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The sun was just beginning to set over Hawkins, Indiana when Billy Hargrove left his house in a huff, heading for his car. He fought the urge to groan as he heard the front door locking behind him, knowing that it’d be a few hours before his dad even considered letting him back inside, so he figured he might as well go for a drive and maybe get a burger at the diner or something. It was only after he got to his car door that he realized he’d left his keys inside on his desk, and thus was not going to get far. He finally allowed himself to let the groan out, shifting his energy to fighting the urge to kick his tires. It wouldn’t do him any good, so what was the point? At least it was pretty warm out, despite it only being the first of March, and he still had his wallet on him, so he could just walk to the diner if he cut through the woods behind his house. The walk would do him good, anyway, and it’d give him a chance to calm down a little, too. So with one last annoyed sigh, he left his car and headed for the small patch of trees just beyond the backyard.
He didn’t know exactly how far the diner was from here, at least while he was walking, but the roads out of his neighborhood took him in this direction, so he figured it couldn’t be too far. Besides, he’d been able to explore most of this town already, but he hadn’t done much exploring around his own house, so he didn’t know what was behind the trees back here. Maybe there would be something interesting, or at least another good spot to hide out if this ever happened again and he’d need a place to hide out from his dad but didn’t have his keys. Either way, he could kill time finding out.
It only took about five minutes of walking before he reached the edge of the treeline, the sun lighting up more of the path he was walking and a big, empty field coming into view. Most of the grass was still dead from the cold, wet winter that was just coming to an end, and there really wasn’t much to it, only a few small buildings on the far side of the field, hidden from the view of the road by more trees and houses. It was almost like its own little bubble of the world, almost completely hidden unless you knew what you were looking for or happened to stumble upon it. Billy had certainly never known it existed until now, and he wondered if many of the people in the town did, or if some of them would go their whole lives never knowing it was here.
He continued on through the field, heading towards the buildings on the far side, and after coming over a short hill, he saw the break in the trees and the tiny gravel parking lot just beyond the buildings, and the small patch of dirt between two of the buildings with a bit of fencing between them. It was a tiny baseball field, more a simple sandlot than an actual field, but nevertheless. Clearly it had been left dormant for the winter, and they’d probably start cleaning it up and doing maintenance on it next month to get it ready for the new season in May, if anybody still played here anymore. He knew the high school team didn’t, they had their own fields out behind the school, and even the elementary school had their own field, and he couldn’t imagine either team ever giving those up to play here.
As he got closer, he saw the third building just off to the right of the field must’ve been a concessions stand, the metal door and window cover both locked up for now, and a few pieces of old playground equipment just behind it. The paint on the equipment was chipping, allowing the rust to show through, and the paint on the dugouts wasn’t fairing much better. It was chipped and faded, and he could only barely read what it said on each structure, ‘home’ and ‘visiting’. The little field didn’t even have proper bleachers, only a few steps carved out of the earth with wood planks and some cement anchoring them in place. It was a pretty sad sight, and Billy was ready to walk right past it, but then he saw something even sadder; someone sitting alone inside the ‘home’ dugout, just staring out at the field with a blank expression. And not just any someone. It was Steve Harrington.
Billy knew he could’ve just kept on walking, but he didn’t. He stopped when he saw the other boy and just watched for a second, debating whether he should go over and say something or just leave the other boy alone. He didn’t look like he wanted any company right then, and Billy knew what that was like, but he also had an intense interest in him, he wanted to know what made him tick. So finally, he headed towards the dugout, stepped through the doorway, and took a seat next to him on the old wooden bench.
“What are you doing here, Harrington?” He asked, noting how he didn’t even acknowledge it when he sat right next to him.
“I could ask you the same thing,” Steve mumbled, his voice sounding a little rough, like he was sick or something.
“I was just out for a walk, had to get out of the house,” Billy shrugged. Steve nodded, but didn’t say anything else, just sighed as he continued to stare out at the field. He looked so upset, almost defeated, and Billy wanted so badly to ask why, but he never got the chance.
“I used to play tee ball here,” Steve said after a few minutes, sighing as he crossed his arms and leaned forward. “My team was called the Fireballs. I was number three. We kinda sucked.”
Steve paused, scrubbing his hands over his face and sighing again as he tried to figure out what else to say. He and Billy weren’t exactly friends, they were barely civil, but still, it might be nice to have someone else to rant to, especially after what had happened earlier. He was getting nowhere when he was trying to figure it out himself. Maybe an outside perspective was exactly what he needed.
“Yeah, we sucked. We were so bad. I hated it, but… I kinda wish I could go back,” he said, his gaze finally shifting from the field to his shoes. He still didn’t look at Billy, but it was something.
