chapter five ♰ Good Will Hunting

  It had been a questionable request, but when Nancy, in a pained voice, asked Toby to drive through Loch Nora, he went along with it instantly. There wasn't much talking during the ride from school to richest neighbourhood in Hawkins ━━ Toby would occasionally detonate into a rant about Steve and mutter woundedly over Jonathan. But other than that, the girls rarely spoke. Nancy still looked perturbed, staring aloofly out the window like at any moment she'd go off like a grenade, and Sydney was trying not to scream out of frustration.

  She hated Steve Harrington. Passionately, zealously, lethally. She'd love to beat him up until he was covered in welts and bruises and weeping cuts. A swollen, black eye and a bust lip and maimed ribs.

  She hated Jonathan Byers too. For garnering her pity and compassion ━━ even after pulling something so depraved against Nancy. Sydney had defended him. It was more of a small mercy for Joyce and for Will than Jonathan, she told herself in retrospect. He didn't deserve it. But his family did. His neurotic mother, twitchy with nerves and frantic to get her son home. And Will ━━ wherever he might be. A corpse in the woods or a lost boy somewhere cold and unkind.

  In her belly, rage was simmering. In her head, thoughts with vicious hands were ravaging at her brain. In her heart ━━ nothing. She was starting to think all she could feel was hurt and anger.

  But then they reached Loch Nora ━━ Toby's shitty, rundown, second-hand car with the mud-stained wheels and peeling leather insides juxtaposing with the flashy vehicles parked on the humungous driveways of opulent houses ━━ and all of that changed. That rage stopped effervescing. The thoughts ceased their war. And her heart wrenched. These blocks of pretentious houses with their garish front gardens were where Sydney grew up. These asphalt roads were where she first lacerated her knees with gravelled-grazes after falling off her bike when Christine first took off the stabilizers. These ornate lawns were the very same Sydney used to mow for the wealthy pensioners for extra cash in the summertime. This was her stomping-ground when she was still mighty and mild ━━ all grubby hands and cuts and toothless smiles and obsessed with bugs (to kill, to keep, to squash into photo-frames).

  "Here," said Nancy breathlessly. "That's her car."

  Haunted, Sydney flinched back into life. Toby was just parking up behind an abandoned Volkswagen Cabrio.

  Nancy cranked open the back door and flung herself out of it right away, not even waiting for Toby and Sydney before approaching Barb's car. Concerned, Sydney and Toby exchanged a knowing glance before both opening their doors at the same time, flanking behind Nancy.

  The troubled girl, face overwrought and pinched with an upset frown, peered into the window. There was no sign of any aggression. Or any sight of Barb. Her keys weren't in the ignition and all that remained was a pool of fabric in the passenger seat ━━ a cableknit sweater that could've very well been Nancy's, with the style and the pallid colour.

  "Nance, I'm sure she's just━━"

  "What, Toby?" seethed Nancy, glaring up at him. "You're sure she's just what? Where would she have gone without her car? Not home ━━ because her mom's checked. So, please, tell me, where she's just."

  Toby swallowed thickly, a lump bobbing against his jugular as he sunk his hands into his pockets. "You're right. I'm sorry."

  Nancy didn't stay mad at him for long. She spared another glimpse back at the hollow car, and then at Toby's distressed expression, and she frowned at him. "No, I'm sorry... I didn't mean to━━ "

  "Hey, Nance, it's fine," assured Toby gently. "Really."

  Sydney swore she was coming down with something, because that odd feeling from before came swarming back in her stomach like a stampede of belligerent butterflies, their wings like razors against her organs. Watching Toby look at Nancy like that ━━ so sincerely with fond, affectionate eyes ━━ made Sydney's brows bow inwards and her lips purse into a thin line.

  "Do you want to look round Steve's?" she said abruptly.

  Toby and Nancy's heads snapped to her quickly.

  "Isn't that ━━ breaking and entering?" asked Nancy.

  "Is that the only law you and your brother know?" muttered Sydney.

  Nancy frowned. "What?"

  "Nothing," said Sydney, smiling passively. "Listen, Steve's parents are rarely home, and Loch Nora gates are all the same ━━ they never keep them locked. It's probably, like, a pride thing. Like, yeah, come look at my big swimming pool and try and rob me ━━ it's all insured anyways, because I'm so rich."

  Toby arched a brow at her. "You live in a cabin for a few months and suddenly you're Dolly Parton."

  "Whatever," scowled Sydney, blushing. "Let's just go."

