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Tammy’s seven when she becomes aware that people who get married take their husband's name.
For the rest of the year, she writes Tammy Harrington in neat, perfect letters.
This would prove to be a pattern that would follow her.
***
“Holy moly,” she whispers, watching Steve shoot a perfect basket. “He’s so cool.”
“Oh please,” Heather says, sniffing when Tammy looks over. “I shoot better baskets on the double than he does.”
“Well, yeah,” Tammy says, before clasping her hands together and fluttering her eyelashes at Heather, just like she and Rachel had practiced in her mirror last week. “But he’s good at it for a boy.”
Heather shrugs, looking unimpressed. “He’s whatever. I’ve seen better.”
Tina laughs, loud and joyful, uncaring at the glares she receives for interrupting whatever game the boys are playing. “They just won’t let you join because they know you’ll kick their butts,” she says. “They’re a bunch of scaredy cats.”
Heather snickers and Tammy sighs, twisting back to watch, but even she can’t deny it— the boys are all scared of Heather, even Steve, but she thinks it’s kinda cute, how much he tries to pretend he isn’t.
***
“Hey,” Steve says, twisting around in his chair, shifting back to face her, the flop of his hair sending Tammy’s heart beating so fast she thinks she’s going to throw up for a moment before she sends him a shaky smile.
She doesn’t know what she’s done to have God grant her prayers, but she’d added a tiny line every night at the dinner table, her hand wrapped tight in her moms and gently laced with her sisters, please let me share a class with Steve Harrington, almighty God, and somehow it’d worked, the two of them together in not just english but also science.
And then, in a move so stunning she couldn’t believe that it’d really happened, Mr. Clarke had sat them across from each other in their little four-person clusters.
God is good, she can hear her father whispering and she decides to add in an extra line at supper just to make sure He knows.
“You were really good at the fall assembly,” Steve says, shaking her from her thoughts and grinning at her. “I didn’t know you could sing like that.”
“Oh,” she breathes out, her pulse thumping loudly in her ears. “Oh, thank you, that’s— that’s really kind of you to say.”
Steve shrugs, Tommy pulling his attention away as he yells his name from across the room, ignoring Mr. Clarke’s admonishments. “Not really,” he mutters, before tipping his chair back to call back to Tommy, the two of them devolving into snickers.
Oh my gosh, Tammy thinks, over and over again, unable to focus on anything else but the look in his eyes. Oh my gosh.
***
Tammy doesn't look away as Steve swaggers into the cafeteria, instead sighing dreamily. Beside her, Heather rolls her eyes, as annoyed as ever by her daydreaming, even as Tina and Rachel giggle together, whispering back and forth about who's the cutest out of the swim team.
"He's gonna break your heart," Heather says, quiet and serious, a tone to her voice that's normally reserved for 3 am during their sleepovers, when they're too tired to giggle and too sleepy to turn away from each other, and so they curl up facing each other instead and whisper secrets back and forth. "He's gonna— he's gonna hurt you, Tams," she says, and Tammy glances over at her. "Don't let him."
"Don't worry," Tammy says, blinking back at her. "I'll be fine."
Heather huffs, watching her for a long moment, the weight of her gaze so heavy Tammy can feel it on her skin.
"Okay," she finally says, nodding once, before she meets Tammy's gaze and lies. "I believe you."
***
The news that Nancy Wheeler is dating Steve Harrington sets Tammy off for weeks.
She doesn’t get what Steve likes about her— is it her smarts? Her big beautiful curls? The way she says you’re an idiot Steve Harrington?
She just— she could be so good for him. She knows it. She feels it in her bones.
And she’s not worried, not really. She also knows, just like her mom always says, if the Lord can lead you to it, He can lead you through it, and she’s got nothing but time and patience for Steve Harrington.
She’s not super excited to wait, but she can. She will.
***
She doesn’t know what happens, but whatever splits Steve from Tommy and Carol sends shockwaves through Hawkins High.
It’s a huge change, one that sends Heather back to flitting around Carol so she can pick up the details, while Tina asks the newspaper staff and Rachel asks the band kids.
No one seems to know what really happened, and even Carol’s being more tight-lipped than usual, but Tammy thinks she knows what’s happening even as she keeps quiet.
He’s just… waking up. Realizing what priorities he has.
