chapter five ♰ Grief is Love Preserving

December 31st, 1983 to
January 1st, 1984

  It's crept out of remission again. The old haunt of grief. It's here. It never really left ━━ it never will. Grief will always be dormant.

  Sydney's different to how she was. More jaded. She looked different, too. Thanks to the blunt blade of some kitchen scissors, her hair was now choppy and uneven around her chin. She was starting to look too much like Christine, the longer her hair grew down her back. She had to do something about that ━━ Sydney couldn't stomach looking in the mirror and having a dead woman stare back at her.

  What Sydney didn't realise was that she could bludgeon her hair all she wanted, but with every sever and cigarette, she was subconsciously becoming more Christine by the day. Mother was in the tar in her lungs ━━ a parasite making it harder to breathe. Mother was in the stoicism and Sydney trying to render herself to nothing. Mother was skipping meals, and the bitterness of black coffee making an already raw throat sore, and she was the bile, and she was the ache. Eat, Sydney. Eat your heart out. Christine wasn't the heart. Christine was the shrinking stomach.

  No amount of hair barbarism can help Daughter escape Mother.

  Father watched Daughter succumb to Mother's love (or vengeance) and felt like a failure. He will never be able to compete with the dead woman Daughter saw in the mirror.

  Matt noticed that Sydney had gotten worse since Christmas Eve. Her smiles didn't quite reach her eyes and she'd toy with the mushrooms atop of pizzas and barely indulge in more than one slice. Toby wasn't around as much, either. He'd call, sometimes. They'd talk, they'd laugh, but it was like they were both yelling into echo chambers, and neither were really hearing what the other was saying. Sydney would be around for the kids ━━ especially Will. It was like she felt responsible for him, and clung to his willowy frame like she'd throw herself in front of a bullet for him. And when she was, she'd smile for them, and it'd seem all OK, because Sydney was nothing if not a performer ━━ she got that from Christine. (She got a lot from Christine). But Sydney was transparent to Matt. Just like Chris had been.

  That's why Matt ambushed Hopper just after the chief left the New Years' Eve party at the station. He seized a fistful of his cordurory jacket and dragged him to the back of the building, shoving him against the wall.

  "What the f━━" In a blink, Hopper had the barrel of his gun against Matt's temple.

  "It's me, asshole."

  Hopper's dilated eyes readjusted to the alley's shadows and he gave Matt a rough shove. "What the fuck's wrong with you, McConnell? Why sneak up on me like that ━━"

  "You need to tell Sydney," interjected Matt bluntly.

  "Tell Sydney what?"

  Matt hardened his jaw. "You know what."

  Hopper's eye twitched belligerently. "Are you insane? It's bad enough that you know. You do realise it'll endanger both of them ━━"

  "I can protect my daughter, Hop," Matt said sourly, glare becoming stony.

  "Why would you even risk it?" snarled Hopper. "Huh? You just got her back, now you wanna throw her into this mess? Real protective fathering there, McConnell. Chris would fucking kill you if she knew what you were asking me."

  Matt's fists were grabbing at Hopper's shirt again, slamming him violently against the brick wall. Hopper's skull hit it with a sickening thud, but Matt didn't slacken his grip.

  "Don't bring up Chris right now."

  Breathing shallowly, Hopper glared down at Matt's hands. "You're upset. I know shit's hard recently with Sydney ━━ I can tell, too. But this isn't the answer. It won't help either of them."

  "Au contraire, my friend," said Matt, a little breathless. He roughly let go off Hopper, patronisingly sweeping the lint off his shirt and fixing the dishevelled lapels of his jacket. "I think it's what they both need. Sydney's ━━ she isn't doing well, OK? And she won't talk to me. And I'm guessing She isn't too keen on talking to you, right? Big, scary man who's locking her away from all of her friends ━━"

  "It's for her own good," Hopper said scathingly.

  "Sydney would be good for her, too."

