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Max stands in the doorway, running her hands through her tangled hair as she waits for Mike to answer. It’s dark out, even though it’s still early, and the wind throws icy air at any exposed skin. She never got winters like this when she lived in California, and one thing she misses from back then is the endless sun and warmth.
The door suddenly swings outwards, shining a spotlight onto Max. She winces at the sudden light, but is grateful for the burst of heat spilling from the house.
“Max?” Mike asks, frowning as he assesses her dishevelled appearance.
She knows that she hasn’t been taking the best care of herself lately – her hair is long and unbrushed, and she can’t remember the last time she washed it. Her clothes are wrinkled, and were clearly thrown on in a rush by the mismatch of colors and patterns. She’s sure that Mike notices all of this, as well as the finishing touches of the deep bags under her eyes and the bitten fingernails that she is still running through her hair.
Max shoves her hands into the pockets of her yellow jacket - not nearly enough against this weather - and steps towards him.
“Can I come in?”
Mike hesitates for a moment before nodding silently and holding the door open for her to step through. She feels his eyes on her as she walks into the warmth of the Wheeler house. He’s probably wondering why she’s here. As far as he’s aware, she should be at college with Lucas and Will in New York.
“So…” Mike trails off, unsure. “Did you, um, did you need something?”
Max considers this, tilting her head. What does she need from Mike? She’s not really sure what she’s expecting from him, only that she needs to speak to someone who will understand.
“Can we talk? Alone?” She adds after glancing around the hallway and seeing the shadows of Holly, Karen and Ted from the kitchen. She must have interrupted their dinner.
“Uh, sure,” Mike says, still staring at her as if she’s an alien from one of his favorite comics that just crash landed on his porch. “Follow me.”
He leads the way down to his basement, and as they travel through the house Max notices new framed photographs on the walls of the Wheelers’ last family trip. Nancy had decided to join them, by the look of things, and from the picture you would never guess the horror that each of them had endured just a few years ago.
The basement looks the same as always, with D&D figures strewn across the table and folders piled onto the shelves, the four from their party now joined by a new collection. Max smiles as she thinks of Holly playing with her friends. She’s glad that Holly is still able to have a normal childhood.
Mike sits on the edge of the couch, crossing and uncrossing his legs, then tapping his feet on the floor. He also looks unchanged – same glasses and hair as the last time she saw him a few months ago.
He sighs when Max doesn’t start talking. “What are you doing here, Max?”
“Not happy to see me?” Max smiles but she knows it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Do the others know you’re here?”
Max shrugs, not meeting his gaze.
“Really? They’re probably worrying like crazy,” Mike says, standing up.
“Where are you going?”
“To call them, Max. Let them know you’re okay.”
“They know I’ve come back home,” Max interjects. “They know I’m in Hawkins.”
Mike sits back down, sighing again, clearly frustrated.
“I don’t understand,” he says.
Max walks over to the couch and sits next to him. It creaks under her added weight, not that she weighs much. She hasn’t been eating enough recently, something that has been the cause of many arguments between her and Lucas.
“I dropped out of college,” she admits
“What? Why?”
“Because I wanted to be like you,” she rolls her eyes. “No, I just- there’s something else I have to do. Something more important. And no, it can’t wait, and yes, I promise I’ve thought this through.”
Mike watches her silently for a moment. She holds onto a cushion, rolling the button between her fingers as she stares at the frayed rug on the floor. Out of everyone in the group, Mike’s opinion is the one she cares about the least, so she isn’t sure why her palms are damp with nervousness.
“Well,” he says, after a pause. “You’ve probably got a better reason than me.”
Max laughs at that. Mike dropping out of college hadn’t really been a surprise to any of them. It was clear from how he spoke about it on the phone that he had hated every moment of it. His excuse of needing time to write his book was seen through by everyone, and the fact that he never had anything to show for his hours of writing each day didn’t help back up his claim.
“Okay. So,” she isn’t sure how to start. She sighs; she had been sure of her decision to hide this from the others because she had known that she wouldn’t make sense to them. If anyone would understand, it would be Mike, and this hope causes her heart to race and her breathing to quicken.
“So,” she starts again. “Remember graduation night? What you said after we finished the campaign?”
Mike nods, a flash of recognition in his eyes. It’s the encouragement that Max needs to continue.
“I believe, Mike. I know we all said it, but I feel like… I don’t know. I just feel like the others, they didn’t really mean it, you know? They believe it as a story– a fairytale. But I know she’s out there, Mike! I know she is.” Max knows that she is rambling, but she needs to get this out before Mike stops her. Before he decides that she’s lost her mind and sends her back to her mother. Or worse, to Lucas.
“Max,” his tone is cautious and he reaches a hand across the couch to rest on her arm. “Where are you going with this?”
“El is alive, Mike. She has to be. And I need to find her. It’s not fair that we– that we all just get to move on, together, and happy, and– and–”
Max is crying now, tears streaming down her cheeks and burning like lava. She wipes the tears angrily with her sleeve and sniffs.
“I had to tell you. I couldn’t tell the others. They wouldn’t understand. But you, you might.”
“You mean…you didn’t tell them why you were coming back?” Mike asks, his voice uneven. His hand is heavy on her arm, and he has suddenly become very still on the other side of the couch.
“I couldn’t,” Max says quietly.
“So what did you tell them about why you were dropping out?”
“I said that my mom was sick,” she says, blinking back tears. “I said that she needed me back here.”
“You lied to them?”
Max can hear the accusation in his voice and, worse than that, the concern. He thinks she’s completely insane, Max knows he does.
“I had to,” she swallows. “I had no choice.”
“But…Lucas, he knows, right?” Mike sounds almost desperate now. It would be funny if Max wasn’t equally as desperate for him to understand.
“I broke up with him,” Max says in a rush. She doesn’t want to think about that conversation - the shouting, the crying, the pleading.
