"I said let me see, Mayfield. Jesus Christ, it's like pulling teeth with you," Steve says like there's no room for argument.
He gently pulls at the arm Billy grabbed and carefully rolled up the sleeve. Max rolls her eyes at the older kid.
Perfect. My ride drove off and now I have mother hen looking over at me, Max thinks to herself. He's looking me over like we played chicken with monsters at the junkyard or burned down some interdimensional vines in the tunnel. We didn't. It's just my asshole stepbrother.
"It's fine. I've had worse," Max starts to argue.
"I've had worse," she repeats unknowingly.
The ground is mighty interesting right now because she's looking at it instead of Steve. If she did look at him, she would've seen a look of concern and sadness flash on his face. What the hell did she mean she's had worse? Steve felt something in his chest when Max said that. He's calling it anger but there's a part of him that feels hollow, melancholy. It was heartbreak.
"It's just Billy being Billy," she offers again as Steve inspects the now exposed arm. She looks at her arm and sees tendrils of red run across it. It does not look good.
That's gonna leave a mark, she thinks.
"We should put some ice on that," He stops and thinks for a moment before continuing. "There should be some in the nurse's office. We can fix up your board there too. I have some tape in the trunk," Steve says matter-of-factly hoping it's enough to convince her as he goes to the trunk of his car.
"No arguments," he added before Max can protest. "We can say you had a skateboarding accident. They won't ask too many questions considering you have a broken board."
Max picks up her board and follows Steve to the trunk of his car reluctantly. As he opens the trunk, she sees its interior. His infamous bat is there as well as a canister of gas she was sure is from the Byers, some rope and a shovel, and, of course, duct tape. Max couldn't help but grin at the absurdity of it all. If it had been anyone else, they would think they were looking at Ted Bundy's trunk. Anyone else except for her and a handful of people.
"Wow. A nail bat to knock someone out, rope and tape to bind them, gas to burn the body, and a shovel to bury it. You looking to get rid of a body, Harrington?" Max says with a smug but playful smile on her face.
Maybe your brother's? he thinks but doesn't say out aloud. He opted instead to pretend to be exasperated not noticing a smirk crawling across his features.
"It's in case of emergency you little shit," he says with none of the venom she expects from a teenager Billy's age. If it had been anyone else, Max would've been offended. Anyone else except from Steve. It almost sounded like a term of endearment. She couldn't help but smile even brighter.
"It's what I could grab before coming to school. You never know. It'll be less serial killer-y and more earthquake preparedness kit in the coming days," Steve continues before grabbing the tape and closing the trunk.
They head back to the school to the nurse's office when they run into Nancy in the hallways.
"Steve," Nancy says with subdued surprise.
"Nancy," Steve says with definite surprise.
An uncomfortable silence hangs in the air as Max looks at the two older teens.
"Max," she says her own name while waving her hand in front of Steve.
"Oh, hello," Nancy offers looking at her as if noticing her for the first time. She didn't really know the girl.
"Right. Nurse's office." Steve says shaking out of his daze.
"Oh, right. You still don't look too good. Are you okay? I didn't expect you to be at school today." Nancy says turning to Steve again.
His face is still beaten up from their little adventure. Steve almost forgot about it. Who knew the best way to get rid of pain is almost getting into fights? Adrenaline is a hell of a drug. He can feel the wounds aching now.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he was about to throw Max under the bus saying the nurse's office is for her but he decided against it. He didn't want to scare her away.
"I was looking to have my face looked at by professionals, you know? I only went to school because I had to submit a paper due today. Don't want to risk failing. What about you? I didn't think you'd be in today," he added.
"Yeah, I grabbed some homework for me and Jonathan –" she abruptly cuts herself off with her voice trailing off after saying Jonathan's name.
Another cloud of silence hovered between the two. Max has never heard silence quite this loud.
"Well, nice to see you. C'mon Steve," Max interrupts the two and pulls Steve along the hallway.
She doesn't even know if it's the right way but if Steve wants to get into an awkward conversation with Mike's sister, she does not want to be there. Steve offers a quick goodbye and she hears Nancy return it back. Steve looks like he's back to himself so she stops dragging him. They may have overshot a corner because he calls her to go back and take a right.
They take the right and she sees the sign that says 'Nurse's Office' on top of a white door at the end of the hall. They approach and Steve stops and gives her a look like asking for confirmation. He rolls her eyes at her as if saying We're already here we might as well. She pushes the door open with her free arm stepping inside before Steve does. The room was unremarkable. It had white walls with science-y posters you expect to see in a nurse's office. There's a nurse there who looks bored out of her mind until her eyes catch Steve's face and it widens.
"Oh my God, what happened to your face?" the nurse asks stepping away from her desk and making her way onto Steve pulling him to a nearby chair.
"Uh, the face is fine," he offers but the nurse doesn't seem convinced. "We're here about my– uh, Max's arm. She fell down her skateboard. Maybe there's some ice you can put at it or something? Max, show her your arm."
With another eye-roll, Max complies and the nurse looks it over. The nurse goes behind a partition in the room and drags Steve with her. She hears the nurse look for something and then she hears the sound of ice being scooped into a bag. The nurse comes back with an ice pack and places it over her arm.