  Hopper's chest deflated. He thought of the little girl back home. In that derelict cabin in the woods ━━ she had been hunting animals for a whole month for sustenance. She was all bones and bruises. Lonely. And then, he thought about the night when everything went to shit. The lot of them gathered in the Byers bungalow, the boys enthusiastically telling them about magnetic fields and all that science bullshit that Hopper couldn't really keep up with. And, in his periphery, the little girl leaning her docile, shaved head against Sydney's knee, and the two of them holding onto each other's hands.

  Jim Hopper had thick skin. Steely skin, in fact. He never thought he'd be one to be swayed by the desperate pleads of his best friend who was still struggling with fatherhood, yet he was tonguing his cheek and actually considering it.

  "If she tells anybody ━━"

  Hopper never got to finish his sentence. Matt was snatching his burly shoulders and hauling him into a bearlike hug. Well, a hug was an understatement. It was a bit like an enveloping ━━ being devoured by this man's fervour. It withdrew a hearty laugh from Hopper as he caught his friend, trying to replicate his vehemence in the embrace, but he couldn't match this kind of desperation. He just patted Matt with brutal affection on his back.

  "She won't. She wouldn't even ━━"

  "I know. She'll be alright, Matt."

  1984 started for Sydney with blinding sunlight ━━ that kind of winter sun that makes you have to shield your eyes as it trickles into your room. It was still snowing in Hawkins. Icicles glittered on the gnarled branches of the skeletal trees around their home. Lover's Lake was glazed over by a dense layer of ice which had brought an onslaught of kids and their skates to Sydney's lonely end of town. It was still cold, but the sun was fighting back now.

  Sydney woke up on the first day of her first full year without Christine to numb muscles and a migraine. Honestly, she didn't remember coming home last night ━━ she guessed by the oversized, jacquard sweater burying her that it was Toby who tucked her into bed. She remembered a party. Some prissy kid in Loch Nora had obviously thrown a New Year's Eve party at the behest of their friends, because Sydney had the brief memory of a girl with a pinched face screaming as two teens smashed a priceless, terracotta vase in the middle of a very aggressive make-out session. In a rotten crevice of her mind, Sydney had the suppressed image of Steve turning up to the same party with Nancy on his arm ━━ and how it felt a bit like Blitzkrieg. Her sore throat, aching head and the nausea were all testaments to how she must've felt after seeing that. The ensuing rounds of tequila and then vodka mixed with lemonade and finishing the night with gin might well have been the final nail in her coffin.

  It was a groggy, painstaking walk to the kitchen. Matt was already sat the table and looking at her with dejected eyes as she opened the medicine cupboard, unscrewed the cap of a pharmaceutical bottle and emptied 3 chalky paracetamols into the palm of her hand. He was convinced he felt something shatter in his chest as she knocked all 3 of them back with one gulp of water.

  "Rough night?"

  Matt tried to make light of it ━━ tried to be the Cool Dad who was alright with the drinking and only seeing her at mornings. He didn't want to push her away anymore with austerity.

  "Killer," said Sydney, sitting down. "No breakfast today?"

  Matt didn't miss the lack of disappointment; the indifference.

  "Uh, no ━━ we're going on a drive, actually."

  Sydney frowned. "A drive? Like. A road-trip?"

  "Not exactly," said Matt. "But ━━ if you'd like that, say the word. I'd love to take you to Graceland."

  "Like ━━ Elvis?"

  Matt grinned. "Total fraud, but, it's on my bucket-list. Anyways. Go shower the hangover off ya'. We've got somewhere to be."

  A bit apprehensive, Sydney did as he said. Scrubbed at her skin under pelting, hot water until her lungs were ribboned by tendrils of smoke and her skin was tender. The room pervaded with manuka honey once she stepped out. Swallowing down her heart, Sydney used the inside of her arm to smear the condensation off the mirror and flinched. For a blink, it really was Christine within the reflection ━━ smirking maliciously.

