Chapter Text
(Monday, November 26th, 1984)
There’s something different in the way Steve moves that morning.
It’s nothing drastic. Not even enough to draw attention or make his reflection smirk back at him like it used to.
But it’s there.
It’s there in the way he towels his hair dry with a little more urgency. In the speed with which he chooses his outfit for the day. In the way his steps hit the stairs just a bit too quick, like his body is trying to get somewhere before his mind catches up. It’s even in the way he rushes through breakfast, barely remembering to put his dishes away before he’s heading for the door.
It’s not joy, not exactly. But it’s close.
Or maybe it’s just purpose.
He hasn’t had one of those in a while.
The pullover is folded clean on the passenger's seat before he’s even halfway through his coffee. He doesn’t bother to double-check it. Doesn’t even hesitate to toss it there. Just grabs his keys, slides behind the wheel, and starts the car before he has any time to think about it.
The heater kicks on slow, windows fogged faintly at the edges; the road out ahead is still soft with old snow. Waiting for the car to heat up, he drums his fingers on the steering wheel once, twice, then stops himself as that old familiar sensation makes its presence known.
The knot’s still there.
Low and dull, tucked somewhere deep in the pit of his stomach. It’s not as sharp, not screaming the way it had been over the weekend. But still, it hums, low and persistent in the way only something so familiar can be. Like background static or the buzz of a far-off light. The kind you don’t notice until the room gets quiet.
But this morning, it almost feels manageable. Containable somehow.
He tells himself he’ll notice it less once the day gets going. That he may even be able to let some of it go.
And at first, he does.
He coasts through first period with one foot tapping under the desk. Second slips by too. He even catches himself humming under his breath as he slings his locker shut between classes. Some Hall & Oates thing that’s been stuck in his head since Friday. It’s not that the day is good exactly. It just isn’t bad. Not the way most of them have been lately.
Every sneer from Billy, every shoulder-check from Tommy, every too-familiar laugh echoing across the cafeteria from where Nancy sits huddled close to Jonathan — it all still happens. Just as it always did lately. But today it bounces off this strange, unexpected buoyancy he’s been riding all morning.
Because today, he’s got something to hold out for. Something Max doesn’t even know is coming.
And that matters more.
That counts for something.
By the time the final bell rings, it’s the closest thing to anticipation he’s felt in weeks.
He doesn’t make a show of it, but he lingers in the lot. Let’s the first wave of students pour out, laughter sharp in the cold, boots and sneakers crunching over half-melted slush, backpacks bumping as they pile into cars and head down the sidewalk two by two. Cars peel off in every direction, everyone all too eager to get anywhere but here. One of the buses pulls off. Then another.
As he waits, he taps his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of nothing at all, heart pulling tighter the longer he waits, eyes scanning the stream of movement for one thing in particular.
A flash of red against all that white. The familiar slouch of a too-thin green jacket.
She’s always come down this stretch before, cutting through the shared lot from the middle school doors, board tucked under one arm or gliding easy beneath sneaker-clad feet.
But today? Nothing.
No red hair. No green jacket. No scowl. No Max.
He waits longer than he probably should. Pretends to flip through the glovebox. Pretends he isn’t checking the mirrors over and over like she might suddenly materialize late, distracted, and hidden just out of view behind someone taller.
Eventually, the lot clears. The cold sets in again.
Still no sign of Max.
Left with no other option in sight, Steve pulls out, driving slow. Just in case.
He even loops past the middle school. Slows down near the curb. Eyes the crowd of kids still loitering around the doors. A few backpacks, a few bikes. None of them hers.
He rounds another block. One more. Then another. Tells himself he’s just being thorough.
But there’s no sign of her.
Not today.
The knot shifts. Tightening.
Worse than before, maybe.
Because for a second— a whole day, even —he really thought he might get to set some of it down.
(Tuesday-Thursday)
He tells himself it’s good he hasn’t seen her.
That it means Billy must’ve driven her home like he’s meant to. That maybe things are better, or at least settled down. Maybe they even talked. Maybe, somehow, she and her family figured something out.
He tells himself that’s a good thing.
That it’s better this way. That she’s safe.
But then Tuesday comes and goes, and the knot in his stomach doesn’t ease. It shifts; it tightens. It loosens just to retighten and then shift some more, low and uneasy. But it doesn’t go away.
By Wednesday, the buoyancy he’d felt at the start of the week is gone. Like a dying star, whatever brief surge of momentum had carried him forward has burned itself out, leaving something quieter in its place.
He still checks the lot.
Still slows his steps after last period and finds reasons to linger in the driver’s seat, heater on low, eyes trained on the flow of movement outside.
The pullover sits in the passenger seat beside him. Still folded and still waiting. Just like him.
But each day the space stays empty. Each day, the flash of red never comes.
And each day, he drives off a little sooner than the last.
