Chapter Text
The summer before freshman year had the kind of heat that stuck to you like a dare. It wasn’t just hot—it was stubborn, the kind that made the asphalt sweat and the air hum. Hawkins wasn’t a big town, but in the middle of July it felt like one endless oven, cicadas sawing away as if their lives depended on making the noise louder than yesterday. By nine in the morning, the streets rippled in waves, each block shimmering like it might melt away if you stared at it too long.
Steve Harrington didn’t fight it. He told himself he didn’t fight anything, really. That was his style back then—half-bored, half-smug, leaning into whatever was happening because admitting it got to him would be the same as letting it win. So he rode his bike the way he always did, elbows hooked over the handlebars, hair pushed back with more stubbornness than actual product, coasting lazily down roads he could travel blindfolded.
Hawkins was small enough to memorize and boring enough to want to forget, but it was his. Every shortcut, every crack in the pavement belonged to him in a way that made the town feel like a map carved into his own skin. There was the dip outside the school that could rattle your back tire if you hit it too fast, the curve at Cherry Lane where you could catch speed if you leaned just right, and the stretch past Maple where the sidewalks always buckled after winter. He knew all of it. And yet, riding those loops felt less like freedom and more like repetition.
But it wasn’t really about the streets. It was about the people who waited at the end of them.
Tommy Hagan’s driveway was their usual first stop, cluttered with bikes sprawled out like bodies after a war. From there, the orbit spread outward—to Carol Perkins’s back porch, where she’d sprawl in the sun like she owned it, Coke can sweating in her hand, sunglasses tipped down so she could roll her eyes at both of them. And then, maybe the most important landmark of all: the rec center. More specifically, the sagging hoop out back, where the net had been zip ties longer than anyone could remember. That was sacred ground.
Together, the three of them moved in loops of their own, lazy but loyal. Steve never had to call ahead. He’d show up, and there they were—automatic, expected, reliable as the heat itself. If they weren’t already waiting, they’d meet him halfway, laughter echoing down cracked sidewalks.
Tommy was louder in summer, like the heat turned his volume up without asking. His laugh carried over hedges, his voice cracked mid-story but never slowed down. Even the slap of his sneakers against the pavement sounded like it wanted attention. Carol, on the other hand, seemed immune to the heat altogether. She wore it like she’d ordered it special. Her hair caught every beam of sun, her legs stretched out like advertisements, and her Coke can never seemed to run dry no matter how long it dripped condensation.
Steve loved it. The predictability. The ease. They didn’t need reasons to hang out; it was just what they did, the way Hawkins kids had always done—driveways, porches, the pool, the court. The same handful of spots, the same orbit.
But on days when the sun felt like it was pressing the whole town into the ground, Steve caught himself wondering if this orbit was too small. He’d ride the loops and feel that restless hum in his chest, like cicadas under his skin.
One pool day, chlorine clinging to his skin and eyes still burning, Steve felt the first flicker of doubt. By then it was already late July, the kind of heat that made the pool water feel less like relief and more like lukewarm soup. They’d been running the same routine for a month now—sleep late, bikes to the pool, fries at the snack bar, maybe the rec center court if the pavement cooled enough by evening. The days blurred into each other like a record looping the same track.
Tommy splashed Carol, full force to the face, and crowed when she shrieked. She retaliated instantly, shoving him under until bubbles roared to the surface. Steve watched them, laughing along, but the sound felt distant in his own ears. He treaded water, blinking against the sting of chlorine, and wondered, uninvited, what if this didn’t last forever? What if it couldn’t?
He dove under, tried to drown the thought in the muffled silence below, but it followed him up again when he gasped for air. By the time Tommy was back on his feet, slick hair plastered to his forehead, Steve was already retreating to the edge, hoisting himself onto the concrete.
Later, stretched flat on his back with his arms splayed wide, the sun baked his chest and shoulders until the heat felt stitched into his skin. Above him, the sky was a flat, endless blue, blank as paper, daring him to blink first. He traced the lines of it, corner to corner, and felt the town close in around him.
The snack bar always smelled like fryer oil and damp towels, like salt and chlorine clinging to everything. Steve leaned on the counter, still dripping, hair spiked stiff from chlorine, while Tommy tore into his latest saga about the arcade.
“I’m telling you, Harrington, I had him trapped in the corner—Blanka versus Ken, total annihilation,” Tommy said, fries flying as much as words. His voice carried, loud enough that a couple younger kids in line shifted uncomfortably, but Tommy didn’t notice. Or didn’t care.
