chapter six ♰ Tea to Soothe a Broken Heart

  Sunshine imbued through the chasm between the cheap, floral curtains of Matt's living room. Sydney woke up to it blinding her ━━ she didn't remember crashing on the couch when they got home from the quarry last night, but there she was. Curled in the foetal position, eyelashes clinging together from dried tears, with a crochet blanket over her, on the sofa instead of in her own bed.

  She didn't even have time to adjust to her surroundings, either ━━ barely noticing the TV crackling with static and playing Matt's favourite episode of Only Fools & Horses (Who's a Pretty Boy? she's come to learn) ━━ because Matt came bustling from the kitchen, bruised hands nestled round a steaming mug of tea. He kept making animated noises like oh! and ah! and fuck! until he finally settled the ceramic down on a coaster ━━ one he had stolen from a bar after Sydney complained about how sticky he kept making the coffee table with his incessant spillages of beer.

  "Voilà!" he said, shaking his slightly scorched hands.

  Sydney, groggy, rubbed her eyes and sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the couch and looking apprehensively down at the tea. Surprisingly, it didn't look bad at all. Not like Matt's usual brew ━━ so milky it looked opaline. This was the perfect colour. An infallible, golden brown. Sydney almost felt proud, glancing back up Matt with a big smile.

  "Yeah, uh..." Matt scratched his neck awkwardly, "I phoned Toby, like, an hour ago and asked him how you liked your tea. Woke him up, pissed him off, confused him a lot, but ━━ he'll get over it, eh?"

  Sydney didn't know what to say. It was such a stupid, menial gesture but it made her smile so much her face felt sore.

  "You phoned Toby," she mumbled, wrapping her fingers round the mug.

  It was hot. Spirals of steam were coming off it in tendrils and making her eyes water ━━ but that could've just been Matt's heartfelt and ridiculous way of making her feel better that was making her tear up a bit. But Sydney took a sip of it anyway, impetuously. She had to know if it tasted right, too. And it did. Earthy and rich and not too milky. With a small hint of sugar.

  It also burned her tongue. But that didn't matter. She'd char every last taste-bud off if it meant gulping down every last perfect dreg.

  "Any good?" Matt actually looked nervous, like this meant a lot to him.

  (It meant a lot to Sydney, too).

  Sydney, eyes maybe a bit glassy, nodded. "Yeah. It's good."

  Despite her impulse to, Sydney didn't chug every last drop. Her throat raw from the warmth, she decided to settle it back on the stolen coaster and smile weakly as Matt dramatically bowed in thanks. He then gestured to the free spot now next to her on the couch and Sydney nodded, gesturing halfheartedly. Matt sat down, picking up the bit of crochet blanket from his side first and tossing it onto her lap. Smiling to herself, Sydney tucked it under her feet and brought her legs up to her chest, lolling her head on her knees to look at him.

  "If you wanna talk about ━━ last night..."

  Sydney suddenly wished she actually had downed all of the tea and singed all of her organs with it because now her blood felt frigidly cold. Her bones stiffening, Sydney willed herself not to think about last night, but the memory it pervaded to the thorny forefront of her mind anyways. Lucas and the way he dug his fingers into Sydney's shoulder-blades in desperation as he begged for her to tell him it wasn't Will. Will himself. Rather, his corpse. Will was dead. She had seen his body, pulled out of the water like one of those models they use teaching CPR. El's panic ━━ Eleven existing. Mike's guilt-carved temper. Dustin's quivering lip. Toby. God, she left him there. He had known Will better than she had ━━ watched him grow up and laughed with him and Jonathan as they listened to new music. But she didn't take up his offer for a lift and made him drive home alone to sick mother ━━ he probably had to tell Imani that the little boy she used to make soup for when he was ill (before she got really ill) was dead. She didn't hesitate to jump into Matt's truck and have him drive her home instead because she hadn't wanted to hurt anymore, and Toby would make her hurt. So she let him hurt alone.