  She was right (as she tended to be). The Harrington's kept their gate unlocked. The fence around the perimeter of their back garden hadn't changed since Sydney moved out ━━ the blue was still fading from oxidation and chipped in places. Mr Harrington wasn't exactly the type of man who'd care about the state of the paintjob on his fence. He'd tell his friends that it made it look rustic, if they asked. But all these houses were the same anywhere ━━ charming, if a little gauche.

  (There's only so far new money goes).

  "This pool's bigger than my entire house," said Toby grudgingly, dipping his toe delicately into the water and kicking up a splash.

  "You didn't complain when it was me who owned one," teased Sydney, stepping forward threateningly as if to push him in.

  Toby jolted away, wagging a finger at her. "Don't."

  "Barb!" Nancy suddenly yelled.

  "Shit, that's why we came here..." mumbled Sydney.

  Nancy's shout echoed throughout the thicket of trees surrounding the back of Steve's house. The only response she got was the rustling of leaf foliages, birdsong and the intermingled, bated breaths of Toby and Sydney. Her pretty features squeezed together, wan and fraught. She looked back at Sydney and Toby's pitying stares with a wretched helplessness about her that Sydney didn't think she'd ever see on Miss Perfect Nancy Wheeler's face.

  "I ━━ I don't understand," she stammered, despaired as her eyes fleeted about frantically. "She was right here."

  Sydney softened. "I'm sorry, Nancy. Really, I━━"

  SNAP. A twig splintering under the weight of someone's foot. Or something's. The three of them jumped in startle, Sydney's hand clutching at Toby's wrist as they all turned towards the overgrown woods.

  "What was that?" murmured Toby. "What the shit was that?"

  "Maybe a... a mountain lion?" suggested Sydney weakly.

  Nancy looked at her, bemused. "In Hawkins?"

  Sydney's stomach was in knots. She kept thinking about El. That disorientated, waxen, frail girl in Mike's basement, and the Demogorgon figurine she slammed onto the upside down gameboard. Bullshit. It had to be bullshit.

  But where's Will?

  Where's Barb?

  What's lurking in the sepulchre behind Steve Harrington's obnoxious house?

  "Then what?" said Toby.

  "I'm about to find out," said Nancy resolutely.

  Begrudgingly, Toby and Sydney followed Nancy's brazen lead into the woods. There was a shrub of ferns that prickled bristly against Sydney's bare arm when she scraped past, and nothing but pine trees for miles ahead. Crisp, autumn leaves crunched under their feet as they went ━━ going lightly, with delicate and cautious steps.

  "Barb?" Nancy called again.

  She stopped once they reached a small slope of earth, undergrowth and tangled roots, spinning around frantically.

  "Barb!"

  SNAP. Another twig.

  Sydney's nail gouged into Toby's wrist and he held her right back, snaking his arm round her shoulder and trying to find out whatever was amidst them.

  "What the━━"

  Another aggressive rustling of trees made Sydney turn around just in time to see an amorphous mass of something... scaly? Her eyes widened and before she could get a proper look at it, it lunged, eliciting a mortified shout from Nancy.

  "Holy shit!" exclaimed Sydney.

  Nancy turned around to run, but she got her ankle caught on a branch and fell to her knees with a surprised yelp. Sydney instantly reached down to grab the girl's arm, and yanked her back up to her feet. The three of them ━━ Toby screaming obscenities, Sydney shouting go! go! go! and Nancy gasping as she desperately tried to get back to the safety of Steve's backyard.

  Even once they returned to the lavish patio, they didn't stop sprinting, almost yanking the gate off its hinges as they ran back to where Toby had parked his car on the opposite side of the road. His fervent scrambling for his keys had sent them slipping from his trembling fingers and clattering onto the concrete. He swore vehemently, picking them up as Nancy screamed at him to hurry, idiot! and finally unlocked his car, Toby and Nancy hastening inside, but Sydney, halted by something across the street, wavered.

  Toby started warping his knuckles violently against the window, and Nancy's throat was getting raw from how many times she yelled Sydney's name, but for her, time stopped. She forgot all about whatever they had just encountered in the trees, and instead her eyes were glued on home.

