"I just want to stay here for a while."

Wonder Woman, Issue 614

The world outside the car window is an endless expanse of different shades of green, all fading into browns and sepia tones with the cooling temperatures of fall. From time to time, they pass by windrows of cut grass snaking across the earth, left to dry out in the sun in preparation for winter, and by groups of cattle grazing on open fields or huddled together in the shade of the oak trees that jut out from the landscape as if in defiance against the flat uniformity of the surrounding farmland.

Eleven and Max had started the journey from the RV park counting all of the animals that they passed, but after an hour they had realized that they were too numerous to keep track of and that the novelty had worn off. Now the only markers of time and space are the billboards erected at regular intervals along the side of the highway, casting long, rectangular shadows over them as they pass underneath like ants scurrying about on concrete hoping to escape the attention of giants looming above.

Hopper's plan – the plan that he had spent almost all of his waking hours during the previous day devising – had been foiled before he had even had the chance to put his keys in the ignition, first by Steve who, having slept through his alarm, had greeted Hopper when he had pounded on his door with his hair flopped over his forehead so that it covered his eyes while Robin and Vickie sat outside in quiet amazement that neither of them had managed to rouse him from his hibernation with their early morning chatter that had been made all the more animated by the drunkenness of the remnants of sleep; and then by Joyce, who had lost her wallet and sent everyone pacing about the remnants of the campfire, periodically bending down and peering into the grass like chickens feeding on scattered corn, before it had finally reappeared, wrapped up in a pair of pajama pants. And so Hopper, standing at the picnic table as if he were a Roman consul addressing his fellow countrymen, had announced that he was giving up and that they were just going to drive west along Highway 80 as far as they could until the sun went down. The other parents had applauded and then grinned at each other once he had turned his back.

As far as Eleven could tell, Hopper had not minded all that much. Once they had pulled back onto the highway, he had begun to work on his project of making ham-fisted attempts at conversation with Max; him saying, "So, how did you girls sleep last night?" in the strained nasal tenor that Eleven had recognized as the tone he would use to push through sentences that made him uncomfortable, and Max responding, "I don't know, that's kind of a weird thing to ask," and Hopper laughing that she and Eleven were killing him, and Max rolling her eyes and doing her best to maintain a frown before the crinkles forming at the corners of her eyes had betrayed her. After a handful more stilted questions and confounding responses, he had given up and started singing along to the old rock songs playing on the radio; quietly and under his breath at first, before gradually increasing in volume and confidence until Eleven and Max had yelled at him to stop, which only intensified the passion with which he strained his vocal cords in vain attempts to reach notes that were clearly beyond him. Eventually, Max had been left with no choice but to take the cassette player out of her backpack and place the headphones over her ears, leaving Eleven to endure the punishment for their collective insolence alone. And though she had turned away, Eleven knew from the way she was sitting – with her elbow propped up against the window and her chin resting on her palm – that Max was smiling, too.

She had felt as if she had been dropped into one of the programs that had she had seen on the television while attempting to amuse herself back in the old wooden cabin, in the countless hours that would stretch on and on after Hopper would leave for the day. It was one of those shows where a family – a father who Eleven thought wore glasses although she was not sure, a mother with a head of golden hair that sometimes appeared white under the studio lights, two or perhaps three children, one of whom Eleven thought looked uncannily like Steve – would argue and bicker for twenty minutes before inevitably reconciling, each person having discovered something about themselves that made them a little wiser or more self-assured but otherwise remaining mostly unchanged. They were the sorts of arguments, Eleven had come to realize, that arose not out of the genuine anger or frustration or disappointment that she had been met with before she had been discovered in the woods outside Hawkins, but out of familiarity with the thousands of quirks and annoyances that individually would be barely tolerable but that together were transformed by the forced proximity of family life into the shape of somebody beloved.

Family, Eleven thinks. She traces the shape of the word with her lips.

They had driven out of the range of the radio station they had been tuned into about a half hour ago, and Hopper had fiddled with the tuner only to come up with static or songs that he either did not recognize or did not care for. Eventually they had settled into a sort of comfortable silence, the sort that arises between people who are left to wander about their own little worlds, tethered to one other by their consciousness of each other's presence.

Hopper's eyes are lost in the endless stretch of highway before him. Max is still listening to her music, staring at a tear in the fabric of the seat in front of her. Eleven sits and listens to the hum of the wheels as they glide along the asphalt beneath them, fragments of conversations fading in and out of her head. Oh, Lucas says I need to talk to you, she hears Max say. You need to talk to her, Jane, Mike says. We'd better get going. I've seen Mike eat. Don't you knock, jeez. We'd better get going, kid. We were worried about you, that's all. Things will be okay, right, El? She is barely able to make out where one sentence ends and the next one begins, the voices building and building until they grow into a chorus of murmurs and whispers and shouts.

And then Eleven is falling, adrift in space, left to desperately grasp at the tethers that keep her moored to the back seat of the car, to do or to say something – anything – to make sure that they are still there. She taps Max on the shoulder and when she turns to face her Eleven realizes that she has not even thought of what to say.

"What – what are you listening to?" she finally stammers.

