∘₊✧──────────────✧₊∘
∘₊✧──────────────✧₊∘
THERE WAS TRULY NOTHING WORSE in Mel's post-traumatic world than a silent car. Where stagnancy would force her brain to compensate. To fill the void. The way that cloud over her mind would separate into droplets of thoughts and memories she would otherwise shove back. Ichor drops, multiplying like amoeba. Whether it was music or voices, Mel needed sound. Hell, she'd even prefer TV static, because at the very least, it could drown out her inner voice in a sea of scratches and squiggles.
The car's engine fell dead in an apartment building parking lot, and alas, silence. The headlights spotlighted two circles of nothing on the building. All other lights had long melted out except for one. Mrs. Carlisle had always been the kind of wait up.
Jenny had been glaring numbly out at the world, frozen against the passenger seat all the same since she'd sobered up enough to straighten her spine. Her eyes' black-lined outer corners were smudged to the sardonic ash of her magma tears. She looked about ready to tear up the lace of her Like A Virgin costume from the inside, leaving a shell of Madonna's sex appeal on the floor. She remained all silence and restriction and bitterness, until—
"Sorry."
Only a notch above a whisper. It caught Mel off guard.
"What's that for?" She asked. For a moment the quiet was so thick that her inhale dangled in the air.
"For doing it again," said Jenny, pulled up from somewhere hollow. "For not being in control." And Mel thought of the cold, cold grin of Tommy H. She could only assume the same for Jenny, who sighed, "You know, Billy—he thought a smile bought him a ticket. He was being an entitled asshole, but," Her eyes stuck to the dash, "I think there's something wrong with me."
Mel shook her head. "Jenny..."
"I'm serious. I just—I can't control it anymore. I hit him." Jenny swallowed. "And he deserved it, but I can't even remember a single thought I had leading up to that moment."
"You were drunk," Mel reasoned. "That kind of thing happens, doesn't it?"
Jenny didn't answer at first. All throughout her head flashed moments where she forgot everything except how to taste the ache of bruised knuckles or to revel in the satisfaction of bringing about karma. Personifying it. Times where she was stone-cold sober, in fact.
"Maybe," she said, passively. "I'm just so sick of boys thinking I exist for them. All I do is tell them no and it only fuels some sort of sick fantasy. It's exhausting."
Jenny had been deliberately flushing it out for as long as she could, but she wasn't stupid. She saw. She saw the tincture of danger in the eyes of a group of boys as she walked past. Heard the whispers of what they would do to her if only they had the chance. They saw her wildfire as an alluring beam of light and not what it really was, fit to burn them alive. They chose to see only a body of golden skin and soft curves, for their own pleasure. When Jenny looked down upon the pure white of her costume, there was only one detail she had left out from the original. 'Boy Toy' welded in thick letters across Madonna's belt. Regardless of its multiple meanings, Jenny wouldn't be caught dead in something like that. Boys seemed to act like it was branded to her skin whether she was wearing all the lace and pearls or not.
"Guys like Billy are disgusting," Mel agreed. "I mean, you deserve someone with dignity and—and respect. A guy who knows what he has when he's with you," She declared, sharing Jenny's passion.
Though she mustered a smile, Jenny's face still scrunched. Hurt pooled up within each line and pore. "Thanks, Mel. It—it's just, um, it's not just that."
"What do you mean?"
For a moment, she teetered on saying something. "I can't. No, I can't."
"Hey, wait. What is it?" Mel prodded gently. Jenny shook her head.
"If I said this," Her voice hit a jagged edge, falling to whisper, "you'd have to promise not to hate me."
"Hate you?"
"If I..." Jenny continued, seeming to lose breath. She lingered on it a second longer. Fear did nothing to soften her. It only set her brows tighter. "I'll only think about telling you this if you promise me."
Mel's lips were parted in wordless confusion. She wondered if this was all some strange joke, and that notion ticked out in her voice. "Jen..."
"No. No, none of that," snapped from between the blonde's teeth. "You promise me right now. You have to promise. Just promise."
Jenny's sincerity was sobering, along with the way the first inkling of vulnerability trickled out of her eyes. Something about this was far more terrifying for Mel than the outbursts she knew Jenny was capable of. This was unexpected. It broke Mel's heart.
"Jenny," She said, softly. "You're my best friend. There's nothing you could say that would make me hate you. I promise, okay? Now, what's going on?"
Jenny sniffed in with a stark regain of her mask. You don't get it. You don't get it. You don't get it. Her chest felt as though it had been staked. She had half a mind to escape through the car door, but it would be no use. There was no running away from the realization she'd been tossing and turning on for a while now.
"I don't want a guy like Billy," Jenny spat. It was welded into her anger about the entire night. "I don't want a guy like anyone. I don't want a fucking guy."
A faint line appeared between Mel's eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
The frustration of it all had Jenny by the throat. Don't make me say it. By now, Jenny's face was in her hands, leaned over her lap with one of her dangling pearl necklaces tangled in her fingers. A heavy sigh threaded through them. Then, she leaned back into the seat, lips pursed, and a glare set out through the windshield at the silhouette of the house she grew up in.
