Ho Hey - Eddie Munson

Boys don't cry

Max had been in there for about 15 minutes now and the teens were beginning to get impatient, but they wanted to respect the girls privacy so they were now all (besides Eddie) just standing outside of the car, waiting patiently for Max to make her way back over to them.

Adira was still blasting her music through her headphones, leaning against the car, allowing her pale skin to soak up some of the sunlight whilst letting small hums fall from her lips. 'Boys don't cry' by The Cure was now playing loudly through the headphones.

Max suddenly rounded the corner of the house and stormed over to them, her head looking down as she avoided making any eye contact with any of them. Her red locks bounced around as she made quick and large steps over to the car, wanting to get out of there as soon as possible and hoping to avoid having to make any conversation with any of her friends

"Hey that was longer than 20 seconds!" Steve exclaimed as he pushed himself off the car, unaware of the fact that the girl was extremely upset and had just had another encounter with Vecna. Max didn't say anything to him and quickly made her way over to her door, as she passed Steve and Adira, they noticed the look on her face and were both suddenly filled with concern.

Adira quickly pulled the headphones off her ears and grabbed onto Maxine's wrist softly, "hey Maxie, whats wrong, what happened?" Adira asked her quickly but Maxine didn't say anything. Adira was filled with a crushing guilt, she knew that she should have followed Max in there.

"Hey, woah woah, are you alright?" Steve asked her, his voice laced with concern as he gave her his undivided attention. Pushing himself away from the car and closer to Max to try and comfort the girl and make sure that she was okay.

Maxine finally looked up and switched her gaze from Steve to Adira a few times before pulling on the handle of her door and  opening it, "I'm fine, just drive." Adira and Steve gave each other a look, trying to silently figure out what they should do, but they both just ended up getting into the car, they knew that Max wasn't going to talk to them about it, and they didn't want to invade her privacy or force her into telling them anything.

Lucas was looking at the girl with wide eyes, it was clear that he was freaking out as he saw the scared and sad look on Maxine's face. He internally cursed himself for not going in there with her and not being able to protect her.

All of them got in the car and were staring over at Maxine, waiting for her to open up and tell them what the hell had happened back there, but they knew Maxine Mayfield well enough to know that, that was not going to happen. 

"Did something happen?" Dustin asked the poor girl quickly. Memories of what had just happened flashed through Maxine's mind and then suddenly through Adira's, now that her music was off, everything that had just happened to Max was rushing through her head in flashes.

Adira gripped the handle of the car tightly as her eyes scrunched shut, she saw all of it, everything that was going through Maxine's head right now was identical to the things going through Adira's mind. 

Maxine talking to her mum, then hugging her mum, and then her mother turning into what Adira was sure was Vecna, and then finally Vecna hugging Max and talking to her as she tried to get away.

"Can we just go?" Maxine snapped, looking out of the window, not wanting to be here, and not wanting to tell the others what had just happened to her. She had actually seen Vecna this time, and she knew that it meant her time was running out.

Adira kept quiet, not wanting to draw the attention of any of the other teens in the car to her. Max pushed the thoughts away and Adira suddenly stopped seeing them. Adira looked over her shoulder discreetly at Maxine who was sitting silently behind Steve's seat, she only looked for a few moments before pulling her headphones back over her head and staring at the window.