relinquished custody of her son, especially not if she knew how hurt he was. Billy hadn’t spoken to his mother for months before the accident, and when he did it was only a brief phone call supervised by Neil. She said she missed him, she’d see him in person soon. Probably something about going on a trip, something to explain why she hasn’t come back for him.
Billy knows his mother wouldn’t have let some stranger adopt him. She wouldn’t. She was tricked or wasn’t told or something, but she’ll find him and bring him home. Sometimes he feels like the child he was when she first left, Mommy will come back, Mommy didn’t abandon me, but before, the problem was Neil keeping them apart. Now, with Neil out of the picture, there’s no reason for her not to come back for him.
“I heard there’s cousins kind of our age. Teenagers,” Max continues. Billy wants to point out that twelve is not technically a teenager. He groans loudly instead, trying to convey his disinterest in being around anyone from Susan’s obnoxious family, and Max nods, frowning. “I know. I won’t let them be mean to you.”
Oh, great, Mad Max is gonna protect me. I’m safe now, Billy thinks, longing to roll his eyes.
“They’re coming here,” Max continues, “so if they’re assholes, we can just stay in our room.”
Redheaded relatives start showing up way too early, crowding into the too-small trailer uncomfortably. Max amd Billy are quickly surrounded by a swarm of teens, none of whom look happy to be here. “My mom said you’re from Hollywood,” one of them tells Max.
“San Diego. Hollywood is in Los Angeles.”
“How’d you go from California to a trailer park?”
“Mom missed her family,” Max says stiffly.
“I heard your dumbass stepbrother crashed his fancy car driving too fast,” another cousin sneers.
“Shut up,” Max says, halfhearted at best. Billy has to admit the cousin isn’t wrong, but there was no need to phrase it that way.
“Can he hear us?”
“Obviously not, Becky, are you stupid? Look at him.”
“I think he can, I just don’t know if he understands,” Max says. She’s ignored.
“I’ve never seen anybody like that.”
“My dad says Aunt Susan should put him in Pennhurst.”
“He’s not crazy!” Max interrupts.
“They put retards there, too,” the cousin says.
“We’re not getting rid of him,” Max says fiercely, and somehow that feels worse than her cousin calling him a retard. Billy remembers pushing her aside, yelling in her face, going out of his way to fuck with her because he could, she was there and it was so easy, after Neil made him feel like shit, to turn around and try to make her feel the same way. He was grudgingly polite to Susan at best, horrible to Max, he doesn’t deserve their affection.
Why does Max care? She can’t possibly want him to stay. She hates this move as much as he does, maybe more. If it was Neil who’d been hurt, Billy wouldn’t be so chill about uprooting his life for him, he’d never care for him. He’d leave him to rot in a nursing home and never look back, so why, after what an asshole he was, do Max and Susan keep him around?
“He’s drooling,” one cousin stage whispers. Max wipes Billy’s mouth with her sleeve, and the girl squeals in exaggerated disgust. “Eww!”
“Shut up. It’s just saliva.”
“My dad said he wears diapers.”
“Don’t you hicks have anything better to talk about?” Max snarls. Billy smiles crookedly up at her, but she doesn’t notice.
“Everybody just thinks it’s fucking crazy to take care of somebody like that when you’re not even related.”
“We are related. Billy’s my brother, Mom has all the papers to prove it.”
“A piece of paper doesn’t make you related.”
“Forget you people, we’re going to our room.”
“You guys share a room?”
The cousins let them go, and Max sits heavily on the edge of her bed, sighing. They finally have separate beds now, twin beds, but his is a hospital bed with a vinyl mattress, rails on the side so he won’t fall out and hit his head again. There’s a stupid fucking foam pillow Susan makes him lie against, too, because he curls up into the fetal position in his sleep and she worries about his spine. As if back pain is anywhere near his list of concerns.
“You know we’re not getting rid of you, right? We’re not sending you away,” she says suddenly. Billy would like to look at her, but his eyes seem more interested in the corner where wall meets ceiling and he can’t get them to focus, to move where he wants. His left arm is held tight to his chest, a frequent, completely involuntary movement, and it’s a surprise when Max stands up, gently straightens it out, and takes both his hands in hers. His fingers curl in, too, but she adjusts them. “Billy. If you can understand me, listen- Mom’s not gonna put you in an asylum or nursing home or anything like that. She won’t abandon you, okay?”
