#THE WAY HOLLY'S REACTION CHANGES DEPENDING ON THE DAY/BOOT | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hargrove-mayfields · 3 years

Text

A Stake of Holly in Her Heart Pt. 4

Pt 1. Pt. 2 Pt. 3

Max reads the message written in the Christmas card over and over until her eyes are crossing, then does it some more.

She’s so caught up on that last part, the signature, “mom.” Her mind just can’t process what she’s reading.

Maria Hargrove was Billy’s mother, a woman who Max had never had the pleasure, or displeasure, depending on who you asked, of meeting, being that she was out of the picture years before Max got involved.

According to her ex husband, she was conceited, selfish, sleazy. Ask her son, and he’d say she was quiet, nervous, loving.

Rumor has it that she just up and disappeared one day, leaving everything behind but a packed suitcase and a stolen debit card. Everything including her ten year old son.

Max had never really gotten the full story, only bits and pieces of the truth, but up to this moment she’d been perfectly content with the explanation that she’d gotten too worn out by Neil’s abuse, and cut out everything that had to do with that life they shared.

The card in her hand and the note inside of it might suggest otherwise.

The retelling of events from the abuser abandoned by his victim and the scorned and forgotten child was something that Max always knew would never be the most accurate, and so she knows her perception of the situation might be wrong, but there was still something that was throwing her off.

For one thing, why would a mother who had deliberately left without her son just write to him like nothing was wrong? She supposes that Billy tried to keep guarded a lot of his personal life, and maybe this wasn’t quite as out of the blue as she thought.

But what bothers her more is that the message seems far too simple, too casual to be addressed to a dead boy. Maybe it is surprising for Maria to have sent anything in the first place, but for it to include such a normal interaction? There’s something there that’s rubbing Max the wrong way.

Thinking back, she realizes she can’t actually remember anybody ever mentioning that they’d called Billy’s mother to break the news, and she knows for a fact that she hadn't seen her face, the one immortalized in the photo of her that Billy always kept in his glove box, anywhere among the few guests that had shown up at his funeral. And then she figures it out;

Maria Hargrove doesn’t know her son is dead.

Max’s knees start to shake, so she lowers herself to sit on the stoop. Words can’t come close to describing how she’s feeling, holding in her hands that handwritten sentiment from an isolated mother to her dead son. Not even the tears that run down her cheeks and are dried by the winter wind can express the grief that that little Christmas card triggers in her heavy heart.

Just knowing that there’s someone out there that might care as much about Billy as she does is such a profound thought in her mind. But is it really the same?

Is there any comparison even able to be drawn between the grieving sister of a misunderstood brother, and the woman who’d knowingly left her child with a monster?

Max’s knee jerk reaction is to say no, that any person who would knowingly abandon another who needed them deserves in no way to be affiliated with her and her heartache, but deep down she knows that isn’t completely true.

Even she’s considered it, running away from Neil and Susan and Hawkins and never looking back, but she’s trapped, by school, by her friends, by a cemetery plot. For Maria to actually go through with it, that must’ve been the hardest decision of her life.

And besides, Billy would had to have already forgiven her if he gave her the Cherry address. There’s no way she would’ve gotten it on her own, they hadn’t even told anybody where they were going before they moved.

The whole thing was a lot more complicated than she’d ever expected.

She doesn’t know how long she sits there contemplating it, bright red tear streaks on her freckled cheeks, before her ride eventually shows up, and Max realizes that now more than ever, the last thing she wants is to go to some party.

Not even the idea of being around her loving friends seemed like too attractive an alternative right now, not since she’d stumbled across Billy’s Christmas card, but the way she saw it, she didn’t have a choice.

Bailing now meant she’d have to go back inside and face her parents after she’d already made them angry today, which would do nothing but prove Neil right. She could already imagine the smug look on his stupid drunken face, and so, despite her resignations, she stands to make her way towards the car.

Carefully, she slides the card back into its envelope and puts it into her jacket pocket, or rather the pocket of Billy’s jacket that she saved from being thrown out when they cleaned out his room.

Up until now, she’d been telling herself she only wore it because it was warm, but today she'd done enough reflecting to be able to admit that, more than any other excuse she might make for the sake of appearances, she just missed her brother.

The walk down the sidewalk to Steve Harrington's BMW waiting for her at the curb feels very much like a walk of shame.

Maria’s card burning a hole in her pocket, Max tries to focus on the crunch of ice melt under her boots, the wind whipping the branches of the bare ginkgo trees at the edge of their property, anything at all that might take her mind off the lump in her throat.

When she yanks the door open, she knows it’s a little too hard for an expensive car that isn’t hers, but she slumps down into the passenger seat anyways.

Steve makes a face, she assumes because he’s going to call her on not going for the backseat when they’re supposed to be picking up Dustin too, but then he just keeps staring at her.

Max scowls, “Are you going to take me to the party or what?”

