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How I would like to believe in tenderness –
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.
-Sylvia Plath, “The Moon and the Yew Tree”
―
Growing up, Jonathan’s mother had a lot of words for what they were: Two-Timers, Backsliders, CEOs. That last one, his mom’s favorite, stood for “Christmas and Easter Only.” Every time she said it, it made her laugh: The Byers are a CEO sort of family. God understands that those are the only days Melvald’s closes.
But with each biannual outing to church, Jonathan felt less and less sure that God understood anything. In fact, He seemed like the type to be pretty furious with them. Jonathan knew from photos that he and Will had been christened― sprinkled , their mom called it―as babies, which is supposed to do something for your original sin; but by the time he was fourteen, Jonathan had plenty of additional sin that he hadn’t bothered to do anything about.
He envied Jimmy Baker's new Walkman, something Jonathan wanted for Christmas every year but could never bring himself to ask for; more often than not, he hated his dad; and during the first semester of seventh grade, he’d had decidedly unchristian thoughts about his science partner Gavin Miller, who had long hair for a boy and a nice smile and didn’t make fun of Jonathan for being squeamish when they dissected frogs.
From his CEO trips and his classmates, Jonathan gathered that he was supposed to be repenting for these things in some way. They were Presbyterian, not Catholic, so there were no specially-designated booths to confess in. There was the ambiguous option of getting saved that would be thrown out at the end of most services; but it involved walking up to the altar in front of everyone and admitting to being a filthy sinner, which to Jonathan seemed worse than just burning in Hell for all eternity when he died.
A few times he’d tried praying, usually when he felt desperate: God, make Will go to sleep so that I can do my book report; God, if you make Chester come home I’ll never drop his leash again; God, please do something about my dad.
And maybe, occasionally, God listened: In April 1982, He did something about Lonnie Byers. Jonathan and Will came home from school to his car gone, which wasn’t unusual by itself; but then their mom came home with a pizza and said she needed to talk to them.
Will was torn up about it, sniffling and asking if it meant they’d never see their dad again; Jonathan had to keep himself from doing a cartwheel. When they made their Easter visit to church that Sunday, he stared at the emaciated Jesus hanging behind the pulpit thinking thank you, thank you, thank you.
―
Besides infrequent worries about going to Hell―which really only arose at Christmas and Easter―Jonathan eventually came to think of the whole thing as pretty absurd. As he found out more of the details surrounding his dad leaving, it stopped feeling like a miracle and more like another of his dad’s fuck-ups. It wasn’t God answering Jonathan’s prayers that made him take off; just some woman named Cynthia, his secret girlfriend in Indianapolis.
Will had asked, “How can Dad have a girlfriend if Mom’s his wife?”
Jonathan shrugged, told him not to worry about adult stuff, and asked if he wanted to listen to the new Cure album.
By then, Jonathan had found that there were a lot of things to replace God with: Music and movies and photography; Gavin Miller, who had a girlfriend now; taking care of Will, which felt to Jonathan like the closest thing he had to a religious duty.
Even before their dad left, it was Jonathan waking him up for school every day and learning to make scrambled eggs that weren’t “too wet” and letting Will sleep in his bed when he had nightmares. In return, Will would spend hours sitting at the foot of the bed and listening to Jonathan’s mixtapes, even when Jonathan could tell that he didn’t much like what was playing.
The day they found out that their dad wasn’t coming back, they built a fort together and named it Castle Byers. A hundred different times, Jonathan had wanted to reassure Will that they would be okay, that he would be okay. He had wanted to say something about how they never really needed him, anyways; but he was too afraid that Will would say he did, actually. That Jonathan wasn’t a sufficient replacement.
So instead he’d stayed out with him all night, even after it started to rain, and when they both got sick from it Jonathan heated up canned soup and taught Will the trick of pinching your nose so you don’t taste the cough syrup going down.
―
Jonathan was going to turn fifteen at the end of June. Fifteen meant he could have a job, three hours on school days and eight hours on weekends; it meant money for the light bill, clothes for Will that weren’t his hand-me-downs, and seeing movies while they were still in the theater. Maybe he could even apply to The Hawk, be the guy who scoops the popcorn or the one who sweeps it up.
But first, there were almost two months of summer between him and fifteen.
His mom had always been content to leave them to their own devices in the summer, confident in Jonathan’s abilities to keep Will both corralled and entertained. Their dad was home a lot of the time, too, between whatever job he’d most recently been mysteriously laid off from. So when she came home with another pizza and wanted to talk again, Jonathan was petrified that they were being shipped up to Indianapolis to spend the summer.
“I know this summer’s different for all of us with your dad gone,” she’d started.
Not really, Jonathan wanted to say. Dad was always so drunk he may as well have been gone.
He nodded.
“I’m going to be working more, and I don’t just want to leave you two here all day.” She turned away from them to dig in her pocket book, then spun back around with a pamphlet in hand. “There’s a day program at First Baptist. I heard about it from Claudia, so you’ll have a friend there.” She beamed at Will. When he only cocked his head in confusion, she clarified, “Dustin’s mom, sweetie. She said he’s gone the last two summers and loved it.”
Jonathan pulled the pamphlet across the table to study it. It had a colorful graphic of the sun wearing sunglasses, a rainbow, and a cross, all under the title VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL 1982.
Vacation Bible School was something he’d always been aware of. From what he understood, it was a place kids could go for a few weeks in the summer to eat snacks and learn the Christ-centered equivalent of the YMCA dance―a babysitting service with an agenda. As he got older, the kids in his class who wore Awana’s t-shirts and cross necklaces started spending their summers working there as volunteers, forming a new clique that wasn’t traditionally cool , but close to it. They always came back with tan lines and inside jokes.
Jonathan cleared his throat. “Isn’t this just for little kids?”
His mom turned to him, launching into the second half of her pitch: “There’s actually a lot for a kid your age to do there. You’ll get to help out with all the cool arts and crafts they do, make the snacks, stuff like that.”
The prospect of spending the summer doing arts and crafts with the Awana’s kids was only marginally less unpleasant than spending it with his dad.
They were never mean to Jonathan, never called him Salvation Army or made digs about his family the way someone like Tommy Hagan would―quite the opposite, actually. They treated him as transparently pitiful, a perfect target for evangelizing: Jonathan, our youth group is having a bonfire this weekend. Jonathan, do you have a Home Church? Jonathan, we would love to see you and your family in the pews.
Jonathan could never find it in his heart to tell them to fuck off outright; usually, he just said that he was a Presbyterian, which only ever deterred them until the next hayride for Christ or jump rope for God or whatever other goofy thing they were trying to save souls with that month. Something about being cooed at by them felt almost worse than how other kids just called him a queer, as if they were saying you seem like a person that’s destined for Hell. We want to fix that.
And now he was going to spend weeks of his one and only, precious lifetime handing out pudding cups with them.
“Do they pay you?” he asked.
His mom’s immediate frown was an answer in and of itself.
“It’s a church, honey. But you can put it on your resume.”
Jonathan tried to envision how he’d word that: Assistant macaroni artist. Professional juice box opener.
But, as usual, he was only a smartass in his head. Mom had been sure to stress to them in no uncertain terms that she didn’t need anything extra to worry about with everything else going on. This was probably a well-meaning effort to get them out into the community, for their sake and hers. It would be good PR: They’d make friends with other kids, and those kids would tell their parents that the Byers weren’t actually as dirty and poor and uncivilized as they thought.
He could grit his teeth through it for his mother; for Will; for himself. Maybe he really was going to Hell and this was God tossing him a life preserver, though he seriously doubted it.
His mother smiled at him expectantly. Will was already chattering about how cool it would be to spend every day with Dustin.
Jonathan said, “Okay, Mom.”
―
Vacation Bible School began at nine AM sharp on the first Monday of summer break and ran til three every weekday, with optional evening and weekend programs. Per the brochure, it would end just before Independence Day with Christmas in July.
Will found Dustin almost immediately, already sorted into their age group with his nose buried in some book with a dragon on the front, which Jonathan foresaw being confiscated for containing Satanic imagery.
This left Jonathan hovering awkwardly on the fringes of the church’s gymnasium―he had never seen a church quite like this, divided into two buildings bigger than Hawkins Middle and the elementary school combined―with his hands shoved in his pockets. He briefly entertained the idea of pretending to be a very tall 10 year old so that he could stick with Will; before he could enact this plan, he was spotted by a woman in a STAFF shirt. It was too late to hunch down and pretend to be shorter; instead, he went slack and allowed himself to be pulled into a storage room to pick out a volunteer shirt in his size.
He was being hit with a fair amount of rapid fire information, but as he tugged the t-shirt over his head―decorated with the same art as the brochure, complete with the sun-in-sunglasses and VBS ‘82―Jonathan gathered that he was pretty low on the totem pole, even for a volunteer.
As soon as the shirt was on, they were off again, crossing the breezeway between the two buildings at a clip as the staff woman continued: “We like to put our more experienced kids in the classrooms. That can all change for you by next year, of course! We always hope everyone falls in love with the program. But for now, you and our other newbie are going to be in the art room with Miss Jenny, so you’ll see all age groups once a day for a craft.”
Jonathan was handed off to Miss Jenny with another short disclaimer about his newbie status. There was some tutting about the other volunteer, who was running late, before they set Jonathan up with the titillating task of separating a mixed pack of construction paper by color.
