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Stephanie Harrington has been the picture of midwestern femininity from the time she can remember until early November 1984. Her parents are distant, both emotionally and physically—her father has to travel for work and her mother has to follow her father to make sure Stephanie doesn’t end up with any half siblings. Her father does the bare minimum, he keeps her fed, keeps a roof over her head. Her mother doesn’t do much more than send her clothing, expensive and sized just right to passive-aggressively make an indirect comment on her weight.
Feminine.
Tennis skirts, tights and leggings, soft mohair sweaters in pastel patterns. Big earrings, big necklaces, big bracelets. Most of the girls she goes to school with would die for her closet. Sometimes, when she’s having a bad day, she thinks that the only thing Carol must miss about her and their friendship is the unrestricted access to it. Sometimes, Steph wishes that opening those three doors—house, bedroom, closet—could be enough to fix what was broken.
It’s a bit deeper than Steph dating someone Carol and Tommy hated, it’s more than her ‘ditching’ them for Jonathan. They won’t ever know that, and hopefully not just because of the NDA she had to sign. The monsters crawling through Hawkins are gone—again, hopefully—and Carol and Tommy are safe and will always be safe.
Their track record is pretty good so far at least. Not that the monsters stay away, those definitely come back and Steph has the nightmares to prove it. What she means is that Carol and Tommy remain unchanged, safe and unaware. That’s better than friendship, as far as she’s concerned.
Steph ends October in a weird limbo, caught in a weird space between Nancy Wheeler, a girl she’s been weirdly obsessed with for the last two years, and her boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend, as it eventually turns out. She’s caught in Billie Hargrove’s crosshairs, too.
Billie has it out for her, convinced not only that Steph is somehow still the Queen Bee of the school but that it’s her mission to knock her from the imaginary throne. She can handle the hazing for the most part, at least up until that fateful night in early November.
Monsters try to overrun Hawkins again and this time Steph has more than just a boyfriend and maybe-friend to protect, she’s got a whole herd of nerdlings—and Max. Poor Max who has to deal with an older sister like Billie. Steph steps in, figures the issue will resolve itself so long as the idiot kids stay hidden but they are, of course, idiot kids.
Billie fights dirty, like she has nothing to lose. Steph can tell that the boys don’t take it seriously right away, she thinks she hears some nervous giggling about a cat fight. She already knows it’s more than that, long before Billie shatters a plate over her head and starts whaling on her. There’s a fist knotted in the long brown hair her mother has never let her cut, holding her down.
After the dust settles, again—after she follows a bunch of infants into dangerous tunnels, dazed and concussed, after she puffs herself up like a human shield when she thinks this might be it for her and Dustin, after they get back to the Byers’ place and Chief Hopper drives her to the hospital to get checked out—
After all of that, Stephanie gets a haircut.
She drives past the salon she’s been going to her whole life, the one on Maple. The only hairdresser that works there who will touch her hair is Bridget, who is probably the closest thing to a friend as her mom has in Hawkins. Steph knows where her loyalties lie, she doubts Bridget would dare to do more than trim her split ends or give her bangs without telling her mom immediately and Steph isn’t ready for what that fight will look like.
The new mall just outside of town is still under construction so she just drives until she’s out of Roane County, keeps going until she finds a strip mall advertising an $8 haircut. The first hairdresser refuses to do what she asks, looks like she might cry over the sheer amount of hair Steph wants lopped off. Another hairdresser offers to do it. Her hair is purple and crimped, her makeup wouldn’t be out of place in some big city on either coast, she’s got metal all through her ears and nose, and in that moment she’s the most beautiful woman Steph has ever seen.
She’s almost more excited about her haircut than Steph is, pulls her hair into a low ponytail to hack the bulk of it away with her scissors. Steph feels instantly lighter and it only gets better as the hairdresser, Sam, evens out her cut until she’s got a soft bob that sits just around her shoulders.
Her mother would hate it. It’s perfect.
