Archive of Our Own ^beta

The pitch for the trip is overtly simple:

Girls rule, boys drool.

Lucas had grabbed the challenge by the horns — ‘you’re on’ — like Max had expected him to. Dustin didn’t have an opinion on the boys vs. girls concept of a race either way, but he could still be pulled away from his internship long enough in pursuit of a new adventure.

That’s two down, so here Max is on the south side of Hoboken, standing in the Byer-Wheeler apartment, trying to convince the last half of the party to join.

“I don’t know…” Will had waned on the idea the more she talked about it. He watches his boyfriend amateurly mixing at their minibar, hesitant to lend a hand. “Mike’s got a deadline coming up, and his publisher can be pretty brutal.”

“His publisher,” Max mimics, partly-incredulous. She mocks Mike only because it makes his movements sharpen considerably; the glasses he’s handling clink loudly together while he brews some fancy potion.

“Max,” Will warns, but he’s beginning to grin.

“I didn’t say anything,” she sings coyly, leaning back against the bar. “It must suck, keeping the bestselling Mike Wheeler chained down. You’ll be tugging him around on a leash next, Will.”

“Just putting this out into the universe: I am making your drink,” Mike calls over, his focus still stuck on his mixology. “Rule of thumb is to be nice to your bartender.”

“Oh, c’mon, guys,” and now Max lays her guard down, lets the truth of the trip out in the open. “It’s been so long since we all got together to do something. And we all deserve it. You both know we do.”

In her opinion, it’s a solid hook, and so she expects the nibble: the traded glances between two partners who’ve developed their own language. The flatlined mouths, rising brows, the half-shrugs. Max waits in anticipation.

She does understand, though; it’s asking for time, and they’ve all been running low on that recently. Their lives now are shaped by careers, deadlines, and other grown-up obligations. A road trip isn’t exactly high-priority for a bunch of very busy adults trying to make it, whatever ‘make it’ means outside of the survival sense.

But Max is persistent, because she’s stepped into a greyscale life: a 9 to 5, a trailer reminiscent of the one her mother is rotting away in, and student loans. She’s bored, goddamn it. The last thing she wants is for her world to lose its color for good.

Mike finishes his concoction, sliding the drink Max’s way with a clever arm. She catches it, smelling the booze and identifying the strong acidic whiff of tequila. It’s red with some type of syrup. Max takes a long sip, gets halfway down the glass, then slams it down. “I hate tequila.”

“Told you,” Will tells Mike, who harmlessly bats him with the end of a hand towel.

“Can you at least consider it?” Max finally asks. “Unless you’re pussies.”

“Don’t do that,” Mike says exasperatedly.

Will meets his partner behind the bar, trailing a hand up from Mike’s spine to the cup of his shoulder. “We’ll think about it,” he says to Max. 

It’s a white flag, and that’s the beginning of it all.

Or maybe the beginning is here, at El’s apartment.

Eleven is an hour’s drive away from her brother’s residence, tucked into a smaller apartment than him but still provided via Mrs. Byers and the old chief’s combined salaries. Last Max knew, El took up odd jobs around town to anyone willing to give a girl without a license  a chance. Whatever those paychecks are worth, they fund her miniature garden.

She clearly wants a bigger space to establish such a garden – it feels suffocating, like it’s consciously beginning to stretch out in search of bigger land — but her passion is being oppressed by her lack of space. Like everything else, though, such obstacles don’t stop her.

Max steps out of the car, and here comes El rushing out of her first-floor apartment to hug her so tightly it nearly bruises her ribs. Her friend's hair is longer than the last time Max had seen her; something about that is unsettling, and it makes her more determined for this girls-only trip to commence.

When El brings her inside, Max discovers the labyrinth of greenery encasing every available surface, growing beyond borders so it’s hard to set her borrowed mug somewhere (El is really not good with coffee, but it was either that or tea). She’s brought out to the balcony to be given the lore of each plant, all loved in equal measure.

Max listens for a while. The side of her chin meets her palm as she gives one of her dearest friends full regard. There’s a real joy brimming in El’s eyes, and the corners of her lips are driven into the apples of her red cheeks while she talks. Max is filled in on everything, from what the upstairs neighbors are up to, to what sort of jobs she's asking about, and finally it rounds back to asking how Max is doing.

'Oh, you know,' she replies passively. 'Hanging in there.'

She’s so enraptured in the peace radiating from her friend, that when El finally asks why she’s here, bringing up the road trip feels like sticking a shovel atop someone’s grave, prepping to dig.

But Max is not easily swayed by shame. She pitches the challenge to El, with heavy emphasis on the whole ‘boys drool’ thing, since that often eggs El on.

Oddly, El reflects the same hesitance oft found in her brothers’. “Why?” she asks Max.

“Why what?”

“Why…now? Why North Carolina? Why any of this?”

Max can answer one of those inquiries: because she wants to see the east coast, and she’s heard good things about the Carolinas. There’s always going to be somewhere to explore (and she wants to compare west and east beaches, so what?)

For the other…she was honest, she is bored. She’s tired of losing things. She doesn’t want her relationship with El to be the next thing on the chopping block.

She tells El this in one breath, before she loses the courage to.

And El is quiet, attentive like always. Her fingers are playing with a knitted quilt that Max suspects she’d crafted herself. She’s always so busy with her hands, like she can’t stand the thought of them being empty.

“You’re never going to lose me,” El says first, gently so.

“I know. I know, I just…I miss you. I miss us. I think this could be good for us— for everyone.”

Clunky, but true. Max finds her airways tightening as she awaits with baited breath, to find out if she’ll be up against the boys all alone or if she’ll have a partner in crime.

But El begins to smile.

“I think so too,” she murmurs. “I’ll go with you.”

Max holds up her mug and smothers her relief long enough to look composed. “To beating the boys.”

El just nods and crashes their drinks together.

(When she leaves a few hours later, El is back outside tending to her plants. She’s crouched by a large pot, gently massaging the soil; she nurses these things with such an overwhelming tenderness that Max doesn’t get, but she understands. Guess a green thumb is better than a bloody one.)

It starts in Indiana, one month later. Everyone’s schedules sync, they’ve gathered the essentials, and their lives are packed into two separate cars. The boys agree to take Will’s van (it’s big, and Max gathers that it’s to transfer portfolios and other artsy equipment) while Max is in her humble stead, a humble Honda compact.

The starting line is a gas station. She gets out of the car, shakes everyone’s hand, but they’re all carrying knowing smirks. 

“May the best win,” Lucas tells her solemnly.

“We’re going to,” she says back.

And so the race begins. They all tumble into their respective vehicles, crank the engine, and off they go.

El is still getting comfortable in her seat by the time Max rolls out of the station’s parking lot, full tank of gas and mixtape hanging out of the player. She’s currently stuffing one of her homemade blankets behind her back in an attempt to fluff up the seat.

“You excited?” Max asks, still grinning.

Her partner takes a second to consider, before ultimately shrugging. At least she’s honest.

“Hey, I get it, we got long hours ahead of us. But I promise you, I have chosen this route because it’s got the best scenic routes the Midwest has to offer. Guaranteed.”

“Like what?”

“Liiike,” shit, off the top of her head Max can only think of roadside markets or dumb tourist attractions, and it doesn't really help that she was lying. “...it’s a surprise, alright? You’re gonna have fun. And, we got all this junk food that isn’t gonna eat itself.”

El skeptically raises one eyebrow. Max groans.

“Oh my god, don’t judge. You’re like my mom. I’m just in it to win, alright? Those guys, they think they’re better than us. Did you see their smirks back at the gas station? Like we’re gonna just let ‘em win like that.”

“You were smirking too,” El points out.

“Listen,” Max puffs. “We’re gonna conquer this highway and boredom in the same trip, guaranteed. I got everything we need! I got my guide,” she nudges El here to signal her, whose smile tightens, “I got this kickass mixtape, some snacks…did I mention my mixtape?”

“You did.”

“Well I’m gonna mention it again. Give it a whirl, why don’t ya’? DJ Red’s been cooking up some killer tracks just for this.”

El’s curiosity is near-tangible; her friend’s always had this air about her, like she was a tourist to the world. Like part of her never really belonged to one realm; she couldn’t possibly be contained. It’s that fascination with even the mundane that Max really admired; it’s crested into envy as the world has taken more bites out of her, the older she becomes.

So, obediently, El slips the mixtape fully into the cassette player. She fiddles with the controls some, but presses the right buttons with finesse that either Jonathan or her father (or a combination of the two) taught her to have with such devices.

The funky, introductory chords of Depeche Mode crawl out of the speakers on full-blast, soon accompanied by a rhythmic slamming of drums and a rich synthesizer. The instrumental introduction is long, but establishes the mood so well that Max bobs her head in anticipation to mouth the lyrics.

‘I’m taking a ride with my best friend–’

As El comprehends the lyrics and song choice, she tosses Max a loaded Look that Max only sings against, all teeth and smiles.

‘I hope he never lets me down again–’

“It establishes the mood!” Max yells, finding herself on the defense. Nothing can make someone self-conscious like an unamused bland stare. But El’s mask quickly cracks the longer Max sings unrestrained, her own head swaying to the beat. Max turns it up so the bass buzzes in her bones.

“I have other ones on the tape you’ll like, took me forever to burn them all. I had to organize this shit, get a whole setlist going—”

“That’s impressive,” El shouts over the beat.

“I know, right?”

The compliment is passive in nature, but it still alights Max’s chest with such a warmth. She equates this feeling to pride in her music, nothing more.

“I hope you like hard rock,” Max says. She veers onto the highway that will encapsulate a good portion of their journey. “‘Cause I’ve been going through a phase.”

El says nothing, a girl of few words as always. But her eyes are gleaming, even if her mouth is simply curled in a polite nature. She’s hesitant, but she’s intrigued, and that’s a combination Max can work with.

She bobs her head in tandem to the tune, but leans away and fixates her gaze on the road. Max isn’t sure what makes her profile so fascinating — maybe it’s because El herself is innately fascinating, a person that shouldn’t exist but carved her way into existence through tooth and nail — but it does make her direction on the road veer a little.

This is bliss, this is perfection, and they’re just getting started.

Their first stop was impromptu, but El needed to use the bathroom, and while Max was waiting, she spotted a plaza across the way and got an inkling of thought which turned into an idea, which turned into a full-fledged plan.

When El returns, Max is already in the car waiting for her. She tells her, “We’re making another pit stop.”

El drags her confusion into the passenger’s seat like it’s an extension of her own body. But she’s a girl who lives in the questions, knowing she’ll someday step into the answer, so Max isn’t tempted to reveal her schemes until she pulls in across the street and arrives at a salon. The ‘open’ sign on the window is lit up, welcoming them enthusiastically.

Max puts the car in park right in front of the shop, turning to El expectantly. Predictably, her friend is offput by the shift in direction.

“Don’t get me wrong, this is gonna put us a smidge behind schedule,” Max prefaces. “But we haven’t had any girl time in, what, years? And this trip is about giving us what we deserve, sooo.”

El’s brows pinch together. “You like your nails painted?”

“I mean, not my hands. But I could try a pedicure.”

Her friend’s mouth purses in thought. Her whole face is scrunched up, it’s an endearing image to evoke from her. “I guess I could try it. My mom did my nails once.”

“Did you like it?” Max presses.

A shrug and a nod.

“Then there you go! C’mon, let’s show up to the beach in style.”

El thinks about it a second more, but as usual when it comes to trying new things, she ultimately relents.

The pedicure takes longer than the manicure, because Max had accidentally forked over more money for a deluxe treatment. She gets scrubbed, massaged, and has sweet-smelling lotions rubbed into her skin. The lady working on her comments on her freckles and leg hairs, which makes El snicker.

El, meanwhile, had her session wrapped up ten minutes ago. She’s waiting in the unused chair parallel to Max, enamored by her own fingernails. They’re a cotton-candy variant of pink, charming in their simplicity.

Max had opted for a fiery red. She tries to keep her feet still while they apply the coats of paint, but staying still like this is getting her antsy. Decidedly she wouldn’t attempt this again, but El’s reaction makes this side-quest worth it.

“Pretty snazzy, right?” Max presses, a tinge of pride catching up to her tone.

El won’t look up, but a smile has been stuck to her face for the last five minutes.

(The stutter in her heartbeat is definitely a new feature.)

El is still new on the anatomy of a road trip, but when they’re back on the path Max is happy to fill her in.

“It’s just a bunch of sightseeing, lots of music…oh, icebreakers! There’s tons of those too.”

“Icebreakers?” El repeats.

“Like, asking questions about each other to pass the time. Questions like…if you were on an island, what would you bring with you?”

“Why am I on an island?”

“You got trapped there. You gotta bring one thing with you to survive.”

El leans back in her seat, crossing her arms and giving a huff. It’s a contemplative action, one that looks like it’d look more appropriate on her adopted father, or even her mother. Her newly-painted forefinger taps incessantly on her flannel. “Can I bring a person?” she eventually asks.

“Nope.” Max realizes it’s been too quiet, nothing but the rumblings of the car speeding down the highway. Aloud she grumbles, “Shit, I forgot to flip to the b-side.”

She ejects the tape and turns it around, jamming it back into the player. The chaotic sounds of what sounds like a revving engine crackle the speakers, then the guitar strums quickly like rabid-fire.

Now El is really looking at her, forehead creasing and eyes wide.

“Dude. Motley Crue is the shit. Just give it a listen, I swear.”

Her friend gives a sly type of grin, but allows herself to be carried on a journey through glam metal.

“...I’d bring food.”

Max peeks over. “Huh?”

