LIKE I CAN ━ Steve Harrington ✓

10 - SHOCK WAVES

SHOCK WAVES

IT WAS THE DAY OF WILL'S FUNERAL and most of the town was there. Grayson's family, however, hadn't spoken to the Byers's in years. Joyce and his mother used to be good friends until Will came along. His mother was convinced the kid was a "queer" as she said, so she cut ties with Joyce. Hence, why Grayson had yet to come out to his mother. He couldn't imagine ever doing that unless maybe she was on her deathbed. This was probably the wrong thing to be thinking about on the day of a young boy's funeral. The event was on his mind because he inevitably spent the night at the twins' house and their family had been invited. Part of Grayson didn't want to believe the kid was actually dead. It seemed too dark for their small, peaceful town. Hawkins had never been a place where people killed themselves or kids who went missing turned up dead. On a lesser note, it wasn't a place where people cheated on each other. However, a boy was dead so Grayson neglected to hate himself for a day.

Now, he was home in his own bed, his mother watching something on TV downstairs and his father at work, Huckleberry's head cradled in Grayson's lap. With the twins at the funeral, he was utterly bored with no one to talk to. Part of him was itching to call Matthew, an urge he hadn't had since that night. Part of him wanted to beg and plead for him to take Grayson back, but he was too prideful to pick up the phone.

Disturbing the silence, Huckleberry's barking woke up the napping teen, his eyes opening to find someone knocking at his window. Not just anyone, though, Steve Harrington. In response, Grayson pulled one of his many pillows out from under him and threw it at the window. The boy, however, remained unbothered and resilient. And Huckleberry's barking was getting annoying.

With a deep sigh, Grayson got up and opened the window, purposely trying to hit Steve with it, "Hey, did you miss the part when I told you to stay the fuck away from me? I knew you were an idiot, but I never knew you were deaf, too."

"Okay, first of all, rude," Steve chastised, climbing into the room despite Grayson trying to close the window on him, "Second of all, I'm not here for any ulterior motives other than to apologize. I promise no scandalous behavior or misplaced hands from me."

"You can apologize by staying two hundred feet away from me at all times starting yesterday," the dark-haired boy offered, walking over to his door and letting the dog out before locking it. He didn't want the barking or anything to cause his mother to get curious. His mother would absolutely murder him if she found a boy in his room. Especially a boy like Steve Harrington.

"Gray, I—"

With that, the boy cut him off, "Only my friends get to call me Gray. Try again."

"Grayson, I'm sorry. I'm trying to right my wrongs, I guess. Hell, I even wanted to apologize to your boyfriend, or, well, ex-boyfriend, but you still won't tell me who he was and I respect that, I do. I coerced you into cheating on him and I know you're going to say that it wasn't entirely my fault, but it wasn't entirely yours and that hasn't stopped you from blaming yourself and making yourself feel like shit for what we did. Yes, you cheated on Matthew and I cheated on Nancy, but it was a team effort so stop blaming yourself, please."

He had no idea how to respond to any of that, but before he could, Steve continued, "I want to tell Nancy, I do, but I don't know if I can handle losing her. If I lose her, I lose the last piece of this front I've been putting up to hide who I really am, what I really feel. I love her, I do, but I don't love her the way I love you."

"Steve—"

"Let me finish, please. I was scared, I was a stupid kid. I should never have let my dad finding us tear us apart the way it did, I should never have broken up with you, I should never have dated Nancy, I should never have kissed you at that party or in your car because if I hadn't done that, if I hadn't kissed you, I would have never realized how I really felt. I didn't even realize how much I cared about you until you were screaming at me in the parking lot, so I guess when they say you don't realize what you have until it's gone, they're right. I never told you how I felt when we were together because I was scared. Scared of how I felt. I had never felt like that for someone before. There's another thing they say about love, though, they say that if you love someone, let them go. So, this is my way of saying, I'm letting you go. All I have done is make you feel like shit, I've ruined your relationship, I've ruined mine, and those are things I don't know if I'll forgive myself for, but just know that after today, I'll never bother you again. In fact, I was going to go try and fix things with Nancy right after this because I had a feeling you were going to be too happy to let me go. Hell, I didn't even think I'd get this far, I'm a little surprised you're letting me ramble like this, but yeah. That's it."

"That's it?" Grayson asked in bewilderment, a tear rolling down his cheek, "That's it? You don't, you don't get to say shit like that, Steve Harrington. You don't get to tell me you love me and then tell me you're going to get back with your girlfriend because as much as I hate to say it, I love you, too. Always have, always will and as much as I hate myself for what we did, I don't want you to let me go. I was only with him to get over you and it didn't fuckin' work, so clearly you've got some kind of spell on me because no matter what, I'm always going to love you, Steve Harrington."

Steve sighed and it was visible on his face how much this was hurting him, "I'm sorry, for everything. Maybe one day things will be okay again and we can try this for real. No secrets, no hiding, just us. I just, don't think today's that day."

"I'm not sure it ever will be."

With that, Steve climbed back out the window with a sad smile. He left Grayson standing in the middle of his bedroom, heartbroken and alone. It was summer all over again. Except this time, there was no redemption. Grayson was utterly in love with Steve Harrington and Steve Harrington was going to go apologize to his girlfriend. Their story was over.

I know this sounds like the end, but I promise it's not because there's still three and a half episodes of season one! Also, if I finish season one with less than 20 chapters, I will go into season two, but I'm hoping to round it out with season one/christmas so I can focus on some of my other stories! Also also, thank you for 15k reads!