Chapter Text
I’ve had a life spent chasing
what my heart couldn’t name.
Love, you fan that flame.
Oh, my dear sister, you’re the fire in the field,
my other hand on the wheel.
And I will be your songbird, I will sing a lie for you.
And if we forget the melody, we’ll write another tune.
-“Songbird,” by Cory Chisel and Adriel Denae
Part I: Max
Just before our love got lost you said, “I am as constant as a northern star,” and I said, “Constantly in the darkness, where's that at?”
Max hates Joni Mitchell. Hates her stupid whine and her ugly, dripping sadness seeping into everything.
On the back of a cartoon coaster, in the blue TV screen light, I drew a map of Canada.
Joni’s hurt is too sharp to curl up in, too awful to just throw on, on a Tuesday night with nothing better to do.
Oh, you are in my blood like holy wine, you taste so bitter and so sweet.
If she could, Max would throw the tape and the whole deck into the quarry or burn it in the backyard in the middle of the night where no one could see.
She usually tries not to listen, tries to tune Joni out and think about homework or Lucas or whether El really likes her now or if it’s a lie to make the boys feel better. She tries not to listen, and sometimes it works, until the part where Joni says,
I met a woman, she had a mouth like yours, she knew your life, she knew your devils and––
And then there’s a clicking-shuffling sound, like someone’s hand over a mic, and then a dumb, whiny, baby voice says,
Jaaack. That’s my tape.
More shuffling. A short, small laugh that she has to strain to hear. Then Jack says,
Sorry, Max.
And then Joni wails again, I could drink a case of you darling, still I'd be on my feet, I would still be on my feet.
Max punches the stop button and breathes in angry, cold Indiana air. Breathes in and out, in and out, hugging the tape deck to her chest, its stupid, kiddy red handle digging into her chin.
She had a real one, once, a grownup one with sleek, square edges, but it got wrecked, and now Max just has this one, stupid Fisher Price with big baby buttons. It works though, and Blue works too, which is the real miracle. The tape had been in her old tape deck when it got all smashed and Max was sure Blue would be cut up too, except, when she heaved her body up into the dumpster and dragged it out, Joni was spotless, plays perfect even now (as perfect as her stupid whiny voice can get).
And Jack is still there, right in the middle, his quiet laugh and sorry, Max.
Max scrubs her face with the sleeve of her jacket and huddles closer around the tape deck.
No one’s home, Mom and Neil out on some sort of awful “date night” joke, and Billy wherever the hell he goes when he’s supposed to be watching her and isn’t, which is good-riddance anyway. She could listen to the tape inside if she wanted, at her window maybe, which looks out onto the street, so she could still see if their cars pulled in.
She pushes her heals into the frozen ground until her back is snug against the shed wall, keeps pushing until it creaks. It’s just better out here.
When her lungs are aching with the cold, she shoves the stupid, giant rewind button, punches play when she knows it’s the beginning.
Joni wails into the frigid night.
Just before our love got lost you said, “I am as constant as a northern star.”
It’s January 15, 1985. Max is in Hawkins, Indiana, 2,082 miles from Santa Monica, and in five hours she’ll be fourteen years old. At fourteen, you can be tried as adult. She knows because Billy’s told her, so many times.
It’s January 15, ninety-five days since the worst thing she’s ever done, but there isn’t any statute of limitations on that.
Sorry, Max, says Jack from the tinny, plastic speakers.
Sound travels farther out here in Indiana, something about the cold in the air, maybe, or the things Max knows went on in the lab nearby. Either way, Max hears the livid roar of the Camaro with plenty of time to bolt back to the house, shove Fisher Price and Joni and Jack all back behind the Barbie playset in her closet that no one (even her) has ever touched, before the front door bangs open and then shut.
Max breathes shallow and soft as the heavy bootsteps get closer and closer, but Billy doesn’t pause at her room. The slam of his door rings out like a gunshot moments later.
She counts down from a hundred and tries to make her heart settle. Around the thirties she thinks she hears Jack saying, sorry, Max, but it’s just the wind whipping through a tree outside.