  Not even thirty feet away from her stood the house she grew up in. The house Christine lived in. It wasn't just seeing it again that made her stop ━━ she had driven past it a few times since moving out, either with Toby or even Matt on the way to fetch some groceries. It was the people outside. A car had just parked up on the massive driveway Christine always used to complain about, because of all the leaves that used to accumulate in the gutter and collect in the windscreen. A man had just got out of the driver's seat and was jogging to the other side of the car, graciously bowing as he opened the passenger door and brandishing an arm out. A pretty woman ━━ his wife ━━ came stepping out, smiling up at him with adoration. He looked at her the way everyone wants to be looked at by the person they love. The husband then moved around her, keeping a hand on her waist and using the other to open the door to the back of the car, a little girl then hopping out, with pigtails and knee socks and a saccharine smile. The mother, with the most tender smile Sydney had ever seen a mother wear, swept her daughter up in her doting arms and smothered the chubby apple of her cheek with a slobbery kiss. The little girl was mewling in frustration, trying to pry her mother's love away, but then the father started showering her tiny face with kisses, too, and it was a sight that made Sydney want to die.

  "Sydney!" Toby's voice sounded like it was underwater. Lost in the rivulets of seaweed knotting round Sydney's lungs. Carried through a current. "Sydney!"

  Nancy had finally managed to wrench the stiff window of Toby's back window down enough to swat the back of Sydney's head. "Get in now, before we leave you here!"

  "Yeah, shit... Yeah, sorry."

  Sydney moved round and slipped in the passenger seat. Toby didn't even wait long enough for to actually buckle up before slamming his foot on the gas and speeding out of the street. He drove so fast that when Sydney stole one final glance at the unfractured family stepping into the house that once belonged to a mosaic one, the sight lasted a fleeting a second before it was consumed by woodland.

  "What the hell was that thing?" bellowed Toby.

  Nancy was breathless, shaking her head. "I have no idea. It definitely wasn't Barb."

  "Yeah, no shit!" cried Toby, panting. "It was, like━━"

  "A demogorgon," muttered Sydney.

  The chasm between Toby's brows creased. "A... a what?"

  Sydney inhaled deeply, shaking her head. "Nothing, it's just━━" she looked through the rearview mirror at Nancy's wide, anxious eyes, "Nothing."

  "It was probably just, like, a bear or something," stuttered Toby, nodding a bit zealously. "Yeah, a bear. It just took us by surprise, right?"

  Nancy nodded, senseless. "Right."

  "Let's, uh, let's get you home, Nancy," lamented Toby. "Does that sound good?"

  "Yeah... good."

  The drive to Maple Street was much the same as the journey to Loch Nora. Only the silence was of a different atmosphere. They were no longer solemn from the revelation of Jonathan's illicit photographs. This was, somehow, worse. They had all seen something wrong. It wasn't a bear ━━ they all knew it. It was easier to accept it was something they knew, but Sydney had seen it. That wasn't a creature they had ever seen in a biology textbook.

  It had been tall. Thin. Slimy. Its limbs were elongated and legs were digitigrade. Sydney hadn't seen a face, and for that she was grateful. Putting a face to it would make it seem more real. As they drove through the bustling streets of Hawkins ━━ its ordinary residents blissfully ignorant of what the 3 of them had just encountered ━━ Sydney dug her nails into the seat's botched leather and tried to convince herself that it was a trick of the eye. It wasn't slimy or scaly or freakishly tall. It was a bear. With a fur-coat and mauling claws.

  "Hey, Nance?"

  They had finally reached Maple, and Nancy had just gotten out of the car. The sky was being consumed by tangerine and rosy hues, the sun dying overhead. Nancy stood in its glow, body lithe and stiff and shaking a bit.

  Toby was leaning out of his window a bit, arm resting on the side. "Try not to worry too much, yeah? I'm sure it was nothing. And ━━ I'm sure Barb's out there."

  "Yeah. Yeah, you're probably right." Nancy was nodding and smiling, but she wasn't convinced. Sydney could see it plainly. The girl waved briefly at them, anyways. "Thanks for today ━━ both of you. It means a lot."

  "Of course," said Sydney earnestly. "Anything, Nancy."

  She smiled as much as she could muster, and give a solemn nod. She practically ran along the path leading up to her door, and couldn't be quicker slamming it shut behind her. Leaving Toby and Sydney ━━ as it always was. Sydney and Toby.

  "Well," muttered Toby, "what a fucking day, right?"

  Sydney scoffed a laugh. "What a fucking day."

  "Let's get you home to Matt. I'm sure he's worried sick," exaggerated Toby, giving Sydney a lopsided grin.

  His smile was the same drug as it always was. Even after seeing that thing. Even after Steve Harrington and his ego. Made her melt and all of the hungry demons with their teeth and their nails rot. She smiled right back ━━ because this drug made her so weak. His warmth was contagious and they say addictions make your immune system fragile. He overpowered her instantly. He infected everything.