  "Did Toby sound OK?" Sydney asked frantically. "I left him there. God, when you called him, did he sound angry ━━"

  "Sydney," interjected Matt, putting a hand on her shoulder, "he asked if you were OK."

  Sydney's heart ached. "He did?"

  "I told you, kiddo. That boy━━"

  Hurt enough, Sydney shook her head. "I know. I know. I just can't deal with that right now."

  "Do you, you know, like, do ━━ Christ." Matt pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm not good at this kinda thing. Or any kinda thing, but this, wow━━"

  "Matt, I know what you're trying to say."

  Do you love him back? Sydney loved Toby. She did. He'd been there for everything. When Matt wasn't around for things ━━ like when Sydney had a foolish crush on Tommy H. and she stumbled on him kissing Carol instead ━━ it was Toby who's shirt would be drenched with hormonal tears and balled up in lovesick fists. And then Sydney lost Christine, and she definitely couldn't confide in Matt about it ━━ at least not in the early months. It was Toby. Always. He'd pick her up at unearthly hours and they'd just drive. It was like a love language to them. Toby. Sydney. His shitty car. Listening to music. Sitting in silence. Laughing. Crying. Lingering touches when he'd hold her hand and prolonged stares in dying sunlight. Or he'd be banging on her bedroom door with a bag full of snacks and a rented VHS and an absolute determination to not let her rot.

  Sydney had always loved Toby because they were ━━ honestly, best friends didn't come close. He was half of her soul, as the poets say. If Sydney was Achilles, Toby was her Patroclus. But after everything with her mom, there was a shift. In the way he looked at her and in how many things she'd notice about him. Christine used to joke about it all the time...

  "You know, with how much of a waste of space your dad is, Syds━━"

  (Christine had been drunk again; she liked to dissect Matt's drinking habits, but Christine was almost always seen with a humungous glass of white wine in her hand after 6PM)

  "Toby will have to be the one to walk your down the aisle when you get married ━━ that is, if it's not Toby you're marrying."

  So after Chris died, it was like Sydney felt this goading voice in her head. Toby and his jumpers. Toby and his heart. Toby and that chain of his. Toby Toby Toby. Even in death, Christine had one hand curled around Sydney's throat and the other rummaging through the grey matter of her brain. Mother was as ruthless and invasive as a lobotomy.

  "I don't really wanna talk about it."

  Because did she love Toby like that or was everything in the world so confusing but him? Was he the only column of stability in a colosseum of pillars of salt so Sydney couldn't help but cling to him for support? Did he represent the last string to Christine ━━ invisible and making her feel like a marionette to Mother's contortionism all over again ━━ and Sydney had got herself all tangled up in a web of love and loss?

  Will. God, Will was dead and she was thinking about her love life. She was such a teenager, it hurt.

  "Hey, that's cool, kiddo, we don't have to," assured Matt. "We can talk about anything. Or nothing. It's totally up to you, Sid."

  "I wanted to hate you ━━ so bad."

  Matt looked taken aback, physically recoiling. "What?"

  "You ━━ you were a shitty dad," said Sydney breathlessly, balling the blanket up into her fists. "Fuck, you weren't even a dad." Matt's face scrunched up terribly, like she had just stabbed him. "You've hurt me so much. I told myself ━━ I'd make your life hell. These 2 years before I move out. I'd make you hurt like you hurt me. And then I'd leave and I'd never visit you again because you never visited me. I promised myself."

  Matt was wounded. He hadn't expected that. Not after the past few days of improvement. But then he wrenched that hand from around his heart and twisted the wrist. A few days. He was gone for 16 years. But, still. He thought it was getting better. Just last night ━━ she had curled up in the passenger seat, burrowed under his jacket, and they had just... watched Only Fools & Horses reruns. So many episodes back-to-front. They didn't talk about Will. She hadn't wanted to. And neither had Matt. They didn't really talk at all, actually. His spine got taut and sore from sitting in the recliner but he didn't complain none because she had been comfy on the sofa. And when she fell asleep, he put the same crochet blanket over her that she'd drape over him when he collapsed somewhere compromising after a night out drinking with Callahan and Powell from the station.