“For the island,” El clarifies, stooping down between her feet to grab a grocery bag. She paws through the inner contents before pulling out some chips, cracking open the bag with a satisfying rip. “I’d bring food so I wouldn’t starve or have to hunt. Can I choose the food?”

“Can I guess what food you’re bringing?”

A twinkle appears in El’s eye. “Sure.”

“Waffles.”

“Nope. Protein bars.”

Max fully looks at her this time. “Really!”

“I’m kidding,” El laughs. “Well, maybe not. It would be smart to pack bars, wouldn’t it?”

“It’s not a matter of being smart, El! It’s about what you want to be with you while you’re, like— dying or whatever. I guess I didn’t establish what type of island this was…or the risks. Hmm.”

El’s growing amusement is nearly audible, if the air wasn’t already filled by the sick guitar riffs of Mick Mars.

“Fine, fuck that question,” Max says. “Icebreakers are bullshit. They’re all like, ‘what’s your biggest fear?’ or something stupid like ‘if you were being chased by a cartoon character, who would it be?’”

El actually giggles; it’s a hard reaction to achieve from her, and again Max feels that pitter-patter of her pulse. She’s probably going to have to do something about that soon.

“...I got one,” she opines, veering into the fast lane meanwhile. “This one’s mine.”

“Okay?”

“What do you…wanna do with the rest of your life?”

Both of them actually go quiet, when the question drops. But Max is itching to know, has wanted to know ever since she left that greenhouse of an apartment. She thinks she has the answer already, but she wonders if El is drowning just like her.

When she turns back to her friend after the song wraps up, and Def Leppard succeeds Motley Crue for ambience, El is picking at her pink polish. She’s not doing any real damage to it, though, but her fingers are flicking sharply against the nail.

“I want a farm,” she murmurs at last. “I want plants and animals. I’d like a house cat. There’s a cat that visits me, but he already has a home so I can’t keep him.”

It’s something Max both did and didn’t expect to hear. El is always so kind, treating things around her like they’re precious. Of course she’d love animals and plants — for the most part, neither are designed to hurt you unless provoked.

“Would you be by yourself? On your farm?” Max presses.

El shakes her head. “No. My family would be nearby. They’d be my neighbors. You’d be there, too. You could help me with the fruits and vegetables when you visit.”

“Would you sell what you grow?”

El shrugs. “I’d give them to whoever wants it.”

Max realizes she’s holding the wheel too tightly when she feels that familiar twang in her arm muscles. Stupid arthritis. She loosens her grip with a short exhale of annoyance. She has to learn to be careful, if she’s going to be driving this whole way (and granted, if she told El the truth about her limits, El would go up to bat and try to drive, lack of license be damned. She just can’t afford the ticket.)

At the same time, her contacts randomly dry out and make her blink quickly. Like whatever god is out there is reminding her all at once of her impediments. She just has to take a deep breath, remind herself that once upon a time things used to be worse. She’ll manage fine.

She continues the topic: “Y’know what you could do is, like, learn how to make jams or something. I used to have an aunt that would do that with apples from her yard.”

El seems interested in the concept. “Would you like my jam?”

Max laughs shortly. “Shit yeah, El. I’ll eat whatever you make.”

She hums, nodding. Her eyes fall back to the world passing them in a blur outside. Her demeanor goes quiet, like she’s visualizing that lifestyle, inserting herself into it like a story Mike might tell as a session. He could probably write it better than Max could, but if she can get her friend to dream big like this, hell, it’s a type of win.

“Just promise to visit me,” El says quietly. “It wouldn’t be right without you.”

Touched, and feeling her heartbeat in a low pit of her stomach (what is with that?), Max says, “I would. I will.”

Next up: ‘Burnin’ for You’ by Blue Oyster Cult. Max cranks the volume up even more and ends the talk there, settling into a companionable silence.

Because of the delay at the salon, they end up driving late into the night, until Max can’t keep her eyes open and her vision becomes a hazard.

They retire at a motel just off the highway; Max predicts she won’t sleep well with all the cars outside, but the expense is cheap, and until further notice she’s farther than the boys (at least until she finds the time to call Lucas, who’s the only one with a cellular device).

The girls immediately stretch the second they exit the car, breathing in the crispness of the open air. Max grabs the key for the room while El seems absorbed in the night, poking around as both a safety measure and as a testament to her natural curiosities. She’s leaning against the door while Max twists the key and pushes in the door.

The bed isn’t impressive, by any means. The pictures on the wall portray mundane landscapes (Will could paint better than this), the wallpaper is stained, and there’s a persistent stench that seems to be emitting from the brown carpeting. It’s every motel room that Max has ever been in.

“Dibs on the right side,” Max says; she’d be facing away from the windows, and she can tell by the thin curtains that they’re not going to do shit to blot out the morning sun.

El doesn’t appear to have any complaints. She assesses the room, then walks back out to the car to grab her belongings. There will always be the bugged smoke detectors, the wires in the walls, the bombs buried beneath the floorboards, whatever else that would make The X-Files envious.

Speaking of shows, there’s nothing that really captures her interest on the TV; local news is really all that’s playing now, and neither of them are that bored. El is already changing into pajamas (Max flits her gaze away at the last second she peeks at the ridges of her friend’s ribcage, for privacy’s sake) and Max pops open her emergency bottle of painkillers to ward off any lingering aches. Then the pills for nightmares, which taste like chalk; she throws back her head and swallows without water.

Max equips her glasses after ripping out her dried contacts; El looks at her and asks, “Are those new?”

“I had to get a stronger prescription,” Max explains, yanking out her short ponytail and letting her hair fly free. “They feel like goggles sometimes.”

El considers them, her mouth going crooked. Max feels a bit wary under her stare, like a bug under a microscope, or a toy being tossed about in one’s palms. But El’s conclusion is a simple, “I like them.”

Again, that heartbeat, thudding once, twice in Max’s upper chest, not quite where it belongs. She gets compliments, but they slip down her skin like water, usually. Among other things concerning El’s presence, it’s a real mystery why this digs into her like thorns. I like them. I like you.

Max switches the TV off after a while; they’ve got a long day on the road again, best to get an early start. El rolls over and gets ready to fall asleep. Max excuses herself to go outside and make a quick call.

She’d been eyeing the phone booth outside since they pulled in. It’s enslaved by brambles and litter, but it should still be functioning.

Max has a pocketful of quarters, saved up for just this occasion. She thumbs them into the coin slot, takes out the slip of paper, and punches in the cellular number. Lucas's job required him to attain one, and it's a luxury only he seems to be able to afford.

It’s foolish to expect him to pick up on the first try, considering that it’s midnight; he doesn’t. It’s the second attempt with two more quarters down the drain where he finally picks up.

Lucas’s voice is croaky and deep. “H’llo?”

“Hey, dweeb.”

“Max…” She hears him shuffling around on the other end, presumably sitting upright if he’s in a bed. “Where…the fuck. Why are you calling.”

“Just bragging,” she chirps, stretching out the brochure she’d snagged from inside. The contents promise attractions, local food and drink, and a surefire route that can best the boys at the game, because haven’t they forgotten yet that this is a race? “I thought you’d like to know we’re in Ohio right now, in a little place called Chill…Chilli-something.”

“Impressive.” He doesn’t sound impressed.

“Oh yeah, smartass? And what have you guys been doing, fucking around and watching butterflies?”

“I’ll have you know the Kentucky route is breezing by, thank you. We’re like…hold on.” More shuffling, and then a harsh whisper of ‘sorry’ that Max presumes is from the boys all stacked on top of each other sleeping. (Well, scratch that; Lucas and Dustin are probably in the same sleeping unit, Mike and Will are obviously paired off in either another bed or another section of the minivan). 

“Okay, we’re on our way to Lexington,” Lucas says, halfway distracted; Max thinks he’s looking at some map. “We wanted to hit the breweries.”

“Is anyone besides me and El taking this race seriously?”

“Not really,” Lucas admits; sleep has made him forgo any courtesy filter. Max blows a raspberry straight into the receiver in retaliation. “Hey, look, you had a great idea. But we’re having fun, I dunno what else to tell you. Just make it exciting, okay? You were right, we don’t get to see each other often anymore. The beach is gonna be great, but what do wise men always say, Max?” He adopts a rather pretentious overtone, dripping in irony. “‘It’s always about the journey, young grasshopper, not the destination.’”

“When we get to the beach I’m gonna kick you straight in the balls.”

“Please don’t,” Lucas laughs quietly. “How’s El?”

(Her heart answers before her brain has time to process, perking up like her name itself is a summoning, a catalyst.)

“She’s good,” Max says truthfully. “Real good. I think she’s glad to be getting out.”

“Heh, yeah, makes sense. Doesn’t she have a shitton of plants?”

“A fuckton, yeah.”

Lucas chuckles, telling the joke only after he’s amused himself with it. “You think she would grow a couple of Mary Janes if I asked nicely?”

“You don’t even smoke weed,” Max scoffs. “And for the record, I already asked her about it and she said no.”

“Damn. That’s too bad, she’d be raking it in.”

“She’s not exactly money-driven.”

“Touche,” Lucas says with a shrug so verbal that Max can visualize it. “I’m just asking because when I last saw her, she mentioned she had this bad habit of getting a new plant every time she felt lonely, or just bad in general.”

Oh.

“Oh. Shit.”

“Yeah. I think it’s like you said, this’ll be good for her to get out. We’ve missed her. You can, uh, tell her that.”

And here, a twinge of pain equivalent to getting pinched. “I will.”

There’s more faint noise on Lucas’s end, and then he envelops her ears with a monstrous yawn. “Ugh, I’m tired, man. You can try to call tomorrow, I’ll try to pick up. Just don’t call when it’s so goddamn late.”

Max buries a snicker into her grin, which she imagines is loud enough for Lucas to hear in her voice. “I’m not taking breaks unlike some of us. So if I’m on the road longer and it happens to be late by the time I crash for the night, you’re gonna have to deal with it.”

“Jeez. What made you go and decide to hate fun?”

“I’ll have fun at the beach."

“Sure, sure.” She could prolong the bickering by pointing out the disbelief in Lucas’s tone, but he’s right. It is late. “Get some sleep, Max.”

“Say hi to the other losers for me.”

They hang up before the call is cut off. Max sighs, letting the air deflate her shoulders, drop her muscles. She leans against the glass of the booth and relishes in the chill, staring at the few cars passing by. Thoughts flicker but never linger, and she decides that right now she is content.

(When Max returns to the room, the lights are on for her, but El is asleep. Her friend’s face is serene, like staring down into an open coffin. She sneaks over on the other side of the bed, doesn’t bother with pajamas (save for chucking her bra towards her suitcase), and clicks the lamp.

The medicine ensures she doesn’t dream of anything important.)

Only six more hours left in the journey; have fun, Lucas had said.

She can be fun. She’s hip, she’s cool. So cool, in fact, that she lets El sleep in (till about nine) and even invites her out for breakfast.

The brochure promised a good diner five minutes into town, and here they are, sitting across from one another in a leather booth that’s been picked at violently, with the guts of the seats showing. El orders her usual, Max gets some french toast with hash browns.

“I thought of an icebreaker,” El interrupts the lingering, amicable quiet between two longtime friends.

Max is busy waterboarding the paper worm from her straw so it expands in size. She looks up. “Oh yeah? Hit me.”

“If you could be any fictional character, who would you be?”

This isn’t the icebreaker she had in mind, but she’s not complaining. It makes her sift through her past a bit, and she trails back to the days in the arcade, bag full of coins and tickets. There were minefields waiting for her at home, so she would stay as long as she could, finding every excuse in the book to just play one more game.

Max sips her water to buy herself some introspection. Then, at last, it strikes her: “Oh! Easy as shit, Mad Max. You get to wander around with your pet monkey, taking down warlords and gangs, exploring the wasteland… I could get decked out in war paint and everything.”

Their food arrives too quickly to be anything truly quality, but Max’s stomach growls like it’s never had a meal in its life when the plates are clapped down. El digs into her comfort food while Max grabs the syrup to smother her toast.

“What about you?” she asks El. “Y’know, most of the time when people ask an icebreaker, they already have their answer ready to go.”

El replies easily, “I think I’d be Anne Shirley.”

“Anne who?”

“In Anne of Green Gables,” El clarifies over a mouthful. “She gets to travel and find a family. She had a bad beginning, but it’s all just so…safe. She’s got a big imagination, too. I think I’d like having that.”

The name and title rings a bell, but it was probably nothing that piqued Max’s interest. Still, she’s pleased her friend found security in resonating with such a character. “You do have a big imagination,” she assures her.

“But she’s so fun!” El rebukes. “And she loves romance, and she has so many interesting friends.”

“Dude, you’re describing yourself.”

“Well, no—”

“Literally describing yourself. Dunno what to tell you.”

El pouts a bit, bottom lip dropping out. Her eyes go all big, puppy-dog style. Max just laughs more, ignoring the distant flutter of her stomach. “For real! You’re creative, you’ve got a badass group of friends, you love romance, I mean. Sorry to this Anne girl, but you knock it out of the park for me.”

Her friend blinks. “I do?”

“Yeah, dude,” Max cuts off a soggy cube of toast to shovel it into her mouth, then a bite of hash browns, then the berries on the side (she’s starving, her dinner was junk food, sue her). “And it goes without saying that Anne Shirley can’t lift things with her mind. You’re way better than any fictional character out there. You’re the real deal.”

An odd thing happens here.

El goes from puppy to doe eyes the longer Max talks. And then, like a droplet of dye in water, a soft tint of pink blossoms along her cheeks. Ten seconds into the absurd staring contest, El blinks a lot more than before, till her lashes finally obscure her gaze and she gains a strong fascination for the waffles she’s halfway through finishing. Twenty seconds in, Max realizes she’s the freak staring for way too long, burning a hole right through the top of El’s head. Ruefully, she returns to her own dish.