  Only it wasn't the Christine she remembered. Mother, composed, in a silhouette of sophisticated pantsuits. This was a dead woman. A long, gnarly, jagged cut fractured her face diagonally ━━ little shards of glass embellishing the blood. Windscreen glass. Her clothes were drenched with blood and glittering with similar shards. One of her arms was contorted like something out of The Exorcist, and she had a splintered rib, protruding through the torn material of her flannel. This was Christine's corpse.

  Sydney aggressively wiped at the mirror again, breathing ragged. When she peeled back, it was only her. Mutilated hair dripping droplets of scalding water onto bare shoulders. The scar on her temple from the Demogorgon scabbed over. Steve's lovebite gone.

  Chris's corpse was in the earth. Not in this mirror.

  Sydney got ready a bit too quickly. She must've looked haphazard as she slipped into Matt's truck, saturated hair still trickling and leather jacket's lapels awry.

  "You alright, kiddo?" he asked. "Look a bit ━━ stressed?"

  "M'fine. Where are we going, anyways?"

  Matt pursed his lips and switched his keys in the ignition. "The woods."

  It felt a bit like Matt was driving her to go ditch her in some shallow grave in the woods and leave her to fend for herself against a bunch of hungry wolves ━━ Sydney kept telling herself on the way there that this was Matt's way of telling her to 'do one' after how difficult she had been the last 2 months. The journey was solemn. He didn't even sing along when Saturday Night Fever came on the radio. Sydney wasn't sure how she felt about it ━━ on one hand, she appreciated the silence; it let her sulk in peace. But it was also weird. Matt balanced out her misery. He'd make her laugh when she was brooding like this, with his flamboyant dancing and offkey singing and botching of lyrics. Now, he was about as wretched as she was.

  He pulled up in some random patch of barren woodland. Bare shrubs surrounded them, snow melting on dry grass and damp leaves like scintillating dew. Sydney could just about make out a ramshackle cabin behind a thicket of spindly trees.

  "Did you bring me here to kill me?"

  Matt laughed, pocketing his keys. "This isn't Friday the 13th, Syd."

  Sydney made a face. "Feels like it."

  "C'mon."

  Snow crunched under Sydney's Vans as she stepped out of the truck. A shiver wracked through her instantly, breath visible in the hibernal air as she looked round at the tree cadavers and the worn out cabin. She followed Matt, trudging through twigs and leaves, until he came to an abrupt halt about 20ft from the cabin.

  "What ━━ why are we stopping?"

  Matt crouched down, and delicately traced a faint, silver tripwire.

  Sydney eyes widened. "Who the fuck lives here to need that? Reagan?"

  Matt scoffed, straightening back up. "If he did, I'd be more armed." He swung one leg over the tripwire, and then the other. "Be careful."

  Tentatively, Sydney followed after him, cringing about her unravelled laces and hoping they didn't trigger the trap. She looked down at the frosty earth and now saw a myriad of footprints indenting it ━━ big footprints, carved by boots. She swallowed thickly and glanced at Matt for reassurance, and he was already smiling at her softly. He gave a little beckon of encouragement and she carried on after him, walking up onto the wraparound porch with her migraine feeling even worse.

  "Alright, you can't freak out, OK?"

  Sydney blanched. "I'm already freaking out! Why are outside some murder cabin in the freaking woods?"

  "Listen, just ━━ calm down. You might freak her out," beseeched Matt.

  "Who? Freak who out?" Sydney demanded.

  Matt ignored her, and rose his knuckles to the door, and knocked. At first, Sydney thought it was just an arbitrary pattern. Then she realised these knocks were methodical. 2. 1. 3. Sydney opened her mouth to speak, but he put a finger to his lips with a silent shush and she clamped it close, waiting with a bated breath.

  Heavy footsteps carried from inside of the cabin, creaking over uneven floorboards. And then, the sound of bolts unlocking ━━ many of them.