While he sorted, Jonathan took a few cursory glances around the room. It was a lot less morbid than their typical CEO church, with no anorexic Jesus on the cross in sight; instead, there were full-sized portraits of Him doing various holy activities, healing the blind and feeding baby animals. There were even a few more temporary-looking construction paper decorations sprinkled in, crosses and angels and a JESUS LOVES THE LITTLE CHILDREN banner.
At 9:15, the familiar voice of the staff lady carried back up the hall, sounding a lot harsher this time. Jonathan thought he caught something about respect and punctuality. It was hard to believe that one of those hyper-pious Awana’s kids would dare to be late; they probably had a good excuse, like helping an injured turtle cross the road.
Finally, the kid spoke back: “I just thought it’d be courteous to bring Miss Jenny a bagel.”
Miss Jenny didn’t comment either way. She was young, barely out of high school by the looks of it, and Jonathan had already gotten the impression that she was petrified of the older staff members.
The distant voice of his fellow volunteer sounded, to Jonathan, oddly familiar. It wasn’t the typical cheerful baby-talk he’d come to associate with his persistent religious classmates; it was more petulant, though just as grating in its own way. Jonathan kept his nose in his pile of construction paper.
After a few more half-hearted sorry s, the detached voice floated to the back of the room, pulled out the chair beside Jonathan’s, and said, “Sorry, man. I didn’t know there’d be someone else here. Wanna split mine?”
A greasy paper bag landed on the table with an audible thud ; just after, there was a face forcing itself into Jonathan’s field of vision.
“Hey, I know you!”
Jonathan knew him, too; it was a worse person to be trapped with all summer than anyone he could have imagined.
He was probably late in equal parts due to the bagel and his ridiculous hair, meticulously styled as always; the collar of a polo shirt was peeking out from his VBS t-shirt; and he was grinning at Jonathan like a complete fucking maniac, like they were best pals.
“Don’t we go to school together?”
“Sort of,” Jonathan allowed.
Actually, they were a grade apart. It had been a relief for Jonathan when he and his friends went to high school this year; there was hardly anyone left who cared to bother him as much as they had.
“But you know me too, right? I’m Steve Harrington. And you’re…Jonathan! Jonathan Byers.” Steve’s grin widened, clearly pleased with himself and the epic power of his memory. “Have you ever been to that Mormon bakery downtown? You’ve gotta try the bagel, seriously.”
So his memory wasn’t that good: Everyone knew that the bakery downtown was run by Mennonites. Or maybe that was just the kind of detail Steve Harrington didn’t concern himself with. From what Jonathan had seen, he didn’t concern himself with much.
Jonathan didn’t feel like getting into it with him just then. He smiled with his mouth closed, shook his head no thanks , and kept sorting construction paper.
―
Jonathan already knew that he and Steve Harrington didn’t have much in common.
For one, the Harringtons were rich; Steve was on the basketball team, whose games Jonathan had been forced to photograph too many times to count for Yearbook Club; and Steve himself was nerve wracking to be around, loud and jittery and talking about everything that crossed his mind, from the Jesus portrait in front of them to how Jonathan seriously had to try a Mormon bagel.
But what finally got Jonathan talking to him was the one thing uniting them: Neither of them wanted to be at Vacation Bible School.
They’d just finished walking the six to seven year olds through making Angel paper doll chains. Steve was sweeping while Jonathan scrubbed glue―which no one was supposed to be using, but was smeared everywhere nonetheless―off the table. Miss Jenny had flitted off down the hall somewhere, probably to hyperventilate into a paper bag.
Steve huffed. “This is so lame.” He plopped down on the tabletop, directly where Jonathan needed to be cleaning. “I’m only here ‘cause my mom’s on this insane church lady kick right now.”
“Mine is too. Sort of,” Jonathan said. He was mostly trying to preface get out of the way ; but Steve ran with it.
He leaned towards Jonathan, whispering conspiratorially, “I knew you weren’t one of these church dorks, Byers! You had me fooled for a second though.” He was grinning again. He had the straightest teeth Jonathan had ever seen, the kind most kids spent years in headgear for; they must have been part of his Harrington pedigree. “My mom’s a total hypocrite, though. She’s not even here.”
A few nights ago, Jonathan’s mom had actually given him a decent explanation for why they were here after Will had gone to bed. She wasn’t comfortable leaving them at home all summer―not because of the loss of their dad’s valiant protection, but because she was afraid of him showing up while she was gone. Showing up to do what , she wouldn’t say.
Jonathan had some ideas.
“My mom’s at work; but my little brother’s with the ten to elevens.”
Steve launched into how cool that was, how he couldn’t wait to meet him, and so on and so forth; but he at least hopped off the table, so Jonathan could finish wiping it down.
―
Arguably, the worst part of it all was that Steve Harrington had never done anything to wrong Jonathan personally . He was just an eye-rolling bystander to the actual psychos like Tommy Hagan. Outside of basketball games, Jonathan had typically seen him propped against the wall, examining his fingernails and looking bored with the whole thing. Sometimes he would even say, “C’mon Tommy, knock it off already.”
My hero, Jonathan would think. He never said it out loud, of course; even if Steve had never joined in before, Jonathan wasn’t going to push his luck.
In a way, the apathy made Steve more hateable than Tommy. It was even worse when Jonathan got stuck taking pictures of the basketball team or homecoming court; in isolation, Steve could be downright pleasant. He could spend the half hour trying to pal around with Jonathan and telling him to get his good side, and the next day watch dead-eyed as Tommy shoved Jonathan against a locker, seemingly without even registering that it was the same person.
VBS was no different: He showed up late every day with two Mormon bagels and that manic smile, revved up to talk at Jonathan for the next six hours.
For the first week, things were mostly lame or cool without much substance in between. VBS, high school, and not having his license yet fell into Steve’s lame category, while bagels, certain kids in each age grouping, and a distasteful collection of pop artists were deemed cool.
The only break Jonathan got from the ongoing lame versus cool discourse was at lunch time, when everyone was herded into the gym to grab sandwiches. Jonathan usually found Will and Dustin huddled somewhere in the corner and sat with them for the duration, listening to them strategize for their current DND campaign; but Steve always managed to disappear until the last few minutes of lunch, usually after Jonathan had already made his way back to the art room.
It wasn’t as if Jonathan thought that he was doing anything exciting. In fact, he was ninety percent certain that Steve was just off smoking cigarettes, since he usually came back reeking like them.
By Friday of the second week, when Steve started pestering him to come with , Jonathan resolved that he’d be doing no such thing. His parents were both chainsmokers, and his mom had gotten worse in the last few months; the only smell he hated more than cigarettes was beer.
But Steve wasn’t just a general pest; he seemed to be getting better at bothering Jonathan specifically. By the following Friday, he was almost an expert.
They were cleaning up again, which was to say that Jonathan swept while Steve perched on the table he was meant to be Clorox wiping.
“Why don’t you come with me? Your brother’s got his curly-headed buddy to keep him company, doesn’t he?”
Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Because I actually enjoy eating during my lunch break.”
“You can’t possibly enjoy the slop they’re giving you.”
“Peanut butter and jelly isn’t slop.”
He motioned with the broom for Steve to lift his feet. He had at least gotten easier to clean around.
“C’mon, Byers! It’ll be fun,” Steve whined. He could be worse than a little kid, sometimes; others, he was like a hyperactive dog.
Jonathan lowered his voice before hissing, “Getting lung cancer from your secondhand smoke isn’t my idea of fun.”
Naturally, Steve was undeterred. “Who said anything about smoking?”
“You don’t have to say anything. I have a nose.”
Steve made a show of plucking up the front of his shirt and sniffing it. “I do not smell like cigarettes.”
“Not yet.” Jonathan leaned down, sweeping scraps of paper and loose glitter into a pile. “You only smell like cigarettes for the second half of the day.”
Mock-offended, Steve clutched at his chest. But he was grinning, and swinging his legs so that his Nikes toed dangerously close to Jonathan’s growing pile of dust.
“If you go with me, I won’t smoke. So really, you’ll be saving a life.”
“If you kick that, your life’s over.”
“Say you’ll go.”
“If I go, you’re cleaning up after the six-to-sevens. That includes scraping glitter glue off of everything.” Two days before, they’d managed to get it on the ceiling; Jonathan still wasn’t sure what they were even using it for.
To Steve’s credit, he held the rickety folding chair steady while Jonathan peeled it off with his fingernails; he never let Jonathan or Miss Jenny lift anything heavier than the broom; and for the past few days, he’d been bringing Jonathan a coffee with his bagel.
Still. He had a significant amount of sweeping debt to make up for.
“Deal,” Steve said, nodding solemnly and extending his hand as if to shake on it.
Jonathan stooped down and brushed his scraps into the dustpan.
―
Jonathan’s theory was quickly proven correct: Steve was just smoking cigarettes in the woods. He’d stashed his lighter and contraband Marlboros―stolen from Carol Perkins’s mom’s boyfriend, a factoid he giddily relaid to Jonathan―in a hollow tree. Before he even took them out, Steve turned in a circle twice, making sure they were alone.
“Those aren’t illegal, you know.” Jonathan nodded toward the cigarettes and, by extension, toward Steve, who was engaged in some elaborate ritual of smacking the pack against his palm.
Steve grunted, finally plucking out a cigarette and lighting it. “If one of these church ladies sees these in my pocket and rats me out to my mom, I’ll never hear the end of it. That’s the last thing I need.”
“She’d be mad?”
Up to that point, Jonathan was under the impression that Steve and his friends were pretty free range, if not outright feral; that was sort of a requirement of being the two-years-running keg king at fifteen . Jonathan couldn’t imagine Mrs. Harrington getting bent out of shape over a couple cigarettes. He didn’t even think his mom, with her phases of fretting over brain-eating amoebas in the creek and listeria in lunch meat, would do much more than call it a nasty habit to pick up.
