chapter two ♰ Letters, Polaroids & Sketches

Matt had to be in the station early that morning, which meant he didn't have the time to make Sydney breakfast. Not that she ever ate it, anyway ━━ she thought he never noticed, but he did. He'd been meaning to rummage through Christine's old cook books to try and find something Sydney would actually like and eat, but it turned out Matt wasn't like Chris. She was that kind of sacrificial mother ━━ who would've cut open a vein in her arm just to bleed out whatever Sydney wanted. Matt didn't have whatever Chris had to be her such a good mother. He had whatever his father had ━━ addictions, rage, indifference.

  Before cancer took his mother, she had warned him about the burden of fatherhood. If you're born into a house with an angry man, you'll always live in a house with an angry man.

  Matt rarely got angry with Sydney. Not to her, at least. He didn't feel like he was deserving of grudges or hurt when he had been absent for sixteen years of her life. When he got mad with her, he bottled it all up. Sometimes they'd fight over what they'd watch on the TV or pizza toppings or if she could go to a party ━━ but Sydney had been dealt the ultimate card. Vindication. So he'd have to gulp down the anger like pills and let her have her way. Because what right did he have to be her dad when he was never a father?

  So.

  Matt had to go to work early ━━ Hopper called him in all frantic and irate, as he tended to be, talking about a missing boy. Matt left a messy note and a creased wad of notes from his pocket on the table for Sydney and went on his way.

  She'd never admit it but Sydney's heart sunk at the emptiness in the kitchen when she woke up. Without Matt, the place was hollowed out. No music to fill the cobwebbed crevices or stench of eggs to pervade the hall. Sydney found his post-it and probably spent a good 2 minutes just trying to decipher what it said.

Gone 2 work early kiddo. Sorry.
Left you some cash to get breakfast/coffee.
I'll make it up to you later. Pizza. With mushrooms.
Get to school safe Sid.

MATT

  Sydney smiled sadly at the note, tracing the smudged words. He signed it Matt. Not even love, Matt. Christine always had to work early ━━ whether it was for building a case or a day in court, Chris never had time to make Sydney breakfast. She'd leave notes all the time. Stuck to the fridge, or attached to the kettle, or even tucked into Sydney's coat pocket. She'd always sign them love, Mom. Because Christine was Sydney's mother and she loved Sydney. But Matt was Matt. The guy who fooled around with her mother in their teens and now reaps the consequences.

  A car-horn blared and Sydney scrunched the note up into a ball and pocketed it.

  Toby was wearing a cableknit jumper today. It looked good on him. Most things did. But gunmetal-grey was his colour. So was red, and bottle-green, and all shades of blue. The sleeves of it were rolled up to his elbows, and Sydney tried to look anywhere but the veins protruding against his forearms as he reversed out of the driveway.

  "Where's Matt's truck?" he asked.

  "He had to go in early," said Sydney. "Probably because of Will."

  "Will? Will as in Jonathan's brother?" Toby was frantic all of a sudden. "Why ━━ is he alright?"

  "He's..." Sydney's stomach coiled. "Joyce thinks he's missing ━━ well, he is missing."

  Toby shook his head, shoulders slackened a bit. "Fuck. How does a kid like that just go missing? He's... I mean ━━ in Hawkins?"

  Sydney sat, stewing in last night's horror and nausea. When Jonathan dropped her off, she stayed in his car with him on the driveway, and just talked. It was fruitless stuff. Things that didn't matter in the long-run. He tearfully spoke about Will ━━ about his little brother's hideout in the woods at the back of their bungalow and how he wasn't even there. And when he started to get choked up, he swept his knuckles under his waterline and laughed humourlessly, before asking Sydney how she was finding living with Matt. It was the weakest trauma bonding experience of Sydney's life and she was glad to finally leave the car after 20 minutes of suturing old and new wounds.

  "Actually, Tobes, do you mind dropping me off at the station?"

  Toby actually looked startled. "The station?"

  "Yeah. I know what they're like there ━━ complacent. They're probably not taking Will being missing seriously and, after seeing Joyce yesterday, I think they need to..."

  Toby glanced at her, squinting a bit, but he nodded anyways. "Yeah. Yeah, sure, Sid."

