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It was over.
Vecna was dead, it was finally over.
She was free, she was alive.
But, was she though?
Now, a new set of nightmares was going to be added to the list. Because, for everyone else, Vecna was the problem, but Max hadn’t been alright even before Vecna decided to take his first victim.
She had decided to fight him; she had been the one who choose to live. But the second her eyes landed on Hopper…
Hopper, who by the way, happens to be alive.
Ain’t that a bitch!
She saw how El had run to hug him the minute he arrived there with Joyce and Murray, she saw the relieved smiles on everyone else’s faces.
And suddenly the world became too much for her to bear.
Their voices sounded far away, and she could barely move anymore.
“Hey, Max. Are you okay?” Lucas had asked, and she had almost missed it.
“Yeah… Yeah, I’m good.”
But you see, she wasn’t. And she wouldn’t be for a while.
Maybe not ever.
Joyce was crying now, watching the reunion of a father and a daughter, while she hugged her son.
And Max felt like the worst friend in the world, because El was happy for the first time in a long time, and she wanted nothing more than to scream.
Scream at the fucking world for its cruelty.
Scream at Lucas for being so caring.
Scream at Joyce for bringing him back.
Scream at El for making her feel such guilt.
And most than anything, scream at Billy.
Scream at Billy for not coming back as he did.
It was like all the progress she had made was now lost in an instant, in a person.
A person who didn’t even have a say in the matter.
DID HE?!
COULD HE JUST SAY: “NO, I DON’T LIKE THIS SHIT? I WANNA GO BACK?!”
MAYBE BILLY FELT LIKE STAYING THERE!
MAYBE SHE SHOULD’VE DONE THE SAME!
Her inner voice was screaming at her now, screaming for answers.
COULD SHE JUST PRAY TO HAVE BILLY BACK, AND HAVE HIM, JUST LIKE THAT?
COULD THE WORLD GIVE HER A FUCKING BREAK?
“The world keeps moving, Max. You need to keep going before you stay so far behind that you get lost in the darkness.” Her dad had told her once, she understood what it meant now.
“Hey, kid. It’s good to see your face.” Hopper said with the warmest of the smiles she had ever seen.
In return, all she felt was a cold feeling numbing her body.
She smiles. The bomb has been set.
“Good to see you too, Hopper.”
“LIAR!” Her mind screams.
Because she can’t scream at the world, so her mind screams at her instead.
And it feels appropriate, all of those fucking awful thoughts deserve to be punished.
She deserves it.
She smiles wider. Because "the world keeps moving, Max. You need to keep going…"
…
Every day’s more of the same.
Fake smiles all around.
She does it so well that not even Lucas notices something is wrong.
Before Vecna, she had isolated herself from everybody. Well, at least she got to be true to herself. Now, her friends were right there with her and she couldn’t feel lonelier.
“IT’S YOUR FAULT!” Her mind screams, because yeah. The bitch won’t shut up anymore.
And she laughs.
She laughs because if Vecna was here, he would kill her in an instant.
And she would gladly let him.
All the people she knows and loves get together to celebrate Hopper’s back-to-the-living party, and she cringes at the name.
Had they already forgotten the ones who did not make it back?
Anyway, she sits there and pretends.
Pretends like she always does.
And everything is okay until Joyce says the words that activate the timer on the bomb.
“We all are so happy you’re back, Hop.”
Max laughs.
She can even hear the bitterness in the sound of her laughter, and everyone looks at her.
“Something funny there, kid?” Asks Hopper with caution, because she had always corrected him when he called her kid.
“Nah, I’m great.” She says, the sardonic smile still on her face. “Just a comment though, Mrs Byers, you shouldn’t assume how people feel.”
“Max?” El was confused as to what was going on with her friend.
“Max, is everything okay?” Asks then Steve, who is sitting next to her.
“How do you feel, Max?” Added Lucas on her other side. “How do you feel about Hopper being back?”
And the bomb goes off…
“I’m fucking great!” She stands and goes directly to face Hopper. “Just one question!”
“WHY?” She gives him a punch in the stomach and Joyce has to stop El from intervening. “WHY DO YOU GET TO BE HERE?”
The man steadies the girl in front of him, the girl who now is crying. Max pushes him away from her.
“WHAT? DID YOU JUST FORGET ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE?” She looks at the rest of them, Mr. Wheeler seems to be having the time of his life with the show.
