Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Thursday, June 19th, 1986 

You and I must make a pact
We must bring salvation back

Where there is love, I’ll be there (I’ll be there) 

“Thank you,” Melissa said into the phone. 

Her voice was calm. That was the first thing Max noticed during the call, because it was wrong. Not wrong like false niceties. Melissa Buckley didn’t operate that way. It also wasn’t the kind of bright, brittle grown-up voices that tried too hard to sound reassuring and only ended up making everything worse. Melissa was not pretending as if nothing was wrong. That was almost worse, really. She sounded exactly like herself. Steady. Gentle. Careful. 

Her fingers curled around the receiver. Her other hand rested flat against the little table by the phone, palm pressed down as if she were keeping the whole house from tipping sideways through sheer force of will from the cosmos. Her shoulders were tight beneath her blouse. A few strands of blonde hair had worked loose near her temple. She did not move them. 

“No, I understand,” Melissa said. 

Max stared at the stack of letters on the coffee table. She had not put them there. Melissa had, very gingerly. Like they were breakable. Which was stupid, because they were just paper. Paper and envelopes and stamps and her own stupid handwriting staring back at her in a dozen different slants and moods. Paper did not break. Paper tore. Paper burned. Paper crumpled. Paper got wet and turned limp and useless. It did not break. It didn’t split open the middle of a chest and leave everything raw. 

The red stamp across the top envelope sat there like a wound. 

RETURN TO SENDER. 

The words looked bored. Mechanical. Like somebody in a post office had slammed them down between a phone bill and a wedding invitation and a dentist reminder and never once paused to think maybe this one mattered. Maybe this one was a girl trying. Maybe this one had taken shaky hands and too many false starts and dozens of nights at the Buckleys’ kitchen table to exist in the first place. 

Max’s fingers curled against the couch cushion. 

She did not look toward the kitchen. She knew Robin and Nancy were there. She had known the entire time Melissa had been on the phone. Robin had rinsed the same glass so many times it should have dissolved by now. Nancy had dried it. Put it down. Picked it up again. A drawer had opened. A cabinet had closed. Neither of them had actually said much. They were pretending to do kitchen things. 

They were listening. Everybody was listening. Max hated that. She also hated the thought of being alone for it. 

That was the stupid part. The weak part. The part that made something hot and ugly twist up inside her ribs until she wanted to claw it out before anybody could see. She did not want them here. She did not want them gone. 

“Thank you for explaining,” Melissa said softly. “I appreciate your time.” 

Max already knew. 

She had known before Melissa called. She had known when she first saw the letters bundled together with the rubber band around them. She had known when Melissa said, very gently, that maybe they ought to make sure there had not been some mistake with the address. She had known because Melissa had not said, I’m sure there’s an explanation. Melissa was exactly the kind of person who usually left room for explanations. 

This time she had not. 

There was an explanation. It was just the kind that made Max feel like swallowing glass. 

Melissa set the receiver back into its cradle. The tiny click sounded huge. For one long second, nobody spoke. 

The refrigerator hummed in the kitchen. A car rolled down the street outside. Somewhere deeper in the house the pipes creaked. Robin’s breathing was too fast. Nancy’s was quieter, but only because Nancy was trying harder. 

Max wondered what her own face was doing. Nothing, hopefully. Probably nothing. She worked to make sure of it. Flattened her mouth. Loosened her shoulders. Let one knee bounce because bouncing a knee was normal. That was just being annoyed. Restless. Whatever. 

Just paper. Just envelopes. Just a bunch of stupid letters she had been stupid enough to write. 

Melissa turned from the phone and looked at her. That look nearly did her in. It was not pity. Max could have handled pity. She could have rolled her eyes at pity. Snapped at it. Bared her teeth at it until the other person backed off, embarrassed they had tried. 

This was not pity. This was Melissa Buckley looking at her like Max had been handed something too heavy for a kid to carry and Melissa knew she could not just take it away without making it worse.

Max’s throat tightened. She hated that too. 

“The address was right,” Melissa said. Her voice stayed even. It didn’t tremble. It didn’t go flat in tone. But it was careful. 

Max nodded once. She knew. She already knew. This was just confirmation of what she already knew. 

“The letters arrived there.” Melissa moved back toward the couch but did not sit too close. “They were held for a while.” 

For a while. That was worse than if they had gone back right away. Right away could have been some rule. Some stupid rehab policy. Some clerical mix-up. Some adult bullshit that had nothing to do with Max personally. 

For a while meant they sat there. 

For a while meant somebody had told Susan Mayfield that her daughter had written and Susan had time to think about it. 

“They were declined,” Melissa said softly. 

Max blinked. That was all. Just one blink. The walls didn’t shake. The ceiling didn’t split. The floor did not crack open into red light and ash and vines. Vecna did not crawl out of the corners wearing Billy’s face or her mother’s face or her own. 

Nothing happened. Of course nothing happened. 

Melissa kept speaking, because facts had that awful habit of continuing to exist even after they should have had the decency to stop. 

“After enough accumulated, the facility sent them back through the post office.” 

Enough. Max’s eyes flicked to the stack. She had written more than enough. 

At first she had written because people kept saying Susan was getting help. And Max was supposed to want that, right? She did want that. Sort of. In theory. In the abstract. She wanted Susan not to be drunk on the couch. She wanted Susan not to cry into ashtrays. She wanted Susan not to smell like cigarettes and vodka and panic. She wanted Susan not to look straight through Max like Max had turned into another bill on the counter. Another thing too ugly to face. 

So she had written. 

I’m awake. 

I’m staying with Robin’s family. 

I miss you…

I’m okay. 

That last one had been a lie at least half the time, but it felt like the kind of lie you were supposed to tell your mother. The kind that gave her something to hold onto. The kind that maybe opened the door for her to write back. 

Max had written about physical therapy. About days her physical therapy overlapped with Chrissy’s. She had written that her vision still got weird sometimes. She had written each time she could walk a little farther than she could in April, ride her bike longer into the evening, do more on her skateboard than just ride it somewhere. She had written that Melissa made tea that tasted like dirt but was somehow still kind of nice. She had written that Robin talked in her sleep and once half-yelled at Steve - in French - in a dream for scooping ice cream wrong. 

She had not written about waking up in the dark with her heart trying to punch through her ribs. She had not written about hearing bones snap in her head whenever a branch cracked outside. She had not written Billy’s name once. 

She had tried. She had tried to breach the gulf between them. Stupid. God, she was so stupid. 

“Phone calls are allowed, and…they have been for some time,” Melissa said. 

Max’s knee stopped bouncing. 

In the kitchen, something made a small sound. Knuckles against the counter, maybe. Robin. Nancy. Both. 

Melissa’s face softened in a way that made Max want to get up and run before the next sentence landed. 

“She refused to come to the phone.” 

Max laughed. It came out once. Sharp and ugly and too loud. Not a real laugh. Not even close. 

Then she stopped, because if she did it again she might start crying and that was not happening. That was absolutely not happening. Not on the Buckleys’ couch with the letters right there and Robin and Nancy listening from the kitchen like she was some bomb they were all praying would not go off while they tried to dismantle it. 

Melissa’s eyes shone. 

Max looked away fast. Nope. No. Absolutely not. She was not doing this. She was not going to cry because her mother did not want to hear that she was awake. That she could walk and ride her bike and do tricks on her skateboard. That she was not dead. That she was not only not dead, but very much alive and thriving. Damnit.