Her mother does hate it.
Steph doesn’t make it into college but she does at least manage to graduate, if only just. That’s not quite worthy of both of her parents being present for the ceremony but it does mean that there is the expectation of at least one of them showing their face. Her mother pulls the short straw and flies in.
“You look like a dyke,” her mother says rather than any other, remotely normal or loving greeting.
“It’s a bob,” she argues, unwilling to keep up the farce of social niceties if her mother won’t either. “And anyways it’s not even that short, pixie cuts are in right now.”
“It’s not feminine, Stephanie,” her mother argues, throwing a garment bag onto the pastel pink bedspread that matches the rest of Steph’s catalog perfect room, “I don’t understand how you could destroy your hair like that.”
Steph rolls her eyes and scrubs a hand through her hair.
“Princess Diana’s hair is shorter than mine and she’s the epitome of femininity.” She’s not sure why she’s trying to argue the point. The point of her haircut was utility more than fashion, but it’s a good enough excuse to give so that she can end whatever this non-discussion is.
Her mother just scoffs and throws her hands up, a familiar signal that she’s done talking to Steph and will wander off to wallow in the sunroom and self-medicate with wine. It’s a normal reaction from her, one she’s dealt with for most of her life. But there was the Steph before Billie and there’s the Steph of now.
She sees her mother’s hands swing up and flinches, feels the phantom claw of a hand gripping her hair. Her mother doesn’t even notice she does it, already checked out and wandering off to find her next drink. She slams the door behind her and suddenly Steph can see herself in the mirror, looking pale and drawn. Her hand comes up to grab at her own hair, curious and cautious. When she makes a fist she has enough hair in her hand that she can half wrap it around.
The garment bag on her bed holds the dress her mother wants her to wear under her graduation gown, the same soft pink she’s been drowning in her whole life. She has two hours to kill before the ceremony and no one to spend the time with, so she makes a decision. When she leaves she calls to her mom that she’ll see her at the ceremony.
The drive to the strip mall doesn’t take as long as it did the last time, not now that she has an actual destination in mind. Sam is working again and she smiles as soon as she sees Steph. She really lights up when Steph asks her to do what she feels like, so long as it’s short and androgynous.
The cut is perfect, a fashionable mullet that almost ends up making her look more masculine. Steph has her father’s square head and strong jaw and it’s never been more apparent until now. Maybe that was part of her mother’s problem, in the end—the fact that short hair just made her look that much more like him.
Steph’s heart flutters in her chest, stronger the longer she looks at herself. She shivers when Sam’s fingers drag through the longer hair at the back of her head, rings comfortably warm as they drag against the nape of her neck. They smile at each other in the mirror and Steph’s heart skips a beat. She thanks her profusely and leaves her a big tip before jogging to the clothing store taking up the majority of the strip mall.
She finds warm gray slacks in her size and a marigold colored blouse, loose with boxy shoulders. When she sees herself again in the fitting room mirror, she thinks she sort of gets it. Even with how busty she is, she looks pretty androgynous like this. Maybe with a sports bra and a more masculine shirt she might even get confused for a guy.
It’s thrilling.
Steph doesn’t know the last time she looked in the mirror and was really happy with what she saw. Before today, at least. She turns this way and that, smoothes down the fabric, adjusts her posture. A part of her wonders what Sam would say to her new look, if she’d send her another one of those sparkling smiles. Her face feels hot at the thought.
When she finally takes a look at her wristwatch she realizes she doesn’t have the time to answer that mystery. She bundles the dress she came in with under her arm and wears her new clothing out. There’s a big argument in her future, she just knows it, but she feels oddly at peace during the drive home. Her shoulders are relaxed and she can’t stop playing with her hair, beyond happy every time she sees that little glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror.