The next day The Party (minus El) are all waiting around her locker, fighting about something, loud and getting louder. Mike and Dustin are the most vocal, shouting something about balloons and promises and Goddammit, Mike, I told you a million times, how did you fuck this up?
“I was in charge of the cupcake!” Mike yells as Max gets closer.
“No,” Dustin shouts back and flings a wayward arm towards Will, who ducks just quick enough to get out of the way. “Will was in charge of the cupcake, asshole. You were in charge of balloons!”
Will is holding a cupcake (red velvet, looks like), carefully in two small hands, like it’s a baby bird.
“Guys,” says Max, but it’s hard to hear over all the shouting. Will’s the only one who seems to notice, and he gives her one of his shy-boy smiles, which usually makes her nervous but isn’t so bad today.
“Guys,” she tries again, and this time Lucas hears, his eyes lighting up when he sees her. She ignores the stupid tumble of her dumb heart and focuses on the two boys still screaming, making every other kid in the hall turn and stare. At some point a teacher’s gonna notice all the yelling and that’s not something Max wants to deal with today.
“Hey, idiots!” she shouts. Dustin whips around to face her while Mike scowls and hugs his arms to his chest. He still doesn’t like her much, which is whatever, fine. As Dustin’s mouth hangs open in cartoon surprise, Max smirks and says, “Can I have that today, or do I have to wait till I’m fifteen?”
“Max!” says Dustin, all smiles now. “Duh, yeah, of course. Will, the cupcake.” And then they’re all bumbling over each other, trying to offer her other things they’ve got – not just the cake, but a home-made card (from Lucas) and a small model car (“It’s the one from Mad Max, get it?” from Dustin) and no balloons (“God dammit, Mike!”) but that’s okay, because she’s not, like, five.
It’s all pretty great and also one of the nicest things they’ve ever done. So, hours later, after the arcade and the slurpies and the movie night at Mike’s, when Dustin asks, “We did good, right, Max? I mean, come on, you can admit it, best birthday ever, right?”, Max just laughs and says, yeah, definitely, thanks, guys, really.
It’s easier than saying anything close to the truth. That fourteen’s never gonna fit her right, no matter how much free sugar’s involved. That she’s had a lot of birthdays and they haven’t all been great, but the best one still isn’t this, even if she is tucked next to Lucas in the warm dark of Mike’s basement, the air smelling like candy and buttered popcorn.
***
“Best birthday ever, right, Max?”
It sort of was, with the weather just right and Billy puking his guts out in a bush nearby cause he couldn’t handle Space Mountain.
Jack grinned up at her from where he was still sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk. He’d fallen there when Billy first turned from shaky pale to green, howling with laughter as Billy lost every one of the hot dogs he’d stuffed in his mouth before the ride.
“It better be,” said Billy between gross, heaving breaths, his head still bent toward the leaves. “Only cost you, like, an arm and a leg.”
Max hadn’t really thought about that till now, but there was a reason she’d never been to Disneyland before, even though she’d lived forty minutes away her whole life.
“Oh,” she said, the beaming feeling of spending a whole day with Jack dimming a little. “I can pay you back—”
“Shut up, Bill,” said Jack and stood up to tower over Max like normal. He tugged on one of her braids that Billy said make her look like Pippi Longstocking. “It’s a present, Max, okay? I can spend my money any way I want.”
“But, it’s too much—”
“It’s not. Really. You only turn thirteen once, right? Gotta do it in style.” He tipped his sunglasses back over his eyes and wiggled his eyebrows till she laughed. Jack was good at that, looking cool, even wearing denim on denim like a dope, and making her feel better when Billy was being a jackass.
“Hey,” said Billy, finally making his way back to them. Jack dug a water bottle out from his bag and handed it to him without a word. Billy took a swig and spit it out like the animal he was, right on the pristine red brick.
“Should I be worried,” he went on after wiping his mouth with his shirt. “You guys gonna elope, or what?”
“Man, you’re really looking to get it today,” said Jack, shoving Billy a little. It wasn’t like Neil did, though, late, late at night, not like he said sometimes, sharp and ugly even muffled by her bedroom wall, you’re really looking for trouble today, aren’t you, boy?
