Apocalypse, Steve Harrington

Chapter Fifty-Nine. Like vs. Love

FIFTY-NINE
— like vs. love

BEFORE STEVE, THERE WERE a lot of things she hated. Steve included.

She hated the feeling of faux-velvet, and birthday-cake scented candles, and when her flip-flops got soggy at the pool. She hated US History, and Algebra II, and when the hem of her sock was unaligned with her toes. She hated male attention, and obnoxious stares, that drilled through the back of her skull. She hated guys that would talk to her at parties, and she hated hearing her name being whispered in the hallways. She hated a lot of things.

She hated Steve. His nearly-never-genuine smile, and the way he manhandled her school-textbooks, and the way his Nike Cortez squeaked against the tile-floors of Hawkins High. She hated the way he slung his arms around other girls, and how his driving-style made her carsick, and, she hated when he'd honk the horn of his burgundy BMW in the driveway of their trailer. He smelled like expensive-cologne, and his hair was always wet in the morning, because of swim practice, and he'd ruffle the already tangled brown-locks on her head every time he saw her.

But, Steve was probably the only guy who made her not want to rip her skin straight off her bones, for other reasons. He made her eardrums bleed, and her stomach twist, and her chest tighten. He wasn't gross, though. He didn't make suggestive comments, he didn't crack dirty-jokes, he didn't say weird things, not around her, anyway. Sure, he gave her a wet-willy one time, Sophomore year. Still, though. She'd rather that, than the knowing that he wanted to see her without her clothes on.

So, they're in Starcourt, and she's thinking about this. She's thinking about, how, even when she hated Steve, and she preferred him dead, she didn't mind him, not really. She didn't hate him how she hated Cam Quincy after the events in eighty-two, or how she hated Andrew Bell for making a comment about her bra-strap. Steve wasn't like that.

Had she ever even hated Steve? Or, was it just blind love, the entire time? That makes her stomach hurt.

      Her throat is dry. God, her throat is so dry, and she doesn't know why. It's probably because she hasn't had fluids in twenty-four hours. But, it's starting to feel like her throat is dry because Steve is beside her. The fabric of his Scoops Ahoy uniform shirt is rubbing against her arm every few seconds, and he's stumbling into her, or, she's stumbling into him. She's thinking back to the secret-Russian-base, and how he took down the Russian guard, and, shamefully, she's staring at his beaten and bloodied face.

      It's not that he looks good like this, because he doesn't. He looks like he's in pain, and he grunts whenever the air blows against his wounds too sharply, and she can nearly see his cheekbones throbbing. It upsets her. To see him like this, it puts a pit in her stomach, and it makes her think of the Russians calloused hand beating against her own flesh, on her own face. Steve doesn't deserve this, to be in pain.

      Now, it's probably because she's high out of her mind, but there's something about him, right now. His lips are bright-pink, and he's sporting a bloodied-nose, and his knuckles are bruised. She remembers when he fought Jonathan, in eighty-three. He had a black-eye, and she held a bag of peas over it, when they were waiting for her Dad to pick them up from the Byers house. And, then, Billy beat him up. That was scary. Terrible. But, he didn't look bad, the morning after. . .  God, what is she thinking?! Her mind isn't her own. She needs water, and she needs it badly.