“Why would you want to go back if you hated it?” Billy asked, remembering his own time on the diamond, how his father had insisted he play for years, and only let him give it up after he'd failed to make a single hit in an entire season. He wouldn’t go back to that for a million dollars.
“It was just easier then,” Steve said, shaking his head. “I didn’t have to worry about anything. My biggest worry was if I would be stuck out in the outfield again and if I had remembered to bring a nickel with me to get a piece of bubblegum between innings. Now everything is so complicated and I just wish I could go back to when it wasn’t.”
“What’s so complicated about your life now? I mean, you got money, a nice big house, a fancy car, some good friends, and that’s a hell of a lot more than a lot of other people have,” Billy said, regretting it a little bit when Steve finally looked at him with a harsh glare. “I just mean it can’t be all that hard for you to get ahead in the world with all those things going for you.”
“Yeah, well, those things don’t mean jack shit when they aren’t really yours,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I don’t have money, my parents do. Same with the house. The car is technically mine, but I have to pay them back for it, they didn’t just give it to me. And in case you hadn’t noticed, all my so-called ‘friends’ kicked me to the curb as soon as you came along, and only still talk to me because of who I used to be. And none of these things is permanent. As soon as I turn eighteen and graduate, I have three options: go to college, which I’m too stupid for anyway, join the military, or move out and get a ‘real’ job. My parents are already pressuring me to make a decision and I still have a whole half a school year left before I have to, but every other conversation is them reminding me to fill out applications or that there’s an opening at my dad’s firm and ‘it could be such a wonderful opportunity for you, Stephen!’. And when they’re not trying to be nice about it, they just keep reminding me of my sister and how they treated her when she didn’t want to live the life they tried to push on her and implying they’ll do the same to me.”
“I didn’t know you had a sister. What happened to her?” Billy asked, shivering as a breeze started to blow across the field. The sun was about halfway gone by now, and as it dropped, so did the temperature. It was still okay for now, but he just hoped the wind wouldn’t get any stronger before he was allowed back inside his house.
“I have two, actually. Simona is the oldest, and she went along with everything mom and dad wanted her to. She was always the perfect, obedient little sweetheart that could do no wrong, and that’s what our parents expected out of all of us. And don’t get me wrong, I love my sister, but sometimes I wish she would’ve been a little bit more rebellious when she was my age, because then maybe Angelina and I wouldn’t be held to such high standards.”
Steve explained, shifting so that he was sitting back again, but instead of staring at the field now, he turned to look at Billy, “See, Simona didn’t just listen to my parents, she learned how to do what they wanted without them even having to ask. She graduated top of her class and went to college straight away and is trying to become a lawyer, following in the old man’s footsteps. She got married last summer and immediately got pregnant because mom was saying how much she wanted grandkids. Mona had told me and Angie she was going to wait until she was out of school to have kids, but that mom reminded her how much more difficult it could be if she waited until she was older, so she changed her mind. She’s only twenty three, she had plenty of time, but she knew my mom wanted grandkids, so she gave her a grandkid. And because she’s like that, Angie and I have been hearing our whole lives, ‘why can’t you be more like your sister?’.”
“Wait, I don’t get it. I thought they didn’t want you to be like your sister,” Billy said.
“They don’t. When they say that, they’re talking about Angie. She was the complete opposite of Mona, never just doing what she was told, always needing to know why she was doing anything, and questioning everything, including our parent’s authority. She pushed boundaries and if she didn’t agree with something, she just simply didn’t do it, or found a way around it. She didn’t agonize over grades or making my parents happy, she only worried about making herself happy. In her mind, it didn’t matter if she got a C, as long as she passed the test, what was the difference between that and an A? Or, if her room was a mess, why should she clean it if she was the only one who was going to be in there? And if you wanted to come in that badly, you could deal with the mess. And she was always artsy, and if she ever did have a career that she went for, it would most likely be something like painting or design, not something like business or law. My parents hated that. They tried everything to, in their words, ‘fix her’, but Angie was too strong willed, and she told them that their efforts were futile, she wasn’t going to fit in their mold, ever,” Steve sighed, starting to bite at his lips.
“So what happened?” Billy asked, shivering again as another gust of wind blew by.
“As soon as she turned eighteen and graduated, they threw her out. They told her never to come back unless she’d straightened herself out, and they meant it. It’s been three years, and I’ve only seen her a handful of times, and only because we missed each other and set something up, not because my parents would let her come home for Christmas or something. It was so bad that Mona almost didn’t invite her to her wedding because of what happened, but I finally convinced her to. It was the one and only time that she didn’t do what my parents wanted because she wanted the opposite. And I mean, Angie’s doing okay for herself. She’s living in Chicago and found a job at a tattoo parlor. She still paints and she sells her work at flea markets and street fairs, and does commission work on the side. She says she’s happier than she ever was at home, and that’s great, I’m happy for her, but I don’t know how she managed to do it, how she even knew where to start picking herself back up. I probably couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know what to do today after I stormed out, that’s how I ended up here.”