“You didn’t let him win?” Steve asked, stealing a fry before Tommy swatted his hand away. He asked it lightly, but the thought lingered—because the kid Tommy bragged about beating had probably been twelve, nervous, just looking for fun.
“That’s not how the world works, man.” Tommy grinned wide, greasy salt shining on his fingers. “You crush them early, they don’t get delusions of grandeur.”
Carol, stretched sideways on the sun-bleached bench with her sunglasses sliding low, gave a lazy sip of New Coke before adding, “And here I thought you were just a jerk.” Her tone was sharp, not teasing, like a blade with sugar on the edge.
Steve smirked back, habit more than amusement, but his eyes slid past them, out to the road shimmering beyond the chain-link fence. Tommy kept talking, louder, throwing around the word “loser” like it was confetti. Carol laughed at the punchlines, sharp and practiced.
Steve let it wash over him. To him, it was just Tommy being Tommy, Carol being Carol.
And then, suddenly, it wasn’t Hawkins at all.
The trip to Monte Carlo was last-minute. His parents came back from a business dinner murmuring about “showing face” and “networking opportunities.” The phrases didn’t mean anything to Steve, except that he should pack a bag. Two days later, he was in a pressed polo shirt he hadn’t chosen, blinking under the Mediterranean sun while his mother air-kissed strangers and his father talked over champagne glasses.
No one asked if he wanted to go. He hadn’t even unpacked from the pool days. It was better than being left behind—barely.
The whole trip was appointments and handshakes, dinners that dragged into the night, his father smiling that tight smile he used for people who mattered, his mother dazzling in silk and pearls, sharp-eyed, her laugh like a weapon she could point where she pleased. Steve was a set piece: the well-groomed son, quiet, polite, smiling when introduced.
“We’re making connections,” his mother said the first time he asked if they could just take one day to go to the beach. She smoothed a gloved hand down his sleeve, not even looking at him. “This is important.”
Important to her. To her name. To her climb into rooms like this. He was a piece of furniture she could gesture at: My son, bright and promising. It was all rehearsed.
The city itself was beautiful, too beautiful in a way that made Steve itch. Pale stone buildings that caught the light and shimmered; narrow streets like veins carrying people with accents and pressed suits. Even the water seemed different, impossibly blue, like someone had painted it fresh that morning.
But none of it felt like his.
The second evening, while his parents sat at a dinner they called essential, Steve slipped out of the hotel. No one noticed. No one ever did.
He walked without a plan. The air smelled like salt and something sweeter—flowers maybe, or perfume spilled in the breeze. He passed shops with gleaming windows full of things he couldn’t imagine anyone actually buying: jeweled watches, shoes lined in velvet, cologne bottles shaped like art. He passed cafés with metal tables and chairs where people smoked like it was their job and spoke in French that slid past his ears like music he couldn’t follow.
Steve ducked into one of those cafés, more because his feet hurt than anything else. He ordered a Coke in halting English, got something that tasted almost right but sharper, and sat back to watch.
It was loud, but a different kind of loud than Hawkins. Not kids shouting at the pool, not cicadas filling the silence. This was layers of conversation, spoons against cups, a scooter revving and then disappearing. He liked it and hated it at once.
He pulled the clipping of the Hawkins Post basketball story from his pocket—creased now, carried out of habit. He smoothed it flat on the table, staring at faces he knew weren’t his but might be, someday. The hum of French words buzzed around him, and he thought about how far Hawkins was, how tiny, how easy to forget in a place like this.
The next afternoon, his mother dragged him to a tea party. Not the kind with mismatched mugs and cookies from a tin—this was lace gloves, porcelain cups so thin you could see light through them, pastries cut into shapes like they were auditioning for a magazine spread. The women sat in a circle of parasols, their voices bright and sharp, each story layered with competition.
Steve sat at a smaller table with other kids. Suits, dresses, expensive shoes scuffing against marble tile. He didn’t remember their names—some double-barreled, some French, some English. They asked where he was from, and when he said Indiana, they nodded politely, then looked past him like he was furniture too.
A girl with perfect posture asked what school he would attend.
“Hawkins High,” Steve said.
She tilted her head, waiting for him to add something more, like boarding school in Switzerland or academy in New York. When he didn’t, she smiled thinly and sipped her tea.