That was pathetic. 

Max was not pathetic. She was pissed. Because that was better. Anger. Anger had teeth. Anger sat straight in her spine. Anger made her hands want to curl into fists instead of shake. Anger let her stare at the red stamp and think, fine, fuck you too, instead of why. 

Why was there a supermassive black hole. Max was not stepping into it. 

Melissa sat beside her. Not too close. Several seconds passed. Max counted them without meaning to. 

One. 

Two. 

Three. 

Four. 

Five. 

Six. 

Seven. 

Melissa shifted. Max saw her hand before she felt it. Melissa always did that now. She showed the movement first. A hand before it landed on a shoulder. A knock before entering a room. A pause before a hug. An offer before a blanket. 

It was ridiculous how much that made everything worse sometimes. 

Melissa’s hand settled gently over Max’s. Warm. Light. No pressure except the soft squeeze of her fingers. 

Max stared down at it. 

I’ll reach out my hand to you
I’ll have faith in all you do
Just call my name and I’ll be there (I’ll be there)

Melissa’s nails were short and clean. There was a tiny crescent of blue ink smudged along her thumb from work or a pen or something. Max had no idea why she noticed that. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Melissa asked. 

The room tilted. Something rushed up Max’s throat so fast she nearly choked on it. She wanted to scream. She wanted to laugh again. She wanted to grab the letters and rip them into pieces too small for anyone to ever read. 

She wanted to march them right back to the post office and mail them again. And again. And again. Until Susan had to look. 

She wanted Billy alive so she could punch him. 

She wanted Neil dead. 

She wanted to go back to California. 

She wanted to never hear the word ‘mother’ again. 

She wanted Robin. 

She wanted Nancy. 

She wanted Lucas, suddenly and horribly, so hard it hurt. 

Mostly she wanted out. Of her own skin entirely, if possible. 

“No,” Max blurted. The word came out too loud. 

Melissa did not flinch. That almost made it worse. 

Max stood too fast, yanking her hand away, but Melissa had already let go. There was no grip. No tug. No Maxine, sit down. No fingers digging into her wrist. No adult trying to hold her there to make themselves feel useful. 

Max’s chest rose once, hard. She turned toward the stairs. Then stopped. 

Her whole body hated her for stopping. Every part of her wanted to keep going. Up the stairs. Into Robin’s room. Out the window if she had to. Anywhere but here with the couch and the letters and Melissa’s heartbreak wearing a calm face. 

But she stopped anyway. She turned back. 

Melissa was still sitting there. Her hands had folded in her lap, like she didn’t know what to do with them if Max would not let her help. 

Max swallowed. “Thank you,” she said. Her voice sounded awful. Scraped raw. Flattened thin. 

Melissa’s face changed. Only a little. Enough that Max had to leave before it finished happening. She took the stairs fast, feet hitting wood hard enough to almost echo. Her hand slapped the banister. Her hair swung into her face. At the top of the stairs she did not look back. 

She went into her room and shut the door behind her. She didn’t slam the door, just shut it. That was growth, probably. Right? 

Max hated that too. 

And oh, I’ll be there to comfort you
Build my world of dreams around you, I’m so glad that I found you 

Robin had never wanted to set a phone on fire before. There were lots of things she had wanted to do to phones. Avoid them. Fear them. Stare at them while willing them to ring. Stare at them while willing them not to ring. Wrap the cord around her wrist until the plastic spirals left marks in her skin because she was waiting to call Nancy and had somehow forgotten how time worked. 

But fire was new. Robin wanted to pick up the Buckley house phone, dial the rehab facility in Florida, and pour every thought in her head through the line until Susan Mayfield drowned in them. 

Nancy’s hand tightened around hers. 

Right. 

Robin had apparently started forward. She hadn’t meant to. Her feet had simply gone without checking in with the rest of her body first. Which, in fairness, happened often enough that it should not have surprised her. Usually it ended with her walking into a display or tripping over perfectly level ground, not charging into the living room ready to commit verbal manslaughter while a fourteen-year-old girl tried not to shatter. 

Nancy gave the tiniest shake of her head. 

Robin stopped. It took effort. It took even more effort when Max said No. It took almost everything when Max turned back and thanked Melissa like she had to get the gratitude out before the grief swallowed it whole. 

Then Max was gone. 

Robin’s hand stayed in Nancy’s for one more second. 

Nancy squeezed once. “Give her a minute,” She whispered. Then she let go. 

Robin frowned. 

There were several reasons for that. Max. Susan. Florida. The letters. The fact that Nancy had let go of her hand. The fact that Robin noticed immediately that Nancy had let go of her hand, which was deeply embarrassing because they had only been officially this, whatever this gorgeous impossible terrifying thing was, for less than a week and Robin’s entire nervous system had apparently already decided Nancy Wheeler’s hand counted as infrastructure. 

Robin crossed her arms. “I’m going to call them back,” she announced. 

Nancy looked at her. “Robin,” she said. 

Melissa exhaled from the living room. 

“No, no, I am. I am going to call them back and I am going to very politely, very reasonably, very eloquently inform whoever answers that they need to put Susan Mayfield on the phone immediately so I can ask what the hell is wrong with her, and then, depending on the quality of the answer, I will decide whether I remain polite, reasonable, and eloquent or branch out into a more experimental communication style involving volume and several words my mother definitely taught me not to say as a child.” 

“I did technically inadvertently teach you some of those words,” Melissa said, and she sounded so tired Robin nearly stopped being angry for half a second. Nearly. 

“Good,” Robin said. “Then I’ll make you proud.” 

Melissa stood and crossed the room. She set both hands on Robin’s shoulders. Robin’s anger did not disappear. It just crashed around inside her with nowhere to go. 

“Stardust,” Melissa said softly. 

Robin clenched her jaw. 

“That hurt belongs to Max first,” Melissa said. “We can be angry for her. We can be furious. We can be ready if she asks us. But we do not get to decide what happens next for her.” 

Robin hated that. She hated it because it was right. 

Nancy came in from the kitchen, folding her arms across herself. Her face had gone tight in the way it did when she was holding back an entire war plan behind her teeth. 

“She might not come back right away,” Nancy said. 

Melissa looked toward the stairs. 

For one second she looked less like Melissa Buckley, barefoot tea witch mother of the house, and more like someone standing at the edge of a cliff with no railing and no map. Robin knew that look. She had seen different versions of it since May sixth. Since her father had left with his suitcase and his awful silence and the whole house had changed shape around the absence. 

Melissa looked at the clock. “I should call in sick,” she murmured, mostly to herself. 

“Mom,” Robin said, even though some part of her wanted exactly that. Wanted all of them to lock the doors and cancel work and sit in a circle around Max until the world apologized. 

Melissa looked up the stairs again. “If we chase her,” she said quietly, “she’ll feel cornered.” 

Nancy nodded once. “Probably.” 

Robin did not nod, because nodding would feel too much like agreement, and agreement would feel too much like doing nothing. 

Melissa’s mouth trembled for half a second before she tucked it away. “I hate this.” she said. 

“Yeah,” Robin huffed. 

“I trust her to come back to us,” Melissa said, though the fear underneath it stayed visible. “And I trust you both.” 

Nancy straightened slightly. Robin did too. 

Melissa kissed Robin’s temple. Then she squeezed Nancy’s arm gently. “Call me at the office if she comes home upset,” Melissa said. “Or if she doesn’t come home by dinner.” 

