Apocalypse, Steve Harrington

Chapter Sixty-Six. What Could Have Been

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— what could have been

      HE WOULD HAVE BECOME A FIREFIGHTER AFTER HIGH SCHOOL. It's what he wanted to do. A lot of little boys want to be an astronaut, or a police officer, or a ninja. He wanted to be a firefighter from the moment he saw a fire-truck zoom past his bicycle when they lived in New York. Wide, hazel-eyes and a toothless smile, he turned to his mother and he said, "that's what I'm gonna be".

      He wanted to do a lot of things, though. He planned to do a lot of things. He didn't limit himself, anything seemed possible — if he tried hard enough, he probably could have made it to the fucking NFL. He'd graduate from Hawkins High in May of eight-six, and he'd pack his room up into a few cardboard boxes and head off to college. He'd play D2 for Indiana State, and he'd party a lot, and he'd probably end up wrecking his blue-green Ford along the way. He'd graduate at twenty-two, and do fire-training, and he'd move somewhere nice. Somewhere near his sister, and near his father. He'd have a nice house, with two-stories and a basement, like he's always wanted. He'd start a family — two girls, one named after his sister. He'd be a really fun dad, a really good dad, he'd do everything his tried to do and more. He'd be the best damn firefighter in Indiana, until he retired. He'd grow old with his wife. He'd get a motorcycle. He'd watch football from a reclining chair until it was all he could do. He'd be content.

But he's bloodied and he's lifeless on the floor of Starcourt Mall. You can't graduate and become a firefighter and have kids and live a happy life but be dead at the same time. It's not possible. His body has grown cold.

      The image won't leave her mind. All she sees is his swollen eyes, and his busted lip, and the gaping wounds in his chest. Over and over, she sees Billy drag him across the food-court. She hears his desperate screams, and his the way his voice cracked with pain when the Mind Flayer first sunk its claws into him. She sees his smile from an hour previous, when they sat outside the Nathaniel's Hotdogs. She sees him as a little boy, as her twin brother that stood up for her when she needed it. She hears his stupid basketball against the wooden floors of the cabin, and she hears him blasting the Beach Boys from a shitty record player, and she hears the way he laughed when she cried watching Terms of Endearment.

      It started raining after Joyce told her Jim was dead.

It wasn't pouring. Just a drizzle, just enough to make the paramedics and news reporters that surrounded cover their heads with their arms. Just enough to make the air colder and soggier. Enough to make the pavement of the parking lot slippery, and enough to make her hair frizzier. The type of rain that makes the whole sky really dark and hazy, and you think there's gonna be a huge storm, but there's not. There wasn't thunder, and there wasn't lighting. It just rained.

Steve didn't notice she was outside yet. Paramedics swarmed him and his facial injuries, and he told them a million times over he was fine, he just had to go find his girlfriend. No, sit, they told him, you're going to get an infection. Your lip is busted. Your cheekbone may be chipped. Can you see alright? Are you burnt? You need a blanket. He was being suffocated in the rear of that ambulance. He heard crying from a few feet away, a few police-cars down, maybe — it gave him enough incentive to push the lady-paramedic and throw the wool blanket off his shoulders.

She's standing in the middle of the parking lot. Blue and red flashes surround her, and the ground is all wet and reflective, and police officers put their hands on their hips and their heads down when they notice she's the Chief's daughter. One of her hands is closed into a fist, and the other is over her eyes, as if it'll stop everyone from seeing her crying. Every few second, her knees buckle a little, and it looks like she'll fall to the pavement. But she doesn't. She's shaking her head in denial, and she's crying so hard she can't breathe, and everyone in that parking lot feels their heart break a little with every sniffle.