  The door opened with the cringe of aging, stiff hinges, and Sydney never had to chance to acknowledge who had opened it, because someone came bombarding by them and crashing into Sydney like a little asteroid. Sydney staggered back, catching the sylphlike body with an alarmed sound caught in her throat. Yelping, Sydney looked down and saw a small head nuzzling itself into her chest ━━ a shaved head, growing tufts of dark hair. Sydney nearly screamed. Almost cried.

  "Eleven?"

  Hastily, Sydney pried them back. It was El. Her doll-like, angular face stared up happily at Sydney. She was drowning in clothes. A humungous flannel swathed her to her knees, and she wore some oversized jogging-bottoms that had been folded up to her ankles.

  "It's you," said Sydney. For the first time in a month, she felt something other than rage. She felt a grin tug the corners of her mouth up. El was alive. "It's really you ━━ oh my god. C'mere."

  El was all too enthusiastic about being wrapped back up in a hug by Sydney. Even when the older girl hugged her maybe a bit too tight, almost shattering her already fragile ribs. Or puncturing an organ.

  "Sid-knee."

  Sydney brushed a chaste kiss to the top of her head. "Yeah. Sid-knee."

  A yawning kind of love in her bones, Sydney glanced up. It was Hopper in the doorway. The intimidatingly tall man he was, practically filling up the threshold with his broad shoulders and tall stature. His expression was terribly conflicted ━━ contorted by a smile, and a grim frown as he kept looking around frantically. He knew. The realisation ate Sydney up with angry teeth. He knew she was alive, and didn't say. He didn't tell the kids ━━ Mike, who had been tearing himself up over it, trying to reach El every day through static frequencies.

  "You knew," Sydney seethed, subconsciously tightening her hold on El. As if trying to meld her into her ribcage for safe-keeping. "The kids are heartbroken. They miss her ━━"

  El's head tilted up, blinking at Sydney innocently. "They ... miss me?"

  Hopper's jaw was locked. "I'm keeping her safe."

  "And you?" snapped Sydney, ignoring Hopper to glare at Matt. He had just been smiling fondly at the sight of his daughter seeming genuinely happy, now he was flinching out of that daze after she had doused him with ice-cold water. "You knew too, and didn't say?"

  "Your dad attacked me last night just so you could see her," bit back Hopper defensively.

  Sydney wavered, guilty. "I ━━ sorry, Dad."

  Hopper's brows furrowed. "And my apology?"

  "You're pushing it."

February 17th, 1984

"She can't live in Hopper's hand-me-downs forever."

  "Syd, I know that ━━ but do you really want to give all this away? I mean, this is your childhood ━━ Chris kept all this for a reason."

  Sydney had truly grown to love Matt's place. It was home to her, now. But she hated the little makeshift attic. The loft, thick with dust and overgrown with spiderwebs, wasn't home at all. She was sat now surrounded by the boxed-up debris of a childhood that started to seem less angelic every day. Boxes of trophies and medals and other awards Chris would've kept on the mantelpiece, or the classical piano in the foyer she Sydney tirelessly learn chords on. Boxes of photographs ━━ Mother, Daughter, Grandmother, until Adelaide Sommers died and it was just Christine and Sydney. Sydney the perfect doll and Chris the adoring mother. Boxes of cold clothes, because Chris wanted to paint this fallacy that she was a sentimental mother who loved keepsakes, but really, she just had a chronic hoarding problem.

  All of this stuff, and Chris with it, had been haunting the claustrophobic attic since she moved in. Now, with El acting as a glorified prisoner in that confined cabin in the words, and spending most of her days swathed in the surplus fabric of Hopper's old clothes, Sydney finally had an excuse to get rid of all the gauzy ghosts.

  "Yeah, she kept it because she had OCD," said Sydney bitterly.

  Matt was crouched down in front of her, as to not bash his head against the beams holding up the attic roof. "Syd, let's just talk about this ━━"

  "I don't want to talk about it," she interjected scathingly, flashing him a steely glare. "I want it all gone, I want it out of our house. I'm done with it. I'm done with ━━"

  Her, she was going to say.