By Thursday, he’s no longer pretending to check the glovebox. No longer making excuses to himself for circling the block. He just sits and listens to the engine tick under the hood, watching the snow turn to slush in the rearview.
And tries not to think about how familiar this kind of waiting feels.
The same kind that always comes after the dust settles. After the monsters are all gone and the gates and tunnels are sealed. When things are supposed to be back to normal. When the others start breathing easier again, start picking up their old routines, and he just… doesn’t.
Maybe that’s why the pullover ends up tossed to the backseat at some point. Not folded neatly anymore, just thrown across the cushion like he couldn’t bear to look at it one second longer.
It’s not about the sweater, not really. And some part of him— tiny as it may be —knows that it never was.
It was about what it meant to give it. To have something to do, and what it means for him now that he doesn’t.
But the knot isn’t screaming anymore.
It just sits there, thick and quiet, still posed in the pit of his stomach, like it’s waiting too.
(Friday, November 30th, 1984)
By Friday, Steve’s coasting on fumes.
The pullover is still in the backseat, crumpled. He hasn’t touched it since he threw it back there. Hasn’t even really looked at it. And he tells himself it’s fine. That it’s better this way. That she’s probably fine. That everyone’s fine.
But the knot’s still there. Waiting.
By last period, he’s got his head on his desk, half-listening to the tick of the wall clock and the quiet scratch of a pencil behind him. He’s already decided he’s going straight home. No stops. No loops. His bed is warm, and his plans are nonexistent.
But still, when the bell rings, his body moves on its own time.
He lingers in the lot a little longer than he means to, letting the rush spill out and the noise fade. It’s not hope that keeps him there this time. Just… rhythm. Another routine he’s fallen victim to. A muscle memory that hasn’t figured out how to just let go yet.
Then he pulls out, driving slow down past the edge of the high school. Past the shared lot, past the place he’s looked all week and found nothing. He doesn’t even look now.
Not until he rounds the corner.
And stops.
Double checks the empty road.
Then— backs up.
It takes a second, but yeah. That’s her.
Half-hidden near a telephone pole, collar pulled up tight around her neck, red hair tangled and wet with snow. She’s hunched; her shoulders curled in like she’s bracing for a hit. There’s a dark scrape across her cheek and something raw about the way she wipes her nose on her sleeve. Almost too fast, like she doesn’t want to be seen doing it.
Steve throws the car in park and leans across the seat, opening the door.
Max gets in without a word.
She slams the door shut behind her, shoving her soaked sneakers up against the heater vents like she’s done it a thousand times. There’s no glance, no snark. No muttering about independence or strangers or not needing help.
It’s progress.
It’s also a warning.
Because Steve knows Max Mayfield by now— or at least, he’s getting there —and this silence isn’t comfort. It’s a fuse.
He watches her out of the corner of his eye.
Her hands are fists resting in her lap. Her jaw’s clenched so tight it looks painful.
“Y’know,” it’s with great effort that he tries to keep his voice light, gentle, trying, “pretty sure the heater’s gonna melt your shoes into the floorboards, and I’m not cleaning that up.”
She doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t even snap back.
She just flinches— almost undetectable –and keeps her eyes locked forward like she’s trying not to cry. Like she’s trying to survive this ride without shattering in front of him.
That’s when it hits him.
This isn’t just some moody teenager having a bad day.
This is something else.
“Hey,” he softens. “What happened?”
Nothing at first. It’s so still after he asks that Steve is beginning to wonder if Max even heard him.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
It’s quiet, but it’s not nothing.
So he lets the silence stretch there and watches the road ahead, the white blur of snow flattening everything into sameness. The heater kicks harder. Her shoes are starting to drip.
Eventually, her voice breaks through, seeming to struggle as it climbs its way up her throat.
“He left me.”
Her voice cracks, only barely, but Steve hears it.
“Billy?” He asks, already knowing the answer.
Max doesn’t nod, just stares out of the windshield. It’s all the confirmation he needs.
“We were supposed to go to the store. For groceries. My mom gave him a list and everything, and he said he’d take me. But then he got pissed over— I don’t even know what. Just…” She trails off, eyes blinking fast. “He dropped me on the side of the road.”
Steve’s grip on the steering wheel tightens. The leather creaks beneath the pressure.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.” She says fast, nearly too fast. “Not like that. He just… yells. And he gets mean. And then he acts like it’s me that’s the problem.”
Her eyes are wide as she turns to look at him. It reminds him a little of stray dogs at the junkyard whenever you get too close to them. Like they haven’t decided if you’re friend or foe.
Steve exhales. Long and slow.
“Shit.”
Max shrugs like she doesn’t care, but her chin’s trembling.
“Yeah. Well. Whatever.”
There’s not much else he can say. Not that she’d hear right now, and he knows it. So he doesn’t try.
