IF IT WEREN'T FOR YOU

𝟤.𝟧

It wasn't real. Beverly knew that it wasn't real, that she had just gone into a haze. She knew her body was probably standing just as she was, but her crystal blue eyes had glazed over. She knew that her friends, Steve, the kids, were probably crowded around her just as they had been to Max only moments ago.

He sounded so real.

"You waited this long to visit, huh?"

As he approached her, Beverly squeezed her eyes shut.

This isn't real.

This isn't real.

"No, this is definitely real." His voice sounded in front of her, taking her completely off guard.

Her eyes snapped open, and in front of her was Billy Hargrove, his signature white wife-beater stained black, tar oozing from the crevices of his body. Just as she had last seen him.

"You tell Max that it's over, okay?" He whispered to her, a cocky smile on his face.

Is this real?

With a blink of her eyes, instead of seeing Billy's baby blue hues, she was met with the furrowed brow of Steve Harrington.

"Bev?" He called out to her, his hands grasping her arms firmly with a certain delicacy that she had once been all too familiar with.

Her eyes fluttered as they focused on Steve. "I'm fine." She reassured him, her hands snaking up from where they had been balled at her sides to wrap around either of his wrists. "Sorry, just a lot to take in."

"Are you sure?" Steve asked. "You looked—"

"I'm fine." Beverly insisted, letting her hands drop as she pushed out of his grip. "Let's go." They had more to focus on than her, Max was in serious danger, and Beverly began to tell herself that her hallucination could be drawn up to mental exhaustion. She just had allergies, she continued to tell herself.

The kids had reached Steve's car before they did and piled in the back seat together, leaving Beverly to take the front passenger's seat. With a slight hint of hesitation, she buckled herself in and shrunk into the cushions, trying to push all thoughts of the past five minutes out of her head. As Steve drove, the boys chattered in the back while Lucas had pulled Max closely into his side.

"So," Steve broke their tense silence. She had not been in this position with him since the summer, sitting in his passenger seat. Things were much different now than they had been in August. "Hypothetically, what would your song be?" He asked, glancing over at Beverly as he spoke.

With a deep breath, Beverly decided to play along. Without speaking, she shoo'd his arm off of the console and dug inside the unorganized space, pulling each cassette out as her fingers found them. She shuffled through the cases, stacking them on top of one another as they were discarded, until she landed on the desired tape. Beverly opened the case, only to find that the ABBA tape was nowhere in site.

She looked up to Steve with a cocked brow, wondering if maybe he had discarded the tape, considering the memories they had shared while listening to it. Instead of replying, Steve moved his hand from the wheel towards the radio and pressed play.

ABBA flooded through the speakers at a low hum, and a smile cracked on Beverly's face. She was instantly transported back to that last summer, with the wind in her hair and the music loud enough to make the speakers shake. Her own hand darted to the car radio, where she adjusted the tape to begin at her favorite track. Lay All Your Love On Me started, and Beverly turned to Steve.

"I think this one." She replied, then sat back in the seat, her heart thumping hard enough that she felt it in her finger tips.

All Beverly wanted was a break. A moment to absorb everything that was happening, a moment to reconcile with her thoughts, to figure out exactly how she was feeling. Instead, she found herself tip-toeing around the dusty floorboards of the abandoned Creel house.