"You know what a lesbian is, don't you?"
It spilled from the hook of Jenny's lip with the purest of bluntness. Mel was stunned. "Oh," she practically gasped out, dots connecting.
"Yeah..."
"You really think—?"
"For sure."
"Wow," said Mel. To be fair, she hadn't been equipped to truly understand. Lesbian always had a way of popping up in the media as a dirty word—a porn category, much less a person. Much, much less a person Mel loved, whose identity far outshone what the evangelists deemed unholy.
"All I'm saying is every time another Tommy H or Billy Hargrove comes around, a piece of me shrivels up and dies, so..."
Jenny trailed off after that, but Mel still heard her loud and clear in an echo chamber of thought. Within the front seat full of darkness and stale car smell, her face fell. Mel, who was always "the Asian girl" and never the homeroom crush or the beauty in the hallway, used to find hints of jealousy in herself. Jealousy that Jenny was so effortlessly attractive to male classmates. So wanted. And all this time, all these years, each lingering glance Jenny had received from a boy was nothing but venom. Horrible couldn't even begin to describe how Mel felt.
"Jenny, it's okay," She exhaled. "It doesn't matter. It shouldn't matter. I love you for everything you are." She seeped concern. "Did you think it would change how I feel about you?"
"If you're anything like my mom, yes," sighed Jenny.
"Shit. You told her?"
"No, but she's so outspoken, I can imagine it so clearly." She once again looked elsewhere, gulping. "I actually... I haven't told anyone. Until now, I guess."
"Thank you," Mel whispered.
"You're... welcome?"
"For telling me."
Jenny shrugged it off. "Whatever." Mel tried to grab her hand and linked their skin for only a second before Jenny pulled away a second too slow for Mel to ignore the little tremor. "You don't have to be weird and sentimental about it."
Her eyes were nowhere to be seen from Mel's point of view. Mel's lip tugged down in a little pout. For a while, she thought quietly, until:
Screw that.
"Do you remember that one night?" She brought up, lowly, and Jenny flicked her a glance. "It was the first summer after we met, right before seventh grade, and we stayed up talking all night about what the year would be like. The types of clothes we would wear. The school dances we'd attend. How it would feel to be friends with the popular girls and date assholes like Tommy H, just like in the movies."
That last line especially was what made Jenny's face pull the most. "I would never be so delusional."
"Well, I was," Mel giggled. And she always would be when the nighttime feelings came sluicing in and there was a book of poetry in her lap. "But it was you. You were the one who stopped, and you looked at me in this certain way. Then you made me pinky promise that in my perfect picture of what seventh grade would be, we'd still be best friends forever. Like sisters, no matter what."
Crinkles appeared around Jenny's eyes. Not out of softness but a sense of feigned repulsion. "Don't you dare," she groaned humorously, shrinking back.
In the driver's seat, Mel smiled evilly. "Jennyyy," she whined, holding up her finger in a little hook. "Pinky promises don't expire."
Where she sat encased in darkness with her legs pulled in to conserve heat, Jenny grimaced as they linked fingers, just as they had many moons ago. Caught with a layer of gloss in Mel's eyes, the moment became real. Just as such, it was immortalized into memory.
"You're so sappy it's nauseating," Jenny groaned. She yanked at Mel through the link in their fingers, and they both laughed at her subsequent yelp.
･ﾟﾟ･༶･ﾟﾟ･
METAL CLICKED AS MEL TWISTED her combination into the little padlock on her locker the following afternoon. A bit of extra jiggling and she was able to pull open the door. Around her, the hallways became a vacant wasteland of Hawkins' school colors, the product of her hour-long library study session. She squinted and slid her books into a lavender canvas backpack. Mel had been carefully twisting the cord of her Walkman headphones when the gymnasium doors burst open. She ignored it until footsteps trailed closer and closer.
"What do we have here?"
It was gruff and barely familiar. Disregarding an emerging tang of body odor in the air, Mel pulled an angle of her locker door that allowed her to peer around it. There stood Billy, shining with sweat, in a pair of basketball shorts. Mel rushed to divert her attention from his bare chest, at which he smirked.
"Billy Hargrove," he announced, holding out a hand. Peering with a careful guise, Mel felt pressured enough to take it. His grip was firm and clammy. "Hadn't gotten the pleasure to meet you yet. Melanie, is it?" Billy feigned something of consideration. He licked at his teeth, before adding, "The whore's friend."
Mel knew nothing but to stare up blankly. Blood rushed to her head, but she didn't know how to feel the anger that was supposed to follow. She was always broken in this sense. She hated it. Sadness knew how to strike her just right, but she could never untangle the prick of anger enough to do something.
"Don't," Mel could barely manage to spit out. "Don't call her that."
She made only a move to tug at the locker door, hoping it would hide how her face was burning. Instead of red, all she saw was Jenny's slumped form in the passenger seat. The firmness of her face as she spoke. The way those pearls hung in a string around her neck like dewdrops glistening along spiderwebs. The damage that the weight of a thousand eyes could do.