  When he gouged her ruminative expression and the silence she fell into, Toby figured there wouldn't be much talking for the rest of the ride, so he turned on the radio. For her birthday last October, Toby made Sydney her very own mix-tape. His birthday was in the August, and he had just got his first car ━━ it was kind of battered and derelict and second-hand but Sydney demanded that he pick her up for his first drive in it. She had complained about the lack of music. So he fashioned a cassette with all of their favourite songs on it ━━ from Every Little Thing she Does is Magic by The Police to Hungry Like the Wolf by Duran Duran. Sydney had loved the gift so much she had threw her arms around him and squished him so tight he thought his ribs were going to splinter. She even placed a slobbered kiss on his cheekbone and stained it with her lip-gloss. But, Toby would take a punctured lung and a sticky cheekbone any day if it meant he could get that kind of happiness out of her again.

  Today was different. Sydney looked genuinely thoughtful for once. Like she wasn't really here. Even when the cassette started to play G.Q's I Love (The Skin you're In), she didn't flinch. It was one of her favourite songs of all time but she didn't even turn to him with that euphoric, pretty grin of hers. Toby mourned how it used to be ━━ belting to their favourite songs with the windows down and her shabby trainers mucking up his dashboard and Toby enamoured with every little thing she did. He had been the perfect saint until now ━━ she lost her mother. He'd split the earth in half if he lost Imani. But this wasn't about Christine right now. This was about the mild and meek Will Byers ━━ a boy she hardly knew.

  He had this horrible feeling that she was feeding in that part of her he thought died with her mother. The saviour complex.

  Toby had been right. The rest of the journey was silent. Not even Fleetwood Mac summoned a reaction from her. The Chain was Sydney's favourite song ever. She loved it viscerally ━━ mainly because it represented an invisible string to Christine. He parked outside of the station and she was jolting into gear, wrapping her bag back around her body and dusting off her jeans.

  "Do you want me to come with you?" said Toby hopefully.

  Sydney smiled weakly. "No, that's OK."

  Toby didn't know how to communicate that'd he love to go with her. To properly meet Matt and to just stay with her. Have her want to be around him as much as he craved to be around her.

  "I'll see you at school after lunch," promised Sydney, leaning over the console and pecking his cheek.

  As if the gesture had meant nothing, Sydney cranked open the stiff passenger door and hopped out of the car, leaving Toby with the scar of her lips on his skin. It felt her kiss was a knife and now he was bleeding, trickling down his chin and pooling in his collarbone. Toby had to physically slap himself to wake up from his stupor.

  "Never washing my face again..." he mumbled feverishly to himself.

  By the time Sydney walked into the station, Toby had already reversed out of the parking space and she had no getaway car if this all went awry. She didn't exactly know what he was doing here. It was her dad's job to handle things like this ━━ disappearances. Why was she intervening?

  Hawkins Station always reeked of coffee and blotched ink from old typewriters that they didn't have the budget to replace. Every desk was cluttered with discarded paper and each had an ashtray on it ━━ funerals of stubbed cigarettes and their ashes, serrating the glass. Sydney reckoned that more cigarettes were smoked here than crimes were solved. But, then again, Hawkins wasn't a town of crime. Sure, there was the occasional vandalism by the red-hand of some rebelling teen, or bar-fight between bellicose men and their butting egos. But it wasn't a place for murder or missing boys.

  People died of natural causes in Hawkins. Liver failure from years of alcohol abuse. Lung cancer from nicotine addictions. Old age at the end of a cal-de-sac. The detonations of nuclear families sending guts splattering against perfect, floral walls.

  Car crashes.

  "Oh morning, Sydney," exclaimed Flo, the secretary.

  She was a friendly, aging woman, with rectangular glasses and a brittleness about her that slightly terrified Sydney. She always spoke sagely ━━ as if she knew everything there was to know about the world.

  "Shouldn't you be at school, sweetheart?"

  Sydney winced. "Uh... I have a free period." She had Chemistry. "Is Matt here?"

  "Yeah, your dad should be around somewhere ━━"

  At the words 'your dad', Sydney had the volatile urge to bolt right out the door and run into oncoming traffic. Your dad. Flo barely knew Sydney ━━ she had worked with Matt for more than years but Sydney was just a stranger to her. Because Matt wasn't her dad. Hadn't been for most of her life. But Sydney wondered if that's how he talked about her when he was here. If he spoke about his daughter to his colleagues ━━ if he spoke about her solemnly because of her constantly shutting him down, or if he was proud of the girl she had grown into without him. Did he even speak about her at all?

  "Sid? What ━━ you're here!"