Why not? Why won’t you? Why don’t you hate me? You should hate me. Billy sighs loudly, trying to ask why why why, but he gets no answer. He doesn’t want to admit that he’s grateful for Max’s reassurance, that he doesn’t hate her. Maybe he loves her. Susan isn’t Mom but Max is slowly becoming sister, and Billy doesn’t know how to feel about that.
He only realizes he’s started crying when she wipes his tears away.
Because their trailer is too small to have her family here, Susan set up a long folding table outside for Thanksgiving dinner. Neil would say it looks trashy, but it gives Billy an excuse to stay inside, so he’s grateful. Max stays with him, glaring out the window at her extended family while she spoonfeeds him mashed potatoes and attacks her turkey like it has personally wronged her in some way.
Max is getting really close to these boys she keeps telling Billy about, but today is the first time he’s actually meeting them. He’s not excited, but has absolutely nothing better to do with his time than get introduced to a bunch of middle schoolers, so. And so, Susan says sometimes, a meaningless little phrase she likes to punctuate her sentences with, and so.
“My friends are coming over today,” Max reminds him for the billionth time. She’s been going on and on about it all week, he hasn’t forgotten, and even if he had he would’ve picked up on today being important when she dressed him up for the first time since they moved to Hawkins. Normally, they put him in loose T-shirts and sweatpants and call it good, but today Max put him in jeans and a button-up shirt, shaved his face, combed his hair after bathing him, and, inexplicably, rubbed Susan’s perfume on his wrists.
She’s dressed him in his old clothes, from before. Billy always wore tight jeans, but they’re loose on him now, almost as baggy as his old shirt.
The kids all show up at once, a whole herd of them, five boys- no, four, one of them is a girl. A weird girl dressed in men’s clothes. They’re all accompanied by one of the popular seniors at Hawkins High, a pretty boy who obviously puts a great deal of effort into his hair, chooses his expensive clothes with care. He’s on the basketball team that Billy should be on, would have been the star player in some world where he wasn’t hurt, where he came here healthy and whole. Not that he gives a shit about basketball, but he was good at it in California, he’d be great at it here. If he could walk and run and hold his head up on his own.
“Do you not have friends?” Max asks the high schooler.
“Hey, be grateful I was willing to pick everybody up, okay?”
“He didn’t have anything better to do,” the chubby, curly-haired kid says. He looks a little old to still be missing teeth.
“Shut it, Henderson.”
“This is my brother, Billy,” Max announces, putting a hand on Billy’s shoulder. All eyes turn to him, and he whimpers involuntarily, doesn’t like how many people are in the room. Thank God it’s not their room, with the hospital bed and medical supplies and everything screaming how injured he is, but there’s still him.
“Hi!” the toothless kid chirps. “I’m Dustin, it’s nice to meet you.” He has a lisp.
The other boys introduce themselves as Mike, Lucas, and Will. The girl stares at Billy for a long time, eyes wide, before solemnly saying, “I am Eleven.”
“But we call her El,” Mike adds quickly.
“And I’m Steve,” the pretty boy says, rounding off introductions.
“Do you like Dungeons and Dragons?” Will asks Billy.
“He can’t talk,” Max reminds him.
“Can he communicate at all?”
“No. The doctors said he’s, um, not really there anymore.” But the doctors are wrong. I am here. And he does know DnD, it’s practically the only thing Eddie talks about.
“Like Mama,” El says, nodding wisely.
“Yeah, kinda like…” Max gasps. “Yeah, yeah, exactly like Mama! And didn’t you say- you said you talked to her, right? That she was communicating with you?”
“Mama is… like me,” El says cautiously. Billy thinks he’d much rather meet this weirdo’s family than Susan’s.
“What?” Steve asks blankly.
“El ran away and met her mom but she’s kinda lobotomized ‘cause of the bad men but she’s also psychic so El could see her memories and now we know El has a crazy sister out there somewhere who’s in a gang,” Dustin rattles off. “Come on, dude, keep up.”
“You literally never told me any of that! I just know she’s, you know, a wizard or whatever.”
These people are either all insane or playing some very elaborate game, and for Max’s sake, Billy hopes it’s the latter. She doesn’t need her only friends in this town to be a bunch of delusional kids and their equally psycho babysitter.
“Have you ever tried it on anyone else?”
El shakes her head slowly.
“Then it might work,” Max says. Billy feels like he’s being roped into something, but has no idea what.