They talked about summer trips—Greece, Paris, a yacht in Italy. He thought about the cracked concrete behind the Hawkins rec center, the zip-tied basketball net, Tommy’s laughter bouncing off chain-link. He thought about Carol stretched out in her backyard, sunglasses catching the sun. And he didn’t say any of it.
He sat there, nodding, pretending the tea didn’t taste bitter, waiting for it to be over.
That night, his father leaned back in the hotel armchair, tie loosened, drink in hand, and said, “Good job today, son. You made an impression.”
“On who?” Steve asked before he could stop himself.
His dad’s brows lifted, just slightly, like Steve had missed the point. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is that they saw us. The Harringtons. That’s how you climb.”
His mom’s reflection shimmered in the mirror as she smoothed cold cream over her face. “Yes, darling. It’s all about being seen.”
Steve didn’t answer. He couldn’t say what he was thinking: that he felt invisible even when they were parading him around.
The meetings continued. Dinners stretched past midnight. One morning, they left him at the hotel entirely, another “can’t-miss meeting.” Steve walked the streets again. He watched tourists spill into shops, kids run ahead of their parents, street performers juggling in the heat. He bought a pastry from a vendor and ate it leaning against a stone wall, powdered sugar sticking to his fingers.
He liked the city more when it wasn’t filtered through handshakes and small talk. When it was just noise and color and strangers. He liked the way you could walk down one street and see water stretching forever, then turn a corner and be swallowed by stone alleys too narrow for cars.
But every time he stopped moving, the same thought crept back: it wasn’t his. He was a visitor. A prop. Tomorrow or next week, he’d be back in Hawkins, back in his loop.
And yet, even in Monte Carlo, even with the endless blue water and the cafes and the polished strangers, the itch stayed. The one that whispered Hawkins was too small, but he was still too small for anywhere else.
Tommy came back tan, louder than usual, like the city had wound him up and set him loose. He straddled his bike in Steve’s driveway, one hand loose on the handlebars, already halfway through a story.
“Dude, my cousin lives in this place—Chicago, right? There’s like four pizza places on the same block. Four. All of ‘em better than that crap at Benny’s.” His voice jumped with each detail. “And get this—they got a train that runs underground. For people. Like a whole secret world down there.”
He mimed it with his hands, palms pushing downward, eyes wide like he was still a little amazed.
Carol rolled up next, sunglasses perched on top of her head, the glossy magazine she’d brought back from Florida tucked under one arm. She didn’t look impressed. “I spent two weeks in my uncle’s house where the pool was green half the time. Like swamp water.” She wrinkled her nose, flipping her hair off her shoulders. “And my aunt made me babysit these twins who only spoke in screams. Two of them. At once. It was like living in a horror movie.”
She let herself flop onto the curb, stretching her legs out across the pavement like she was claiming the whole block.
Steve leaned against his bike, arms crossed, waiting for the noise of both stories to fade. When Tommy finally took a breath, Steve dropped it casually: “Yeah? I was in France.”
That shut them up. Both turned, staring.
“Monte Carlo,” Steve added, as if that explained everything. “For my mom’s thing.”
Tommy let out a low whistle, eyebrows climbing. “Bet you didn’t have to clean a pool.”
“No,” Steve said, smirking. “Just had to wear loafers and shake hands with a guy named Jean-Claude.”
Carol sat up straighter, curiosity sharp under her sunglasses. “Fancy.”
Steve shrugged. “Didn’t feel like anything.”
That earned him another look—half skepticism, half disbelief. Tommy kicked at the pavement with his sneaker. “Come on, man. Monte Carlo? That’s, like, rich people James Bond stuff.”
Steve laughed, short and flat. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t exactly playing blackjack. Mom and Dad were busy the whole time. Meetings. Dinners. I was just… there.”
Carol tilted her head, lips quirking in that way she did when she thought someone was underselling themselves. “Still beats swamp twins.”
“Beats pizza too,” Tommy added, though the words came out grudgingly. He didn’t like losing one-upping rights.
Steve just smiled, letting them think what they wanted. They could imagine luxury, beaches, French accents. They didn’t need to know he’d spent more time wandering streets alone than with his parents. They didn’t need to know about the tea party with kids who’d looked right through him.
For Tommy and Carol, summer was something to brag about—war stories of pools and cousins and chaos. For Steve, it was something else. He had France in his back pocket now, sure. But the only part that stuck was the way it had felt the same as Hawkins in the end: like he was circling the edges of something bigger, never quite inside.
