Chapter Text
Mike started going on a Tuesday.
He told himself it didn’t count as a decision because the car keys were already in his hand. Because his mom didn’t ask where he was going. Because nobody in Hawkins asked questions anymore unless they were bored.
He drove with the radio off. The silence made the steering wheel feel louder under his palms.
The hospital parking lot still had a section roped off from when half the town had showed up at once and nobody knew where to put their bodies. Now the spaces were mostly empty. A few cars sat there anyway, sun-bleached, stubborn.
He parked crooked. He fixed it. He parked crooked again.
Inside, the air hit him in the mouth. Disinfectant and something sweet that tried to cover it. It didn’t work.
The front desk woman looked up. She had a name tag that said CARLA and a lip gloss that looked too bright for this building. She smiled at him in the same way she smiled at everyone.
“Hi,” she said. “Can I help you?”
Mike’s throat tightened. He hated how often that happened.
“Max Mayfield,” he said.
Carla’s eyes did the careful shift. He’d seen it on nurses. On cops. On Mrs. Henderson in the grocery store when she asked how Dustin was doing.
“Room four-oh-seven,” she said, softer. “Visitor sticker, honey.”
Honey made him want to peel his skin off.
“Thanks,” he said anyway.
The sticker said VISITOR in red letters, like he was a threat. He pressed it onto his hoodie and tried not to think about how childish it made him look. His hoodie still smelled like the dryer sheet his mom used. It was supposed to be comforting. It was also suffocating.
The elevator was slow. A man in a suit stood beside him and stared at the numbers like they were a sermon. A woman held a paper cup of coffee and cried without wiping her face.
Mike kept his eyes on the seam in the floor where the tiles met. He listened to the elevator’s hum. He counted breaths.
Four.
The doors opened.
The hallway carpet had a pattern that made his eyes go fuzzy if he stared too long. Beige shapes pretending to be flowers. A TV somewhere played a game show on low volume. The laughing sounded wrong in this building. It bounced off the walls and turned mean.
Mike walked past rooms with curtains drawn. He walked past a kid holding a stuffed animal too big for him. He walked past a nurse pushing an empty wheelchair.
He stopped at 407.
He stood there with his hand on the door handle.
He didn’t knock. He wasn’t visiting a person, not really. Not yet. Knocking felt like asking permission.
He pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Max’s room smelled clean in a way that didn’t feel clean. Soap. Plastic. That stale undertone that meant nothing had been cooked here, nothing had lived here, nothing had been allowed to rot and become normal again.
Max was in the bed.
She was smaller than he remembered. Not in a cute way. In a way that made Mike’s stomach drop. Her hair was flattened against the pillow. The freckles across her nose looked faded. Her eyelashes were pale against her skin.
There was gauze over her eyes. Tape at the edges.
A machine beside her bed beeped every few seconds. Not dramatic. Not urgent. Just… there.
Mike took two steps into the room and stopped.
He didn’t know what to do with his hands. He didn’t know what his face was doing. He didn’t know how to be a person in here without being a liar.
He pulled the chair closer to the bed.
The chair squeaked on the floor. He froze. Like he’d woken her up by being loud.
Max didn’t move.
Mike sat.
He stared at her for a second and then forced himself to look away because staring felt like stealing.
The TV was muted. Someone on the screen was yelling, mouth open wide. Mike watched their teeth flash. He felt nothing about it.
He leaned forward and stared at the call button clipped to Max’s blanket. White plastic. One big button. If she woke up, she could press it.
If she woke up.
His throat hurt.
“Hey,” Mike said.
His voice sounded too small in the room. He hated that. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hey, Max.”
Max’s chest rose and fell.
Mike exhaled through his nose and tried to pretend it was normal. He tried to pretend he was sitting in the Byers’ living room and Max was on the couch with her feet on the coffee table and she was about to tell him his hair looked stupid.
His brain offered him a memory anyway. Max on the ground. Max’s bones bending wrong. Max’s eyes blank. Max’s body jerking like she was a puppet and someone was bored.
Mike squeezed the edge of the chair until the plastic bit into his palm.
Stop, he told himself.
He tried to find something ordinary to say.
“I started school,” he said. “Again.”
His voice went flat on the last word. He hated that too. He kept going because stopping would be worse.
“It’s… fall,” he said, like Max didn’t know what season it was. Like seasons meant anything here. “They’re doing this pep rally thing. The banners are already up.”
He glanced at her face. Nothing changed.
“I think that’s stupid,” he said. “But maybe it’s good. I don’t know.”
