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//
Steve Harrington is the very last person Nancy’s expecting to find standing in the cereal aisle of a small convenience store in Pasadena at nine o‘clock on a Tuesday morning, and yet, as she rounds the corner, there he is.
It’s unmistakably him. Even after all this time, she thinks she would recognize him anywhere, but it suddenly dawns on her that it must have been at least two years since she last saw him – not since ’89 when she’d flown in to attend the kids’ graduation ceremony.
Steve had still been in Hawkins back then, working the same dead-end job and living in the same empty house and regularly ferrying Mike and the rest of the Party around in his car, and she can remember it making her a bit sad on his behalf because surely he must have wanted more out of life. But then she’d returned to Virginia and thrown herself back into her studies, and she’d forgotten all about Steve until a few months later during one of her weekly phone calls home; her mother had been updating her on how the kids had all left Hawkins and scattered to the four winds now that summer was coming to an end, and in the next sentence, she had offhandedly mentioned that Steve had gone too.
Nancy had been surprised, but when pressed her mother hadn’t been able to give any more information than just that; Steve had left Hawkins, and she’d had no idea where he’d gone or what his plans might be – mostly she’d seemed disappointed that Steve’s absence meant that she would have to find someone else to watch Holly in case of an emergency.
Right now, seeing him again, Nancy feels almost a little bit ashamed for never bothering to ask Mike about it, because her brother still keeps in touch with the rest of the kids and surely he would’ve been able to tell her more.
Though she supposes that she has an answer to the where now, because it’s two years later and here Steve is, standing right in front of her.
He hasn’t noticed her yet, looking a bit too preoccupied with trying to decide between the two different off-brand cereal boxes he’s holding in his hands, and he looks good – looks tan, like he’s at the tail end of a long vacation stay or maybe living here, and yes, that must be it; he looks like he belongs, sporting the same casual West Coast style of jeans and T-shirt as the men she’s passed in the streets of L.A., and doing something as mundane as trying to figure out which cereal he wants to take home for tomorrow’s breakfast.
“Steve,” she says, and he looks up, eyes widening as he finally spots her.
“Nancy?” He sounds just about as surprised to see her as she is him. “What are you doing here?”
She laughs, feeling a bit caught out for some reason. “I could ask you the same thing.”
Steve drops one of the cereal boxes into the half-full basket by his feet before setting the other one back on the shelf. “I live here,” he says. “Like, two blocks away.”
He grins at her, easy and familiar, and she finds herself feeling something like nostalgia as she returns his smile.
“I’m chasing down a story,” she says, and Steve lights up like something’s occurred to him.
“Oh yeah,” he says. “You just finished school, right?”
And there it is again – that sliver of shame for not keeping up with him the same way he apparently has with her. “I did,” she confirms. “I’m only here for a few days before I head back home.”
Steve picks up his grocery basket and eyes the pack of bottled water she picked up a few aisles down. “So I guess it’s too much to hope that you don’t have to run, huh?” he says.
“Sorry,” she replies, “but yeah, I’m meeting up with a source in a little bit. It was— really nice seeing you.” And it’s the truth, which is why she only hesitates for a moment before adding, “But if you’re free later, maybe we can grab lunch? For old times’ sake?”
“I’d like that,” Steve says. He hefts the shopping basket in his hand. “I gotta take this stuff home and put it away, but there’s a place a few doors down. Rosa’s. We can meet up there if you want?”
“I think I know it,” Nancy tells him as she vaguely recalls the small bistro she passed on her way into the store. “Is one o’clock all right for you?”
Steve smiles. “It’s a date.”
//
When Nancy finally steps out of her cab in front of the bistro shortly after one o’clock, Steve’s sitting at one of the street-side tables waiting for her.
“I’m so sorry,” she says as she takes a seat opposite him, because despite her best efforts she’s a few minutes late. “My meeting ran a bit longer than I thought it would.”