  "Sid, I━━ "

  "But." And it was such an anguished, hopeful word. She spat it out like an apple seed ━━ cyanide ━━ and sniffled violently. "I don't hate you. Not even after everything you did, or didn't. Why can't I hate you?"

  His head shook wretchedly. "I dunno, kiddo."

  "I want to hate you," cried Sydney, looking at him now. Eyes swollen from last night and teary from now and Matt wanted to sever his own tongue for doing this. "And a part of me does, because you're trying now, and it feels too late. You're ordering the right pizza and making the right tea and saying the right things and trying. Why couldn't you do this before? When ━━ I was 7 and broke my leg and Mom had called you so many times. I had a concussion, too. Stitches."

  Vehemently, she swept a lock of hair behind her ear and revealed 3 thin scars. Pinkish and faded but there. Still there.

  Matt hated himself. Something vile and ugly and painful bloomed in his ribs. Resentment.

  Sydney sniffled again and a tiny, barely audible, wheezing sound came from her chest. Where had this come from? This vengeance. This need to make him bleed. Was it a deflection from Toby and Will and Christine? Sydney had said itself ━━ she wanted Matt to hurt the way he hurt her. Could he blame her?

  "You kept it all," said Sydney dejectedly. "The letters, polaroids and sketches. The letters. But you never wrote back ━━ you never did! Why didn't you? Why didn't you write back? Why didn't you fucking write back━━?!"

  Matt lunged forward, putting one hand on the back of her head and the other between her shoulder-blades and cradling her to his fractured chest. And his daughter just sobbed into it. Tears soaked through the stupid, Hawaiian t-shirt he found crumpled up on the floor. Her hands curled around the cheap material of it. Each sob wracked her body violently and rasped at her throat and tugged another wave of emotion over Matt. He felt himself tear up. He hadn't cried since he got the call-in about Christine. Since he had to pry her lifeless body, smothered in cuts, out of overturned car, shards of glass dusting her eyelashes. But their daughter crying in his arms was too much.

  "I'm sorry," he whispered into her hair. "I'm sorry, Sydney."

  "He's dead," Sydney whimpered. "He was a kid and he's dead."

  "I know. I got ya. It's OK."

  Sydney shook her head against his chest, knuckles tightening round the shirt. "It's not. People... people die. Good people. Kids. My mom. It hurts, Matt."

  "It'll get better," Matt told her. "And it'll get worse again. And then better. And that's what it is, kiddo. That's life. But I'm here now. And if you want me to sit and reply to every last one of those letters and put them in your hands, I will." ━━

  "It's too late..."

  Matt squeezed his eyes shut. A few tears slipped over his cheekbone and into the roots of her hair. "I know it is. And I'm sorry."

  "But..." There it is again. That word. A haunting. Anguished & hopeful. "The tea's enough."

  Matt choked out a laugh, holding her tighter. "Yeah? You promise?"

  Sydney nodded, laughing brokenly. "I promise."

  "Hey, uh..." Matt emptied his throat awkwardly and pulled back from the hug. He was wincing under Sydney's bloodshot, keen eyes and started to wring his hands together. "I dunno if you, like, want to or anything, but with Will and the Holland girl being missing I asked Toby if I could take you to school today. He said yeah ━━ but," he added hastily, before Sydney could even react, "if you don't want to, or you'd, like, rather go with Toby, then it's not too late for me to call him. Or, you know, like... Yeah."

  "Matt," Sydney interjected before he could ramble anymore, "I don't mind."

  Matt nodded slowly. "Oh. Oh! Good, yeah. Well, you know ━━"

  "I'm sorry for my meltdown," said Sydney bluntly. "You don't have to be weird with me. Or try even harder. I was just a bit emotional, I think."

