Chapter Text
Andy Thompson does not cry when his father dies.
He’s almost fourteen, almost out of middle school, and it hurts, of course it does. And he wants to cry. But he sees his mother sobbing and his little sister asking where’s Daddy and he can’t. He has to step up, to be there for the people in his life that need him, and right now, that’s his sister and his mother. They need him to be strong, so he doesn’t cry.
They move from their tiny town of Highland to the big city of Chicago, because his mom says they need a fresh start. He enters high school a few months later, and they tell him that he’s going to have to start seeing the school counselor. Just for a few weeks, they say. Just to make sure you’re settled. Andy knows that his mother is worried about him, because he didn’t cry. And he doesn’t want his mother to worry--that was the whole point--so he agrees. He goes to see Mr. Harrington.
“You don’t want to be here.” Mr. Harrington says it like a fact, not a question. Andy doesn’t deny it, but he doesn’t say anything else, either. Mr. Harrington isn’t deterred. “That’s okay. But we’ve got forty-five minutes to kill and honestly, sitting here in silence is kind of a drag.” He throws a basketball-shaped stress ball and Andy scrambles to catch it, only just managing to snag it out of the air. “Talk to me. Ask me about anything. C’mon, I know neither of us wants to just sit here in silence.”
Andy squeezes the stress ball and asks the first question that pops into his head. “Uh, what’s your favorite color?”
It’s a stupid question, one of the easiest in the world, probably, but Mr. Harrington lights up like Andy just gave him a million dollars and starts rambling about a certain shade of red and suddenly, Andy finds himself arguing with the counselor about colors, of all things. Mr. Harrington doesn’t seem to understand that maroon can’t be the best color, even if it was his first car, not when navy blue is literally right there. And suddenly, forty-five minutes have flown by, Andy has spoken more than he has in weeks, and he sort of wishes there was more time.
The second time he meets with Mr. Harrington, they go to the gymnasium and shoot baskets, Mr. Harrington claiming that he can talk much easier when he doesn’t have to sit still and stare directly at someone, and Andy finds that he agrees. Once again, Mr. Harrington doesn’t ask him about his dad or his family or why he didn’t cry, any of the questions that Andy expects. Instead, they talk about school, and how reading sucks sometimes, and their favorite movies--“Back to the Future, ironically” Mr. Harrington says, grinning slightly. “I saw it in theaters with a friend, but we weren’t paying much attention, so we went and saw it again.” Andy says that his favorite is Top Gun, and when he hesitantly admits that it’s because it was his dad’s favorite, Mr. Harrington doesn’t press more, just nods and says, “Obviously. It’s a great movie.”
Over the next few weeks, Andy makes some friends, realizes he likes math much more than reading, and decides to try out for the basketball team. The fact that Mr. Harrington is the coach isn’t the only reason, but it’s one of them for sure. He makes the team, and even though he’s mostly a benchwarmer, he’s never left out of any part of practice, or even games. Mr. Harrington says they’re a team, insists on the matter in fact, and makes them do team building exercises. Suddenly, Andy has another group of friends that are fun and loyal and help distract him from the past that’s always chasing him.
He keeps going to the counselor, but somewhere along the line, Mr. Harrington has become Coach Harrington, and somewhere along the line, Andy finds himself talking more in their sessions, and he finds that Coach Harrington talks back.
“I grew up in a small town, too,” Coach tells him when Andy says that he grew up in Highland. “Hawkins, Indiana--literal middle-of-nowhere, USA. It’s mostly off the map, and everyone knows everyone, for better or for worse. I love it here, but sometimes it’s a little bit loud, and I loved it there, too.”
“Why’d you move to Chicago?” Andy hesitates, wanting to ask more. “Didn’t you have…friends there? Family? Why would you leave if you loved it?”
Maybe he imagines it, but Coach’s face seems to tighten just a little bit. “I did have friends and family there. The thing is, sometimes…places hold memories. Those memories can be good, great, even, but sometimes, they aren’t. And staying there can feel like you’re spiraling.” He smiles faintly. “There’s not many of us left in Hawkins--my friends and family, I mean. My best friend came here with me, and some of them went east, but most of them are out west, in California. We see each other whenever we can.”
“And you don’t…miss them?”
“Of course I do.” Coach looks at him, and Andy gets the feeling that he can see right down to his core. “Something tells me this question isn’t really about me, though.”
Andy shifts uncomfortably, picking at one of his fingernails. “You might be right.”
Coach tosses him the basketball stress ball. “You wanna talk about it?”
“I just…I don’t understand why we had to leave, I guess. I had friends, Mom had friends, Chelsea had friends, and we had family there, too, cousins and aunts and uncles and everyone. It just feels like this ‘new start’ is just losing everything we had.”
Coach nods like teachers do when they want you to think they understand, but Andy gets the feeling that he does. “That makes a lot of sense. Have you talked to your mom about it? Since you moved?” Andy shakes his head. “Might be worth doing. Maybe just let her know that you miss people there, you might be able to visit.”
