talk too much | max mayfield

20. don't wish i were heather

The only way she can describe the room is teenage boy. It's full with the smell of alcohol, sweat, and cigarettes; crushed beer cans and old clothes litter the floor; piles of dirty silverware, plates, and food spill around the room; and the radio is blasting some rock song making Nora wanted to throw it out the window.

She is not having a good time.

"Why do I get the feeling we're going to find all kinds of wrong in here?" Max frowns, probably having the same reaction to the room as Nora.

Nora slowly walks around the room, trying to avoid touching everything she sees. . . she is not in the mood to get an STD just by being within 10 feet of Billy Hargrove's pornstar posters.

"Ugh! Gag me with a spoon," Max cringes as she quickly closes one of Billy's dresser drawers.

"Nothing seems out of the ordinary here," Nora says, ignoring the fact she hadn't even looked properly. "Well, out of the ordinary for Billy."

"We can check the bathroom?" Max suggests, trying to make up for her hesitance to help El by being supportive.

El nods and Max leads them out of Billy's room and into the already open door bathroom. The first thing they all notice is the bathtub, full of water, with empty ice bags floating around it.

"Max?" El stares.

Max comes over and picks up one of the bags, "ice. It's just ice. It's probably for his muscles or something. He works out like a maniac."

El continues looking around the bathroom, and Nora and Max share impatient looks. Nora's about to suggest going back to her house to do something, until El spots bloody fingerprints on the cabinet.

You've gotta be shitting me.

El pulls out a green trash bin and Max walks over too.

"El, what is it?" El slowly pulls out a lifeguards fanny pack, and judging by the bedazzled edges, it probably isn't Billy's.

Nora and Max share another look, this one more worrisome. El also pulls out a yellow whistle with spots of what Nora hopes it just paint. As crazy Billy may be, he's not a murderer.

"Blood," El is the first to break the tense silence.

Max is quick to shake her head, "we don't that for sure. Billy wouldn't kill anyone."

"But-"

"Why don't we go to the pool?" Nora interrupts, trying to prove El has nothing to worry about, "He'll probably be there if he's not here, and we can just ask him what's going on. Right?"

"Right," Max nods, clearly trying to deny Billy did anything wrong.

"And even if he's not there, we can just ask the other lifeguards about the fanny pack," both Max and El seem to relax as they nod along to Nora's plan. "Maybe the owner of the fanny pack will be there, and we can ask them." Nora glances at the two. "Right?"

"Right," Max an El respond together this time.

"Okay. Let's go."

—

✧･ﾟ: * Nora is completely soaked as the girls enter the Hawkins Public Pool. Her white raincoat is doing nothing to help her, just as she's sure Max and El's red and yellow raincoats aren't doing anything either.

The three walk through the entrance, passing kids running around and waiting in groups for their parents and family members.

Walking under the awning, they take their hoods off and go up to the front desk.

"Excuse me?" Max starts.

"No one in the water until thirty minutes after the last strike," a guy says in a monotone voice, probably by instinct. "And don't try to argue with me. You wanna get electrocuted? Go climb a tree."

"Yeah, we don't care," Max states. "We're not here to swim."

"Or get electrocuted," Nora frowns.

El holds up the red fanny pack from the inside pocket of her coat, "we found this."

The guy looks up from his magazine, the girl next to him does too, but they are both disinterested.

"Does that belong to anybody here?" Max asks.

"Oh, yeah," he nods. "That's Heather's. I'll get it back to her."

"We could give it back to her?" El suggests, wanting to ask questions.

"You could, 'cept, she's not here. Bailed on me today." The girls give each other looks and once they don't move the manager speaks up again. "What is this? You girls want a reward or somethin'?"

"No," Max shakes her head. "We're just. . ."

". . .Good Samaritans," Nora finishes with a hopefully charming smile.

The two behind the counter just roll their eyes and go back to whatever it was they were doing.

El starts making her way over to a bulletin board with random flyers and papers on it. Looking down at the lifeguards part if the cork board, the girls see Heather's name along with a picture of her and her bedazzled fanny pack.

"Heather," Max points at the photo, turning to El. "Do you think you can find her?"

El quickly looks around before discretely snatching the photo down from the wall.

Nora freezes in surprise and Max has to physically drag her a way from the scene.

She is pulled into the girl's locker room and quickly snaps to her senses as El looks through lockers for something to cover her eyes with. Max and Nora go to turn on the showers to block out all the other noises. Once El comes back with goggles covered in duck tape, she sits on the floor between two benches, Nora and Max on either side of her.

The girls wait for El to find Heather, and Nora gets more and more worried as more time passes.

Suddenly, El rips the blindfold off with a gasp. Her eyes wide, Nora falls to her knees to comfort her while Max places a hand on her shoulder.

"What happened? El!" Max shakes her slightly.

El's nose drips blood and El just drops her head into her hands. Nora and Max share concerned looks, gently comforting El as they wait for her calm down.

a/n:
they finish each other's. . .