“We will,” Nancy said. 

Robin nodded because it was something to do. 

Melissa looked once more toward the stairs. Then at the letters on the table. Her face sharpened with something wounded and fierce. Then she picked up her purse and left for work with all the reluctance in the world hanging off her shoulders. 

I’ll be there with a love that’s strong
I’ll be your strength
I’ll keep holding on
(Holding on, holding on, holding on)
Yes I will, Yes I will

The house felt bigger without her. Robin hated that too. 

“Family Video?” Nancy asked after a long moment. 

Robin let out a humorless huff. “Ah, yes. Capitalism. The balm for all emotional catastrophes.” 

Nancy’s mouth twitched. “You need to work. I said I’d drive you.” 

“And later you’re collecting Eddie.” 

“And later I’m collecting Eddie,” Nancy said. “Then we’re meeting you and Steve at Rafi’s so we can plot birthday shenanigans for Chrissy.” 

Robin scrubbed both hands over her face. “Right. Birthday shenanigans. Balloons. Cake. Joy. Totally normal plans to make while I’m trying to figure out whether you can legally mail a box of live bees to Florida.” 

“Mmm…probably not legally.” 

“So you’ve considered it.” Robin looked at her. 

Nancy squinted her eyes and shrugged one shoulder. 

Robin pointed at her. “That is not a no.” 

They made it halfway to the stairs before Robin heard movement above them. Fast movement. 

Max appeared at the top with her backpack slung over both shoulders. 

Robin’s heart dropped. “Hey,” she said. 

Max did not answer. She came down the stairs quickly, not quite running but close enough that Robin’s whole body went tight. At the bottom, Max dropped onto the last step and yanked on her sneakers. 

“Where ya headed today?” Robin asked. Casual. She was aiming for casual. She missed by a mile. 

Max tied one shoe too tight. Robin could tell from the way the laces bit down. 

“Out.” 

One syllable. Flat as a slammed door. Then Max stood, opened the front door and stepped outside. 

Robin followed. “Max-,” 

The screen door snapped shut between them. 

Max was already off the porch. She grabbed her bike from where it leaned beside the steps, swung one leg over, and pushed off hard enough that the front wheel wobbled before catching straight. 

Robin pushed through the screen door and made it halfway onto the porch. 

Max did not look back. Her red hair flashed in the sunlight as she pedaled down the street, backpack bouncing against her spine. 

Robin gripped the railing. “This is not good.” 

Nancy came to stand beside her. She watched the corner long after Max disappeared around it. “She’ll be okay,” Nancy said. 

Robin turned to look at her. 

Nancy’s face was pale and determined, her eyes fixed on the empty street as if she could hold Max in the world just by looking hard enough at the place she had vanished. 

“She needs to process it,” Nancy said. 

Robin swallowed. “I know.” 

And she did know. She also knew Max had a skateboard heart. Wheels and speed and scraped palms and knees. When something hurt too much, Max moved. She pushed off. She got distance. She made herself faster than whatever was chasing her. 

The problem was grief did not get tired. It always caught up. 

Max did not go to the arcade. She did not go to the trailer park, even if no one would look for her there. She didn’t trek all the way out to the Byers-Hopper house. It was too far and there’d be interrogation. She sure as shit didn’t go to the Wheeler house because Mike would say something in his dumbass Mike Wheeler voice and Max would have to murder him in front of his mother. Karen Wheeler didn’t deserve that. 

She went toward the Sinclairs’. Not directly. Directly would mean she had decided something. Max most definitely had not decided anything. She was just pedaling. Just moving. Just making the air hit her face hard enough that the tears trying to gather in her eyes had to dry up or get left behind. Her knee ached. She still wore a brace over it most days, but it ached nonetheless. And she ignored it. 

The neighborhood slid past in pieces. Mailboxes. Lawns. Cracks in the sidewalk. A dog throwing itself at a fence. A kid’s bike dumped in a driveway. A sprinkler ticking back and forth, spraying silver in the sunlight. 

Everything looked normal. That felt insulting. 

The whole world should have looked different after a mother refused to come to the phone. There should have been sirens. A tornado. A sinkhole opening in the middle of Hawkins to swallow every mailbox in town. 

Instead there was a woman watering flowers in a visor. 

Max stood up on her bike and pedaled harder. 

Her legs burned sooner than she wanted them to. Her knee protested. Her body still was not what it had been. That pissed her off too. Her lungs caught. Her knee ached. One hand tightened around the handlebar, a weird little ghost of damage that came and went when it felt like reminding her of things. 

She kept going. She stopped a block away from the Sinclair house and dropped one foot to the curb. Her breathing came too fast. She told herself it was because of the ride. She watched the house from behind a maple tree like a total creep. 

Mr. Sinclair’s car was still there. So was Mrs. Sinclair’s. Max waited. She didn’t know why. Lucas’s parents were nice. Annoyingly nice. Normal-parent nice. The kind of nice that made Max feel like she had missed some basic instruction everybody else got at birth. 

She did not want to experience nice parents right now. She didn’t want any parents right now. Or maybe ever. 

After several minutes, the front door opened. Charles Sinclair came out first, adjusting his watch. Sue followed, locking the door behind her, purse over one shoulder. They talked about something Max couldn’t hear. Groceries, probably. Work. Dinner plans. Normal things. 

They got in the car and drove away. Max stayed where she was until the car disappeared. Erica might still be home. Max considered that. Then she decided she didn’t care. Fuck it. She got back on the bike and pedaled the last block. 

By the time she dropped the bike in the front yard, the door opened. 

Erica stood there in shorts and a bright shirt, one hand on the knob, the other holding a book against her hip. She looked Max up and down with all the judgment of a queen inspecting the battlefield. 

“Well, if it isn’t Raggedy Max deciding doors are optional again.” There was some underlying layer of affection in her snappy tone. 

Max barely registered the comment at all. “Lucas around?” 

Erica’s brows pulled together. That was bad. Erica’s face usually did smug, amused, plotting, or outright murderous. Concern looked strange on her. 

“Haven’t checked,” Erica shrugged. “Are you-," 

“Thanks.” Max stepped past her into the house and slid the door shut behind her. She did not look back.

If she had, she would have seen Erica stay on the porch for a second, book tucked against her hip, eyes narrowed at the closed door. Erica did not like mysteries unless she was the one causing them. She especially did not like mysteries with Max looking like that. 

Inside, Max moved through the house like she belonged there. Maybe she did. Maybe she didn’t. It probably didn’t matter. 

She had been there enough times that her feet knew which floorboards creaked, which steps were loud, which framed photos hung a little crooked on the wall. The house smelled like detergent and syrup and something sweet from breakfast. It smelled like a home. 

Max’s chest tightened. She shoved the feeling down so hard it turned into nausea. 

“Lucas!” Her voice bounced up the stairs. Too loud. Purposefully loud. 

Good. Loud was better than shaking. She took the stairs two at a time.


If you should ever find someone new
I know he better be good to you

Lucas’s bedroom door opened just as she reached the top. He stood there sleepy-eyed and confused, one hand rubbing his face, the other braced against the frame. He was in boxers and nothing else, hair flattened on one side from sleep, mouth opening around a yawn that cut off when he saw her. 

“Max?” His voice came rough with sleep. “What’s going on?” 