  Matt had just abruptly stood up from his chair, knocking roughly into is desk and sending a few bits of stationary clattering to the stained floor. He grunted as his thigh knocked against the corner of the table and clumsily tried to pick up the stapler and pens that had fallen off.

  "Sorry 'bout that," he mumbled abashedly, shoving the pens back into a little jar.

  Sydney exchanged a glance with Flo, who just rolled her eyes and shuffled into the station's kitchen, probably to make her fifth coffee of the day. Bracing herself, Sydney walked over to Matt's desk as he flopped back into his chair and rubbed at his swollen, tired eyes.

  "Uh, hi..." said Sydney, sitting down on the chair adjacent to his desk, usually reserved for splenetic, petty criminals waiting to be charged.

  Matt grinned at her, crinkles forming around his lethargy. "Hey, kiddo, what brings you here?"

  "I was just..."

  Sydney trailed off, words caught in her throat raw and sickly. Matt's desk was in corner of the room, so he had a wall next to him. On that wall was a pin-board. There was basic stuff ━━ a black and white photograph of him in basketball uniform, his arm draped around the burly shoulders of some other kid. He was younger then. Less tired. A few newspaper clippings and other paraphernalia ━━ even a glossy, magazine cut-out of the cover for Dark Side of the Moon. But one picture in particular delivered a mean sucker-punch right to her gut.

  It was a Polaroid, with a slight light glare, but Sydney could tell what it was perfectly. Christine looked so young. Black curls dishevelled around a sweat-glistened face, and her eyes were bloodshot and weary, but filled with so much love. She was practically clinging to Matt's arm ━━ his waterline was brimming with tears as he looked down at the baby in his arms. Sydney. Chris's lips were just grazing Matt's jawline and he was staring at Sydney like she was everything in the world to him. Two eighteen-year-olds with a baby. It must've butchered their lives and reputations. They were hardly older than Sydney was now and parents. But they didn't seem marred by that in this Polaroid. They looked happy. Adoring. They looked like a family and it splintered something already broken in Sydney's chest.

  It hurt viscerally.

  "Oh, that." Matt was smiling fondly at the photograph. "It's one of my favourites."

  "What ━━ you kept that?"

  Sydney had recognised it right away. She was 11 and had sent him the Polaroid she had scavenged out of an old album for Christmas. He hadn't sent her a gift or a card but Sydney had wanted him to remember that he had a family. Make sure he didn't forget about her.

  Matt's eyes softened. "Of course I did."

  "I... I can't believe it."

  "I kept everything, kiddo. I mean, look━━ " He hastily opened the top drawer of his desk and delicately plucked out a humungous pile of what initially looked like scrap paper. But then he started to showcase them to her, one by one. They were her drawings. And letters she sent ━━ even the belligerent ones after another let down.

  For a moment, Sydney had completely forgot why she came here. She just stared at this matrix of a little girl's gullibility ━━ sketches of Mother, Father & Daughter in a home that felt more full ━━ and skimmed over angry letters ━━ the language growing more colourful over the years, the older and more malicious she got. She hadn't even realise her nails were digging into her skin until she drew blood from her wrists and had to peel them out.

  "You never replied," muttered Sydney. "Not one of them ━━ letters, cards, drawings. You kept them but... you didn't respond."

  Matt looked at a certificate Sydney had got for a spelling bee that she had sent him in the mail hoping that her being clever would win over at least a slither of attention. His hands then started to trace a blotch of bleeding ink on one of her letters, where a tear-drop had smudged the word Dad. He didn't even have to check the contents of the letter to know that this was the last time she ever called him that. She had experienced her first heartbreak ━━ she was 13 and hurting and the boy she had a crush on had went and snogged Carol Perkins despite asking her on a date a few hours ago ━━ and she had blamed him for every male wound she ever suffered.

  "I didn't know how," he replied earnestly. "I wasn't ━━ I couldn't be a dad to you, Sid."

  Sydney consulted with the Polaroid on the pin-board again. He had loved her once, didn't he? In that photograph. That adoration wasn't for the camera, was it? He had cared. Some part of him had wanted to be a father then... what had she done wrong?

  Sydney pursed her lips, and nodded at the photo. "That says differently."