"What?" Max says. She blinks as if she has just awoken from a daze.

"What are you listening to?"

"Oh."

Max hits a button on her cassette player and removes the headphones from her head, letting them hang around her neck. She reaches into the pocket of her jacket and pulls out an empty tape box. On its cover there is a picture of woman lying in a field of purple, her hair sticking upright as if she has been caught in a storm. She has two brown dogs wrapped around her arms and one has its snout buried into the crook of her neck.

"Still good old Kate Bush," Max says. "Haven't really had the time to check out anything new, you know?"

"Oh," Eleven says. "Sorry."

"For what?"

"About you not having the time."

"Oh. It's not like that's your fault, El." Max offers her a small smile and Eleven feels herself settle back into the car seat, her own weight returning to her.

"I know. But I'm still sorry."

"Besides, I still like her music. Have you listened to her?"

"No."

"Then what do you like?"

"What do I like?"

"Don't tell me all you listen to is whatever old man music Hopper finds on the radio."

Hopper turns his head to interject but he is interrupted by another car swerving into the lane in front of him and by the time he has finished yelling and honking the horn he has forgotten what he had to say.

"I don't know," Eleven says.

"Here. Listen."

Max fiddles with the buttons on the cassette player and Eleven can hear the whine of the tape being wound one way and then the other before it stops with a click. She hands the headphones over to Eleven and cups her hands over her own ears, gesturing for Eleven to put them on.

"This one's my favorite," Max says.

She presses play and a man's voice crackles to life. It's in the trees – it's coming, he says. And then the music starts and Eleven is awash with a palette of blues and purples and reds.

"Pretty cool, right?" Eleven hears Max say.

She nods her head. Without thinking, she closes her eyes and before her she sees blinking fluorescent lights and the shade of indoor palms and a hundred different patterns printed on fabric hanging on mannequins behind glass. She hears voices and conversations echoing around her, each indistinct but contributing to a low, enthusiastic murmur that from time to time is punctuated by a scream of excitement. There is the pitter-patter of rubber soles on ceramic tiles and the smell of frying oil and cinnamon and air freshener and new clothes.

Eleven does not know how much time has passed by the time she hears the music fade out and she hits the same button she had seen Max press earlier.

"Cool, right?" Max says.

"Yes," Eleven says.

"Did you like it?"

"I did. It's pretty." Eleven moves to hand the headphones back to Max.

"Why don't you keep listening?" Max says, yawning. "I think I'm gonna take a nap."

"Okay," Eleven says.

"I mean, only if you want to. It's okay, I'm not going to be offended if you don't."

"It's okay. I want to."

"Cool. If you rewind back to the start you can hear the whole album."

Max watches Eleven fumble about with the cassette player, examining the buttons as if they were symbols from an ancient language. "Here," she says. She reaches over and takes it from her, rewinding the tape and listening to it whir until it stops. She presses play and hears a familiar drum beat spill out from the side of the headphones covering Eleven's ears. It is a rhythm that she has not heard since the time her world had gone dark, other than in tiny snippets that would slip through when she would forget to fast-forward the tape to the next track. It is barely audible over the sounds of the engine and the cars rushing past them and Hopper breathing, but it is unmistakable all the same. She sinks her head into the headrest, sending up a cloud of dust into the air that tickles her nostrils. She shuts her eyes and feels the warmth of the sun against her skin, seeing the red glow behind her eyelids, interrupted from time to time by seconds of darkness as they pass under billboards and overpasses and when they are driving in the shadows cast by the trucks roaring alongside them.

A few minutes pass before she feels a dull ache at the base of her spine and she shifts in her seat. A small crack emerges between her eyelids that only she is able to perceive. It is just enough to allow her to turn her head and watch Eleven sitting beside her against the backdrop of endless green and brown outside, gently bobbing her head up and down to the music in her ears.

The silence in the clearing where the caravan from Hawkins is parked is broken by the sound of Robin's voice, still hoarse from the coughing fit she had endured after Steve had abruptly slammed on the brakes and sent a mouthful of water down her windpipe.

"Look, I'm not saying I don't like Fast Times, I'm just saying that the characters in The Breakfast Club are way more relatable, you know?" she says, stepping out of the motorhome. She turns her head to look at someone behind her and almost trips on a small stone. "Like, I know Allison's meant to be all weird and unlikeable, but like, slurping Coke off a library desk in front of all your classmates? That's ten times more personality than anyone in Fast Times has –"

"– and I'm not saying I don't like The Breakfast Club," Vickie says, following her outside. "But come on Robin, when's the last time you watched a movie and there was a story about someone's first time and it wasn't some, like, lovey dovey oh I love you honey oh I love you so much too bullshit, huh? The whole Stacy story is like, the voice of our generation –"

"– but that's my point, Vick, like, the whole movie sets you up to believe that you shouldn't expect any better because they're all just dumb teenagers, but all of the people in The Breakfast Club are so much more than anyone expects them to be and just you wait and see, that's going to hold up way better in twenty years when everyone's forgotten about that scene where Phoebe –"

"I dunno, Robin," Vickie says, kicking at the dirt. "You might have to wait and see with someone else."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, Rob, not thinking Fast Times is like, the best movie ever is a total dealbreaker. I think I'm going to have to break up with you."

