"And maybe, for that single moment, we escape the shadows of heroes outside us and enemies within us – and realize who we were born to be. After all, behind every shadow ever cast… is the light."
Wonder Woman (2006), Issue 10
"You kids just hang out here for a sec," Hopper mutters. "I'm just gonna – gonna go –"
Eleven watches Hopper mumble the end of his sentence, the words dribbling out of the corners of his mouth as he clambers out of the car and braces himself against the door. They are pulled over at a lookout, a smear of asphalt at the side of the highway like a mistake from a painter's brush and a dirt path with rusting handrails that winds down a rocky outcrop onto the beach below and a squat timber outhouse that perches on the ridge towards which Hopper now stumbles, his legs appearing as if they might give way from under him at any minute.
Strange, Eleven thinks. He had been acting strangely all morning. He had hardly seemed to awaken from his snoring slumber on the recliner and when he did he had been barely capable of speaking or moving or anything other than standing listlessly over the kitchen sink, an untouched mug of day-old coffee in his hand, staring out of the window at nothing in particular. He had been silent for the entire car ride, too, not bothering to turning on the radio, his hands resting motionless on the steering wheel and only occasionally jolting to life when the car began to veer off the asphalt and onto the pebbles lining the shoulder. Maybe he is just tired, she thinks. She had heard him and Joyce in the kitchenette, whispering to each other until the early hours of the morning when there had been a stifled laugh and a thud as the trailer door had shut and the sound of muffled footsteps stumbling on the damp earth disappearing into the distance.
She looks over at Max and sees her glance back at her before she returns to gazing out at the clouds that stand tall like great dark sentinels watching over them from the horizon. Wordlessly they decide to set off away from the door of the outhouse that Hopper had slammed shut behind him and that now rattles as he fiddles with the lock from the inside. They have hardly spoken since that early morning in Nevada when they had sat and watched the rising sun stain their world pink and red and brown and Max had turned her memories over in her hands, and they do not speak now as they meander side by side down the path and to the shore where the sea laps at the coarse grey sand. Gusts of wind whistle in from offshore and send drops of water spraying from the foaming crests of the waves, filling the air with the thick smell of salt and iodine.
As they step onto the beach Max stoops down and unlaces her sneakers, sliding them and her socks off until she is standing barefoot, wriggling her toes until they are buried in the sand. She peers out at the ocean as if looking for something hidden beneath the swell, the pale turquoise reflection of the roiling water staining the whites of her eyes.
"I've missed this, you know," Max says. Eleven can barely make out the sound of her voice over the rumbling of the wind and the waves and so she sidles closer until she can feel Max's sleeve brush against her arm as she shifts unsteadily in the sand.
"What?" Eleven says.
"The ocean," Max sighs. "It's been – it's been a while. You know. I guess I've missed it more than I thought."
"Oh."
"Did you guys ever go to the beach when you were in California?"
"Once," Eleven says. In her mind there are memories of one of the weekends just after they had moved to Lenora Hills, when she had still been filled with a naïve optimism about her new life and Joyce had driven them an hour or even more down to the shore even though there had been storm clouds looming over them in the sky. "But we had to leave because it started raining. And then Joy – I mean, Mom – she got really busy. And I had to catch up on school, so. You know."
"Yeah," Max says. "I know."
Eleven crouches down and takes a handful of sand and lets it run through her fingers, feeling it tickle her skin and wiping away the few grains that have stuck to the sweat on her palms against her shirt. When she stands up Max is still staring out at the ocean and Eleven recognizes the look on her face. It is the same one that she had seen illuminated by the morning redness in Nevada.
"We always used to get ice cream," she says.
"Ice cream?"
"Yeah. Whenever Mom took me to the beach, when we lived in San Diego. There was always this pink van parked right near the boardwalk. Mom would buy me a chocolate cone and then I would have to scarf it down while she chased the seagulls away from me. I used to – I used to think it was the best thing in the world."
Max closes her eyes and reaches for the scrunchie holding her ponytail together, tugging at it until the wisps of her red hair unfurl in the wind like the petals of a blooming flower. Eleven watches a stillness wash over her and for a moment it is as if she is standing there, too, an ice cream cone melting in her hand and the soles of her feet hot against the sunbaked concrete and the mewling of seabirds all around her. Then Max opens her eyes again and the vision dissipates and Eleven can feel the wind tugging at her clothes and smell the seagrass drying on the sand again.
"Sorry," Max says.
"For what?" Eleven says.
"I don't know. I guess – I guess it's all in the past. So, you know – I should –"
"Max."
"– get over it, you know, I don't – I shouldn't –"
"Max."
"Sorry."
"You don't have to apologize," Eleven says. She tries to put on a look that she hopes is reassuring. "She'll always be there. In your heart. Remember?"
"Sorry – I just – sometimes I feel like I don't even know what's wrong with me –"
"Max. You don't have to apologize."