  There was nothing more dangerous, more lethal, more malign than Toby Stanfield and his smile.

  "OK. Take me home, lover boy."

  Toby laughed as he stepped back on the gas. "Lover boy? What's that mean?"

  "Oh, I don't know," mumbled Sydney dryly, "maybe just you and your big, lovey eyes for Nancy."

  "Shut up," mused Toby, rolling his eyes.

  "I'm being serious!" insisted Sydney, watching his reaction closely. "Oh, Nance, it's fine, really. Oh, Nance, let's get you home."

  Toby briefly took one hand off the wheel to shove her face with the palm of it. "Fuck off, Sid. You're being ridiculous."

  "Am not!" she protested. "You were all over her! It's, like, 7th grade again!"

  Toby was shaking his head furiously. "Nope. Wrong!"

  "You looove her."

  "Get out my car. Seriously." Toby was laughing, but tried making his voice seem severe as he nodded at her door. "I'm being serious, Sid. I'm not even gonna stop the car, either ━━ jump out, tuck-n-roll. Out, now."

  Sydney's stomach hurt from how much she was laughing at his palatable misery, cheeks starting to get sore from how widely she was grinning. He started to look at her, and he wondered how truly ignorant she had to be to have not seen how bad he had it for her. How horrendously in love with her he was. It was probably obvious to every person in the world apart from Sydney ━━ who was so defiant that he was into Nancy after one interaction to see that he had been driving himself mad with this poisonous crush he's had on his best friend for years.

  The last glow of the sun was hitting her face perfectly and she looked like ━━ well, there was nothing to compare her to. No metaphor or simile. She was the sun, maybe. But the sun was ephemeral. The sun was dying now in a burst of marigold but Sydney's warmth didn't wane. Even when she became this reserved, brittle, shell of a girl after Christine's death ━━ Toby was done for. Because sometimes she'd crack a smile or laugh at one of his terrible joke's he'd blurt just for a slither of happiness from her, and it'd be ... it'd be everything. Sydney was everything. If he had to go with the half-baked parable that Sydney was the sun, then Toby was every planet in the solar system ━━ orbiting her, needing her, warmed by her. Without Sydney, he'd spin out of orbit. He'd die.

  He knew from physics what will happen when the sun dies in a couple billion years. All the outer material will dissipate, leaving a planetary nebula. It'll exude a mass of stardust and hydrogen ━━ a bit like an envelope ━━ and it'll swallow everything up. The planets and their moons and all the stars. Encase all of that matter into its envelope and seal it like a love letter for everything that has ever been and ever will be.

  That's what'd happen if Toby lost Sydney. She'd become a cold corpse of a star, detonate and consume Toby in her obliteration.

  "I'm gonna put out mixtape on," said Toby, sliding the cassette into the player, "and you're gonna shut up and not stain our holy songs with your stupid bullshit about me and Nance, alright? Ya hear me?"

  Amused by his austerity, Sydney saluted. "I hear ya."

  Toby took a long way home. Sydney noticed when he missed the usual turn back to her place, but she didn't say anything. Not when Up the Junction by Squeeze came onto the playlist and they both plunged into an awful rendition of the song. She knew that Toby probably just wanted to spend some time with her after the chaos of the past few days ━━ she wanted to spend time with him, too. Sydney didn't consider that a lot of the things that were once rituals with Christine ━━ belting in the car, vintage movies at the drive-in, midnight drives to get greasy food ━━ were now things she did with Toby. She didn't want to think about the possibility that she was trying to fill the hollowness her mother left with her best friend because she was already sick with so much guilt.

  So they just drove. Down random streets. Twisting through foreign neighbours. Zapping past acres of trees. Singing and laughing and forgetting and smiling and being teenagers. Not a lovesick boy ━━ with the decaying hurt of being into his best friend's, and the gradual grief of a slowly dying mother back at home. And not a grieving girl ━━ who lost a mother in the blink of an eye and a sharp brake.

  They drove until daylight was long gone and the sky was onyx, strewn with wisps of gunmetal-grey clouds.

  It was good. It was normal.

  And it was ruined by the flashing of lights and the blaring of sirens that came racing past them like bullets.

  "What the hell?" gaped Toby, slowing down his car as an ambulance flanked by several police cars overtook him. His face became illuminated by neon lights as he turned to stare at Sydney in horror. "Will?"

  "Or Barb," she choked. "Follow them. Go, go!"