"Take a seat over there and keep this steady here while I work on your brother, okay?" the nurse says.
Max doesn't get the chance to correct her. The nurse turns away quickly to walk back behind the partition with Steve. The nurse doesn't notice it but both her patients are blushing a little bit. She takes a seat next to this girl carrying a trumpet case with short blonde hair.
"Okay, your turn mister," the nurse calls out before she disappears behind the partition. Unless there's another person in there, she assumes that's directed at Steve.
Max cleaned up the wounds back in the Byers' house when they first came back from the tunnels and then Joyce patched him up in the kitchen after Will got settled in his room. She's glad someone else is having a look at it.
She can barely hear what's going on on the other side of the partition. Only muffled sounds. She assumes it's the standard question about what happened to his face but she made out a few words like 'this is gonna hurt', 'this might need some stitches', and 'dried blood on your scalp'. That last one almost seems like a question.
Shit, she curses herself. Steve got hit in the head with the plate. She doesn't remember cleaning that up. She hears an 'ow' from Steve and a 'be still' from the nurse on the other side. The nurse must be cleaning the one spot she missed. Has he been walking around with a busted head all day long?
"So, what are you in for?" trumpet girl asks Max.
"Skateboarding accident," Max replies not really wanting to talk with anyone.
"I didn't know Steve Harrington has a sister. I'm pretty sure he's an only child," trumpet girl says.
"I don't know. Do you know Steve?" Max answers back to hopefully avoid having to explain why she didn't correct the nurse.
Trumpet girl scoffs and answers, "Who doesn't know King Steve "The Hair" Harrington? He practically ran the school until last year when all his friends left him. I had history with him, you know."
This made Max turn her head towards the girl.
"Not history history. I mean history class. I sat behind him first period so I know he's an asshole," Trumpet girl kept talking rambling about bagels and calling him stupid and other insults.
Max is feeling something in her chest but she's not sure what it is. She only catches the last few sentences trumpet girl said, "Did he do that to you? Your arm, I mean. Did he break your skateboard too? He's terrorizing kids now. Jeez, how low can one person go?"
Oh, it's anger. Max is definitely feeling angry. Furious even. Who the hell does this lady think she is? She thinks Steve is an asshole? She thinks Steve did this to her? Steve, who took on monsters both literal and human just to keep her safe. Steve, who is one of the handfuls of people this entire town owe their lives to. Steve, who wanted to go round 2 in the parking lot earlier in a fight he'll lose for her sake. That Steve? The lion, the witch, and the audacity of this bitch.
She wanted to deck her. She can feel her knuckles tensing up. No. That's what Billy would do. He would resort to violence at a moment's notice. That's what Billy does and she wants no part of that. What's the opposite of what Billy would do? Steve. She's seen it yesterday in the house and today in the parking lot. He'll keep talking giving as good as he got and only resort to violence to defend themselves or others.
"How low can one person go? I'd say it's rambling to a middle-schooler in a nurse's office about a man who doesn't know she exists." Max says with a tranquil fury that terrified trumpet girl, "I got hurt and Steve took me here. He didn't break my board, he gave me tape to fix it. You think you know Steve because you had one class with him and he didn't pay attention to you? Cry me a river."
Trumpet girl's face fell and she looks visibly hurt and ashamed. "I'm sorry. I'm always putting my foot in my mouth. I don't know what happened. It's unfair of me to assume the worst." trumpet girl offers in a voice laced with guilt. "Maybe I can make it up to you? I can help you fix up your board? Three arms are better than one."
Max is tempted to say no. She still hasn't forgiven her. She's still kind of angry but Steve probably didn't think they'd get separated and she does need help with the board.
"Hold the board like this… " Max tells trumpet girl and they work on the board. Some time in between someone came over to pick up trumpet girl. Trumpet girl offered an apology again for having to go and for what she said earlier. Max nodded. She forgives but she doesn't forget. It's not even her she owes the apology to, it's to Steve.
Max doesn't know how long it took her but five minutes after she's done with her board she heard the nurse say to Steve, "You have your face messed up and your head busted open and the first thing you ask for is for your sister's arm. Not that her arm isn't important but I'd say your head trumps her arm. You're a good kid but you need to take care of yourself."
Both patients blush slightly again but neither corrected the nurse.
The nurse walks out of the partition first carrying some bandage and a small plastic jar of something. Steve follows and takes a seat across from her.
"All done with the ice pack?" the nurse asks not really expecting an answer so she continues, "I'm going to rub this here," opening the small plastic jar and slathering something on Max's arm. It felt cool. She then takes the bandage and closes the arm up and gives Steve the jar.
"Apply that if it starts to hurt or if she has to wash that arm. And here's some aspirin for you. For the pain," the nurse tells Steve.
Steve accepts both putting the jar in his pocket and drinking the pills he's given.
They thank the nurse and turn to leave. They look at each other after exiting the nurse's door. Steve pulls out the jar in his pocket and hands it to Max. Max shows him the newly fixed board and handed back the duct tape. They smile at each other and go back to the parking lot.
As they wordlessly exit to the parking lot, they both thought about family. His is non-existent while hers is the worst. So, when it's come to being mistakenly related to the other, I don't hate it, is what they both settled on.
Not that they'd tell the other that.