Her mother doesn’t see her until the ceremony itself. It takes Steph ages to find her when she walks across the stage because the only clapping and cheering she hears comes from Dustin and his mom. She finally sees her own mother when she walks off stage to return to her seat. Unamused and sour, flushed either from anger or whatever she had to sling back to bear the burden of attending her only child’s graduation. She’s shaking her head minutely, unwilling to risk the common people of Hawkins catching a whiff of the Harrington family being anything less than picture perfect.
Steph doesn’t drop eye contact until she absolutely has to, popping onto her toes to wave wildly at Dustin. He’s waving back just as enthusiastically, eyes all squinty while his face is lit up with his gummy smile. Dustin looks adorable, his mom must have parted his hair and made him dress up for the occasion. When Steph squints to see him a bit clearer she realizes he has a bouquet tucked in his elbow, big yellow and pink tulips that look like they’re wilting in the summer heat.
Her mother isn’t waiting for her after the ceremony is over and Steph doesn’t see her Volvo anywhere in the parking lot. She’s not sure if she’s upset about it or not, she’s had years to realize that she’ll never quite be enough but the obvious dismissal hurts in a numb kind of way. There’s no time to dwell and wallow, though, when Dustin nearly knocks her over in a maneuver that’s half-tackle half-hug.
“You look so cool, dude!”
Steph laughs at his enthusiasm and plucks her cap off of her head, hamming it up for him as she cards her fingers through her hair to make it look less flat. Dustin leans and looks at it from a couple of different angles and she takes advantage of his proximity to wrap him in a bear hug.
“Thanks, nerd. You look cool too.”
He preens when she lets him go, happy to let her scrunch his curls a bit. Claudia comes hurrying over to them soon after, holding the wilting bouquet in one hand and a camera in another. She pulls Steph into a suffocating hug, the kind of hug she’d always wish her own mother would give her, popping onto the tips of her toes to smother her with kisses before getting flustered and trying to wipe her lipstick marks off.
“Oh honey, I’m so proud of you! Pull in close with Dusty so I can get some pictures of you.”
Steph’s cheeks hurt from smiling and she tries not to cry when the limp tulips get passed over to her. She bends at the knee so that she can press her cheek against Dustin’s and happily poses for the camera. They take a few standing next to each other and then Steph decides to surprise Dustin, looping an arm around his waist until she’s got a good enough grip to lift him up when she stands up straight again.
He shrieks in her ear but it’s worth it for the way they both erupt into boisterous laughter. Dustin shifts over so that he can take a couple of pictures of her and Claudia, and then they look around to ask someone to get a picture of all three of them. To her surprise Mrs. Hagan offers even before any one of them has a chance to pose the question.
Steph plucks a pink tulip from the bouquet to tuck behind Dustin’s ear and puts a yellow one behind hers to match. Mrs. Hagan hovers after the pictures have been taken and Claudia makes a show of checking her watch and hurrying to get back to the house, though not before extracting a promise from Steph that she’ll be coming by for dinner that night.
“I’ve missed you sweetheart,” she says while pulling Steph down into a hug. She really has to bend over for it too, she’s been taller than Tommy’s mom since she was in sixth grade. “I’m glad you had someone here with you today who’s just as proud of you as I am. Tommy and Carol miss you too, though you know they’re both too stubborn to say it. Neither of them have said what split you all up, but I hope you kids can work it out before they leave this summer. Would be nice to see you around more often again.”
Steph sinks deeper into the hug and has to blink back the tears burning in her eyes again. She didn’t expect today to be so emotional. She mumbles something noncommittal to Mrs. Hagan, letting herself be rocked side to side in a long hug. When she straightens up she sees Tommy hovering nearby, Carol plastered to his side. Carol sends her an unsure smile while Tommy wiggles his fingers in a wave and Steph thinks that maybe Mrs. Hagan is right, after all. She smiles and wiggles her fingers back.
