It’s quiet in the Hargrove-Mayfield house following the night they closed the gate. Billy keeps his distance from Max, skirting around her and leaving the room whenever she enters. He reminds her of a skittish puppy, kicked too many times and now is fearful of everyone.
She doesn’t deny it’s a relief not to fight him all the time, but, at the same time, it’s too quiet.
So one evening after a silent, tense dinner, she walks the hall to his room where’s he shut himself up after clearing his dishes. His music is low in order to not bother her since they share a wall. She knocks lightly.
The music cuts out and he opens his door just a crack, one eye peering out at her. She can see the hesitation in his face, and her mouth ticks downwards.
“Wanna go play catch?” It isn’t exactly what she wants to say, but it’s one of the few things she can think of that might reach him.
Slowly, he opens the door, eyes guarded but a small flicker of life behind the irises. She knows he used to love baseball, until Neil tainted it by demanding too much of him, but she hopes the easygoing game of catch will help mend the broken bridge between them.
She’s wants a brother, her brother, and she’s willing to make it happen if he is.
They dig the old gloves, ball, and bat out of the garage, Max laughing when he gets a face full of dust from the box. It shocks Billy into silence for a moment until he sneezes, and the moment’s gone, dissolves as he does into chuckles and wipes his nose on his shirt.
The gloves are a little stiff from disuse, but it takes only a few tosses for the leather to loosen up. He corrects Max’s throwing arm, gently taking her arm and arcing it up and over.
When she picks up the bat, he adjusts her stance, knocks her feet wide and fixes her hands. He steps in front of her and back, away from the bat when he tells her to swing and swing hard.
She launches one past his head when he underhand tosses it to her, and together, they erupt in laughter. It feels different, better, already between them and Billy wonders why it took him so damn long to accept her.
She’s actually pretty cool, and smart, and he supposes her friends aren’t so dumb and dorky as he thought. It’s a far cry from what he thought his life would be, but he admits this isn’t so bad.
He starts offering to take her to the arcade to meet her friends, or the mall, or just out of the house when Neil starts yelling again. They bond quickly over their mutual hatred of the man, and Max finds out what Neil does when she’s not around.
She cries. For him. Tells him she’s sorry, so sorry, she didn’t know. But he doesn’t blame her, and it’s the first time he’s ever hugged her, offered someone comfort and received it in return. It changes their dynamic after that. They’re closer, a silent, deeper understanding between them.
The Party doesn’t really understand, but they don’t need to, and she doesn’t explain.
When the Mind Flayer takes hold of him, there’s a pain in her chest that she’s never felt before. It breaks her heart, locking him in the sauna and hearing him plead for her, to beg her forgiveness as if he needs it.
In the mall, when the Mind Flayer seemingly has full control of him, she wants to go to him, wants to help him see, help him fight.
But El has it covered, and she sees the moment her brother comes back to her. But all at once, her heart is ripped out as Billy puts himself between El and the monster. She’s screaming as it reaches for him, halts in her throat when he catches the toothed arm with his bare hands.
He fights until he can’t, until the Mind Flayer rips through him and leaves him bloodied on the floor and she thinks, he can’t go, not yet. Not when she’s just gotten her brother.
She’s by his side when he goes, when his last words are an apology that she knows he means, and it destroys her.
She just got him, she just got him, she can’t lose him.
She’s numb for five months after his funeral. Neil doesn’t cry, the bastard. Susan does, and Max can’t get through her eulogy. She’s the only one who speaks. She wants to curse them all for not bothering to know Billy. For thinking him a waste of time, of space, of breath.
She keeps his Saint Mary pendant, wears it always and holds onto it when she feels she needs the strength. It helps, knowing he’s there with her, and it keeps her going.
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