“She’d be embarrassed as hell. Then she’d have to tell my dad, and he’d be embarrassed as hell, and well…you know how it goes. He would kick my ass.” Almost immediately, Steve blanched, like he remembered who he was talking to. Stammering, he added, “I mean, not literally.”
Jonathan didn’t make a habit of looking Steve―or anyone―in the eye. In that moment, he appreciated the smoldering red eye of the cigarette for giving him something other than his shoes to focus on. Just then, he didn’t want to look like the kicked dog everyone talked to him like he was. And he sure as hell didn’t want that treatment from Steve Harrington.
Clearing his throat, he said, “I don’t have that problem anymore. For a few months now.”
“Yeah,” Steve mumbled. It didn’t sound like yeah? as in woah, really? I had no idea.
It sounded like yeah as in yeah, dipshit, I know. Everybody’s talking about it all the time, as soon as your back is turned.
Jonathan hazarded a glance at him―he was chewing his bottom lip, looking as deep in thought as someone like Steve was capable of looking. Probably thinking that he’d fucked up by asking sad-sack Jonathan Byers to tag along on his delinquent smoke break.
Then, Steve rushed out, “Do you like it? My dad leaves sometimes―just for work stuff. But I like it better when he’s gone.”
Jonathan couldn’t decide if it sounded like run of the mill prying―fishing for gossip to take back to his mom or his psychotic friends, to say Jesus, there’s a reason that Byers kid is fucked up―or a probing question from a guidance counselor. Either way, he almost didn’t dignify it with a response.
But Steve had given him something too. It wasn’t much. Maybe he liked it better when his dad was gone because it was the only time they ordered takeout. Or, the less charitable interpretation: It was easier to drink beer and sneak girls in.
Most likely, Steve just hated his dad the way that everyone is destined to when they’re fifteen. The way that everyone but Jonathan was destined to get over.
Finally, Jonathan allowed, “It’s quieter.”
Steve nodded sagely, like he could ever fathom what that meant.
“Good quiet, right?”
And Jonathan hated him for that, more than he ever did before―more than every snarling interaction at school, more than this faux-friendly buddy-buddy thing he’d adopted since VBS.
Really, he hated more than just Steve. It was the pity and the whispering and the looks that made being a Byers feel less like a family and more like a sideshow act. Even with Dad gone, having only called once since he fucked off to Indianapolis, people still watched them with baited breath.
You think she’ll take him back? I mean, those kids are old enough to figure out what’s going on by now.
Of course she will. He already beats on the older kid―the skittish one. I can tell.
(Jonathan, “the skittish one,” enters stage left. He scurries through the grocery store with his head down, like a rat, as our observers share a knowing look.)
Up to that point, Jonathan had always resented the unspoken pact of his family, in which all of them were miserable and angry and frightened but none of them talked about it.
Even Mom still wouldn’t talk about it―not really; and she wanted to pretend Will was too little to understand.
So did Jonathan, to be fair.
But he wasn’t stupid. By the time he was Will’s age, he’d understood a hell of a lot more than he wanted to.
He understood a bag of frozen peas over his black eye and liquid bandage painted onto his busted lip; the yellow stains from liquid iodine on Mom’s fingertips and the blinding blue lights of police cars through the living room window; and how, sometimes, the yeasty smell of fresh bread would come so close to beer that he’d have to hold his breath when he passed the bakery.
What the fuck did Steve Harrington understand?
Hair spray? stealing cigarettes? girls?
Girls―that was one thing Jonathan had recently resigned himself to never understanding. Never wanting to understand, beyond his businesslike relationship with Barb and Nancy from yearbook club. Maybe understanding wasn’t the word for it at all; but he tried not to think about other words. Other things. Other people.
He found it shockingly easy to hate Steve for that, too. For having the audacity to think he, of all people, could get Jonathan to confirm what everyone in Hawkins already suspected.
It’s quieter when my dad isn’t here to beat the everloving fuck out of me and my mom. Sometimes, he kicked the dog for good measure. He’s been calling me a queer since I was old enough to walk and I guess at some point he hit me so hard trying to wallop it out of me that he knocked me the other way. And I’m stuck here all summer because my mom’s afraid he’ll come back and kill all of us.
He had half a mind to say all that just to make Steve squirm. To show somebody, anybody else―but especially Steve fucking Harrington―a fraction of how it felt to live under a microscope all the goddamn time.
What Jonathan actually said was, “I think lunch is almost over.”
―
Jonathan thought that was the end of it. When he shoved his hands into his pockets and stalked away, Steve didn’t try to catch up. He kept his distance for the rest of the afternoon; but Jonathan caught him in his periphery more than once, looking wide-eyed and nervous―maybe even afraid.
Jonathan wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of those looks. It didn’t feel half as good as he’d hoped.
He shuddered to think what would’ve happened if he’d actually unleashed on Steve the way he did in his head. For a split second, he had wanted to get in Steve’s face and grab him by the front of the pristine Members Only jacket he’d started showing up in every day, even though it was clearly a size too big and about twenty degrees too fucking hot outside. He’d wanted to call him a clueless rich prick who didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, who was lucky not to know.
But Steve hadn’t actually said anything else. He only asked and waited for Jonathan to tell (to converse like any normal person would), retreating gracefully to his corner when Jonathan didn’t come through.
It was Jonathan who freaked out; Jonathan who took it the wrong way; Jonathan who let good quiet? trap him hopelessly in the murky depths of his own brain, forced to slog his way through until he came to with hands balled so tightly into fists that his fingernails, already chewed ragged, were cutting half-moons into his palms.
Steve was actually better than usual. He even started sweeping without being asked.
If Jonathan let it, that could reignite the anger he’d felt in the woods. He didn’t need Steve’s charity; he wasn’t and had never been an invalid; he certainly wasn’t too tragic and pitiful to hold a fucking broom.
Jonathan took a moment to breathe― in, out, in and all the way to his diaphragm, like Mom taught him to a hundred years ago ― and watch Steve sweep. Somehow, he managed to move carefully around Jonathan without giving him so wide a berth that he felt contagious. But when the broom brushed the side of Jonathan’s foot, Steve looked up with his mouth already half-open, probably to apologize. .
Before he could, Jonathan blurted, “They’re Mennonites.”
Steve jumped back a step, like he was genuinely startled to hear noise crackling out of the boy-shaped coat rack in front of him. Just as quickly, he was clearing his throat and pushing his hair out of his face, fighting back to his baseline of effortless cool guy.
“What?”
Jonathan cleared his throat. He felt a sudden surge of determination to keep this- this thing with Steve, where they could be civil while wrangling children for six hours a day and sometimes even make each other laugh. VBS was half-over, anyways. There was no need to let the specter of his dad ruin it from three hours away; not when it was his fault Jonathan was here at all.
“Those people that own the bakery. They’re not Mormons, they’re Mennonites.”
Steve’s eyebrows were knitted together in confusion; but he was already almost smiling when he said, “That’s the same thing.”
“Not really.”
“The women all wear those long skirts, right? And the guys don’t shave their beards.”
“I don’t know. Mormons wear special underwear, I think.” Jonathan waved his hands, trying to bat away the ridiculous thing he’d just said even though he was fairly certain it was true. “It doesn’t matter―just, they’re different.”
“Special underwear. OK.”
Steve was smiling outright by then, though he had a certain wolfish quality that smiling didn’t quite fit. ( Grinning wolfishly was something Jonathan had read about in the dirty paperbacks Mom kept in her nightstand; but the people doing the wolfish grinning weren’t usually talking about Mormon underwear.)
In spite of himself, Jonathan felt a reflexive tug at the corners of his own mouth. “I’m serious.”
Steve shook his head. “I think you’re makin’ shit up, Byers.”
“Why would I make that up? It’s just something I heard. It’s all I know about them. That, and they live in Utah; so they definitely don’t own a bakery on 4th Street.”
“Utah,” Steve repeated, whistling under his breath. Jonathan could relate to that sentiment, at least. To a kid from Hawkins―even a rich one―anything west of Illinois was the stuff of myth and legend. Somewhere as far out as Utah was little more than a fantasy land of rattlesnakes and cacti. “So tell me this, Byers. Why d’you think the Mennonites live here?”
A plaque in the entryway of Our Daily Bread explained just that; it shouldn’t surprise him that Steve never stopped to skim it on one of his bagel runs. Not that it was a particularly captivating read―it came down to something about following the path laid out for them by God.
Jonathan always thought the path was more likely laid out by the god his mom served at Melvald’s from seven to four every day. The same god that demanded offerings to Pennymac and Hawkins Power on the first of every month.
He shrugged. “They probably heard there was a rich kid who liked bagels.”
“I’d never even had a bagel before I got one from there,” Steve protested. At least he didn’t argue with the rich part.
Jonathan scoffed. “Bullshit. Everybody’s had a bagel.”
“Not me. I swear to God.” Steve clapped a hand over his heart, a proper Boy Scout.
Jonathan wondered if he’d ever been a Boy Scout. VBS couldn’t be the first time Steve’s parents foisted him off on someone else for the summer; and, in spite of himself, Jonathan remembered that his only living grandmother was all the way in Ohio. Steve was definitely the type to have been to summer camp―a proper one, with kayaking and zip-lining and brochures that Jonathan could only mournfully caress the glossy pages of.