  I'm done with her.

  Done with Mother, and the contusing hold she had.

  "Fuck." Sydney looked down at the cardboard box in her lap morosely. "I didn't mean ━━"

  Matt reached over, gripping her shoulder severely. "Hey, it's OK. It's alright to be angry with her, too. I don't know what happened between you both, but ━━"

  "Nothing did," she seethed. "She was just ... spotty sometimes."

  Matt's arm fell to his side with a numb nod. "I know."

  "Pass the Stanley knife, please?"

  She said it with an edge to it ━━ Matt didn't know if it was because she was about to cry, or if she was still angry. Either way, her voice was hoarse, and he had no choice but to comply, handing over the blade with a frown. Sydney took it and sliced open the box, splitting in half the strip of cellotape. She started to wrench open the cardboard folds and rummaged through the dusty contents.

  Her face fell even more. "I thought this would be old clothes."

  "What is it?" Matt asked curiously.

  "Old work files ━━ documents about clients, stuff like that." Sydney flicked through the papers and deeds with a tight throat. "She used to bleed over these every night. With a glass of wine, sometimes gin. I'd be getting blisters from pencils trying to make her proud in my room, and she'd be at the glass dining table trying to solve other people's problems because she could never solve her own."

  Matt didn't know what to say to that. If he was meant to say something at all. Sometimes people speak aloud and don't expect a reply. Sydney's indifference as she hunted through the files suggested this was one of those times. But he itched to talk to her ━━ to comfort her. To know what happened throughout those years of just Sydney and Christine in that big, modern house in Loch Nora. It was a bit like a rash he couldn't scratch.

  "Wow," scoffed Sydney hollowly. She had taken out one of the documents and was turning the pages with a humourless curl of her lips. "Gotta laugh at that."

  Matt perked up. "What is it?"

  "Mom tried suing Hawkins' Lab."

  "What?" Matt snatched the file, eliciting a protest from Sydney, but he ignored her.

  She was right. It was a compilation of complaints about the lab. Witness testimonies, victim statements, things like that. A woman named Meera Prasad claiming that her daughter had been pried from her arms as a baby ━━ a similar assertation from another woman called Terry Ives. There was a page about Project MKUltra, which Hopper had disclosed to Matt about. It was some kind of experiment involving psychedelics and sensory deprivation in the hopes of developing mind-control over Russian enemies for the Cold War ━━ and the participants' children would end up being born with special abilities. Like Eleven.

  It didn't end there, though. There was the scrawled testimony from a worker of the lab, too. An orderly. The signature beneath it was signed Peter Ballard. Matt had went to read the testimony, only to find the ink smeared by blotches ━━ most of the words bleeding into each other, apart from a few which had remained in tact.

  'Soteria', 'the children', 'misunderstood'.

  The dark crimson made it clear what the blotches were ━━ it was blood.

  "Your mom knew," spluttered Matt. "She knew ━━ well, everything." He turned to the next page, and found nothing. Just a few tears of paper where more pages should be, but had been ripped out. "Why did she never go through with it? With all this evidence, she could've ━━ she would've brought the lab to the fucking ground."

  Sydney shrugged her shoulders, looking far too stoic. "I dunno. Check the date."

  Matt went back to the front of the document, where Christine had logged all of her entry dates to every bit of the investigation. The last date recorded was January 8th, 1983.

  "Sydney," Matt uttered lowly. "This was last added to the day before Chris died."

  "Well, she wasn't gonna be adding shit after she died, was she?"

  Matt shook his head. "No, I mean ━━ don't you think that shit's weird? It must be one of the torn out pages, too."

  Sydney's teeth gritted. "What are you implying?"

  "I'm not implying anything."

  "You are."

  "I just ━━ it's suspicious," exhaled Matt. "That's all."

  If any part of her agreed, she didn't show it. Sydney only mustered the strength to snatch it back off him and steal it away into the rest. She could hear the aching brag of her pulse in her ear-drums. She was fed up of talking about it ━━ about her.

