You’d been together since March, when he cornered you after a Tigers basketball game and said "You keep lookin’ at me like that and I’m gonna have to do somethin’ about it".

Six months later you were still stupidly in love, even if he only said the actual words when he was drunk or half-asleep.

He spent almost every night at your place once your parents started their night shifts at the hospital.

He’d crawl through your bedroom window at 1:00 am, melling like chlorine, cigarettes, and that cheap drakkar noir he drowned himself in, and slide into your bed like he belonged there.

He’d press his cold hands under your shirt just to hear you squeal, then kiss you quiet, muttering "Missed you all damn day, baby".

But then July hit, and you changed.

It was little things at first.

You stopped laughing at his dumb jokes, you’d flinch when he touched your neck, like something back there hurt.

You started wearing turtlenecks and scarves in ninety-degree heat.

When he asked what was wrong, you’d just stare, like you were listening to a voice he couldn’t hear and say "I’m fine, Billy" in this flat empty tone that didn’t sound like you at all.

One night he showed up with cherry slushies and a plan to park out by Lover’s Lake.

You told him you were tired.

He found you an hour later standing in your backyard in the dark, barefoot in the grass, staring up at the sky like it owed you something.

When he touched your shoulder you spun around so fast he stumbled back.

Your eyes were huge, black in the porch light, and for a second he thought you were going to cry.

Instead you smiled, too wide, too cold, and he couldn't help but asked if you're okay.

But you just walked past him into the house and locked the door.

That was the first night he started sleeping in his car outside your place.

He watched the lights in your bedroom flick on and off at 3:33 am every night.

He watched you leave the house in the dead of night, barefoot again, walking toward the old Brimborn Steel Works like a ghost.

He followed you once, heart hammering, whispering your name.

You didn’t turn around.

You just kept walking until the shadows swallowed you, and when you came back hours later your feet were bleeding and you didn’t even seem to notice.

He tried everything.

He dragged you into the Camaro and drove until the gas gauge blinked empty, blasting music, trying to blast whatever was inside you out.

But there's nothing.

Until he decided to finally ask his step-sister Maxine even though it's was the last thing he wanted.

But he did it, because he noticed how the breaking news was talking the stranger mosters who's showing in the city.

Max had took him to the Byers house where Mike, Will, Dustin, Steve, Lucas, Jonathan, Nancy, and Eleven was there.

"Guys, I think there's a problem with Billy's girlfriend" Max explained honestly and worriedly as looking at them.