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Max was at Lucas’s for dinner today. It wasn’t her first time meeting his family, far from it, but she still felt that tight anxiety at the dinner table, that guilt whenever she said anything too sharp or rude. It—it almost hurt, really, seeing a family so perfect and happy and good . Everybody talking at the dinner table, warmth and back-and-forth and genuine interest, like when Mr Sinclair asked ‘So, Max, what do you like to do?’ (and all of them remembered to call her Max, never Maxine.) It… she felt awful just thinking it, but instead of being happy she was there or grateful or anything like that she mostly just felt angry. Because her family could have been like this, her mom and dad still together at the dinner table in California, all happy and caring. Instead, she was stuck with a mother who was always detached, blank eyes. Neil, Billy, Max, all three of them too angry for their own good, for anybody’s good.
She was quiet at the dinner table, staring down at her food, slowly piercing each pea and sliding them down the tines of her fork as Erica chattered on about her little friends, was chided for her sarcasm but not yelled at, not in trouble. And—she pushed away the tightness in her throat, the sting behind her eyes, replaced it with anger that all her friends got what she didn’t. Dustin, with his dad (dead or just gone, she wasn’t sure) still had a mom who loved him and pinched his cheeks and asked about his friends. Will, a dad too much like Neil but a mom who cared so, so much it stung. Even Eleven, who’d grown up in a fucking lab, had Hopper! And Mike, Mike who had both his parents, two sisters, a perfect suburban family. Why did all her friends get what she wanted so badly it hurt, why Mike? Why never her? (Selfish, selfish, selfish.)
Rain drummed against the roof, the windows. The Sinclairs had already insisted upon driving her home later, something she had half-heartedly argued against, but with the twisting selfishness in her chest because she knew she wouldn't reject the care she so greedily wanted.
Max frowned, hearing a hint of—voices, maybe, and she tilted her head to hear them. It was shouting, muffled by walls, faint, but still enough to make her stiffen in her seat, back gone tight and straight. Lucas looked over at her with a sort of soft concern, pinched brows, “Max?” He asked quietly.
Mrs Sinclair, clearly hearing the same thing, got up from her chair, going over to the windows to pull aside the curtains and peer out into the rain and evening darkness. She sighed, glanced over her shoulder and sent a meaningful look back to her husband.
“Again?” He muttered as the voices got louder suddenly, then there was the slam of a door. Their neighbours, possibly. It was just their neighbours, and it shouldn’t make her react like this, shouldn’t make her react at all. Max didn’t ask why they were looking at eachother like that, why Lucas’s lips were pursed, even though she wanted to—
“Erica, get the back door for him,” Mrs Sinclar said (for who?) and the girl stood up, darted to the door, nearly slipping on the rug on her way. The Sinclair parents were whispering quietly back and forth, and Max felt very, very out of place.
She glanced at Lucas with a frown—”What’s going on?” But he didn’t answer, clearly distracted as he instead turned to his mom.
“I’ll get him a towel,” he offered, and was quickly shooed to do just that, leaving Max seated with only the adults at the table. She glanced down at her fork where she had been messing around with her peas, slowly stuck it in her mouth and ate the flavourless vegetables, because—what else was she meant to do?
“You look like a wet rat,” Erica’s too-bold voice said, though it was somewhat cautious in its tone, something she’d never seen Erica do before.
And then in response was a huff of laughter, bitter, and, “Wow, thanks Erica,” said a voice that was all-too-familiar. What? And then Lucas bounded back down the steps on long legs, holding a grey-blue bath towel in his hands that he, judging by the sound of it, had thrown onto the guest (unwelcome, in Max’s opinion.)
Then, as Max craned her neck to look down the hallway to the back door, she saw as—Mike Wheeler slumped in, dripping with rainwater, dark hair sticking every which way from being hurriedly towelled dry.
“Mike?” She asked incredulously before she could think better of it, and watched as his open hurt expression crumpled and twisted into a defensive glare that she was more used to seeing on his face. And instinctively she glared back too, an angry scowl that was quickly smoothed further away when Mrs Sinclair brushed a hand over her shoulder on her way over to Mike instead. (Because it was always instead.)