  "Whatever," she said irritably, sealing back up the box. "She's gone. We can't dig her back up and questions."

March 26th, 1984

Toby Stanfield stood against Sydney's locker, headphones fixed over his head and Walkman attached to the waistband of his jeans. It was Hungry Like the Wolf, by Duran Duran. Weirdly enough, it was a song that Matt had put him on. Ever since Sydney started getting along more with him, the same happened with Toby ━━ in retrospect, Matt was the closest thing Toby had to a father (apart from Imani Stanfield, of course, who always tried her best to be both parents in one before she got sick). If anything, Toby was probably closer with Matt these days than he was to Sydney. She was withdrawing ━━ just like she had after Chris. But this time he couldn't get her back. He couldn't reach her. So he lingered round a bit too much ━━ maybe got a bit clingy and overbearing. Because he wanted to be there when she was ready to reach out. Instead of shattering his arm out its socket trying to touch the intangible.

  He was tapping his foot against the varnished floor of the school corridor waiting for her to arrive ━━ it was Matt's time to drop her off, today. It was a bit ad hoc ━━ Toby would pick her up for 4 days in a row, and Matt would arbitrarily insist he'd give her a lift. Or vice versa. The pattern wasn't consistent. Neither was Sydney.

  Toby had a copy of Lord of the Flies in hands, too. The spine of it was creased and threadbare from how it was folded, but Toby didn't care about those things.

  Just as he went to turn the page, he felt a kick to his calf.

  "Hey, watch it ━━ oh!" Toby was tugging off his headphones and his glare softened as he looked up from the miniature words to see Sydney with her eyebrows raised wryly at him. "Hey. It's you."

  "It's me," she asserted. "Uh, can I get to my locker?"

  "Oh, shit, yeah, uh ━━" He stood back, gesturing clumsily.

  Sydney strained a smile and put in her locker combination, craning it open. Then, a scrap of paper cascaded to her feet from out of it. Sydney frowned at it, absently shoving her books inside and stooping down to pick it up.

  "'This you?" asked Sydney, showing it to Toby.

  Toby frowned, shaking his head. "Not me."

  Sydney brows pinched. She glanced down at the makeshift letter. It was folded, and the front of it was made to look like an envelope ━━ frantic pencil markings even fashioning the triangular flap. Written on the scribbled seal, in abysmal handwriting, with the 'i' dotted with a novelty love heart, was Nicks.

  The knife twisted deeper.

  Sydney could've bled out right there.

  "What is it?" prompted Toby, craning his neck.

  Sydney snatched it to her chest. "It's ━━ nothing. Just ━━ Jonathan, giving me the dates he's working this week. Will Duty."

  The bell tolled menacingly through the school, rattling in Sydney's skull.

  "Listen, uh, tell Kaminsky I'm gonna be late, OK?"

  Toby looked a bit unsettled. "What, why?"

  "Just ━━ nurse's office. Cramps."

  Sydney hastened away, holding the note so tightly she nearly ripped it into belligerent halves. She took a sharp right about halfway down the corridor and slipped into the bathroom, heaving. Before she unfolded the letter, she methodically checked that all of the stalls were empty, and that she was truly alone, before stealing herself away in a cubicle and collapsing onto a closed toilet-seat, tossing her bag to the grimy floor.

  Ribs brittle, Sydney's hands tremored around the flimsy note. She kept tracing the cursive, terrible penmanship of Steve Harrington on the front of the note. The curlicue love heart. Even the frivolous effort he put into making the front look like an envelope. Did he enjoy making her sick? Knowing that even after so many months of longing stars and silence, he still had a hold on her that left bruises? Was it some kind of sick, violent sadist shit he had going on ━━ or was his mind really that hollow that he didn't understand that he had a power over Sydney?

  This was another one of Steve Harrington's acts of loves, and ministrations of torture ━━ he was executioner. This letter was the abattoir. Or the scythe?

