★ CHAPTER TEN: Don’t You Forget About Me.
𝚂𝚝𝚎𝚟𝚎 𝙷𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚝𝚘𝚗 𝚡 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛
a/n: I highly recommend listening to Don’t You (Forget About Me) while reading this chapter. Actually, “recommend” is generous. It’s part of the experience. Trust me.
This chapter was written with that song in mind.
★ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐄𝐍: 𝐃𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐌𝐞.
Everything went back to normal too fast.
Our hands healed. The cuts sealed. The bruises faded from purple to yellow and then to nothing. The demodogs stopped howling in the woods and the newspapers stopped printing strange stories. Like nothing had tried to kill us.
Like nothing had changed.
I didn’t talk to Steve again.
In the hallways, we perfected the art of not seeing each other. It wasn’t dramatic. No glaring. No tension anyone else could point at. Just absence. If he turned down a corridor, I turned another. If I reached my locker and heard his laugh somewhere behind me, I shut it and walked away.
Sometimes, though, sometimes I swore I could feel his eyes on the back of my neck.
He asked to switch partners in Chemistry.
I found out because Mr. Clarke said, “You’ll be working alone for now,” without looking at me.
I nodded like that didn’t mean anything.
Max stopped talking to me too. No arguments. No accusations. No tears. Just quiet.
Dustin and Will said hi once in the parking lot. I waved and smiled like everything was fine. They hesitated, like they wanted to say more, but whatever it was didn’t survive the distance between us.
And I realized something as I watched them walk away. Life hadn’t gone back to normal.
It had gone back to pretending.
The envelopes came one Tuesday.
Thick. Cream-colored. My name printed carefully across the front.
I stared at them on the kitchen counter for a full minute before touching them.
I grabbed them and ran to my bedroom like a child, heart pounding so loudly I could hear it in my ears. I sat on the edge of my bed, holding the first envelope between my fingers.
This was supposed to be the moment.
I slid my thumb under the flap… And froze.
Billy hadn’t applied anywhere.
The thought moved through me slowly, like something heavy sinking underwater.
Across from my bed, there was a photo taped crooked to the wall. Billy and me. Five years old. Standing face to face in the front yard of our old house, holding hands like we were about to spin in a circle.
He was smiling in that one.
I hadn’t even noticed until now.
I closed my eyes and pressed the envelopes against my chest.
For a moment, I imagined opening them. Imagined reading congratulations. Imagined leaving.
I stood up, walked to the trash can by my desk, and dropped all five envelopes inside.
They landed with a soft, final sound.
I didn’t look at them again.
A week later, I stood outside the gym begging Billy to smile for his yearbook photo.
“It’s the last one,” I said. “You have to.”
“Don’t ever call me that again.” He looked at me smiling.
“You’re going to regret it.”
He leaned against the lockers like nothing in the world could touch him. “It’s just a picture.”
We went back and forth until he sighed and pushed off the lockers, draping an arm over my shoulders as we walked inside.
The gym had been transformed into a makeshift studio. A blueish backdrop. Chairs. A tripod set up under bright lights.
Steve was taking his photo. He had a big smile and was wearing a black suit.
Billy peeled away to clap Tommy H. on the shoulder, exchanging some loud joke I didn’t care about. I went to sit on the bleachers to wait my turn, folding my hands in my lap.
I saw Steve was leaning close to the girl handling the camera, murmuring something that made her laugh. Maybe he felt my eyes on him, because he looked up. Our eyes met for the first time since that night.
He stood there, watching me while the girl kept talking. He smiled without really looking at her, said something I couldn’t hear, and started walking toward me.
My pulse jumped before I could stop it. I didn’t know what he thought he was doing.
I took a step forward, until I saw Billy. He stopped in front of Steve.
He didn’t shove. He didn’t need to. He just placed a hand flat against Steve’s chest and leaned in close enough that I could see the smile that wasn’t a smile.
“Don’t think for a second I don’t want to finish what I started in that Byers’ shithole.”
He glanced past Billy at me. I was now looking at the photo setup.
“It’s our turn,” I said lightly, looking at my brother. “Come on.”
Billy held Steve’s gaze one second longer, then turned away.
A month later, the Snow Ball came.
I was there because of absences. Extra credit was offered if you volunteered to serve drinks.