Jack said it the way he and Billy were always talking, like a joke was sitting right below the surface but only they knew the punchline. When he pushed Billy, it was just a little, and his grip on Billy’s shirt was loose.
They were good at this by now, this dumb thing they did in places with too many people looking on. Jack was taller than Billy by a lot (Billy was always saying how he’d catch up one of these days, but Max didn’t think so. Neil was pretty short, too) so it was easy for him to throw an arm around Billy’s shoulder, all seemingly rough, to pull Billy’s head in close like he was gonna give him a noogie.
Max knew how it must’ve looked to the Mom glancing over at them, shuffling her kids closer to her side – two boys a little too old to be at Disneyland, with beat-up shoes and secondhand jackets, eyes a little too sharp. It looked like trouble to the attendant shifting uneasily behind the burger counter. Jack learned down to whisper something in Billy’s ear, maybe a threat.
But Max, only a foot or two away, could see that Jack’s lips didn’t really move much, just rested slightly on the space behind Billy’s ear. Billy put a hand on Jack’s chest like he was gonna push him off, gripped his shirt tight in a fist like he was gonna throw him, but he never did.
Max turned away to see if there was a map nearby or maybe if she could convince Jack to buy her some of those Mickey ears. She scratched at her arm, scuffed her shoes into the bricks, and didn’t turn back around till she felt a tug on her shirt.
“Come on, Maxine,” said Billy, his cheeks pink now instead of green. “Let’s do Space Mountain, again.”
“What,” she said, the churning feeling she got when they did that stuff making her mean. “Like you can handle it?”
“Oh man,” Jack laughed and put one giant hand on her head, shook her like a soda can. “She’s got your number, dude.”
“I’m sure,” said Billy, rolling his eyes. He tugged on Max’s other braid. “Pick something, then, smartass, we don’t have all day.”
Except they did, sort of. It was dark when they piled back into the Camaro, and for once Max didn’t even mind sitting in the back. Billy let Jack pick the music (“But not any of that Bonnie Tyler crap, Jesus, man”), which was nice cause she and Jack liked the same songs. The Mamas and the Papas sang California Dreamin’ as Max pressed her sun-warmed cheeks to the cold glass and watched the lights blur all the way back to Santa Monica.
She took her Mickey ears off when they got to Jack’s place, for something to do. Both Jack and Billy got out like always, even though Billy didn’t really need to. It’s not like he had to walk Jack to the door like he was some girl. Max rubbed her thumb over the cheap Mickey patch and didn’t look out the window until her car door squeaked open.
“Get in the front, Maxine, I’m not a fucking Taxi service.”
She slammed the passenger side door a little harder than she should, but Billy didn’t say anything. He never did after they dropped Jack off.
When they got home, Max barely had a hand on the car door before Billy snatched the ears from her lap.
“Billy!” she whined in the way that made her sound like a stupid baby, but she couldn’t help it when Billy was being an asshole.
He tossed the ears into the back seat and huffed, like she was the unreasonable one. “You can bring it to school or something, Jesus. But you never went to Disneyland, got it? We were at the pier all day, just you and me.”
“Yeah, whatever.” She kicked the door open with her heal the way Billy hated. He lurched across the console and grabbed her arm. “Stop!” Billy was so dumb.
“Promise me, Maxine.” She hated the way his voice got when he said that, and he was always saying it, all serious, like the way he said, yes, sir, when Neil got sharp and ugly.
“I promise, okay? Let go!”
Billy let go, and Max was out the door before he could ruin the best day of her life with more of his stupid promises. She was so sick of them building up inside her. She was sick of finding other things to look at.
***
It’s June 23, 1985. Two-hundred and fifty-three days since the worst thing Max ever did, except she’s trying not to think like that anymore, not now, with the cold thawed out and the water not so bad even if it is dark and brown with gunk at the bottom.
It’s a good night. All the boys and El and the older kids and Will’s mom and Chief Hopper at the closest thing Hawkins has to a beach, the edge of a lake thirty minutes from town. There’s a bonfire almost dying, and before the sun went down, when everyone was laughing and pushing each other in the water, Lucas whispered in her ear that he really, really liked her. So, it was a good night, at first.
