He's out of the hospital a week later, and he can feel panic crawling up his throat and threatening to choke him.
The doctors have told him that he's lucky, that he's defied all expectations, that his recovery is a miracle, that God must have great plans for him because he survived a partially crushed chest as well as the Starcourt Mall explosion.
Billy's pretty sure that the only plans God has for him involve punishment. He woke up every now and then in the hospital, and Max was almost always there. He saw Susan there a few times, too, and now that he's got a clear head, it makes him worry.
The only people who've ever come to see him when he was in the hospital were the ones who loved him. His father has never shown his face when Billy was in a hospital bed. That position was always his mother's, or any of the women from his father's string of girlfriends. Max and Susan have never visited him before, and Billy always consoled him with the knowledge that that meant they weren't leaving anytime soon.
He kicks at a crack in the sidewalk and wishes he had his Camaro; his ribs and lungs are still healing, even if the doctors have claimed that they're good enough for him to go home, and Billy's breathing is short and harsh and painful; the air burns at his lungs even though it's hot and dry. He almost wishes it was winter, because winter is Hawkins is cold, and he remembers how the freezing air had crept down his throat to numb him inside and out. At least with cold air the physical pain would be numbed.
Billy frowns, thinking about Max and Susan again. In the four years he's known them, they've never visited him; he always assumed that they were following his dad's lead, and he'd always known that as long as they didn't come, they'd stay.
But they came this time, and he wonders if that means that they love him, now. He wonders if that means they're going to leave him.
He thinks it probably does; Max and Susan lasted longer than anyone other than Billy's mother, and while neither of them have experienced the full force of his dad's rage, Billy knows it's only a matter of time. Neil's fists are always pounding after love, and now that Max and Susan have opened themselves up to the latter, Billy knows that the former will follow. That's the way it's always been in his father's household, and that's the way it'll always be.
He gets to a crosswalk and tosses a quick glance to both sides. No one's coming, so he steps into the road, intent on getting back to Old Cherry Lane before Max and Susan decide that they love him, before his father decides that now's the time to dust off the old wife-beaters, before someone else leaves him because they know, like his mother knew, like Lucy and Martha and Alice and Elizabeth knew, that love is not worth the pain.
Tires screech, and Billy flinches, looking wildly around himself. The street is empty, save for a maroon BMW that Billy knows belongs to Steve Harrington.
"Hargrove?" Harrington's voice calls, and Billy faces him with hunched shoulders and aching ribs and burning lungs. Suddenly, he feels very out of breath, and he tries to ignore the knowledge that the pain isn't just a reminder of his time under the General's control, that the thing choking him isn't just fear of his family's love. Steve t-boned him, he reminds himself. Taking it a step further, Steve is the reason he's walking home from the hospital.
"Harrington," Billy returns, pasting a sneer across his face. There's a girl in the passenger seat of Steve's car, and she has dirty blonde hair, and blue eyes, and freckles. She's pretty, Billy thinks, if you're into that sort of thing.
"You wanna ride, man?" Steve asks, tilting his head. The girl shoots him a surprised glance before offering Billy something resembling a smile.
Billy swallows. "Uh. Sure," he says eloquently. He opens the back driver's side door and slides in.
"Buckle," Steve commands, and doesn't start driving again until Billy does. "To Old Cherry?" he asks. "Or somewhere else? Max didn't say that you were coming home today, but I suppose she's got other things on her mind at the moment."
Billy's heart leaps into his throat. No doubt other things are Max and Susan packing the car so that they can leave Hawkins in the rear-view mirror. "Yeah," he rasps, slumping in the back seat. He's too late. Max and Susan are leaving because Billy screwed up and did something to make them love him. "Old Cherry. Thanks, Harrington."
He can see Steve's frown in the mirror. "Did she not tell you what's happening? I thought you'd be more excited, man."
"Me and Max don't really talk. She was at the hospital, but she didn't say much." For good reason, Billy thinks. If he was leaving, he wouldn't tell the people he was leaving behind either. He'd wait for them to figure it out on their own. "I can guess what's going on, though," he adds.
Steve glances over his shoulder, his eyes scrutinizing. "Yeah? I really thought you'd be happier, man. Max's told us that your old man's a real hard-ass and that she's glad he's finally fucked off somewhere."
"What?" Billy chokes. "Neil's leaving?"