He swallowed.
“I’m not good at knowing what’s good,” he said, quieter.
The machine beeped. The room stayed the same.
Mike stared at Max’s hand on top of the blanket. Her fingers were curled slightly, like she was holding onto a thought. The nails were chipped. He wondered if someone had cut them. He wondered if it was Lucas. He wondered if Lucas would kill him for being here.
He thought about Lucas’s face when he’d left the hospital weeks ago. Like the air had been punched out of him and he wasn’t sure it was coming back.
Mike hadn’t told anyone he was coming today.
He hadn’t told anyone he’d come yesterday.
That was the point.
He sat in the chair until his leg fell asleep. He stood up, shook it out, and sat again. He watched Max’s chest rise. He watched the tape on her bandages lift slightly with her breath.
A nurse came in around noon.
She pushed the door open with her shoulder and stopped when she saw Mike. Her hair was pulled back in a bun that had given up. She had a clipboard tucked under her arm.
“Hi,” she said.
Mike straightened like he’d been caught doing something illegal.
“Hi,” he said.
The nurse glanced at Max, then at the monitor, then back at him.
“You’re family?” she asked.
Mike’s mouth went dry.
“No,” he said. “I’m… her friend.”
The nurse looked at him for a second longer than felt polite. Then she nodded.
“Okay,” she said. Not warm. Not cold. Just okay. “She’s stable.”
Mike’s shoulders dropped without permission. He hated that he needed someone to say it out loud.
“Has she…” He stopped. He didn’t want to say wake up. He didn’t want to say die. He didn’t want to say anything that would make the room realer.
The nurse answered anyway. “Not yet.”
Mike nodded like that was fine.
The nurse checked the IV. She wrote something on her clipboard. Her pen scratched. The sound made Mike’s teeth itch.
“You can stay,” she said. “Just keep it calm.”
Mike almost laughed. He didn’t.
“It’s just me,” he said.
The nurse’s eyes flicked to his visitor sticker. She hummed a little sound like she’d seen this before.
“Okay,” she said again, and left.
Mike sat back down.
His hands were shaking.
He tucked them under his thighs until they stopped.
He came back on Thursday.
He told himself he wasn’t keeping track, and then he realized he’d circled the day on the calendar in his head anyway. Not on paper. Just in the part of his brain that wouldn’t shut up.
School let out early for some teacher thing. The hallway smelled like sweat and floor cleaner. People talked too loud. People laughed too hard. People looked at Mike like they were trying to place him in a story.
He went to his locker and found a folded note shoved through the vent slots. It was from Dustin. It had a doodle of a skull wearing a cowboy hat. It said:
u alive? movie night? bring snacks or die
Mike stared at the note for a second. He folded it back up. He put it in his pocket.
He didn’t answer.
He got in the car and drove to the hospital instead.
On the way, he stopped at the gas station.
Inside, the fluorescent lights made everything look sick. The candy aisle was bright anyway. Mike stood there and stared at the shelves like he was trying to solve a math problem.
Max liked Kit-Kats. He remembered that for some reason. He remembered her eating one on the bus, breaking off the pieces and biting them clean like it mattered.
He grabbed a Kit-Kat and then paused.
She couldn’t eat it. Not in this room. Not like this. She was unconscious. She might have a feeding tube. He didn’t know.
He bought it anyway.
He bought a bottle of water too, like the cashier would arrest him for only buying candy. The cashier didn’t look up. His hair was greasy. He chewed gum loudly.
Outside, Mike sat in the car and unwrapped the Kit-Kat without meaning to. The chocolate smell hit him and made his stomach twist.
He snapped it in half.
He took a bite.
It tasted normal.
It made him angry.
He threw the wrapper in the cup holder and drove to the hospital with chocolate on his tongue.
Max’s room looked the same. The same blind position. The same muted TV. The same machine doing its job.
Mike sat down.
He put the Kit-Kat on the bedside table like an offering. He stared at it. It looked stupid there.
“Okay,” he said, under his breath. “This is dumb.”
He cleared his throat. “I brought you a Kit-Kat.”
Max didn’t move, which was rude, honestly.
Mike leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling tile above the bed. There was a water stain shaped like a state. Indiana, maybe. He hated Indiana suddenly. He hated everything.
He tried to talk anyway.
“We have this new teacher,” he said. “English. Mr. … something. I don’t know. I haven’t really been listening. He keeps calling everyone ‘scholars.’”
Mike pictured the guy’s face. Pink cheeks. Too much hair gel. A tie with tiny books on it.