She had meant to tell him. That had been the idea, maybe. If there had been an idea. She would get here and Lucas would be Lucas and she would say something mean and sharp and eventually maybe not mean, and he would listen because he always listened even when she made it hard. 

She could say, my mom sent them back, every last one of them. 

She could say, she wouldn’t even come to the phone, even though she’s allowed to now. 

She could say, what kind of mother does that?! 

Lucas would not know the answer. Nobody did. But he would know what they meant. He had seen some of the letters. He had sat beside her in the hospital after Vecna had done his best to fold her up and lock her somewhere no one could reach. 

Lucas cared. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? 

He stood there half-asleep and warm and real, looking at her like whatever had brought her here mattered because it had happened to her. 

Max’s throat closed. She did not want to talk. Talking meant saying it. Saying it meant it had happened. Saying it meant Susan had been told her daughter had written again and again and again and had still said no. 

Max wanted something else. Anything else. She dropped her backpack. 

Lucas’s eyes flicked down at the sound and came back up. “Max?” 

She crossed the space between them and threw her arms around his neck. Then she kissed him. 

For one stunned second Lucas did nothing. Then his hands found her waist reflexively. He kissed her back because he was Lucas and she was Max and there had been versions of this before that were sweet. Versions where she would laugh at his morning breath and he would make an insulted noise and she would kiss him again just to shut him up. 

This was not that. Max pushed closer. Harder. 

She kissed him like she was trying to outrun herself without moving. Like she could climb inside the place where Lucas wanted her and slam the door behind them. Like if she could make herself wanted enough, the rest of it would stop existing. 

Lucas stumbled backward into his room. Max followed. The backs of his knees hit the bed and he sat down with a startled sound. Max moved with him too fast for either of them to think. 

Thinking was the enemy. 

Thinking was letters on the coffee table. 

Thinking was red ink on white envelopes. 

Thinking was Susan refusing to come to come to the phone. 

Lucas’s hands tightened at her waist now, not pulling her closer. Just holding her steady. Max hated that he was so steady. She let go of him and reached for the hem of her shirt. 

Lucas caught her wrists. “Max, wait. What’s going-,” 

She kissed him again. She did not want him to finish that question. Questions were traps. Questions had answers. Answers made things real. Real meant pain. 

Lucas pulled back. His breathing had changed. His eyes had too. He was awake now. Awake and worried, which was the worst possible combination because Lucas worried with his whole face and Max could see him seeing her. 

“Hey,” he said. “Slow down.” 

“Lucas,” she snapped. 

She tried to kiss him again. He stopped her. His hands came up to either side of her face, warm against her cheeks, thumbs resting still near her jaw. “Max.” 

She glared at him. At least she tried to. It didn’t work right. His face blurred at the edges. 

“What happened?” he asked. 

No. No, no, no. Her whole body recoiled from the question. She pulled away too fast, nearly tripping over her own backpack. Her hands flew to her shirt, yanking it back into place even though it had barely moved. Her face burned. 

“Whatever,” she said. “If you don’t want to-,” 

Lucas caught her hand. He did not grab her. He did not yank. He just caught her fingers before she could get too far away and held them like the smallest possible argument. 

“That’s not what I said.” 

Max stared at the wall instead of him. There was a basketball poster there. One corner was peeling away. She focused on that. The lifted edge. The shadow beneath it. Anything but Lucas’s face. 

“It’s fine,” she said. 

“Max.” 

“I said it’s fine.” 

“Talk to me?” 

The words were soft. He wasn’t demanding anything from her. He wasn’t even annoyed, or embarrassed. He was just Lucas, half-awake and worried, asking her to let him stand somewhere near the blast radius. 

Max’s eyes burned. Absolutely not. No. She was done crying. Completely done. She had cried after nightmares. In the hospital. In stupid quick flashes when physical therapy hurt too much and she thought nobody noticed. 

She was done. 

A tear slipped down her cheek anyway. Traitor. Then another. 

Lucas stopped asking. That was what broke her - not the question, but the stopping. He did not push. He didn’t say her name again like maybe the right version of it could pry the answer out of her. He just tugged lightly on her hand, giving her all the room in the world to refuse. 

Max did not refuse. She folded. One second she was standing there furious and humiliated and ready to bolt. The next she was against him with her face buried in his shoulder, hands curled uselessly into his back. 

Lucas wrapped both arms around her. He held on. Max cried into his shoulder and hated every second of it. 

She hated how good it felt not to be standing on her own. She hated how his arms shook a little at first, like he was scared to get it wrong. She hated how he did not say anything stupid. She hated that he smelled like sleep and detergent and Lucas and that some starving part of her had known exactly where to go. 

“She sent them back,” Max managed. It came out muffled against the heat of his skin. 

Lucas went still. Understanding washed over him. His arms tightened around her. Max made a sound she would deny making until the day she died. Lucas rested his cheek against her hair. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

Max shook her head because sorry was useless. Lucas seemed to understand that too. He didn’t say it again. He just stayed. 

Cause if he doesn’t
I’ll be there 

Let me fill your heart with joy and laughter
Togetherness well it's all I'm after
Whenever you need me
I'll be there

Nancy’s Saab crunched over the loose gravel at the edge of Meadowbrook Mobile Court, the newer trailer park two miles closer to town that people had been pushed into after the earthquake left Forest Hills unlivable, and rolled to a stop in front of the Munson trailer. 

The evening had gone soft around the edges in that early-summer way Hawkins sometimes managed when it was trying very hard to pretend it had always been an ordinary town. The sky was bright, but beginning its slow drift toward gold. Cicadas had started up somewhere in the trees. A sprinkler hissed in the distance. Somewhere a radio played too faintly to make out more than the rise and fall of guitar riffs. 

Nancy killed the engine and sat for half a second with both hands still on the wheel. She had not meant to grip it that hard. Her fingers ached when she loosened them. 

She was tired in a way that had settled somewhere under her ribs and refused to move. She had spent the afternoon at the library shadowing Marissa and doing her best to act like there was not a live wire buzzing through the center of her chest the entire time. Max had stormed out of the Buckley house hours ago. Robin had gone to work wound so tight Nancy thought she might snap a tape in half by brute force of fury. Melissa had gone to the office because staying would have cornered Max worse. And Nancy…Nancy had spent the whole day telling herself Max would be okay. 

She believed it. She had to. She also hated how much believing it felt like work. 

The trailer door flew open before she could get out of the car. 

Eddie bounded down the short steps like he had been launched there, all limbs and denim and battered sneakers and sun-warmed chaos. His curls were half-contained by a bandana that had clearly lost the argument with the rest of his hair. He wore a sleeveless black shirt, frayed jeans, and the kind of grin that always made it look like the world had just told him a joke it regretted immediately afterward. 

“Wheeler!” he crowed. 

Nancy barely had time to get the driver’s door open before he yanked the passenger side wide, folded himself into the seat, and leaned dramatically across the console. 

Then he planted a huge, obnoxious, wet kiss directly on her cheek. 

Nancy jerked back so hard she nearly hit her shoulder on the window. “Jesus Christ, Eddie-,” 

He was already cackling. 

Nancy scrubbed furiously at her cheek with the heel of her hand, face scrunched in disgust. “What is wrong with you?” 

“A lot of things,” Eddie said cheerfully. “But in this specific instance? Joy. Delight. Birthday-shenanigan-related whimsy. You can’t pick me up to go strategize for the one and only Chrissy Cunningham’s surprise celebration and not expect a warm greeting.” 