Steve just waves away her concerns. He’s chosen a table in the sun, and with the way he’s leaning back in his chair with his aviators on, soaking up the late spring warmth like a cat, Nancy thinks that he could be mistaken for a born and bred local. California suits him, she decides.
“It’s fine, Nance,” he says, throwing her a lopsided smile. “It’s my day off so I don’t have anywhere to be. Here—” he slides the menu across the table to her. “—my treat.”
“I asked you,” she protests, but Steve shakes his head.
“Let’s call it a graduation gift. Besides, I’m working full time. I can afford it.”
“All right,” she agrees as she quickly runs through the menu, because it’s true that she’s on somewhat of a budget at the moment. “Thank you.”
She settles on the Greek salad just as the waitress pops outside to check if they’re ready to order. Steve asks for the club sandwich and a Coke, and Nancy requests an iced tea to go along with her meal. The waitress refills their waters before heading back inside, and Nancy turns her attention back to Steve.
“Tell me about that job you mentioned,” she says.
Steve happily does. Turns out he’s bartending at a place downtown, and although Nancy gets the impression that it’s only supposed to be a temporary thing, she also picks up on the fact that he seems to enjoy the work and the people it allows him to meet. It comes as no surprise because Steve’s always liked surrounding himself with people, and people, in turn, have always liked spending time with Steve. Nancy knows firsthand how congenial he can be when he puts his mind to it.
They make small talk while they wait for their food to arrive, about Steve’s job and Nancy’s last few years of school, and it’s nice. Even after the waitress returns with their orders and they have to pick the conversation up again, it somehow still feels easy and light. They were always friendly in Hawkins, but there had sometimes been an undertone of awkwardness to their interactions as if the history they shared simply wouldn’t stay forgotten.
Nancy loves Steve, and thinks she probably always will – he was her first kiss, her first everything – but she’s never seemed to love him enough. Not the way he had loved her. She recognizes that now, years removed from the circumstances that had engineered their final breakup.
They had still been young and stupid the last time they had toyed with the idea of making it work. Nancy had been young and stupid – flattered by the surety of Steve’s ever-present devotion – to the point of flirting with the thought of initiating something that would have only hurt them both. Because Steve’s handsome and charming and surprisingly caring, and Nancy knows he would have loved her with all that he had if she’d only let him, but ultimately they’ve always been incompatible. She would have ended up growing bored and resentful and would have hurt him in the long run – would have ended up leaving him again – and more likely than not he would have been left blaming himself. Truth is, she would’ve ruined him and he would have let her.
But they’re both older and wiser now, and as the conversation moves on to catching up on each other’s lives, it’s evident that somewhere along the way their past history has finally been relegated to just that – the past. She tells him about the apartment in New York that she and Jonathan just signed the lease for, and Steve treats the news like she’s no different from anyone else – like he’s happy to hear that she and Jon are doing well, without any kind of falsehood to be found in his cheerfulness – and while the silly little girl inside her misses the open, almost desperate affection Steve always used to show her, the woman she’s become feels only relief at the final closing of that door.
“I’m looking to write a human-interest story,” she tells him when he asks. “There’s a town down in San Bernardino County where a lot of people are getting sick.” And Steve looks at her fondly at that, like he knows. “I’m not saying there’s something weird going on,” she’s quick to add, “but I’m going to ask some questions and see who or what pops out of the woodwork.”
Steve smiles. “Sounds exciting,” he says.
“It can be. What about you? Not interested in chasing after government conspiracies anymore?”
He ducks his head and laughs. “No,” he admits. “I think I’ve had enough excitement for one lifetime.”
“I guess I can understand that,” Nancy says. She takes another sip of her iced tea. “So tell me – are you seeing anyone?”
A strange expression flits across Steve’s face, like surprise smoothing out into something guarded. “I thought Mike would’ve told you,” he says, like it’s supposed to mean something.