  Sydney bit the bullet.

  Unfolded the letter.

M̶y̶ Nicks,
  Hall & Oates have released a new album ━━ it's called Big Bam Boom. I'm a bit obsessed. Seems like I've been doing a lot of that recently, getting obsessed. Speaking of, there's a song on this album that makes me think of you. It's called Out of Touch. I think it's pretty much engraved in my brain. "You're out of touch, I'm out of time, but I'm out of my head when you're not around." I bet you can't guess why this song makes me think about you.

  That's all I wanted to say recently. It's a good album, and I think you'd like it. Tell me if you do? Even if it's just a note. I think even just hearing your voice in my head's enough, right now.

  I miss you. And I'm so fucking sorry.

  Incorrigibly yours,
    Steve.

  Sydney never went to Kaminsky's lesson. She choked on sobs in a stall in the girls' bathroom, trying to ignore the haunting of Steve as she remembered that this was the first place where she ever really spoke to him. She should've known by that alone they weren't even meant to be together.

April 4th, 1984

These letters kept coming.

Nicks,
  I finally watched all of the Star Wars films. Are you proud of me? I mean, sure, all I could think about was you during them, so it wasn't as much of a watch as it was a blank stare at the TV thinking about you holding my hand in the cinema that day. But I tried, and that's what counts, right?

  You never wrote back. Which is cool. I don't mind. I don't blame you at all, really. I'm still sorry. I know you probably think I'm a jackass for not breaking up with Nance yet, but things are rough right now. We go to Barb's house every week for a dinner with her parents, and I think Nance cries every time. She makes excuses to leave the room, and I'm left with these parents who I would kill for, and they love Barb so much. I wish we could tell them so they could start to move on.

  Fuck I say that like it's easy. I can't even move on from you, and you hate my guts. How will they be able to move on from their daughter?

  Anyways. I miss you, and I'm still sorry.

  Pathetically yours,
    Steve.

  Sydney noticed he'd always end these letters with some time of variation of an adverb he probably found whilst emphatically searching a dictionary, and 'yours'. But he wasn't hers. He was never hers.

  She kept the notes, anyway.

May 4th, 1984

Some of them didn't make sense. Some were several pages long, and he'd have to dog-ear them together so they didn't get mismatched when he slid them through the shutters in her locker before she got to school. Some were on simple post-it notes, like May 4th's.

Nicks,
  It's May the 4th. May the 4th be with you, Nicks. Get it? Like 'may the Force be with you'.

  God I fucking miss you.

  Painfully yours,
    Steve.

June 30th, 1984

The last note in Sydney's locker.

Nicks,
  It's the last day of school. I dunno how I'm gonna go without see you all summer. I don't know how I'm going to cope. OK, maybe it's an over-exaggeration. I've barely seen you as it is, so what's this, right? But fuck, am I gonna miss you, Nicks. I'll miss seeing the back of your head in History ━━ I love the new hair, by the way. I never said. Well, I couldn't. But it's cool. Not sure if it's you, though. I'm not sure if you are you anymore.

  I'm worried about you, Nicks. You're getting thinner. You've stopped putting your hand up in class, even though you're the smartest one there. Your hair's not you, I know it. I miss that stupid ribbon in your hair. I think I'd even take back those shitty bangs you used to have. Like I said, the new hair's cool, but so are you. Why are you changing? Why aren't you replying? Did I fuck up that badly?

  If you wanna see me over the summer, you know where I live. I don't really have any plans. Come and shout at me. Come and fight with me. Come and break my heart, if you want.

  Just come back to me, Sydney.

  Still yours,
    Steve.

  And the first note in Steve's.

Pervert,
  I loved the album.

  I'm sorry about Barb, I really am. And I hope Nancy will finally find peace, and that she can give it you. But it's no excuse for what you did ━━ or rather didn't do.

  May the 4th also be with you.

  Don't worry about me.

  I have never been yours,
    Sydney.

August.