Change is afoot, Tammy knows. And hopefully— hopefully, it’s the kind of change she’s been praying for, for years.
***
She doesn’t like to think about the Billy Hargrove situation. It sits in her stomach, an uneasy roiling of nerves, when she thinks about how he caged her in, tried to sweet talk her into going out with him, like she and all the other girls don’t know his whole shtick is getting one over Steve.
It’s stupid and weird and it makes her skin prickle when she thinks about the heavy weight of his gaze.
Don’t give the Devil a chance, her dad whispers as she avoids Billy’s fever-bright eyes, the curl of cruelty around his mouth, and no one notices when she holds tighter to her books and walks a little faster.
***
“Oh my god,” Tina breathes out, interrupting Rachel’s monologue about science class, (which thank god, because Tammy has no idea what she’s even talking about— she doesn’t care, she’s going to Nashville), and taps on the window with a bright red nail. “Is that Steve Harrington with a bunch of kids?”
“Oh my gosh,” Tammy says, whirling to look and sighing as Steve reaches out and ruffles one of the kids' hair. “He’s just so—”
Rachel blows a bubble at her, the snap of it cutting off her words. “We know,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Like, everyone knows but Steve.”
Tammy props her chin in her hands and sighs again, unwilling to let anyone’s jealousy drag her down.
“He’s going to make such a good househusband for me,” she says dreamily. “I’m gonna become rich and famous and he’s gonna stay at home and take care of the kids and it’s gonna be perfect.”
***
Tammy Thompson has three goals in her senior year. 1— go to Nashville and become a singer. 2— get the secret from Nancy Wheeler as to how she has such perfect curls and, while she was at it, ask her some... other questions.
Because her third goal, the reason, kind of, for the other two is that she, Tamara Megan Thompson, is going to marry Steve Harrington one day. And it’s going to be absolutely and utterly perfect.
***
She sits in the same place every day, her and the girls— out on the lawn by the track field, close enough to ogle, but far enough to not have it be obvious— and she’s checking her teeth in her little compact mirror, making sure there’s no lipstick in her smile, when a hush falls across everyone.
She snaps the compact shut, her lashes fluttering as she prepares to make an excuse to Coach Sutton about why they should be allowed to hang out here, because also it like totally isn’t hurting anyone, and the boys run faster when they think they’re being watched, but her words falter in her throat as she realizes that it’s Steve standing in front of them.
“Hey,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking uneasy, and Tammy knows she shouldn’t feel it— pride cometh before the fall, her mother whispers to her— but it’s still good that he has enough sense to know that he’s overstepping, just a little bit.
Because like, if he’s going to ask her to prom, she was kind of expecting a little more… oomph to it. A little more pizzaz. A little more of the sophomore King Steve and a little less of the tired exhausted senior Steve.
“Hey,” she says, straightening up and quirking her mouth into a smile. “What’s up?”
He blinks at her, looking dazed, and she is barely holding back her squeals of excitement because she knew it, her smile isn’t too dazzling, it’s just enough, and fuck Rachel for even saying that and—
“Can I talk to you?” Steve says, looking even more uncertain, before clearing his throat. “Uh. Away from… here?”
She nods, relieved, because of course, the actual surprise of the ask is set up somewhere else. That’s— she’s so silly for thinking otherwise.
She pushes herself up, biting back the grin that rises as he turns and heads off, twisting to see Rachel whisper you go girl, as Tina reaches out and smooths out her skirt, whispering knock his socks off, Heather flashing the sharp grin that she knows means she’s happy for her, and she lets herself suck in a deep breath before she follows.
Just say yes, she chants at herself, as he lingers for her to catch up. She pointedly doesn’t look around for the balloons, for the band, for the surprise, and instead keeps herself focused fully on Steve. Just say yes, she repeats. No screaming.
“Sorry,” Steve says, and it’s so surprising that she pauses, because that’s not— “I didn’t, you were all just staring at me, and I got nervous.” He flushes, running a hand through his hair, and Tammy aches to do the same. “I just— do you have the notes? For Mrs. Click’s?”
Every thought in Tammy’s head screeches to a stop.
Steve clearly doesn’t notice, his words fading to a buzz as he keeps talking, something about a dustpan and something about being distracted and then something else she abruptly doesn’t care about because god damn it’s exhausting being her.