Of course, Steve would’ve quit anything like that years go, whenever cool versus lame became the guiding tenets of his life; even Steve Harrington would look lame in a neckerchief. Or would he look-
“Hey, bagel-boy,” Steve said. Jonathan’s head snapped up at the sound of his voice, knocking whatever horrible thought was about to occur right out of his brain. “I’m having some people over tonight. Gonna swim and stuff. You should come.”
“No thank you,” Jonathan replied, automatic.
“Why not?” Steve whined.
There was the real Steve. That was the one Jonathan needed to see: The grating, sulky, demanding Steve who’d been plaguing him all summer.
“Playing Marco Polo with Tommy Hagan isn’t my idea of a good time.”
“Tommy’s in Michigan. It’ll just be Carol and whatever girls she brings―so her little sister, probably, and Heather Holloway. Maybe Holly Thurman.” Steve paused, propping his chin on the end of the broom handle. “You know Holly, right?”
Jonathan knew Holly Thurman about as well as he knew anyone else. She was in Steve’s grade, so he didn’t know much of what she was up to now. But last year, he took her picture for girls soccer in the fall and softball in the spring.
In the soccer pictures, her hair was in braids, the ends tied with green-and-yellow ribbons that she tugged on all afternoon; a few months later, she came back from winter break with hair shorter than Jonathan’s.
In her softball picture, she wore a Hawkins Tigers cap.
No one really gave her shit for it; even the ones that wanted to didn’t get a chance. More than once, Jonathan overheard Holly shut it down and laugh it off with something like, “I told Carol’s mom to make me look like Grace Jones. So really, I could’ve gone shorter.”
Still, people gossiped. In a place like Hawkins, there wasn’t much else to do.
Holly Thurman hasn’t had a boyfriend since the days of elementary school playground marriages; Holly Thurman has a picture of Joan Jett in her locker; Holly Thurman is, well, you know.
Like that, Jonathan was bristling again. “Why would I know Holly?”
“I dunno, man.” Steve raked his free hand through his hair, clearly exasperated. “Doesn’t everybody know everybody?”
Jonathan almost said something ridiculous, like I don’t know anyone.
Instead, he set his jaw and shook his head.
“Well, maybe you should get to know Holly. She’s cool.”
“Is being cool the only thing that matters to you?”
“Jesus Christ, Jonathan. I don’t mean it like that. I mean she’s cool as in we’re friends. Like, you’re cool―and, I mean, you are, you’re cool both ways―but-” Steve sputtered, stalling out. A portrait of the actual Jesus Christ observed them from the back wall, ominous and vaguely disapproving. “Just say you’ll come over!”
“I’ve gotta watch-”
Steve cut him off: “Carol always brings Junie. Bring Will; bring his friend too, I don’t care. It’s a big pool.”
Will and Dustin materialized in the doorway a few seconds later, like they’d been summoned. “Pool?” Dustin crowed.
Will said nothing, but turned to Jonathan with shiny, hopeful eyes. Jonathan shook his head frantically, hoping to convey no and drop it and we’ll talk about it later.
“Yeah, I was telling Jonathan you guys should come swim tonight. Sucks that you can’t,” Steve said, complete with a long-suffering sigh.
“We can’t ?” Will asked. His voice betrayed nothing; but Jonathan saw his bottom lip quiver.
He knew Will would go along with whatever he decided; but Will also thought the sun rose and set because Jonathan told it to. To Will, Jonathan was one of two forces―the other, of course, being Mom―that kept the world from spinning off its axis. And if he decided, in his infinite wisdom, that they shouldn’t swim, Will would stoically resign himself to another Friday night of cable reruns and reheated chicken casserole.
Since VBS started, Will came home with a different Old Testament horror story every night: Wives turned into pillars of salt; men reduced to ashes for opening a trunk; floods that drowned the entire world. He followed Jonathan’s lead on the Bible too, making sure to tack “that’s so dumb, right?” onto the end of every story.
His voice was shaking half the time; but as soon as Jonathan said, “Completely ridiculous,” Will always relaxed.
The pool invite was Jonathan’s opportunity to be a more benevolent deity.
―
Accepting the pool invite was the single worst mistake of Jonathan’s young life.
He realized this too late, once he was already standing on Steve’s back patio in nothing but swim trunks.
Steve didn’t lie: Tommy really was out of town. Junie Perkins was there as promised, and quickly drafted Will and Dustin into a complex game of mermaids.
But behind Junie was Carol, eyeing him skeptically from a pink innertube; and floating behind Carol were Holly Thurman and Heather Holloway; and bounding up to Jonathan, wet-haired and shirtless, was Steve himself.
That would’ve been the worst part, if Steve didn’t proceed to sling an arm over Jonathan’s shoulders and start dragging him towards the pool, yapping his ear off the whole way.
“Carol didn’t think you’d show up. Are you gonna take your shirt off? Holly does know you, by the way―she said you took her picture last year. And Heather’s dad runs The Hawkins Post , so she remembers you going on that tour with the journalism class- you’re seriously gonna swim with your shirt on?”
Jonathan went back and forth on the shirt issue until his toes touched the top step of the pool. He’d brought a change of clothes at Steve’s insistence, but it was just socks and pants. There were two options: Take off his shirt now and hide his pale, unimpressive torso under the water; or be shirtless for the rest of the night after the pool. Not that he planned on hanging around. He was already concocting an escape plan in which he developed a sudden, life-threatening migraine about an hour from now, once Will had his fill of splashing around.
In the end, he took his shirt off and slung it backwards, onto a deck chair.
From across the pool, Carol hollered, “Trying to get to second base with him already, Stevie?”
Jonathan gulped.
This was it. This was what he pictured every time he rejected Steve’s pleas to come with on his lunchtime smoke breaks, what he knew in his bones would happen once he accepted Steve’s offer to come over: Steve was going to remember who Jonathan was, remember what he was, and kick his ass.
Heather Holloway tittered nervously. Even the kids paused to look at them, though Jonathan suspected they were motivated by curiosity about second base.
Jonathan braced himself. But, after a few seconds of agonizing silence, all Steve did was give Carol the finger and keep swimming. She shot it back with both hands and a close-mouthed grin.
Maybe she would’ve said that about anybody. Jonathan didn’t know much about her beyond the fact that she was Tommy Hagan’s girlfriend―which, in and of itself, was pretty damning―and that her mom cut his mom’s hair at Mane Street salon roughly once a year, when they could afford it.
Junie was in Will’s class, had always invited him to her birthday parties and given him a card on Valentine’s Day. It was hardly a point in the Perkinses favor, since all little kids were like that until puberty activated the dormant viciousness in their brains.
Jonathan knew they’d been without a dad longer than he and Will had.
The only time he saw Steve actually punch someone instead of hovering in the background was two years ago, when Paul Donahue said Carol had daddy issues . Tommy joined in after a few punches―more out of bloodlust than actual chivalry, Jonathan always thought―but it was Steve who swung first, jumping on Paul like a wild animal and dragging him to the floor of the cafeteria.
He’d take that display of loyalty as proof of Carol’s positive qualities if Steve hadn’t also glommed onto him. His judgment was clearly impaired.
“So Jonathan,” Carol drawled, “are you enjoying your ultra-Christian summer?”
Behind her, with the precision of a trained backup singer, Heather broke into the do-do-do-do s from “Jesus is Just Alright With Me.”
Steve rolled his eyes. “Carrie, I told you: Byers is there by force, same as me.”
“I dunno- maybe he’s seen the light! Stevie here can’t see the light ‘cause he’s too busy trying to be your best buddy.”
Jonathan hoped Steve would keep talking for him; but he paddled away, off to harass a tranquilly-floating Holly. The harassment and wheedling that Jonathan thought was reserved for him actually seemed to be Steve’s primary means of communication.
It was interesting to observe Steve in his element and see that he really was just like that. Jonathan should’ve felt vindicated: Irrefutable proof that Steve Harrington, under the AquaNet and the money and the future BMW, was an annoying dweeb.
It certainly shouldn’t have―and didn’t―make Jonathan jealous. That was the most absurd thing he could possibly be.
“Yoohoo,” Carol trilled, snapping him out of it.
Immediately, he realized how it must look: The guy everyone says is a weirdo queer gaping at a shirtless Steve Harrington. I’m not gawking at him, I’m considering his character flaws sounded pretty unbelievable, even in the confines of Jonathan’s own head.
He cleared his throat. “Sorry. Um, what was that?”
For a split second, Carol narrowed her eyes at him.
“Do you, Jonathan Byers, think you’ve seen the light?”
“I haven’t really seen anything besides the craft room.”
And Steve. Jonathan had seen far too much of Steve lately. Steve skipping in late with a bag of bagels and Steve not helping him sweep and Steve thinking he was so clever with his secret cigarettes.
But there was also Steve bringing Jonathan a bagel every day, and Steve helping a little girl use craft scissors, and Steve right now, in the shallow end a few feet away, refereeing a breath holding contest between the kids.
Carol barked a laugh, even though Jonathan wasn’t trying to be funny. Steve did that a lot at first, so much that Jonathan eventually started making jokes on purpose; still, he always laughed the hardest when Jonathan wasn’t kidding.
―
At the beginning of VBS, Jonathan made the mistake of mentioning Steve to his mom; ever since, she’d latched onto the idea of him finally having a friend his own age.