“I’ve been bad about keeping up with everyone,” she admits. “When Mike and I talk it’s usually about El or school-related things. He likes to complain about his classes. I just know the basics of what’s going on. Lucas and Max are in North Carolina, right?”
“At Duke, yeah,” Steve says. “Lucas got a basketball scholarship.”
He sounds like a proud big brother and Nancy realizes she’s grown to expect nothing less; it might have amazed her at the time, how quickly he took to the kids during their second bout with the Upside Down – and then even more so how he stuck with them once everything settled back down into relative normalcy again – but it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he’s apparently still keeping in touch with everyone even after they’ve all gone their separate ways.
“Will’s on Rhode Island,” she tells him, even though he probably already knows. “Jonathan and I visit him now and then. It’s only about a nine-hour drive away, so it’s not too bad. It will be even less when we move to New York.”
“That’s good,” Steve says. “Dustin’s here. In L.A., I mean. He’s at Caltech.”
“I didn’t know that,” Nancy admits. “Mike mentioned that he got a couple of offers, but I never heard which school he chose.”
“Yeah, shithead’s pretty smart.” Steve fiddles with the fork next to his plate. “We’re actually living together.”
He glances up at her like he’s trying to gauge her reaction, and Nancy smiles.
“That’s sweet,” she says. “You two always had a special thing going on.”
Steve huffs a laugh. “Yeah,” he says, and then throws a quick look over his shoulder.
She thinks he might be searching for the waitress but he doesn’t flag her down when he spots her a few tables away, and Nancy realizes that he’s more likely checking to see how many people are within earshot. Once he seems satisfied that they won’t be overheard, he turns back to her.
“I thought Mike might have told you,” he says again, “or maybe Will, but I guess not. Dustin and I— We’re, uh, dating.”
“Oh. Well that’s good, isn’t it?” Nancy says. She knows they’d both had a hard time finding someone in Hawkins; she’d seen Steve out and about with a new girl every week it seemed like, and Dustin had devoted himself to some kind of long-distance relationship that ultimately hadn’t lasted more than a year or two. It’s good to hear that they’re putting themselves out there, hopefully with more luck now since the dating pool in Los Angeles must be a lot larger than in Hawkins, Indiana.
“No, uh, I mean—” Steve’s back to fiddling with his fork. “—like, each other.” He looks up at her. “He’s my boyfriend.”
“Oh,” Nancy says, and then she finds herself looking blankly down at what’s left of her salad. “I didn’t—”
You don’t seem the type, is on the tip of her tongue, but it would be an ignorant thing to say. She knows better than to stereotype, even if she finds herself thinking it; that Steve’s not like Will, who’s sensitive and quiet and loves his art – and boys, too. Steve’s never been like that – has always enjoyed all kinds of sports and has been chasing after girls for as long as Nancy’s known him – and it’s almost like he’s making a joke, but she’s also certain that that’s not true because she can sense him growing tense in the wake of her silence.
She’s not entirely sure what to say that won’t make it all about her – Were you into guys when you were dating me? When we slept together, did you imagine I was a man? – so instead she does what she’s done the past two times a friend’s told her that they’re not quite straight; she reaches out across the table to touch the top of his hand.
“Thank you for telling me,” she says. “I didn’t realize.”
Steve smiles at that, and his shoulders seem to lose some of the tension they’ve been holding. “I didn’t either, at first,” he admits. “I swear I thought you already knew. That’s why I’m telling you now. That, and I know you’re okay with Robin and Will, so... Just don’t, uh, spread it around?”
“Of course,” she promises. “I won’t tell.”
She leans back in her chair, feeling almost breathless as she finds herself taking in the sight of him anew, as if in a different kind of light – trying to find the difference between this Steve and the Steve who loved her, maybe. If there is one, she can’t spot it. He looks the same, only happier, perhaps; a bit more content than she’s used to seeing him, carefree and far removed from Hawkins and its secrets, and apparently in love with someone who loves him back – who thinks he walks on water if memory serves her right.