“Yeah,” she says, cutting him off mid-sentence, and she doesn’t— can’t— give a fuck if she’s ruining her chances with her beloved potential househusband, but also, in the back of her mind, something whispers, doesn’t everyone love an enemies-to-lovers arc, and she turns, heading back to the blanket.
Rachel, Heather, and Tina clearly know something is up, given the way they narrow their eyes at her, before turning their stony-eyed glares on Steve who’s meekly followed her back over.
She bends down, not even bothering to put on a show like she would’ve before, and rifles through her bag until she can find the notes he’s looking for, and yanks them out, offering them up to him with a small smile.
“Give ‘em back to me on Monday?” she offers when he just watches her for a beat, the wind ruffling the pages.
“Sure,” he says warily, but reaches out and takes them regardless. “Thanks, Tammy.”
She nods, swallowing down the urge to blurt out so it’s a no to prom? and instead just watches silently as he heads off, before settling back down onto the blanket with a sigh.
For a long moment, none of them speak, before Tina clears her throat.
“So he… didn’t ask. And instead wanted… notes?”
Tammy nods, and chokes on a laugh as Heather swears from beside her.
“That fucking bastard.”
Tammy shrugs, her eyes still tracking Steve’s form as he heads into the school. “Most people who get together in high school don’t stay together,” she murmurs as he disappears through a door. “When he asks, I want it to be real.”
***
Tammy’s crying. Ugly crying— sobbing really, and she knows it’s ruining her vocal cords. and that she’s not supposed to be making wailing noises like this, and that everyone was so put off by her that her own mom told her to go outside, and—
She knows it all and she doesn’t give a single fuck.
How could she give a fuck?
Heather’s fucking dead.
Heather’s fucking dead, and she’s never going to hear her little raspy laugh, or watch the way her head tilted right before she eviscerated someone for being mean to them, and Tammy’s never going to tease her about her ice cream choices again, and Heather’s never going to make fun of Steve Harrington in his stupid little sailor hat again, because she’s— she’s dead and cold and in the fucking ground and Tammy— Tammy can’t do this without her.
Tammy thought— well, she doesn’t know what she thought, but she knows she never expected Heather to be gone like this.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she says, sniffling in the alleyway next to the funeral home, and she swallows down the urge to scream again, because none of this is fair— she and Heather and Tina and Rachel were out, they were leaving August 12th and they were going to fucking— it doesn’t even matter because they were gone.
And it’s so—
It’s so fucking unfair that Heather will never leave. That Heather will remain here, buried in the stupid rot of Hawkins, festering under the pumpkin patches and becoming nothing, and it— it’s times like these that she understands why people love those insane rock songs so much, because all she wants to do is scream and at least if there was music then it’d make sense and—
She kicks at the brick wall, desperate for a scrap of physical pain, some manifestation of everything she’s feeling inside, but she’s still wearing the stupid pink kitten heels she and Heather had picked out for her college interview, and the soft suede just scuffs along the brick— no pain spilling down her nerves and that’s not good enough so she reels back and throws her fist as hard as she can at the wall.
“Hey,” someone says, grabbing at her hand, and she peels her eyes open to find Steve Harrington staring at her with worry in his eyes. “Hey,” he says again, quieter as his fingers smooth across her knuckles, and Tammy is— she’s so fucking tired of it all.
She wants to ask him why he’s here, why he cares, because he’s dressed in a neatly pressed suit and he looks grief-stricken in a way that Tammy recognizes from the mirror, but she can’t summon up the words.
Instead, tiny little splintering whispers spill out from her mouth, the vowels splitting in her mouth like shards of glass:
“Heather was supposed to make it out.”
She blinks, the ache of it settling under her tongue, at the base of her spine, a damp heavy feeling that she never thinks she will ever walk without.
“You don’t— you don’t get it,” she spits out, furious and angry with him, with this beautiful boy who she’s loved and lost without even understanding how. “You can go, you can leave, and Heather— Heather can never leave again.”
Steve blinks at her, wet tears smearing her vision, but she thinks that he looks even more grief-stricken than before, like she’s wrenched some valve on his heart, set his house on fire, destroyed the last bit of okay-ness he was carrying.