It feels like simultaneously something has been broken and also repaired. But, like most conversations between friends, the topic dies without a pulse, and so it goes nowhere.

Or, Max strongly suspects it doesn’t.

They get back on the road before noon strikes, and Max plugs in a fresh cassette tape. This one, El’s guaranteed to love. She gets a queer staredown as the mixtape boots up. And then: a smattering of piano keys, an easy beat—

‘You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life,’

El begins glowing. Her smile falls open in disbelief, in gratitude, in excitement; she can hardly contain herself, feeling everything like it was meant for a bigger body.

Max pantomimes holding a microphone. “See that girl, watch that scene–”

“Digging the dancing queen!!”

El fucking loves ABBA. It was a recent discovery that Jonathan, of all people, directed her towards — perhaps through Nancy’s influence, or maybe he’s just that much of a music nerd he can sniff out other people’s musical affairs like a bloodhound. He made the right choice, giving her that vinyl record for one of her birthdays, teaching her how to operate a turntable, showing her the intricacies of being a pure music snob.

ABBA helps El understand how music is an expression, an extension of the body. She feels the songs like they were all written with her in mind, a love letter to her own existence. When she dances, it’s without ghosts. They find another body to haunt, for just a brief time.

Max thinks she gets it, because rock is that way to her. Kate Bush has always been that for her, since Billy, since everything. But rock is a special type of adrenaline; it’s angry, it’s exhilarating, and it’s a haven. She likes how the beat devours her, how she’ll get lost in the vocal runs and crashing drums, whining guitars, the jagged edges of the genre.

By the time the song ends, they’ve belted out all the lyrics in perfect tandem. El has her window down to announce ‘Dancing Queen’ to all passersby; her hair is swimming around her face, some strands sticking to the ends of her mouth, but she could care less.

“You remembered!” she exclaims as the song fades out, classic 80s-style.

“You think I’d forget?” Max yells back incredulously.

“No! I just love it.”

“There’s more where that came from,” she swears. “But I spaced it out so you have to listen to my jams too.”

El makes an exaggerated face of disbelief, but can’t keep it for long because she quickly falls in love with the next song in the roster. Max had a feeling she’d enjoy ‘Lips Like Sugar’; this part of the set is more catered towards El’s interest, the hopeless romantic she’s becoming.

(—Her lips. Why is she staring openly at her friend’s lips. That needs to stop instantly. Max jerks her head back to the road with a futile cough. Whatever that is, it’s gone on long enough.)

They’re in the middle of nowhere when El has to use the bathroom. Like all courageous voyagers, Max pulls the car over and suggests she just go in the woods. El isn’t pleased, but does agree that it’s worth the instant relief over having to delay the inevitable.

The meadow across the street is vast, undulating like a green ocean which the tides of flowers crashing and pulling against each other. The wind has the branches bowing down further to kiss at the ground, batting at the top of Max’s head as she stands guard. It’s a solid refresher after another long two-hour trek.

When she’s alone with no distractions, no music or people, she can so easily slip back into Hawkins or San Diego. Just one wrong move and she’s young again, at the mercy of so many adults in her life that talked with their hands, or reveled in shouting, or found joy in an empty bottle rather than her. There were days she didn’t think she’d make it out alive; she’d lose herself in those days, like a flower loses petals, during that furrow in time.

But today she breathes in the scent of the woods — underbrush, soil, birdsong, flora, a mollified breeze — and she’s in a different place entirely. She’s in the thick of West Virginia, in the middle of nowhere, untouchable to anything or anyone.

…Even if she is getting pretty bored.

“If it’s a shit, pinch it off!” Max calls into the thick of the forestry. She hears the distant scoff of her companion, followed by the shuffling of foliage.

“You’re disgusting,” El calls back, all in fondness. When Max faces her, El has her hands cupped, which is affecting her balance as she battles the lush greenery. Summer has sprouted happy, happy weeds and ivy, but they prove no match for El’s incessant stomping with her shoes.

“Whatcha got?” Max asks, stepping closer to meet her halfway.

She’s hardly acknowledged. “Hold out your arm,” El requests instead, oddly coy.

Max glares at her, only halfway convinced.

“Pinky promise, it’ll be worth it.”

And of course, Max knows what they say about friends and lying. Finally swayed, Max surrenders her arm to the whims of El’s shenanigans.

She fills a tiny prickle of something being placed into her possession, but can’t make heads or tails of it. “When I was little, my friend Nate put a spider on me like this once,” she says to fill the pocket of quiet.

“It’s not a spider,” El swears. Then: “Okay, look.”

Max does. She discovers a little inchworm creeping its way up her inner wrist. Her arm hairs rise with gooseflesh as the little creature continues its trek upwards, blithe to its audience.

“Be gentle,” El murmurs; her eyes are dark with concentration, as though she’s solely responsible for the wellbeing of the little bug. She envelops kindness so wholly, like the whole world depends on it.

Max marvels at the little bug for a second, envious in the way that anyone can be about the naivety of animals. How little they suffer, how quickly their needs are met, how easily content they become. Though she knows El’s fascination with the critters comes from her years in a chamber, locked away from the rest of the world before the lid of her life was blown wide open.

“We should give him a name,” Max opines, turning her whole arm around as the inchworm keeps trailing up, up, up with no sign of stopping. “Rocket?”

El gives a breathless, sort of expectant laugh. She nods.

“Rocket it is,” Max beams. She begins looking for places to set Rocket down, settling on the cracked bark of a nearby tree. “There ya’ go, little guy.”

It takes some twisting and shifting about, but finally Rocket sets on the path up the wood. El seems mesmerized with his journey, even lifting a finger to hover over him, as though to give him a poke, before eventually deciding better. 

They bid Rocket adieu before getting back in the car. As they’re buckling up, booting up the engine, something stalls Max’s thoughtlines. She can’t start anything without addressing it first, lest it be teased like a loose tooth for the rest of the trip.

“Hey, El?”

El turns.

“Don’t,” Max fishes for words, finding them all incompetent or grossly ineffective to what she feels. All she can gather is, “Don’t let anyone tell you that you…you don’t deserve what you have, okay? You do. The plants, the dreams of having a farm, the whirlwind romance you want so badly…it’s all yours. I just, I want you to know that.”

She’s phrasing this all so poorly. She doesn’t know how to articulate I’ll bring the stars down for you, I’ll grab the moon and the sun and put them wherever you want. Tell me how to shape the earth to keep you on it. The love hasn’t graced her with vocabulary, all she can do is experience it like a force of nature.

El doesn’t say anything back for a while; maybe this was the wrong place to say it. These thoughts of devotion feel as though they belong in a different time (though, past or future?)

They run into a pothole on the way back on the road, but the rest of the drive back onto the intersection is smooth sailing.

“South Carolina.”

El perks up, like Max had expected her to do. “What?”

“Saw a South Carolina license plate,” Max replies. She indulges for a second how sweetly ignorant El remains to the game before she contextualizes, “When I was little, my parents had this game for long car rides where you’d point out a license plate from a different state. Whoever found the license from farthest away wins.”

“Wins…what? We should win something.”

“Oh yeah? You got something you’re willing to lose, El?”

Max smirks as she talks, knowing that the most El could provide for her is another houseplant that she’ll kill. But El surprises her, stating, “Winner gets candy of their choice at the next convenience store.”

She raises her brows. “Okay, hotshot. You think you can best me at my own game?”

“I have the map,” El reminds her. “You have to keep your eyes on the road.”

Another challenge, then. Perhaps she’s falling hook, line, and sinker into El’s master plan to get a free Snickers or whatever from the gas station, but nothing in life is fun without a little wager. Max loses one hand on the wheel to shake El’s. “You’re on.”

Lots of West Virginias. Some Ohios. There’s one Louisiana that has Max up on her high horse for an hour, till she’s knocked down a peg by El pointing and yelling out Utah.

The stakes of the game keep Max pretty invested, no room to zone out like she tends to do in any vehicle, itching to just get away to somewhere (away, just away). Today, El keeps her grounded. No time to drift into alternate realities and timelines when there’s money (and some dignity) on the line.

On the way out this morning, El had fished something from her suitcase that Max had to bug her about before revealing what turned out to be a manuscript. It was for Mike’s next book.

Now, with nothing to do but listen to the honeyed vocals of Ani DiFranco, El has the draft balanced in her lap, legs crossed, hair falling to obscure the side of her face. When she’s able to, Max glances down at the papers, Max glances down at it, like it’ll spring up and read its contents out to her. She’d be amiss to deny her curiosity of what it entails.

“He’s a good writer,” El says apropos of nothing; though, in hindsight, Max definitely could’ve let up on her obvious staring.

“Yeah?” She averts her eyes back to the highway, which is now at an incline as they descend a hilltop. She lightly puts on the brake in return.

All Max gets is a short nod. It’s dissatisfying — she’d wanted maybe a drop of lore! A spoiler even! — so she pushes, “What, did he,finally kill off one of his beloved characters?”

El presses a finger to her curved lips; a secret, then.

“He just gets so attached,” Max scoffs. “I’m starting to think it’s a microcosm of some bigger problems. I mean, come on — when the, the Rogue, what’s-his-name, starts with a B? When he managed to outsmart Mr. Bad Guy? Textbook deus ex machina. His mana couldn’t even lift up a vial and suddenly he’s blasting monsters to bits? Gag me with a spoon, more like.”

There’s no affirmation nor denial, but either way El’s shoulders shake in a quiet, good-natured giggle.

“At least him surviving means Will gets to draw more of him in the book. He’s a hunk, Mr. What’s-His-Face.”

“I think Will is just giving…creative liberties?” El coins hesitantly.

On that, Max can agree. Will draws all of Mike’s characters like they’re his beloveds too. But the male characters definitely carry this automatic charisma about them, crafted with a more meticulous and focused hand. Foreshadowing is a feat of any great artist, after all.

“Well, whatever liberties it is, that guy can blast me into a wall any day.”

El pokes her, but it’s all in play. “Calm down.”

“It’s true!” Max protests, earning another suppressed chuckle. “C’mon, I’m not a stick in the mud. And you can see it too, I bet. Right up there with Joey Lawrence — and do not judge me, I see you with that look judging me!”

 Neither can stop grinning till the smiles split open and out comes raucous laughter. It overpowers the soundtrack of the car until Max finally turns it down so as to not become overwhelmed. But El’s laugh is so, so precious; she wants to clutch it close enough to burn.

“Okay, okay,” Max manages once they simmer down some. El is still wiping her eyes. “Real talk. We gotta rate the world’s hottest people.”

El’s expression does a minor falter, and instantly Max feels a bit ashamed for broaching the subject. But El stands firm, firmer than she may have when they were younger and less familiar with one another.

“Go ahead,” she prompts, schooling a very neutral demeanor.

“Finally! Oh my god, I’ve been dying to know your thoughts on Kurt Cobain.”

Now her friend’s caution has crested into full-on bafflement.

“No way, you haven’t been listening to Nirvana?”

Recognition surfaces, and there’s a tiny nod. “Mike really likes them.”

“Maybe Mike’s got some good ideas after all,” Max teases. “Kurt Cobain’s the lead singer. I’ll have to show you a picture sometime, but spoilers: total hottie.”

El’s mouth becomes tight around the edges. She has something brewing behind her eyes that Max can’t fully decipher, given how half her attention is on the road.

“Alright, next one…ooooh. You have to remember Judd Nelson, we watched Breakfast Club, remember? The bad boy.”

Her friend reflects on the memory before offering a reluctant nod.

This conversation feels more and more like talking to a very dubious brick wall. Max can feel them both sinking into their own pools of discomfort, but she persists, albeit uncertainly. “‘Kay, well, back to musicians. I’ve always had more of a thing about short hair with actors, then longer hair with singers. Weird, right? Anyway, I think another guy is Axl Rose, he’s got this super strong jawline. I dunno about his hair, but I bet he could pull off a mullet or something.”

She’s rambling for time, and she knows it. The longer she speaks, the more El seems to shrink in her seat.

Then, with an intake of breath, Max takes a more daring plunge.

“Ani DiFranco is hot too.”

Maybe it was a misstep, maybe she hedges the topic too soon; El fully stiffens, poisoning the atmosphere. Max may have pressed on a bruise, or even an entire open wound, because El’s next words sound gritted and forced through her throat.

“Ani DiFranco is a girl.”

This is all teetering onto a much bigger conversation, one with too many caveats and staircases and windows and doors. Max wants to ask her upfront, Why haven’t you dated since Mike? Why do you look at me like I’m worth the time? Does any of this have anything to do with the way you hang up posters of your female idols in your room, or the way you haven’t complimented a man in ages? Did you figure out what I did?

Instead, Max withdraws her weaponry, stuffs them away for later interrogations. But she’s lived on that ledge for years; it’s easy to embrace the risks.

“And?” she says at last. “Girls can be hot.”

Joan Jett. Maria Pallett in English. Beverly from across the street. Women with sharp eyes and sharper wit. Brunettes, brown eyes, soft lips that promise something darker just beneath them.

Girls can be hot. It pings around in Max’s skull like an echo chamber. It’s daunting, but comforting. Something in her loosens like shedding skin. It’s a hushed, gentle rebirth.

Back to El: her mouth is slightly parted, her eyes brimming with something too wild to look at directly. She looks a bit like someone’s got and shucked off her shirt in public.

