Me, Myself, and Her

Chapter Seventy-Eight

Chapter Seventy-Eight: Lover

The drive was tense and completely silent. Annie and Max sat at the table this time, Annie's headphones practically locked to her ears. She and Max sat next to each other, Lucas on the other side.

Annie could feel Lucas's eyes on her, but she didn't comment. She knew why.

When they got to the Creel house, Steve stopped and parked the RV. Before they could get out, Steve turned back and called out, "Annie."

She stopped, paused her music, took off her headphones, and looked at him. Although it felt impossible, Annie gave him the best smile she could muster. "It'll work. I'll be okay. I promise. Just... just kill the son of a bitch, okay?"

Steve nodded, letting a smile of his own come out.

"We gotta go," Max whispered.

With a final look to Steve, Annie turned and made her way out of the RV. Erica, Lucas, and Max followed behind, Max slamming the door shut. Once it was, Steve drove off to get them to their next location: Eddie's trailer for gate access.

Their group of four faced the house, no one moving for a solid minute. They had time, since the others had to get into position, too.

Annie looked over at Max, the setting sun making her hair look ablaze.

She turned her back forward, and they started walking. But just before they got to the stairs up to the house, Annie stopped again. She could feel the other three immediately look over at her.

"Max," she said, turning to her girlfriend. "I need to talk to you. Before we go in there, before it all goes down. Just for a second." She turned and looked at Lucas and Erica. "Just... wait here. We'll be right back, not too far."

They nodded and Annie grabbed Max's arm and started walking. "What's wrong?" Max asked, her voice filled with so much worry.

Annie didn't want to tell her until they got all the way over to the other side of the street. This was to be as private as she could get. "Just... just a second," Annie mumbled. It worked for Max, and she stayed quiet until they got to where Annie wanted.

It led them back down the stairs they had just come up, across the street, and into the grass right where the old playground was. With how rusted the metal was, Annie was worried for Erica when it came time for her to get up there.

When they stopped, Annie turned and took Max's other hand in her other hand. "I..." she started, suddenly feeling a crippling weight of anxiety weighing down on her chest. It made her heart feel as if it was fighting to beat.

But Max's reassuring and worried eyes made Annie take a deep breath and fight through it. "I love you."

Max's eyes went from worried to pure shock, and widened almost hilariously big. This caused panic to surge through Annie and she started freaking out. "I- I know it's super sudden and- and- and it's really shit timing, and I totally understand if you don't feel the same because I wouldn't blame you with how shit things have gone-"

The words stopped flowing by force. It took Annie a second to realize Max was making out with her. She let her eyes close and melted into the moment. When neither of them could breathe much longer, Max finally pulled away and left Annie quietly gasping and reeling.

"I love you, too. Holy fuck do I love you. So, so much, Annie Sofia Harrington. It's amazing I've lasted this long being around you without spontaneously combusting into a cloud of pink smoke."

Annie was full on laughing at this point, pulling Max as close as she could. She took some breaths to calm down, and said, "Do you know how may times I wished I had just stayed home that weekend in 1984?" Max didn't need any clarification. "If we had just gone to the movie, avoided all this mess... I almost believe we would've been okay. We would've gotten together anyway and avoided all this shit."

Max nodded. "I do, too. And yet... I almost think this was okay, too. It took us a while, but we got there. And we went through some awful shit but it made us so much stronger and so much better."

"But it's led us here."

A pause. "You're right... but as terrified as I am about what might happen tonight, I know we can do this. And once we do, it'll finally be all over."

Annie snorted. "It's never really over, never in Hawkins."

"Which is why we're not gonna stay here," Max said. "After graduation in about three years now, we'll have everything we need to go to some nice school in California or Texas or Florida or wherever the hell you wanna go and we'll stay there. Maybe visit the Party here if we need to. But we won't stay for long. We won't let ourselves get caught back up in the Upside Down."

The whole time, Annie was nodding along to the words. Hope and love were clouding her head and she could almost think they were sitting in her backyard, watching the stars.

"We can do this," Max finished.

Annie sniffed. "We can."

They finally pulled away enough to be able to look at each other. They both had red eyes from tears both shed and unshed. Despite the way Annie's waiting tears made Max a little wavy, she still looked as gorgeous as ever.

"Even when going into battle you look so beautiful," Annie muttered, moving one of her hands to tuck a stray baby hair back behind her ear.

Max blushed, but kept up her confidence and flirted back. "You look pretty gorgeous yourself. As any Barbie would."

Annie smiled, trying not to think about how she's been wearing the same clothes for forever and feels kinda gross in them. But if May freaking Mayfield says she's gorgeous? Well, Annie couldn't help but believe her anyway. Even if it is her job to compliment her.

For a moment longer, the girls stood there and held on to their normalcy. To their calm. Annie knew it couldn't last much longer. At some point, they would have to walk right back up to that Creel house and get started.

Erica and Lucas were probably close to ripping each other's throat's out by now. Despite the life or death situation, they were good at acting pretty normal. In their case, it was fighting.

However, Annie noticed the small ways they made sure the other knew they cared. It worked for them well.

But it made her think of Steve. She was absolutely terrified for him. He always managed to get himself beat up, whether it was Billy's doing, some Russians, Johnathan Byers, or even monsters of another dimension.

Annie just hoped the demo bats from earlier were enough for him. She hated seeing his face bruised and swelled. Even though she was the younger sister, Annie seemed to worry like an older sister.

Finally, Annie took in one last deep breath and pulled away from Max. Neither girl wanted to, but they knew they had to.

"We can do this," Max said, squeezing Annie's hand one last time before letting it go.

Annie nodded, trying to get the words to sink into her head. "Yeah, yeah, we can do this," she whispered.

They turned and walked back over to the Sinclair siblings. Erica looked annoyed, but shockingly didn't make a comment about it.

Lucas nodded at them both. "You ready?" he asked, his voice just above a whisper.

Max nodded, then turned to look at Annie. Suddenly, all eyes were on her. The bait. They needed to hear her go ahead before doing anything more.

She closed her eyes and took her last deep breath. She put her headphones back over her ears and pressed play. Once the sound of Bonnie Tyler started playing, Annie turned to Lucas.

"Let's do this."

A/n: THEY SAID I LOVE YOU!!!!!