“What? Max this is– I mean, this is fucking insane. Why would you- college, Lucas, all of this, for a story?” Mike jumps up from the couch, pushing his hands through his hair and staring at her with an expression that can only be described as horror.
Max stands up, stepping closer to him. She should’ve known he would react like this. “A story? Really, Mike? A fucking story? She was your girlfriend, Mike. It’s like you don’t even care about her!”
“I care! But you can’t throw your life away for her! She wouldn’t want that,” he steps towards Max, trying to reach for her arm again.”What’s your plan, Max? To track her down? She could be anywhere. Literally anywhere in the world. And she wouldn’t want you to find her. It would only put you both in danger, right?”
Mike’s voice is calmer now, gentle, like Max is a cornered animal and he’s trying not to startle her. His eyes are worried, and something else. Pity, maybe.
“Doesn’t,” Max corrects, shaking his hand off of her. “El isn’t dead.” Her gaze hardens, her blue eyes steely with determination. “I am going to find her.”
She turns away from him and starts to climb the stairs, her footsteps loud on the creaking steps. Opening the door, she turns back to Mike for a final time.
He is standing in the center of the room, looking up at Max with an unreadable expression on his face. He looks like a lost child, unsure what he should do in this unfamiliar situation. Should he run after her? Take her back home? Call the asylum? Max isn’t waiting around for his decision.
“Don’t tell anyone. We wouldn’t want to worry them, right?” Max says, and slams the basement door behind her.
***
Max is careful when she unlocks the door to her mom’s trailer, slowly pushing it open and shutting it behind her with a clink of the keys. She doesn’t turn on the lights – she doesn’t want to risk waking Mom, and the trailer is small enough that she knows her way around even in the dark. Still, there’s an ever-present pile of trash that’s always moving around the trailer but never gets taken out, so she treads lightly as she makes her way to her bedroom.
Despite the fact that she’s only been back for a few days, the room is already a total mess. Her suitcase is open next to her bed with clothes pouring out from it like an oil spill and her bed is unmade, covered instead with a blanket of papers, maps and pens without lids. After closing the door, Max decides it is safe to turn on a light and the mess is illuminated in a bright yellow glow.
She sits on the edge of her bed, careful not to scrunch any of the paper littered across its surface. Carefully, she lifts up a picture from the pile, a photograph of her and El from their shopping spree at the mall. Max smiles as she brushes over their grins with her fingers, retracing their happiness and trying to capture it in her hands.
That day had been everything to Max. She hadn’t known much about El before, hadn’t really met her, and seeing her standing there holding her skateboard had made her nervous at first. Max wasn’t scared of her, or scared of Hopper finding out that El had left her cabin, but when she first saw her on that summer’s day, her heart had skipped a beat and sped up like a skateboard rolling down a hill. Thinking of El back then, of her equally nervous look as they stared at each other in front of Max’s house, is the only reassurance that Max needs to know that she has made the right decision.
Her plan had first formed on graduation night, when the party agreed in their belief that El was still alive. Despite seeing El die in front of her, Max had held out hope for two years that one day, El would appear again like that day when they first became friends. Mike’s ‘story’ had given her a reason to believe, and she had originally planned for them to all search for her together. But every time she brought El up, the others reacted with concern instead of sharing her determination to find her. Will would offer to be someone to talk to, Dustin would smile sadly, Lucas would look worried, and Mike would always immediately change the subject.
So, she decided to keep her plotting to herself. They all planned for college, Max with Lucas and Will in New York, Dustin at MIT and Mike in Indianapolis, and for a moment Max wondered if she could be satisfied with this life.
It was good, in New York. She was happy. Living with Lucas and Will was a dream, and the city was so much better than boring old Hawkins. But no matter what, she could never truly forget El, not that she wanted to. Every waking moment, El stayed in the back of her mind, haunting her with hope. Whether she was in a lecture, out with Will, on a date with Lucas, it didn’t matter. El was always there.
When she slept, too, El followed her, and although Max knew they were only dreams, she still couldn’t help but feel that El was reaching out, asking her to come find her. Sometimes they were nightmares, reliving El’s death, and sometimes they were memories, but either one left her waking up in tears, hysterical. Lucas was always there to comfort her, but it didn’t seem to help. Maybe because she couldn’t tell him the truth – she would just shake her head when he asked her about the dreams, knowing that it would only make him worry more. So when he asked one night if the nightmares were about Vecna, she nodded. It was easier to give him a familiar enemy, one that he could destroy with reassurances of Vecna being gone for good.
Max lies back on the bed and watches the ceiling become blurry as her eyes fill with tears. Breaking up with Lucas…that had been the one thing that nearly made her give up on finding El. She had loved him for so long, and his love for her had saved her more times than she could count. Max probably still loves him if the ache in her chest is anything to go by.
Rolling onto her stomach, she lets her pillow catch her tears as she sobs, the bed creaking under her shaking body. She will allow herself to cry now and mourn the life that she will be leaving behind for good in a few hours. Her ticket for her flight is already in her bag, as well as the bare necessities of clothes, a camera and a map. A letter will be left on her bed, addressed to her mother, and each of her friends will receive their own in the mail. She isn’t sure what she will write yet – she needs to say goodbye, but she doesn’t want it to read like a suicide note. Her absence will need to be explained, hopefully with an excuse that doesn’t make them worry, and she needs to make sure they don’t come looking for her.
On second thought, maybe she doesn’t have time to cry.
Max sits up and roughly drags her sleeves across her face. She shuffles through the mess on her bed, fishing for plain paper and a pen. Paper is found easily in a notebook, and after a couple of dead pens, she finally finds one with working ink. As the moon begins to sink in the sky, Max writes her goodbyes, sealing each one inside an envelope and then zipping them inside her bag to drop off in a mailbox on her way to the airport.