“Maybe.”
“Hey.” Coach leaned forward, looking at Andy earnestly. “If you’re anything like me, you’re probably thinking that asking her would be annoying or bother her.” Andy sometimes got the feeling that Coach could actually read his mind. “But she’s your mom. Trust me when I say that she wants to know, and she wants to help. You won’t be bugging her by telling her how you’re feeling.”
Andy takes a chance and takes his advice, and, true to his word, his mom doesn’t seem upset, or annoyed, or bothered. In fact, she seems happy, more than she’s been in months. She says that with work, they probably can’t go back to Highland for a while, but maybe there’s a weekend where his friends or cousins could come visit.
“You could show them around, take them to the aquarium, introduce them to Chicago pizza, whatever you guys want!”
Andy blinks hard. “Thanks, mom.”
She hugs him tightly and says, “Thank you for telling me. I want to know how you’re feeling, good and bad.”
Maybe Coach Harrington understands even more than Andy originally thought.
“Hawkins?” Derek says incredulously a few days later. “Coach is from Hawkins, Indiana?”
“Yeah? What’s so great about that, he just said it’s like a small town somewhere.”
“Hawkins is cursed, dude,” Colin chimes in.
Derek nods. “My cousin Tony used to live there. He said that one time a boy went missing, and after they found his body, he came back to life.”
“That’s bullshit,” Andy says.
“And did you hear about the murders?” he adds. “There was apparently a serial killer there and people thought he was possessed by the devil.”
“How do you even know this?”
“My mom told me not to look it up,” Colin says, like that explains it.
“There was a government cover-up there, too,” Derek continues. “Some sort of chemical leak that killed someone, and a mall exploded or something. Weird earthquakes that split cracks in the ground, ash rain, and that’s not even all of it--and all of this was in only a few years.”
“Why wouldn’t Coach say anything about it?”
“Dude, if the government’s involved, then he probably can’t, legally. Tony says that when he lived there, the police were super strict about the lab that was there and whenever anyone asked, weird things would happen. If that happened to you, you’d probably learn to keep your mouth shut, too.”
It makes sense, sort of, with what Coach has told Andy about why he left Hawkins. Andy understands better than most about not wanting to talk about the past, so he doesn’t press the issue.
The basketball season comes and goes--they don’t make it to state, but they come close--and with it, so do the twice a week meetings with the counselor. Administration cut him down to just once a week for the second semester, but Andy still finds himself looking forward to them every week. They haven’t talked about his dad yet, but he finds that he can go to Coach with anything he’s worried or confused about, and Coach has a way of talking him through it and Andy finds himself feeling better as the year goes on.
Until April, when he skips a few visits, citing homework and needing to be in class. Coach lets it go a couple times, electing to wave a cheerful hello in passing and ask how are you to which Andy always responds with good. But he’s not good, he’s actually really not good, and he doesn’t know how to fix it. He has a really loud argument with his mom one night--he yells at her, and afterward, can’t get the image of his mom’s hurt expression out of his mind.
He comes down to Coach’s office the next day of his own accord, right after lunch. Coach hands him the stress ball almost immediately after he flings himself into the chair across from the desk. “Rough night?” Andy nods mutely. “I can’t help but notice you’ve been kind of distant lately. Are you doing okay?” Andy shrugs and Coach nods slowly, adjusting his glasses the way he does when he’s not completely satisfied with his responses. “Okay. As always, we don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to. But I think the fact that you’re here means you want to talk about something, and I need you to help me out here.”
“I yelled at my mom last night,” Andy finally admits, not meeting Coach’s eyes.
“Mm. What about?”
“I don’t really remember. Something stupid, homework or something. I was just…mad.” He feels tears prick his eyes. “I told her that I hated her.”
“Okay. Well, there’s a feeling to work from. Have you been mad a lot lately?”
He nods, squeezes the stress ball again. “I guess. I think I snapped at Derek the other day, he won’t talk to me right now. I’m just pissing everyone off.”
“Alright. You know it’s okay to be mad, right? Or just upset in general? That’s allowed.” Andy doesn’t answer, and Coach taps the desk to grab his attention. “This time I would like an answer.”
“Sure, yeah, whatever, I guess.” Andy cringes internally at how childish he sounds but doesn’t move to correct himself.
Coach doesn’t comment on the tone. “And you have no idea what could be causing this…anger you’ve been feeling the past few…what, days?”
“Weeks.”
“Weeks, then. Can you think of anything that could be causing it? Anything different about this time of year?”
Of course Andy knows exactly what’s causing it, and look at Coach, he’s pretty sure he knows, too, but he wants Andy to say it. He squeezes the stress ball tighter, picks at the peeling basketball design. “I mean…it might be that it’s coming up on a year that--that my…” He trails off, unable to speak around the growing lump in his throat.
