𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐢 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 | steve harrington

chapter twenty-six

Rory reluctantly strode into work less than a week after she'd slammed Steve's door and driven around Hawkins in his jumper with tears streaming down her face just so she wouldn't have to go home and own up to the fact that she wasn't a good sister and she probably never had been.

Dustin had tacked a sign to his door saying 'stay out, I'm serious I won't talk to you' and Rory had curled up like a cat under a mountain of blankets and screamed into her pillow. She missed feeling good about things and as she ate poorly made Mac and cheese under the soft lights of evening she cried for loss that stemmed from every part of her life.

The next day she'd seen her brother leave an hour early and she assumed he'd do anything to avoid her. Rory couldn't help but feel more guilty for Steve than herself because she hadn't been able to retain a perfect relationship with Dustin but Steve had been the best thing that her brother had. They'd done everything together. They'd played arcade games and watched movies, drove around and fought fake monsters outside of Dustin's board games. Steve wasn't just a babysitter he was a brother and a best friend, Rory couldn't help but feel responsible for screwing all that up even when Steve had kissed her back, when he'd called her, when he'd told her that he liked her more than he should, when he'd pulled her into his bed.

But it was Rory who caught blame like flies and no matter what she did, she'd always be in the centre like a flickering flame. Called out in blame for pulling George Henderson away from Hawkins, for ruining a family, for the divorce, for Dustin's isolation and loss of childhood and now for Steve losing the relationship he had with those six kids because realistically if Dustin hated Steve, they all would.

Rory walked around the house like a ghost the next many days. Dustin had started cooking his own meals before Rory could even think to pull out pans and preheat ovens. Nora Henderson was chipper about George coming back and no matter how many times Rory told her he simply had changed his mind she'd laugh and tell Rory that her love was coming home. At some point Rory had shoved her freshly made casserole in the bin and slammed the door to her room while Nora told her lazily to tidy her room.

She didn't know what to do but more importantly she didn't know what she could do. Rory wanted Steve back and she wanted her brother to be okay with that but both of those were impossibilities on the different ends of the same string and no matter how far she tried to reach she simply couldn't grab them both which left her somewhere in the middle wondering if she even had the luck to gain either of them singularly.

Steve had been more angered than she'd ever seen him, filled with the consequences of his own actions. He regretted it in that moment and after Dustin's display of betrayal Rory couldn't blame him. She'd seen the genuine upset that made Dustin look three years younger and it was like leaving him all over again. Steve had never faced the wrath of Dustin's disappointment but she supposed it must've hurt him to know he'd let down the one person he'd promised to protect no matter what. There wasn't much worse than that.

So when it came to her Wednesday shift after the Christmas break, Rory had been settled on the idea that she didn't want to work in that shitty ice cream parlour for another second but she needed money and even though this money practically fell through the moth eaten holes in her polyester pockets, it was better than nothing.

Rory dragged her feet the entire way because she wasn't ready to see Steve after what had happened. The girl had never really experienced a breakup and although she'd guessed her emotions may have prepared for such a dislodge of her comfort she was wildly incorrect.

This was proven when she saw him standing there, spinning the hat around on his hand as he rested one elbow on the counter and lazily hummed under his breath. Rory had stood in the doorway feeling humiliation for the outfit that they shared and guilt for actions she didn't play a selfish part in.