Salt To The Wound (A Stranger Things Story)

Season 1-Chapter 10: Its All the Same (Maxs POV

I have up to chapter 20 planned out so be ready for that and I'll think about the rest but this story is also about depression and trauma so if that's sensitive to you don't read it please :)I think I'll have it go up to chapter 40 or something

⚠️ mention of Sexual Assault ⚠️

When Max saw El standing by her door she remembered a while back when El always knocked on her door every single day. That was before she shut everybody out. Truly Max missed all of her old friends, Lucas, Dustin, Mike, but especially El. She really missed El, she wished El would've came around all the time but El never did, Until now. She asked to hang out and so they did

"You know I'm so much better," El said to her and Max scoffed "girl-," she said and they walked into the arcade. They go their coins to play the games and so they did. They started with a shooting game and Max won getting #2 on the leader board. "Damn I forgot you were so good at games it'd been forever," El said and Max gave her a half smile. She knew it was her own fault they haven't hung out in so long, she's the one that ghosted El and truly the two never really broke up. "So van we be friends again, please I miss you," El said looking towards Max for reassurance. "Yes!" She said hoping she wasn't too excited. El smiled and they hugged. "Let's be bestfriends, let's like tell each other everything," El said to her, "yes I'd love that," Max said back.

They decided to go out to eat, Max had enough money because she stole a lot from her grandmother. So they went to Red Robin's, as friends not anything more, yet. "Oh my lord I love their fries so much," El said and Max smiled "I remember," Max said. And the waiter got their orders, El mainly just wanted fries though. "So we haven't talked like this since a whole entire year ago," Max said and El looked at her. "What happened?" El asked and Max froze for a second. "You can't tell anyone and I mean anyone," she said and El nodded. "Well over the summer everything changed in the matter of a week I think I told you about Billy, and my parents but there's more," she said and Ek was intrigued. "Well basically I-I was at a camp for that week a-a-and some girls they-" Max stopped talking and couldn't help to tear up a littler. She'd tried so hard to forget about that camp and what those girls did to her. "They assaulted me and not like fighting the other one-" she said not wanting to bring back abd memories. El hugged Max "I'm so sorry-" she said wiping a tear from Max's face.

When she got home that day she couldn't find her grandmother anywhere and she was always there. She was a little worried and tried calling her to no avail. Max was a sophomore with a beginners license meaning she could drive with an adult present but she didn't care and drove around and around looking for her grandmother, when she got a call, from the hospital. This isn't the first time she got called from this place and it was always bad news. When she answered the car the one things she didn't want to here was said your grandma is dead the person said over the phone and Max stopped the car and dropped her phone. Pinching herself wishing this was a dream. She wanted to scream, to cry, but she couldn't move, she just sat there frozen fir the next 10 minutes until she could move again and she cried, she hasn't cried this hard since her mom, dad, and brother died. "Why can't you just take me!" She yelled obviously in the heat of the moment. She had so many feeling rushing inside of her bones. Mad, sad, resentful, and guilt all ran through her. Maybe if she stayed home she could of saved her maybe if she just didn't go with El then she would have been there. She then thought to herself that thus was all her fault but she had to go to the hospital had to see her grandmother one last time.

When she arrived there her grandma was on a hospital bed, dead. She held her grandmother's hand and said her goodbyes to her. Then she found herself in a distant memory. It was her and her mom, dad, grandma, and brother at a beach just chilling. They ere so happy at this time, it was about a month before everything went to hell. Billy was so nice to Max and protected her and then she remembered how much she loved them. And now all of them were jsut gone and she was left , as punishment. Whatever she done just made everyone she loved around her die and she hated it so much. When everything was finally getting better it all turned to shit once again.

She had to go to school before she got suspended because she already had too many absentes she grabbed her headphone and phone and walked put. Right now Max lived alone but luckily she had enough money to get by, her grandmother was rich and left all of her belongings to Max because she was the only family she had left. She saw will and smiled, will would understand what she was going through, at least she hoped he would. "Are you okay?" He asked and max nodded even though she wasn't, she wanted to tell Will but couldn't. Pretending everything was fine was jsut so much easier than letting people know it wasn't.

It's hard to write Max like this in since I never went through what she has but please let me know if it isn't accurate and help me love you