The Haunting of Steve Harrington

Chapter Two: The Search

TWO YEARS LATER

Steve Harrington is dead.

He's sitting outside his house, hands glued to the steering wheel of his parked car, staring straight ahead. He knows that if he goes inside and talks to his father, he's dead. His father will kill him and no one will care because he's the fucking mayor.

Earlier this evening, Steve's father arrived home early from a business meeting to find his only son kissing another boy on the living room couch. Honestly, Steve is surprised that he didn't murder him right then. He'd thought more than once about what would happen if his father found out that he's bisexual. He thought there'd be more yelling.

Instead, when Mr. Harrington shut the door behind him and Steve and Billy sprang apart with their hair mussed and lips swollen, he only blinked slowly. "Steven," he'd said calmly - too calmly, "I think now would be a good time to drive your friend home."

He did drive Billy home. Neither of them said a word the whole way there. Billy didn't give Steve his usual goodbye kiss when he got out of the car. He didn't turn and wave at the door like he usually does. Even Billy knows how terrified of this exact scenario that Steve has been.

Steve's father isn't religious. His mom goes to mass when she feels like it (and tells his grandma that she goes every week), but he suspects that's more for the comfort than because she believes what she hears there. His father says politics is his religion. Says he feels god in city hall.

Mr. Harrington's lack of religion doesn't stop his homophobia, though. As gay people have been in the news more and more the last few years, Steve has had to listen to him bitch about how it's unnatural. He says they're ruining the sanctity of marriage.

Steve thinks that his father sleeping with his secretary ruins the sanctity of marriage, but he keeps that for himself.

His father's disdain for men who do nothing but love other men almost makes Steve wish he didn't. It almost makes him wish he hadn't kissed Billy earlier this summer when the two of them were closing up the pool after a late swim night. Almost make him wish he just kept going out with Nancy Wheeler instead of breaking up after prom. Almost.

Now, he sits back in front of his house, staring at the dent he put in the garage door when he was learning to drive, knowing that when he goes inside, he's dead.

When he can't sit there any longer without a neighbor coming to check if he's okay, Steve shuts the car off and steps out. It rained earlier in the day and the night is cool and quiet. It's the kind of weather that lets you know that the leaves will start changing any day now. Normally, it's Steve's favorite kind of weather. He climbs the front steps slowly, taking great gulps of the cool evening and steeling himself for what awaits inside.

Both his parents are sitting on the couch. Waiting for him. Steve feels a tiny weight lifted off his chest knowing his mother is there to soften his father's blows, but he's not sure how to interpret her red eyes and the still-wet tear tracks on her cheeks.

"Sit down, Steve," his father says as soon as he closes the front door behind him. Steve wishes he would yell. It might be easier if he would just shout and scream with that vein popping out on his neck. Steve has seen that before. He takes his time sliding his shoes off and putting them on the shelf by the door, like his mother is always nagging him to do. He places his keys gently on the hook, marked with an S above it. He shuffles across the carpet and lowers himself glacially into his mother's favorite arm chair.

There is a pregnant pause as Mr. Harrington prepares to speak. He's behaving like he does when he has to give a speech. His calculated manner is frightening. "Steve," he begins in a level voice, "I'm very disappointed with what I saw today when I arrived home."