“That was not warm. That was slobbery assault.” 

“It was affectionate,” Eddie corrected. “You’re welcome.” 

Nancy laughed before she could help it. It startled her enough that the sound died almost as quickly as it had come, but Eddie caught it anyway. His grin softened around the edges. Just a touch. 

He buckled himself in with a flourish, then angled toward her, one knee tipped up against the dashboard. “Shit,” he said. “Did she figure it out?” 

Nancy blinked at him. “What?” 

“Chrissy.” Eddie’s eyes widened theatrically. “Did she discover our deeply subtle, incredibly covert, absolutely masterful plotting?” 

“Oh,” Nancy huffed out a breath and started the car. “Oh, no. No, she doesn’t know. I mean-,” She backed carefully out from the lot, turning the wheel one-handed. “She probably suspects something after how weird we all got at the diner, but no. Not enough to ruin it.” 

“Uh-huh,” Eddie said. He drew the words out in a low, suspicious deadpan that made Nancy glance over despite herself. 

“What?” 

Eddie waved one hand in a slow circle in her direction. “Sooooo then why are you so…” He rotated his wrist again, indicating all of her at once. “Incredibly tense?” 

Nancy put her attention back on the road. “I’m not tense.” 

“Wheeler.” 

“I’m not.” 

“Wheeler,” Eddie repeated, with more weight this time. “Your shoulders are somewhere around your ears. Your hands look like they’re trying to throttle the steering wheel. And your face-,” He pointed at her. “Your face is doing that thing where it looks like you’re either planning a murder or trying very hard not to have a feeling.” 

Nancy’s mouth twitched. 

Eddie saw it and pounced. “Have you already worn Buckley out?” he asked, lowering his voice into a stage whisper. “Because listen, as your friend, I support you. As a citizen, I’m worried about her survival.” 

Nancy barked out a laugh, startled into it. Hear jumped up her neck almost instantly afterward. “No,” she said, trying and failing to sound as unaffected as she wanted. “No, no, we’re fine.” 

“You’re fine,” Eddie echoed. 

Nancy shot him a look. 

He raised both hands. “I’m just repeating your words back to you in a deeply neutral and nonjudgmental way.” 

“Robin’s at work,” Nancy said. “I spent a few hours shadowing Marissa at the library. We’re fine.” 

“Jesus, Wheeler.” Eddie slouched lower in his seat, but his eyes stayed on her face. “You’ve got a horrific game face.” 

Nancy’s brow furrowed despite herself. “Excuse me?” 

“I’m serious. Terrible.” He made a face like he was examining a particularly tragic special effect. “What happened, and is it apocalyptic plant monsters?” 

Nancy’s eyebrows climbed. “Apocalyptic plant monsters?” 

“Yeah, you know.” Eddie gestured vaguely, then shuddered. “Vines. Creepy tendrils. Shadow-realm greenery. General photosynthetic bullshit, but shade-based instead of sun-based.” 

Nancy’s nose scrunched. “Nope. No apocalyptic plant monsters.” 

“Oh, thank God.” Eddie sagged visibly with relief, knocking one hand lightly against his knee. “Good. Cool. Great, actually. Huge fan of a vine-free Thursday.” 

Nancy almost smiled. 

The road opened up ahead of them in a long stretch of fading sun and cracked asphalt. Nancy kept her eyes on it. Trees blurred past in green smears. The hum of the engine settled into something low and steady. 

Beside her, Eddie grew quieter. Not silent - Eddie Munson never really did silent. But quieter in the specific way that meant he had decided to wait instead of filling the air for the sake of it. 

After a beat of breath, he said, “So what happened, then?” 

Nancy tightened her grip on the wheel again before she could stop herself. For a second she thought about deflecting. About telling him it was nothing. About making some excuse about work or Emerson paperwork or her mother or anything at all that was not the truth. 

But she had been trying - really trying - to get better at not carrying every awful thing by herself until it turned sour. Robin knew. Melissa knew. Steve knew pieces. Chrissy too. Even Mike, a little, when she let him. 

Eddie was safe. The thought arrived clear and simple. Eddie was safe. 

“Max has been writing to her mom,” Nancy said finally. “Since she woke up. Since she found out Susan was down in Florida in rehab.” 

Eddie’s head tilted toward her. “Okay.” 

Nancy stared ahead. “Melissa called the rehab facility today.” 

That was enough for Eddie to understand there was more. Nancy could feel him waiting without pushing. 

“The address was right,” she said. “The letters all got there. Susan just…” Nancy’s fingers tightened around the wheel. “Refused them. Every last one of them.” 

The last few words came out flatter than she meant them to. Eddie did not interrupt. Nancy swallowed once and kept going. 

“They held them for a while, apparently. Maybe they thought she would change her mind? Then they sent them all back together. Rubber-banded. Return to Sender.” Her voice stayed measured for exactly one more sentence. “Unopened. Every single one.” 

She heard the anger before she realized it was in her own voice. “An entire stack of letters,” Nancy said, sharper now. “From her daughter. Unopened. No explanation. No reason other than being a malignant selfish cow who can’t manage the bare minimum of being a mother long enough to read whether her fourteen-year-old is alive and well.” 

The words landed hard in the car. Nancy let out a breath through her nose. “Sorry.” 

“For what?” Eddie asked. 

Nancy shook her head. “That was-,” 

“Accurate?” Eddie supplied. “Especially the malignant selfish cow part - that was a nice artistic touch, actually.” 

Despite everything, that almost got another laugh out of her. Instead she just frowned harder. 

Eddie looked out through the windshield for a second, jaw working once. His own anger had gone quieter than hers, but it was there. Nancy could see it in the way his mouth flattened and stayed there. 

“Wow,” he said at last. 

Nancy made a humorless little sound. “Yeah.” 

“Parents are…” Eddie rubbed the heel of his hand against his mouth, then muttered, “certainly flawed individuals.” 

Nancy huffed. “Understatement.” 

“Catastrophic understatement,” Eddie agreed. “Historically inaccurate understatement, even.” 

Nancy glanced at him. His eyes were still on the road ahead now, expression slanted somewhere between dry and distant. Thoughtful in a way she knew better than to poke at too directly. 

He knew what he was talking about. Not in Max’s exact shape, maybe. But enough. 

“Good thing,” Eddie went on after a second, “they’re not the only thing that passes for family.” 

Nancy looked at him more fully then. 

He shrugged without looking back at her, as if he had not just said the most important thing in the car. 

It hit her anyway. Not because it was dramatic, but because it was not. Because it sounded like something learned the hard way and filed down until it could be carried. 

“How’s she taking it?” he asked. 

Nancy let out a slow breath. “She tried very hard not to take it at all,” she said. “Melissa told her what the rehab center said. Max said thank you. Then she bolted upstairs. Then she bolted out of the house.” 

Eddie winced. “Oof.” 

“Robin nearly went after her,” Nancy said. “We had to stop her from calling Florida back and demanding they put Susan on the phone. Which, honestly-,” Her mouth twitched despite herself. “Part of me was tempted to let her.” 

“Buckley with a direct line to Florida sounds like a potential war crime.” 

“Nancy Wheeler with a direct line to Florida probably isn’t much better today.” 

“I believe that,” Eddie said. 