"He's already gone, dude," the girl says, rolling her eyes. "Max and your step-mom are just clearing his crap out."
"Why'd he leave? Where'd he go?"
"I guess he tried to hit Max 'cause she disrespected him by telling him that she'd be at the festival for the fourth of July and then never showed up. Susan saw, I guess, and kicked him out. Max said that Susan told your dad that she might not be able to do anything about how he treats you, but that he damn well wouldn't lay a hand on her daughter," Steve says calmly. "I think she's filing for a divorce, but he fucked off on the fifth and no one's seen him since. If he doesn't show up for the trial or whatever, I guess Susan will be granted the divorce in absentia or something."
So Max and Susan aren't leaving. It's his dad, who's never loved him, who's leaving. Billy wonders if he'll be expected to leave, too, and thinks that it's a good thing that he's freshly eighteen. He'll be able to use the money he managed to save up from his lifeguarding job to get an apartment; he'll get a job to keep paying it, and he'll figure out what to do about his senior year of high school when he gets there.
"You think she'll let me stay at the house for a few days? Just until I can find something to rent and get a job?" He can't bring himself to meet Steve's eyes.
Steve frowns. "Why d'you need to find a place to rent?"
Billy stares at him. He knows that Steve sucked at school – Tommy and Carol had never said it in so many words, but the other girls and all the guys on the basketball team liked to laugh about it over lunch – but surely he isn't so oblivious that he doesn't realize why Billy wouldn't be wanted at Old Cherry anymore. "Max and Susan aren't gonna want me there," he murmurs.
Steve rolls his eyes. "And why not?"
"I'm not even Susan's real kid," Billy sighs. "And I'm eighteen, now. She's not obligated to take care of me anymore."
"Billy… Max says Susan cried when she heard you were in the hospital. I'm pretty sure that she thinks of you as her kid. I'm pretty sure she wants you to stay at Old Cherry."
That's… not possible. Billy was deliberately difficult. When he wasn't so tired of acting like an asshole that he just couldn't, anymore, he did everything in his power to ensure that neither Susan nor Max would like him, because… ever since his mother left, he's wanted someone to take her place. He's always wanted a sibling, and Max and Susan had come along and given him that, and he'd wanted to keep them, and he'd known.
The only way they'd stay was if they hated him. That was the one thing he'd been absolutely certain of, because his father had hated him, and he'd always stayed.
But Neil is gone, now, and Max and Susan are still here, and Billy doesn't know what to do.
"Okay," he finally says. He thinks about how he has emulated his father for years, about how he has hurt people with his words and with his fists, about how he has engendered hate in the hearts of those he loved so that they would stay. He thinks about how tired it all made him. He wonders what it would be like to give in, to be soft, to stop fighting.
He's tired of trying to be something he's not, and he's tired of being hated.
He used to think he understood the world: love lies and leaves, and hatred remains. But now Neil is gone, and Billy doesn't understand anything anymore. He doesn't know anything anymore, except that he's tired of pretending.
"Okay," he repeats, giving in. He allows himself to hope that Susan and Max are the exception to the rule he has spent his entire life learning.
Steve drops him off at the end of the driveway, and Billy clambers out of the car. The girl – Robin – waves at Billy as she and Steve pull away, and Billy stares at the house on Old Cherry Lane.
Max and Susan are inside. His… sister and stepmother are inside, waiting for him, loving him, wanting him, and so he steps inside.
Max is in the kitchen with Susan; they're making sandwiches, and they don't see him at first.
"I –" his voice cracks, and he tries again, unable to look at them. "I'm sorry for acting like my dad."
"Billy?" Susan says tentatively, and he looks up. She is smiling, and the sadness in it makes his eyes burn. "I forgive you. And I'm sorry that I never stepped in when Neil was hurting you."
He nods, biting his lip so that the tears won't escape. Max approaches him, and she wraps her arms around him carefully. "I forgive you, too," she whispers into his chest. "I'm glad you're alive," she adds. "I've already lost one big brother. I don't need to lose another one."
Billy's tears spill out over his cheeks. He doesn't know much about Wesley Mayfield, but he does know that, once upon a time, Max had an older brother. And once upon a time, he died, and Max got stuck with Billy instead. "I'm sorry," he repeats, over and over, apologizing for everything until he's no longer sure what, exactly, he's apologizing for.