  "No, that's ━━" Matt shook his head vehemently. "That's not why. I really am worried. About you, about Hawkins. They're saying it was a bike accident ━━ Will, I mean. But Hop and I both agree that it's just...sketchy."

  Her insides churned. "Sketchy?"

  "Yeah... I mean, we search for him for weeks, and he's found ages away from home?" said Matt, looking a bit pensive and numb. "The quarry wasn't even on the way. Plus ━━ it's one of two parts in Hawkins that belongs to the state."

  "And what's the other?"

  "Hawkins Lab," replied Matt with a shrug. "Why?"

  Sydney frowned, shaking her head. "Just wondering."

  She finished her tea and spoke with Matt detachedly about Will ━━ as much as she could with it still a fresh wound. She kept thinking about Jonathan and Joyce, and how they were handling it. All Sydney could remember was how she felt in the early days after losing Chris ━━ when it was a raw, gushing exit wound that nothing could suture. She had been in bouts of denial, sleeping a lot and believing that Christine would come banging on her bedroom door for her to wake up. Joyce was more neurotic than Sydney, though. Her blood had more nerves than plasma and she was probably thinking a million things a minute trying to wrack her mind round losing a son. Outliving a parent is expected. Burying one is normal. But having to buy a coffin for your own child ━━ that's a new pain entirely.

  All the way through Sydney's shower, she just kept thinking and spiralling and aching. The water came down like sharp, sweltering bullets against her skin. She scrubbed at herself until she felt blistery and abraded and smelt like honey. Dug her fingers aggressively into her scalp. And thought. About the odd creature in the woods behind Steve's house, and the torn Byers family, and Barb, and what Matt had told her about his and Hopper's theory ━━ that something about Will's death felt off. About Eleven. About Hawkins' Lab and its connection to the quarry ━━ the only state-owned allotments in Hawkins.

  It was all too fractured for Sydney to piece it together. To forget it out. But it all felt connected. The monster. Eleven. Will. Barb. The quarry and the lab. Or maybe Sydney was a bit too much like Joyce Byers ━━ neurotic and chewed up by grief.

  Sydney dried herself and her hair as quickly as she could, exchanging yesterday's clothes (since she never had chance to change last night) for a dungarees and a thin, cotton jumper with stripes. After half of her hair was twisted up in its usual banana clasp, she went to find Matt ━━ he was outside on the porch, leaning over the wooden railing with a cigarette and massaging his temple with the other hand as if he had a migraine.

  "All right?" Sydney asked him.

  Matt jolted. "Huh? Oh, yeah. Just a headache, kiddo."

  "Is it the stress?" mused Sydney, jumping down the porch steps with her hands in the dungarees' pockets.

  Matt glared down at her from the porch. "Yeah, it is." Disparagingly, he flicked the stub of his cigarette down on the grass next to her feet. Sydney made a noise of protest, flinching back as it charred a blade of grass beside her trainers. "You all ready?"

  "I guess."

  "Are you sure you want to go?" asked Matt, coming almost sideways down the stairs in a little jog, keys tinkering in his pocket. "You can stay home, if you want. Or even with me at the station ━━ Hop actually likes you, I think. You're both miserable."

  For a second, Sydney just tried to register what she was hearing. Her parent was telling her she could flunk school. Even when Sydney was 12 and her grandmother had died in the night, Christine hadn't let her have the day off. Chris, for all her merits, advocated education above most things. Maybe it was because she narrowly missed the Ivy League experience of Harvard thanks to teenage pregnancy creating a chasm for her, but it was always absolutely necessary for Sydney to never truant. As soon as Sydney was discharged from the hospital with her stitches and crutches at 7, she was back in school, hobbling along with a throbbing skull.

  Now, Matt was saying she could have the day off because of a kid Sydney hardly knew. Christine would be rolling in her barely-cold grave.

  "Ha, ha," said Sydney sarcastically after recovering. "Me and Hopper are just better than you, s'all."