"Only if I don't break up with you first."

Robin puts an arm around Vickie's waist and watches the wrinkles form at the bridge of her nose as she starts to giggle. Vickie lets herself hang limp, tilting her head back and shutting her eyes, feeling her hair, turned auburn in the dim shafts of late afternoon light that weave through the leaves of the trees above them, brush against Robin's skin. The sudden weight surprises Robin and she is almost dragged to the ground before she manages to find her balance and prop Vickie up. For a moment that seems to stretch on for hours they remain transfixed, before Vickie finally opens her eyes, seeing the world flipped upside-down and Max, sitting cross-legged on a nearby bench, looking back at her.

"Hey," Max says.

"Uh, hey," Vickie says. She hauls herself back onto her feet and untangles herself from Robin's arms, feeling the blood draining from her head. Max watches as her eyes slowly glaze over, the cobalt blue of her irises becoming lost in a growing sea of white. Once she has found her balance again, Vickie remains perfectly still, looking at Max with the expression of a wild animal started by a sudden noise, its paw hovering an inch above the ground, not daring to take another step lest it inadvertently draw attention to itself.

"Only if I don't break, uh, your nose first," Robin says, breaking the standoff. She holds her fists up in front of her face and adopts a stance that Max thinks is supposed to be an impersonation of a boxer in the ring. "Sorry, just, uhm – very passionate about movies, you know?"

"I thought you'd be with the others," Vickie says.

"My legs have been killing me," Max says, uncrossing them and letting them dangle off the side of the bench. "Didn't think hiking up a hill would be the best idea."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"What – what are you doing?" Robin says. She gives up on her charade, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans and rocking back and forth on her heels. Max looks at her, down at the book sitting in her lap, and then back at her again, before shrugging her shoulders.

"Is El with you?" Vickie says. Max watches Robin silently mouth a word to Vickie under her breath.

"What is this, some kind of interrogation?" Max says. The words bubble up from her chest and she tries to hold them back before they burst through her pursed lips anyway. There is a venom to them that she does not intend.

"No – what?" Vickie says, looking back at Robin. "You know what, just forget about it."

Max feels a moment of unstable silence linger in the air, as if in anticipation of words that have been left unsaid.

"I mean, she offered to stay," she says. "But I was just going to read, anyway. Besides, we'll be seeing each other plenty in the back of Hop's car."

"Oh. Well, okay then," Robin says. She forces her lips into something resembling a smile.

"Anything else?" Max says.

"Uh –"

"Nope, just thought we'd check you were okay," Vickie interjects, taking Robin by the arm and beginning to lead her back to their RV.

"Why do you ask?" Max calls after them. By the time she does, they have already disappeared back into the motorhome and shut the door behind them. For a moment, Max can hear their muffled voices and see their silhouettes projected onto the roller blind drawn over the window. They gesticulate to each other like shadow puppets before they suddenly freeze and then disappear behind the aluminum walls of the motorhome.

It is another half hour before Max sees Eleven returning along the trail leading from the rest stop into the woods. Soon, she is joined by Mike chasing Will with a branch while Lucas and Dustin watch on, chiding them for acting like children. Their parents waddle behind them and Max watches Mr Wheeler screw the top off a bottle of water and tip its contents into his mouth, streams of water dribbling out of the corners of his lips and trickling down his chin and onto his shirt.

"How was it?" Max says when Eleven is close enough to hear her.

"Tiring," Eleven says. She rolls down her shirt sleeve and uses it to wipe a bead of sweat running down the side of her face.

"Was it far?"

"No. But the hill is taller than it looked from the car."

They watch the boys for a moment, now huddled together and so engrossed in their conversation that they do not hear their parents calling for them to get ready to leave.

"I told you having to talk to the boys for an hour would suck," Max says. She watches a small smile emerge on Eleven's face.

"I didn't really have to talk to them," Eleven says.

"What do you mean?"

Eleven fishes the cassette player out of her backpack and hands it back to Max.

"I got to the end but then I started over," Eleven says.

By the time they pull out from the rest stop the sky has been painted with oranges and reds and pinks. The colors have been drained from the landscape by the low light of dusk and now the highway is lined on either side with the dark shapes of trees. There are a few lingering fragments of cloud and through the windscreen they look like freckles on the forehead of the sun as it disappears below the horizon.

For a moment, they return to the routine they had attempted at the start of the day; Hopper asking Max how her legs are feeling and Max saying that she is fine and looking to Eleven who looks back at her with a face full of concern. Soon, though, Hopper's attention is diverted to scanning the sides of the highway for a suitable place to stop for the night and Eleven drifts off to sleep, her cheek pressed against the window and condensation forming at the spot where her breath meets the glass. There is no sound but the purring of the car engine and Hopper tapping his fingers on the steering wheel and Eleven occasionally shifting in her seat. And although they settle back into their contented silence, Max feels that familiar rhythm pulsing in her chest and the music ringing in her ears.