By dawn, the letters are written and Max’s room has been successfully cleared of any hint of what she is planning to do. An envelope is carefully resting on her pillow, for Mom written across the middle in her slanted handwriting. As Max locks the trailer door behind her for the last time and hides her keys under the flower pot, the first streaks of sunrise are shooting up on the horizon.
***
As the cutting wind whistles around her, Max regrets ever thinking that the winter in Hawkins was bad. Her face feels icy smooth and she pulls her scarf further up her cheekbones to protect her skin from the cold air that bites at it.
Maybe she should have started in Mexico instead.
Max has no idea where El could be, and so she had to make a decision based on what little information she could piece together into a possible timeline of her first movements. It’s almost guaranteed that El would have left America as soon as possible – after all, it’s the US military that would be looking for her – and Max is sure that it would have been nearly impossible for El to have gotten a flight out of the country. So, that left two options: Mexico or Canada.
She had chosen Canada based on the flimsy theory that El might have gone looking for the three waterfalls that Mike had promised her as their future. It makes Max angry, thinking about El escaping, trying to think of any possible way of seeing her friends again, and settling on the hope that Mike would lead the party to the waterfalls.
It’s a bad idea to rely on Mike for anything.
Still, Max knows El, and she knows that El is the last to realize that Mike is the least dependable person in the group. At least, when it comes to anyone that’s not Will.
It’s okay. Max will track her down, find her, save her, reunite her with her friends and family. Out of any of them, El deserves her happy ending the most. Max will make sure that El gets it.
Max pulls her coat closer around her and wishes that the coach would hurry up. After landing in Toronto, she had had just enough time to quickly grab some lunch before rushing over to the stop. With the bus nowhere to be seen, she regrets hurrying out of the heated cafe and into the frozen city streets.
Finally, the coach turns onto the street, its headlights shining like a heavenly beam. It pulls up next to Max, and she can’t jump into its warmth fast enough. Luckily for her, it seems that the dead of winter isn’t a popular time for tourists in Canada (who could’ve guessed?), and Max is glad to see that she won’t have to put up with someone sitting in the neighbouring seat.
She settles into her slightly uncomfortable seat, placing her bag next to her, and leans against the window. She had slept on the flight, and although she is still tired, she is too wired to be able to sleep. Max knows that it is unlikely, extremely unlikely, that El would still be in Canada. It is too close to home, and it has been over two years since she first left. But Max can’t help but feel hopeful. All she needs is to find some proof that El was here at some point, even if only for a short time.
All she needs is some proof that she’s right in believing that El is still alive.
Max must have fallen asleep at some point in the journey because before she knows it, the driver is announcing that they’ve reached their destination.
“Niagara Falls, ladies and gentleman,” the driver gestures through the windshield, which presents them with a view of a parking lot.
A couple give a half hearted cheer in response, and the limited passengers file out into the still freezing air. Max mutters a quiet ‘thanks’ to the driver as she hops out of the coach, holding tightly onto the strap of her bag that is slung across her shoulder.
As much as she tries to remain realistic, she can’t stop the hope from creeping in as she follows the signposts to the waterfalls.
This could be it.
This could be where she sees El again.
In just a few moments, she will turn a corner, walk towards the falls, the rushing water growing louder as she moves closer.
And maybe, as she approaches, she will see a girl – a woman, now – standing and admiring the sight of the water crashing down onto the rocks, turning white, flowing into the canyon below.
Max’s heart begins to race as she pictures it, her feet unknowingly carrying her faster forwards. She can see El’s face so clearly in her head, older now, but with her same gentle smile. Her hair will be longer, the caramel waves resting against her back, and her clothes will be bright and bold – El’s style, not what Mike likes.
She will look beautiful, as she always has.
The heavy pounding of the water will drown out any words they could speak to each other (which Max thinks is for the best, because she still doesn’t know what she will say when she finds El), but joy will spill from their mouths as they run towards each other, getting closer, closer, nearly there–
Max blinks. The waterfalls seem to have appeared out of nowhere, suddenly in front of Max instead of being a distant sound in the background. They are majestic, unlike anything Max has ever seen before, but all she can feel is crushing disappointment.
Because there is no figure standing in front of them. There is no one at all, probably due to the ice in the air that Max can barely feel as she stares at the empty scene in front of her. A feeling of loss rushes through her body, and she feels as though she is standing under that white water that is thundering down the rocks.
She swallows back the tears – they would freeze the moment they reached her cheeks if she let them fall – and trudges towards the buildings. She had known that El wouldn’t be here; she’d let her imagination get away from her. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that she’d much rather be gazing at El’s face than the glistening water in front of her.
A bell jingles as Max pushes open the door of some sort of cafe or bar. It’s busy in here, despite the lack of people outside, and it’s almost too warm in contrast to the cold outside.
“Hi, honey! What can I get for you?” An elderly woman stands behind the counter, greeting Max with a wide smile and cheerful tone.
“Oh– coffee, please,” Max gives her order, startled. She wasn’t planning on actually ordering anything, but she could kill for some caffeine. And besides, the woman might be more likely to answer her questions if she’s a paying customer.
“Coming right up,” the lady says with another grin.
Max takes a seat at the bar, and a few moments later a steaming mug of coffee is placed down in front of her. She nods her thanks and immediately wraps her stiff fingers around the heated ceramic.
“Anything else I can get you, love?” the woman asks.
“Actually…” Max begins, “I was wondering if you could help me. I’m trying to find someone– she would’ve been here around two years ago? I know it’s a long shot, but…” she trails off and shrugs.
“Lucky for you I’m great at faces. Isn’t that right, Laura?”
“Sure is, Donna!” a woman who Max assumes to be Laura calls back.
“My daughter,” Donna explains with a wink. “Now, do you have a photograph of your mystery girl?”