  "Sure."

  They both got into the truck and shut their doors at the same time, Matt instantly putting the radio on. Don't Stop Believin' by Journey. One of his favourites. Sydney cringed right away, knowing what she was in for.

  "That's what I'm fucking talking about!" enthused Matt, switching on the ignition and also turning up the volume. "Some'll win! Some'll lose━━ come on, Syd, you know the words!"

  Sydney grimaced. "Absolutely not."

  "Boring!" Matt exclaimed as he started driving down their road, music so loud it probably woke up all of their neighbours. "Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard ━━ their shadows searching in the night!"

  "You're such a bad singer."

  Matt glared at her; really glared at her. "Even after your attack earlier, I think that's the worst thing you've ever said to me."

  "Yeah, well, you left me for 16 years, I think I can comment on your awful singing," joked Sydney.

  It felt weird making light about what had been the most cutting tragedy of her life up until a few months ago, and laughing over the gnawing absence of her father with the deadbeat himself, but there she was. Matt cracked a weak laugh and started mumbling fair enough, kiddo, fair enough.

  Journey faded out into some song by Madness that had Matt leaning over to turn down the dial on his Blaupunkt radio and relaxing back into his seat. They had left Holland St. now and were driving along the vacant road lined by overgrown woodland. Sydney was tugging at a frayed bit of denim on the hemline of her dungarees and Matt was focusing on the vast asphalt ahead, fingers drumming along the leather steering wheel.

  "So, where to, Syd? School, the station, you tell me."

  Sydney blew out a puff of air and shrunk. "I guess school. 'Can't leave Tobes to fend for himself. Not today."

  "Did he know the kid well?" Matt asked considerately.

  "He's ━━ was ━━ is good friends with Jonathan, his brother." Sydney stammered around the tenses. After what Jonathan had did to Nancy, there was an ambiguity. And after Toby witnessed Will's body be pulled out of the water yesterday, that ambiguity blurred even more. "He basically saw him grow up, I guess."

  Matt looked forlorn. "Fuck, that's shit."

  Sydney nodded. "Shit."

  "School it is."

Sydney had innocently enough been leaving first period when a hand stuck out of nowhere and yanked her into an empty classroom.

  "Hey, what the━━ "

  In a mercurial blink, the door slammed shut, her back was flush against the wall and she noticed it was Steve Harrington who had ambushed her. He was resting against the edge of a desk with his arms crossed over his chest and eyes narrowed aloofly at her.

  "Harrington," Sydney sneered. "What the fuck was that for? You really are a pervert ━━"

  "Oh, really?" laughed Steve humourlessly. "I'm the pervert?" He pushed himself off the desk and in one, fluid stride was stood dangerously close to her with his head cocked patronisingly to the side. "So it wasn't you who helped my girlfriend break into my backyard yesterday?"

  Sydney's eyes widened, losing her standoffish stance. "What?"

  "Yeah. Now Nancy's, like, totally pissed off with me or something," muttered Steve bitterly. "So, thanks a lot for that."

  "How is that my fault?"

  "She says you told her about my gate always being open!" he shouted, bringing his arms up just to slap them back down again belligerently.

  "How would that make her mad at you?"

  "She ━━" Steve faltered. "She thinks that whatever you guys saw took Barb. Now the cops are getting involved and I told her to not tell them that we were drinking ━━"

  Sydney scoffed in disbelief. "Her best friend is missing and you told her to leave shit out of the police investigation?"

  "I didn't mean it like that!" snapped Steve. "I just ━━ you lived by me right? You know what my dad's like. He's, like, a grade A asshole."

  The hazy memory of doors slamming and screeching tires against asphalt as Mr Harrington sped off his driveway came to mind, simmering viciously. Sydney and Steve were practically neighbours all their lives until she moved out ━━ she had heard and seen a lot. The sound of shattering glass against drywall and a woman's visceral sobs and the guttural bellowing of an apathetic man and a boy who just wanted to get out of the house.