Her mom is gone when she gets home. No note, not that there ever has been. Her Volvo isn’t in the driveway and the master bedroom is as untouched as it was the day before. Off to chase her father, off to ignore the disappointment she’s left at home. When she goes to her own room the garment bag is missing from her bed. It’s a relief, almost, like her mom up and left and took her metaphorical handcuffs with her.
She changes into something more casual, the one pair of jeans she owns that she has to dig out from the back of her closet and a plain white t-shirt. Steph eyes her reflection in the mirror before she changes and makes the quick decision to swap her underwire bra for a sports bra. It doesn’t flatten her silhouette too much considering just how generous her bust is, but it makes a marked difference when she slips the tshirt on. She tucks it in and rolls the sleeves and thrills at the masculine version of herself staring back from the mirror.
It feels freeing, just throwing on something comfortable, something that she doesn’t have to pluck and sculpt and smooth herself to fit into.
Dinner with Claudia and Dustin is wonderful, no matter that it’s just one of the same five casseroles the Hendersons rotate through when they have guests over. They both celebrate her the way a real family would and Steph pesters Dustin for all the details of the cool brainiac camp he’ll be shipped off to in the coming week. Maybe it should be more embarrassing that her current best friend is only just about to get into high school, but she already knows she’ll miss him.
He whines when she helps clean up and gets ready to leave and even though Steph acts annoyed she pretends like she gives in to his needling her to play a board game with them before she leaves for the graduation party Tina is throwing. As if she wasn’t going to stick around anyways.
The board game is confusing and Steph doesn’t really get it, but she always has fun amping up her reputation as an airhead and frustrating Dustin with all of her questions. It takes a while, which is fine because it means that she shows up at Tina’s fashionably late and doesn’t have to stand awkwardly against the wall until someone she actually wants to talk to shows up.
The crowd is pretty mixed, plenty of rising seniors and juniors intermingling with the fresh batch of graduates. Which explains why Billie is there holding court with a hoard of fawning basketball players desperate to get into her pants.
Munson is there too despite missing the grade cutoff for graduation for the second year in a row. He’s probably making decent money at least, even if he’s not really celebrating with the others. There are a lot of looks being shot his way, too, which is probably heaven for someone as desperate for attention as him. It’s not too clear why, at first, until the crowd parts a bit and she realizes he’s wearing a skirt.
It stops her short.
His legs are scrawny, less hairy than Steph’s legs can get which she distantly considers unfair. He looks surprisingly good in it, though, and he seems like he must be comfortable from the way he keeps swishing the skirt around. Munson shifts when he laughs at something his friend says and twists around to grab something from his lunch box, showing off the punch spill staining the front of it. Beside him is his friend, Amy, the one girl that was in his nerd club who graduated with Steph today. It’s clearly her skirt, based on the way the jeans she’s wearing need to be held up even with the belt buckled, and Steph is struck by how kind of a gesture that is from him.
“Well, well, well,” Billie’s voice raises over the blaring music, “Hawkin’s undercover dyke is honoring us with her presence. You’re in luck, Harrington, maybe Munson can be your first girlfriend.”
Munson turns around to shoot Billie an amused look, flicking his dark eyes over to Steph as he dips into an awkward curtsy. His eyes are unfairly pretty, dark with long lashes, and for the first time in her life she’s the direct recipient of a genuine, dimpled smile from him. It flusters her even as she’s jealous of the way the comment seems to just roll off of his back.
Billie is still snickering with her little group of cronies, and when Steph looks over to send her an unimpressed look she feels oddly happy to see that neither Tommy nor Carol are among the group. She’s spent the last half a year just ignoring her, the memory of their fist fight starring in her nightmares almost as often as the various monsters of the previous two years. She should just stay quiet, brush it off and move on.
“Aww, jealous that Munson can actually pull it off? Not a good look on you, Hargrove.” She regrets saying it as soon as the words are out of her mouth, but she’s committed now so she sends Billie a pitying pout as she walks away. The party goes a bit silent as she watches the blonde’s face turn red while she prepares for a retort, but the moment is interrupted by Tommy’s impish giggle rising over the stereo. When she glances over she can see where he’s leaning against the wall, Carol next to him just smacking her gum with a bitchy little smile.