The gym was decorated with silver streamers and cheap white lights. Paper snowflakes hung unevenly from the ceiling. Someone had tried to make it magical.
Billy came with me, though he didn’t need to. I didn’t ask how he’d gotten his grades up enough to graduate. I didn’t want to know.
He stood behind me near the wall most of the night.
I worked the drinks table with someone I’d only seen twice in class before. He was loud in a way that felt harmless. Messy hair. Bright eyes. Too confident that those few extra credits will be enough for him to graduate. They weren't.
“I think this counts as community service,” he said as he stacked plastic cups. “We’re basically heroes.”
I nodded like I’d known that already.
He talked the entire time. About graduation like it was guaranteed. About music we both liked. About how the punch tasted like melted cough syrup.
It was almost comforting. Being around someone who believed the future still existed.
Max walked in halfway through the night.
I saw Lucas straighten like someone had pulled a string through his spine. He approached her carefully, said something I couldn’t hear.
They stepped onto the dance floor.
After a few songs, it happened.
She kissed him. Quick. Shy. Real.
She looked straight at me.
For a second, something vulnerable flashed across her face. Fear.
I tilted my head. Pressed two fingers to my lips. Turned an invisible key. Locked it.
For a moment, I considered it.
Maybe I could walk over there. Say something normal. Something light. Maybe we could start again.
I almost stepped away from the table.
“I love this song,” I said instead, as ‘Every Breath You Take’ drifted through the speakers.
“Then let’s dance,” Eddie replied immediately, offering his hand.
“Someone has to stay here,” I said.
He snorted. “The middle schoolers don’t need punch that badly.”
We danced for less than thirty seconds before a hand landed on my shoulder.
“You always attract the freaks,” Billy said calmly.
I stepped back first and returned to the drinks table without arguing.
He disappeared into the crowd.
For a second, I thought about following him.
About letting something small and stupid and harmless happen.
I didn’t let myself go there.
Later, I watched Dustin get rejected. I saw the way he tried to laugh it off. Nancy stepped in and asked him to dance.
The kind of kindness that made your chest ache.
After a few more songs, she slid into my spot behind the table.
“Don’t worry,” she said, “It’s in good hands.”
I smiled. I almost told her she looked beautiful. The words hovered at the back of my throat.
Earlier, I’d seen Billy disappear again, this time he went down the hallway toward the bathrooms with a girl whose name I didn’t know.
I left before he came back.
The gym doors shut behind me, muffling the music, but not completely.
Then the opening notes broke through.
‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ blasted from inside.
It felt like the ending of a Molly Ringwald movie. God, I loved those.
Headlights cut across the parking lot.
He pulled up in front of the entrance and stopped a few feet from me. He was wearing a suit, it looked like the same one he had on when they were taking the yearbook photos. He looked older in it. Softer, somehow.
He met my eyes through the passenger window.
For a second, I thought about saying something. I didn’t know what. Not even something cruel.
Will you stand above me? Look my way? Never love me?
I felt Billy come up behind me before I heard him. “His hair reminds me of James Spader,” he said casually.
“I saw the posters you wanted to hang up of him.” he continued.
When I looked back, Steve was already driving away.
“I never hung them up,” I said.
“But you thought about it.”
When the dance ended, Max climbed into the back seat.
I sat in the passenger seat, my head resting against my arm as I watched houses blur past.
Not the way people loved in movies.
I loved him like gravity.
Like something that pulled no matter what direction you tried to move.
The only person who had always been there.
I knew I could never be like Nancy, Steve or the kids.
So full of life, laughing like we hadn’t seen what we’d seen.
I watched them dance like nothing had happened.
And it made something ugly twist inside me.
Why did they get to move on?
Max was quiet in the back.
“You have fun?” I asked without turning.
“She kissed him,” I said casually.
Billy’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “What?”
“WHAT? Why would you… Why would you do that?” She said to me, already screaming.
Billy pressed harder on the gas.
I didn’t tell him to stop.
Max’s breathing sharpened.
“Billy,” I said, watching him instead of the road.
“Yes?” he replied, eyes flicking toward me.
“You’re not even trying.”
And pressed the pedal down.
The night swallowed the rest.
𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭. (epilogue is already up!!)
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