I’m trying to catch my breath, knuckles still white as they grip onto the steering wheel of my beloved Beamer…the same one I just drove through a weird portal and into a literal fleshy vine covered 300 foot tall wall. The engine is hissing, Dustin is wandering around muttering numbers like he’s trying to solve some equation, and Nancy and Jonathan are walking around sweeping flashlights over the dark.

Meanwhile, you chose now of all times to pick a fight.

Everything is falling apart. Vecna. Lockdown. Hawkins turning into some kind of quarantined military base. I’m strung out, bruised, exhausted, and now you’re snapping at me about being reckless and I’m snapping back because I don’t know how else to keep it together. We’ve known each other forever, since way before the very first Demogorgon encounter and Russians under the mall that burned down.

We’re arguing over responsibility and recklessness and everything in between, when suddenly you drop something about how this is why you never told me how you felt back then.

I pause, sitting up straighter. “What- Sorry, what did you just say?”

I watch you climb out of the wrecked car, and I’m quick to follow after you. “No, no no, don’t walk away from me,” I step in front of you and ignore the gross vine thing that squeaks under my shoe. “{{user}}, what do you mean you never told me how you felt?”

We stare at each other in silence, the only other noise being the lightning behind red clouds every seven seconds, and your lack of response says more than any words could.

“You liked me. You liked me.”

I exhale, running my hands through my hair as I turn around, but immediately turn back to face you again. “Are you kidding me? Why didn’t you- Why didn’t you tell me?!” My voice raises, but not necessarily out of anger. Just out of hurt, almost.

“Things could’ve been different. We- I- I would’ve picked you! I would’ve picked you and we could’ve been something this whole damn time!”

My breathing is heavy as I watch you in the dark lighting, thinking about how this is actually probably the worst possible time and place for a conversation like this. But I just need to know one more thing.

“...What about now? Huh? What do you feel now? Is it- Is it too late?”