“So how long have you two been—” she gestures at nothing in particular. “He was always crazy about you, but I didn’t know it was in this sense.”
“Yeah, he surprised me too,” Steve says, a small smile playing on his lips. He seems more relaxed now that he’s told her, like he’s no longer waiting for the proverbial axe to fall. “He, uh, made a move the summer before his senior year. That’s why I left Hawkins at the same time he did. So that we could start over someplace new, together.”
Nancy tries to think back to the kids’ graduation ceremony – tries to remember if there had been anything to clue her in – but she can’t recall noticing anything different in any of their interactions. Dustin had been needling Steve like usual – pulling his pigtails, she now realizes – as if it gave him great pleasure in doing so, and Steve had been biting back as good as he could, and perhaps that’s as telling as anything else; the fact that they’d apparently been dating for a year by then, yet to Nancy, nothing seemed to have changed. Like it had simply been a long time coming.
“Was he the first—” She doesn’t know what she’s trying to ask. The first man Steve has loved? The first person to not break his heart?
“I wasn’t looking at guys when I was with you,” Steve says, as if he’s trying to reassure her – as if he knows what she’s thinking. “You were— I mean, I loved you. But Dustin, he just— He kept coming around and I always liked spending time with him and after a few years it kinda grew into something more, I guess.”
“You don’t have to justify it to me,” she says, and it doesn’t take her too much effort to summon up a smile. “It’s like I said; you two always had a special thing going on. I’m surprised, but I’m not— I mean, I think I can see it.” She laughs. “You were just always so completely obsessed with girls. I never would have guessed.”
Steve grins. “Robin says I was overcompensating,” he says. “Whatever that means. So, uh, do you have plans for the rest of the day? Dustin had classes this morning so he doesn’t know you’re here, but he should be home by now. I know he’d love to see you.”
“Oh,” Nancy says, and the journalism major in her feels somewhat intrigued at the chance to watch them interact now that she knows the full score. “Yes, of course. That’s no problem.”
“Awesome,” Steve says as he takes another bite out of his sandwich. “Hey, do you want some of my fries? That salad’s looking a bit pathetic.”
Nancy laughs, because at least some things never seem to change. “Thank you, I’m good,” she says.
//
Dustin and Steve’s apartment is on the top floor of a three-story brick townhouse on a relatively quiet, shaded street. There’s no elevator so they have to take the stairs, and Steve grins when he informs her as much.
“Dustin hates it,” he says as he leads the way up to the third floor. “But it’s good exercise until I can convince him to join me on my morning runs.”
“The Dustin I remember doesn’t seem the type,” Nancy says, and Steve shoots her another quick smile over his shoulder.
“It’s about compromise, right? You taught me that,” he says, and it strikes her that today might be the first time she’s heard him talk about what they once shared without that familiar note of longing in his voice. “I don’t complain when he turns our spare bedroom into a workshop for whatever he’s building next, and he doesn’t bitch at me when I make him do three miles three times a week.”
“That’s cruel, Steve,” Nancy says, because she’s never been too fond of running for exercise either, but it only makes Steve laugh again.
“It’s good for you,” he says as they reach the top floor.
He fishes his keys out of his pocket to unlock the door and takes a step to the side to let her through first. The apartment’s bright compared to the dim light of the landing; the door opens onto a short hallway with three connecting rooms, and up ahead Nancy can see a sizable living area with large windows looking out onto the street. From what she can tell it seems to be a good-sized space for a two-bedroom apartment.
“I’m home!” Steve loudly announces as he follows her inside and closes the door behind him, and Nancy can hear the clatter of what sounds like porcelain, and then Dustin’s voice, just like she remembers it:
“You said you’d do the dishes, asshole!”
“I was kinda busy, shitface!” Steve calls back as he toes his shoes off.