Instead, he shifts one hand off the wheel and reaches into the backseat. Fingers find the soft fabric of the pullover with minimal effort, as if the jacket itself knew this was the moment. He tugs it across the center console without a word and offers it into her lap just the same.
She looks at it. Then at him.
Her face twitches.
“You’re giving me your laundry now?”
He snorts. Involuntary, the sound is sharp but real.
“No. No. Just figured… it’d fit better on you than in my attic.”
“So… it’s junk?”
He scoffs in reflex. Some part of him had decided that it was better than taking his eyes off the road to roll them.
It’s not lost on him that her chin’s stopped trembling. That she’s trying. That the joke is maybe half an actual question and half an attempt to keep herself from unraveling.
“Would you just take the thing? Jesus.”
Max doesn’t answer. She doesn’t thank him, either. But she doesn’t argue, and Steve figures that’s about as good as it’s going to get toward a step in the right direction for progress. He takes it without complaint.
Although she hesitates at first, Max takes the jacket, slowly. Almost carefully as she picks it up, like it might somehow unravel in her hands. She slips it on right there in the passenger seat, dragging it over her soaked green jacket. It’s a little big— the sleeves swallow her wrists, hang past her fingertips —but she tugs them down and buries her hands inside them anyway.
They’re not shaking anymore, Steve notices.
And for the first time in days, the knot in his stomach lifts — not just sits heavy or waiting or still.
Almost like it’s loosened just a little.
The rest of the drive is quiet.
Not the heavy kind from before that sits around waiting for someone to fill it, or the kind that fills the space like pressure building in a pipe. No, it’s something closer to calm. Like the air’s been cleared a little.
It’s not exactly peace, but something adjacent. A thin layer of calm settled just above the frayed edges of them like bruising before it colors.
Max doesn’t say anything, but she moves differently now as she shifts once in her seat. Slumping less as she loosens her shoulders, leaning her forehead against the passenger window as they coast through the turns toward her neighborhood, eyes half-lidded. She watches the outside blur by, the quiet flicker of houses and skeletal trees and slush-piled curbs. Her shoulders rising and falling in slow rhythm, the sleeves of the pullover still dragged down low over her hands, fingers hidden.
She’s burrowed in, he realizes, proudly. Settled.
And although the tension’s not gone, at least not completely, it is quieter now. Something closer to contained.
Steve doesn’t ask her where she wants to be dropped off.
He already knows. It’s routine now, too. Unspoken and familiar.
The car crunches gently up to the curb outside her place. The familiar porch light that’s always on is steadily glowing weak yellow, like it knows what time it is and is saying hello.
Max reaches for the door handle.
Steve almost lets her go without saying anything else.
Almost.
“Hey,” It’s a single word, but it comes low and even as he prepares himself not to fuck it up.
She pauses, looking back over her shoulder, hand still hovering near the handle. The glow from the porch cuts across her cheek, soft and flickering. She looks tired. Not weak. Just… spent, like a match after the fare.
He swallows, gripping the wheel with one hand, the other braced against the console as if he needs the moral support to anchor himself to say it.
“If you ever need anything — I mean, like, anything. Or just someone to…” He trails off for half a second, although not for lack of words, before he clears his throat and starts again. “You find me. Alright? Doesn’t matter what it is.”
Max doesn’t nod, but she doesn’t roll her eyes either.
Instead, she just stares at him over her shoulder for a second longer than usual, like she’s still trying to decide what kind of person he really is.
Steve considers it another small victory. Another step forward towards trust, or at least, something.
It’s the first time she hasn’t tried to dodge or joke her way out. The first time, she just lets herself sit quietly on the receiving end of his help.
She studies him for a second longer. Then she pushes the door open and climbs out.
The slam door echoes sharply against the cold.
Slush squelches under her sneakers as she hops down and starts up the dirt path toward the porch. Steve watches her retreat up the walkway. She doesn’t look back.
He expects that to be it — the door, the light, the end. Just as it was every time before.
But just before Max reaches the top step, she stops. Turning slowly where he catches the last thing he needs to see as she raises one hand– still gloved inside the sleeve —and waves.
It’s a little awkward, a little stiff. But it’s a wave, nonetheless.
Not a salute. Not a middle finger thrown without caution into the wind. Just… a wave.
Steve blinks. It knocks something loose in his chest. Or maybe it’s lower. Maybe it’s the knot again.
Except, it’s not tightening.
It’s loosening. Finally, and fully. Like something inside him just released the breath it’s been holding all week.
She disappears inside.
He doesn’t pull away right away. Doesn’t reach for the radio. Just sits there in the hum of the heater and the smell of old leather seats and snowmelt and the faintest trace of something that feels like progress.
The passenger seat is empty.
The pullover’s gone with her.
No jacket. No Max.
And, somehow, for the first time all week, no knot.