“I was friends with his mom at your age―back when everyone still called her Marty. Me, her and Karen were like this.” Mom crossed her fingers, demonstrating. “Back when I lived on the cul-de-sac. I’ve driven you by there, haven’t I? The white house. Marty’s house was the little yellow one next door; and Karen’s was…blue.” She turned, exhaling smoke over her shoulder. She’d been smoking inside since Dad left, and the house was slowly starting to reek like it; but Jonathan could appreciate the effort not to blow it right in his face. “Anyone could be friends with anyone back then. And, of course, there was no big fancy house in Loch Nora. That was all Richie Rich’s idea.”
Mom ended up pulling out her old yearbook, pointing out Marty and Karen (who Jonathan recognized belatedly as Mike and Nancy’s mom) and Jim Hopper. Marty was homecoming queen, apparently, and voted Most Popular; so Steve came by it naturally.
But by 1982, catching a glimpse of Martha―who stopped answering to Marty two decades ago―was second only to a Bigfoot sighting. She didn’t even go to Melvald’s or Big Buy: The Harringtons had groceries delivered every week, which Jonathan thought was an absurd display of wealth and Steve insisted was just “because Mom can’t be bothered.”
She even outsourced her sense of community obligation to Steve, if forcing him into VBS was any indication.
When Martha Harrinigton floated onto the balcony in a long black housecoat, dark hair obscuring most of her face, she looked like something out of a ghost story. The girls bobbed in place, like they’d be standing at attention if they were on dry land; the kids stopped splashing, their game in the shallow end grinding to a sudden halt; clouds skittered to cover the sun. Jonathan clung to the edge of the pool, his eyes flickering between Mrs. Harrington and the only person who was seemingly unaffected by her.
Steve―smiling, as always―waved and hollered, “Hey, Ma. How ya feeling?”
Instead of speaking, she shook her head. After a pause, she laid the back of one delicate hand across her forehead.
Whatever language this was, Steve spoke it too. “We being too loud?” A second later, he nodded. “We’ll keep it down.”
Jonathan didn’t catch what Mrs. Harrington did next. If she nodded in return or retreated with a dramatic sweep of her robe or poofed away in a cloud of smoke, he didn’t see it. He knew she must’ve gone back inside when everyone else slowly started to move and speak again.
But Jonathan was looking at Steve, still floating in place with his head tilted upward.
He looked much smaller than before.
―
Jonathan’s first and only sleepover was Ben Scott’s birthday party in the first grade. It was back when invitations were still extended to every kid in class, even the weird quiet one. With the exception of a brief conversation with Ben’s mom, who knew his parents and said he was the spitting image of Joyce, he talked to no one. He sat politely through Scooby-Doo Meets Batman and picked at a piece of cake. After that he laid awake all night, willing the sun to rise; when it did, he called his mom from the landline and begged to be picked up. He left before any of the other boys were even awake.
His second sleepover was more of a hostage situation.
Steve, still pitiful and wilted: “You’re staying the night, right?”
Jonathan didn’t remember saying yes; but he didn’t remember saying no, either. He found his voice long enough to call his mom, who seemed perversely delighted by this development in his and Steve’s apparently-budding friendship.
After they dried off, Will and Dustin traitorously nipped off to sleep at the Hendersons; a while later, Junie Perkins biked home to watch Maude reruns with her and Carol’s grandmother.
“Junes is old―like, in here.” Carol tapped the side of her head. “Way older than me.”
Carol, Holly, and Heather showed no signs of leaving. As awkward as he may have felt around them, Jonathan really hoped they wouldn’t. For one, they did all of the talking, requiring little more of Jonathan than agreeable nods and the occasional totally.
Steve, meanwhile, was making him nervous. He’d gleefully given Jonathan a pair of his old pajama pants to sleep in and wouldn’t stop bugging him about what he liked on pizza: ” Really like, not just what you think everyone else wants.”
At least with the girls there―with Carol and Holly to bicker about new versus old Blondie with, with Heather to groan about a write-up her dad was doing on his dad’s business ventures ―Steve couldn’t laser-focus his hospitality on Jonathan.
Steve even ended up knowing the pizza guy from somewhere, and spent five minutes chatting with him like they were long lost friends.
His undivided attention would definitely be too much to bear; but it reinforced Jonathan’s earlier worry that Steve was the same with everyone. If Steve was working at Gino’s for the summer instead of Sweeping and Mopping for Jesus with Jonathan, the pizza guy would be in his place.
The pizza guy would probably contribute something to the night, whereas Jonathan dropped cross-legged onto the floor and sat, mute, for at least half an hour. He ended up stewing on why Steve even invited him, even kept talking to him, until he was indignant and feeling like a charity case and ready to lie about having a migraine after all.
Jonathan was so wrapped up in this that he was caught completely off guard by Steve tapping his shoulder and saying, “Byers, you don’t need to sit on the floor.”
Holly, Heather, and Carol were piled onto the couch, with Steve on the loveseat. Jonathan had chosen the floor because of the implications: On the loveseat, with Jonathan Byers who everyone and especially Steve’s friends called queer like it was his government name. Steve had never brought it up, but it had to be in the back of his mind; it was certainly at the front of Jonathan’s.
Whether he was oblivious or just a good host to a fault, Steve was patting the cushion next to him in the same come hither gesture Jonathan sometimes used on Chester.
When Jonathan hesitated, Steve added, “I don’t bite.”
“Yeah, that’d be Carol,” Holly said.
"Once," Carol protested, "in kindergarten!"
Jonathan glanced at Holly to see her smiling at him. She’d smiled at him a few times today, and splashed Carol when she wouldn’t let up on interrogating him.
This seemed, to Jonathan, like her way of saying they were birds of a feather. A nice thought; as far as Jonathan knew, they were the only gay people in Hawkins. (Besides a few unsubstantiated rumors about Mr. Clarke.)
Their similarities started and ended there: Holly was a charismatic jock, best friends since kindergarten with the types of people Jonathan had nightmares about. No one was going to kick her ass for sitting next to Heather or Carol: They were her friends. Holly had probably been swimming at Steve’s all summer, and the summer before that. She would still be there after he stopped talking to Jonathan altogether―when VBS ended, or school started back, or maybe even as soon as Tommy Hagan got back from Michigan.
So in practice, any display of camaraderie was more of an annoyance. Jonathan wanted her to knock it off before she blew his cover.
But even he had to admit that sitting on the floor looked weirder than just taking the seat beside Steve; still, he made sure to wedge himself as far into the corner as he could. Steve made it difficult: His legs encroached on Jonathan’s side more than once. He was gangly, and taller than Jonathan; maybe he really did need the extra room. Finally, Jonathan had to concede to having Steve’s feet rest against his leg: There was nowhere else to go, unless he wanted to crawl onto the back of the loveseat.
They ended up watching Coal Miner’s Daughter , a movie that Jonathan didn’t know existed and certainly didn’t expect Steve to call really good .
He knew Loretta Lynn well enough; Dad had loved listening to honky-tonk bullshit when he drank. A few years ago, “Your Cheating Heart” was inexplicably blasting through the cassette player in Mom’s car every time they got in―of course, with Dad’s girlfriend in another city snafu, it was suddenly pretty explicable.
Apparently, everyone’s mom loved Loretta. Carol and Heather were able to mouth some of the lines; those they’d deemed particularly important were recited out loud. Even Holly joined in for “Woman, if you wanna keep that arm, you’d better get it offa my husband.”
Steve was uncharacteristically quiet. Jonathan kept trying to sneak a look at him and making eye contact instead. Jonathan knew how he must’ve looked, staring blankly at the TV. It really wasn’t a bad movie. He contemplated saying something reassuring, like I don’t even laugh or smile at things I’m really into. Eventually, he settled for shooting Steve a thumbs up.
Steve tilted his head in confusion. “Huh?”
Jonathan had hoped the thumbs up would suffice. He lowered his voice and counted on Loretta’s screaming fight with her husband’s mistress to keep him from being overheard. “It’s a good movie. You seemed, I dunno, worried. But I like it.”
Steve nodded. “Okay. Um, cool. I’m glad.”
Stupidly, all Jonathan could do was echo him. “Cool.”
For a few agonizing seconds, it seemed like Steve was going to say something else.
When he pulled his knees to his chest and turned back to the movie instead, it should’ve been a relief.
―
Jonathan had spent the better part of his life feeling like a freak. It was basically his birthright: Lonnie was a public nuisance who wrote bad checks at the grocery store and stumbled drunk into Jonathan’s kindergarten Christmas pageant; Mom was an anxious basketcase who vacillated between defending him and throwing everything he owned onto the front lawn; Will and Jonathan were their hollow-eyed, mute children. It was something he could never shake. Even in baby photos, he was stone-faced and a little creepy looking.
It got worse a few years ago, when Will was obsessing over Star Wars and Jonathan found himself obsessing over Mark Hamill. He rented The Night the Lights Went out in Georgia, which was hokier than Coal Miner’s Daughter but had the distinct advantage of showing Mark Hamill in his underwear. Everyone else had watched it, too; Mom threatened over and over to turn it off for being inappropriate , but never followed through.
The whole time. Jonathan couldn’t explain why he wished he was watching it alone; why catching his dad’s eye as the credits rolled made shame claw its way up his throat so violently that he thought he’d puke.
Or maybe he could explain―he just didn’t want to. It was like Santa or the Easter Bunny or God: Jonathan realized they were fake way sooner than he would've liked. But if he didn’t admit it to himself, it was almost like it wasn’t true. If he didn’t allow himself to think there is no Santa Claus or I’m a queer , he could deny it until he caught his mom putting presents under the tree or caught himself memorizing Gavin Miller’s side profile in science class.
Once Jonathan knew what he was, he wanted desperately to unknow it. Maybe it was like that for everybody; maybe one day he could ask Holly about it.