  "Why don't you tell your girlfriend this?" demanded Sydney.

  "Because!" cried Steve, throwing his arms up again exasperatedly. "I told her that my dad would go insane, and she didn't care. I know she's, like, nervous about Barbara and that. But ━━"

  "Steve," Sydney interjected brittlely.

  He blinked dolefully at her. "Yeah?"

  "I'm not your relationship therapist," she said. "I'm not even your friend."

  Steve frowned, face falling a bit. "Hey, I know what happened with Byers was slightly uncalled for ━━ but you can't argue that he's a total fucking creep, Sydney!"

  "That's not what I mean," she retorted. "We've never been friends. Why can't you tell Tommy and Carol this? Why are you assuming I care about yours and Nancy's relationship troubles? Because I really don't."

  Steve deflated instantly. Like a balloon struck by a razor. A part of him, under the hubris and the ignorant apathy, knew why Sydney was pissed after smashing Jonathan Byers' camera ━━ he had been thinking about how she had shouted him afterwards all night. Her words etching into his skull. It had been a kick to the gut hearing her condemn him for his... Well, Steve honestly hadn't understood half the words she said. Incorrigible? He hadn't known but from the withering tone he guessed it wasn't anything flattering. Just her voice itself had been a sucker punch, and Steve didn't particularly understand why.

  He had glanced over his shoulder before stalking off back into the school yesterday to see Nancy being coaxed into the car by Sydney's best friend. That had bruised his ego. But how venomously Sydney had spoken and looked at him ━━ that had delivered an ugly, contusing blow. Nancy had left a big welt, swollen and hurt. Sydney left an exit wound.

  Mainly because of what she said. You will never change, she had lamented acridly, you'll always be the mean, spoilt, ignorant boy you are now. It had it a sore spot. Or, rather, created one. All the traits people had found endearing in him, attractive ━━ Tommy and Carol laughing at his meanness, girls admiring his money and never commenting when he was surly and rude ━━ were the ones Sydney plucked out and spat on.

  She had made scars around his stars and now he was bleeding.

  "Fuck, I dunno, Sydney, maybe I want to be friends with you?" said Steve. "Is that so hard to believe?"

  "Yeah. It is," she said bluntly.

  Steve shook his head. "Why?"

  "Because you didn't even remember my name a week ago!" replied Sydney. "Because I lived basically next-door to you for 15 years and I used to bring your parents round casseroles when my mom would tell me to, and I always used to say hi, and you'd ignore me. And you were never mean to me, Steve. And that's honestly worse. Because you just acted like I didn't exist. Like you did with everyone who isn't Tommy or Carol or Nicole, or Nancy apparently." Her voice was starting to get a little hoarse and Steve looked disorientated, but she carried on delicately. "And it's not like I had a crush on you or anything. I had been a lonely kid until I met Toby and since you lived close and my mom knew your mom, I guess I just thought ━━"

  Her voice got caught sharply in her throat and she just dropped it, feeling strangled by bottled up anger she didn't even know she had. Sydney just exhaled hotly and folded her arms, refusing to look at him.

  Meanwhile, Steve was just gaping at her dumbly. Her words always felt so brutal. Like a lobotomy ━━ drilling a hole into his cranium and putting him into a vegetative state until he could process it all. He opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out. He almost felt as though he was swaying.

  Sydney scoffed bitterly. "Whatever..."

  She turned to leave the hollow classroom, and that delivered the kick of adrenaline Steve needed to catch her elbow and spin her back around. They were close. Tangibly. He stared down at her with a frown and Sydney just looked confused.

  "I'm an asshole, OK?" sighed Steve. "I was an asshole, I am an asshole, I probably will always be an asshole."

  That winded a laugh out of her. "I can cross off ignorant from all that shit I called you yesterday."

  "Yeah, you were pretty brutal," mused Steve, fingers now tracing the material of her jumper absentmindedly. "Listen, I ━━ I was sorry to hear about your mom."

