𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐎𝐍 𝐌𝐄 || 𝘔𝘈𝘟 𝘔𝘈𝘠𝘍𝘐𝘌𝘓𝘋

16. i think i pulled a muscle

I THINK I PULLED A MUSCLE

November 4th, 1984
⏰ 11:45 pm, 📍Hawkins, Indiana

༺♥༻ When Stephanie wakes up, she can almost see her head pounding and her heartbeat in her ears.

She's still laying on the floor in the Byers living room. She slowly sits up, touching the back of her head, feeling for a cut. She brings her hand back and sees blood on her hand.

During all this, the some of the kids are in the kitchen, slamming cabinets, and yelling at each other.

Stephanie looks over at Steve. She sees Max and Lucas knelt next to him, with boxes of bandaids and rubbing alcohol.

Stephanie still doesn't move. "What happened?" She scans the rest of the room. Then, she sees Billy laying down on the ground.

Max stands up and runs to Stephanie. "Oh, Steph! Are you alright?" Max goes to hug Stephanie, but when Max touches Stephanie's back, she winces in pain.

"Oh, my God." Max looks worried. "Here, I'll help you stand up." Max takes Stephanie's hands and pulls her up. She carefully removes Stephanie's jacket and looks at her back to see that blood had seeped through her shirt. "Oh, shit."

"Is it bad?" Stephanie asks, her head hurting more with each word.

Max shakes her head. "No. I've dealt with many cuts before."

Max puts her arm around Stephanie's shoulders and helps her to the bathroom.

After shuffling to the bathroom, Stephanie sits down on the edge of the bathtub and lifts up the back of her shirt to reveal cuts and bruises.

Max takes a washcloth with warm water and cleans the blood around Stephanie's cuts. Then, she takes rubbing alcohol and quickly disinfect each cut. Stephanie tries to hide the pain when Max touches the rubbing alcohol on her back, but jumps each time it was applied. Max takes a box of bandaids and puts one on each cut, big and small. Once Max is finished Stephanie puts her shirt down. "You're good at this," she says, smiling.

Max puts each item back. "Well, I do skateboard."

Stephanie shrugs her shoulders and laughs. "That's fair."

When Max and Stephanie leave the bathroom, the boys are already outside putting things in Billy's car.

Stephanie looks outside. "What are we doing?"

"We're going into the tunnels."

"But what about Steve?" Stephanie points to her brother, who's still passed out. "How will we get there?"

"Well, we were gonna leave him here..." Max starts, trailing off. "But now I see that's probably not a great idea."

Max walks towards Steve and grabs his arms. "Come on, help me!"

Stephanie grabs both of Steve's legs and the girls struggle their way out the door, down the steps, and into the car.

"Why is he so heavy?" Max grunts.

Stephanie pants and readjusts her grip. "It's like carrying a dead horse that's sitting on another dead horse."

Once they reach the car, Stephanie bangs on the window to make Dustin open the door.