"Sorry."
"Max."
"Okay," Max says. She lets out a stifled laugh, her lips forming a quivering smile. "Okay, El."
Eleven watches Max turn her head to look at her. She feels her gaze wander into her eyes, still the same familiar color of the cornflowers that grew wild in the scrapyard outside Hawkins, even in the feeble gray light that filters through the clouds and with the reflections of the waves dancing in them. It is as if all the colors of her memories of that place to which she knows she will never return glimmer within her irises. The thought makes a feeling stir in Eleven, something deep within the pit of her stomach that she had been trying to keep bottled up that morning when they had sat watching the sunrise and basking in the warmth of their closeness but that now claws at her insides. Something that had been bubbling up within her ever since she had stopped that skateboard with her foot and looked up to see those same eyes looking back at her. Something that now seems ready to boil over.
You have to tell her, a voice in her head says. She cannot tell if it is her own. She's waiting for you. But she is struck with the terror of not knowing what to say, of not knowing where to even begin. What did they always say on the television? What were you meant to say when you confessed your love for someone? She thinks about the shows she had watched in Hopper's cabin again, images of moonlit plateaus and stars glittering in the sky and tropical paradise with sunsets the color of wildfires flashing before her eyes. Maybe that is supposed to make it easier, she thinks. Maybe it was just easier to tell someone how you felt when the whole world seemed lit up just for the occasion. And when Eleven looks around her all she can see is a piece of driftwood bobbing up and down in the shallow water near the shore before it is swallowed up by a wave and carried back out to sea by the undertow and a few sandpipers that dart back and forth along the shoreline trying to avoid the same fate.
"Max," Eleven finally says.
"Yeah?"
"I – I –"
"Everything okay, El?"
Eleven opens her mouth to speak again but all she can manage is a wordless breathlessness as she feels her heart thrashing in her chest and the heat rising in her cheeks and a tremor beginning to grow in her limbs. In the few seconds of silence that pass between them it is as if suddenly she finds herself standing at the mouth of a great river, her past receding behind her in a series of streams and brooks and creeks that disappear into the tall grass and the bullrushes, the open sea before her beckoning her with the cool water that bubbles at her feet. And she knows that she cannot wade back upstream, that she cannot fight the current that has carried her for her entire life, bringing her back, back, back to this place, that her only choice is to swim beyond where the waves break and to dive beneath the surface of the featureless, infinite blue. And so she shuts her eyes and leans in, inching closer and closer, the distance an aching chasm, until finally she feels Max's lips brush against her own.
She lingers for barely more than a moment but all the same the inevitable march of time seems to grind to a halt, the world around her disintegrating into nothingness save for the faint taste of lip balm and droplets of saltwater on Max's lips and the feeling of locks of her hair brushing against her tingling cheeks and the mournful calls of cormorants in the distance and the sound of seagulls wading in the water and a car screeching along the highway above them. When Eleven pulls away and finally dares to open her eyes again she sees Max looking back at her with a startled expression on her face, her brows arched and forming deep creases on her forehead, her eyes open wide and marble-white, her mouth hanging slightly open as if she had been caught gasping for breath. What have you done? a voice in her head says. Again she is not sure if it is her own. The heat that had been building in her cheeks now vanishes and a sudden chill worms its way up from her stomach and radiates across her chest, the saltwater spray now seeming to soak through her clothes and beneath her skin and into her bones, the sand steadily consuming her feet. What have you done? The voices grow into a chorus. What have you done?
"I'm – I'm sorry," Eleven stammers. "I –"
"El," Max says.
"I'm so sorry, Max, I just –"
"El."
"It was stupid, I'm stupid, I'm sorry, I just –"
Eleven feels Max give her arm a gentle squeeze. When she glances up she sees that all of the shock has vanished from Max's face and in its place there is a tender smile and cheeks that seem to glow pink and a glimmer in her eyes, those eyes that she could lose herself in forever, even now if it weren't for her thudding heart and her quivering legs and the tightness in her throat that leaves her struggling to breathe.
"You – you don't need to apologize," Max says. She reaches out and wipes away a tear from the side of Eleven's face that she had not even realized was there. "Did you – did you mean that?"
"Mean – that?" Eleven whimpers. Her mind is a jumbled mess of incomprehensible thoughts that make it hard for her to even hear what Max has said, let alone decipher what she means.
"I mean – did you mean to – to do that? To kiss me?"
Eleven pauses. Everything had happened so suddenly – one moment she had been sitting in the back of Hopper's car, trying to figure out what was wrong with him, and then she had found herself standing on the beach staring out at the ocean, and now she is looking back at Max, her stomach twisting itself into knots, everything seeming to move in fast-forward as if to make up for lost time. It is as if it had all been just a dream from which she has suddenly snapped awake. She nods, feeling her head list heavily back and forth, as if threatening to drift back to sleep.
