꧁꧂

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜɪʀᴛʏ-ᴏɴᴇ: ᴀɴᴅ ɪ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ɪ'ᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ

ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ᴍᴏɴᴛʜꜱ ʟᴀᴛᴇʀ

Okay, so turns out I had broken three (that's right, three!) ribs that night alone. So, you can imagine what it was like for the next six weeks of my life. I was basically banished from my skateboard by my mother, and Max was the one who turned up every single day with snacks that were definitely not healthy and yet at the same time insisted that no skating was good for me. Because that made perfect sense.

The one bit I didn't like, though? Mom was still going ahead with the move to California, even after my long, long argument against the idea. I couldn't leave Max; I just couldn't bring myself to do it. She understood when I told her, which was weird considering what had happened at Starcourt.

Her sleeping schedule had got worse, though (which is rich coming from me, I know) and I couldn't help but worry and worry about her more and more as the hours and days went by. El had moved in and slept on the couch for the last few months and was now in Mom's full custody both legally and in a motherly manner.

Both Hop and Billy's funerals were in complete contrast to the other. A lot more that went to Hopper's were in tears, while at Billy's Neil said a few words to the family and 'friends' before wanting all back to the Mayfield-Hargrove's for a drink and bite to eat as if it were a good time for a party. You can imagine how that went down with Max, too. The girl didn't go back to her house for a week straight, and her mother had called more and more often as the days passed, asking for her daughter to return home as soon as she got the call (which you can guess, she didn't).

"What're you doing?" Opening an eye, I look over at Will at my bedroom door.

I let out a heavy sigh before closing my eye again, staying still. "Being sentimental and shit."

"You're on the floor. Your room is empty." He pointed out, being very, very helpful.

"Thank you, William..." I muttered from the floor.

"Is it like a technique? To try and stay?" The boy broke the never-ending silence between us, and I smiled at his questions.

"No matter how hard I try, it's no use..." I say quietly, letting out another tired sigh before giving up. When I sat up from the floor, I got a good look at my brother's puzzled face. "What? Do I smell so bad that you can smell my body odder from there?" I joked, making him smile weakly, rather momentarily. "Will?"

I furrowed my eyebrows at him as he stepped further into the room, sitting in front of me and mirroring the way I was sat, legs crossed with arms draped across the knees. "I uh... I just need to ask you something..." In a different situation, my heart probably wouldn't have gone through the roof at seventy miles an hour. "Are you in love with her?" 

Oh. Oh shit.

Breathing in and out heavily, I broke eye contact to grab the water bottle beside me. When I took a large sip of the drink, I capped it and looked right back at him. "Yeah..." I nodded quietly as I accepted the fact that I was in love with her. My best friend. Max Mayfield. The red head. The school's skatergirl. Oh, how I could go on.

"Are you..." I'd been wondering for so long. "Are you uh..." Did my gaydar work? "Are you in love with uh..." Hearing Lucas and Max shout the lyrics to never-ending story from the living area, I smile a little while not breaking eye contact with my twin. "Are you in love with him?" I said it. I definitely got those balls of steel, now, huh...

Will was silent as he too broke the eye contact between us, thinking and thinking before giving a response. His eyes became more and more bloodshot as he gave one singular nod to my question. Oh. So... my gaydar does work... okay- Rule number forty-five: trust the gaydar.

I smiled sweetly as I crawled over, tackling my brother into a hug, landing us both onto the floor, again. Although at one point the boy was near tears on the subject, he was now full of laughter like the younger Will Byers I once knew. The Will Byers who made drawings of Will the Wise with every crayon humanly possible to be found within the house's radius. The Will Byers who was obsessed with DnD. The same Will Byers who was abducted to the Upside Down back in '83.

"Here's to being the gay Byers twins..." I murmured over to him with a smirk.

"And..." He thought for a moment. "falling for your best friend."

⊹˚˖⁺

"TURN AROUND." As I leaned against the door, I glanced between Lucas and Max with the boxes, singing away while Dustin, one room over, stared at them with the most pissed off look of the time. "LOOK AT WHAT YOU SEE."

While I chuckled over at their actions, I caught my eyes on Will walking back to his own room, going to get the last of the DnD collections. "IN HER FACE, THE MIRROR OF YOUR DREAMS." When glancing back, Max was walking towards me, insisting that I joined in on the sing-and-dance-along.

"RHYMES THAT KEEP THEIR SECRETS-" I began, smirking over at Dustin by himself. "WILL UNFOLD BEHIND THE CLOUDS..."