He pushed off his bike, standing straighter. “Anyway. School’s in a week. You ready?”
Tommy grinned, already bouncing back. “Please. Hawkins High isn’t ready for us.”
Carol smirked, tossing her magazine onto the pavement like it didn’t matter. “Let’s make it interesting this year.”
Steve didn’t answer right away. His eyes drifted toward the street, stretching out under the late-August sun. Bigger than Hawkins, bigger than Monte Carlo, bigger than all of it. He didn’t say it out loud, but the thought was still there: different was coming. Whether they were ready or not.
The envelope sat where he’d left it weeks ago, wedged under a stack of magazines on the kitchen counter. The corner had curled from the August humidity, the school crest stamped on the front like it was daring him to open it again.
Steve pulled it free, tossing the magazines aside, and carried it upstairs to his room. He’d already seen what was inside before France—the map, the schedule, the sheet about “academic pathways.” He’d skimmed it once, long enough for the words to blur and his chest to knot. Then he’d shoved it away.
But now, back from Monte Carlo, with the smell of his mom’s imported perfume still clinging faintly to his suitcase, it felt heavier. More official. Like something he couldn’t dodge anymore.
He dropped onto his desk chair, the envelope in his lap. His room was quiet—just the faint hum of the air conditioner and the cicadas sawing away outside. He slid the packet out, spreading the papers flat.
The map of Hawkins High looked like a maze drawn by somebody who wanted you to get lost. Rows of identical hallways, arrows pointing toward wings labeled in block letters: SCIENCE. MATH. ENGLISH. GYM. He traced the path from the main entrance to the gym with his finger. That part made sense. The rest looked like lines on a board game, the kind where you could end up stuck in a corner for three turns.
Next was the class schedule. Geometry, English I, Biology, World History. He slowed down, forcing the words to stay still under his eyes. He could make them out—letter by letter, sound by sound—but it felt like dragging his brain through mud.
He pushed the paper aside, jaw tight, and reached for the last sheet: “Academic Pathways at Hawkins High.” The glossy one. The one that made his stomach sink the first time he’d seen it.
Two columns. Two tracks.
Sports. Academics.
That was all it said, but that was enough.
It wasn’t official—no signature, no box to check. But everybody knew what it meant. You picked early. You got sorted. You couldn’t really do both.
Steve rubbed a hand over his face, staring at the sheet until the letters started to blur into shapes. Sports made sense. On the court, he knew what to do. He could grind it out. Run drills until his lungs burned, shoot until his arms ached, watch himself get sharper day by day. Work meant progress. Clear. Straightforward. No red pen hovering, no sigh from the front of the room, no whispered lazy when a grade came back lower than it should.
Academics were different. Academics meant reading. And reading meant disaster. The words slipped. Flipped. Tangled themselves into puzzles halfway through a sentence. He could spend twenty minutes on a paragraph and walk away with nothing but a headache. Teachers wrote the same things over and over: Bright but distracted. Smart, but not applying himself.
Steve knew he wasn’t lazy. He could run until his legs gave out, push himself harder than half the guys on the team. But when the words scrambled, when the page refused to sit still, it was like being locked out of a room everybody else had the key to.
His parents didn’t see it. Or maybe they chose not to.
His dad liked to talk about varsity, about how Harringtons “played to win.” At the club, he told people his boy would make the team as a freshman. He made it sound inevitable, like bloodlines and genetics guaranteed it.
His mom never asked about grades either. She only said “make us proud,” and he knew what that meant. Proud wasn’t a B on a history test. Proud was trophies, headlines, photos clipped from the Hawkins Post and passed around at cocktail parties.
He stared at the glossy sheet, fingers tapping the edge. Sports track meant doing what they expected. It meant being what they already thought he was.
But some part of him wanted more. Wanted to be more. He just didn’t know how. Not when “more” came wrapped in paragraphs that fought him every time he looked at them.
The paper blurred again. He pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes until stars popped. When he looked back down, the two columns were still there, still splitting him in half.
Sports. Academics.
Everybody else already thought they knew which side Steve Harrington belonged to.
But staring at the paper for the second time, he wasn’t sure he agreed.
The sun dropped slow behind the trees, painting the asphalt in long strips of shadow. Their last game ended when Tommy launched a three that clanged hard off the rim and bounced clear into the grass. Neither of them bothered to chase it. They just flopped down onto the bleachers, jerseys clinging to their skin, sweat drying tacky under the evening air.