Max tried not to let it sting, as she was left behind again, as Mrs Sinclair smoothed down Mike’s hair gently, Mr Sinclair grabbing a plate from the cupboard and placing it on the table in front of an empty seat. An empty seat that was quickly filled by Mike, sitting down as if he belonged there with his face twisted, eyes dark and emotional with something she couldn’t even begin to read as he accepted the food that was spooned onto his plate. (This was so strange.)
Everybody was seated again, as if nothing had even happened, as if this wasn’t an uncommon happening. Which was… strange. But, well, Max supposed that Mike and Lucas had been best friends since they were like, six or something, so maybe that was normal with people so close. (It’s not like she would know.)
And nobody seemed intent on telling her much of anything, so—whatever. Whatever. Dinner passed by and then ended without much fanfare, and immediately after clearing his plate Lucas grabbed Mike by the wrist, tugging him up the stairs immediately. Max followed, even though she wasn’t asked to, unsure if they even wanted her there, ignoring Mr Sinclair’s call of ‘Keep that door open!’ as the three of them went up the stairs.
As they went into Lucas’s room, Max felt—well, she felt a bit like those first days, where they were dancing around the ideas of El and ‘Zombie boy’ and whatever else. And she was not going to deal with that again, so she snapped, “Guys, what’s going on?”
Mike turned to scowl at her, face twisted. “Why do you care?”
In response, Max laughed incredulously, “Why wouldn’t I? It’s not like you just turned up at the back door in the middle of dinner—”
“Oh, shut up—”
“Guys!” Lucas said sharply, cutting them off, both of them falling quiet. Mike crossed his arms, glancing at the ground, and Lucas sighed. “Mike, don’t be a jerk,” he said, before turning to Max and saying “Max, just–just give it a minute.” And she bristled, her shoulders hitching up, because who was Lucas to tell her that? When he was fucking ignoring her in favour of Mike, handing him a sweater to pull over his soaked polo shirt.
“I thought you were trying to stop doing this,” Lucas said, voice not-quite-admonishing.
Mike shrugged moodily, adjusting the sleeves of the hoodie. For a few seconds, he didn’t say much of anything at all, until—”He’s just such an asshole,” he burst out with, flinging his hands up angrily. “And it’s—they just watch, they never do anything!”
“Man, you should really try to stop arguing,” Lucas said, not sounding scolding but more just that soft sort of concern that he hid behind brasher words.. Mike looked small, crumpled in on himself, shoulders curled where he stood. And the boy scowled, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Lucas’s words.
When his dark eyes caught Max’s, Mike scowled harshly for a second, before seeming to lose the energy for it, face twisting more… small, and hurt. It made her feel odd just to see it, to watch as Mike’s vulnerability shone out of him as he ran a hand through his wet hair and sat down heavily on the edge of Lucas’s bed. Mike inhaled like it physically pained him to do so, chest tight not with injury but with discomfort.
“I just got in a fight with my dad, okay?” He finally spat out, rushed words tumbling over each other on their path out of his mouth.
And even though Max knew that this was Mike, that he’d be fine, in his stupid (perfect?) family—her first reflex was still to scan his exposed skin for bruises, any tightness in the way he sat (like Billy, like her mom, sometimes, but never Max. Never Max, and she wasn’t even sure why.)
“Did—” she started, automatic words, before Mike cut her off.
“Nah. He wouldn’t, doesn’t give enough of a shit for that.” And he grinned bitterly. Max wished she couldn’t recognise the bitter resentment in his eyes, the exhaustion of it all, wished she couldn’t relate to him. Mike tugged at the edges of his sweater’s sleeves. “Yeah,” he continued, “It’s just, I have to go outside to ‘cool down’ when we argue, so.” He shrugged again.
Max nodded in understanding. She, typically, was one to get sent to her room. Getting sent out into the rain—that would suck, and she said as much, said ‘Getting sent into the rain sucks.’ Lucas sent her a look when she said that, with a wince that showed that he wouldn’t have said that. But Mike just glanced up at her, his lips twisting into a small unhappy smile.
“Yeah, it does,” he said flatly, and Max felt a sense of solidarity with Mike Wheeler, of all people. She hated it, hated to even think it, but—
Maybe they had more in common than she’d thought.