“It’s gross,” Mike said. “It makes me want to throw up.”
He imagined Max hearing that and saying, Wheeler, you’re such a baby. He imagined her laughing, sharp and quick.
Nothing happened.
He stared at her face.
He hated that she looked peaceful. He hated that he wanted her to look angry because anger would mean she was there.
His brain tried to be helpful again. It offered him El’s face. El sitting on the bed at Hopper’s cabin, fingers twisting in the hem of her shirt. El saying Mike, I can’t. Not right now. El’s eyes shiny. El’s voice calm in a way that made Mike feel like he was drowning.
He felt heat rise into his face. He stared at Max’s bandages and tried to shove El out of the room.
Stop, he told himself again.
He could still hear El’s voice anyway. It clung to him. It made his chest feel tight.
He had not told anyone about the breakup in a clean way. He had told Will by accident, in a car, after Will asked why Mike was being weird. He had told Dustin in a half-joke that landed wrong. He had not told Lucas at all.
He had not told Max because Max was in a hospital bed with her eyes taped shut.
Mike pressed his fingertips into his jeans until the sensation grounded him.
He looked at the machine. The numbers changed slightly. The line rose and fell.
Max was alive.
Mike took a breath that hurt.
“Okay,” he said, voice low. “I’m gonna… I’m gonna keep coming. Just so you know.”
He flinched at his own words. They sounded like a vow. He didn’t want to vow anything. He didn’t trust vows. Vows were promises you made right before the world laughed.
He fixed it fast. “Until you wake up and tell me to get lost.”
He waited for the room to laugh at him.
It didn’t.
A different nurse came in later. Older. Gray hair pulled tight. She had that look people got when they’d seen too much suffering and decided to stop pretending it was special.
She glanced at Mike. Her eyes went to the Kit-Kat.
“You can’t leave food out,” she said.
Mike blinked. “Oh. Sorry.”
She picked it up with two fingers and dropped it in the trash like it was contaminated.
Mike watched it go. Something in him wanted to chase it. That was insane.
The nurse adjusted the IV and checked the monitor. She didn’t look at Mike again.
When she left, Mike sat very still.
He stared at the trash can.
He thought about digging it out. He didn’t.
He stood up instead. He walked to the vending machine at the end of the hall and bought a bag of pretzels because his hands needed to do something.
The machine swallowed his dollar and spat it back out. It made a rude clunk.
Mike frowned at it. “Seriously?”
A man waiting with a coffee cup snorted. “It hates everybody,” he said.
Mike tried again. The machine took his dollar.
It spit out the pretzels.
Mike stared at the bag in his hand like it was a prize. He felt ridiculous. He also felt a little better, which was worse.
He went back to Max’s room with pretzels he didn’t want. He sat down and ate them anyway because his mouth needed something to do besides form words.
Salty. Dry. Real.
He kept talking to her. Not speeches. Just pieces.
The pep rally. The stupid teacher. Dustin’s skull doodle. A stray dog he’d seen by the parking lot that looked like it wanted to bite someone.
He didn’t mention El again.
He tried not to think about how Max had been the one to shove him in the roller rink and call him a jerk and somehow make him feel seen. He tried not to think about Max’s voice in the junkyard, sharp and alive. He tried not to think about how much he missed her being annoying.
He ate pretzels until the bag was empty.
He folded the bag into a small square and put it in his pocket. He didn’t know why.
Then he left.
By the next week, Carla at the desk stopped asking who he was.
She just handed him a sticker and said, “Fourth floor.”
Mike hated how relieved that made him.
He started going later, after school. He started bringing things that made more sense. A cassette he found in his room. Not for her to listen to. Just because it felt wrong to just leave it here.
He brought a copy of a comic book Dustin had left at his house. He read it in the chair and pretended he was doing homework. The jokes didn’t land. He kept reading anyway.
He brought a cheap magazine from the waiting room and flipped through it slowly. Celebrity smiles. Ads for shampoo. A quiz about what color your aura was.
Mike almost laughed. He didn’t.
The nurses started recognizing him. Not in a dramatic way. In a small way that felt worse.
One of them, the young one with freckles, walked in and said, “Hey,” like they were classmates.
Mike blinked at her. “Hi.”
“You’re back,” she said, like that meant something.
Mike shrugged. His shoulders felt tight. “Yeah.”
She checked the monitor. She adjusted the blanket. Her hands were quick and gentle.
“You can talk to her,” she said, like he needed permission.