"Wait- did she get that bit right?" Max clarified with Dustin, leaning her head on my shoulder. I could hear her smile without looking away from Dustin and his face. "It's 'unfold behind the clouds'?"

"Yeah." The boy said blandly. "But you're butchering it, so could you please stop?" He asks over at us.

"So then, join in, Dusty-bun." Lucas said to the boy, blowing him a fake kiss.

"Yeah, come on, Dusty-bun, why don't you join us?" Max teased over Dustin, of who might as well be ready to kill by the way he was looking at the three of us.

"You guys are so funny; you should be on Carson." He remarked, not at all impressed by our joking and teasing.

"Can we just hear a little bit of your rendition?" I asked, hopeful that we would get it.

"No." He deadpanned back at me.

"Please?" Max whined. "Just one verse?!"

"No, no way!" Dustin insisted. "It's reserved for Suzie's ears and Suzie's ears alone." The three of us smirked as we all exchanged the exact same look. We all knew exactly where this was going.

"TURN AROUND-" As we continued the song, Dustin flipped all of us off, freely showing us the middle finger as he waved it around in the air.

⊹˚˖⁺

"It's somewhere-" As I continued to argue that I knew where the certain object was, I also continued to rummage through the cardboard box, with Max stood in the doorway, arms crossed with an expression that showed how she was holding back a laugh.

"If you told me what you were looking for, then maybe-" I then sent a glare, reminding her it was a surprise gift. "You're stubborn, you know that, right?"

"Have you met yourself? Maxine, you didn't let me leave my bed for a week." I reminded her as I finally, after five minutes of looking, found it. "Here-" I rolled the board along the floor and directly to the girl's foot. She stared down at it for a moment before back up at me.

"That's your board." She reminded me, with my reply being a nod as I taped the box back up before Mom would notice. While doing so, a board rolled back my way, which I could only assume to be the same one.

"Max, it's my present to you-" I insisted, cutting the tape and placing it across the top of the box's cut.

"I know, dumbass." I glanced over at her before down at the board which sat at my left foot. Max's board sat there, still in its brand-new stage.

"Max, I don't know if I can take it..." I tell her honestly.

"Well, I dunno if I can take yours, then." She replied, stepping closer while holding my board close to her chest.

"Max, your dad gave you that." I say, reminding her how excited she was telling me about the Madrid board. There was no way that she actually going to do this. Her dad was always a huge part of her life, even if he's on the other side of the country.

"Yeah." She nodded, glancing away for a moment. "And I want you to have it." Silence sat between us for a moment before I smiled, leaning into her embrace for what could've been the longest hug ever. To me it certainly was, but to others it could've been just a few seconds. "Call me when you get there?" She was already near tears, and we weren't even outside yet. God forbid by the time we got outside.

"I'm gonna call you so many times, Mom is gonna start complaining about the electricity bill." I promised her, hearing the girl chuckle. Neither of us pulled away from the hug, not wanting it to end. Much unlike how I was most of the time, I now didn't want to leave the house. I never wanted to leave this house. "I'm gonna miss you, Max..." I murmured into her shoulder.

"I'm gonna miss you more, Parker."

"I'll visit at Christmas, and your birthday- and like every day I have off at school-" When she pulled away, my rambling began, not knowing how or why it did, but it did. The girl nodded and smiled, tears in her eyes as she agreed to me.

"I don't doubt that, Parker." Before even saying anything else, a knock on the door pulled us out of our moment, seeing El and Joyce at my room's door.

"Time to go."

⊹˚˖⁺

Now, not to say I'm never going to be as emotional as I was for the whole ten minutes after that, but I even hugged Mike, so if that doesn't prove my point, nothing, and I mean nothing, will.

As I sat in the U-Haul truck with El tucked next to me, I watched in the mirror as the five figures and the house slowly became smaller and smaller. I brushed the hair out of her face as the girl cried along with me silently, with Mom who just kept on driving.

"What-" El moved away for a moment, feeling something in my jacket pocket. "What's that?"

I pulled a face as I dug around in my jacket's pocket, pulling out trash that I'd forgotten to throw away before a ball of paper, small and rolled up caught my eye. Unravelling it all, I turned the paper around to read what the writing on it said.

I let out a chuckle, smiling and feeling tears leave my eyes as I read it over and over, to the point where it was practically apart of my mind forever and ever.

I miss you already, Parker <3
- love, the even-better looking person

Rule number forty-six: maybe it's okay to fall for your best friend...