Their eyes meet and Carol chucks her head back in invitation. Steph bites down a smile and makes her way over to them. She plucks at Munson’s skirt when she passes by, shooting him a little smile and a quiet you look nice as she goes. Everyone knows the rumors surrounding him, it’s unbelievably brave of him to choose being a kind friend over worrying about what others might say.
It’s an awkward, rocky start, but Tina’s graduation party manages to make up for her Halloween party. The last time Steph was at her house she lost Jonathan and ruined whatever confusing friendship she had with Nancy in one fell swoop. This time, instead of losing, Steph gains her two oldest friends back. It takes a few days for them to fall back into their old, comfortable banter, but they manage to all the same. Carol is a bit sweeter than she remembers and Tommy seems more patient, Steph can only hope that she’s improved in their eyes too.
The next week is split between Dustin and the other gremlins, and Tommy and Carol. Tommy teaches her how to style her new, shorter hair, Carol puts a dent in her closet by taking most of her skirts and dresses then makes up for it by taking her shopping for more jeans and tees. Dustin tries convincing her to try their nerd game all the way up to his last day before camp, and the kids generally spend a lot of time swinging by to take advantage of the pool she hasn’t been able to swim in since ‘83.
Dustin leaves first, then Tommy and Carol a week later. They’re off to spend some time in Michigan at Carol’s uncles house before they’re off for college. It’s bittersweet, reconnecting with them. Steph feels like she gets a lost part of herself back only to lose it all over again. They agree to keep in touch, Carol says she expects biweekly phone calls and promises that they’ll both be back for the holidays.
Another week passes and her dad calls to tell her she’s cut off. Or rather, he has his secretary call to let Steph know. She was expecting this sooner, if she’s honest, but the timing at least is convenient enough to line up with the upcoming grand opening of the mall. She sends out twenty applications and hopes for the best.
Three days before the mall opens and the best ends up being Scoops Ahoy. It’s an ice cream shop, which feels pretty lucky considering how hot the summer is proving to be, though that’s about where the luck ends. It’s got a nautical theme and it’s got a horrible uniform and she realizes quickly that she’s going to be overrun by brats day in and day out. She works with Robin, some girl she vaguely knows she went to school with. They’re always scheduled together which is how she learns that she was given the wrong uniform.
“It’s the only one we had left,” Robin says with a shrug, though she doesn’t sound too sorry about it. Steph wonders if she did something awful to her in high school, and then feels worse when she realizes she can’t remember either way. Maybe she did do something awful, maybe this is a bit of revenge. Steph pouts about it a bit but when she sees the awful, poofy shorts that are a part of the women’s uniform she doesn’t mind it so much.
“That’s fine, I guess,” Steph says cheerfully, channeling the way Munson just smiled and moved on at Tina’s party. It could be that this really is the only uniform left, or maybe it’s some passive aggressive remark on the way Steph has been changing up her look lately. “This feels a bit pointed and mean though.”
Robin makes a curious noise so Steph shows her the name tag that was waiting for her in her assigned work locker. Steven.
“What the fuck,” Robin flusters, yanking it out of Steph’s hands. “We can talk to Gary about this, get him to have another one made with your actual name.” Her hands flap a bit and she drops her cool facade for the moment. “I can try to fix this for now!”
Her fix ends up being a creative application of stickers that transforms her name tag from Steven to a squashed together Stevie. It’s a sweet gesture, all the more so when, after her brief moment of kindness, Robin goes right back to being bitchy and aloof. She grows used to it while they wait for the replacement, all the customers staring at her name tag as an excuse to stare at her chest. She’s never more thankful than she has been for the higher collar on her men’s uniform shirt hiding away her cleavage. She starts to think of herself as Stevie after that. She thinks it suits her, this new her.