Mike stared at Max’s face. “I know.”
The nurse glanced at him. Her mouth twitched. “Okay,” she said, and left.
Mike felt heat creep into his neck.
He leaned forward and spoke anyway. “She’s weird,” he told Max. “The nurse. She’s acting like this is some kind of… thing.”
He glanced at Max’s bandages. He lowered his voice. “Don’t make it a thing, okay?”
His own words made him want to slam his head into the wall.
He sat back and stared at the ceiling again.
The water stain was still there. It looked bigger. Maybe the ceiling was leaking. Maybe Mike was losing it.
He kept coming.
He kept sitting in the same chair.
He kept talking about small stuff because the big stuff made his vision narrow and his chest get tight. The big stuff made his hands shake. The big stuff made him want to run, and Mike was tired of running.
One day he came straight from school and his backpack was too heavy. He sat down and let it slump against his leg. The weight felt good. Real.
He talked about the banners again. He talked about a guidance counselor handing out college pamphlets like Hawkins wasn’t a crater. He talked about Will sketching in the margins of his notebook and not looking at Mike when he did it.
Mike tried not to think about the way Will’s voice had changed when he said, Are you okay?
Mike tried not to think about how much he’d wanted to say no.
He didn’t tell Max any of that. He just said, “School is stupid,” and hoped it was enough.
He ate a pack of peanut butter crackers from the vending machine. The peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth.
He stared at Max’s hand again.
It looked the same.
He wanted to touch it. He didn’t.
He’d seen Lucas do it once. Pressing his fingertips into the blanket near Max’s wrist. Like a compromise between wanting and fear.
Mike understood that feeling too well.
He kept his hands in his lap and picked at the seam of his jeans instead.
The day Max woke up, Mike didn’t know it was the day.
It didn’t feel different when he walked in. The hallway smelled the same. The carpet pattern still hurt his eyes. The TV down the hall was still too loud.
He got his sticker from Carla. He didn’t make eye contact. He didn’t want to be friendly. Friendliness felt like tempting the universe.
He pushed open the door to 407.
Max was still there.
Mike’s breath left his body in a slow exhale. Relief always came first. Then shame. Then the anger that the relief existed at all.
He sat down in the chair.
He stared at her face.
He didn’t say hey right away.
He’d been saying hey for weeks now. It had started to feel like a habit you did so your hands wouldn’t shake. He hated habits. Habits were how you forgot things.
He leaned forward anyway. “Okay,” he said. “Here’s today.”
He opened his backpack and pulled out a folded flyer. It was wrinkled. It had been shoved into his hand by a student council kid with too much confidence.
“Homecoming,” Mike read aloud. He made his voice flat on purpose. “Apparently that’s happening.”
He paused.
He glanced at Max’s face. “Can you imagine?”
He waited for the room to do nothing.
He kept going. “There’s this dance committee. They’re arguing about streamers. And then they started actually yelling about the theme. In the middle of the cafeteria.”
Mike’s mouth twisted. “People are insane.”
He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the paper. The texture was cheap. It left a faint dust on his skin.
He looked at Max again.
Her chest rose. It fell.
Mike swallowed.
He tried to say something else. Something stupid. Something safe.
“I saw Mrs. Driscoll,” he lied, because he couldn’t think of anything real fast enough. “She… she has a new cat.”
He stared at Max’s bandages.
He imagined her waking up and ripping them off. He imagined her screaming. He imagined her not being able to see. He imagined her asking what happened and Mike not knowing how to answer.
His chest tightened.
Get a grip, he told himself.
He took a breath that scraped his throat.
“Max,” he said quietly. “Hey.”
Her fingers moved.
Mike froze.
It was small. A twitch in her hand on top of the blanket. It could have been nothing. A reflex. A dream.
Mike stared at it like his eyes could force it to happen again.
The machine beeped.
Max’s fingers moved again. This time it was clearer. A curl. A release.
Mike’s stomach flipped.
He stood up so fast the chair legs screeched. The sound was sharp in the room.
Max’s breathing changed.
It hitched, just slightly. The rise of her chest turned uneven.
“Max?” Mike said, and his voice cracked on the name.
Max’s head shifted on the pillow. Slow. Wrong. Like the motion hurt.
Her mouth opened.
A sound came out. Not a word. A rough gasp that scraped the air. Her throat worked like she was trying to swallow something stuck.
Mike’s skin went cold.
“Hey,” he said again, and he hated how helpless it sounded. “Hey, you’re okay.”