“BARB, BOB, FUCKING BILLY” As she says their names, she first looks at Nancy, and then at Joyce.
“OF ALL OF THEM, WHY IS THAT YOU GET TO COME BACK?”
“Don’t get them into this, Max! Don’t dishonour their memory! We all know this is because of Billy!” Nancy stands from the table too. While Robin and Eddie, next to her, try to calm her down.
“AND IS THAT SO FUCKING WRONG?!” She asks with disbelief. “SO THAT’S IT THEN! HE WAS AN ASSHOLE, SO THAT’S WHY YOU DESERVE TO BE HERE. AND HE DOESN’T!”
“I never said that.” Adds Hopper in a calmer voice, she seems to settle down for a bit.
“He… He was the reason Neil didn’t beat the shit out of me, y’know?” She’s not screaming anymore, but everybody is still on edge. “On my 13th birthday, he made sure that I was not wearing girly clothes, because he knew fucking Neil would get turned on.”
She remembered that day, he had just left clothes on her bed, clothes from when he was her age. “Just wear them.” He had simply said, and she did not listen. She sat down at the dinner table in a short dress, and Neil had put a hand on her leg.
Billy saw that, and he asked his dad to help him with something related to the car. She didn’t remember what exactly. After he followed Billy outside, Max ran to her room to change. And Neil never looked at her again.
She had found comfort in those clothes, they determined her style, and who she was. After a while, she could not stand the sight of girly clothes, maybe because of Neil or maybe because that was not who she was anymore.
Because "the world keeps moving, Max. You need to keep going…"
Joyce was now crying, and Nancy had quietly sat back down.
“He was not all bad.”
“I know that,” Hopper told her.
“THEN WHY DO YOU GET A SECOND CHANCE AND HE DOESN’T?!”
She looked helpless right there, for Lucas it was seeing her levitating in trance once again. But he knew she needed this.
“For so long I had been wanting him gone, and then it happened.” She looked lost, like trying to make sense of the situation. “Is it my fault?”
That sentence alone broke Hopper’s heart. Joyce wanted to step in and talk to her, but she knew Hopper had to be the one to do it.
“Do you know why Vecna came after me?” She asked at no one in particular. “I… I wanted…”
“Say it, Max,” Lucas said, in front of all the confused eyes.
“You knew all along, didn’t you?” She asked with tears in her eyes.
Of course, he knew, just like he knew she wasn’t okay with the Hopper situation, he knew her too well by now.
“Say it before it eats you away.” He had tears in his eyes too.
Max took a long breath. “I wanted to die, I… I even tried to get it done myself.” She showed them the scars on her wrists.
At this point, even Karen Wheeler was crying too. And the rest of the teens were suddenly aware of how stupid they had been.
“I just didn’t want him to feel lonely, he’d always felt lonely when he was alive.”
“Look at me, kid.” Started Hopper. “None of this is your fault. He is gone, but at least he knows that you care, I can assure you that. And as far as why I am here, I have no idea, the world’s just fucked up that way I think.”
She gave him a small smile in between her tears. “I'm sorry I screamed at you.”
“That’s okay, you have friends that love you very much. They won’t mind if you scream at them a little, will you guys?” He asked Mike, Will, El, Dustin and Lucas.
“No.”
“Of course not.”
Even Steve had joined in.
And Max felt confused for a second. “But I shouldn’t have screamed, I was supposed to say nothing. Because the world keeps moving, I have to keep going.”
One of his hands touched her chin, so she would look at him. “You’re supposed to scream, Max. That’s how you keep going, you tell the people who love you how you feel.”
“Because they’re going to always be there for you.” Added El, taking Max’s hand in hers. “Even if they’re not right there with you.” She was crying too.
The fierce little redhead hugged her best friend, both of them a crying mess. And the guys joined them without a second thought.
Max searched for Lucas’ eyes and he looked right back at her. He took her hand when she muted a ‘thanks’ to him.
Steve, the mom of the group, also joined the hug. He was becoming a brother figure to Max, the brother she always wanted, the one she deserved.
“I swear to God, people! If all your little parties are like this one, then count me out!” Said Eddie as a way of taking the seriousness away.
Everybody laughed at that.
“No promises, Eddie!" Added Max. “Sometimes bombs need to go off.”
…