Steve leaned forward, elbows on his knees, watching the orange glow fade at the edge of the court. His lungs had that pleasant ache, the kind that came after you pushed yourself just far enough to feel like you’d earned the night. The rhythm still lingered in his body—bounce, pass, shoot. It made sense. Every mistake had a reason. Every fix was clear.
But sitting still, the rhythm slipped.
The quiet crawled in. The buzz of cicadas. The smell of hot asphalt. The packet waiting on the kitchen counter.
He thought about the history page again, the one he’d wrestled with until the words blurred into a smear. How he’d whispered each sentence under his breath, finger pressed to the paper like dragging it along a line would force it to stick. And then his mom’s voice floating from the living room, casual as ever: Steve, be a dear and fetch my purse.
He’d dropped the pencil so fast it almost rolled off the desk. Grateful for the excuse. Relieved to quit.
The memory sat sour in his chest.
Tommy sprawled beside him, still catching his breath, grinning at the ceiling of sky like he’d just won something. Steve stayed quiet, jaw working, hands clasped tight between his knees. He hated that feeling—the small, sharp twist of quitting. He hated it more than the ache in his legs. More than losing.
He looked down at his palms, still rough from the ball. He knew how to fix things here. He could run another drill. Take another shot. Work until it worked. But with those pages? He couldn’t even figure out where to start.
The cicadas kept sawing. The shadows stretched. And Steve said nothing.
The August grass in Carol’s backyard was patchy, sunburned in spots where the sprinkler never reached. The smell of charcoal drifted over from somewhere down the block, mixing with the faint chlorine still clinging to their skin. Tommy lay flat in the middle of the lawn, shirt rucked up, flinging pretzels into the air and trying to catch them in his mouth. Most bounced off his chin or landed in the grass, but he laughed anyway, chewing the ones that survived.
Carol had claimed the lounge chair like it was her throne. Sunglasses perched on top of her head, she lazily flipped through an issue of Seventeen. Every few pages, she peeled the glossy paper from where it clung to her fingers, sighing loud enough to make sure they knew how bored she was.
Steve sat half in the shade, leaning against the chain-link fence with a can of Pepsi sweating in his hand. He tipped his head back, following the shapes in the clouds as they drifted overhead. A dragon, a fist, a ship. Then nothing at all—just white smears dissolving into blue.
“You guys ever think high school’ll be different?” he asked suddenly.
Carol didn’t look up. “Different how?”
“I dunno,” Steve said. “Bigger. More choices.”
“Same boring stuff,” she muttered, flipping a page. “Just more of it.”
Tommy tossed another pretzel skyward and missed by a mile. “Middle school with better lockers. That’s all.” He rolled onto an elbow, smirking at Steve. “What’s with you, man? You sound like my grandma before bingo night.”
Steve shook his head, peeling the label from his soda can with his thumb. “Just wondering.”
He didn’t say it. Didn’t say how the word choice had been gnawing at him ever since he saw it in bold on that glossy sheet. Didn’t say how the thought of being only “Harrington the basketball guy” made his stomach twist.
Carol slid her sunglasses down just far enough to glance at him over the top. Her eyes lingered, curious, almost sharp, before she pushed them back up and turned another page. She didn’t press. She didn’t need to.
Steve crushed the empty can in his hand, the cicadas screaming in the treeline, and let the subject die right there in the grass.
The kitchen was too quiet. The kind of quiet that made the tick of the clock on the wall feel loud, and the hum of the refrigerator seem like it was daring you to break it. The curtains fluttered once with the evening air, but otherwise the Harrington house was still. His parents had left that morning for another “meeting” in Indianapolis—Steve knew better. Golf, cocktails, late dinners where his dad’s handshake mattered more than his son’s first day of high school creeping closer by the hour.
The orientation packet sat in the middle of the table, spread out like it was waiting for him. Its glossy cover glared under the kitchen light. Next to it was the pile of summer packets, edges curled from humidity, paper that had been accusing him all August.
Steve pulled one forward—history. The first line stared back at him: In 1764, James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny, a machine that revolutionized the textile industry.
Simple enough, probably. A sentence most kids could read once, twice, and move on. But for Steve, the words slipped sideways as soon as he tried to hold them. “Spinning jenny” blurred into “spinning jelly.” Letters swapped places. He blinked, frowned, pressed his finger to the page like anchoring himself would make it stop.