As he got older, the list of things he’d like to unknow got longer. The feeling of a broken nose; the sound of Will crying after Dad left; and, most recently, the minute details of Steve Harrington’s side profile.
Just then, the midday light of the craft room was illuminating a few wispy hairs that’d broken free from his helmet of hairspray. Jonathan’s quiet suspicion that Steve had highlights was actually confirmed by Carol Perkins, tutting over his grown-out roots in the pool.
Steve, who Jonathan hadn’t realized was capable of feeling shame, had rushed to explain himself: “Carrie’s gonna be a hairdresser, so I’m her guinea pig.”
Carol had smirked, adding, “ And , they really do add a lot of dimension.”
Jonathan snuck another glance at Steve, considering. They definitely added something.
―
Jonathan’s fifteenth birthday came and went without much fanfare. Somehow, someone at VBS caught wind of it: Steve and Miss Jenny presented him with a cupcake in lieu of the Mennonite bagel he’d grown accustomed to. Mom made a boxed cake and gave him five bucks to buy whatever he wanted. After VBS, he biked to the record shop and bought Raw Power on cassette―which he used to have, until Dad caught a glimpse of shirtless Iggy Pop and declared it fag stuff.
Dan sold it to him for four dollars. Jonathan felt obligated to use his extra dollar on a Coke and a Payday for Will, but Dan wouldn’t take it.
“It’s your birthday, kid.” Dan frequently grimaced like he could barely stand to take money from Jonathan at all; this was the first time he outright refused. He slid the dollar back across the counter. “I ran into your mom a few days ago. Get yourself something, too.”
He grabbed a second Payday bar and hurried out feeling like he’d stolen something.
Overall, the magic age Jonathan had been waiting for fell flat on arrival.
He still wanted to work, though it seemed increasingly likely that he’d end up pumping gas at the BP instead of living out his movie theater fantasies. Even if he didn’t want to, he hardly had a choice: Even working overtime and clipping every imaginable coupon, Mom still called their finances tight and lean (and once, when Will was already in bed, fucked).
Those four dollars could’ve bought some groceries, put gas in the car. Instead, they were spinning in Jonathan’s tape deck at the lowest possible volume. I am the world’s forgotten boy had definitely spoken to him when he was twelve; hearing it now made him cringe. And he’d forgotten that there was a whole song called “Penetration” until he scanned the tracklist.
The rest of the album wasn’t much better. “Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell” made him think, humiliatingly, of Steve.
He’d half-expected VBS to reignite his childhood fear of eternal damnation. What it actually ignited was much worse. If the pastor at First Pres was to be believed, you had your whole life to repent, right up to your last breath.
There were only six hours left until he had to be face-to-face with Steve again, resetting the clock on another excruciating day of pretending to be annoyed, and that he definitely hadn’t started to find Steve funny and charming and worst of all, cute.
Jonathan’s crush on Gavin Miller started in earnest on seventh grade frog dissection day, when Jonathan gagged over breaking its legs and Gavin offered to do it for him. It reached a fever pitch a few weeks later, when Jonathan lent him a pencil and their fingertips brushed during the handoff.
Steve bought him breakfast for an entire month, let Jonathan and his little brother tag along for swimming, and put his feet nearly in Jonathan’s lap. Physically, that was the closest he’d ever been to someone outside his immediate family. Emotionally―well, there was a reason his mom was overjoyed by her fifteen year old son making a friend.
Tallied up, all this equaled at least two hundred frog dissections. If VBS wasn’t ending soon, Jonathan might have to do something drastic to put a stop to it, like pretend he’d developed a life-threatening hairspray allergy and request an emergency transfer to snack duty.
That was the other thing souring his birthday: With VBS over, he’d really have no reason to speak to Steve again. Their sleepover went well enough, though Jonathan put a damper on things when Carol asked if there were any beers in the fridge and his eyes went wide as saucers, prompting Steve to say, “Nah, not tonight, my mom’s home.” In spite of that hiccup, Steve brought up at least once a day how fun and cool it was to hang out away from the watchful eyes of no less than six Jesus paintings.
But it was never followed up with another invite; and Jonathan certainly wasn’t going to invite Steve to his house, which was small enough for the Harringtons to use as a storage shed and whose shag carpet stunk like cigarettes and long-ago spilled beers. There’d be nothing for them to do but sit in Jonathan’s room, which didn’t even have a TV. Listening to tapes together―maybe even side-by-side, on the bed―was a fantasy Jonathan had entertained a few times that week.
In reality, Steve would probably have the same opinion of Jonathan’s music catalog as his dad did. Besides Loretta Lynn, all Jonathan had seen at of Steve’s taste in music was the tape of Zenyatta Mondatta on his night stand and a collection of Hank Williams records in the living room, which apparently belonged to his dad.
Really, Steve was the ideal crush because it was so totally, laughably never going anywhere. His taste in music was abysmal, and movies weren’t much better. Outside the specific context of the craft room, he and Jonathan had next to nothing to talk about. Once they were back at school, Steve would once again be accompanied by a best friend with the impulse control of a badly-trained pitbull, who’d lunge at Jonathan every chance he got.
Jonathan would be over this whole thing by August. September at the latest, if Steve came back to school with a particularly flattering haircut or waved at him during passing period. Eventually, even Steve’s dopey smile would go back to inspiring rage instead of whatever emotion had been making his chest feel tight all summer.
He just needed to grit his teeth through three more days of VBS.
―
Until three o’clock, the last day of VBS was just like the first twenty. Bagel; sweeping; glitter glue disaster. At lunch-time, Jonathan grabbed a PB&J from the snack table before following Steve into the woods. All week, he’d been telling himself he was the one humoring Steve . But it was the last day; even Ms. Jenny was letting loose, swapping her standard floor-length denim skirt for knee-length denim shorts.
In the spirit of letting loose, Jonathan could admit that he was in the woods watching Steve Harrington hack his way through a cigarette because he wanted to be.
On the walk back Steve said, “They’re doing hotdogs and fireworks later. I figure I’ll stick around if you do.”
“Ms. Jenny said it’s supposed to be Christmas in July― but that’s just run-of-the-mill Fourth of July stuff. So really, what’s it got to do with Jesus?”
Jonathan felt this was an expert deflection; but Steve was quicker than he gave him credit for.
“I dunno, Byers. God Bless the USA or something. Are you staying?”
Steve could also be pushy as hell when he wanted to be. Jonathan made a mental note to start hating that about him again soon.
Going by Cinderella rules, the fireworks show at eight was still a part of the last day. It was hardly a crime to drag things out for a few more hours.
―
“Since when do you not like hotdogs?”
“Since the time Mom boiled them.”
“What about fireworks?”
Will shrugged. “They’re fine.”
Jonathan didn’t want to lie to Will. He also didn’t want to plead with an eleven year old.
He sure as hell wasn't going to tell him the full truth.
“Well, I’d really like to eat a hotdog.” When Will remained unmoved, Jonathan added, “Plus, they’re free.”
Free was something Will couldn’t argue with. By his age, Jonathan had heard Mom say beggars can’t be choosers about everything from dinner to a dingy winter coat from Salvation Army. The Byers were certainly beggars right now; even Will was aware of that.
Finally, he shrugged. “Whatever.”
Jonathan could feel guilty about his manipulation tactics tomorrow, in his post-VBS, post-Steve life. For the time being, he was content to sit cross-legged in the grass with Steve and Will and Dustin, drinking a Capri Sun and waiting for it to get dark. Will had eaten a hotdog after all, plus a snack size bag of chips. Steve had been roped into a conversation with Dustin, who was explaining DND in excruciating detail.
“I’m a half-elf bard. What that means is-”
“Can you be a whole elf?” Steve asked, cutting him off.
“Duh.”
Dustin kept going until the fireworks started and pulled his attention elsewhere.
The first few were glorified sparklers, sputtering out less than a foot above the parking lot where they were lit. Then, without warning, the first big one went up―red white and blue, of course―snapping even the chattiest kids to attention. Jonathan took it as an opportunity to look at Steve, only to find him right there, sitting much closer than before.
The fireworks were going off one after the other now, loud enough that Steve needed to lean into Jonathan and half-shout into his ear to talk. “Do you play DND?”
Steve stayed close, waiting for an answer. Jonathan couldn’t turn to shout back without putting them in a compromising position; instead, he shook his head no. It was true enough: He’d been dungeon master the first few times they played, until Mike Wheeler unilaterally decided Will could do just as good a job as Jonathan, who wasn’t a Party member.
“I figured you would.” Jonathan didn’t know what to say to that―’I’m a dork, just not that kind of dork’?―so he shook his head again. “Sounds cool.”
Finally, Steve sat back enough for Jonathan to turn and reply, “You say everything’s cool.”
“Not true. This was lame.” Steve paused, jerking his head toward the hulking mass of First Baptist. “But you made it cooler.”
Without even thinking, Jonathan rolled his eyes. He hoped there was enough light for Steve to see it.
He must have; a few seconds later, he was back to yelling in Jonathan’s ear: “I’m being serious!”
For a while after that, they watched the fireworks in silence.
When Steve reached into Jonathan’s lap, grabbed his hand and pried his fingers open, Jonathan had to pause and consider if this was actually one of those troubling puberty dreams that started out realistic enough and ended like a cheap romance novel.
He concluded that this was, in fact, reality in time to feel Steve press a scrap of paper into his palm and release him again. Instead of speaking, Steve held his hand to his ear in a call me gesture. Jonathan’s eyebrows furrowed.
