STEVE HAD TAKEN Kate to his house right after school.
This wasn't an unusual thing for either of them. The girl had actually stayed at his house many times before. This time, however, a sense of awkwardness hung in the air, just as it did before all of the parties he'd thrown: they both knew what was coming.
"I still don't quite understand why I have to be here," Kate said, not looking up from her math homework as "Uptown Girl" played in the background.
"Because you're my friend," Steve replied. She only glared at him in response. "Oh, come on, don't look at me like that. Look, it'll be fun. Promise. Besides, I need your support."
She sighed, shaking her head, but looked back down and continued her homework.
"I know you love me," Steve said, watching her for her reaction. When she didn't reply, looking unfazed, he thought he'd change the subject. "Hey, my mom restocked the liquor cabinet the other day if you want anything. I know you don't normally drink, but—"
"Sure," Kate replied, not even looking up to him.
Steve gave her an unreadable expression, his heart skipping a beat. "Y–You sure?"
"Yep," she said, popping the "P." She still hadn't looked up from her homework.
His stomach churned at the thought of giving her a glass of wine, even if it was just wine—usually, Kate had been all right with not drinking. He thought that part of it was because of her dad's alcoholic streak, maybe because she liked watching him make a fool out of himself when she was sober, but he never bothered her about it, even if he thought it might help her become less anxious. Nonetheless, he always asked just in case, and most of the time, the answer was no unless they were at a party (and by party, that meant a real party). However, this time had seemed different. "You sure nothing's wrong?"
She shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm fine, just trying to enjoy myself. It's a party tonight, anyway, right?"
He shrugged in return—her answer hadn't made him feel any better. "Okay, I'll be back."
"No," she said, shaking her head and extending her arm out to him. "First, you're going to enjoy the art that is Billy Joel."
Steve smiled slightly, taking her hand and jumping around with her and singing quite terribly as they sang along to the sound on the radio. If someone would have peered into his room, they would have thought the two of them were the happiest and the most carefree people in the world.
Even if they both could put on a convincing façade to the rest of the world, it didn't stop him from worrying about her.
Kate, however, knew that if she tried hard enough, she could finally fall numb to the pain Steve caused her on nights like this one: the same pain she couldn't even begin to explain.
Kate, in her opinion, hadn't had too much to drink before Nancy and Barbara had arrived at Steve's.
Steve, however, had grown increasingly worried about her, about his Kathy. She had never asked him for more than two drinks in one night, but now, all of a sudden, she had asked for more than he could keep up with as the night progressed. If she were to ask him before she'd declined drinks for years (and before she hadn't gotten any more than an hour or so of sleep), it wouldn't have been near as questionable to him. However, as questionable as it might've been, he still didn't do anything to stop her.
As the alcohol slowly invaded her bloodstream, Kate felt the buzz within her. The buzz that only told her more, more. She didn't dare refuse, but she obeyed as she let the alcohol burn in her system like fuel. She finally understood why her father was an alcoholic: for once, he was able to finally feel something. For all those years, she never quite understood the fire that ignited once it entered your system. Now, though, she understood it, and she wasn't afraid of it in the slightest.
The party, for the most part, had been extremely uneventful for the time being.
Carol screamed as her boyfriend tried to throw her in the pool. "You're such an asshole, Tommy!"
Kate truly hadn't been paying attention to the group as a whole—she couldn't. Occasionally, she'd talk to Barb, but other than that, her focus had been taken from her. At that point, she'd lost count of how much alcohol she'd put in her system, but Steve had tried his best not to. Steve was certain his best friend was on her fifth beer of the night, but he had tried not to pay any attention to her, even though he'd been failing miserably. The night had been about finally getting Nancy, not babysitting Kate because she suddenly decided to get wasted. Even so, as the girl's state of well-being deteriorated exponentially, he could only watch as she drank more and more.
Barb looked over to Kate, who had seemed completely spaced out. "You okay?"