It happens when she’s lying on a towel she stole from Dustin, who’s too busy bothering the older kids over something to notice, and staring at the sky, which isn’t as big as California’s because the trees block most of it, even here by the edge of the lake. Still, it’s not so bad, clearer without all the lights from the pier and more stars than she thought existed.
She’s not thinking about much, still sort of glowing from the thing Lucas said. And then El’s just there beside her in the sand that’s really more like dirt, staring through the semi-dark with her big, solemn, Bambi eyes.
“Safe and warm,” says El in her stutter-stop way, like a baby just learning to talk. Max likes El, mostly, but that doesn’t mean she’s not still creepy, all wide-eyed and too still, especially in the middle of the woods at night.
But, whatever, Max thinks, that is sort of what she’s feeling, if she was gonna be all weird about it.
“Yeah,” she says and hopes that’s the last of it, like maybe El will run back to Mike and leave Max alone to think about Lucas’s voice so close to her ear. But El doesn’t leave, just gets more still, if that’s even possible, and puts a hand on her chest like she’s a Victorian widow about to faint.
“I’d be safe and warm,” she says, as if it’s a line from a play she’s quoting, which is just so weird and everything about El is so weird.
But Max just says, “Sure, okay,” because she just got into The Party for real, and she’s been trying really had not to mention the fact that El is so creepy, because if she does she knows Mike will force a revote and make her leave.
El stares and stares with her giant eyes, and Max is seconds away from calling the others, trying to get some backup over here, when El says,
“Who is Jack?”
Which doesn’t make any sense, because she doesn’t know anything, barely knows how to read, and definitely doesn’t know anything about Max, since they just met. There’s no way she could know about Jack because Max has never, ever said his name, not ever, not here in Hawkins, Indiana.
She’s thinking about how she hasn’t heard that name out loud in two-hundred and fifty-two days, and then things go a little grey around the edges. Something in Max goes sideways, stuck, like Will says, between two worlds. It’s so easy, suddenly, to slip back into thirteen-year-old Max, who didn’t know shit, just a stupid little girl who doesn’t know shit about the real world.
One second she’s flat on the towel in the dirt and the next she’s up, two hands gripping El’s shoulders, hard, hard enough to leave red finger marks that’ll probably turn blue. She knows because Billy’s gripped her like that, too, is gripping her now with his shaking hands, so, so pale, from the anger and maybe something else, screaming, don’t you say that, don’t you—
“—say his name, you keep his name out of your mouth!”
El’s eyes are so wide, but not scared, just confused, like Max is a word she doesn’t know yet.
“Jack?” El says again, and—
Billy is red, red, red, his hands and his face, plus there’s blood on his shirt like he just left a fight, and Jack’s gonna be mad about that, probably, except Billy’s eyes are red too and maybe that’s not from a fight, but something Max did, something so bad her bones don’t really get it yet, something so bad it hasn’t sunk in, just the feeling that she shouldn’t have done it, she really, really shouldn’t have done it. Billy’s not done yelling, Max thinks maybe he won’t ever stop, I’ll kill you, you think I won’t, I’ll do it, don’t say—
“—his name ever again, don’t you dare—”
A whoosh in the air and heavy thump like the time she fell back, flat, into the public pool and Billy had to fish her out from the bottom cause her lungs forgot to work. It hurts in a distance way, but all Max can see are the endless, too-stark Indiana stars stretching all into the trees. Voices start bleeding on her like Joni’s bitter wine.
“What the fuck was that? What was that, what the fuck—”
“Dustin, shut up, man—”
“You’re telling me to shut up right now—”
“Guys, be quiet, holy shit, someone go check on her—”
“I’m not going, she’s crazy, she’s gone rogue, dude—"
“Max? Sweetheart, can you hear me, can you sit up, Max—”
There’s a hand on her shoulder but it’s not so hard this time. She thinks for a second, maybe, because no one’s called her sweetheart in a really long time, like, two-hundred and fifty-three days at least, so maybe El killed her, which is really okay.
But then things start getting a little less blurred, and it’s just Will’s mom, all dark eyes and concern, her face gold-yellow from the fire still dying out.
“Are you with us, honey?”