“Yes!” Max unzips her bag and pulls out a photo of El. It’s the most recent one she could find, and is a picture of her in Lenora. She stands in between Will and Jonathan, who both have their arms wrapped around their sister. All three of them are smiling into the camera, but El’s is the brightest as she beams into the lens. Max never understood how El could stay so positive and loving after all that she’d been through. Max’s own experiences had made her wary and cynical, although she tried to ‘look on the bright side’ as El had once encouraged her.
“It’s easy,” she had laughed when Max had suggested that she wasn’t sure optimism was one of her skills. “Just think of someone who makes you happy. Like Lucas!”
Max had let out a snort. “What, do you think of Mike?”
“No,” El had said with a shy smile. “I think about you.”
Max wasn’t sure why, but that admission had made her feel ridiculously happy. When her own mouth had curved into a matching smile, El had grabbed Max’s hands and pulled them into her own in her lap.
“See? Easy,” she had beamed.
Max has to admit, happiness is easy when El is involved. Something about her makes Max want to do anything to make her smile, and it seems that the quickest way to do so is with Max’s own joy.
“Honey?” Donna taps on the bar, drawing Max back to the present. “I can’t do much if I can’t see the picture.”
“Sorry,” Max slides the photograph towards her. “She’s in the middle. Those are her brothers. It’s a little old, though, she would’ve been sixteen when you would’ve seen her. I have a drawing, if that helps, of what she’d look like now?”
When Donna nods in agreement, Max hands her the drawing as well. She’d asked Will to make it for her, only telling him that it was because she missed El. Max justified this lie by reminding herself that it wasn’t untrue.
In the drawing, El looks a little more serious than she does in the photograph. Will has managed to perfectly capture her expression with his pencil. It’s the face that reminds Max that El isn’t just her best friend – she’s Wonder Woman. She is the nicest person Max has ever met, and sometimes she forgets that El is seen as scary by some people. Even watching her use her powers to kill demos or soldiers, Max has never once thought of El as frightening.
“Hm…” Donna carefully considers the drawing and the photo, before looking at Max with an apologetic expression. “Sorry, honey. I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think this girl has been here.”
Max bites back her disappointment as she returns the pictures to safety in her bag. Finding El might be more difficult than she first expected.
“Thanks for trying,” Max says, forcing a smile that convinces no one.
She slides her empty mug across the bar, along with a handful of Canadian dollars.
“Good luck finding her! She must be a very special girl,” Donna waves goodbye.
“Yeah,” Max smiles, a real one this time. “She is.”
She checks her watch as she steps out of the building. She still has a while yet before her coach ride back, and the sound of the water crashing down calls her back to the waterfall. Maybe El hasn’t been here, but Max might as well make the most of her (very expensive) ticket.
Her second walk towards the falls is much more impressive than the first. Without her daydreams of El and the disappointment that followed, Max is able to truly appreciate the sight before her.
The cascading water shines under the glaring winter sun, glittering down the cliffs before breaking like snow against the jagged rocks below. The roaring sound fills her ears, blocking out thoughts of anything but this moment. Looking upwards, naked trees grow tall like an audience giving a standing ovation, applauding the waterfall with brown and white and blue branches.
Blue branches? Max frowns, her eyes catching on a glint of blue wrapped around the end of one of the trees’ high up branches. Her blood rushes in her ears like the running water all around as she steps closer, hope flooding through her body. Shielding her eyes against the bright sun, she squints up at the tree. Tied around the branch is a woven blue bracelet, dangling like a prize at the fair that is just out of reach.
Max needs to claim it.
With a quick look over her shoulder to make sure that nobody is around, she drops her bag next to the trunk and places her gloved hands on the lower branches to pull herself up. She isn’t sure what rules exactly she would be breaking, but she doesn’t think that tree climbing near the cliffs is something that security would like to encourage. Max heaves herself higher up into the thinning branches, cursing herself for her lack of strength in her arms, and wills herself not to look down. She isn’t really afraid of heights, but ever since that day in the graveyard when Vecna levitated her above the ground, she hasn’t liked the feeling of not having stable ground beneath her feet.
Instead, she keeps her eyes fixed on the blue threads as she climbs, drawing closer until she can reach up and wrap her hands around it. Pulling off her gloves and shoving them into her coat pocket, she unties the bracelet with shaky hands.
Max knows that it isn’t the bracelet, the one Hopper gave to El when he adopted her as his daughter, but she is certain that it was left here by El. Who else would have climbed so far up just to tie a bracelet onto the tree? El probably didn’t climb at all; she probably used her powers to levitate it into position.
Max quickly scrambles down, reaching the ground before anyone can find her perched in the tree. Grasping the bracelet tightly, she stares at where it rests in her hands with awe. This is all the proof she needs.
El has been here.
El is alive.
Kneeling down, Max sorts through her bag until she finds the old camera she got from a thrift store in New York. She had been warned that the photo quality wasn’t great, but that didn’t matter for her purposes. It had been brought along as a way of cataloguing evidence and clues, and the bracelet in Max’s hand will be her first entry. Carefully keeping a firm hold on the threads used to tighten the bracelet around a wrist, she dangles it in front of the camera.
With the press of a button, Max captures proof that El is out there somewhere, waiting to be found.
***
Six months later
The sun reflects off of the shining white surface of the side of the boat, scrubbed clean by Max’s hard work. She swipes the sponge across the Ocean Tours lettering that stretches along the side, then steps back to examine her cleaning.
Back home, Max would have found any excuse to avoid doing any form of cleaning, making sure she was conveniently out anytime her mom decided to drag a vacuum around the trailer. She has always been a messy person, something which had been the cause of many arguments when she was living with Lucas and Will. Well, mostly with Lucas. Will always tried to avoid conflict.
But Max had soon realized that travelling is expensive. She had saved up some money before starting her journey by working as a barista in a coffee shop back in New York, but her budget was quickly dwindling.
This had led her here, cleaning boats that take tourists out to ‘experience the beauty of the Canadian coast’ as the brochure informed, sweltering under the unusually hot summer sun.