“I didn’t— I mean,” Max stammers; she’s bad with apologies, with tucking parts of herself back and away from danger. She feels as though she’s folding up her wings. “It’s okay if you don’t…ugh, I made this weird. Look, forget it, my point is: people, in general, are smokin’, El. And you’d be a fool to not agree with my superior tastes.”

She attaches a dosage of sarcasm to the last sentence, as a way to lighten the mood. El comes back to herself bit by bit, and her gaze hardens, her mouth open, and she says with her chest:

“Girls are hot.”

That’s...something. That’s really something, actually; it takes all of Max’s willpower not to pull over the car and assess this with all the concentration and care it deserves. But maybe some things need to be said in a car, admitted in passing. Maybe the mundane of it all trounces a spectacle.

“Oh yeah?” Max keeps it casual.

El nods; maybe normalcy is the right call, because her dear friend is melting back into the seat, like the fire is flickering out of her. Like this is safe.

“...I do like girls,” El admits — it’s a confession. Max isn’t religious, but in passing she knows of a confession booth. Priest on one side, sinner on the other, a latticed barrier wedged between the two, both sworn to secrecy.

She doesn’t want this to be that. No barriers, no sins, no need for forgiveness from a god that’s never given a shit about them before, and certainly won’t start now.

“And that’s okay,” Max says, keeping herself level and overtly-benign. “That’s okay, El. It’s not wrong. Will isn’t wrong. Mike isn’t wrong. You’re— you’ve never been wrong.”

El is definitely more talkative nowadays, but she does have nonverbal spells, and this is shaping up to be one of them. But she seems…relieved. Content, even; but moreso relieved. Like ripping off a bandage and sealing a wound all in the same breath.

Her face portrays thank you so loudly it could be its own language.

“I’m not wrong either,” Max says aloud, for herself primarily. “We’re good, El. We’re good.”

When she turns up the playlist again, letting the song possess the scene, El’s eyes are wet and her lips wobble. She cries, facing the window, and Max takes her hand from across the way. They stay like this for a long time.

The phone’s picked up on the third ring.

“Sinclair residence?” greets the person on the other end, who sounds very much not like Lucas Sinclair.

Max smirks. “‘Sup Dustin. Did you finally kill Lucas?”

“Affirmative,” Dustin quips back. “Commencing Phase Two of our master plan.”

“Fuck you guys,” Max hears from farther away; this, on the other hand, sounds very much like Lucas.

“How’re things, Henderson?” Max asks, sitting back against the booth.

“Dude. Have you ever heard of Bojangles?

“Bojangles,” Max repeats cluelessly. “Sounds like a type of jewelry.”

“No, Max, imagine me putting a hand on your shoulder when I say this. You need to get your ass over to one immediately, this is not a joke.”

“That good, huh?”

“We’re talking chicken. Southern fried chicken. And biscuits, and sweet tea.”

Feeling advertised to, Max just waits for him to conclude his rant. “As gnarly as all that sounds, I think you’ll be happy to know we’re two hours away from Emerald Isle. So do you wanna hear my victory speech now, or when you meet us at the beach?”

“You’re missing out,” Dustin says with a click of his tongue. “We’re on the scenic route, Max. Emphasis on scenic. I’m prescribing you to take a chill pill.”

“Bite me.”

“Lucas!” Dustin shouts away from the phone. “I’m being threatened!”

“Good! Get him, Max!” Lucas yells back.

Max lifts her eyes to the ceiling of the phone booth in a half-assed eyeroll. “I’m just saying you better not be super late. Where the hell even are you?”

“Uhh…if you look at our route, we kinda did an L-shaped curve into North Carolina? So this is, what, Tennessee? We’re in Tennessee, right?”

She hears Mike say, “Yeah,” in a way that conveys he’s only half-listening.

Max throws her whole body into the eyeroll this time. “Oh my god, you guysss. Stop with the detours and get to the damn beach already!”

“We are getting there,” Dustin retorts, but it’s clear he’s not taking her irritation seriously. “Max, seriously, lighten up. If you’re gonna beat us to the race, it’s really whatever. At least then you can do something while you wait for us, like going to a tiki bar, or– oh, you can go to one of those beach gift shops! That might be sick.”

“What, and buy a shot glass with boobs on it?”

“Hey. That’s America, baby.”

Max sighs. She’s not often in this position, being egged on while staying on the fence. It’s often vice versa; her boys have become dubious in the past couple years, embarking on their own quests for a slice of normal. Like parts of them are still stuck in the Upside Down and they’re clawing their way out.

But they sound happy, at least now, and she can take credit for reigning them all in. She hears in the background that type of laughter that comes from intimacy. Like there’s a private joke the world is missing out on. It feels really special, to be connected to that.

“You’re like Lucas,” Max says, instead of addressing her sentiments. “He was on my ass about having fun yesterday, too.”

“Maybe you need to hear it,” Dustin counters good-naturedly. He then gets distracted by the boys’ laughter graduating to excited yells. “Wait, gotta go. Will’s back with drinks. Say hi, Will!”

“Hi, Will!” he calls back cheekily.

Affection overwhelms her so quickly it’s hard to breathe. She can imagine them all huddled around a table at some bar, linking up like no time has passed. She sees herself fitting in with them so fluently, sharing the same jokes and stories. She sees El alongside her, arms brushing, smiles in sync.

Soon. They’ll all be like that so soon.

“Go hang with the loser club,” Max tells him. “I’ll talk to you guys later, I’m gonna…” Get back on the road? Crush those two hours left on the map? “Y’know what? I’m gonna go do something. You guys can suck it.”

“There ya’ go!” Dustin cheers. “We’ll see you soon, Max!”

There’s a distracted yet eager chorus of ‘Bye, Max!’, and then the call is cut.

Fine. What’s she got to lose anyway? They’re a literal state away from her.

El is patiently sitting in the car waiting for her, still checking her fingernails like the pink color is going to fade or break away.

Max fishes through the glove compartment, minding her friend’s personal space as much as possible throughout, and checks her inventory. She’s got her ID and some cash. Might as well make the most of it.

Next is the map. She plucks one of those tourist brochures El collects from between her tennis shoes and spreads it out, analyzing all the stops.

“What are you doing?” El asks.

“It says that there’s a bar a couple miles east,” Max answers, referring to the coordinates. “We’ve been driving all day. We’re 22. And we’re way ahead of schedule. Let’s go celebrate our victory with a drink, get into some trouble.”

She hesitates. “I don’t have a license.”

“Like that’ll stop us from getting drinks.” When El only looks more confused, Max expounds, “We’re girls and we’re hot. Some creeps will be giving us shots faster than you can break their necks so we can get the hell out. We drink, then we head to the coast. Call it a…drink and drive.”

El’s brows come together, stare darkening, before she ultimately agrees. “One drink.”

“Hell yeah!” Max happily ropes her arms around El’s shoulders (she smells overly-floral, like the jungles of her apartment have latched onto her even statelines away). “The corruption of El Hopper continues!”

She’s batted away with a giggle.

(Again, again that noise. Every song envies it, the heavens are alight with it. Worlds can shift under El’s voice, her influence. Max wants to put it somewhere, anywhere — this feeling is bigger than her.

I do like girls, she had said. Girls are hot.

…She’s really, really going to have to do something about this soon.)

It’s just like any old bar: rustic interior, worn seats, dimmed lighting to lend to the amber hues coloring the place. Unimpressive, but competent.

Max suggests they sit at the bar, and El abides. She orders a simple Coke for herself, while Max dives in headfirst with a pale ale, as a starter. Her pocket is bulky with something hidden, and it presses against her thigh as she leans towards an oblivious El.

“So,” Max starts, “how’s the trip so far? Five out of five?”

El sips her soda before nodding. “It’s been good. I saw another license plate earlier, it was from California.”

“Well, shit. I better up my game then.”

The latter’s eyes glint playfully, bordering on something semi-flirtatious (what does THAT mean?)

“I know you don’t miss California,” Max goes on. “And hey, after everything that happened to you out there, I sure as hell wouldn’t. There’s reasons I don’t miss San Diego either, but, I wish you got to see some of the better parts of the west coast while you were there. They got some sick aquariums out there, I bet you would have loved it.”

Invested, El leans a bit closer to her now; her eyes are alight with a vicious spirit, like Max is telling a more glorious tale than she is.

“That would be nice,” she murmurs.

The air between them becomes slimmer, harder to derive oxygen from. Max battles against a knot forming in her stomach; it’s just that El’s face is so close — close enough to make a mistake.

It’s offensive, the way she doesn’t know her own royalty.

“You ever tried In-N-Out?” Max asks. She expects the shake of the head, but it’s still a crime. “Girl, trust me, next time we do a bigger road trip race to the west coast, we’re getting you some In-N-Out. It’ll change. Your. Life.”

El’s mouth crimps a little, like a thought has wandered in and dug its nails into her. “I don’t know how much I want to travel anymore,” she confesses slowly. “I still want the farm, I like dreaming about that. But everyone keeps moving away. Mom and Dad are in Montauk, Mike and Will are in New Jersey, Jonathan is in Rochester…and there’s you, and Lucas, and Dustin. I keep losing things.”

The bartender brings Max her drink on cue. She takes a swig, then is about to address her friend who’s growing more and more on the verge of upset. El stops her.

“I feel like…an impossible person,” El manages, swirling her straw in her soda. “I don’t think I belong in many places. I don’t feel like I'm allowed to dream, because when you dream you’re planning to stay. Like I’ll wake up every day in my bed and everything’s where it was.” She shakes her head with a folded lip, as though barricading a plethora of pain from reaching the surface. “The people like me are all dead. Sometimes I think…that that’s a sign. Like I have an…an expiration date?”

Max trails her gaze down to the numbers on El’s inner wrist: they’re barely visible unless you’re searching for them. How many times has the girl before her been reduced to those numbers, to a statistic or an outlier?

She remembers what’s in her pocket and fights back a smile.

“Well, that’s not totally true,” Max begins, stretching her words out deliberately. “The ‘people like you’, that have magic powers…they’re not all dead.”

El perks up.

“I never got around to telling you this, but…I’m a bit of a magician myself.”

It’s like a rehearsal for a play, everything premeditated and memorized: Max with her knowing grin, predicting how El’s next words will be one of disbelief. And sure enough: “You don’t have powers.”

“Maybe not like yours, I don’t.” Now, she presents the star of the evening. Her hands smoothly grip the deck of cards that she’s been carrying since she fished them out of the glove compartment, revealing them and setting them on the bar. “You wanna see a trick?”

El is half-exasperated, half-amused. It’s a fun combo on her; every new expression Max helps to put on El’s cute face feels hard-won.

“Sure.”

First step: “Alright, first thing is you shuffle the cards however you want. This is a real deck of cards, no gimmicks, swear to god. Just move them around however.”

El does, albeit tentatively. She keeps looking up at Max for approval at she sloppily spreads the cards around on the bar, cutting then flipping them around in some kind of personal ritual. Max waits for her to be content with the shuffle before moving on.

Second step: Misdirection. Now that the cards are stacked back up, Max moves them discreetly in her palms — four of spades, remember the bottom card was four of spades — and El doesn't notice a thing, just keeps staring at Max, waiting for the next move.

Third step: ‘Dealing’ cards. Max carefully takes cards out from above the four of spades without moving it from its position, feeding into the illusion that it’s a fair deal, telling El, “Now, I’m gonna start taking these cards out, and you say ‘stop’ whenever you want, okay?”

It’s nearly halfway down the deck that El commences ‘stop’.

Fourth step: “So now, just to make sure you know I’m not cheating, I’m gonna look away…” Max flips around before presenting the spades card to El. “Now, just remember this card and don’t read it out to me. I’m gonna read your mind and tell you what the card is.”

El says aloud, “Okay?” She’s clearly invested, knowing that this is leading her somewhere, but like any great trick isn’t sure where they’re going.

Fifth step: putting the cards back together, Max turns around. Nothing is out of the ordinary about the deck, nothing sticking out to her to declare whatever ‘random’ card El memorized from the set.

“Now, clearly, I can’t tell what your card was,” Max says, and she has to stop the smirk from lifting her mouth. “But! If I just reach out…” she extends a hand, putting a finger to the side of El’s head, “...and I take it from your mind…” back goes the hand, transferring one nugget of thought from one head to the next. 

Max closes her eyes, pretends to think real hard. “...It’s the four of spades, isn’t it?”

The reaction is both instantaneous and worth the wait: her friend’s whole face implodes in awe, eyes widening, jaw dropping, the works.

“See?” Max takes the cards back with a rehearsed nonchalance. She feels El watching her shuffle the deck and feels a bit more pressure stiffening her hands (why is she so nervous?), but El remains impressed throughout the performance. “Magic.”

“Wow,” El whispers, holding Max in her gaze like she’s worth the praise.

Max shakes it off. “Ah, it’s just a dumb trick some guy pulled on me in college. It almost earned him a second date.”

(The truth: Quinn in Social Studies asked her what she wanted to be out of college. She said she didn’t know. Quinn said, jokingly, she could be a magician, and she spent the day teaching her some classic card tricks. They kissed after, and never spoke again.)

“I can teach you sometime,” Max suggests, “It’s a little tricky at first, but I feel like you’d catch on pretty fast.”

El nods. Her smile is unceasing. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For making me feel better.”

Oh, that. Part of Max had forgotten that was the point of the trick; she’d gotten her coordinates jumbled after watching El’s happiness extend to her expression. She became bewitched, like she’ll do anything to keep that smile there.

El must lend Max’s sudden bout of quiet to a lull in conversation, because she excuses herself to use the restroom. Max watches her go, ensuring no creeps are giving her any double takes, then fiddles freely with her cards.