There are other faces in the dark, too. Max can see the edges of Lucas and one of the older kids, Steve, maybe, fading in and out with the dancing shadows.
“Yeah,” she tries to say through her stupid mouth, but she fucks it up like everything else and stutters, “I didn’t tell,” which is true this time, even if it wasn’t before.
I didn’t tell, I didn’t, Billy, I swear, I didn’t tell—just lies crawling out from the animal thing inside her that wanted to live, even though she didn’t deserve to.
“Didn’t tell who, sweetheart?”
She’s not really crying, but her face is cold with something and also hot. She really wishes Fisher Price were here, so Joni could cry instead, that’s how much it hurts to look at all the faces in the dark and know that, after everything, she scared them, and to know that they know even though she hasn’t said a word for two-hundred and fifty-two days.
“I never told her that,” she says, fourteen again now, and burning up, a little angry but mostly with shame because, how fucking embarrassing, they’re never gonna invite her back again. Still, it’s not fair that— “She just took that from my brain.”
“El,” says Chief Hopper, all gruff. “We talked about that, remember? That’s a rule. No trespassing in people’s heads.”
“Not tress-passing,” says El, slow but fierce, “I was helping. Max is my friend.”
Which is nice and all and, any other day, Max would be thrilled, and mostly relieved, to hear that but it doesn’t seem to matter now that everything’s ruined. They’ll probably have to move again.
“Move?” says El.
“Stop,” says Max, because what the fuck were they just saying.
“El,” says Hopper, a warning. And then, after a beat of awkward silence where they all just stare at Max like she’s the crazy one, Hopper says, “Okay. Let’s call it a night, huh? Good,” and then he goes to douse the dying flames with a bucket of lake water.
One by one the boys drift away, gathering things or arguing over who’s supposed to be gathering things, until it’s just Max and El again.
“Sorry,” says El, “I pushed you. I looked.”
“I’m sorry, too,” says Max because she’s really trying to like El, and she’s really trying to do better, here in Hawkins. “For yelling at you and—and grabbing you, like that. Just. Don’t do it again. Don’t look.”
El nods solemnly and they’re silent as they head back to the group, until,
“But I can help.”
Max stops walking and El stops too, which is good because they need to sort this out, like, now.
“You can’t fix this, okay? So, don’t—go looking around in my head anymore, and don’t tell anyone. You want to help me? Don’t tell anyone what you saw,” and then, before she can stop herself, she adds, “Promise me,” the same awful way Billy used to.
“Promise,” says El.
But thirteen-year-old girls aren’t so good at keeping promises. Max knows that.
“Yeah? Well, what about Jack,” Lucas yells, and even with the breath sticking in Max’s throat and her eyes burning and the awful, ugly mean inside making her want to break something, she can still think clearly enough to know exactly who to blame.
It’s August 3, 1985. The Party’s hanging out at Steve Harrington’s house because Dustin sort of adopted him somehow, or maybe it’s the other way around. Either way, it means they get to use Steve’s pool when his parents aren’t home, which is pretty much all the time. Everything was popsicles and cannonballs and zero parent supervision, until Lucas pulled her aside and asked if they could talk.
Somehow in the five minutes since then, they’ve gone from whispered questions to Lucas screaming in her face about things he doesn’t know anything about.
It’s been two-hundred and ninety-three days since the worst thing she’s ever done, two-hundred and ninety-two days since anyone but El has said that name out loud. But no one’s ever said it quite like Lucas does just then, like Jack is something awful and ugly and mean.
Fuck you, Max wants to say, and, you don’t know shit, and you keep his name out of your mouth.
What she says instead, because she’s been trying so hard to be good, and also because her mouth doesn’t always get the words right when she feels like this, is, “What do you mean?”
“Jack’s your boyfriend, right? Back in California, that’s why you freaked out when El said his name at the lake. You still love him, don’t you?”
Max opens her mouth to say something—
***
“Jack’s your boyfriend, right?”
“Jesus Christ, Maxine, shut your fucking mouth.” The car behind them honked obnoxiously, probably cause Billy had stopped short at Max’s question, like a dumb drama queen.
“Alright, alright, you stupid fuck,” Billy muttered as the car passed them. He flipped them off before he flicked his gaze back to Max. His hands tightened around the wheel. “You know better than to say that shit,” he said lowly.