Steph was a lonely teenager, begging for love and attention, still being dressed by her mother even at her big age of eighteen.
Stevie barely has a moment to herself. Stevie doesn’t know the meaning of lonely. She babysits and she works, she has dinner twice a week with Claudia where she learns how to cook, dinner once a week with Hopper and El where he teaches her how to fix shit.
Stevie is good with her hands, has a mind for car repairs as it turns out for all that she isn’t so booksmart.
Robin doesn’t become any less of a bitch but Stevie comes to really like her all the same. She’s funny, when Stevie manages to direct her teasing elsewhere, and has the same kind of hard to follow intelligence that has drawn her to Dustin, and to Jonathan and Nancy before him.
They’re not quite friends before Dustin returns and the world goes to hell again, but there’s nothing like surviving Russian torture together to cement someone as the most important person in one’s life. Stevie tries her best to pull the attention to herself and spare Robin the trauma. She doesn’t quite manage, but really it’s the Russians fault in the end. They make it out worse for wear but connected in a way she never thought she could be with another human being. Soul mates.
Robin comes out to her in a bathroom, admits she’s a lesbian. Looks scared about it.
“I’m not interested in you! I’m not going to hit on you or whatever, you’re not my type.”
Stevie scoffs, “First of all, I’m everyone’s type. Second of all, you’re my sister, of course you’re not into me.”
Robin returns the favor a couple of months later, when Stevie zones out and suddenly realizes a couple of things about her weird obsession with Nancy Wheeler, about the way her hairdresser Sam makes her squirm. Stevie pulls her into the gross Family Video bathroom, insists on the ceremony of it all when she comes out, and Robin trashes her taste in women.
It’s like another piece of the new her, the Stevie she is now versus the Steph she once was. She’s still into guys, still misses Jonathan sometimes though maybe it’s more of a muscle memory thing tangled up with her unresolved attraction to Nancy. Stevie would be willing to date guys if her current appearance didn’t seem to work as a man repellent. It’s alright though, she still gets around. Something about the way she presents now, something about the way she holds herself, it brings queer women out of the woodwork.
Robin laments her own poor luck through the rest of ‘85 and into ‘86, hung up on a cute clarinet player that Stevie only barely remembers seeing around Hawkins High. Stevie tries to encourage her as best as she can, she hopes that if she can’t convince Robin to put herself out there that she can at least give her the relief of knowing that there are other lesbians or bi women around.
Though maybe that’s not entirely correct, considering the short shelf life of all of her little dates.
It’s a bummer but she keeps putting herself out there. Dating around means that she has less free time to mourn the way it feels like Dustin and the other gremlins are pulling away from her. The dweebs are hanging all over Munson these days, with the exception of Max who is pulling away for other reasons.
Munson is sort of inescapable in the months leading up to spring break. Mike completely switches up his look to emulate him more. Stevie is just glad that he doesn’t add handkerchiefs to his wardrobe, not now that Robin and her have sniffed out some illuminating zines. Lucas is only half enamored with him, he splits his time between the basketball team and the D&D club. She’s very proud of him and helps him where she can, putting her four years on the girl’s basketball team to good use. It’s Dustin’s obsession with having an ‘older male friend’, what a weirdo, that hurts the most.
She can’t go more than a day without hearing something about him or catching him around town, staring at her. Stevie figures it must be a shock to him, knowing that he’s not alone in town. She has no way of knowing if gay guys have better or worse luck in love than gay women do. The right thing to do would be to befriend him, but Stevie opts for the more juvenile route of keeping her distance and stewing in jealousy.
The choice of staying away or not is pretty promptly taken away from her once the Upside Down bursts open again. It’s a stressful week, for no one more than Munson himself, for Eddie. He’s on the run, he’s traumatized, he’s kind enough or maybe gay enough that he doesn’t stare too hard when she throws her sweater at his head and dives into Lover’s Lake in just her sweats and her sports bra. In the privacy of her mind she mourns that, just a bit—that his pretty dark eyes don’t look at her like that.