Eleven sees tears well up in Max's eyes, tiny shimmering droplets that hang in their corners for just a fleeting moment before they cascade down her face and leave glistening streaks along the freckles on her cheeks. But she is smiling, Eleven thinks. She is still smiling. Eleven feels Max wrap her arms around her neck and pull her in until she can feel the warmth of Max's breath against her nose and the texture of the knit of her sweater pressing against her skin and she can make out a speck of sleep that clings to the side of her face. Soon her lips are pressed against Max's again and as her eyelids flutter she can feel something else there, something other than the drumming of her heartbeat and the usual fear. There is a giddiness that sparkles within her, an unfamiliar joy that makes her beam as she pulls away from Max again and giggle as she leans her head against Max's shoulder.
"El," Max whispers.
"Yes?"
"Do you – you know."
"Do I what?"
"Do you, I don't know. Like, like me?"
"Like you?"
"Yeah, you know. Like more than friends."
Like more than friends, Eleven thinks. She stands back upright and when she looks at Max it takes every bit of strength she can muster to keep her from kissing her again. Yes, she thinks. Ever since that day on Cherry Lane. Ever since we went shopping and you told me I had to figure out what I liked. Not Mike. Not Hopper. Me. Even when we thought One had taken you. "Yes," she says. "Yes."
"Me too," Max stutters. "I mean – I mean, I feel the same way. I mean, God, I don't know. You know what I mean."
Max's eyes fall to the sand beneath her feet, darting around and looking in every direction expect up and back at Eleven, desperately searching for something to latch onto. Eleven has never seen her this flustered, she thinks. It is almost strange to see the usual confidence melt away and to hear the voice that had been accustomed to turning grown adults into quavering messes stammer and trip over itself trying unsuccessfully to find the right things to say. And then it occurs to Eleven that it is all because of her and the giddy feeling intensifies, sending a warmth erupting through her body like a burst of sunlight emerging from behind the clouds, igniting the kindling that had been lying dormant within her soul ever since she had been born.
"Max," Eleven says.
"Yeah?"
"I –"
I – I – I –. The familiar words reverberate in her head. But even as she tries to speak them she cannot, as if the sound of them is not enough to convey what she means, as if there is no language that could capture what she feels. There had always been so much to say but no words with which to say any of it. She pauses for just long enough to be interrupted by a slamming door and the jangling of a lock and Hopper's husky voice booming from the clifftop. "El? Max?" he calls out.
"Shit," Max mutters. She drops her arms back to her sides and Eleven can feel the cold against the skin at the nape of her neck where her embrace had been. They take a few steps back and see Hopper standing directly above them, one hand on his forehead shielding his eyes from the non-existent glare, looking out at the sea. His other hand grasps the wooden railing at the edge of the cliff and even from where they are standing Eleven can see his arm tense as he keeps himself from almost toppling over. "We're down here," Max calls back.
"Come on," Hopper says, looking down on them and seeming almost to run out of breath before he can issue the command. "We'd better catch up to the others."
Eleven feels Max rest a hand on her shoulder as she balances on one leg, sliding her feet back into her shoes without bothering to put her socks back on. "We'd better get going," Max says, rolling her eyes and muffling a giggle. "Hey," she says. "What were you going to say?"
"What?"
"You were going to say something. You know, before Hopper –"
"Oh," Eleven says. She runs her fingers through her hair and fishes out a dead leaf that had been left tangled in it by the breeze. I love you, she thinks. I love you, Max. But then she glances up and sees Hopper still standing there, his hands now resting on his hips expectantly. "I –" she stutters. "Nothing. Nothing."
Max looks back at her with a quizzical expression but she does not ask again and soon enough they begin to trudge back up the hill and to the car where Hopper is already sitting in the driver's seat, his window wound down and an unlit cigarette dangling from his fingers. Just as she is about to clamber inside Eleven turns around and looks back down at the beach. Their footprints have already disappeared, swallowed up by the tide or eaten away by the wind.
"You coming El?" Hopper says.
"Yes," Eleven says.
The engine snarls to life and soon they are on the road again, sitting together in the same odd silence until Hopper finally finds the strength to fiddle with the radio knob and an old song that Eleven does not recognize crackles through the speakers. Through the rear window the lookout and the outhouse and the beach recede into the distance, growing smaller and smaller until they reach the crest of the hill that they had been climbing and it all disappears from view. Eleven turns to look at Max, her red hair tossed by the gusts that still whistle outside now hanging messily over her shoulders, the dim light illuminating a few stray strands that stick upright and wave about with the movement of the car. For a moment she seems to lock eyes with Max's reflection in the glass and she sees a small smile emerge almost imperceptibly on her face. In time she would find the words to say. But perhaps for now it does not matter. Perhaps just being there with her is enough. In the distance along the horizon there is a break in the clouds revealing a pale blue sky, rays of sun piercing through and casting a mottled light on a patch of ocean beyond where the waves break and crash along the shore.