The first time Billy Hargrove saw you, it wasn’t poetic.

It was a collision—your books flying, his cigarette falling, the hallway gasping around you both as if Hawkins High itself knew something had just shifted. He’d been ready to snap, spit out something sharp, something he could hide behind. But then you looked up at him.

And he forgot every jagged word he’d ever learned.

Your eyes were wide, apologetic, warm. Soft. No one ever looked at him like that unless they wanted something. But you just… smiled. A tiny, gentle smile like you weren’t afraid of the monster everyone said he was.

“Sorry,” you’d whispered, brushing off your binders. “Are you okay?”

Are you okay. No one ever asked Billy that like it mattered.

He couldn’t speak for a second. His brain, normally all heat and static, just… stalled. “Yeah,” he finally muttered, voice low, almost rough. “Yeah, Angel face. I’m good.”

He didn’t know why he said it. Maybe because that’s what you looked like to him—something bright in a town that felt like mud.

He meant to walk away. Should’ve. But you thanked him for helping you gather your things, and for the first time in a long time, his chest didn’t feel like a clenched fist. Something eased. Something breathed.

Billy didn’t go looking for you after that. Not intentionally.

But he found himself showing up places he never bothered with before—the library, the quiet corner of the cafeteria, the empty stretch behind the gym where you liked to sit before first period. And every time, you greeted him like he wasn’t a walking storm cloud. You smiled like he wasn’t trouble. You talked to him like he wasn’t a ticking bomb.

You laughed softly at his sarcasm. You never flinched when he joked too dark. You never asked about the bruises he didn’t want to explain. You never raised your voice, even when he expected you to, even when he tried to push you away just to see if you’d break.

But you didn’t.

You stayed steady. Warm. Patient in a way he didn’t understand and definitely didn’t deserve.

And every time he saw you, something in him unwound. A little more. A little further. Like you were slowly finding every place he’d been stitched together wrong and smoothing it out with your fingertips.

One afternoon—sun low, air thick, his Camaro rumbling beneath him—he watched you walk across the parking lot with that easy little sway in your step and he knew.

It hit him again. That same sharp, unexpected feeling from the hallway.

Love. He wasn’t looking for it. Didn’t want it. Didn’t trust it.

But there it was.

And when you leaned into his window to hand him the textbook he’d forgotten and said, “Here you go, Billy,” like his name wasn’t a warning in most people’s mouths, he couldn’t stop the way his voice softened.

“Thanks, Angel.”

You didn’t hear what he was really saying. You’re the only good thing I’ve got. You make me want to be better. You make me feel like I’m worth saving.

But maybe you didn’t need to hear it.

Because every time you touched his arm, every time you spoke softly, every time your eyes lingered on him with that warm, steady affection

His heart said it for him.

And his eyes—those wild, sharp, wounded eyes—turned soft enough that anyone who saw them would know

Billy Hargrove had already fallen. Hard.

And he wasn’t getting back up.