Steve rubbed his hands over his face again as he finished explaining, leaning forward again and shaking his head. He was tired, he just wanted to go home, but he knew he couldn’t. It would be like admitting defeat, and he wasn’t about to do that just yet. At least the weight on his shoulders was starting to feel a little lighter now that he’d been able to talk to someone about it all. There was still more to be said, but he wasn’t about to unload all of it at once.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better,” Billy said after a few moments, “At least you had the balls to stand up to your parents, even if it was just during an argument. I can’t even do that, I just wait until my dad leaves me alone and then I leave, so you’re doing better than I am.”
“It was the first time I ever really did that,” Steve admitted, biting at his lips again. “Usually I just take it and nod along until they realize I’m not really listening and then they drop it, but tonight I just… I just snapped. I screamed at them and stormed out and now I don’t know what to do.”
“Do what I do. Wait until they cool down and then go home once you know they’re asleep or about to be. They won’t bring the fight back up if they’re already in bed, so you don’t have to worry about it at least until the morning,” Billy shrugged, trying his best to make him feel better. He knew how scary it could be after storming out for the first time. He’d had years of experience, might as well put it to good use.
“I can’t go home tonight. This fight was worse than all the others. They went on their normal tirades about my future and all that, but then they took it a step further and started in on me about my social life and shit and that’s what made me blow up. They were making all kinds of judgements and assumptions about me and they were way off base, but if I went home tonight, it’d be like telling them they were right, and I’m not gonna do that because they aren’t.”
“My dad does that shit, too,” Billy sighed, looking at the sun that was almost completely gone now before asking, “What were they saying?”
“They started by saying how I was so antisocial now, basically their way of calling me a loser, and asking what happened to all my friends? And I just ignored that, but then they went on and asked what ever happened to ‘that nice Wheeler girl’ and how I should’ve tried harder to make that work because she was such a sweet thing and how could I have let her go? And I told them that she broke up with me and then slept with another guy like not even a full week later, but they still blamed me for it anyway,” Steve said, getting a little fired up as he spoke. “That’s when I stormed out. I didn’t want to hear the rest, about how a good woman could totally change my life and how a big family is the biggest fulfillment and the best accomplishment I could ever hope for and blah, blah, blah. And listen, I do still love Nancy, but only as a friend, and even if I could get her back, I wouldn’t want to. She’s nice, but if I were being honest, the only reason I really went after her in the first place is because that’s what people expected of me. I earned a reputation as a ladies' man in middle school just because I was friends with a lot of girls and the rumors started that I was only friends with them because I wanted something from them and that couldn’t have been further from the truth. But that’s what people believed, so that became the truth. The real truth is, I have a very specific type, and most girls just do not fit into it. But I can’t tell most people that, and especially not my parents, or they wouldn’t even wait until I graduated, they’d throw me out on my ass then and there.”
“I think I get what you’re saying,” Billy said, pulling his jacket tighter around him.
“No you don’t. You couldn’t. I don’t think anybody in this town could.”
“Maybe not, but don’t forget, I’m not from here. Believe me, I know exactly what you’re going through. I’ve got a ‘specific type’, too.”
“You? Really?” Steve couldn’t help but chuckle. “I never would’ve guessed.”
“Yeah, but that’s the point. If anyone could, not only would my dad throw me out, he’d probably kill me,” Billy shrugged again. Steve nodded, and they both went quiet again, staring back out at the field as the last light from the sun stretched above the horizon, the indigo sky fighting to push it down and bathe everything in darkness. When it finally won out, Billy sighed again and stood up, stretching and putting his hands in his pockets as he turned back to Steve.
“So, listen,” he started, picking at a seam inside his pocket, “I was on my way to the diner before I found you here and since it’s not far and I’m still kinda starving, do you want to come with me? We can grab a bite and then maybe figure out a place for you to go tonight instead of having to go home.”
It seemed to take a moment for the words to register in Steve’s head, because for a moment, he just looked at Billy, assessing him as if trying to figure out how a magic trick was done. But finally, after a second, he nodded.
“That sounds nice, thanks,” he said, his voice a bit quieter than before, but he smiled a little bit and stood up, following Billy out of the dugout and across the field towards the parking lot.
“Oh, and here,” Billy said, pulling a small tube of cherry chapstick from his pocket and offering it to Steve, hoping the darkness would hide the way his face began to burn. “You kept biting your lips up in there. This should help.”
“Thanks,” Steve said, his voice practically a whisper as he smiled shyly and took the tube.