“And I know— I know that she wasn’t just killed in a fire,” Tammy says abruptly, because she’s not stupid , and everyone and their mother knows that Hawkins is cursed, like for real. That monsters linger in the shadows and that people die every year and that she’s never ever to go near the lab, but like, she didn’t care, because it never touched her. It never stole from her, it never dragged its hand of death across her doorstep.
She’d felt, for a long long time, like her and her friends were blessed. Like blood was smeared above her doorframe, like God had kept her safe because she was on a holy and chosen route.
But now, now, she knows.
God was never watching her. It was all just stupid shitty luck. And now Heather’s—
Heather’s dead. She’s so fucking dead.
Tammy shudders, wrenching her hand out of Steve’s, and burying her face into her hands before she crouches down, awkwardly settling onto the sun-warmed pavement.
“Just— just leave me alone,” she says, biting her tongue so hard it starts to bleed. “Just go away, Steve Harrington, and leave me alone.”
She doesn't peel her hands away from her face, just sits, sprawled out exhaustedly against the ground and the brick, waiting for him to leave.
Instead, through the gaps in her fingers, she watches him crouch down next to her, his hand hovering over her knees like he’s going to touch, and wouldn’t that just be so terrible, to be comforted by this stupid boy— everything she’s ever wanted all at the cost of her best friend.
He doesn’t though, instead curling his hand up and staying crouched by her.
“I’m—” he starts, before faltering, as she watches his knees through her hands. “Tammy. This… this fucking sucks. And I just— you should get out of Hawkins before it swallows you too.”
She lifts her head up, swallowing down the venom that’s pooling in her mouth, the tiny little reflecting mirrors of Heather that she’s fashioned over the years, the bite that she’s learned from her friends, and instead, stares at him.
She takes him in, completely, refusing to hide behind the veneer of her crush for another moment as she traces her eyes around his dark circles and the bruises that still litter his skin from whatever scrap he’s found himself in this time.
She refuses to let the swoon of imagining Steve defending her sweep her up like it normally does, and instead makes herself take it in— the yellowing bruises, the way one eyelid of his lowers before the other, the tightness around his mouth that belies the way he’s hurt.
“Shit,” she says after a long moment, the vulgarity tasting like freedom in her mouth. “You’re never leaving this town, are you Steve?”
He blinks at her again, and shrugs, but Tammy can read the set of his shoulders because she hasn’t spent all this time simply wanting him and hasn’t learned how to read the smaller details.
“Shit,” she says again, balling her hands up and glaring up at him. “Don’t let yourself die here,” she says, because she doesn’t know how else to process the fact that she’s spent years building him up to this perfect person only to find his biggest flaw in the final hour. “Don’t become another victim to the—” she gestures towards the woods, unsure if it’s the devil like her parents mutter about or a monster like the one she still sometimes thinks lives in her closet. “Just,” she shrugs, worn and weary and still so angry she feels like she could fracture down the middle with it. “Keep yourself safe.”
He nods after a long beat, looking like he’s finally seen her for the first time, and she wants to cry, because who knew the secret to getting Steve Harrington to pay attention to you was simply looking pathetic.
She pushes herself up, watching him for a moment, as he stays crouched down for a beat before slowly rising to his full height.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she says, sniffling. “But I kind of never want to see you again.” She waits for him to say something, for some defense to leap from his mouth, but instead, he nods again, solemnly.
“Alrighty then,” she says, blinking back the tears, the ghost of Heather on her shoulder as that bastard echoes on the wind. “I’m—” she cuts herself off and shrugs, before nodding at him once and turning on her heel, heading back inside.
***
Tammy doesn’t even know what drove her to accept the offer to sing the national anthem at the championship game.
She thinks she’s looking for kindness in the offer, even though she knows she’s really looking for Heather.
Heather, who more often than not was sharp and jagged, cutting people to the quick. Heather, who could’ve dribbled circles around the men’s team, Heather, who haunts her thoughts just as often as Steve does.
Just as often as Steve did, she reminds herself. He doesn’t haunt them anymore. She won’t let him.
Not now. Not here.
And as she looks up and locks eyes with herself in her childhood bedroom, the glass streaked and dusty, she vows, just like she has since that day out in the alleyway, that’s she over him.
For good.
Forever.