Nancy drove a little farther before continuing. “She left sometime before Robin and I headed to work. We haven’t heard from her since.” She hated how thin that sounded out loud. “I know she’s okay. I do. Max needs space when she’s hurt, and she’s survived worse than this.” 

Eddie turned toward her more fully. “And?” 

Nancy’s hands tightened again. “And I’m still…worried,” she stopped short of admitting she was scared for Max. 

There it was, though. Small. Plain. Ugly in the way true things usually were. 

Eddie nodded once, like that answer made perfect sense to him. “Yeah,” he said. “That tracks.” 

Nancy glanced over again. He was watching her now with none of the earlier theatrics in his face. Just Eddie. Just honest. 

“She used to live right across from us,” he said after a moment. “Or close enough. Back when she and Susan were still over there, before…everything.” He tipped his head vaguely, indicating the general geography of the trailer park and the years behind them. “There were mornings she’d miss the bus and I’d give her a ride in the van. I’d talk her ear off the whole way to school and she’d mostly sit there like she wanted me dead.” 

Nancy’s mouth curved a fraction. “Sounds like Max.” 

“It was absolutely Max.” Eddie leaned one elbow against the window. “Mean little thing. Deeply rude. Excellent taste in sarcasm.” 

“High praise.” 

“You know me. I don’t hand it out lightly.” 

Nancy smiled despite herself. 

Eddie did too, but it faded faster. “She helped save my life,” he said. “All of you did. But she did too.” He shrugged one shoulder. “So. Yeah. I like the kid.” 

Nancy nodded. That was enough. More than enough. The car rolled through a stretch of sunlight striped by trees. For a minute, neither of them said anything. 

Nancy could feel the shape of the group in her head all at once then, as if Eddie’s words had clicked some hidden mechanism into place. Max and Lucas. Robin and Steve. Dustin and Eddie. Erica and Max. Chrissy and Eddie. Robin and Nancy. El and Mike. Max and El. Mike and Will. Lucas and Dustin. Dustin, Lucas, Will and Mike. The Party. The older kids - The Elders. The younger ones. Melissa in the middle sometimes. Karen in the wings. One impossible, cobbled-together, trauma-forged little hodgepodge of people who by all rights should not have fit and somehow did anyway. 

It made her throat tighten for reasons she did not want to inspect too closely. 

Eddie broke the silence first. He sighed dramatically enough that Nancy knew he was doing it on purpose. “Well,” he said mournfully, “I guess Florida is too far away to arrange for a flaming bag of dog shit on somebody’s porch.” 

Nancy stared at him. 

Then laughed. A real one this time. Sudden and bright and helpless. 

Eddie grinned, delighted with himself. “See? That’s the reaction I was hoping for.” 

“You’re insane.” 

“Correct.” 

Nancy shook her head, still half-laughing. “Robin wants to mail her a box of live bees." 

Eddie slapped a hand to his chest. “Oh, Buckley, never change.” 

“She was serious.” 

“That somehow makes it more elegant.” 

Nancy laughed again, and this time Eddie joined her, the sound of it filling the Saab and pushing some of the poison out of the air. 

When the laughter thinned, Nancy felt lighter by only a fraction. It was still enough to notice. 

Eddie tipped his head back against the seat. “For the record, if we ever need to execute a revenge plan involving livestock, insects, or flaming excrement, I want it known that I am available for consultation.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” 

“Thank you. I ask only for proper credit and maybe snacks.” 

Nancy glanced sideways. “You know, for someone who just offered felony-grade emotional support, you’re being weirdly casual about it.” 

Eddie turned his head and flashed her a grin that was all teeth and knowing. “Wheeler, I’m always casual. It’s one of my worst qualities.” 

Nancy rolled her eyes, but fondly this time. 

Ahead, the road curved toward town. Toward Rafi’s. Toward Robin and Steve and birthday conspiring and all the ridiculous ordinary things they were trying so hard to hold onto. Nancy adjusted her hands on the wheel. Beside her, Eddie drummed his fingers once against his knee, then settled. 

Neither of them said Max’s name again. They did not have to. She sat between them anyway, not as a burden exactly, but as something shared now. Something carried by more than one pair of hands and shoulders. 

By the time the first sign for town slid into view, Nancy realized the knot in her shoulders had dropped at least an inch. Not gone, but not strangling her anymore. She kept her eyes on the road and let the Saab hum on into the golden streaks of the evening. 

I'll be there to protect you
With an unselfish love that respects you
Just call my name
And I'll be there

By the time  the birthday shenanigan conspiring at Rafi’s had wrapped, and Robin and Nancy arrived back at the Buckley house, the sun had started its slow honey-colored slide toward evening. Robin was tired down to the bones. 

Family Video had been torture. Not because it was busy. Busy would have helped. Busy would have given her something to do besides alphabetizing the horror section too aggressively and glaring at every mother who came in with a child, which was unfair because none of them were Susan Mayfield. 

Probably. 

Steve had noticed, of course. Steve noticed everything once he figured out where to look, which was one of his more inconvenient traits. He had leaned on the counter and asked if Max was okay. Robin had said no. He had asked if Robin was okay. Robin had also said no. Then a customer asked if they had Back to the Future in stock and Robin had said, “No, and time is a prison,” which Nancy later informed her was not ideal customer service. 

Now Nancy parked in front of the house. 

Robin looked up toward her bedroom window. Then stopped breathing for a second. “Nance.” 

Nancy followed her gaze. 

Max sat on the roof beside Robin’s window, knees pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped around them, chin resting on top. Her shoes and socks were gone. Her bare feet rested carefully against the shingles. Her red hair was tied back in a loose ponytail that had mostly come undone, strands catching the low evening light around her face. 

She looked very small up there. She also looked like she might bite anybody who pointed that out. 

Robin unbuckled her seatbelt. 

Nancy touched her arm. “Let me.” 

Robin turned. “What?” 

“Let me talk to her first.” 

“Nancy-,” 

Nancy flinched, just a tiny bit, at Robin’s use of her full name. But she soldiered on. “You should shower.” 

Robin stared. “I should what?” 

“You smell like popcorn and stress.” 

“That is deeply rude and only partially true.” She leaned and sniffed at her own shoulder. She frowned because Nancy was correct. 

Nancy’s face softened. Her hand stayed on her arm. “Divide and conquer.” 

Robin looked back at the roof. Every part of her wanted to go out there immediately. To sit beside Max and talk until MAx either felt better or shoved her off the roof. To wrap both arms around her and not let go until the whole world understood it was not allowed to send anything else back. 

But Max was already outside Robin’s window. She wasn’t gone. She wasn’t skulking in the house. She wasn’t off hiding somewhere they could not find her. She was outside Robin’s window. Close, but not inside. Almost as if she were asking without asking. 

Nancy was better at quiet. Robin hated that, but only because it was the truth. 

“Okay,” she said. 

Don’t you know baby, yeah yeah
I’ll be there
I’ll be there
Just call my name
I’ll be there 

Nancy squeezed her arm once before letting go. “I’ll come get you if she asks for you.” 

Robin nodded. “And if she falls or flings herself off the roof, I’m blaming you forever.” 

Nancy huffed a laugh. “Fair enough.” 

Robin got out of the car. Max did not look down. Nancy followed her inside. The house felt dim and warm and full of ordinary end-of-day creaks. Robin grabbed clean clothes and headed for the bathroom with one last look over her shoulder. 