Once. Twice. Three times. He whispered the words under his breath, jaw tight, trying to force them to stay in order. By the third pass, they stuck. Clumsy, shaky, but they stuck.
Steve let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. His shoulders slumped, the pencil loose between his fingers.
He thought about the last time he’d tried this—three weeks ago. Same kitchen table. Same stack of paper. His mom’s voice calling from the living room just as the frustration boiled over: Steve, be a dear and fetch my purse. He’d been grateful for the out. Too grateful. He’d left the packet open, walked away, and hadn’t come back.
That word had clung to him ever since. Quit.
Now the word felt heavier than the page itself. He hated it. Hated that it fit.
He looked back at the sentence. Whispered it again. Not perfect, not smooth, but his.
This wasn’t basketball. There was no whistle to tell him what he’d done wrong. No coach to bark the fix. Here it was just him, the paper, the blur in his head. And still—he could feel the rhythm if he forced himself to. Slow down. Trace the line. Breathe.
He thought of the glossy “academic pathways” sheet, the quiet fork it drew without drawing it. Sports track. Academic track. Hawkins didn’t care if you wanted both. You got sorted, and people like him got sorted fast. His dad bragging about varsity. His mom patting his arm with that vague “make us proud” smile. Nobody asking what he wanted, because everyone already thought they knew.
But sitting there, the packet under his hand, Steve knew.
He was going to do both.
Basketball. Books. Varsity and vocabulary. Court and classroom.
Even if no one noticed. Even if no one helped. Even if every sentence was a fistfight.
He picked up the pencil again, tapped it twice against the table, and leaned back over the page.
The first day of high school broke cool and gray, the sidewalks still damp from an early drizzle. The air smelled like wet grass, pavement, and something sharp underneath—nerves, maybe. Steve tugged the strap of his backpack higher on his shoulder and glanced once at the empty Harrington house behind him. No one had said goodbye. No one had even been awake.
The slam of the screen door carried across the yard.
“Harrington!” Tommy’s voice, loud as ever, and then the squeak of his bike’s front wheel as he rounded the corner. Carol balanced on the back pegs, her hair sprayed against the drizzle, a glossy magazine tucked under her arm like armor.
“You ready to crush it?” Tommy called.
Steve jogged down the steps, wiping rain off his palm before gripping his handlebars. “Yeah. Ready.”
Carol gave him a sideways look, her sunglasses perched on her head despite the gray sky. “High school doesn’t care if you’re ready.”
“Then I’ll make it care,” Tommy shot back, nearly clipping the curb as he swerved. Carol smacked the back of his head with the rolled-up magazine, and Steve laughed as he pedaled to catch up.
The closer they got, the bigger Hawkins High looked. Not skyscraper big—just bigger than what they’d left behind. Brick walls damp with rain, the flag out front hanging heavy, upperclassmen already leaning against the entrance like they owned it.
They chained up their bikes and stood for a second shoulder to shoulder.
“You nervous?” Tommy asked, almost daring him.
Steve shook his head. “Nah. You?”
Tommy puffed out his chest. “Not a chance.”
Carol just smirked and pushed past both of them.
Inside, the halls buzzed. The smell of floor wax and damp sneakers, the squeal of lockers opening too hard, a boom box spilling Van Halen from somewhere down the corridor. Kids clutched schedules like lifelines, compared notes, tried to look like they belonged.
Steve unfolded his own paper. The ink had bled a little from the drizzle, but the words were clear enough. Geometry. English I. Biology. World History. He traced each line with his finger, slow and steady, the way he’d taught himself to read when the blur started creeping in. One at a time.
Tommy leaned over his shoulder, grinning. “Hey! You’re in bio with me. That’s an easy A. Dissect some frogs, copy off somebody smart, done.”
Carol peered, sunglasses now hooked on her collar. “And English with me. Better hope you like essays.”
Steve forced a grin. “Sure. Love ’em.”
He didn’t. Essays made his stomach knot. But he wasn’t going to duck them anymore. Not this year.
The bell rang, sharp and metallic, and the crowd surged forward. Steve let himself be carried with it, his shoulders squared, his notebook tucked under his arm.
Basketball and books. Varsity and vocabulary.
He’d decided.
And no one—not Tommy, not Carol, not the school, not his parents—was going to box him in.