“I don’t see… now. I only see memories. And I find people.” El chews her lip. “But. Mama is… gone. Maybe if he is still here, I can find out.”
What the hell is this kid on?
Before Billy’s entirely sure what they’re doing, Max has turned the TV to static and El is sitting on the floor across from him, blindfolded. Everyone is silent, Max is holding her breath, and he can’t stop himself from crying out.
“He needs to be quiet,” El says.
“Billy, try not to make any noise,” Max mutters, which just makes him scream. What are they doing? What is this?
“I will wait until he is calm,” El says.
“She’s psychic, dude. She wants to talk to you, like, in her mind,” Steve says, which doesn’t help Billy calm down because it just makes him sound deranged. This is the guy who’s watching Max all the time?
“I know that sounds crazy, but just- just-”
“Look,” El says. She takes her blindfold off, holds her hand out.
And Susan’s books levitate off her shelf.
Billy screams again, thrashes against the chest strap of his wheelchair, but as the books quietly sort themselves into a stack and blood drips from El’s nose, he thinks he understands. Or believes her, anyway. He manages, with great effort, to calm down. “She can go into a sort of trance state, okay? And when she’s in there, she might be able to talk to you,” Max explains. “You might be able to talk to her.”
El puts the blindfold back on. The TV static flickers. Billy closes his eyes.
And opens them, in a black, black void. A black void he’s standing in, a void he knows isn’t real because he can’t feel anything, can’t feel where he ends and the air begins, so standing isn’t all that exciting. El is in front of him, staring up at him.
“You are not like Mama,” she says in that creepy-ass monotone.
“You’re-” Billy stops, touches his mouth though he can’t feel it, and swallows. It’s not real, it’s in his head or her head or some other plane, but he can speak. For the first time in over a year, he can talk.
“He is here,” El says. Her voice echoes. She falls silent, like she’s listening to someone, then says, “Max wants to know if you are in pain.”
“No,” Billy says.
“He is not in pain.” A pause. “Max wants to know if you are still you. She asks if you are aware of your surroundings.”
“Uh, yeah, I’m in a creepy void with a psychic freak girl. If she means in general, yes, I am. And I can still blink, I mean, I can control that.”
El repeats him. “Max asks if there is anything she needs to know.”
Anything she needs to know? Yeah, about a million things. “Uh…” Billy swallows. He kicks the still water they’re standing in, but it doesn’t so much as ripple. “Can you tell her, um… tell her thank you,” he mutters. Thank you wasn’t something he said often, before, and when he did it was forced by Neil. “Her and her mom. Thank you for taking care of me, I don’t know why- I don’t know why they bother. But I’m glad I’m not just locked up somewhere like Pennhurst.”
El repeats him.
“And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was so horrible to her.” Billy doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t want to go into detail with all Max’s friends listening, although she’s likely told them anyway. “And, uh, I guess- when is my real mom coming back? Susan is great, she’s an angel, but I- I miss Mom, and it’s not like the Mayfields should have to take care of me forever. My mom always wanted to travel, so she’s probably, like, doing that, but if they could find her- I guess they couldn’t, that’s why Susan adopted me- I just really miss my mom.”
El repeats him, then says, “Max will tell you about your mom when you are back. Are you ready to go back?”
“Can’t stay here forever,” Billy says.
He blinks.
He’s back. The kids are all yelling, running around, Mike in particular exclaiming over how amazing El is, and Max is crying.
Once everything settles down, she takes him to their room to talk about his mom. “I’m sorry,” she says, which isn’t a great place to start, “but, Billy, your mom isn’t traveling. She’s in California, still, and she did sign over custody. I think… it’s not that she doesn’t want you, she just doesn’t have… I don’t know. Time. Resources. I’ll ask Mom if we can call her and let her talk to you, okay?”
Billy doesn’t respond, just closes his eyes. He cries, long and loud, barely feels Max hugging him, because all this time he’s been waiting for something that won’t happen. His mother isn’t gone, she just doesn’t want him.
But that night, when Susan adjusts him on his side, strokes his hair out of his face, kisses the side of his head, and whispers, “Good night, Billy,” he almost thinks, good night, Mom, but stops himself like he has every night for months. For months, when he’s thought of Susan as Mom, he’s told himself he’s wrong, she’s his stepmother, he has a mother. As the woman who adopted him and moved across the country to care for him better walks away, Billy realizes he’s been right all this time. He does have a mother, it’s just not who he thought it was.
Mom closes the door gently behind her.