Her reflection glares back at her as she walks around the boat, making sure that not a single spot of dirt is left on its glimmering surface. After that rich asshole refused to pay her after finding the tiniest mark of dust left on the hood of his car when Max had spent all afternoon washing it, she refuses to leave any reason someone could use to cheat her out of her hard earned cash.
A few weeks ago, Max had made the decision to cut her tangled curls short, a last ditch attempt at saving money – after all, she does get through shampoo and conditioner bottles a lot less quickly since the cut. Now, her hair stops just above her shoulder, teasing the straps of her yellow tank top, and she is still getting used to the new length.
As she considers her reflection, she wonders if El will like her new look. The hair, the clothes, the tan – all very different from how she was back in Hawkins.
El probably looks very different now too.
Max finds herself imagining what El will look like when she finds her, something which seems to be becoming a concerningly frequent habit of hers. In fact, all of her thoughts seem to end up at El these days, every little thing reminding Max of her. She had spent a good amount of time whilst cleaning the boat picturing her and El travelling the world by sea.
She decides that her work has been successful and heads over to the beach hut to receive her payment. Two girls run along the ocean, giggling and shrieking as the cold water hits their bare legs.
Max starts to daydream about her and El going swimming together when this is all over. Does she even know how to swim? Max could teach her. For some reason, she feels her face heat up as she imagines El in a swimsuit.
She’s probably just been out in the sun for too long.
Stepping into the beach hut, Max is disappointed to find that it's just as warm inside as it is out on the beach. A fan wheezes as it struggles to push the hot air around the room, blowing the stack of tickets on the desk further towards the edge with each gust.
The man, dressed in a blue polo shirt with a small logo of a wave embroidered on his chest, barely acknowledges her as he pushes an envelope containing her payment towards her. He seems distracted by the woman on the other end of the phone, whose crackling voice can be heard even from where Max is standing.
She slides the envelope into her pocket. It’s not enough. She’s going to have to save up some more money if she wants to continue moving north.
After finding three waterfalls in a row with no sign of El, Max had started losing hope that she would ever be able to find her. The impossibility of her quest started to dawn on her – after all, Max had no clue if El was even in the same country as her, or continent.
But then, Max had found another woven bracelet of faded blue thread tied carefully around a signpost. Her heart had jumped into her throat and skipped through her chest as she untied it with shaky hands, staring at it as if she didn’t believe it was real.
A million thoughts had rushed through her head, doubting that it was really from El, but as she tied it on her wrist next to the first bracelet, those spiralling doubts had drifted away. A new sense of determination had filled her heart, and since then she had been working her way through Canada, finding the bracelets leading her in a path north.
The stop in this coastal town is a detour, but Max has been able to take on various odd jobs for the tourism companies that seem to make up more of this place than people who actually live here.
Max leaves the beach and starts heading through the town to the hostel she has been staying in for the past week. It’s been getting increasingly busy as the days pass, summer drawing more and more tourists to Canada’s beaches. The prices have been steadily rising too, and Max suspects that this will only get worse as the summer progresses.
The streets are busy, mostly with solo travellers or couples on a romantic getaway since it’s still too early for family holidays. A man and woman on the other side of the sidewalk swing their hands between them as they walk towards the beach, smiles wide as they chatter in a language that Max doesn’t recognize.
A few months ago, when Max first left, she couldn’t see a happy couple without being reminded of Lucas. A sharp pain would stab at her chest and she would be forced to look away, the sadness and the guilt threatening show on her face.
But as time had passed, she thought of Lucas less and less. She didn’t forget about him – that would be impossible, after all they’d gone through together – but he would pass through her thoughts as regularly as the rest of the party did, as one of her best friends.
Max had been scared of leaving for many reasons, but one of the things that had scared her the most had been the thought of losing Lucas. He is smart, funny, kind, has saved her life over and over again, and of course Max still loves him – but she knows that their time as a couple is over. She has changed too much, and she is sure he has as well.
All of this would’ve scared the old Max. Lucas had been the most stable part of her life since she was thirteen, and she wasn’t quite sure how to be without him.
But if her travels have taught Max anything, it’s that she is great at being alone. When the bus broke down halfway down a mountain, she had been the one to volunteer to make the hike to the bottom to inform the tour company. The soles of her sneakers had worn through by the time she made it down, and she had been covered head to toe in bites from various insects, but she had succeeded, and enjoyed it too. When a man had tried to drag her into his car outside of a hostel one night, she had punched him so hard that he had stumbled backwards into the road and had to narrowly avoid being run over. When the guy at her last job had refused to pay her for her work, she had snuck back later that night and dumped a bucket of sludge over his (nearly) pristine car.
Max doesn’t need anyone – not to protect her, not to save her, even to love her. She misses her friends, probably always will, but she is capable of living without them.
Realizing that has given Max more freedom than she has ever felt before.
She smiles at the couple as they pass her, and an image of Max and El walking down the street together, hand in hand, flashes through her mind.
Back in Hawkins, El had reached for Max’s hand a lot, sliding her fingers between Max’s. It seemed to comfort her, being connected in that way, and Max had always secretly celebrated when it was her hand instead of Mike’s that El grasped on to.
El had always been too good for him, anyway.
Max shakes her head, smiling slightly at the memory, and steps into a building with peeling yellow paint on its front door. Thankfully, the queue is short today, and she reaches the counter in no time.
She slides an envelope across the counter and pays for the postage, luckily spared a conversation with the woman behind the counter due to the fact that she doesn’t seem to speak English, and steps back out into the street.
Since she left, she has sent a grand total of four letters back home. They are short, only written to reassure everyone that she’s still alive, and they never contain a return address. She doesn’t want them knowing where she is and coming to stop her, and besides, she doesn’t stay in one place long enough for her to receive any possible response.