She nodded, but it was choppy, not as gentle as the movement would've normally been. "Yeah."
Barb pulled her chair closer to her, watching as the two couples seemingly only focused on one another. "Some party, huh?"
"Yeah," Kate said, slurring. "You... You get used to them. After a while."
She shook her head. "How do you do it?"
"Do what?"
"This," Barb said, gesturing out to the people in front of her. "I just... You're so different from them. How are you even friends with them?"
Kate shrugged. "I'm not, really. Just friends with Steve."
"Like that's much better."
She laughed in response. "You know, they're tolerable whenever you're around them all the time. Steve is... He's been a good friend, for the most part."
Barb shook her head. "If he was a good friend to you, you wouldn't be here right now."
She shrugged again. "I don't know. Maybe."
She sighed, watching Nancy and Steve. "I think you care too much about him. Much more than he deserves."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah," Barb said, looking back to the blonde. "You deserve more than that, Kate."
She shrugged carelessly, taking another sip of beer as she watched Steve carefully. God, she hated him. She hated his stupid hair, his stupid crush on Nancy Wheeler, the stupid cigarette that sat tucked behind his ear as he smoked that stupid cigar. She hated herself for every decision she'd ever made that led up to her sitting outside in the dark in November, freezing her ass off while she drank shitty beer just to feel something.
Barb only watched her carefully. Even completely intoxicated, held a fixation on her best friend. "I see the way you look at him, you know."
Kate turned to the redhead. "What?"
"I think you know what I mean."
Of course, Kate had no idea what she meant. Hadn't she just been looking at Steve just like she'd look at anyone else? Besides, she was drunk—nothing Kate would do that night would matter, and she probably wouldn't even remember it all by tomorrow morning. That didn't, however, stop her mind from racing in the slightest about it.
She quickly became distracted when Steve had stood from his chair, throwing the cigar he'd been smoking to the ground. As Nancy watched him, he pulled a pocketknife from his pocket so he could shotgun the beer he'd been holding in his hand, just to pull a cigarette from behind his ear to smoke it once he'd thrown the can to the ground.
"Is that supposed to impress me?" Nancy asked, obviously not as impressed as Steve would've hoped.
"You're not?" he asked, the cigarette still hanging out of his mouth.
"You are a cliché. You do realize that?"
He scoffed. "You are a cliché. What with your... your grades, and your band practice."
She laughed. "I'm so not in band."
"Okay, party girl. Why don't you just, uh, show us how it's done, then?" he said, finally lighting the cigarette that still sat in between his teeth.
"Okay."
Both Barbara and Kate, however, were super unimpressed for reasons besides Steve Harrington being a cliché. Of course, neither of them could believe Nancy was falling for Steve's tricks, not even a good one of his, and both of them only watched in silence, but in utter disappointment.
Barbara had always been under the impression that Nancy would have never done anything like this. Her best friend never exactly had been boy-obsessed or anything of the sort, which was why that night had disappointed her as much as it had.
Kate, on the other hand, had found that drinking her sorrows away didn't do anything to fix her problems—if anything, her drunken state had seemed to just make everything worse. She couldn't stop thinking about what Barb was saying, the thought that had come into her head right after she'd spoken, because that couldn't be it. She'd never thought about Steve like that, and as she watched him now, it certainly wasn't a time that she wanted to think about him that way. Despite everything within her screaming "no" to her, more than ever before, Kate wished the girl that Steve was trying so hard to impress was her.
Kate had been brought back to reality when Steve spoke again.
"You gotta make a little hole right in—"
"I got it," Nancy said, smiling.
"Yeah, she's smart, you douche!"
As she chugged, they, meaning Steve, Tommy, and Carol, chanted for Nancy. "Chug! Chug! Chug!"
When she threw the can to the ground, Tommy shouted in joy. "Why don't you give it a try, Kate?"
She quickly perked up, not expecting to hear her name. She almost hadn't even answered to it. "What?"