He clears his throat and looks away. “Yeah I just, uh, wanted to ask, you know, if-if you were okay.”

“What do you think?” She spits.

Even though she’s pretty sure he wasn’t asking about the abuse, only curious as to how she’s coping with her brother's death rather than how she’s holding up against Neil’s temper, she tugs her sleeve down anyways, just in case he saw the bruises.

Of course Steve catches it, his eyes flickering down to the denim cuffs pulled over her hands and softening to show something like pity, before he says, “Sorry, I wasn’t-“

But Max doesn’t want his pity, so she shuts him down, clear exhaustion in her tear-thick voice, “Please, just drive.”

Most people would be happy to know there was someone in their corner, but the longer she’s alone in that house, the more others' empathy has come to make her feel smothered.

Because a thousand empty “sorry”s and condolences without feeling wouldn’t change a thing, wouldn’t make the bruises and the man who put them there go away or bring her brother back, they only piled up expectations on her to get better for their sake, so they didn’t have to watch her be all depressing anymore.

For that reason, it felt sort of insulting to her to have others showering her in pointless pity.

“Right, yeah, of course.” He says, but his gaze lingers again on Max’s face for a moment, his eyebrows furrowing in thought as he turns away to start the car.

She rolls her eyes and leans back in her seat, hoping to show him that now is just really not the time for a therapy session from her babysitter.

Max’s subconscious must have disagreed, or maybe the concern on Steve’s face just seemed genuine enough that she buys it, because she feels the tears coming again.

It’s something that feels so incredibly shameful, to turn her head and stare out the window so Steve Harrington can’t see her crying, to even be crying again for what felt like the hundredth time today, but she just can’t stop herself.

She tries to cheer herself up by remembering that she is currently on her way to her friend's house, and that she would soon be celebrating and having fun with the people who care about her, because Christmas is not supposed to feel like this.

But knowing that when all of it was over, Billy won’t be the one there to pick her up in his Camaro, and that she’ll be dropped off back at a home where she isn’t safe, and where they’ll pretend her brother never even existed, the joy of the holiday is drained away entirely.

Her shoulders shake as she stifles her sobs, and there’s no hiding the few sniffles and gasps she can’t hold back. It’s humiliating, especially because she can feel Steve glancing over at her every now and again.

Were she not sure that the moment she opens her mouth she’s going to start ugly sobbing and betray her barely there dignity, she would’ve told him to mind his own. Instead, she just keeps her mouth shut and stares out the window, hoping he’ll leave her alone.

They’re a few minutes away from Dustin’s house when Steve sighs and suddenly makes a dead stop, pulling over against the curb. She looks over at him, and notices his eyes shining in a way that was probably not because of the heater being turned up too high.

“What are you doing?”

He lets his hands drop from the wheel, and turns in his seat to look at Max. “Do you even want to go to this party?”

She doesn’t really know how exactly she’s supposed to answer that. There isn’t time to explain the nuanced version, the internal debate she’s holding between friends or family, invasions of her privacy or a slap to the face, so she settles on, “I don’t know.”

“Then let’s ditch. My friends and I used to go down to Benny’s on Christmas for the pie, we should go.” Steve says, his voice wavering, just a little.

The implication of skipping out on the party to go out with a boy her brothers age, alone, mind you, when he’d already been accused once of being sweet on her, (the assumption was baseless and came from a panicking and very confused Billy, but still) is enough to make Max’s heart drop into her stomach with dread.

There must be a look on her face to match that feeling in her chest, because he specifies, “I promise it’s not weird or anything I just- you shouldn't have to be around all that right now.”

But she’s on the defensive now, and she crosses her arms and says, in her meanest tone of voice she can muster, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that you and I both know they’re going to be nosy.” Judging from the concentration on his face, he knows he has to earn her trust back, and calculates his next words very carefully. “Wouldn’t want them asking any questions about your arm.”

In a way, that only does the opposite by making him seem suspicious, but her interest is piqued. He knows something, and he wants to talk about it without drawing the attention of everyone that’ll be at the Wheeler’s. That doesn’t automatically equal him being a creep, right?

Not when she’s got so much that she doesn’t want them to know either.

Turning it over in her head, she makes the decision that she's got enough that she doesn’t have to bolt, but she’ll still be wary. She's well aware that she has a problem with being too trusting, for years she’d thought Neil wasn’t that bad of a person, but she’s pretty sure Steve’s a little more open about his baggage, and her judge of character isn’t that bad once she gets familiar with somebody.

So she agrees in her own way, looking over to Steve and asking him, “What about Dustin?”

“He’ll be fine, dude. He’s like, super tough.” Steve mocks Mikes tone from when Mike had said the same thing earlier, having overheard through his own walkie that he always left on in case of emergency and putting lots of effort into his stupid teenage boy impression.

For the first time that morning she feels something other than the sting of despair, a small bubble of laughter from her throat and a smile finding its way onto her face as she mumbles, “Whatever.”