Nancy steps out of her flats just as Dustin appears at the end of the hallway, popping out of what must be the kitchen. He looks just about the same as when she last saw him – bright blue eyes and those messy curls that women would pay good money for – only he’s picked up a tan, just like Steve has, and she also thinks he might have grown a bit broader across the shoulders.
“Busy? What the fuck did you have to—? Nancy!” His face brightens when he spots her. “Hi! What are you doing here?”
“Just passing through,” she says, stepping forward to give him a hug which he happily returns. “I ran into Steve at the store this morning and asked him out for lunch. I’m sorry I kept him from the dishes; we had a lot of catching up to do.”
“I bet,” Dustin says, and he must have given Steve a look over her shoulder because Steve says, “Yeah, I told her.”
Dustin’s grinning when he pulls back from the hug, and once his arms are free again he reaches out to touch his hand to Steve’s waist. It’s a small, casual gesture that Nancy thinks she might have seen him do before, only she simply hadn’t read enough into it at the time. Of course, back then Steve hadn’t responded to the touch by tilting his head down to touch his lips to Dustin’s – just a quick little kiss, like a physical hello, almost exactly like the ones she and Jonathan share when they return home in the evening – so Nancy doesn’t give herself too much grief for not noticing it before.
“I told Steve that I didn’t see it coming,” she says, trying not to make it too obvious that she’s watching them, “but when I think about it, I can’t say that I’m really that surprised.”
And it’s the truth, even though seeing Steve kiss another man somehow hits her differently than when Will does it. Maybe it’s because she remembers how it feels being on the receiving end of his attention – Steve had been a good kisser even way back in high school – or maybe it’s because the man in question is Dustin, whom she’s never thought of as a sexual being before, even though he’s twenty by now and has apparently been sharing Steve’s bed for years.
“We get that a lot,” Dustin happily responds. “C’mon, I’ll give you a tour of the place while Steve cleans up the kitchen.”
Steve rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue as Nancy lets Dustin drag her away. She’d been right about it being a good-sized apartment: there’s a well-planned bathroom with a large tub, and next to it a somewhat messy master bedroom big enough to hold a king-sized bed. The room contains clear traces of them both – Steve’s clothes mingling with Dustin’s in the open closet opposite the bed; their shoes in one big pile on the floor next to the clothes hamper in the corner; sports magazines stacked on the nightstand on the right side of the bed while the one on the left holds thicker textbooks – and if she finds herself lingering, trying to look for more signs, Dustin doesn’t seem to notice.
He happily pulls her away to show her the second bedroom which is smaller and, true to Steve’s words, currently playing host to a disorganized jumble of wires and plastic and metal pieces strewn across the floor and covering the bedspread of the spare bed. Dustin looks a bit sheepish in the face of the mess, but offers no excuses as he herds her back into the hallway and into the combined kitchen and living area, which is a lot less cluttered; there’s a bookcase and a TV along one of the walls, and a rather ratty looking couch facing them, and dividing the room is a kitchen island with a small bar where they find Steve in front of the sink and up to his elbows in soap suds.
“That was quick,” Steve says.
“We have, like, three rooms,” Dustin says. “What did you expect?”
Steve makes a silly face at him, and Nancy goes ahead and takes a seat at the kitchen bar as Dustin squeezes past Steve on his way to the fridge.
“Do you want something to drink?” he asks her, reaching out to rest his palm on the small of Steve’s back as he passes behind him. “We have water and juice. Coke, too.”
“A Coke would be great,” Nancy says, and then adds, “Thank you,” as Dustin hands her a can before grabbing one for himself as well.
He leans against the counter opposite the bar, close enough to Steve that their shoulders brush up against each other as Dustin pops the tab of his drink open, and Nancy takes a sip of her Coke and wonders if it’s something he picked up from Steve – the need for closeness, that is – because Steve used to do that to her too.