She feels the smile worming its way onto her face. She fondly plays with the deck, busying her hands, absorbed fully in the memory playing, fast-forwarding, rewinding in her head like a tape: El’s delight, her unfettered wonder, the way her joy moves a whole room. Oh, Eleven.

When Max pulls away from the flashback, she makes brief eye contact with somebody she really, really doesn’t want to. That’s her first mistake. Her second, apparently, is yanking her gaze away to express her disinterest. Her third is staying still as she hears the ominous footsteps; she does not want to engage with a man who mistakes her apathy as an invitation. It tells her everything she needs to know about how this next encounter will unfold.

Fuck me.

His shadows are elongated by the dim lighting overheard, doing his appearance zero favors. 

“I liked that card trick,” he says, and his voice sounds as slimy as Max had predicted. “Saw it across the bar. Don’t suppose you’d like showing an old man what you did?”

Max deploys her first tactic for low-tier creeps, which is mildly brushing him off. “I really wouldn’t.”

She keeps her glare locked on the racks of crystalline bottles behind the bar, keeps shuffling the deck. It’s not enough, because it will never be enough.

The man’s meaty arm worms its way into her line of sight, leaning against the polished wood of the bar. “Ah, c’mon, don’t be like that. You’re the most interesting thing in this shithole. You should be proud of it.”

Oh, how original. A man who doesn’t understand ‘no.’ Max scoots further away from him, civility be damned to hell. She’s never going to feel awful about telling a guy to get bent, but there’s always more on the line when it’s a man bigger than her, with an undetermined moral compass

“Alright, well, now that we’ve established you’re stupid, how about I lay it out for you better,” Max talks more sharply into her glass and over her drink. “I’m not interested. You can shove it.”

“I can shove it,” the man mirrors, his version of the statement more sounding like mockery. “That’s a good one. You got some fire in you, miss red. Reminds me of my daughters.”

Awesome, another layer of disgusting icing on top of the disgusting cake. Max wishes she could shed like a snake and leave this freak to flirt with the skin left behind, but she’s unfortunately tethered here, so she glares at him. But now that she’s really looking, she doesn’t like what she finds.

The man’s big. He’s also all edges. The angular planes on his face are so scarily resounding, and suddenly she’s looking at a carbon copy of the brother who put a fear of god in her.

“Let me buy you a drink,” he tries again, because they never really do quit.

Max hasn’t felt this small in a long time. She prays for divine intervention, or an amicable stranger, just something to latch onto.

Before she can attempt another ‘no’, which will likely heed zero positive results, something occurs:

The man flies back in his chair till he falls ass over kettle on the hardwood floor. It makes a tremendous thud that turns several heads, then several more when he yells out in pain. He’s clutching tightly to his wrist, his hand to be more specific, and howling “My finger! My fucking finger!”

This scene’s stakes feel resounding, just in the bizarreness of it all. Max turns, almost expectantly, to the direction of the bathroom, and sure enough: El stands glaring down at the man from across the bar, a single line of blood falling from one nostril.

El.

Glorious, life-saving El.

Max meets her where she is, abandoning her post for good after slapping down a ten. El won’t let up on her ruthless leering, even when Max puts a hand on her arm. “C’mon,” she whispers; everyone is distracted by this manchild still complaining about his alleged broken hand, it'd be best to leave and avoid any stray suspicions.

El doesn’t budge initially, and at first Max is worried that this will shape up to be an issue. But then she wipes her nose, seeming to regain some clarity, and leaves with Max still gripping onto her arm, like she’ll slip from her fingers at any moment.

The ride back is quiet, pulsating with what’s left unspoken. Max doesn’t know whether saying ‘thank you’ would just rub salt into a cut, or if saying something like ‘be careful next time’ would trigger conflict. Since Vecna, El has never found complete peace with her powers — Max could sing her praises all day and night but that wouldn’t patch up a warped sense of identity. That shit’s deeply ingrained like thorns, or marrow.

El won’t look at her, though. That doesn’t really feel good.

When they get to the motel, El makes a quick route for the bed and plots herself there resolutely. Max decides to give her friend time — she wants to say anything but the words are an angry beehive in her throat, and she ends up simply mute — and just starts winding down in the bathroom.

Stress can lock up her arms, and she’s bad with determining what’s going to cause a flare-up and what isn’t, even when for the most part the situation with the guy was under control. It was still a mental falter, so Max downs more painkillers just in case.

When she steps back out, El is curled up like an angry fist on her side of the bed, tucked into herself like an extra layer of security. 

It’s impolite to watch someone sleep, but Max can’t seem to help it. She’s seen El at many stages in her life, but this type of state is different, precious even. She’s sleeping without that weight she’s always carrying, like she’d thrown it all out the window a couple states back. Her skin is smooth, the preemptive creases in her face vanishing within a couple more steady breaths. There’s thick stems of hair falling over her eyes, and Max moves, without much thought. Like it’s her duty to remove the strands out of El’s face. 

When she’s up closer, she stares more shamelessly. Her best friend holds her body like a museum of trauma — here, in the gallery: a pale white scar, a reminder of what she escaped. Here, in her bones, the walls: strength bestowed to her at an age too young. And there, in her eyes: the whole world on fire.

This is a girl who ruins herself to save her loved ones, and would do it over and over again without a second thought, without complaint.

Max steps away; she’s too drawn in, and there’s a natural gravitational pull she has to rebel against. I do like girls. Those stupid words, they echo in her like a siren’s call. I do like girls.

Thunder rolls in when Max analyzes the softness of El’s features in the lamplight and like a lightning strike she thinks, Oh no.

‘Oh, no’, because she’s magnetized by El’s hair, eyes, fingers, her figure, with this carnal appeal that she’s been burrowing deep down like hibernation. ‘Oh, no,’ because she sees her dear friend everywhere she looks, found in other people like a puzzle game: Find the similarities between them and the one you love.

‘Oh, no’, because Max has known something has been hidden in her, starving, for a very long time, and El is cracking her wide open from the inside out.

She gets away from El for good, before she attempts something utterly stupid and irreversible. At least now, without actions taken, she can live in the purgatory of knowing without acting.

This is going to make the rest of the trip so fucking difficult.

The curtains in this room don’t provide any sanctuary from the outside, thin as wedding veils. They dance beneath the gusts from the air conditioner, which froths in rage even when Max slaps it to steady the throaty purr of the machine. No such luck.

Because of the noise, it takes her longer to fall asleep. It’s a door slam that easily rouses her, and it’s an alight spark of annoyance that has Max flinching upright — she’s heard that noise, she knows all its horrific implications: a slap, a scream, a monster — and she fumbles for her glasses on the bedside.

Seems everything is pitted against her to forgo any slumber. Fine then.

Max pinpoints the source of the ruckus easily, being the thin sliver of light emitting from the bathroom door. It sounds like someone is hacking their guts out.

Connecting the dots, Max flips on the light so she can amble hazily towards the doorframe, knocking hesitantly. “El?” Her voice imitates how she feels: groggy, pulled out of a rough and jagged dream.

There’s nothing that answers her immediately, save for the stupid air conditioner and a toilet flushing. Then the door jiggles, then unlocks. She’s being beckoned further into the storm; Max, as always, rushes in bravely.

El is slumped on the floor, mouth glossy with spit and lips crimson red. Her face is flushed in odd patches, and her hair looks like a rat’s nest. She’s shivering terribly, holding herself with such a frivolity, like her hands can’t lock onto her arms properly.

Max drops to her knees in front of her poor friend, holding out her arms as an invitation. She almost doesn’t expect El to fall into them, so when she does it’s a great gust of relief that batters her heart.

“I thought I was better,” El grits out; her words are wet, like she’d been crying. “I’m tired of nothing happening just getting to me. That man…I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to hurt him more.”

“El…”

“He was going to do something, I swear,” El’s voice rises, shaking; she loses herself in tremors, and Max feels more and more like the only reason she’s still physically together is because someone else is holding her from falling apart like a Jenga tower, or melting into a puddle, or another kind of undoing.

“But you took care of it,” Max hushes her. “You saved us like you always do.”

“I— I don’t know why it feels so bad.”

“I know,” Max whispers. “I know…”

El gulps in air like it’ll bring more structure back to her demeanor, and her nerves do seem to loosen some. She’s such a small thing, with a hummingbird heartbeat. Max’s heart feels like it’s writhing in place, gaining more lines and veins like the love she’s experiencing will stretch out of her chest, away from her body to form a second body, a third.

“Sometimes things just take a longer time to start hurting,” Max murmurs, stroking her friend’s back. “Like your body is allowing you to feel it. I had a school counselor tell me that it’s healing, but…seems pretty fucking bogus to me.”

“Motherfucker,” El hisses, maybe at her or at nothing. Since El’s vocabulary has been spruced up through teaching and experience alike, she tends to avoid swears, recognizing that they are best utilized like unsheathing a hidden knife and aiming for the throat.

‘Motherfucker’ is one of her recent favorites, and usually it makes Max crack up. This time she solemnly agrees with the curse, finding it extremely fitting in a way she can’t explain. Motherfucker, indeed.

“You’re allowed to feel bad, El,” Max whispers. She pulls El up closer into the shape of her neck, nestling her friend as deep into her body as physics permit. “It’s okay to feel bad without knowing why.”

El doesn’t say anything else, and Max doesn’t expect her to; it’s impressive she was even verbal for this long without shutting down. But her stuttered breathing slows, her grip on Max’s pajama shirt loses its vice-like hold. She’s slowly coming back, returning to her.

She would wait for her forever, she’d crawl to her on all fours, she’d venture back into the Upside Down or The Abyss or any other dimension looking to try them. Anything to keep this girl in her arms.

“I’m gonna get you water,” Max cranes her head down to address El. “Can you stand?”

There’s a long, contemplative beat, then El is pushing herself up, palms on the tile, and hauling herself upright. Her posture is hunched and crooked, but at least her legs can still withstand her.

She’s sent back to bed while Max fills up a glass by the bathroom sink, ferrying it to El, who’s sitting on the foot of the mattress like a doll. She nods her thanks, then gulps down the drink like she’s dehydrated — perhaps she is, if she really did vomit up everything she’s eaten.

Max stays up with her, whipping out her Gameboy that she’d packed, even when her focus is halfway on El. It’s about a half hour, give or take, before El peels away from staring holes into the wallpaper and settling back into her previous position.

Adrenaline pumps into Max’s veins the way it does after the comedown of a fight or a nightmare. She does something bold by setting the console down and lying down right behind El, close enough that she sees the pebbles of her spine protruding from her neck.

And she moves forward.

And wraps her arms around El’s waist. The way Lucas did with her, and the way Mike or Will do with each other.

It’s…unnerving. It’s like reaching out behind the red rope and touching a priceless statue or portrait. She doesn’t know if what she’s holding now will break under her fingertips.

But El doesn’t budge; she stiffens once at the surprise of the contact, and then she melts back into the mattress. Max wishes so desperately that her friend’s thoughts were opaque here, written on the skin somewhere like the number that once defined her. It’s a different type of being held than on the floor in the bathroom after a breakdown: those are obligatory, they’re for comfort and nothing more; ‘I need you’. This type of being held is saying ‘I want you’.

Neither address it. Max leans her forehead against the back of El’s head; she smells like sweat and something sweeter, maybe a type of shampoo.

It takes less than a few minutes for both to fall asleep.

(Like most nights, Max doesn’t remember her dreams. But she recalls something soft, something almost holy, in this metaphysical sense. When she wakes up, she feels like it never left.

Peace. That’s what it was, a concept so foreign to her by now it takes forever to identify it, but that’s what she feels: a marrow-deep, fire-forged sense of peace.)

Every vacation has its setbacks.

Turns out, the front left tire had taken a nail at some point since their trek to the bar and back. It’s flat like putty when Max goes outside to bring her luggage to the car; she groans, makes a show of frustration, then straightens up and gets to work.

Her family may have been useless in all fronts of parenting, but her mother had gifted her with a car that had a spare tire in the back, so that’s one for mom. The problem is remembering everything else about the process, and she is not about to be talked down to by some random creep.

So. It’s twenty minutes of struggle that turns into an hour, which turns into two hours. Max attempts to phone the boys for help, but they don’t pick up. She pummels the phone into the dialer, relishing in the fury and finally the catharsis the destruction brings her. Then she returns to the car, cracks her knuckles and gets to work.

El sleeps for the majority of the time Max is fiddling with the tire; Max lets her, she deserves it after such an abrupt meltdown. She’s also being petty in avoiding the elephant in the room like it’s a talent, because holy shit???? What the fuck was she thinking??????

Max knows, with foreknowledge, that she has been pretty obvious. Like, come on, the Ani DiFranco thing was a low blow. Then cuddling with her after a mental breakdown and the card trick and, oh god, was this flirting? How long has this transcended into, well, that?

But El is safe. She likes girls. She said she did. Girls are hot.

Does this mean, by extension, she finds Max hot?

Her head is spinning. She needs to process this all, to spread this out and forge some type of strategy, the way she and the party always faced their problems. Above all else, she needs to think.

Think about where this all started — was it Hawkins? Does it even matter if she thought like this way back when? She didn’t know much about bisexuals until college, and she was already distracted with the Everything Else that college is. Then Mike came out and, well, it became part of her lexicon.

Bisexual. Max has sat with that term for a minute now. Because Penny Stauber would wear these bleached tees to class that she made herself and they were too tight on her hourglass figure. Because that brunette in class would smile in the way that brought Max back to that summer in the mall before it all went wrong. Because that other brunette with the cute bob would glower at men the way El would when focusing on something to crush with her mind.

God fucking damn it.

All this time. She’s been after this girl all this fucking time, and no one thought to connect the red string between all these events? How long has she sat with this love without living it?

“Greenland.”