Stevie shares a weirdly intense moment with Nancy in the Upside Down before Eddie shows his kind heart once again and tosses her his vest to cover up with. She’s lucky he does, the weird gray bat things really did a number on her sports bra. Nothing quite as embarrassing as being chewed alive only to have to run around with one tit fully exposed to the elements.
The Amazons Dustin used to compare her to probably never had to deal with this kind of shit.
Things get a bit more confusing after that. He flirts with her, or at least she thinks he does, calls her big boy of all things which shouldn’t count as a come on but even Robin looked absolutely flabbergasted by his energy. They get new threads and Stevie finally feels like she won’t be arrested for indecent exposure in public. Mostly she’s just happy to have shoes on again, but there’s something nice about seeing Eddie bundled into more sturdy clothing after a week spent in a creaking jacket and a stained t-shirt.
Now isn’t the time to seek clarity on all of her feelings and all of her confusions, so she satisfies herself with solid parting words, drags a promise out of him that she vows to hold him to. She can’t resist approaching him one last time, for good luck. She thinks back to that graduation party all those months ago, his scrawny legs and his genuine smile. Stevie tugs at his olive drab battle vest or whatever he calls it and zips it up all the way to his throat.
“You look nice,” she offers quietly, just for him, an echo of the first time Eddie met this new version of herself. His cheeks turn pink, maybe with embarrassment, but he offers her that dimpled smile again. She returns it, and then she turns around to begin the march to the Creel house.
They all survive, somehow. The government comes in and clears shit up, everyone puts up a fuss to put it lightly until the blame for the murders is rightfully shifted from Eddie to the person who actually did it. Life doesn’t return to normal, but then again it never truly does for any of them. They learn to make due, adjust to their new normal.
For Robin, thrillingly, that means that she finally goes for it with Vickie. For Stevie, thrillingly, Robin is successful. That does have the negative side effect of significantly less quality time spent with her other half, but it also means that she has more time to spend with Eddie. They’re friends now, real friends, and she’s trying to be okay with just that.
He’s so sweet and he’s so kind, he’s pretty in a way guys usually aren’t. It’s fitting, in a way, considering Stevie could at best be considered handsome. Too bad it doesn’t always work out that way. It’s better to have him like this than not have him at all.
“I’m sorry,” Eddie says one day when they’re curled up on opposite ends of the Munson’s new couch. “That it didn’t work out with Robin, I mean.”
Stevie squints at him, confused, “Huh? Wait, did she tell you something, did something happen?”
“I mean with you. Like, I figured you two would make it, you know? Maybe move out to San Francisco or something where you could have your happy lesbian ever after.” Eddie looks put out at the gagging sound she can’t help but let out.
“First of all, that’s my sister, dude, yuck. Second of all, I might not necessarily have a lesbian ever after seeing as I’m bisexual and all.” He doesn’t offer up the joint they’ve been sharing but he also doesn’t make any move to partake himself, so she engages her core until she can sit upright enough to pluck it out of his hands.
Eddie won’t stop staring at her. His cheeks are a bit pink again and he keeps licking at his lips like he wants to say something but can’t figure out how to spit it out. They haven’t really talked about it, not directly. Robin’s second brush with death had been enough for her to come out to the group at large and live out loud—within reason. No one else had been brave enough to do so, but then again Stevie had been relying a lot on her general appearance to do the talking.
Maybe Eddie is finally ready to come out to her.
“So, like… you like dudes, too?” He finally asks. Stevie laughs and puts the joint out in the nearest ashtray when he refuses it. She stretches her arms and back, curious if the way his eyes are tracking the flexing muscles of her arms means what she’s beginning to think it could mean.
“I don’t regret dating Jonathan, if that answers that question for you. I just like people, you know?”