Finally, she makes it back to the hostel. This will be her last night in this town – tomorrow, she will be continuing her search again, hopefully in a brand new province.
Tomorrow will bring her one step closer to El.
***
Four months later
“Here,” a girl slides a drink across the bar to Max. “You look like you could use it.”
The music is so loud that Max can barely hear a word that the girl is saying, and the flurry of people coming up on Max’s right to shout their orders at the bartender isn’t helping her concentrate on the conversation.
Purple lights move in circles along the walls and ceiling, briefly sliding across the face of the girl who has now taken a seat next to Max. Her blue hair is cut short, shorter than Max’s is, and the lights reflect off of the silver piercings that are scattered across her face.
“I’m Olivia,” she offers with a smile.
She’s pretty. Really pretty.
“Nice to meet you,” Max raises her voice over the thumping music. “I’m Max.”
“American?”
“Yep. What gave it away?” Max knows that her accent sticks out like a sore thumb, and wonders if she’s getting close enough to El to start asking after a different American girl passing through these small towns.
Olivia laughs, leaning towards Max as she does so. Max can’t help the blush that rises in her cheeks when she notices how close their faces are. Her eyes quickly dart down to Olivia’s pierced lips, and Max sees them form out a sentence that doesn’t reach her ears.
“What did you say?” Max half shouts, blaming her distraction on the music pounding out of the speaker next to them.
“I said,” Olivia rolls her eyes slightly, seemingly amused by Max, “I like your bracelets.”
Max looks down at her freckled arm, and the six blue bracelets that encircle her wrist. Some are more faded than others, and one of them appears to be in the process of falling apart, but she can’t bring herself to take them off. Each one is a sign of El’s existence, a sign of her life, and Max refuses to do anything without their reassuring pressure around her left arm.
“Oh–thanks,” Max says, unsure how to explain her strange accessory choices.
“Do they mean something? I mean, maybe you just really like the color blue, but…I’m guessing it’s more than that.”
Max laughs. “Yeah, my favorite color is actually yellow. These were gifts.”
“Oh?” Olivia raises an eyebrow. “From who? Someone special?”
Suddenly, Max feels a lump grow in her throat and she quickly blinks back tears. ‘Special’ doesn’t even begin to describe all that El is to Max. El is so much more than anything that could be put into words.
“You could say that,” Max nods, swallowing her sudden emotion. “She’s…I don’t know how to describe her. She’s so kind, even though her life has been so unfair and just so– so shitty. And she’s funny too, not in an obvious way, but she makes me laugh more than anyone. I miss her laugh. She had this way of making you feel like her favorite person, like you're the only person in the room and that nothing is as important as your conversation. God, and she’s pretty too, so pretty–”
Max cuts herself off, frowning at the drink in her hand. How much has she had to drink? She can’t remember the last time she said so many words at once, or the last time she said something so personal.
“Sounds really special,” Olivia says, sounding wistful. “I wish my girlfriend said things like that about me.”
Fire erupts on Max’s face, ‘girlfriend’ hurtling through her brain like a skateboard spiralling out of control. Girlfriend? Of course, girls sometimes refer to their friends that way, but Max has a sense that that’s not how Olivia was using it. But El isn’t–
“El’s not– I mean, she’s not my girlfriend.” Max thinks that she means it to be reassuring, trying to undo the supposed damage her little speech had on Olivia’s relationship.
And part of her is trying to remind herself of this fact too. Because Max isn’t stupid. She knows that her desperate search for El is maybe a little more than platonic, especially considering the fact that none of her friends were here doing the same thing. Even Mike had basically called it a waste of time, although Max has had her suspicions on Mike’s own ‘platonic’ relationship with Will for a long time.
But Max also knows that for El, their relationship will never be anything but friendship. Because she’s a girl. Because she’s not Mike. Because Max is nowhere near good enough for someone as amazing as El.
So Max desperately tries to block out these thoughts when they manage to slip into her mind. When she finds El, and she will find her, Max doesn’t want to feel disappointed when their reunion is that of friends and nothing else.
“That’s even worse!” Olivia complains. “You love this girl that much, and you’re not even dating her? What’s Tanya’s excuse?”
Max takes Tanya to be the name of Olivia’s apparently shitty girlfriend. “Maybe she’s just not good with words?” she offers.
“Not good with actions either,” Olivia snorts. “She’s definitely cheating on me.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” Olivia agrees, then takes a long drink from her glass.
They sit together for a moment longer, watching the awful drunk dancing in front of them. Max reminds herself to leave before she can drink anymore and end up doing that.
“Nice talking to you,” Max nods, pushing her seat back from the bar and standing up. “And thanks for the drink.”
Olivia grins. “You're welcome. Good luck with your girl!”
Max smiles the entire walk back to her hotel.
***
Three months later
The polaroid camera clicks as Max snaps a picture, the lens pointed towards herself. Usually, she ties the new bracelet immediately onto her wrist and holds up her arm to the camera, but the early spring weather means that her arms are covered by a thick coat and two layers of sweaters.
Instead, she holds the bracelet in front of her and smiles, dreaming of being able to show her collection of photos to El. She’s drawing closer, and she knows it. As soon as she reached the north of Canada, Max had found a bracelet at nearly every waterfall she travelled to.
Now, Max has fourteen identical bracelets tied around her arm, proof of the past year she has spent on her search.
A whole year away from her home, her mom, her friends.
She has gotten used to missing them, to the homesick ache that is a constant weight on her heart. But turning around and going back home empty handed has never been an option for her. When she returns to Hawkins, it will be with El’s hand in her own.
See, Max has had a lot of time this past year. And on one long hike through the wilderness, she remembered Dr Owens, the man who had helped El start a new life back in California. Max had never personally met the guy, but both El and Will said that he wasn’t like the other scientists, and that he could be trusted.