Max is so deep in this mental whirlwind she doesn’t even notice the company until El’s shadow consumes the sun in her eyes. The light haloes around El’s face, making her a replica of some angelic figure Max has seen decorating her distant grandparents’ home.

“What?”

“I saw a license plate for Greenland,” El explains, jutting out a hip to relax her posture more. She twists her water bottle cap and takes a long sip. “That’s in…Canada, or near Canada. I win.”

It’s a moment of rewinding past conversation topics in her panic-riddled mind before Max remembers what exactly she’s on about. A weak grin rides up her face before she can stop it. “Road trip’s not over yet, El. I could still kick your ass all the way to…what’s farther than Greenland?”

“Mexico?” El offers, though she’s hesitant herself.

“Hell if I know.”

There El goes, acting like the ball isn’t in her court, like she doesn’t carry the whole world in her hands. She’s sitting on something monumental, groundbreaking, earth-shattering, and doesn’t even know it.

Say something about it, Max wants to say. She could scream it, really. Anything. Give me ANYTHING.

El has always been a bit naive to the atmosphere, damn it all. The planet keeps spinning despite a shift in its axis. Gravity isn’t where Max had left it last.

She scowls down at the stupid tire, which serves as a diversion. “Don’t suppose you know anything about fixing a tire?”

El shakes her head. 

“Fucking great,” Max mumbles, hardly under her breath — if she’s angry, let the heavens know. She holds up the lug nut that took her ten minutes to find. “Fingers crossed this is the right part.”

Loyally, El crosses her fingers in a show of solidarity.

It does turn out to be the right part; it’s only the first step to a process that’ll take twenty minutes maximum, but it’s leagues better than being stranded out in the middle of nowhere.

“They’re selling a ton of berries,” El nods towards some market stands to the side of them. Max cranes her head; the stands had been empty last night when they pulled in, but now aisles upon aisle of multicolored fruits and vegetables are propped up like models. Max’s stomach instinctively growls upon seeing them. 

“We should buy some,” El suggests.

Is this a date??? is a primal thought that’s instantly smothered by a wiser more world-weary SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

“Sounds good,” Max nods. “There’s cash in my wallet, use the twenty.”

El’s eyes widen, because she’s adorable, and then enthusiastically nods. Her smile returns to her face for the first time since last night with the card trick.

“Get me some blueberries,” Max shouts out while her friend retreats back to the motel room.

Alone again. The interaction simmers in her guts like her insides are being slowly burned up on high temperatures. What the hell was that? Was this suave flirting or just a normal interaction between two girls who cuddled last night to ward off nightmares?

Living in-between the answers to her questions is killing her. If Lucas could just pick up the damn phone so she could talk to Will, or hell even Mike, about this crisis, Max would be feeling a lot better. But right now she’s stuck in the mystery, losing herself to the unknowns like quicksand. If she keeps thinking, the sand will surely pour over her head and suffocate her.

What do you want this to be, she wants to ask so, so badly. But because she’s stuck unscrewing the tire with this dumbass lug nut with its dumbass name, she has to overanalyze everything. Every brush of fingers, every smile exchanged…was something lurking beneath it?

I do like girls. Girls are hot.

El steps out of the room and back to the car, now holding up the twenty dollar bill in triumph.

“I’ll get blueberries,” she promises.

Max looks at her again. El’s shorts are shorter than they have been, and these awakenings aren’t doing her line of focus any favors. Because there’s a slip of inner thigh on display with how El’s legs are casually spread in a relaxed pose. It latches onto Max’s interest like a magnet finding iron. It’s only a brief millisecond of exposure, since El’s now walking off in the direction of the fruit stand, but a millisecond that lasts an eternity.

This is really bad.

–The jack! Get the jack and raise the stupid car up to fix the goddamn tire you WEIRDO—

Max rubs her hands, feeling the premonition of aches coming on. She can’t work herself into a frenzy over this, she can’t. She just has to live in two truths for now: she likes girls, and so does El. Correlation doesn’t equal another truth.

…She’s got two more quarters left. This better be worth it.

“C’mon, you pieces of shit,” Max grumbles; she’s pacing around, watching the car from the distance like a hawk on prey. She begins to pace madly around the booth for as much as the phone chord allows. “Pick up pick up pick up—”

“Hello?”

“Lucas!”

She didn’t mean to sound so breathless with relief, especially since it immediately puts her friend on the edge.

“Whoa, hey, everything okay?”

“Yeah!” Now she’s overcompensating, her pitch rising before she’s able to tame it. “I was just— I had a question and I wanted to talk to Will.”

“Talk to Will?” Lucas stretches out his question, and it sounds like he’s looking around. “Um, yeah, gimme one second.”

Relief flashes for just a brief second, and then a yawning, aimless dread splits her chest. “Great, thanks.”

Max waits. She keeps an eye out for El, heart pounding for a multitude of reasons, but she’s disappeared into the miniature market and won’t come out for quite some time.

Classic El, finding all the beauty in the world.

Shut UP—

“Hello?”

“Will, hey,” Max doesn’t know how much carries over the phone, but her tone sounds pretty damn desperate to her ears. Still, Will is naturally empathetic, so there’s not much worth hiding from him ultimately. She can try though, damn it.

Sure enough: “Is something wrong?”

Max swallows. The perfect storm has brewed in her stomach all the way up to her neck, and words become an effort to vocalize. There’s a tingling in her fingers, a kind of numbness possessing parts of her body and forcing them to shut off.

“I—” How to word this… “I need help with something. I don’t know how much you can help, but I figured I’d ask. No harm no foul, right?”

“Okay?”

“How do you,” Max’s hold on the phone tightens. Now or never. “When you’re gay, how do you know someone feels the same about you? How do you know it’s safe?”

“Oh.” Will’s confusion blossoms into sympathy, of all things. She imagines the creases on his face disappearing, replaced by a solemn understanding. “I guess…you don’t. You don’t always know it’s safe. But you know that you have people who’ve got you, so even if it turns out bad you can keep living, y’know? I think that’s important for people like…like us. To just keep living.”

“That’s real sweet, Will,” Max says, semi-impatient, “but what if there’s a chance they like you back? Like— okay, when you confessed to Mike, it took him a year to figure it out, right? What did you do in that year?”

Will is quiet. He must be tossing her inquiries around in his head. He goes ‘um’ and is quiet again, for longer than Max would like.

“It was rough,” Will finally admits. “To live in the unknown like that. I think I’m pretty lucky that it only took a year for Mike to realize what he felt. For some of us, we’re still waiting, you know what I mean?”

“I am waiting,” Max says. “What am I supposed to do when another girl who likes girls is making me like this?”

“How do you know she likes girls?”

“She told me.”

“Oh!” Will sounds a little excited now, which is cute; he’s like his sister in that way, letting his emotions steer him so freely. “In that case, I mean, if she’s giving you this much of her time and she’s gay, I think you’ve got a really good chance.”

“How do I take that chance though? How did you do the…the plunge? With Mike?”

“I think,” Will clicks his tongue in thought, “that we both just had to accept that while there were places we couldn’t be us yet — and that’s a yet — that there were also places and people we could be around. We’re really lucky with finding Hoboken and being near family who love us so much. So, if you need to take the plunge, just do it knowing you have places and people to fall back on, who support you at your highest and your lowest.”

“Say places and people one more time.”

“Places and people.”

Max smiles, despite the circumstances. “Sorry, I’m being an ass. I get it though. I do. I just…need to take the plunge. It just…what if she’s…part of those people that I feel safe around? What if that’s more important to me?”

If Will is connecting any dots, he’s being real damn suave about it. “Then I think you have an even better chance.”

It’s a bit of a balm on a cut that Max didn’t fully realize was bleeding. She takes a deep breath, holds everything up in her upper chest for a minute, anxiety and all — and breathes out.

“Okay,” Max decides on an exhale. “I’ll…I’ll let her know. I’ll try it.”

“We love you, Max,” Will says sincerely. “It’ll be okay.”

She didn’t expect to be pressed for tears, and yet. “I hope so. I don’t wanna screw anything up.”

“I can’t remember the last time you’ve screwed anything up!”

“I screwed up last night,” Max looks on cue to that stupid disabled car. “Got a flat tire.”

“Oh, shit,” Will says. “Are you gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s just bullshit, putting a real dent in my plans. But I’ll manage.”

“Well, we’re almost at the beach. Guess that race is gonna be close if you’re dealing with that.”

Max smirks. “Don’t count me out just yet, Byers.”

“Hah, okay, okay.”

The phone delightedly announces she’s running out of time. “I gotta go. Thanks for…y’know.”

“Of course,” Will is gentle. It curls Max’s heart in adoration. “Good luck.”

El comes back with two full bags of groceries, right as Max slaps the hood of the car to announce her mission is complete.

“Can’t keep us down for long!” she declares victoriously as El approaches. “We’re all set. Thank Christ, that took half the day to figure out.”

Her audience is casually impressed, but any excitement for the success is null compared to El shaking the bags enticingly. “I got some good stuff.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I got your blueberries,” El lists, searching through the plastic bags. “And I got strawberries, some peaches, and some type of fruit.”

“Some type, huh?” Max holds out her hand. “Lemme see.”

El obliges, handing over the bag — their fingers touch, Max thinks about that WAY too much — and Max looks inside to find this strange, hair-looking fruit that’s colored a deep shade of magenta.

“...Huh. I wonder how you eat this thing.”

Her friend shrugs but is unbothered. She accepts the weirdness of the world so easily that Max feels herself sinking a bit more and more into the sinkhole she’s found herself in during the span of…what, an hour? Several years?

“...Hey.”

Max perks up. “Hey?”

El’s position shifts, appearing almost uncomfortable. She crosses her arms, bags sliding to the crook of her elbows. “I saw a pool here. I was…wondering if you wanted to swim?”

“...You don’t like swimming.”

“But you do.”

I can swim at the beach, El, is the rational reply here. They’re so close to winning this race, just an hour away; it’s late afternoon now, they can chase the sun until they cross that finish line. But that doesn’t feel entirely like what El is asking for, here. There’s something hidden underneath.

Max sits back on the gravel, feeling the bite of the pebbles on her palms. “I mean, I guess we can wait for a bit, if you want. The boys are probably still wandering around and got lost somewhere anyway, we’ll have time.”

El brightens up, and she nods.

The pool has become a great escape in the past couple of years. Max likes forgetting her body and all its restraints. The muscles in her legs are loosened, no stress or chronic issues bogging them down. She is boundless, melding into the water, the sky. She is also very alone.

Or, not quite: El is stationed on the concrete lip of the pool, legs crossed, elbows on her knees, watching the clock. She refused to join her; concerning her history with water, which Max would never fault her for.

Max meets the bottom of the pool and sits with her breath swelling in her body. She lets out some air to sink properly onto the concrete, watching the bubbles spiral overhead to pop on the surface. She can see El looking down at her, shaking on the skin of the water like a mirage.

Max sits. It’s hard for her to do; since her coma, she’d hardly been privy to staying still for long. When her legs aren’t acting up, when her vision fails and she must resort to stronger glasses, she dreams of action. 

Sitting with what she’s experienced feels like the antithesis of comfort, but for once she drifts in the pool, and she is still. She lets the thrum of her lungs guide her thoughts wherever it wants to tread.

How funny that, though unlimited, her mind still drifts out of her head to be with El.

So she yields; she gets to her feet, pushes against the concrete, and cracks open the water’s surface with a huge gulp of air.

El is there, unmoving; she’s perched on the lip of the concrete, hands politely folded into her lap. Her gaze is intense like the sun is, hard to engage with directly

Max rests her crossed arms on the edge, looking up expectantly. “Alright, you got me here,” she addresses El. “So what’s on your mind?”

Her friend doesn’t respond, and Max is worried this could lead to a tension, an argument perhaps. If El bites down on a secret, it’s like tug-o-war to get it out of here.

But no, she’s pleasantly surprised when El unfolds her posture a little more, sighing. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said,” she begins uneasily. “About...being good, when it comes to…to liking girls.” Her hands wring themselves together, into knots. “How we’re good.”

Shit.

“Yeah?” Max does everything to still her body, so she can’t migrate to the other end of the pool. She faces this head-on, like she always has. Like when she would catch Billy’s arm before he landed a blow. Like when she escaped Vecna’s grasp. “Does that scare you?”

El shakes her head, but she’s not looking at her, instead at something seemingly above her head. “It doesn’t scare me,” she admits. “Who I am scares me sometimes, just because other people tell me I’m scary— or I’m supposed to be. But with you, I don’t feel bad. And I’ve never felt scary around you. All of this,” she splays a hand across her chest, over her heart, “is a part of me I’m fine with. I’ve…I’m…I’m making peace.”

Max angles her head to try and catch El’s gaze, but is unsuccessful. “It doesn’t have to be something you ‘get over’, El,” she insists gently. “The world is mean, but I don’t have to tell you that. I’m just sorry people make you feel like you have to feel or act a certain way when you’re already so…” Oh, how to define El Hopper. What can be contained in a box, what can be compacted into a simple word... “So you.”

Great. Smooth. That totally didn’t sound like a backhanded insult.

Max doesn’t expect El to be pleased with this, and she doesn’t appear to be. Her eyes are still downcast, and there’s a jump in her jawline. “Yeah…”

Hopefully this can be recovered. Max presses conversationally, “You said you don’t feel bad with me?”

El shakes her head, though barely. “No. I don’t.”

“I’m super honored I can be someone like that for you. I’m…really glad you’re still in my life, El. After everything we’ve been through.”

