Love Is A Battlefield (A Stranger Things/Steve Harrington Fanfiction)

Chapter Twenty-Six: Beautiful

I pulled into the first empty parking lot I came  across and Steve got out of the car, laying on the hood of it and throwing an arm over his eyes. I sighed and got out too, sitting beside him despite the fact that I'd left my coat at the house and I was barely clothed as it was in October.

"Steve...she was drunk."

"You heard what she said, Riley." He said, moving his arm and staring up at the sky. "The part about us pretending? That was all true, we knew she actually thought that, so...why wouldn't that apply to us pretending to be in love?"I sighed, pulling my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. "Yeah...that's what I thought. And if that wasn't enough, I'm not stupid, you know? I see the way her and Jonathan act around each other, I know she likes him." I bit my lip.

"But she chose you Steve-"

"Yeah, because Jonathan disappeared once things went back to normal." He said, sitting up and turning to look at me. "If he hadn't...if they'd kept hanging out together as much as they had when they were hunting the Demogorgan, do you honestly think she'd have ever gotten back together with me?" I looked down at my feet. "Do you?!"

"I don't think I should answer that." I said, glancing at him. "Because what's gonna happen, is you two are going to talk tomorrow, and everything is going to be fine, and you're going to regret saying all of this stuff in the heat of the moment." He shook his head.

"It doesn't feel like everything is going to be fine, Riles. It feels like...it feels like my relationship just ended, and all I've been doing for the past year is just...delaying the inevitable."

"Steve-"

"I'm serious." He said, looking at me. "Because deep down, I think I knew, I...I think I always knew that she didn't love me as much as I loved her and if you're already thinking it and then someone says it out loud that really...hurts." I nodded.

"Yeah. It does." He looked at me, and I refused to look at him, not wanting to see the realization with his eyes.

"Oh my gosh, I'm an idiot."

"No, you're not-"

"I was just messing around." He said. "I was joking, like I always do, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings-"

"It really doesn't matter. It was stupid." I said. I stared at the empty, closed down building, and we sat in silence for a little while until Steve's blazer came down around my shoulders. I pulled it tighter around myself, still refusing to look at him.

"Can I ask...why did that make you so upset?" He questioned. "I mean, you and I say crap like that all the time to each other, you telling me I look like a cabbage patch kid and all that. Why did this time offend you?"

"I don't know...because...I guess because you compared me to Nancy?" I met his eyes as he furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "I know its dumb, and after everything we've been through, this shouldn't even matter to me, but of the three of us, Nancy, Barb, and I...it was always obvious who the breadwinner was. Nancy was the pretty one, the smart one, the one that could get in with you and your friends without anyone ever questioning it whereas I'm just the freak who never says anything, the freak who disappeared."

"You're not a freak."

"I am though." I balled the fabric of his blazer up in my fist as I pulled it tighter around myself. "I am, and here I am preaching to Will Byers that its ok to be a freak, and it doesn't matter what other people think because we've been through and are capable of more than any normal person could ever dream of and yet, I still find myself being insecure about the fact I'm never going to have what Nancy has."