“I do. I do know—” Eddie cuts himself off and licks his lips. He looks nervous, anxious in a way she hasn’t seen him look since spring break. She straightens out and sits upright, ready to act in a moment's notice to help if he needs it. He’s still just staring, eyes so wide that she can see the whites all around his irises.
“Eddie?”
He doesn’t answer her, not with words at least. Eddie lunges forward and grabs her shoulders, hands fisting in her shirt to drag her in for a kiss.
It’s not a good kiss.
It’s not bad necessarily, it’s just sudden and a bit violent in a not-so-sexy way. Her nose bumps painfully against his cheekbone and shoots tears to her eyes. She blinks them away when Eddie pulls back and it takes a moment for her brain to catch up.
Eddie just kissed her.
Eddie just kissed her.
She pounces on him, frantic. Stevie takes the lead and Eddie lets her, hands untwisting from her shirt only to hover awkwardly near her face, like he doesn’t entirely get that he’s allowed to touch her. He’s good at following directions, opens his mouth when he feels the first puff of breath against his lips, traces her tongue with the tip of his own at her prompting. They break for panting breaths, not quite able to stop kissing each other except to exchange a few aborted words.
“I thought you were—”
“—yeah, me too—”
They kiss again. Stevie grips at him, letting her hands drift down to grope his flat little ass until she’s got enough leverage to haul him into her lap. It’s muscle memory at this point, after months of dating women whose main interest in her seems to amount to just how strong her arms have gotten. It’s a risk, really, she doesn’t imagine too many guys would enjoy the maneuver rather than feeling emasculated by it.
Eddie moans into her mouth, melts in her arms, and nothing has felt more right. He gets braver, slides his shaking hands along her square jaw and cupping her face like she’s something precious. Stevie can’t help but melt in return, slows things down a bit to give him a chance to take the lead. Minutes pass, maybe even hours, lost in kissing each other as they are. When they pull apart, breathing heavily, they both just smile.
Without any further exchange of words, Eddie scrambles out of her lap and offers up his hand. She takes it, lets him pull her off the couch, lets him lead her to his room. They undress each other, slowly and reverently. Eddie stares at her like he always has, like she’s caught him doing for the last year. He stares like he can’t believe he’s allowed to, so she reminds him that he can do so much more than that.
Stevie guides him through it, laces their fingers together, brings his hands up to touch what he’s looking at. She helps him palm at her tits, shows him what she likes. She encourages him to explore, bares herself to him beyond the obvious. Eddie’s touch is soft and sweet, curious, probing.
He lets her flip them when she grows impatient, lays back and looks up at her with his big, adoring eyes when she climbs on top of him. Stevie takes the condom he offers her and slides it on for him, leaning forward to pepper his face and his chest and his scars with soft kisses. He gasps when she lifts herself up and gently guides him inside, flush shooting up his cheeks when she settles in his lap for a moment.
She rolls her hips and begins a slow rhythm, lifting and lowering herself like the slow beat of her heart. One of his hands grasps at her hip while the other reaches up to cup her cheek. She leans into it, lets him hold her up, twists her face so that she can suck his thumb into her mouth and curl her tongue around it.
Eddie cries out at the sensation, face screwing up into a grimace so beautiful that Stevie feels her heart skip a beat. She shifts when he scrambles under her, when he bends his knees and plants his feet on his threadbare mattress to move with her, meeting her thrust for thrust. Her back arches in pleasure and she tangles her fingers with his hand on her hip, guiding it lower until she can show him how to touch her clit, how to work her in circles until she can’t help but cry out.
When he comes she slows down, stays put when he scrambles to wrap her up in his arms and pull her close. She holds him in return, happily pressing their sweaty bodies together. They exchange wet, filthy kisses while she feels him grow soft inside of her. She still hasn’t come but that doesn’t matter, not when they’re so tightly entwined. They have time, time for her to teach and for him to learn, time for them to grow together.
Time to talk, time to get to know each other. This new Stevie and her new Eddie.