So after she finds El, she’s going to get El her life back. Out of anyone, El deserves to be at home, happy, safe, and with her friends and family. If it means that Max has to spend another few years searching the world, well, she is willing to pay that price. At least she’ll have El by her side.
Sure, no one really knows whether Dr Owens is even alive, but Max has given up all she knows on less evidence. Plus, El’s powers should be able to find that out quickly enough.
As Max makes the trek back through the forest, she pulls out the map from her bag. She uncaps the red marker pen with her teeth and circles her latest find, crowding the top section of Canada even more with another red ring.
Frowning, Max examines her path through the country, the same path that El had taken more than three years ago. With the way it carves upwards and stretches across the top, she can imagine where the next stop should be, picturing the red circle against the empty blue ocean.
Her eyes drift further, tracing her imagined path through the ocean with red stepping stones, skipping over Greenland, and finally landing on Iceland.
Max’s heart begins to thump wildly as she stares at the illustration of the country, already convinced that this is where El has been hiding. It makes so much sense – for someone chasing waterfalls, Iceland is the most obvious destination.
She doesn’t want to make a mistake, make a rash decision that sets her back in her search and means that El is alone for longer. But….
El has to be there, or at least was there at some point. Skipping over Greenland is a risk, but Max already knows that this is a risk she will take. Her hands are shaking, and her feet feel planted in the ground like the trees that tower over her, and when warm drops of water begin to splash onto the paper, Max knows that she is crying.
Luckily there is no one to see her tears, and Max manages to release her grip on the map and drag her sleeve across her wet face. Breathing deeply, she carefully folds the paper and slides it back into her bag as the rain begins to shower down.
Max thinks that the sky is crying with her.
The water sinks into the dirt, staining the dusty color darker as it spreads like roots, forming little streams around Max’s feet.
She turns her face upwards, letting the cold rain fall through the leaves and wash away her hot tears.
Suddenly she is laughing, her face splitting into a grin and her laugh shouting through the forest, and she can taste the rain on her tongue. Her feet are free, flying over the ground as she runs, and her heart follows, swooping like a bird.
When she breaks through the tree line, the rain has stopped, but its smell still lingers in the air. Max tilts her head upwards, feeling the water dry on her face, and notices the colors of a rainbow shimmering above her.
Max has never been a superstitious person. She’s always been cynical – when she was six years old, she had sat her mother down and told her very gravely that Santa wasn't real. Before El, she had never been able to believe anything without proof, and ‘signs from the universe’ definitely fell into the category of things that the old Max would scoff at.
But with a prism of light shining down on her face, Max can’t help but feel that this is the universe’s way of cheering her on, telling her she’s made the right decision.
***
Two weeks later
Iceland is colder than Max expected, which looking back should have been obvious from the ‘ice’ in its name. She should be used to icy temperatures after her year in Canada, but she has never been quite able to adjust after growing up in California’s heat.
Everything here reminds her of El. Obviously, the waterfalls (Max has found five bracelets already), but also the undisturbed natural landscapes that seem to go on forever. Imagining it in the summer when everything isn’t covered in a thick sheet of snow, it's easy to picture El roaming across the wild mountains and hills.
As she walks, Max imagines El walking alongside her, wrapped in an oversized coat. Gloved hands peek out from the edges of the long sleeves, knitted by El herself, and her grown out hair creeps up into the air outside of her hood.
She’s spent a lot of time doing this recently – Iceland has been even more isolated than rural Canada. Still, this is something that Max is mostly thankful for; the low population means a lot less towns for her to search through.
Max just wishes there was better transportation between the villages.
She lets her hood fall from her face as she enters a small store, the bell drawing the attention of the lone cashier to her. The man watches as she approaches the desk, seemingly wary of strangers, and Max hopes that his apparent shock at a tourist in his store doesn’t mean that he doesn’t speak English.
“Hi,” Max says, trying to give him her best friendly smile.
“Hello,” the man responds, and Max rejoices at the lack of a language barrier.
He stares at her with wide blue eyes, and she begins to wonder if his face is permanently stuck in an expression of mild shock.
“I’m looking for someone,” Max pushes on, and slides the drawing and photo across the counter to him. “Have you seen her?”
The man stares blankly at her for a moment longer, so Max taps at El’s face. Maybe he doesn’t speak English after all.
“I know her,” he nods.
Max feels her palms begin to sweat in her gloves. “You’ve seen her? When? Is she here?”
He shakes his head. “I saw her. It was a time ago. I have not seen her since.”
The man seems unaware of the obvious reaction that his words have had on Max. Sure, she has been collecting bracelets for a year, but meeting an actual person who has seen El? She isn’t sure how to react in a way that isn’t jumping for joy and scaring the poor man any more.
She feels as though her heart is trying to climb out of her throat as she continues questioning the man, who is now looking wistfully at his town through the glass door of the store. “Do you know where she is now?”
“No.”
Max sighs. “Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Max prompts when he doesn’t continue. “Where?”
He hands her a map of Iceland from behind the counter and points at the nearest town. “She is here.”
“How do you know?”
“It is the only place. Unless she turned around.” Max swears she sees him roll her eyes as he says this.
She reaches for the map, but he pulls it back at the last second. “Do you have money?” he asks, smiling politely.
Max hates him.
“Seriously? Can’t I just look at it for a second?”
He continues to hold it just out of reach, still smiling.
“Fine,” Max mutters, pulling out a couple of the notes that they had given her at the exchange booth in the airport.
“Thank you,” the man says, pocketing the cash and handing over the map.
Max crosses her arms, waiting for her change. She isn’t sure exactly how much she gave him, but she is sure that a piece of paper shouldn’t cost that much.
“You can go now. Unless you want to buy more?” he asks.
She wants to punch him.
Instead, she smiles sarcastically at him and turns to leave the store, holding the door open for as long as possible to let the cold air in.
Outside, her breath shakes as she carefully traces her route with a gloved finger. Not far at all. There’s probably a bus, but Max would rather die than go back into the store and ask that asshole for a timetable.