Max rolled her eyes. “We’re in the car, Billy. Who’s gonna hear?”
“It’s not about that,” he snarled and turned to look at her for too long, his eyes that scary-wide they got sometimes. Max glanced out the dashboard and tightened her grip on the door. Billy wasn’t watching the road.
“You don’t talk about that, ever, Max.”
“It’s just a question,” Max said, even though she knew she shouldn’t. No good ever came from talking back to Billy when he got like this, but he was such a fucking jerk and he couldn’t push her around just cause he was older. “It’s not even a big deal.”
“You don’t know shit about what’s a big deal. You’re just a stupid little girl who doesn’t know shit about the real world. You never know who could hear, and also it’s none of your goddamn business, got it?”
“Billy—”
“I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth, unless it’s ‘I got it, Billy.’ So, do you get it, Maxine?”
“Billy—”
“Do you get it?”
“Billy, watch the road!”
Billy swerved into the other lane just in time to keep from rear-ending the minivan in front of them.
They were silent for the next three miles or so, and then Billy said, “I’m serious, Max. Don’t ask that shit again.” Something in the way he said it that time, something like yes, sir, and promise me, made her say, “Fine. Whatever.”
So, Max never asked again. It’s not like she didn’t know the answer.
***
It’s not true, it isn’t ever going be true, but Max doesn’t care if Lucas thinks that, not really, what matters is—
“Who told you that,” she says, even though she already knows. She doesn’t like the way the words come out, dead-like, the way Billy talks at home, now, nothing left inside.
“Mike,” says Lucas, “And El told him, so I know it’s true, she’s a mind-reader.”
“El said—”
“She said you loved him still, and, like, missed him and everything. So, what are you doing with me if you’re in love with some other guy? That’s not fair to me, you know? Like, maybe we shouldn’t even be together if that’s true.”
Sometimes when things get too insane to be real, Max can sort of leave her body for a little while, like flying in a dream, a ghost trip. The problem is, enough of her gets left behind that she still walks around and talks and everything, she just doesn’t remember it so well after. It happened that night with demodogs, the night Billy almost killed Steve. She remembers watching herself grab the needle, remembers screaming and not much else.
She doesn’t know why it’s happening now. There’s no real danger, just Lucas knowing things no one’s allowed to know. They’re just in Steve’s kitchen, the other boys supposedly in the pool, but no doubt leaning against the swinging door, listening in and hearing things no one’s allowed to know.
So, she floats away, gets trapped around the ceiling fan and can’t do much but watch words come out of her own mouth.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” says the Max still talking to Lucas. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. He’s dead, okay? Happy?”
Lucas looks a little stunned, from what’s she saying but also probably how she’s saying it, that dead-talking again.
“Max, I didn’t—”
“I killed him,” says the other Max, because she never knows when to leave things alone. She’s always saying things she’s not supposed to, giving big, sharp secrets away.
“What?”
“So, maybe you’re right. We shouldn’t be together. I’ll just get you killed, too.”
“Max, wait, what—"
But the other Max is leaving, pushing the swinging kitchen door open and barreling over the idiots on the other side, listening in like she knew they were.
Max is stuck up on the ceiling, so she doesn’t know what happens after that, where that other Max goes. She watches Lucas race out of the room, hears the other boys yelling like usual. Then there’s just silence for a while, the buzzing from the fridge.
She wakes up in her bed hours later. She’s in her pajamas and it’s dark, the only sounds the stupid country crickets outside.
There’s a loud thump suddenly that makes her jump, makes her heart migrate up to her mouth. Something shatters down the hall, glass or porcelain, maybe a plate. Max closes her eyes and tries hard to remember what happened, just in case she did something fucking stupid again, but there’s nothing.
I killed him, she’d said, the last thing she remembers.
In the kitchen, something breaks.
When Max gets up the next morning, everything is spotless like usual, not a throw pillow out of place. Her mom makes breakfast like normal, reminds her to drink all of her milk, like normal. Billy’s seat at the table is empty, which isn’t allowed (breakfast is a family meal), but she doesn’t ask why.