The Ghost in You

Steve Harrington learned how to survive. He never learned how to be loved.

After everything Hawkins put him through, Steve settles into a quieter life teaching middle school, coaching baseball, and pretends the past stayed buried when the gates finally closed for good. He smiles when he's supposed to. He keeps the noise on at night. He doesn't let anyone close enough to see the scars he still carries. The town knows about the earthquakes and blackouts but they don't know what it cost him.

Claire Bennett always noticed the things other people missed. The kid who never talked, the one who flinched at sudden noises, and the ones who learned how to disappear in plain sight. Which is why she noticed Steve. She remembers the boy Steve used to be. Or at least, the boy everyone thought he was. Popular. Untouchable. Safe. What she finds instead is a man who startles too easily, avoids silence, and carries a loneliness that feels familiar.

They went to school together their whole lives but they may as well have been in completely different worlds. Now they share hallways, late afternoons, and a growing awareness that some parts of him never made it out of the darkness that still haunts him.

This is a story about how sometimes healing begins with someone simply choosing to stay.

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