“I think I’m still stuck there,” El bursts in, like an interruption. Like it struck her as quickly as a slap. Her breath stutters. “In the Upside Down, in the labs, or the Abyss…”

“Hey.” Max dares to touch El’s arm, even if it’s wet, but the latter doesn’t seem to mind or even notice. Suppose she’s used to uncomfortable sensations. “I’m not gonna tell you that shit gets easier because some days it really, really doesn’t. I get stuck too. I think it’s about being stuck with…a friend. Life’s a multiplayer game. You just gotta find the right partners.”

It’s a lame analogy that she thinks the boys would get more of a kick out of than El, who’s at most a backseat gamer. But she seems to deeply consider her words like she’s some type of prophet.

“The right partners…” El repeats dully. Her eyes are suddenly serrated, like she’s polishing them as weapons. “I wanted to ask you something.”

Max’s heart thumps unpleasantly. “Go for it.”

“How long?”

Max blinks. “What?”

“How long have you felt this way? About— about liking girls.”

Oh. Oh, this is safe. Max instantly decompresses, her confidence rebuilding itself brick by brick as they verge onto stabler territory. “Uh, college kinda made me realize some things,” she answers. “I looked back on a lot of my life and it…it clicked. Didn’t it click for you too? You know what I’m talking about, it’s that ‘oh, shit’ moment.”

El scrunches her brows together. “I think so?”

“Anyway. You know how everyone’s gay awakening is some specific person? For me it was, like, five girls all at once. I didn’t chase after them, I didn’t even know more than two of their names — but yeah, that was my ‘oh shit’ moment. Mike coming out was another ‘oh shit’ moment for me.”

“Me too,” she agrees.

Max can’t help it, she groans. “Ugh, Mike Wheeler coming in and ruining gay awakenings for everyone! It’s not fair he gets some of the credit.”

El attempts a smile, but it’s so thin it’s transparent. It quickly dissolves to make way for a warped frown, obviously obstructing something deeper and darker. Max initially felt sure she knew where this talk would be leading.

“….Max?”

Now she’s not so sure.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry,” El murmurs. “I lied to you just now. I asked how long you felt that way about just girls. But what I really meant was how long you felt this way about me.”

There it is, in a snap Max feels like the floor’s been taken out from under her. Nothing feels where she left it, everything’s upside down and inside out and discolored and multicolored and there is so much she wants to unpack because what the FUCK El.

But…

Max is not one for hiding. She can retreat into music. She can hide safely in her memories. She can’t hide from what she feels, not for long anyway. She could do that, though; play hide and seek with these capitalized Feelings For El Hopper until she loses them completely.

But she’s looking into El Hopper right now, seeing how selfsure but terrified she is to even grace the world with this question. And Max can’t do that. She can’t let this peter out.

“Forever,” she admits, so tenderly and so awestruck she sounds like she’s witnessing a star’s creation. “God, El. Forever. H-how did y—?”

“When you visited me,” El interrupts, like she’s been carrying this for a while (how long?) “When you asked me to come with you, I just…I remembered Mike making plans like that with me. Running away.” Her pink nails dig themselves into the soft fabric of those damned shorts, picking at the patterns. “Sometimes I think that’s what love is, it’s running away.”

“It isn’t, El,” Max shakes her head so fiercely, feeling like she’s come back to life. Her urgency has her gripping El’s kneecap even tighter until she agrees to eye contact. “It’s running towards something, it’s finding a reason to run at all.”

Her declaration drifts along the room, packing heat like a storm brewing. There’s so much in between those words they nearly become sentient.

“And…you ran to me?” El presses. Her eyes are glistening.

Max has been running to her for a long time. Many, many coordinates in her life have pointed back towards El’s direction. And there’s a love in that, seeing her everywhere; reading all the cards, the tea leaves, the directions, and they all wind up back here, in a shitty motel pool.

There’s a chasm of silence as Max considers her options, ranging from safe to irreparable. She’s used to not playing it safe, anyway; half of her life, she’s been teasing that edge. There’s no mistaking that same degree of danger boiling her veins to lava, her adrenaline rising like a wave about to crash.

“I’m gonna do something stupid,” Max whispers. Her ears are pounding, she can barely hear herself.

“Do it,” El whispers back.

And that’s all she needs; she cups El’s face like it’s hers to hold and she kisses her.

El smartly tilts her head in a way that Max is able to capture more of her mouth, and she’s already meeting teeth and tongue with this sort of enthusiasm that comes from someone that’s only kissed in their teens, and thinks they’re good at it. That’s what makes this so cute, what anchors this moment, makes this El.

The kiss is hungrier than Max expected; she’s having her own vigor and desperation thrown right back at her, with something a bit more shameless. Their tongues meet awkwardly, for only a brief moment; El’s pushing forward so intensely she nearly tumbles over the side of the pool and into the water. Max almost pulls away, just because it’s harder to retain balance while her hands are all over this girl’s throat and cheek, but then El makes this tiny noise from the back of the throat, and goddamn, she’ll do whatever just to hear it one more time.

That’s mine, she thinks distantly, like gathering clouds in the skies, ready to pour down. She wonders if El is thinking the same way, too.

They part only because a lack of oxygen is becoming a hazard. It’s a slow departure, though, one where Max can catalogue every sensation: the little sound of two lips breaking away, the collective inhale, the eyes covered by lashes.

That was— Max searches for proper descriptions, ranging from amazing to deadly. She settles on different. It’s different than it was with Lucas. Whether that’s good or bad is something she’d have to sit on.

“Was that one it?” El breathes.

“Was…what it?” Max feels a bit like her brain has spilled out all over the pool like building blocks, and she needs to go and pick them up again. Coherency has been tossed right out of her system.

“Was that another ‘oh shit’ moment?” El asks.

Oh. Laughter boils up from the pit of Max’s stomach, stopping right under her throat. All she can do now is grin like a lovestruck fool.

“Yeah,” she says. “Fuck yeah.”

El’s smile feels like reaching the end of something, or maybe the beginning. And Max dives back in again, having grabbed enough oxygen, and suddenly she’s too intense because El loses her steadiness, and they’re crashing into the pool.

It’s a shock to the senses. Max can weather the sudden influx of currents fine, but she has to latch her arms onto El to ensure her friend doesn’t go under. The last thing she wants is to ruin this makeout sesh with a trauma dialup episode, so she yanks El back up.

“Oh my god! El! Are y—”

El is laughing. She’s cackling, even. Her whole face is open with an unbridled mirth that Max remembers back in their teen years, from cruising through the mall or playing games at home. There’s a history in that laughter. It’s an honor to hear it so untamed.

Now Max is laughing. She dives in for a kiss because she can, landing her lips on the side of El’s opened mouth. They’re both floundering in five-foot water more than a caught fish, but neither care.

“Are you laughing at me?” Max yells happily, and El replies “No!” through giggles. This does nothing to assuage their raucous bout of hysterics. It’s all just too much, but it will never be enough. Max can see herself battling for this girl’s laugh for the rest of her life. 

There’s that word again. The one she never thought she’d experience again. Peace.

The sky is turning periwinkle by the time they’re back on the road. Splashes of orange stain the purple clouds as Max and El race into the sunset, desperate to cross that finish line.

‘Space Age Love Song’ has made its third appearance on the trip, but neither comment on it. They just hold hands on the stick shift, El’s head out the window to feel the breeze and Max yelling out the words over the howl of the wind. She figures at least her hair is being blow-dried.

They’re going to be late, and she couldn’t care less. It might be cheesy as hell, but fine, she’ll keep this close to her heart under lock and key: the secret is that she’s already won.

They reach the coast last.

North Carolina flies past in a flurry of improvised karaoke, hand brushes, lingering touches, and quick kisses. It’s all new and exciting — fireworks, her brain thinks; nothing but fireworks — and because things are new and exciting, they’re creatures of indulgence. Time passes much too quickly, but it must have also been much too slow, because there’s a sign up ahead that says they’re mere miles away from their destination.

Emerald Isle ambushes them; they turn a corner, and suddenly there’s an endless strip of the sea on the horizon. The land flattens so they can get a proper view of that long line of blue 

“There,” El points out the all-too familiar minivan. The boys are flocked around the vehicle like a gang of vultures (or a flock?), but they instantly shoot their arms up as if to call Max over. Like she can’t see their obvious dramatic asses.

The boys all rush up to the car, and in their smug reactions to recognizing the drivers there’s a joy — we missed you doesn’t need to be said to be felt. 

Lucas knocks on Max’s window, then when she pulls it down she’s greeted with a barrage of victorious yells interspersed with ‘Suck it!!’ and ‘Hey losers!!’

“Dude!” Dustin swoops in, pushing Lucas out of the way. He crows, “You failed the race in like, every way! Where the hell was the sightseeing? The tourist traps? The pizazz?”

“It was a race!” Max defends.

“Yeah, a race you lost!” Peering further into the car, Dustin’s tone goes apologetic. “El, I am so sorry, she knows nothing about the fine culture of a good vacation.”

“It’s okay,” El says nicely.

“Are those strawberries?” Mike peeks in next, addressing the half-empty carton of berries lodged between the front car seats. “Can I have one?”

“If you’d let us out of the car,” Max snaps without teeth, “maybe you can.”

Almost in shame, the boys slink away so Max can properly put the car in park. She digs the joystick into the resting position, looks at her passenger, whom she shares a discreet smile with.

They made it.

The girls exit the car to be greeted with a barrage of hugs and cheer; it’s certainly the nicest race to lose in. Dustin is still appalled — ‘Did you stop for ANYthing??’ — and Mike is dead-set on those damn strawberries until El gives in and lends him some.

“What’d I say, ladies?” Lucas steps in all suave, beaming down at Max before taking her in for a hug. In her ear he says, “Slow and steady wins.”

“You did not say that!” Max protests, yanking herself away. Her glare might be more effective if she wasn’t also grinning like a maniac, seeing them all here again. “Get your facts straight, loser.”

“Takes one to know one.”

Beside them, Will embraces his sister, first complimenting her nails. He then asks her, almost worriedly, “Did you get to do anything fun, El?”

El wholeheartedly nods. “Yeah, I did.”

There’s room for her to elaborate but she doesn’t. Max isn’t sure what entirely she means herself, but she’s got a few assumptions.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,” Dustin announces, pulling up the van’s backdoor with fervor. He introduces a large red cooler, which, when he flips it open, is revealed to be stuffed to the brim with soda and beer. “Let’s go get our fucking toes wet.”

“Hear, hear,” Max cries, and the rest of the party join in.

Late summer colors the sky, flavors the air with a late aftertaste that Max can never identify, but she can feel the way it makes her inhale easier. Some link in her muscles splits so she can fully relax into the sand. It’s cool, like San Diego’s beaches were when the sun went down. Her general opinion, subject to change, is that the west’s shorelines are more rugged and worn. This beach feels almost untouched, but maybe a drop more humid.

Not that it matters. When she was in school, she yearned for a beach to wander on; when she was younger, she wanted to learn to surf. That dream feels like it died a long time ago, with Billy and her parents.

Now…the beach still serves as a station. A savepoint, if she wants to borrow from the boys’ lexicon. If the water makes her forget, the sand helps her remember.

She’s enraptured in a wrestling match the guys are playing in the water — previously it was Dustin and Mike on one side, Lucas and Will on the other. Now that Lucas has left the game to join her, it’s Will, Dustin, and Mike who are begging El to come join in. El, meanwhile, is standing on the brink of where the waves melt back into the water. She’s currently hypnotized by the miniature waves gulping up her ankles so the sand swallows her bit by bit.

Looking at her ignites a fresh spark in Max’s veins; she would be content to watch that girl — her girl(?) — find the majesty of the beach all day every day. It’s just that right now, she’s got company.

“Hey, nerd,” she forces her eyes away from El, lest they get stuck there.

Lucas huffs some kind of chuckle as he paws through the half-melted ice in the cooler, pulling out a can that matches Max’s. “Hey, loser.”

“Still can’t let that go?”

“Hell no, after how much you hyped up your own win?” Lucas falls to the ground beside her with an ‘ahh’, cracking open his cheap beer. “You are not living that one down easily.”

El has officially joined whatever game the boys in the water have commenced, wading out from the shallow end with uneasy footing. Will and Dustin lead her in cautiously, but optimistically; Max thinks she hears them over the crashing waves, saying she’s doing a great job. It warms her heart to hear her treated so well.

“How’s the video store?” Lucas asks.

Max shrugs. “It’s a job,” she replies. “I guess it’s pretty stable too. As long as people are watching movies, it’ll be around, y’know?”

Lucas nods, his eyes still trained on the horizon. They both take a swig of beer, Max wincing at the taste. Guess they couldn’t afford nicer booze.

“And how’s your, uh, gig going?” Max cheekily leans all the way back into him. “You still saving the world, one fingerprint at a time?”

Lucas scoffs, but only gently. “Yeah, right. It’s gonna be another five years before they let me step foot on a crime scene, but…I think it’s the right choice. It’s helping people, it’s solving puzzles, I mean, what more could a guy ask for?”

Max listens and hums affirmatively. Sure, he’s uncertain, but they’re in their 20s — that uncertainty isn’t going away until they’re nearing thirty. Back when life used to have a deadline, the future was this bottomless, unfathomable myth. Now it’s here and coming quickly, and without mercy.

“You seein’ anyone?” Max says, because the subject is bound to be brushed on at least once.

“No,” Lucas answers simply. “None of them are you.”

Max nods. She gets it; no one is Lucas either. It just doesn’t hurt her like it used to.

“You know I— I don’t regret it,” Lucas starts, “I know this is best, us not being…y’know.” He gestures between them. “I just—”

“I asked, weirdo.” Max chuckles, crashing their shoulders into one another. “Relax.”

“Oh.”