  He did as she asked, slamming his foot on the gas and shifting into fifth gear. They sped after the lights and the sirens and all the while, Sydney's heart was in her throat, hammering against her jugular and pressing bile up onto her tongue. She felt nothing but the stinging of nerves biting at her guts like a thousand, vicious piranhas.

  Please don't be Will, she kept thinking. Beseeching. Praying. Praying to what? Sydney wasn't religious. Sydney had no God.

  Praying to Christine.

  Her mother was her God. Infallible and gone and all-knowing.

  Please don't let him be dead, Mom.

  The commotion led them to the quarry. Alit by fluorescence and thundering alarms. Toby's wheels cringed over gravel and pebbles as he skidded to an abrupt park, and Sydney didn't hesitate before flinging herself out of the car ━━ just as desperate as Nancy had been earlier when looking for Barb.

  Before she could approach the officers and other uniformed men swarming the edge of the vast stretch of water, a small, terrified voice called her name.

  "Sydney!"

  After that, 2 more voices shouted for her.

  "Sydney! Sydney!"

  She whirled around, heart hammering in her ribcage (or maybe in her ears? in her oesophagus? somewhere). She felt something deep within her ache and shatter at the sight of the three frightened, anguished boys peeking from behind a fire-engine, the lithe skeleton of El withdrawn behind them. Sydney glanced at the cops, trying to distinguish from the back of their heads if one of them was Matt, and then at the kids, wretched, before bolting towards them.

  Their bikes were tangled in a mass of steel, chains and wheels behind them, and all of their faces were the same. Dreading the worst. Smeared with grief. Torn by an agony they shouldn't be feeling at an age as ripe as theirs.

  Before Sydney could even open her mouth, Lucas was crashing into her, his head burying in her chest and arms tightening around her middle.

  "Sydney, is it him?" he asked, wounded. "Is it ━━ is it...?"

  Aching, Sydney blinked dolefully at Dustin and Mike, both of them pale as they looked to her to for something. Reassurance. Comfort. A lie.

  She cradled the back of Lucas's head. "I... I don't know, kid."

  Toby had just caught up with her, rasping a bit as he looked around at the young boys. "What are you idiots doing here?" He then blinked, noticing El ━━ gaunt and distraught. "Who the hell is the bald chick?"

  "It's not Will," said Mike, hoarsely but so sure. So fucking sure. "It can't be."

  As if protecting him, Sydney held Lucas's head tighter to her chest as she slightly twisted around, staring woefully out to the water. They rose a body out of it ━━ saturated and so small ━━ and placed him onto the stretcher. Sydney only caught a glimpse of the jaundiced, tiny face and she knew. She tightened the arm around Lucas's shoulder and tried to hide him from the harrowing sight by using her other hand to guide his head away.

  It didn't look real. It couldn't be. He was so young. And so good. He looked like a doll. Taxidermy. Stuffed with cotton-wool and dressed in Will's clothes, carved with Will's features, made to look like Will. But Will couldn't be dead because he was a kid and he was innocent and Sydney had prayed so violently and so devoutly.

  "It's Will," choked out Lucas. He had writhed his head to the side, out of Sydney's grip and denial. He was shaking against her. Like she was hugging a trembling twig. "It's really Will."

  "Fuck," muttered Toby, aghast. His face twisted with grief ━━ he knew that boy. He had musically educated him with Jonathan with a matrix of classic ━━ The Clash, Bowie, Led Zeppelin. He turned around, gulping down his guilt because these kids didn't need to see him cry. He put a heavy hand on Mike and Dustin's shoulders, trying to steer them away. "C'mon, you don't have to see this━━"

  "No, he-he can't━━" spat Mike vacuously, eyes furious and glassy.

  He wrenched himself away from Toby just for El to put a sullen, dainty hand on his shoulder, mumbling Mike. Mike glared at her venomously, swatting her touch away. El's face fell right away, flinching.

  "Mike? Mike, what?" he sneered, voice thick with terror, pain and wrath. "You were supposed to help us find him alive! You said he was alive!" The scrawny boy's throat was raw with emotion and El looked terrified, and all Sydney could do was watch helplessly, holding Lucas, trying not to tear up. "Why did you lie to us? What's wrong with you ━━ what is wrong with you?"

  "Mike..." whimpered El, softly.

  "What?" he demanded.

  "Hey, c'mon now, Mike, she ━━ it's not her fault," said Toby weakly, reaching a hand out for him.

  Seething, Mike smacked it away. "Why are you even here? Just, leave me alone!"