It had been his way of showing her affection – small, spontaneous touches throughout the day – but she could never quite bring herself to reciprocate them. It hadn’t taken him long to notice as much, and eventually, he stopped touching her as frequently and started telling her he loved her using words instead. At the time it had made her feel a bit more at ease, but she now wonders if she should have given him something in return – if he had missed receiving that kind of affection from her. Watching Dustin touch him so casually, like he doesn’t have to think twice about it, makes her feel happy that Steve’s managed to find someone who speaks the same language as him.
“Steve told me you’re building robots,” Nancy mentions to Dustin, who immediately lights up and starts telling her all about the classes he’s taking and the major he’s considering.
Nancy nods along as he speaks, and this is familiar too. Dustin’s always enjoyed telling others about his interests; as a child, it was never difficult to get him to talk to anyone willing to listen, perhaps because so few people were, but Nancy always tried to indulge him and she knows that Steve did too. Not much has changed in that aspect either, she realizes, because once Steve’s rinsed the suds off the last plate and placed it on the dish rack, he reaches over to grab Dustin’s Coke out of his hand, taking a sip as he turns his complete attention to watching Dustin speak. Nancy understands perhaps half of what Dustin’s telling her, and she’s not sure that Steve’s managing much better, but he’s still seems to be hanging onto Dustin’s every word.
“So if you don’t mind me asking,” Nancy says once there’s finally a lull in Dustin’s monologue – most likely because he’s catching his breath before gearing up for another information dump – “how did this happen?”
She gestures between the two of them, and Dustin perks up like he doesn’t mind the interruption or the change in subject – like he’s just been waiting for her to ask.
“It’s a great story!” he exclaims even as Steve shakes his head.
“It’s really not,” Steve says.
“Shush, you,” Dustin tells him before turning back to Nancy. “Okay, so, I’ll set the scene. It’s the summer of ’87. I’ve just turned sixteen, and I’ve also just realized that the reason I like to watch Steve climb out of his pool isn’t because his hair looks funny when it’s wet, but because I want to lick him.”
“Oh god,” Steve mutters.
“Naturally I want to talk to someone about this, y’know,” Dustin says, “but Robin and Will haven’t come out yet so I have no idea that either of them is an option. So I just end up talking to Steve instead. I sit him down and tell him that I think I like girls and boys, and Steve for some reason blurts out ‘Me too!’. I guess he wanted to be supportive or something.”
“I mean, it was true,” Steve says with a shrug.
“Well,” Dustin continues, “what I took away from that conversation was that I definitely had a shot. So I start dropping hints right away because what the hell, am I right?”
Steve shakes his head, like he still can’t believe Dustin’s audacity, and Nancy wonders how many times he’s listened to Dustin tell this exact same story.
“Flash forward to the next summer,” Dustin says. “I’m about to start my senior year, and I’ve been dropping him the most insanely obvious hints for like a year now. No response. It’s getting really annoying. So I tell Steve that the guy I’m interested in just doesn’t seem to get it, and Steve says…”
He points to Steve, as if to cue him up, and Steve sighs; “I said that the guy sounded stupid.”
“Now, I’m not about to let him talk about himself like that,” Dustin continues as Steve rolls his eyes. “So I tell him the guy’s not stupid. Just dense. And then Steve tells me that maybe I need to be more obvious. Like, maybe I need to just walk up to the guy and tell him ’Hey! I love you!’. So that’s what I do. I look Steve right in the face and say ’Hey, Steve. I love you!’. And then Steve says...”
Dustin trails off, raising his eyebrows at Steve.
“I said ’Yes, say it exactly like that’,” Steve admits.
Nancy can’t help the startled laugh that escapes her. “Steve,” she says as he hides his face in his hands.
“I know, right?” Dustin grins. “Here’s the best part: then he tells me that if my ’I love you’ flies over the guy’s head too, then Steve’s sorry, but the guy’s too dumb for me.”