  Matt stared at it dolefully ━━ his heart hurt. They were meant to be a family. The 3 of them. Matt and his girls. That day in the hospital after Christine gave him the best thing that ever happened to them, he had made her so many promises. Made Sydney promises. Himself, too. He swore to knock the drinking on the head and get a real job ━━ even if it was menial and mind-numbing, because any hours or work would be tolerable if it meant keeping his family afloat. With a piece of cotton from his threadbare jumper, he fashioned Chris a makeshift ring and told her that he was going to marry her some day. And when Chris finally drifted off ━━ anaesthesia and childbirth catching up with her ━━ it was just Matt and Sydney. This angelic little baby that wasn't even as big as his forearm who had tufts of dark hair and eyes like Christine's. He had promised to not be like his father ━━ to stay and love and protect her against everything: sicknesses, heartache, the world.

  Forlorn, he thought about the day he left for good. 19 and full of anger and a pain nobody could've ever prepared him for. The pain of not being enough. It had been Christmas Eve. Christine had wanted to go to dinner with her parents ━━ things had been estranged with them ever since she lost out on her place at Harvard to have Sydney, so when she got the cordial invite in the mail she had been defiant in her wishes. Matt had went along with it. He loved Chris ━━ so if she wanted to spend the holidays with her parents (even if there were conservative nutjobs), he wanted to make her happy. And Sydney deserved grandparents.

  The day had been a total mess. Christine's religious fanatic of a mother had been as bellicose as ever ━━ making snide comments about Matt's unemployment and all of Chris's wasted potential. Christine had got in a fight with her mother, a total screaming match of hurling insults and 19 years of pain and the detonation of grudges. After Chris stormed out, Sydney cradled to her chest, Christine's father ━━ John ━━ had stopped Matt at the door.

  "Listen, Matt━━" John had spoke soberly and Matt had thought for a moment this talk would be supportive. He even had this concerned expression etched on his features and a friendly smile. "You've been in my daughter's life for a very long time. I remember when you were kids, actually ━━ up in that treehouse ... causing mischief."

  Matt had smiled sentimentally. "Yeah. Yeah, I remember, Sir."

  "Which is why I'm telling you this..." said John ruefully, putting an austere hand on Matt's stiffened shoulder. "You're not good enough for her ━━ for them."

  Matt's stomach had been in knots ━━ he didn't know what he had expected. Not that. Not the truth he had kept stuffed away in the deep basement of his belly with the beer he couldn't quit and the residual hurt of his father leaving. It had been the ugly thought rotting his brain ever since Christine told him she was pregnant. That he'd never be good enough for her ━━ his best friend, with her Ivy League brains and middle class upbringing and that heart of steel. And certainly not good enough for his daughter, who wouldn't have the childhood Christine did of holidays abroad and nice clothes and a big, suburban home ━━ because Matt couldn't provide that for her. He was financially and emotionally a mess.

  "I care about you, Matt. I was your friends with your old man and I feel like I owe him something ━━ that's why I'm being honest. You don't deserve my daughter. And you definitely don't deserve yours. I genuinely think the best thing you can do for Christine and Sydney is letting them go."

  And that night, Matt got in the worst argument of his life with Christine. It had been raw and visceral and left so many scars and blood splattered on the walls of their shitty apartment. She had screamed at him to leave and he had ━━ because that had been his goal. Get her so angry and upset she couldn't even stomach looking at him any longer. He had slurred some bullshit that he was tired of being tied down ━━ that he lost his youth for a middle aged man's life when he wasn't even 20 yet. With his throat abraded and heart fractured, Matt had left. Not even the sounds of Sydney crying hysterically from the nursery made him look back.

  When he was young and incorrigible, Matt had blamed John for it. He had planted the seeds and they bloomed into an ugly, overgrown beast. But Matt knew it was John's fault. Not even his own father's. It was his. For breaking all those promises. For not marrying Chris when he had the chance. For not being enough.

  "Trust me," Matt muttered ruefully, "you were better off without me."

  Sydney had so much to say to him. So much to ask. There was a little girl behind all the grief and loneliness who's tiny voice shattered around haunting questions. A ghost of herself who had always craved this moment ━━ some honesty from her dad and even a slither of vulnerability.

  But she didn't want the answers. The excuses. His dad hurt him so he hurt her ━━ the cliché justification for more years of absence. That little girl ━━ that ghost with a broken leg in the hospital, wondering why Father didn't care ━━ knew it too. That's why the letters got malicious. Why the dates on the drawings stop in 1980. The sad truth was, Sydney was 16. Legally, she had 2 more years left of being in Matt's custody and then she could splinter away from Hawkins and from him forever. 2 years would never make up for 16 without him.