  Sydney's face got sour. "It's a bit late for that, Steve."

  He started to shake his head frantically, his free hand moving up to her other arm, holding it firmly. "No, I mean ━━ I had wanted to come see you. Like, bring a ... a gift basket, or something. My dad, he ━━ he said it was a stupid idea, so I didn't, and maybe I have, like, a pathological people pleaser thing ━━ That's besides the point." Sydney was looking up at him with a fond, amused smile and Steve was smiling just because she was smiling, desperately trying to find the right words ━━ and fuck, was it warm in there? "What I mean to say his ━━ I knew you existed. I knew you... I just didn't know you. That's why I didn't know your name in the bathroom that day. When I think of the girl who used to live next to me, she had pigtails and knobbly knees and was missing her front tooth and these terrible bangs ━━"

  "They weren't terrible!" exclaimed Sydney.

  "God, they were. They really were," Steve laughed. Sydney was laughing too but she tried to maintain a glare. It didn't work. She just rolled her eyes at him. Almost affectionately. "I'm sorry I ignored you. Maybe if you had better bangs I would've invited you round for dinner or something."

  Sydney smiled wryly. Even through the cotton of her jumper, she could feel the pads of his fingertips moving circles over her upperarms. A part of it all felt wrong. She was alone in a classroom with Steve Harrington and he was talking to her so casually as if they had been friends all their lives. He basically had a girlfriend ━━ even if they still lacked exclusivity. But his touch was so delicate it felt Sydney deceptively innocent. Yet there was still something so illicit about it.

  "God, you're so ━━" Sydney wavered, struggling to find the word.

  Steve must've noticed because he stepped a little closer to her, head tilting to the side. "Yeah? Say it. I'm so..."

  "Incorrigible."

  "There's that word again," he feigned a wretched sigh. "Are you gonna tell me what it means?"

  Sydney smirked. "It means you're painfully stuck in your ways, Harrington."

  "Is that so, Sommers?"

  "Yeah."

  There was a split moment where the gauzy cloth of time tore at the seam and everything went still. Where Steve thought about nothing other than how witty and blunt and facetious and pretty Sydney Sommers was. Where Sydney considered abandoning all of her morals. Where there was nothing outside that classroom. No birdsong. No boy to be buried. No girl to be found. No gravestone of a mother or shell of a father. Nothing. Stillness.

  And, God, maybe Steve would've kissed her. If it was all loose strings and she wasn't the girl who lived one door down and he didn't have Nancy. Nancy. Fuck ━━ Nancy.

  Sydney drew in a severe breath and that glint of Nancy faded again and it was just Sydney. Palpable. Her astuteness. The vague scent of honey. Her eyes ━━ chilling blue. Lonely and lovely and lethal, and he might've had her if he had been less incorrigible for all those years.

  Then, the bell rung. Lacerating through the thick air.

  Time started again.

  Sydney jolted back, a pang of guilt harrowing through her and tendrils of regret knotting around her lungs. Steve blinked, noticing his hands were no longer on her arms and now hanging pathetically at his sides.

  "I should ... go," forced out Sydney, gesturing over her shoulder.

  "Yeah, yeah. Totally," agreed Steve fervently.

  Sydney nodded and fumbled out of the room, closing the door behind her. Leaving just Steve. As it had always been and always will be.

  "Fuck," he muttered.

  He thought about punching a crater into the wall. Denting it. Bruising up his knuckles. He decided against it. Sydney probably thought punching walls was stupid.

  Steve didn't want to be incorrigible anymore.

from dani

code red this is getting too fastburn
code red this is getting TOO fastburn!!!
i love steve harrington too much
to be writing this book. but dw it's
actually excruciatingly slowburn
lmao. but yeah there is kinda cheating
elements going on/about to go
down. i do not endorse it at all.
dont cheat on ur partner its bad.
unless Steve harrington wants u in
that case—