Steve shook his head. "No. Absolutely not. Kathy, don't—"
"Steve, I can do it—"
"Kathy—"
"Steeevie."
Steve quickly averted his gaze as he swallowed the lump in his throat, scratching at the neckline of his shirt. He hadn't heard her call him Stevie since before Sara had died. Whenever he'd composed himself, he looked back to the girl. "Kathy, don't be stupid. You'd never do anything like this if you weren't so—"
"I wanna try it, Steve. Stop telling me what to do," she said, slurring her words and taking the pocketknife and a beer can from Tommy.
"Kathy—"
Carol scoffed. "She's not eight years old, Steve, she's fine."
Steve hesitated, his face taut. When Tommy absently gave Kate another beer, and Nancy handed her the pocketknife, he sighed, running a hand through his hair absent-mindedly. He'd been so caught up in what Kate was doing that he hadn't noticed how Nancy looked at him—even Barbara had noticed his worried stature. For the first time in a long time, Steve was nervous, and the tipsiness of his stature certainly wasn't helping. His leg bounced slightly, he couldn't stop scratching his neck, couldn't stop playing with the neckline of his shirt, but most importantly, he couldn't look away from her, even if he wanted to more than anything. They were trusting Kate, a first time drunk, with a pocketknife to cut a hole in a beer can. How stupid was that?
"Chug! Chug! Chug!"
Kate had chugged quickly. She had little control over her actions now, and once she was done, she almost dropped to the ground with her beer can, it clanking on the concrete, but she caught herself. If she wouldn't have, Steve had made himself ready to catch her instead. He only stared at her now as she was praised by Tommy and Carol, something he never thought he would see.
"Barb, you wanna try?"
"What? No," she answered quickly, turning to Nancy. "No, I don't want to. Thanks."
"Come on."
Steve could tell that Nancy's friend didn't want anything to do with shotgunning a beer, but, more than anything, he had wanted to take the attention off of Kate. What if she tried to do it again or something? "Come on. Yeah."
Barbara lowered her voice as she turned to her friend. "Nance. I don't want to."
"It's fun! Just give it a—"
"Nance..."
"Just... Just give it a shot."
Tired of fighting, Barb finally stood up from her lawn chair. "Okay."
Barbara had only agreed to do it so taht right after she'd shotgunned the beer, she could disappear from the spotlight and take her place in the shadows once again. At that moment, she wondered why she hadn't left hours ago, why she hadn't made Nancy go without her, or even better, why she hadn't made the both of them just go home. Suddenly, she remembered: she was only there so Nancy could have her moment with Steve.
Barbara, however, had noticed something she would never tell her friend, not unless she asked. Whiel she had never truly talked to Kate Hopper or Steve Harrington before that day, before that night, really, she had noticed in just a few hours how the two cared for one another. Now she understood why everyone at school thought they were together. Barbara Holland had no idea why Nance would even try to pursue him: it was more than obvious that Steve Harrington cared for Kate Hopper more than anything else in the entire world, and that was more than any girl, Tommy and Carol, even, and nothing could take that away from him, no matter what.
That was when Barbara realized that Steve didn't even know that he was in love with his best friend.
As the small group watched Barb, Steve took another drag on his cigarette.
"So, you just..." Barbara trailed off when she cut herself on the knife, the can rolling swiftly out of her hand.
"Gnarly," Tommy said, snickering.
"Are you okay?" Nancy asked, worry lacing her voice and etching her face.
"Yeah."
Whenever she looked at her hand, however, Nancy had thought otherwise. "Barb, you're bleeding."
"I'm fine," she said bitterly. She then looked to Steve. "Where's your bathroom?"
Steve jumped up quickly. "Oh, it's... it's, uh, down past the kitchen, to–to the left."
As she walked away, Steve sighed—he was just glad that hadn't been Kate that cut her hand open. When he looked to his best friend, he almost hadn't noticed that she, currently, was struggling to take off her sweater.