“What?”
This time, Steve rolled his eyes. “It’s my phone number, jackass.”
On second thought―Jonathan pinched his arm. It didn’t feel like a dream. He proceeded with caution just in case. “For what?”
“Are you a secret Mennonite or something? For calling. ”
At some point, their ears must have adjusted to the fireworks in the background. Steve was speaking at his normal volume, which was still slightly higher than most people; it helped (or hurt, depending on the second) that he was sitting close enough that their knees were one wrong move away from touching.
“Oh,” Jonathan said.
That was all he could come up with, really.
Oh .
―
Steve called the next day, and the day after that. He invited Jonathan to swim, relenting with a huff after Jonathan insisted he’d be applying for jobs all weekend.
It was another not-a-lie. He really was filling out applications for every business in biking distance, even if it wasn’t the sunup to sundown mission he’d made it out to be. That weekend, Jonathan spent about two hours handing out his resume; the other forty six were devoted to an intense internal debate about whether to cut off this Steve Harrington thing cold turkey or leave it to die a slow, sputtering death.
Maybe VBS and Will’s secondhand Bible stories actually made an impression on him. Maybe this was just how it felt to be fifteen. Either way, Jonathan couldn’t justify inflicting himself on Steve any longer than he had. Not when he knew that Steve would never speak to him again if he could see how Jonathan thought of him.
That was what made him really, truly impossible. From the beginning, Jonathan despised him and everything he stood for―thought he was an idiot with ridiculous hair and awful friends and worse taste―while simultaneously feeling like a member of some untouchable class that had only been allowed around Steve by mistake.
A different kind of person would’ve touched him at least once, while it was still possible. Pressed a piece of paper into Steve’s outstretched hand with his own phone number scribbled on it.
Jonathan had known better than to push his luck.
―
The fruits of his job search transitioned seamlessly to his next excuse for blowing Steve off: “I’ve got work.”
He didn’t account for the fact that Steve would be at the BP multiple times a week, sometimes alone but usually accompanied by various supporting characters. Jonathan didn’t mind Holly and Heather, who echoed Steve’s pleas for him to come hang out , and Carol was fine without Tommy; but anyone in a letterman jacket put Jonathan in Service Android mode, capable only of punching in prices and saying, “Want a bag?”
Steve didn’t treat him like a complete stranger on those occasions. Once his friends bought their sodas and failed to trick Jonathan into selling them beer, he would shuffle up to the counter with his hands in his pockets. “What’s up, Byers?”
Jonathan’s go-to very clever reply was a sweeping gesture and a monotone, “This.”
Sometimes, it ended there. Others, Steve would check over his shoulder before saying something like, “What time do you get off?”
Jonathan would shrug.
The first time, he said, “Whenever the guy with the key to my shackles gets here.”
Steve howled with laughter, which made Tommy Hagan’s head snap up. He’d narrowed his already-beady eyes at Jonathan then widened them again, like his chimp brain had only just connected the dots between Jonathan in his black work polo and Jonathan pinned against a locker.
By the time school started, Steve mostly kept it to, “What’s up, Byers?” and when Jonathan failed to respond, he walked out instead of lingering at the counter.
In late September Steve started showing up a couple times a week to fill up his BMW. Against his will, Jonathan remembered that Steve’s birthday was on the 23rd―so he really did get his license as soon as he could. Ned, Jonathan’s boss, had done away with attendants as soon as it was legal. Not having to stand in the cold and pump Steve’s gas was a small dignity; it left him with more time for other things, like restocking the Pall Malls and wondering how Steve was using his newfound freedom.
Steadily, his more typical feelings towards Steve came back.
Jonathan was already squirreling away whatever of his lousy paychecks he could spare to pay for a car next summer. If the water heater or the washing machine didn’t go out before then and drain his savings, he’d have to settle for the most used beater imaginable, something the previous owner gave birth or shot themselves in.
Every time Steve put gas in his brand new car, he swiped a credit card with his dad’s name on it. Jonathan’s dad was god knows where, doing god knows what with god knows who. Mom couldn’t even pin him down long enough to serve him divorce papers.
Of course, Steve’s own dad was apparently an asshole, his mom a recluse. Mom was around for dinner more nights than she wasn’t, even if Jonathan wished she’d quit smoking at the table.
―
Weeks passed. Outside of their short interactions at the BP, Jonathan only caught glimpses of Steve at school, where he was always effortlessly cool and completely in charge and absolutely never alone.
But when he thought of Steve―when he considered him for anything longer than a fleeting, bitter second―it was the Steve from this summer, who withered under his mother’s disapproval like a little boy.
It wasn’t that it felt good, seeing him like that. It was just the first time Jonathan saw Steve interact with the world in a way he understood; the first time that Jonathan felt like he could reach out and touch him without his hand passing straight through, or being burnt. Not because Steve’s pool invite proved to him that they really were friends, but because he’d finally, temporarily, been dragged down to Jonathan’s level.
It was a sick way to think about another person―a person he was supposed to like . Jonathan didn’t know of any other way. The best he could do was screen Steve’s calls through Will and throw himself into school and work, signing up for photography club and picking up every extra shift he was offered.
That was how he ended up behind the counter at seven thirty on Halloween weekend, at the exact moment Steve and Holly stumbled in in blue face paint and white t-shirts.
“I’m Hefty Smurf,” Holly explained, yanking up her sleeve to show Jonathan a temporary heart tattoo. “And Stevie’s Vanity Smurf. We’ve been calling him that since he started his whole-” she paused, making an all-encompassing gesture around Steve’s perfectly-coiffed head, “thing.”
At first, Jonathan thought they must’ve been drinking already, giggling and elbowing each other in the chip aisle; but he didn’t smell anything on them, besides a slight vinegary tinge from the paint. They were just giddy, like a pair of little kids about to go trick-or-treating.
Holly was still chattering breathlessly about their costumes. “Heather’s Clumsy, naturally. Tommy and Carol are lame and wanted to do Luke and Leia instead. Well, Tommy wanted to; Carol was supposed to be our Smurfette.”
Steve approached the counter with an ungodly amount of chip bags; he did Jonathan the courtesy of setting them down one at a time instead of dropping the whole armload.
“You know,” Holly started. She glanced at Steve, who nodded. “There’s enough blue paint for one more.”
“You’re a dead ringer for Grouchy Smurf,” Steve said.
It was the most he’d said to Jonathan in a month, maybe longer. It was vaguely insulting and entirely too familiar, the kind of thing he would’ve said when they were still palling around the craft room―and it made Jonathan’s heart jump into his throat.
Quickly, before he could say something he'd regret, he gave his scripted reply of “I've gotta work.”
“Until when?” Holly countered.
The BP was closing early, not as a kindness to its employees but because Ned feared Devil’s Night vandalism on a borderline-schizophrenic level. It was posted front and center on the door:
HOLIDAY HOURS THIS WEEKEND
6AM-8PM
THANKS!
Jonathan decided on, “Until we close,” hoping they’d been too blinded by pre-party enthusiasm to read.
Immediately, Holly said, “Steve’s party doesn’t even start til nine.”
“And goes until we run out of beer,” Steve added. He grimaced a second later; he’d forgotten who he was talking to. “Or potato chips.”
“And we’ve got a whole lot of potato chips," Holly concluded. She ripped open a bag of Lays, apparently as punctuation. It was surprisingly compelling.
―
Jonathan said he’d think about it. Holly said to find her or Heather once he got there, so they could do his makeup. Steve, once Holly was already walking to the car, said I really hope you come by, man.
That was still ringing in Jonathan’s ears a half hour later as he slid his last dime into a payphone. “Hey, Mom. Um, you remember Steve. Right?”
“Of course I do!” Mom squealed, already delighted. She was still asking after Steve at least once a week, and frowning when Jonathan shrugged her off.
“Is it OK if I hang out at his house for a while?”
“Of course it is, honey.”
She rushed him off the phone after that, once he’d promised not to do anything she wouldn’t do, or at least not to do too much of it.
The first thing Jonathan did was hide his bike in the Harringtons’ hedges.
The second thing he did was find Holly; even in a crowd this size, it was hard to miss a girl with a bright blue face and a boy’s haircut.
“Jonathan!” She sprang toward him with a sweaty plastic cup in one hand and guided him to a less-crowded corner of the living room. “Bad news about the face paint: Tommy and Carol got in a fight, so she’s getting turned emergency-blue right now.”
“That’s OK. Face paint breaks me out in hives.” At least it did when he was nine and Will wanted to go as Bert and Ernie for Halloween. “I dunno if there’s a Hives Smurf.”
He didn’t want to ask where’s Steve outright, like a lost puppy. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know at all, if the answer was going to be with a girl or going beer-for-beer with Tommy Hagan.
Like she’d read his mind, Holly clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Steve’s upstairs painting Carol’s face. Come on.”
Jonathan heard them before he saw them. From behind a closed door, there was a shriek of, “You’re getting it in my eyes!” followed by an equally-screechy “Well, stop opening them!”
Holly turned to him, smirking and rolling her eyes. It was another one of her weird looks, like they were in on something together. Before Jonathan could react, she swung the door open and joined the shouting.
“Steve! Are you torturing her or what?”
“Holls, she’s a shitty patient. And you’re supposed to be watching for-”
“Jonathan,” Holly finished, smirking again. She stepped back, revealing him with a flourish. “I’m delivering him to you; and dismissing you from makeup duty.”
Even painted blue, Jonathan saw Steve flush with embarrassment. Jonathan mirrored him, if the heat crawling across his neck and face and chest was any indication.