"A whore?" Billy felt the need to repeat. He shook his head, clicking his tongue in breathy laughter. "I'd much rather tell it like it is." When it became clear Mel was only going to shrink back and pretend to have reason to stare at the inside of her locker, Billy continued. "I see why she keeps you around. Peacekeeper, huh? Can't put up a fight?"
By now, Mel's heart had tumbled to the floor and all she could do was sling her bag over her shoulder. Her ears were thrashing an indistinct rhythm. Her skin. She felt it everywhere. Mel turned to close her locker, hoping to hurry away, but Billy pinned her down with his eyes.
"Come on, there's gotta be something in there. Why don'cha hit me? Your friend did it, easy," he urged.
He's right. If Jenny were here, she'd punch that smirk right off his face, Mel thought. But she wasn't Jenny. She didn't have an ounce of fight in her bones. Billy must have noticed the tremor in her hands. The way her finger flexed as though she wished they were claws. "What? Do you want to say something? Well, why don't you just spit it out, sweetheart?"
"Leave her alone, will you?"
Catching in periphery, a figure stood down the hall. Mel's eyes sought it out, found Steve, and pieces of the world crystallized into clarity.
Billy tipped his head so casually back, grinning at Steve as he approached. His hands were on his hips, a towel slung over the shoulder of his sweat-drenched t-shirt. Sure, the idea of having to face the Steve Harrington again tightened Mel's chest, but where he stood now, there must have been nothing but a fluorescent halo over his head.
"Woah, woah, woah." Billy waved a hand. "Let the little lady speak for herself, Harrington," he bellowed. The insides of Mel's cheeks were indented under her teeth.
"I think her body language is already saying enough. She's revolted by you, so get over yourself."
Billy scoffed loudly. "Oh, you've got me all wrong. I'm not makin' advances, Harrington. Even if she was any less twig-like," he paused, scanning over Mel, taking in her features, hooking on her eyes, "...not my type."
"God. Just get out of here, man," said Steve, through a disgusted sigh.
"Right." Billy cleared his throat. The spark in his eyes was already diminishing anyway. "Thought I'd give your team a chance to score a few. Bein' generous." He shook his head, and with each step he took away from Mel, she gained wisps of her breath back. Steve jolted slightly at the clap of Billy's hand on his shoulder blade. "See you in there, amigo."
"I'm so sorry about him," Steve rushed to say as the gym doors slammed back into place behind Billy. "He's—"
"An asshole. I've gathered."
Mel could barely meet his gaze. All she could think about was the person she would never be, bold and brave. Who would have sent Billy to the hospital, or back into the gym herself at the very least. Now she was overcompensating, making her voice sound firmer. Steve pursed his lips, nodding.
"So," He cleared his throat, "Did you get lost on your way to the kitchen, or...?"
Mel's dark brows furrowed. "Excuse me?"
The gears in Steve's head needed a second to turn. "Oh—!" His eyes bulged, realizing his mistake. "No, I didn't mean it like—like...that. Last night. You were, like, actually going to the kitchen."
Mel laughed lightly, still tinged with nerves. "I'm sorry. I kind of got caught up with the dickhead of the century." She swallowed back the tightness in her throat. "Frankly, I didn't think you'd remember me anyway."
"I wasn't that drunk, was I?"
"No, but—" With the pinch of her inhale, she stared at Steve, who she was half surprised would actually look into her eyes rather than past them. And each time he did, he became less of a title to Mel, more of a human. "It doesn't matter."
Steve paused. "About last night. Listen..." He swallowed. "Whatever I said about last year, it was nothing, okay? I tend to blow things way out of proportion when I'm drunk. If I said anything that sounded weird, it totally wasn't like that."
Mel stared at him intently. She thought back to everything he said, and the troubled way he said it. How his real self seemed to come out. "Sure," She responded. Steve nodded, almost too eagerly.
"And... what you said," Steve eventually continued. Mel's heart stopped for a second. "About me accepting that it's over with Nancy. Thought you should know you were right. I broke up with her today."
"Oh, Steve, I'm sorry."
"It's alright. It's fine." He shrugged. Mel wondered if she wasn't making up that he sounded a million miles away. "Shouldn't drag on what's already dead, right?"
"That doesn't make it easier, though," She stated.
"I'll man up, get over it." So casual. Mel narrowed her eyes in a subtle gesture. There was something there, under the surface, and Steve seemed to realize she was noticing. Relief flooded in on his face at the shriek of a whistle, muffled through the gym walls. "I should go. We're getting our asses kicked," Steve admitted. "I'll see you around, though, Mel."
And as he jogged away, Mel was surprised at the fact she believed him.
༶
originally published: 4/20/20
edited: 12/22/22
note: the "don't make me say" it bit from Jenny is her own thought process from her experience with the climate on queerness in the 80s. obviously, being queer is nothing dirty, but as her background is revealed more in st season 3, this impulsive thought will make more sense.
also, in my little pansexual head I can't see Mel being completely straight either. she 100% finds herself falling in love whenever Brooke Shields comes onscreen but assumes that's normal straight behavior lmao
- em <3