She’ll walk, she decides. It’s still early, and the snow isn’t that bad. She keeps the map in her hands as she begins her journey, careful to not go off route and get lost. If all goes according to plan, she’ll be with El in just a couple of hours.
***
Max is just beginning to be able to make out the outline of the town in the distance when she hears it.
Water. Thundering, crashing water.
Her heart picks up, stuttering in her chest, and she turns her head wildly from side to side as she listens for the source.
Left. Off the track, but Max can’t find it in herself to care about the possibility of getting lost and dying of frostbite.
She begins to clamber up through the snow, stumbling over the uneven ground as she begins to race towards the sound.
A step closer to El.
A jump.
A run.
By the time the waterfall comes into view, she feels as though her chest is about to explode, and not from the running.
It’s beautiful; three separate paths of ice water slide down the rocks, meeting together in the white foam at the bottom. The sun cuts through the mist, projecting a rainbow above the view, and the sight is enough to cause Max’s own heartbeat to drown out the pounding water.
Max doesn’t believe in signs. Or miracles.
But as she desperately scans the scene, hair whipping across her face and over her eyes, Max sees her.
El.
She is sitting on a rock, legs drawn up to her chest as she wraps her arms around herself. Her hood lies uselessly against her back, and her long ponytail runs in a line towards the ground, the water droplets in the brown and honey strands glistening under the sun. She is watching the water fall, mesmerised, oblivious to the cold air that has turned her nose and cheeks a soft shade of pink.
For a moment, the world seems to stand still. Max can’t hear the thundering water, can’t see it either, can only see the girl in front of her. She wants to reach out, run forward, but she feels stuck in place, her heart paused mid-beat and her breath caught in her throat.
Breathtaking. Max had never understood this description of beauty until now.
El turns, eyes pulled from the waterfall by some sixth sense, and suddenly she is staring straight at Max.
Max feels her heart start again, kicking wildly against her ribs, trying to break free and give itself to the girl that it belongs to.
El gets up from her seat, eyes not leaving Max’s face, looking at her with the same wonder she gave to the waterfall.
They both seem to start moving at the same time, running towards each other, closing the distance, stumbling through the snow.
As soon as they are close enough to touch, El pulls Max’s hands into her own. Max can feel her warmth through the thick wool, and Max intertwines El’s fingers with her own.
“Max?” she whispers, and her face looks blurry as Max watches her tears fall.
“El,” Max whispers back, voice breaking. “El.”
Her name is like a prayer, a wish, a miracle.
El is alive. El is standing in front of her. El is holding her hands like they are sacred, delicate.
El untangles one hand and pokes Max gently. “You are real?” She sounds unsure, and Max’s heart breaks at the desperate hope on her face.
“I’m real,” she confirms. “I promise.”
Max pulls El into her arms, wrapping herself around her. El’s hair tickles against her cheek, and Max feels a little like she can’t breathe with how close she has pulled El against herself, but she can’t imagine a better feeling.
El’s shuddering breath is hot on her cheek as she folds into her embrace, lying her face on Max’s shoulder as she cries. She smells like something flowery, and Max tugs her closer, running her hands up and down her back as they both grasp on to each other as if their lives depend on it.
“You found me,” El whispers, pulling back slightly to stare at Max’s face. She is smiling, and Max thinks her smile outshines the sun any day.
“Yeah,” Max’s voice feels hoarse. “I followed your bracelets.”
El presses their foreheads together. “I left them for you,” she breathes like it's a secret.
“I found you.”
“I knew you would. I knew you would.”
“How?” Max asks, feeling lightheaded.
El smiles, and Max watches it light up her eyes. God, Max could stare into her eyes for the rest of her life and die happy.
“Because you are you, and I am me,” she taps at Max’s heart. “You know me. You understand me. You always have.”
El removes her gloves and frames Max’s face in her hands, and Max feels her cheeks heat up under El’s skin.
“Because you are brave. Because you are strong. Because you never give up, and you especially never give up on me,” El smiles gently.
Max laughs softly, shakily.
“Because…because I love you,” El finishes. “And I always will.”
“I love you too. You know I love you,” Max whispers, taking off her own gloves and covering El’s hands with her own.
El hesitates, looking unsure once again. Then:
“Lucas?” El asks carefully, dropping her gaze.
If El is asking about Lucas, then…is it possible? Does El love her back in that way, in the way that Max has tried not to think about for the past year? Max feels her mouth curve into an even wider smile.
“No,” Max shakes her head. “Not anymore. Not like that.”
El’s eyes jump back to Max’s, then drop down to her mouth. She leans forwards, moving with her usual gentleness, before pressing their lips together.
The kiss is light, like a feather brushing over Max’s mouth, but it somehow electrifies her whole body. Her head spins, struggling to catch up with the fact that El, amazing, beautiful El, just kissed her.
That El apparently loves her.
“I love you,” Max repeats herself.
“I love you too,” El whispers.
Max leans back in, celebrating the pressure of El’s lips against her own. Her heartbeat jumps as El drops her hands from Max’s face and rests them lightly on Max’s hips, the heat from her palms searing through Max’s coat.
She kisses her more deeply, and Max takes the opportunity to slide her hands into El’s hair, pulling the ponytail loose and tangling her hands into the strands. The scrunchie that Max gave her all those years ago drops to the ground, forgotten.
How long had Max dreamed of this moment? It feels like she’s been waiting her whole life, and she can’t remember ever feeling okay about the fact that she might have never experienced this.
They break apart, and the beam on El’s face is just as contagious as always.
Later, Max will tell her about her plan for El to have a normal life (although ‘normal’ probably wouldn’t include her having a girlfriend, at least by Hawkins standards). But for now, they walk hand-in-hand towards the village that El has made her home, under the arch of a glowing rainbow.
And Max finally believes in miracles.