  He started storming back away to his bike, and Lucas tore himself out of Sydney's arms. She didn't know if it was for her or him, but she snaked her arm back out suddenly and curled it around his shoulder, keeping him close to her side as he stared after Mike's retreating figure in anguish.

  "Mike, come on," Lucas implored tearfully, sniffling. "Don't do this, man. Mike!"

  He was already untangling his bike from the others, tears streaming down the angular slopes of his devastated face.

  Dustin was just as tormented. "Mike, where are you going? Mike!"

  The two boys called after him as Mike starting pedalling away, ignoring their shouts and moving his legs as fast as he could to leave all of it behind. Sydney felt so useless. She felt like she had been cut open ━━ one lacerating incision by a scalpel severing her middle open. Like all of her organs had slipped out and dropped to the floor. Organic matter splattering across gravel. Bloody and gross and rotten. All she could do was watch as the night swallowed Mike whole and his friends screamed for him to come back.

  Toby put his hand on her shoulder but Sydney shook hit off, grimacing. All she could think about was how selfish she had been. Arguing with Will's brother. Singing in the car with Toby. Wasting time on Steve fucking Harrington. Whilst Will's tiny corpse was in the depths of the quarry.

  "We gotta go after him," muttered Dustin, stalking off to the last two bikes.

  "Yeah," conceded Lucas sullenly, his feet barely moving off the ground, scraping across gravel and pebbles.

  "Take ━━ " Sydney hiccoughed on a sob, putting an arm around Eleven's tremoring shoulders, "get El home safe, OK? To Mike's. He'll take her in, I know it. He's just upset."

  Lucas and Dustin exchanged a conflicted look, glaring at El through their tears.

  "Kids, I know you're hurting. Trust me, I know, but ━━" Sydney sniffed, fingertips pressing into El's upper arm. "She needs someone. And so do you. I'll come find you all tomorrow, yeah? I'll ━━ you'll all be OK. It'll be OK."

  They had listened to her. Crying and hurt and dizzy with everything, they listened. Dustin ushered El onto the back of his bike, and with her emaciated face pinched with sorrow, she tentatively put her hands on his shoulders ━━ like she was afraid he'd shove her off or something. Lucas made sure to give Sydney one final hug, bittersweet and sending a visceral pang to her heart. He smiled at her so sadly it made her bleed. And then they left, vanishing into the same darkness as Mike.

  Leaving Toby and Sydney ━━ as it always was. Sydney and Toby.

  "Sydney..." he said, wretchedly. "I gotta... I'm gotta go home, do you want me to━━"

  "Sid?"

  Sydney didn't even spare Toby a glance. She spun around as soon as she recognised that voice. Bathed in the pale glow of Toby's headlights, Matt was stood with his eyes squinted and expression confused. Like he couldn't quite believe Sydney was there. As if he genuinely thought he was hallucinating her ━━ his daughter. Something else was on his face, too. Something haunted. He had probably seen Will's corpse up close. Seen how porcelain and small he was. Like a doll.

  "Matt," she cried.

  She started running towards him, and he hastened to meet her halfway, catching her and holding her when she started to cry. She was shivering and trying so hard not to erupt into hysterics. Sydney had flung her arms round his shoulders and was now on her tiptoes, clinging onto him. She felt like an upset little girl who just needed the comfort of Father. And he held her like she was one ━━ gently and lovingly and patting the back of her head because he didn't know what to do. He was Father, not Mother. Father who was hollowed out of anything good ━━ all booze and regret and probably a failing heart. But he was holding her together like she was sacred and it felt like atonement. Like he was making up for all those years of hurt that he didn't nurse. Bruises he didn't kiss better, just to appease the gullibility of a child. Wounds he didn't suture. Boys he didn't curse out for making her cry.

  Selfishly, for a second, she almost forgot about why she was here. Almost forgot about Will. She just thought about Father and Daughter. Hugging. She was hugging Matt. And he was her dad and he cared about her ━━ underneath it all. He loved her. Because she was his daughter. He was her dad.

  "He's dead," mumbled Sydney, shaking her head into the crook of her dad's neck. "He was just a kid. He was ━━ he's dead."

  "I got ya, kiddo," muttered Matt. "I gotcha."

  "I... D━━ Matt..."

  His breath hitched and he just hugged her tighter, looking over her shoulder to wear Toby stood, grim and ringing his hands together. Matt tried smiling for his daughter's best friend, but it just came out looking like an awkward sort of frown.

  "I got ya..."