“I just know it’s important to you,” she explains, looking down at her beer. “You really liked being a boyfriend.”

Lucas goes quiet, then he snorts; not so much out of humor, but maybe it’s a realization. “Yeah, guess I did.”

“You’ll have your shot again, Casanova.”

“I know,” he says, strangely somber, and that’s when Max knows she’s hit something vital.

She turns to face him better, and also so she isn’t distracted by the guys plus El tossing a beach ball around. “What’s eating you?”

“Nothing! Really.” Lucas heaves a sigh greater than his body, then settles back even further into the plush give of the ground. The wind bats some sand into the sides of their legs, stinging them. “It’s just weird sometimes. After all we’ve done, it’s all led to…this.”

He makes a broader gesture at ‘this’, referring to everything here in this moment.

Max crimps her lip. “I get that. I think I’m still trying to figure out what life means, what it’s got for me, all that fun shit to get lost in.”

“Yeah,” Lucas agrees. He spreads his legs some to maintain equilibrium in his stance. “I dunno. It comes in waves. I get highs, I get lows, but it all levels out. I think that’s what life’s just supposed to be, taking it one step at a time.”

“Ooh, poetic,” Max teases. “You read that one off your cereal box this morning?”

He grins. “Shut up.”

What is life supposed to be, Max wonders in secret. What is it to her, what can she equate this to…

There’s a yelp of ecstatic surprise that draws her attention back to the party in the water, and she finds a miracle: Dustin hovering five feet above the water, simply floating in place. He mimics paddling as though he’s still wading the waves, with Will and Mike hollering down below. The group is all smiles; El keeps her focus locked on Dustin, then she whips her head and has him catapulting sideways, into slightly deeper waters. Everyone cheers when Dustin returns to the surface unscathed, his arms stretched out like he just got a touchdown.

When El looks to the shore, she finds Max instantly. Her excitement is visible on her face; Max throws her a supportive thumbs up. That’s my girl.

 “...I think for me, life’s more like a story made by a bad author who’s a little overconfident in their writing,” Max says. “There’s some good plot points, solid character moments, but it’s all jumbled up and half-assed. But you stick around to see the ending anyway, because you’ve invested so much time into the story, you want to know if they stick the landing.”

Silence, and then Max feels her self-consciousness be folded into a tiny laugh. “It’s, uh, a less poetic way to think about it than what you had.”

“Still pretty suitable,” Lucas admits, meaning it. His expression is so gentle and knowing it almost hurts to look at. 

Her gaze lands back on El, who’s jumping up into a wave and spraying the sea all across her backside, making her squeal.

“What I’m trying to say,” she concludes, “is I’m digging this new chapter the author has cooking up. That’s all.”

“Hm.” Lucas takes another long sip of his drink, reaching the bottom and crushing the aluminum with a firm hand. “Well, I hope by the end of the book, I’m still in it.”

Max can only chuckle, not out of absurdity but because she loves him so deeply it’s like feeling the ridges of a scar. It tells of a time long past, but it’s still embedded in her.

She hopes that whoever catches him next treats him like he deserves.

(It’s Mike’s turn to hover in the air next; Lucas calls out for El to throw him as far as she can, to which Mike screams “Bite me!”)

Max lifts her beer; the light of the sun is captured in the glass, dripping down the bottle from condensation. “To a new chapter.”

“Cheers, madam,” Lucas replies haughtily, clinking his beer with hers. They take a sip in solidarity, then settle back into the sand.

Being back with him feels natural, like stepping back into a worn, loved jacket. Even if they’ve moved on to better things and had to leave each other behind, Lucas Sinclair is everything good about the world. An anchor. A lighthouse. And Max will always, always be called to his side. 

She rests her head back into the crook of Lucas’s shoulder — he smells like sea-brine, and there’s this earthy undertone that he naturally carries that makes her bones melt. Her body says she can rest now; so they stay like that for a while, eyes towards the lowering sun.

Max loves her boys, but they’re stupid. It’s the same flavor of stupid that took them forever to link Mike and Will’s anonymous partners to each other, as code. She sees that stupidity now when they brush off all the touches between her and El — it’s a girl’s thing, is what they’re all probably thinking. She can see the thought bouncing around in their empty craniums right now.

They’ve got a fire going on the shoreline, and they’re running low on drinks. Half-tipsy sets of hysterics ripple throughout the party like a domino effect, in between the anecdotes of what lives they’re leading now. There’s this disbelief etched into the fabric of the conversation — we really made it — and it’s in that disbelief, that stage of grief, where Max begins to thaw, finding herself growing more and more comfortable.

Stitches of her burst open and so she laughs fuller, smiles wider, gives love more freely. And in that, she and El become interlaced at the hip. They’re leaning fully into each other’s space in the sand, arms braided together like they’re forming one body.

Everyone is distracted, and Max is nothing if not daring. She likes crossing those borders she wasn’t allowed to before. She kisses the crown of El’s temple, emitting a hushed giggle. She halfway believes her friends are ignorant enough that they’ll let it slide, if they noticed it outside their bubble at all.

But she underestimates El even still, because El shatters the boundaries into fragments when she leans in for a proper kiss; Max feels like she’s taking flight.

“Umm.”

She pulls herself out of the kiss abruptly, chest hammering, and encounters the bewildered stares of the boys across the firepit. All of them in varying states of confusion and shock. Mike has paused mid-sip at such an angle the beer from the can dribbles to the sand, gone neglected.

Max and El freeze like a spotlight’s been cast at full brightness right over their heads. Embarrassment is a new look on her, but Max can’t stop the thudding guilt of potentially ruining something sacred, the longer the quiet stretches on.

Will speaks up first:

“THIS is the girl you were talking about?? It’s El?!”

A mantra of disoriented ‘waitwaitwaitwait—' erupts from both Lucas and Mike; the latter addresses his partner, “You KNEW about this??”

“I just learned about it!” Will exclaims defensively, hands shooting up like he’s being interrogated. “Max called– and– and she said she was going to ‘take the plunge’–”

“THAT’S why you wanted to talk to Will earlier?” Lucas yells. Max’s face blanches, but now her expression is becoming steely, almost unimpressed. Of course this is a disaster, she should’ve expected nothing less.

“Can I talk now?” she asks.

“One second,” Lucas pulls up a finger just to swivel back to Will’s direction, “Will, what the hell? She was talking about a girl and you didn’t ask her for more information??”

“It was confidential!” Will objects. "What was I supposed to do, list off every girl?”

Dustin finally pitches in, yanking out another drink from the melted cooler. “Guess your exes finally realized they were both better off with each other than you. How’s that taste?”

“Shut up, Dustin,” Lucas grumbles right as Mike snaps, “Oh, get fucked!”

El giggles again, this one more loudly, more honest. She breaks off from Max a little bit just to attempt to cover her mouth and not disrupt the boys’ shenanigans, but everyone quickly turns to her as she colors the atmosphere with her joy.

Max joins her with a smile, interlacing their hands back to present them to the boys like an art piece.

“It only just happened,” she prefaces, addressing both her ex and the ex of her…partner(?). “Like a few hours ago, before we got here. So everyone can just relax, okay? This isn’t some big secret we’ve been keeping from you guys.”

A few feathers get smoothed out by this, but Mike still has a line of tension threading his brows together, keeping his stare dark in the fire’s glow.

“Man,” Dustin says at last, “you guys are all so predictable. Swear to god every time we get back together someone falls in love with someone else, it’s like, we’re not on Love Connection, you don’t have to find dates.”

“Isn’t Love Connection with video tapes?” Will asks. “It’s got nothing to do with childhood friends.”

“You would know, Byers.”

Mike breaks out of his stupor to yell, “Hey!” while Will shrugs as if to say, fair enough.

“Oh my god, hello? You guys?” Max waves one hand to grab everyone’s focus again. “Back to us now, thank you?”

“Yeah, actually, back to you, because what the fuck?” Mike exclaims. “Is THAT the whole reason for this trip, Max? Was this some master ploy to woo my ex-girlfriend?”

“...What happens if I say yes?”

Mike throws up his arms before they land at the bottom of his hips in a theatrical display of chagrin, so reminiscent of his own father that it just adds more humor to the circumstance. Max lets him stew like that for a minute, but her amusement crosses her face too easily and she surrenders.

“No, Wheeler. I didn’t get with your ex just to spite you. It’d be gnarly if I did, though.”

“Super gnarly,” El agrees, pressing into Max’s side brazenly.

All heads flit downwards, to those linked hands, puzzling everything. Maybe it’ll take some getting used to, the same way it was initially weird for Mike and Will to become so open about intimacy after they were revealed. It’s another dynamic change, and foundational change is something that this group has fought so hard to prevent. But it’s a nice change, a stable one, and Max can count on her fingers how many times she’s felt that level of safety in her life.

“Dustin’s right,” Will says. “We keep falling in love with each other. I’m not…really sure what that says about us.”

Mike is shut down, just staring at Max for a long time without venom, without cause. Max thinks about sticking her tongue out at him, but worries the action will trigger some type of argument, and she feels on thin ice with him right now.

“Well, Lucas,” Dustin sighs solemnly, clapping a hand against his friend’s back. “You know what we gotta do now.”

“Do NOT touch me.”

Will and El’s ESP twin senses sync up and cause them both to erupt into snickers at the same time, in the exact same pitch and range. “Stop being homophobic,” Will teases Lucas, who looks entirely disgruntled.

“He SNORES, Will. You think I’m sharing the bed with someone who snores?”

“We’ll just be in separate beds then,” Dustin suggests. “‘I Love Lucy’-style.”

This earns him a flippant kick that sprays dry sand all over him. It dissipates the leftover tension, because now everybody’s chuckling, attempting jokes about the newlywed Sinclair-Henderson couple..

Max feels El’s head fall against her shoulder, reminiscent of her own gesture with Lucas less than an hour prior. And in this soft time, things feel right where they’re meant to be.

When they all retreat for the night, Mike brings Max aside. His expression is more furrowed, layered atop it a concentration Max affiliates with the more deadly moments of her life, when so much used to be on the line.

“Hey,” he starts, and struggles for a minute to put concepts to words, but he’s determined. “Just be good to her. To El. She deserves…so much. I couldn’t give it to her. I want someone who can, and I think it could be you.”

When Max looks at Mike, she sees potential, above all else. She’s not like Will, who holds all of Mike’s possibilities close like they’re already valuable, but she can still see it. And with that, she sees a man who’s saved the world — and her, by extension — more times than any kid needs to. He’s clueless, he’s got douchebag tendencies, and he’s one of her greatest friends.

“I’ll try,” she promises. “For El.”

Mike just nods. “Good.” He stalls, like there’s more to say and his tongue is heavy with the unexpressed. But he sticks with that, turning back to rejoin Will waiting for him on the top of the sand dune.

Max watches him go just long enough to see Mike reach out and take Will’s hand.

“You could come back with me,” El whispers. They’re laying parallel to each other in the car, seats down, limbs twisting around each other like complex ties. “We could start there and see what happens.”

Max is tempted, as she always is by adventure, or the open road. She’s viewing her life like the novel she pitched to Lucas, wondering when this new chapter begins, or if it’s all on the cusp of ending in theatrics. So much of her is expanding, retracting; it’s impossible for the universe, however vast and multidimensional it truly is, to contain whatever this is lying between her and El.

“...You think it’ll work?”

“I don’t know. I never know,” El confesses. Her expression is unlocked, anyone could sift through her emotions right now if they wanted; what Max finds is…it’s fear, it’s embarrassment, but it’s also lots and lots of excitement. “But I’m happy with you, and I like holding onto happy things. I want this to work out, not like Mike or…or Lucas. I want us to be something different.”

Max shifts some, because the sturdiness of the car seat is hell for her joints. She can already feel herself getting brittle to where she could crack like ice. The extra blankets help only a little.

“We will be,” Max promises. “I think we’re in for one hell of a ride.”

El gives a toothy grin.

“What if,” Max drawls, pretending to contemplate more than she is (because she knows the ending, here. She’s known for a long time), “we meet somewhere in the middle, find a house where you can grow your garden and I can skateboard, maybe get a dog or cat” (El’s eyes sparkle, she is so adorable, she’s beautiful). “I could try to find something with my degree and we’ll just…live on from there.”

El seems to be imagining it so vividly, Max nearly expects the dream to happen all at once, like her girlfriend (she guesses they’re girlfriends now, anyway) manifested it into being. It wouldn’t be all that surprising, considering how many other abilities she has.

Max cups her face, her body seemingly acting of its own accord. She lands another kiss on El’s upper cheekbone, and then between her eyes. So much of El demands to be taken in, to be held and treasured. This freedom renders her breathless, but for El, it’s like the opposite. It’s like she can finally start breathing.

“It sucks we’re not gonna be here long,” Max murmurs, playing with a lock of El’s hair, twisting it around her finger. “The boys are gonna be the worst third wheels the whole time, though.”

“Motherfuckers,” El agrees, and this triggers a full laugh for Max, it almost erupts out of her guts painfully, and they can probably hear her all the way from the parking lot to the hotel room they’re all sharing. She couldn't care less.

It shouldn’t be this easy, Max thinks. But she perishes its thought back to the corners, enraptured only by the doorways in front of her, all the open windows, the structures they’ve yet to build. They have made it once, even twice, and even thrice.

They can make it again.

(In the morning, when no one else is awake, Max sneaks down to the shore to have a one-sided conversation with the water. She tells it all the ways it hurt her, all the times she’s missed it, thanks it for the beauty and terror that it brings.

She’s evolved past its reach now; the tendrils and claws can’t touch her, the current can’t suck her down. And maybe that, here, is the true beginning of it all.)