Nancy waited until the bathroom door was shut. Then she crossed Robin’s room and stopped at the open window. Of course it was already open, since Max was already out there. She rested one hand on the sill. “Can I join you?” 

Max did not answer. The breeze moved a strand of hair across her cheek. Nancy waited. 

After a few seconds, Max shrugged. “Whatever.” 

Nancy took that as permission. She sat on the edge of Robin’s bed and tugged off her socks, tucking them into her shoes because apparently some habits survived rooftop emotional crises. Then she climbed through the window carefully, one hand on the frame, one foot finding the flatter part of the roof before she shifted her weight outside. 

The shingles still held the day’s warmth. Nancy settled beside Max, close enough to be there, far enough not to trap her. For a while, she said nothing. The evening made that easy. 

The sky had gone wide and painted, orange near the horizon, pink above it, purple gathering at the edges like a bruise softened by distance. The air was warm but not sticky. A soft breeze moved through the trees and carried the smell of cut grass and dust and somebody’s dinner cooking a few houses over. 

Below them, Hawkins looked almost peaceful. Nancy knew better. 

Max was waiting for a speech. Nancy could feel it in the tension of her shoulders, the sideways flick of her eyes, the way her mouth had already shaped itself into the beginning of an argument. Nancy didn’t give her one. 

They sat through the call of one bird, then another. A car passed. Somewhere down the street a screen door slapped shut. 

Max lasted another four minutes. 

“Out with it,” she said. 

Nancy looked at the sky. “Hm?” 

“Give me whatever speech you agreed to give me.” 

Nancy leaned back on her hands a little. “You picked a nice night to have a moment with the sky.” 

Max turned to her head. Her brow furrowed. 

There she is, Nancy thought. The suspicious little knife-edge under all that hurt. 

“You’re really going to talk about the weather and not prod me about it?” 

Nancy shrugged. “Do you want me to prod you about it?” 

“No.” 

“Okay.” Nancy tipped her chin toward the sky. “Then it’s a nice night for sitting out here.” 

Max stared at her another second, like she was trying to find the trick. 

There was no trick. Not this time. Nancy had plenty of questions lined up in her head. Where had Max gone? Whether she had eaten. Whether she had thought about hurting herself. Whether she wanted the letters or wanted them gone. Whether Lucas knew enough about what was going on. Whether Robin should be out here too. 

She asked none of them. 

Max shifted beside her. Just enough that their shoulders ended up an inch closer than before. Nancy let the silence stay. 

After another few minutes, she glanced sideways. “Do anything fun today?” 

Max’s mouth twitched without smiling. “Seriously?” 

“It’s a question.” 

“It’s a stupid question.” 

“Maybe, but a question nonetheless.” 

Max looked down at her knees. 

Nancy thought she would deflect. Thought she would say she robbed a bank or fought a raccoon or joined the circus. Something impossible and sharp and safely unserious. 

Instead Max said, “I threw myself at Lucas when he was still waking up this morning.” 

Nancy’s heart kicked once, hard against her sternum. She didn’t let it show. 

Max was watching her from the corner of her eye, waiting for a flinch, for the panic. 

Nancy did not give her one. She knew something about trying to outrun feeling with touch. She knew something about taking the body’s answer because the heart’s answer was too complicated and the mind’s answer was too loud. She knew what it was to dive toward physical release not because it was what she wanted most, but because it was easier than sitting still inside herself. 

It was one thing to know that about herself. It was another to hear it from Max. 

Max, who would not turn fifteen until September. Max, who had spent spring nearly dying in ways Nancy still could not think about for too long without tasting metal. Max, who had written letters because some part of her had believed, feared, or accepted that she might not survive. 

Nancy’s stomach twisted. She had to get this right. Not perfectly. Perfect was useless. But she had to get this right enough that Max did not mistake concern for disgust. Right enough that Max did not walk away thinking this was another part of herself she had to lock up and hide. 

“How’d that go?” Nancy asked. 

Max blinked, almost disappointed by the lack of explosion. Then she tipped her head back and looked at the sky. She sighed. “He stopped me.” 

Nancy’s eyebrows rose before she could stop them. “Huh. Good on Sinclair.” 

Max stiffened. 

Nancy caught it immediately. “Not because he shouldn’t want you,” she said. “Because he must’ve been paying attention.” 

Max’s jaw worked. “So he should reject me?” 

There it was. The trapdoor. Nancy looked at her properly now, calm and steady. “You know that’s not what I meant.” 

Max glared at the roof. 

Nancy let her. 

Then she asked, “Are you angry that he stopped you?” 

Max’s glare faltered. She opened her mouth, then shut it. The question moved through her in stages, like she had to check several locked rooms before she could answer honestly. 

“No,” she said at last. 

Nancy nodded. Then, carefully, “Would you have been upset if he hadn’t stopped you?” 

Max went very quiet. The sky deepened by another shade. Nancy waited. 

Max’s fingers tightened around her own shins. “I…” She frowned. Not angry this time. Thoughtful. Maybe scared, though Max would probably fling herself off the roof before calling it that. “I don’t know, actually.” 

Nancy nodded again. “Fair enough.” 

Max looked over. “That’s it?” 

“For now.” 

“You’re not going to give me a lecture?” 

“Do you want one?” 

“No.” 

“Then no.” 

Max huffed. It was not laughter. It came from somewhere closer to laughter than anything else had all day. Nancy counted that as something. 

Robin came back into her room with damp hair and a clean shirt sticking faintly to the back of her neck. She stopped when she saw the window. 

Nancy and Max were still outside. Max was talking. Robin froze with one hand still on the towel around her shoulders. 

Her first instinct was to go to them. 

Actually, no. Her first instinct was to trip over her shoes on the way to the window and then go to them. But she did neither. She stayed still because Max’s voice was low and tight and full of the dangerous fragile sound of somebody saying things they might stop saying if anyone moved wrong. 

Robin sat carefully on the edge of her bed. She did not want to listen. She also could not leave. So she stayed there, staring at the floor, heart pounding too hard. 

Outside, Max said, “It doesn’t matter that she sent them back.” 

Robin closed her eyes. 

“I mean, who cares, anyway? It’s not like she cared about me before she went down there to rehab.” 

Robin’s fingers dug into the towel. There were probably laws, she thought, against calling a rehab center and unloading a seventeen-minute monologue about the moral failures of one of their patients. There were probably rules. Boundaries. Social expectations. Things actual adults respected. 

Robin had never felt less interested in acting like an adult. 

On the roof, Nancy said softly, “Max-,” 

“It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.” 

Robin opened her eyes. It mattered. It mattered so fucking much she felt it in her teeth. 

Nancy’s voice stayed gentle. “It’s okay if it does matter. You know that, yeah?” 

Silence. 

Then Max again, sharper now. “But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything. She’s still there. I’m still here. And she doesn’t care. So why should I? Why should I care that she doesn’t want to know if I’m okay? Maybe she assumes I am because the letters exist, so she doesn’t give a shit about reading them.” 

Robin stood. Then stopped herself. Her whole body trembled with it. 

She wanted to climb through the window. Wanted to put herself between Max and every rotten thing Susan Mayfield had planted there without even being in the room. Wanted to say, no, listen to me, that is not how this works, you do not have to earn being wanted, and your mother’s damage is not a verdict on you. 

But Nancy was out there. 

Nancy, who had not rushed. Nancy, who knew when to push and when to wait. Nancy, who Robin trusted with all their lives and, increasingly, with every soft terrified part of her own. 