“That your dad died.” Coach doesn’t say it like a question; he knows as well as Andy does. Andy nods miserably. He knows that’s what it is, and he hates it. “I can see your brain still going. What are you thinking?”
“I just--” He breathes heavily. “What kind of person gets mad at someone who’s dead?” he bursts out. “What kind of person doesn’t cry at their dad’s funeral? What kind of person sees their sister crying after a nightmare and gets annoyed and doesn’t go comfort her--” He cuts off, breathing harder, pressing his hands against his eyes. “I’m a terrible brother, horrible--” His heart is pounding in his ears, and it takes a moment to realize that Coach is speaking.
“--dy. Andy. Deep breaths, Andy, okay? Copy me.”
He can faintly hear the exaggerated breaths Coach is taking, can see his chest and shoulders rising and falling, can feel the soft cushion of the chair beneath him, can smell the coffee wafting in from the guidance office’s kitchenette just outside the door. The pounding in his ears recedes, the tightness in his chest fades slightly, and he finally takes a clear breath. Then another. He gathers the courage to look up at Coach, afraid of what he’ll see--but Coach doesn’t look at him with pity, or disappointment, just with calm and, maybe, understanding.
“You with me?” he asks. Andy nods shakily, releasing his fist slightly--he’s been holding the stress ball in a death grip. “Okay. I’m gonna grab you a cup of water; go ahead and take a second. Keep breathing slowly; if you feel faint, put your head between your knees, okay?” He nods, and just a couple minutes later, Coach returns with a paper cup of ice water. “Drink it all. Trust me, it’ll help.”
They sit in silence for a moment as Andy sips at the water, letting out one breath after another as the panic starts to fade. “Sorry,” he manages after a minute.
“Don’t be. You know how many panic attacks I’ve had in my life? It’s okay. It’s normal. But we should talk about it.”
“I want to start by addressing some of the things you said earlier. To start, whatever feelings you have--they’re valid. You can be mad, you can be annoyed, nothing’s off the table, and it doesn’t make you a bad person. Okay?”
He nods silently, not quite sure if he believes him.
“And second--” Coach regards Andy for a second. “You remind me a lot of myself when I was younger. When I was in high school, my family and I--we went through a lot of traumatic things, things teenagers shouldn’t have to go through. There’s a lot of grief that comes with that, and with that grief comes a lot of unexpected feelings. You have lost someone really important in your life, Andy. And it looks to me like you haven’t really let yourself grieve that loss.”
“What do you mean? I was sad.”
“I know you were. But your mom said you didn’t cry at the funeral, and hasn’t seen you cry since.” Andy clenches his jaw briefly, squeezes the stress ball. “That’s okay, if that’s not how you’re feeling. But I know I wish someone had told me when I was younger that it’s okay to feel, regardless of what it is. And it’s okay if that feeling is anger.”
“How can that be true?” Andy exclaims. “I’m mad that he died. That’s not fair to him, and I know that, but I still am!”
Coach takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. “When I was a little older than you, I had someone really important to me go missing. We thought he was dead, for a long time. I was sad, devastated, actually, but I had people to take care of, and I didn’t let it show. And for a long time? I was pissed. I was so mad at him for leaving me, for abandoning me--he was like a father to me, and he left, just like my dad did. Which seems silly to anyone else, of course he didn’t abandon me, he would’ve been there if he could, but it's how I felt, and it’s the way I was processing my grief at the time, because I wasn’t letting myself be sad, so my energy went to anger. I felt guilty about that for ages--and I wish someone had told me that that was okay, that was allowed. It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay if you feel abandoned, or like it’s unfair.” He leans forward, looking Andy directly in the eyes, like he’s telling him the most important thing in the world. “You can be angry, you can be sad, you don’t have to stay strong for everyone. You don’t deserve to have the world on your shoulders.”
That does it. Andy leans forward and buries his face in his hands as the tears finally, finally fall. A year later than they should have, but he’s sobbing now, and he can’t stop. “I--I just miss him,” he gasps. “I have to--to be here for Mom and Chelsea but he--he’s supposed to be here for me and I’m so tired, and--and how could he leave--leave me behind?”
Andy feels Coach’s arms wrap him in a tight hug, and he continues crying until the tears start to slow. Coach leans back, offers Andy a tissue. “I’m going to go call your mom, okay? Take some breaths, there’s more water outside if you need any.”
Andy’s mom arrives half an hour later, immediately wraps her arms around him. He starts crying again, and she runs her hand through his hair and speaks softly. “I’m here, baby, okay? I’m here.”
Later, Andy, Chelsea, and his mom will go back to Highland to visit his father’s grave. Andy will cry again, alongside the rest of his family, and he’ll talk to his father. Coach Harrington will recommend a therapist, and Andy will go; he won’t be better right away, but he’ll heal. Slowly but surely, he’ll heal.