Steve recovered quickly enough. He hopped off the bed and bounded over to Jonathan, pausing to pat the top of Carol’s head and bump his hip against Holly’s on the way out.
“What’s up, man?” He started for the stairs, motioning for Jonathan to follow. Over his shoulder, he added, “I didn’t think you’d show.”
Steve took the stairs at a clip, two at a time, before striding through the packed living room and the slightly-less-packed kitchen. If his claims were to be believed, he was two inches taller; Jonathan had never felt that as acutely as he did now, scurrying to keep up.
Steve paused at the fridge, bouncing in place like he was afraid to lose momentum. “Want a coke? Chips? I know you don’t want a-”
“I’m good,” Jonathan managed, a little out of breath.
Steve shoved a Coke at him anyways. He jerked his head toward the patio door. “C’mon. Let’s go outside.”
Jonathan expected Steve to park on the patio with the rest of the smokers, some of whom smelled more like skunk than Marloboros. But he pushed through them, nodding and waving and what’s up -ing the whole way, a visiting prince acknowledging his subjects. Jonathan kept his eyes trained on his feet, balled his hands into fists inside his pockets, and prayed nobody recognized him.
Steve led him around the pool, through the gate, and into the treeline. They’d effectively left the party behind―even the pot smokers and hidden makeout couples were confined within the fence.
Finally, Steve came to a full stop and turned to face him. “I guess I should’ve asked if you’re cool with taking a walk.”
“I’m cool with it,” Jonathan said.
Because of whatever was deeply wrong with him, he was at least marginally cooler with a walk in the pitch black woods than a party. They plodded silently through the trees, kicking sticks and toeing at pine needles, until the lights of the house disappeared completely. If they pushed much farther, they’d cross over the invisible barrier from Jonathan’s childhood: The halfway point between his neighborhood and Loch Nora, a suburban fairytale kingdom where his dad warned him not to go skulking around because the people who lived there didn’t hesitate to call the police on strange little boys.
He wondered what would’ve happened if he’d pushed past it, just once, to find Steve on the other side. Nothing, probably―Jonathan would’ve gone pale and run away so fast that Steve would spend the rest of his life thinking he’d seen a ghost.
Beside him, Steve cleared his throat. Jonathan had a fleeting thought that he was about to be dismissed, having been escorted back to his part of the world. Stupidly, he almost blurted out something about needing to grab his bike first; but Steve was quicker.
“Are you mad at me?”
Jonathan had nothing to say to that. He tilted his head in confusion.
“I just- this is going to sound stupid, I know. Just listen, okay?” Steve paused until Jonathan shook his head yes . “After VBS, I thought we were friends. I thought we were gonna hang out again, man! But you just started blowing me off all the time. You act like you don’t even know me, or if you do know me then you don’t fuckin’ like me. So, did I do something to piss you off?” He stopped again, dragging a hand down his face and smudging blue paint into his hairline. “Did I…weird you out?”
“Weird me out?” Jonathan repeated. It was the best thing he could come up with―historically, he was the weird one.
“Like, when you slept over. Or when we watched fireworks. Fuck, I don’t know. Did I?”
“Why would any of that weird me out?”
“Oh, Jesus Christ Jonathan.”
Jonathan, not Byers ―that was a first. It was the entirely wrong time to be titillated by something that ridiculous. Steve was slumped against a tree now, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. He looked pitiful and tiny again, like that day in the pool.
Jonathan had no idea what he’d done to cause it. Surely Steve Harrington could handle having a few calls sent to the answering machine by a guy he barely knew?
He knelt in front of Steve. Nothing.
He tapped his shoulder, hoping Steve didn’t notice that his hand was shaking.
When that didn’t elicit a response, Jonathan forced out, “Are you okay?”
“Did I weird you out,” Steve gritted out, his face still hidden, “by acting like a fag?”
The blood drained out of Jonathan’s face so fast he felt dizzy. He jerked away from Steve―it wasn’t even a conscious decision. Jonathan jumped back the way someone jumps back from an electric fence.
He landed flat on his ass in a pile of wet leaves; if he wasn’t already on the ground he might’ve done something really damning, like faint.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” He’d found his voice, at least.
“I don’t know!” Steve pulled his hands away from his face to slam them open-palmed on the ground. “I didn’t know how else to say it! And I didn’t want to say it like that at all but you just- you made me feel like I was being such a fucking freak-”
“ Me? I didn’t do anything to you.”
Steve scoffed. “Jonathan, you won’t even talk to me; you can’t even look at me.”
“I’m talking to you right now, and I’m saying I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
Abruptly, Steve stood and marched over to him. It’s over, Jonathan thought. Somehow, this whole thing was about to end in Steve Harrington kicking his ass.
He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself. But all there was was a soft thud as Steve dropped into the leaves beside him.
“Are your eyes closed?” Steve asked. He sounded agitated, like he couldn’t fathom why Jonathan would do something so idiotic. Jonathan bristled. “Look, Byers. I really liked hanging out this summer; I wanted to hang out with you a hell of a lot more. And now I just wanna know what your goddamn problem is, and if I…did something.”
“What’d you mean acting like- like a fag?” Jonathan squeaked out.
He knew how pathetic he sounded. Really, secretly, he wanted Steve to take it back. To say he’d meant it as in lame or like a weirdo and not as in like you.
Steve didn’t say anything.
Suddenly, Jonathan could see him with startling clarity. Saw his big eyes and his face under the ruined makeup. Saw that his cheeks were red, and the tips of his ears.
Saw his lips part and his eyelids flutter shut a split second before he leaned forward, in .
Jonathan’s hands flew out in front of him of their own accord, like blocking a punch. He didn’t know he could move so fast. He stopped short of shoving Steve away; but the reaction he got was the same.
“Oh, Jesus. Fuck. I’m- fuck, I’m sorry.” Steve was tripping over himself, scrambling to stand up while still vomiting up I’m sorry and Jesus Christ and a single, desperate, “Please, don’t tell anybody.”
“I-” Jonathan cut himself short. Bit back what he wanted to say, something stupid and weak and utterly incriminating like I would never do that to you. “I’ve gotta go.”
He’d meant to say you’ve got the wrong idea, Harrington ; but it felt pointless. Steve had the exact right idea about him, and probably always had. It was Jonathan who understood no one and nothing, not how to have friends or a crush or to be a fucking human being.
Jonathan understood, more than ever before, that he was some kind of infectious disease. He understood that letting Steve kiss him was the worst thing he could’ve done to either of them.
He didn’t understand how close he’d gotten to letting it happen until he was prying the screen off his bedroom window in an attempt to break and enter back into his own life.
When he caught a glimpse of himself in the glass, there was a smudge of blue face paint on the tip of his nose.
―
A year passed.
Steve started going to a different gas station altogether, at least when Jonathan was around. His car, once he got it, was easily spotted out front―a puke-green Galaxie that ran mostly on crossed fingers and prayers. Not that Jonathan had found religion in the year and change since VBS; it was in the same vein as his fickle little-kid prayers for good grades and a different father.
The only time in his entire life that he ever prayed in earnest was after Will went missing. All rational thoughts were replaced with a frantic loop of God, please. Please, please, please. Right up to the moment they pulled Will’s body, blue and impossibly still, out of the quarry.
When he crawled through his window and walked into the woods that night, he didn’t even realize where he was going until he saw the streetlight over the pool. It was flickering, illuminating a tableau of wet shoes and empty beer cans.
When Steve answered the front door, Jonathan was still on autopilot. He heard himself say, so flat it could’ve meant anything, “They found Will.”
Steve’s eyebrows shot up. Finding Will had been the objective for three days. All of Hawkins wanted Will Byers home safe and sound. There’d been search parties and a half-assed rally in the school gymnasium to prove it.
The trance state that led him to to Steve’s front door had ended. Jonathan opened his mouth to speak a few times and only managed a pained whimper.
Somehow, Steve understood; he pulled Jonathan through the door and crushed him to his chest in a hug so tight his arms were shaking. A kindness that, even in his current state, Jonathan knew he didn’t deserve.
“He was in the quarry,” he croaked into Steve’s shirt.
Steve was saying something over and over again― Jesus Christ, it sounded like. He whispered it into Jonathan’s hair and muttered it to himself while he guided Jonathan upstairs, into his bedroom. He was still saying it when he pulled Jonathan, frozen again, onto the mattress and slotted himself behind him.
Jonathan must have spoken, too, or cried. Steve shushed him. And he must have slept, because the light outside the window was suddenly gray.
And Jonathan had kissed him. Still sobbing, still saying sorry, he’d surged forward and kissed Steve. Steve had kissed him back before obviously thinking better of it. He’d said it’s okay, Jonathan. You’re really- right now you’re- it’s okay.
Steve was still behind him, snoring lightly with one arm around his midsection.
He’d had a nagging guilt, last Halloween, that something awful was going to happen to Steve after he left him in the woods. He concluded later that the something awful, of course, was him.
Jonathan happened to Steve. To his mother. To Will. He’d tried for so long to make himself useful or at least painless, unobtrusive. For Will, he’d paid the light bill and made breakfast and drove carpool and helped with homework and loved him so much that nothing else could fit inside of him.
And now Will was dead.
And Steve was here, obviously ruined but not caring. Jonathan knew that he should go.
But for now, Steve was warm and breathing and twitching in his sleep, pulling Jonathan closer every time he tried to wriggle away. Even asleep he was so alive that sometimes, it tricked Jonathan into feeling like he was, too.
Jonathan stayed exactly where he was.