A Hero's Song

Chapter 19

All of us sat down on the table to eat, me focusing on the stew that Nancy and Robin stirred up for us and not on the feeling of everybody's eyes on me.

Thanks a lot, Steve.

Nancy and Robin did a great job with the stew, but for some reason the savory flavor will only last a couple of seconds and then leaves a bland aftertaste on my tongue. I blame it on the nerves. I can almost call this feeling as stage fright, since all of them were basically waiting on me.

The clanging of cutlery against the plates filled the air, and what could have been a normal lunch in our house now felt tensed and measured. Like nobody wants to do or say the wrong thing.

The longer I feel their eyes and cautious movements around me, the more uncomfortable I get.

Ring-clad fingers entered my line of vision and then rested on my bouncing thigh before I can say or do anything. Eddie squeezed my thigh, more comforting than consensual despite where his hand rested, and suddenly the nerves lessened.

I looked up to him and saw he was already looking at me. Eddie shot me a wink, which to me was more comforting than flirtatious.

When everybody's done with their meal, their stares somehow felt more concentrated, like they're waiting for me to say something now.

Everything felt real again. For a while earlier, I could've sworn everything felt normal. Like it was just another normal day in our normal house. We can almost pass the facade that they all crashed here and we're all spending the day after the sleepover together.

Just regular teens doing regular teen things.

But right now, I was getting hit by reality square on the face. We're not typical teenagers who can casually have sleepovers, because of the mere reason that we know too much.

"Ask away," I mumbled.

Dustin pursed his lips, ready to bombard me with questions, but I can see how the cogs in his brain were turning so rapidly he couldn't form the words.

So, it was Max who asked, "We would like to know what Vecna showed you because Steve here is not as helpful in painting the picture."

"Like you were some artist when you drew his lair." Steve complained.

"He showed me things that have happened to me before with his own little versions," I cleared my throat and blew air out of my lips, keeping myself together, "Like my mother's abusive boyfriend. That one he got right."

"The man's a real piece of shit." Steve added.

"Then he showed me the night Jason and Patrick chased us down Lover's Lake, but he made it seem like Eddie got captured. Then he also showed me Steve and my birth mother hating my guts. He made them say that they never wanted me to come along, and that I'm basically just a nobody to them."

"An up close reliving of traumatic pasts," Max said in a knowing tone while she toys with the peas she set aside, "Such a Vecna special."

Eddie's hand on my thigh gave me another squeeze, and I heard him exhale heavily. In my peripheral vision, I caught a glimpse of Steve's furrowed brows and his expression I can't quite read, as though hearing the story again feels just as heavy as hearing it the first time. 

I exhaled, "He showed me the Creel's house, then some shit show of a bloody laboratory massacre--"

"--Wait. A lab?" Dustin asked, perking up, "With child experiments and shit or just some boring lab?"

"Aren't all labs boring?" Steve wondered. Robin facepalmed at his expense.

"With child experiments," I answered Dustin, "I saw Eleven there. She was there."