Robin sat back down. She hated it. She hated the way it made her feel useless. But she did it anyway. 

Outside, Nancy asked, “Are you okay?” 

Max’s answer came fast. “What?” 

“You said, ‘Why should I care that she doesn’t want to know if I’m okay?’” Nancy said. “But are you okay?” 

“I’m fine.” 

Robin could picture Nancy’s eyebrows without even looking. 

Max’s voice came again, smaller and harder at once. “I’m. Fine.” 

“Okay,” Nancy said. “Just checking-,” 

“And what if I wasn’t, though?” 

Robin forgot how to breathe. 

Max’s voice cracked open. “What if I’m angry that my own mother doesn’t give a rat’s ass if I’m still in a coma or not? So what if I’m angry that she’s so selfish she had to end up there in the first place? Who cares if I’m supposed to be the kid in this situation and she’s supposed to be the responsible one-,” 

“Max,” Nancy said gently. 

Max kept going. “Who gives a shit that I practically died, because oh, she’s having such a hard time not drinking that she needs to pretend her daughter doesn’t exist-,” 

“Max-,”

“I hope she stays there.” 

The room went blurry. Robin pressed the heel of her hand hard against one eye. 

“I hope she never comes back here,” Max said, and now the tears were fully in her voice. “I don’t need her. She doesn’t need me at all and I don’t need her. Besides, I have people here that love me more than she ever could anyway, and, and-,” 

Her voice broke. 

Nancy’s voice came soft and close. “Max.”

Then there was only crying. 

Robin covered her mouth. 

She had seen Max cry before. At Starcourt, under a blanket in the rain, in the aftermath of Billy’s death. In the hospital, in strange broken flashes when pain and fear and exhaustion slipped past the walls. After nightmares sometimes, though Max always turned her face away so fast everyone was supposed to pretend not to notice. 

This was different. This was not a monster taking something from her. This was what ordinary life had left behind. 

Robin sat on the edge of her bed and cried silently while Max cried outside her window and Nancy held her, and Robin had never felt so grateful and so helpless at the same time. 

Just look over your shoulders honey
Ooh, I’ll be there
I’ll be there
Whenever you need me
I’ll be there
Don’t you know baby, yeah yeah
I’ll be there
I’ll be there

Max hadn’t meant to fall into Nancy. One second she was talking. Angry. Fine. Totally fine. Her whole body sparking. Every word making the sparks worse, but at least sparks were not tears and at least anger did not make her feel peeled open in front of everybody. 

Then Nancy said her name. Just her name. Her nickname, technically, not her full name. Not Maxine.

Not like Neil, clipped and controlling. 

Not like Billy, sneering through it before he slammed a door or revved the Camaro or broke something because breaking things was easier than saying what he meant. 

Nancy said Max like she had found her in the middle of all that noise. 

Max folded. Her face hit the crook of Nancy’s neck and shoulder and for one awful second she was too shocked by her own body to move. Then Nancy shifted, stretching her legs out and making room for her without making a thing out of it. Her arms came around Max carefully. 

Max cried harder. She hated that too. There were too many things to hate today. She could not even keep track of them all. 

Nancy held on. She did not shush her. She did not say it was okay, which was good because it was not okay. She did not say Susan loved her in her own way, which was also good because Max might have actually thrown up off the side of the roof. She did not tell Max she should not say things like that about her mother. 

She just held on. One hand moved slowly over Max’s back. The other cupped the back of her head for a second before smoothing through her hair. 

Max hiccuped. Great. Fantastic. She had cried on Lucas that morning and now she was crying on Nancy Wheeler’s shoulder on Robin Buckley’s roof like some kind of pathetic sprinkler system. 

She tried to stop. Her body disagreed. Nancy rocked slightly. Barely enough to notice. Enough that Max noticed anyway. 

“You’re right,” Nancy said softly. 

Max could not lift her head. 

“There are people here who love you.” 

Max squeezed her eyes shut. Nope. That was worse. So much worse. Because love did not fix it. Love did not make Susan pick up the phone. Love did not unstamp the letters. Love did not go back in time and put Max in a family where mothers opened mail and stepfathers did not grab arms and brothers did not turn every hallway into a threat. 

But love was here. That was the problem. It was here, and it was holding her, and it made everything she had lost feel even bigger. 

“Robin,” Nancy said. “Melissa. Lucas. El. The Party.” Nancy’s arms tightened a little. “Me.” 

Max made a broken sound. 

“We all love you,” Nancy said. “We’re so very happy and grateful you’re still here with us, Max.” 

Max cried like an idiot. Nancy let her. 

The sky kept changing while she did. Orange slipped lower. Pink softened. Purple deepened. The first blue-gray edges of evening settled over the neighborhood. Somewhere a dog barked twice and stopped. A car door shut. The whole world kept going in all its stupid ordinary ways. 

Max stayed. That felt like something. She didn’t know what. Just staying. 

Eventually the sobs thinned into hiccups. Then shaky breathing. Her face felt hot and gross. Her throat hurt. Nancy’s shirt was damp where Max had cried into it, which was mortifying enough that Max would have preferred being swallowed by the roof, 

“Sorry,” she muttered. 

Nancy’s hand paused in her hair. “Don’t be.” 

Max did not argue. Mostly because she was tired. Also because if she opened her mouth she might start crying again, and there had to be a legal limit. 

They sat until the shingles cooled beneath them. 

Then Nancy shifted. “Ready to go in?” 

Max looked toward the window. Robin’s room waited beyond it. Posters and books and laundry and the faint smell of shampoo from Robin's shower. Safety, probably. Or the closest thing to it she had right now. 

She nodded. 

Nancy climbed in first, careful and quiet. Then she turned and helped Max through the window with the same matter-of-fact focus she used when loading guns or reading maps or making sure everyone had flashlights before walking into hell. 

Max made it inside without falling. Small miracles. 

Robin stood up from the edge of the bed, dropping her towel onto it behind her. 

Max froze. Of course Robin had heard. Of course she had. Max ducked her head fast and wiped at her face with the heel of her hand, trying to catch any evidence before Robin could see it. Which was stupid. Robin had eyes. Robin had probably heard the whole pathetic thing. 

Max wanted to say something. Something sharp. Something snappy. Something that would put the walls back up before anybody noticed how much of her had spilled out. 

Robin crossed the room. She did not say a single word. She just wrapped Max in a tight hug. Max’s face pressed into Robin’s clean shirt. Robin’s hair was still damp against her cheek. She smelled like soap and citrus and old paper and something warm that was just Robin. 

Robin kissed the side of Max’s head. Max didn’t fight her. Just this once, she let herself be held.

Nancy stayed near the window, one hand still on the sill, watching them with an expression Max could not stand to look at for long. Robin’s arms tightened once, then loosened just enough that Max did not feel trapped. 

“Did she throw them away?” Max asked. Her voice was small. She hated that so much. 

Robin went still. 

“No,” Nancy said gently. 

Max kept her face pressed into Robin’s shirt. 

“They’re safe,” Nancy said. 

Robin’s hand moved slowly over Max’s back. “You don’t have to decide what to do with them tonight,” she said quietly. 

Max swallowed. The letters were downstairs. The letters were safe. She was upstairs. She was held. She was not okay. But she was inside. For tonight, that had to be enough. 

Just call my name
I’ll be there
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
I’ll be there
I’ll be there