Nancy bites back another laugh as Steve groans.
“I was nervous,” he says.
Dustin laughs and reaches out to tug Steve’s hands away from his face, and he keeps his fingers wrapped around Steve’s left wrist even after he’s managed to get Steve to lower it.
“I found out later from Robin that he’d gone running to her in a panic when he realized he might be into guys, and then again when he realized he was into me.” Dustin seems to preen a bit at that. “I ended up just kissing him, because that’s hard to explain away. He finally got it then.”
“Robin’s a snitch,” Steve mutters, “and I should never have introduced you two.”
“Then how would we have found the Russians, Steve? Huh?” Dustin says. “Anyway, the point is that Steve’s lucky he’s pretty.”
“That is not the point, Dustin!”
“I kid, I kid!” Dustin says, and he suddenly looks somewhat mischievous. “The point, I guess, is that when I see him walk into a room everything kinda lights up. And every second I’m away from him just about breaks my heart because there’s no one in the world I’m drawn to more than him.” He shoots Steve a smirk. “There. Happy now?”
“You little fucker,” Steve tells him, sounding far fonder than his words might make it appear, and then, to Nancy, he says, “He thinks it embarrasses me when he says that kind of shit in front of you guys.”
Steve appears pleased about it, though, and Dustin has a knowing look on his face as he bumps his shoulder against Steve’s. It’s not the kind of affirming words that Nancy would have ever spoken out loud, and certainly not in front of other people when Steve was around to hear it, but it occurs to her that maybe she should have. Maybe Dustin understands as much – knows Steve better than she ever did – and has spent the past few years building Steve up by telling him exactly what he needs to hear.
“Anyway,” Dustin says, “Steve’s got the day off and I don’t have any more classes until tomorrow. Do you have to go or do you have time to hang around a bit? Maybe grab dinner with us later? You still need to tell me what ’just passing through’ means.”
Nancy smiles. “Dinner sounds great,” she says. “I promise to tell you all about my big scoop.”
“She found a conspiracy in San Bernardino,” Steve informs Dustin, who immediately looks intrigued.
“Like our kind of conspiracy?” he asks, sounding a mix of terrified and giddy at the thought.
Steve just makes a face at that while Nancy shakes her head, laughing. “I don’t think so,” she says. “Just the regular kind.”
“Oh.” Dustin seems a bit disappointed, like he wouldn’t mind a new puzzle to solve. “Well, Steve still has the bat. Y’know, just in case.”
Steve smacks him lightly across the chest with the back of his hand. “Please call Owens instead,” he begs of Nancy.
“Thank you, Dustin,” Nancy says, to Dustin’s apparent amusement. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Gonna be the death of me,” Steve mutters.
“He likes to pretend that the Upside Down isn’t the best thing that ever happened to him,” Dustin tells her. “Which is a lie, because it’s how he met me.”
“Yeah, well...” Steve shrugs and leaves it at that, and Nancy knows how he feels because the Upside Down is a double-edged sword.
While it pains her to think that if none of it had happened, she might not have found herself as happy as she is right now in life, she can acknowledge that even though the Upside Down has been the cause of so much grief and regret – has stolen so much and so many; friends like Barb and Fred and Eddie, and Max, too, briefly – it has also given much to the people who made it through.
There’s grief and guilt that might never quite go away, but it does eventually become easier to bear with time. She thinks that both Dustin and Steve understand this – knows that if she were to turn around, she would be able to find an old photograph of Eddie Munson tucked into the corner of one of the picture frames hanging on the wall behind her.
So yes, there’s heartache but there are also friendships and love – relationships that would’ve never formed had the veil between dimensions not been torn, allowing the Upside Down to seep into Hawkins – and sometimes she thinks that maybe they’re all the better for it.
Sometimes, like now, watching Dustin’s thumb gently stroke the inside of Steve’s wrist, she’s almost sure of it.
//