He didn’t know if she was okay. He didn’t know if she could hear him. He didn’t know if she was waking up into a nightmare.
Max’s body tensed under the blanket. Her hand clenched. Her fingers dug into the fabric.
Her breathing got faster. Her chest moved like she was trying to outrun her own ribs.
Mike stepped closer to the bed without thinking. He stopped himself before he touched her. He didn’t know if touch would help or hurt. He didn’t know anything.
“Max,” he said, lower. “It’s me.”
Max’s head turned slightly toward the sound. Not precise. Searching.
Her mouth opened again.
A sound came out that made Mike’s stomach drop. A strangled, broken noise that wasn’t language. Panic with nowhere to go.
Mike’s hands started shaking.
He looked at the call button clipped to the blanket.
He grabbed it.
His thumb hovered for a fraction of a second, like he was afraid of pressing it because pressing it would make this real.
Then he pressed.
The button clicked.
The monitor beeped again, steady and indifferent.
Max’s breathing sped up. She made that sound again, rougher. She moved her arm like she was trying to rip something off her face.
“No,” Mike said, too loud. He forced his voice down. “Don’t— don’t pull it.”
Max’s fingers caught the edge of the tape anyway. Her nails scraped.
Mike moved fast. He caught her wrist. Not tight. Just enough to stop the tearing.
Max flinched like he’d shocked her.
Her whole body went rigid.
Her breath hitched. Her head turned toward him, searching harder.
Mike’s heart slammed against his ribs.
“It’s me,” he said, and his voice was shaking now too. “Mike. It’s Mike.”
Max’s mouth opened.
A sound came out. This one had shape. It wasn’t a word. It was closer.
It sounded like she was trying to speak through sand.
Mike held her wrist lightly. His palm was sweaty. He hated that she could probably feel it.
He looked at the doorway.
Footsteps.
A nurse rushed in. Freckles. Ponytail. Clipboard abandoned somewhere else.
“What’s going on?” she snapped, already moving toward the bed.
“She’s— she’s awake,” Mike said. “She’s freaking out.”
The nurse swore under her breath. She moved to Max’s other side and pressed her hand to Max’s shoulder, firm.
“Max,” she said, loud enough to cut through fog. “Max, hey. You’re in the hospital. You’re safe.”
Max’s breathing hitched again. Her hand strained against Mike’s.
Mike loosened his grip more. He didn’t want to hold her down. He didn’t want to let her tear her face open.
The nurse looked at Mike. “Call for a doctor,” she said.
“I did,” Mike said, voice raw. “I hit the button.”
“Good,” the nurse said, and then she turned back to Max. “Max, listen to me. You’re okay. You’re okay.”
Max made that broken sound again. Her body trembled under the blanket.
Mike’s throat burned.
He let go of Max’s wrist and stepped back half a step. His hands hovered in the air, useless.
Max’s head turned toward him again, searching.
Mike felt something in his chest twist.
“Hey,” he said, quieter. “I’m here.”
Max’s mouth opened.
For a second Mike thought she was going to say his name. He thought she was going to say Wheeler in that flat voice that meant she was alive.
Instead she inhaled too hard and started crying without making a sound.
Tears soaked into the gauze. Dark spots spreading.
Mike’s stomach dropped. He felt sick. He felt angry. He felt like he’d been punched.
A doctor came in fast. Not running, but urgent. White coat. Serious face.
He spoke to the nurse in clipped words Mike didn’t catch. He checked Max’s pulse. He shined a light near the bandages. He asked questions Max couldn’t answer yet.
Mike stood by the chair with his hands clenched into fists, nails digging into his palms.
He watched Max’s chest rise and fall too fast. He watched the tears soak into the gauze. He watched the nurse murmur instructions.
He stayed where he was because he didn’t know where else to put himself.
The doctor glanced at him.
“Family?” he asked.
Mike’s mouth went dry again.
“No,” he said. “I’m… I’m her friend.”
The doctor nodded once, like he didn’t care what word Mike used. Like he only cared that someone was here.
“Okay,” he said. He turned back to Max. “Max, you’re waking up. That can feel scary. You’re safe.”
Max’s hand clenched the blanket. Her fingers curled tight.
Mike swallowed.
He looked at the call button. He looked at the chair. He looked at the spot on the bedside table where the Kit-Kat had died in a trash can.
He thought about how he was going to call Dustin. He thought about Lucas’s face when he heard. He thought about how Max was awake now, and nothing was going to be simple again.
Mike took a breath that hurt.
He didn’t leave.