Steve immediately gulped as the sweater was thrown onto the ground, leaving her only in a black bra and her jeans. Of course, he'd seen her in less before, but it was November and outside and she was drunk and there were other people and she wasn't changing. "Kathy..."
Even with Steve calling her name, she seemingly ignored him. Tommy even shouted for her to take her jeans off, too, and Carol slapped him. Steve hadn't even heard him because he was too focused on the fact that she was trying to take her pants off.
"Kathy—"
"No, Stevie... It's a–a pool party, right? Can't swim in... in your clothes."
Just before Kate could undo the button on her jeans, Steve panicked and pushed her into the pool. Tommy had decided to push Carol into the pool, too, diving in after her. Steve also took the opportunity to push Nancy in, flipping in after her.
Whenever she'd made it into the water, Kate had almost frozen to death. She shivered as Carol and Tommy made out, as Nancy chased Steve, who had taken one of her shoes, only hoping that she wouldn't turn into an ice cube. As she looked out into the trees behind Steve's backyard, she could've sworn she saw something, someone, but she could barely register anything to begin with.
It hadn't been too long before Steve had carried Kate out of the pool, wrapping a towel around her. When she'd thanked him, barely able to say the words, it had been the final straw for him: Kate had had way too much to drink.
"You're so drunk."
She scoffed, but it had almost seemed fake because of how pronounced it was. "No, I'm not! I'm not drunk! I'm just cold." She giggled—he couldn't remember the last time she giggled like that. "I'm going to steal a sweatshirt from you, Stevie."
He was trying so hard not to tear at the seams. "O–Okay."
Before she had skipped away, she bopped his his nose with a quiet "boop." As she looked to the group in front of her, she happily made her way up the stairs to Steve's room.
"She's wasted," Tommy said, almost snickering. "I mean, can you believe it? Hopper, wasted? I don't think I've ever seen her pick up more than three drinks in one night, never mind this."
"You know, I never thought she'd break out of her shelly, not with Daddy being police chief and all."
"Don't talk about her that way," Steve said sharply, cutting Carol off before she could say anything else. "She's just... She's just drunk. She probably won't even remember any of this tomorrow."
"Aw, is Stevie worried about his little Katie?"
He didn't know whether it was the amount of stress he was currently feeling or if it was the apparent tipsiness he now carried, but, for once, he dropped the façade and spoke his mind. "Yeah, I am."
Tommy cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well," he started, quickly trying to change the subject, "I hear his mom's room has a fireplace."
"Are you kidding?"
Of course, Tommy and Carol both ignored him. "Oh yeah?"
Steve shouted louder at them as they walked into his mom's room. "Okay, well, you know, you are cleaning the sheets."
Whenever the couple had closed the door to his mom's room, closing them off from the rest of the house, Steve turned to Nancy. "You all right?"
"Yeah." Nancy gave him a tight-lipped smile, almost sympathetic. She might not have known him for long, but he could tell that he truly cared about Katherine Hopper, even if he tried so hard to act like he didn't care about anyone at all.
"Yeah, come on. Let's get you some dry clothes, too."
"We should probably go up there and check on her anyway, right?"
He nodded, scratching the back of his neck as they began to walk up the staircase.
Before Nancy could make it all the way up the stairs, however, someone called for her. "Nance!"
She turned around to find Barbara, waiting for her at the bottom of the staircase. "Nancy. Where are you going?"
"Nowhere," she replied innocently, almost as if she didn't know what was about to happen. "Just... upstairs. To change. I... fell in the pool." She stopped to chuckle at herself, but when Barbara didn't laugh, she continued on. "Why don't you go ahead and go home. I'll just... I'll get a ride or something."
"Nance..."
"Barb. I'm fine."
However, Barbara definitely didn't think it was fine. "This isn't you."
Nancy didn't know if she was reassuring her best friend or herself. "I'm fine. Just... go ahead and go home, okay?"
Without another word, Nancy walked up the rest of the stairs to meet Steve in his room.