  A few saved polaroids, preserved letters and mournful reasons wouldn't suture up gaping wounds.

  "I came here to talk about Will," said Sydney bracingly.

  Matt blinked, tearing his eyes away from the photograph. "Will Byers?"

  "So you know."

  "I know I'm not exactly dad of the year, but I'm a good cop, Sid," laughed Matt. When he didn't elicit a laugh from her, his expression got sombre again. "Hey, listen. He's going to be OK. We've got a search party out looking for him and Hop seems pretty dedicated to finding him, alright? I mean ━━ I've never saw him away from his desk for so long. Honestly, I think he might have a thing for Will's mom."

  "Hopper has a thing for Joyce Byers?" demanded Sydney, horrified.

  Hopper was Matt's boss. Technically. Hopper was Sherriff and Matt was Deputy. Hopper was also a jackass. A total cynic ━━ with a pill addiction and appetite for beer, just like Matt. That's probably why they got along so well. Matt didn't touch drugs though. Probably because his deadbeat dad had a cocaine problem and gambling habits that destroyed his family. But, otherwise, Matt and Hopper were kind of mirrors for each other ━━ Hopper was Matt's future. 10 years down the line ━━ beer gut, pessissism, sucker for violence and complacent.

  Joyce, though. Joyce was a saint. She spoke about her sons with so much adoration Sydney always wondered how the small woman didn't crack in half because of all that love bubbling inside of her for Will and Jonathan. It was endearing and painful to see ━━ a mother love her children without moderation. Unlike Christine, Joyce didn't expect anything from her boys ━━ Jonathan and Will didn't have to be a certain type of person for Joyce to care.

  "I mean, you can't tell him I told you," insisted Matt. "It's top secret information."

  Sydney laughed a bit. "Why, has he actually told you he likes her?"

  "Well...not exactly. But I can tell."

  "Oh, and you're such a master of love now?" joked Sydney. And she did mean it as a joke, not as a poke at him.

  Thankfully, Matt got that, and grinned. "Yeah. It's like ━━ I know that your friend is in love with you. Toby."

  Sydney's heart sunk. "What? No, he doesn't."

  "Kiddo, come on. You're not that clueless, are you?"

  "Toby doesn't ━━ we're not━━ "

  "He looks at you like I used to look at your mom," said Matt bluntly. Sydney's stomach was in knots. "And I ━━ I never really moved on from Christine."

  It felt like there was a hummingbird in her ribcage where her heart should be. Trapped and frantic and flapping its weakening wings about against her lungs. Toby didn't like her in that way. He couldn't. It'd butcher years of friendship. Mutilate everything they had been through together by some hormonal feelings.

  "Just... find Will, OK?"

  Matt frowned. "Are you friends with his brother, or something? Jonathan."

  "No. No, no. Nooooo..." At her vehemence, Matt's brows furrowed. "I'm not. But I know Will means a lot to a lot of good people. And he's a good kid, too. Joyce really wants her son home."

  Matt nodded solemnly. "I know. She... Yesterday, she came to the station. I told her ━━ I'd be going out my mind if this was you."

  "Yeah, she told me..."

  "She ━━ when?"

  Pausing, Sydney contemplated what to say. She couldn't tell him about the babysitting job. It'd kill him if he knew she was working to get extra cash. He'd start to get insecure and blame himself for not being able to provide for her.

  "Oh, you know," said Sydney, scratching her neck, "just saw her at Melvald's..."

  "Right," said Matt, nodding.

  "Anyway... That's all I really came here for."

  Sydney got up from that uncomfortable chair and shouldered her bag, and was just about to stalk out of the station when━━

  "Wait, Sydney!"

  Bracing herself, she looked at Matt with a nervous smile. He had got up from his own seat and was breathing about fervently. "Yeah?"

  "Can I ━━ do you want a lift to school?"

  She had been teetering on that precipice of flatly saying no, but then she looked at the pin-board of polaroids, at the stack of resentful and hopeful letters alike, and finally at his pathetic, morose eyes blinking wretchedly at her.

  "Yes. I'd like that."

A/N

i feel so sorry for whoever came into this story hoping for a steve fic and is instead getting years worth of trauma dumping from me LMAO. yeah this chapter might be very boring and filler-y but wanted to address some things (eg why matt left, and a step to improvement, etc). sorry if nobody actually enjoyed it lol i just like the matt/sydney dynamic.