***
Ten Years Later
***
It’s embarrassing how hard she’s laughing when she stumbles into Steve again, her body swaying down the aisle, a box of off-brand Lucky Charms under her arm, and tears in her eyes from the joke Jake’s made.
He catches her easily, his hands warm against her shoulder as she squeaks out an apology and wipes the tears from her face, pulling back as she registers just who she’s thumped into.
“Oh, my— sorry, Steve—” she gets out.
Jake catches up to them a moment later, a pleased grin on his face as he settles next to her, clearly happy to have made her laugh through her nerves about being back in Hawkins.
“Thanks for the assist,” he says, extending a hand to Steve who shakes it with a befuddled look on his face. “Tam gets laughing and she can’t stop sometimes.” He winks at her when she sends an elbow into his ribs, before turning his attention back to Steve whose small smile is growing. “I’m Jake, Tam’s boyfriend.”
Tammy rolls her eyes. “More like my perpetual problem,” she says, smirking when he mouths the next words, before going completely still as Steve laughs quietly.
“Like from your song,” he says, grinning brightly at her before turning back to Jake. “I’m Steve,” he says, before shrugging. “I don’t really have a title.”
Jake laughs, easy-going as always, before flicking a look at her, and she doesn’t even have to look at him to know what he’s thinking, that low drawl of this is the boy you were all tangled up about?
She shrugs, blushing faintly, and turns back to Steve. “I didn’t know you were a fan,” she says, before she cringes. “God, listen to me, that’s so— sorry,” she says again as Jake reaches out and swings an arm around her, pressing a kiss to her temple. “I didn’t— being back here is hard.”
Steve nods, something like a grimace crawling across his face. “Yeah,” he says softly. “I know the feeling.” She squints at him and he shrugs, a faint blush rising across his face. “Not that I really ever left but, yeah, it’s still hard to be here. Even after all these years.”
He brightens, perking up. “But we hear your music on the radio all the time here,” he says, sounding so genuinely thrilled that Tammy wants to swoon, just a little bit, still somehow not fully immune to the Steve Harrington charm. “Sounds like you’re making a real name for yourself.”
Tammy laughs, her nerves dissolving as Jake grins beside her. “She’s the best voice they have on air right now,” he says, looking so proud of her, she can feel her eyes beginning to tear up again, because god damn does she love Jake, before she sighs as he leans in towards Steve. “Be on the lookout for new music next month,” he says, widening his eyes before he winks once, ignoring the way she thumps him in the ribs, because no one’s supposed to know that yet. “It can be our little secret.”
Steve grins, nodding along, before someone’s voice calling for him bursts their little bubble. “I’ve— I’ve got to go,” he says, waving to a girl who appears at the end of the aisle, her face hazily familiar to Tammy before she squeaks and disappears from view. “Sorry about her,” he says fondly. “She’s… nervous around famous people.”
Tammy laughs, shaking her head. “I’m not really famous,” she says, but beams back when Steve shrugs.
“You’re famous to us,” he says, before nodding to her and Jake. “It was nice to see you, Tammy,” he says, meeting her gaze once more. “I hope you have a good time here as long as you stay.”
“Thanks,” Tammy says, smiling softly back at him, and doesn’t let it phase her how much this sounds like a real, true, and final goodbye to Steve Harrington. “I hope you’re good too.”
Steve grins at her and bobs his head, before he trots off down the aisle, Tammy’s eyes following him until he rounds the corner.
“That’s the guy?” Jake mutters, reaching out as she turns to look at him, his hands gentle and steady as he adjusts the flower he’d tucked behind her ear earlier. “Who you were hung up on all of high school?”
Tammy grins at him, grateful for how easy he’s making everything, all the big waves of her life smoothing out into gentle lapping around him, before she shrugs.
“We were different people,” she says simply, curling a finger around the belt loop of his jeans, and she doesn’t need to say anything else, because that’s all it was at the end of the day.
They were— are— different people. And she thought, for a long time, that she could become what he needed, could magically unspool the secret to his love and weave it into her veins.
And instead, here they are, just friendly strangers in a grocery store aisle.
And how kind, she finds herself thinking as Jake steers the two of them over to the flowers, a grin on his face and love in his eyes as he glances down at her, as she catches sight of Steve over his shoulder, a smirk on his face as he talks to the girl from the aisle, the two of them clearly content, to even have that.