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Max didn’t have time to think. Every inch of her body, every nerve, every muscle, every bone ached. Her hands strained against the wheelchair and her body wobbled as she attempted a weak lunge towards the destruction before her eyes.
Eleven was helpless, alone, teary-eyed. Her wetsuit, having dried since her underwater escapades, ruffled in the treacherous winds. Her eyes were met with a thin film of grey mist, a wispy reminder of the manner in which she’d soon vanish.
Mike Wheeler never fought hard enough for El, at least not as much as Max preferred he did. Mike was a half-ass, stupid-ass boyfriend and a lame excuse for a human with 18 years of life under his belt. Two scrawny soldiers clung to his arms as he flailed and yelled, a sorry, piercing sound, into the air.
And suddenly, in her spontaneous, strenuous effort, Max was out of the seat and advancing towards the clouds, as the landscape before her flared up neon. Lucas had told her the doctor reckoned it would be months before her muscles were strengthened and regenerated, if she ever did wake up – yet here she was, walking. I wasn’t supposed to wake up, either, she reminded herself, her mouth catching into a small smirk at her own humor.
There was no sense in stopping her. Max was certain the army felt this. There she was: a weak, fragile girl having woken from a practically vegetative state, and she was plunging into certain death. What threat could she pose?
With another labored step through the puddles, advancing towards the void, the ground beneath Max’s feet turned to an ominous pitch black. She knew this well.
“El,” Max gasped. “What is this? Fuck, why is this?”
“Max, listen,” El said urgently, walking through the darkness to grasp her shoulders. “You cannot follow me.”
“Well, I’m already doing that.”
“No. It’s not worth it for you. You just came back. You worked so hard to come back.”
“But that’s not fair, El. What about you? This can't be it, not after everything you’ve gone through– it just– it’s not meant to be like this.”
“How else is it meant to be?” El replied, a wry, sad smile forming on her face. "If Dr. K doesn't get me now, I'll spend the rest of my life running from her or another crazy person like her. I'm tired, Max, and you all are too. I can't make you or Mike or Hop or anyone sacrifice living for me anymore. Especially because I don't... I'm not even meant to be alive."
“Of course you're meant to be alive. With... us. There’s still so much we need to do,” Max wailed, tears finally breaking forth. Her hands clutched El’s like a lifeline. “I can’t let you go. Not until we’ve hiked in Alaska. Not until we’ve done some ridiculous camping retreat with the party and eaten s’mores and Eggos in the morning and cooked it all in an ugly fire. Not until you can be my Maid of Honor in my wedding – whenever the hell that is. Not until we finally get you a room you can paint purple, and not Hop’s sad ass cabin. We could get rich and get a pool and a dog and a giant TV together.”
“Don’t you see?” El asked softly, misty-eyed from imagining that future, surely, and her hands drifted up to cup Max’s face, brushing away her tears. Warmth sprouted from her touch, blooming on Max’s frozen, paralyzed face. El’s own face was soon painted to mirror hers, rivulets of tears cascading from those deep brown eyes. Max’s hands sat uselessly at her sides. “I wasn’t meant to have what you gave me. Or what you would give me. Ice cream and makeovers and boy talk and reading and sleepovers and– Max, no one– no one like me has that. No one like me gets that.”
“Yeah, but that's crazy. I'm sorry, it's crazy. Because you are… you are amazing, El. You are the one person in this world that I trust and– I have to be selfish if it means you’ll be okay. Eleven, I need you. I love you. I can’t live without you here.”
“I’m sorry,” El whispered, shaking her head violently. “I’m sorry, Max.”
“No, fuck sorry! El, I’m– I’m sitting here talking to you in a way I haven’t even done with Lucas. Do you know how batshit that is?” She shook her head, laughing in disbelief. “Honestly, speaking of boys, you have to stay so I can rip you from Mike Wheeler’s clutches. That freak.”
El laughed too, almost giddy through the tears. “Boys are so stupid. Max, I missed you. I’m going to miss you the most.”
Max’s heart gave a painful twinge. This was the final nail in the coffin, she was certain. El’s plan was set in stone, as it nearly always was. El – the immovable, strong, capable, and decisive woman she had always been. Max could almost feel her drifting already. “You don’t have to miss me. We could stay right here and cry in your mindscape forever. Or you could step out and come home to us. Come home to me.”
“You know I won’t, right? I want to, of course.” El asked, soft for a moment and still teary-eyed. “But I’m not going to.”
Max breathed out a sigh, and an indescribable, overwhelming feeling washed over her. She blinked away another bout of tears, gaze cast up and away into nothingness – just not at El. Surely those eyes could send her spiraling again. “I know. I know.”
“Max,” El said again, and her ice cold hands pulled Max’s face and her gaze back in. “I love you, too.”
And wordlessly, El leaned in and pressed their lips together, hands settling and cupping Max’s face like something precious. Max, whose hands had formerly felt out of place and fidgety, drew her fingertips up the small of El’s back, resting decidedly on her waist until they twisted up into her stupid slicked-back bun.
El’s mouth was soft for how rugged she had to be. Her lips tasted of tears, of salt, of sweat. The streams from their eyes mingled as they laughed into the kiss, in disbelief, in awe, and still finding ways to be astounded in spite of their astounding lives.
El had once asked Max to do “kissing practice” on her, a lit-up grin on her face, and Max had explained that wasn’t allowed – wasn’t a thing they did, not them. El had tried to understand, nodding disappointedly and turning back to her collection of pillows and posters.
She didn’t question it either when they were fourteen at a party Max was invited to and two of the pretty senior girls were exaggeratedly making out in the corner, hands intertwined, whispering some elaborate inside joke between kisses.
“Isn’t it funny that–” Max started when they broke apart momentarily, and El cut her off with a hungrier kiss, one that both of them giggled harder into. Max could feel it in the way El gripped her and held her for dear life, like she was trying to categorize and document the last memories of someone she loved. Like she was making up for all the kisses they could have traded before, had Max not been ridiculous. She felt similarly, though, breathing in the scent of El’s skin like it was air, learning the movements and patterns of her lips like she was covering for years of lost time.
“I love you, Max,” El repeated, pulling back again to press their foreheads together and breathe the same air for a moment.
“I love you, El.”
And with that, Max was launched backwards into reality, her head lolling back, her arms gripping the wheelchair’s armrests. She caught one last glimpse of El’s shaking form – her eyes fluttered shut, her skin looked sickly and pale, and there was that familiar glimmer of a tear that had been pressed to Max’s face seconds prior.
Max went to stand how she had before, how she had a moment ago when El’s hands were cascading up her back and they were breathing in each other’s air, but was rendered completely useless. She knew she had never left, that the walking was a touch El added for Max’s sake. Just another of the interdimensional tricks, the illusions, the power El had never asked for but harnessed for the people she loved.
At last, once the dust settled and Mike crept toward the ruins, Lucas’ hands came to Max’s shoulders. She could feel him shaking from behind her, body wracked with emotion. No words left his lips until he stopped sobbing minutes later, once the military personnel had scattered, purposeless and relieved, and the party sat in complete and utter silence.
“We should probably go comfort Mike,” Lucas’ voice rasped, hoarse and broken.
“Right,” Max uttered, feeling more frozen than ever. “Okay. Mike. Let’s go.”