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Steve stood on the roof of WSQK with a bottle of non-alcoholic beer in his hand, staring off into the distance.
He was glad he had decided to stay in Hawkins. Despite everything he’d lived through here, he still considered it home. But there were days, like this one, when it felt unbearably lonely.
Nancy, Robin, and Jonathan had already left, and even though they’d agreed to see each other every month, he knew all too well that at their age it wasn’t easy to just drop everything and meet up, no matter how much they wanted to. That was one of the things about adulthood he was still learning to accept, reluctantly.
He was lost in his thoughts when he heard the sound of a car pulling up, followed by the creak of the ladder leading to the roof.
He turned and crossed to the other side, arriving just as Nancy’s head appeared over the edge.
“Hey,” she greeted him, as if she had somehow known he’d be there, and as if it didn’t surprise her at all.
Steve, on the other hand, looked very much surprised. “Nancy?” he said, automatically reaching out to help her onto the roof, even though he knew she could manage just fine on her own.
She didn’t refuse his help. “Thanks,” she smiled, taking his hand and holding onto it a little longer than strictly necessary.
“What are you doing here?” he asked once they were standing side by side. “I thought you were already on your way back to Boston.”
“Yeah, but… there was a slight change of plans. I’m heading back later.”
“Oh,” he nodded, a little confused, “and… what are you doing here? I mean, up here on the roof. Wasn’t our little farewell party enough for you?” he added, half-joking.
“I could ask you the same thing,” she replied as they moved toward the seating area and Steve offered her a chilled bottle of non-alcoholic beer from a portable cooler.
Steve only shrugged and took a sip from his bottle after they clinked them together, then headed toward the edge of the roof. “What can I say… I like it up here. It really helps clear my head.”
He trailed off, and Nancy watched him while he stared into the distance.
“I would’ve thought you’d spend your day off with Kristen,” she said, taking a sip of her beer.
Steve smiled at that in a strange way. “Yeah… Kristen…”
“Did something happen between you two?” she asked.
“No… no… not really…” he chuckled, but then his expression grew serious again. “We just, well, you know… we broke up.”
“You broke up? That was…”
“Fast? Completely predictable?” he finished for her.
“Well… yeah, maybe,” she admitted, taking another sip.
She’d heard about his new relationships, if you could even call them that, and the subsequent breakups more times than she could count.
“Yeah, well, you know, I guess I have this one bad habit that tends to play a pretty significant role in all of that,” he said. “Not that it really matters, and I didn’t mean to bring it up…” He drank again, this time finishing the entire bottle, as if hoping she wouldn’t ask what he meant.
But she did. “A bad habit? What kind of bad habit?”
“Oh…” he waved it off and headed for another bottle. “It’s not worth talking about.”
She understood that he didn’t want to discuss it. “Alright then… I could probably offer a bit of female perspective, but if you don’t want to, that’s fine,” she said, turning her back to him.
Steve hesitated. He stood with his back to her as well, knowing he really shouldn’t say things like this out loud. Definitely not to her.
“That bad habit is,” he said uncertainly, “that in every girl I meet… I try to find someone else…” His voice dropped, quieter than anything he’d said before. “Which is a problem, and it’s stupid, because I know… none of them will ever be like her.”
He slowly turned around. Nancy was standing right in front of him, looking at him with that look he could never get out of his head.
“None of them will ever be like you.”
Nancy parted her lips slightly, almost in reaction to the unexpected surprise, yet her expression also suggested it wasn’t something she hadn’t half-expected.
It had been hanging between them, unspoken, for a long time now.
And when she didn’t react right away, Steve decided it should have stayed that way.
“I’m sorry, I... I know I shouldn’t have said that at all. I’m an idiot, I’m sorry,” he said, letting out a small, awkward laugh, though it was clear he was uncomfortable as he took a step back from her.
“Just forget it, okay? Like I never said anything. You know me, I say stupid things sometimes…” He spread his hands, as if trying to pass it off as a bad joke.
He took another step back, as if physically trying to retreat from the situation.
“I actually still have some unfinished work, so I should probably head out… I’ll see you later, yeah?” He turned toward the ladder that led down from the roof.
Those few steps felt like an eternity.
“Steve?” Nancy called when he was almost at the edge of the roof.
After a moment, Steve turned around, trying to look casual. “Yeah?”
“Let’s talk, okay?”
For a moment, all he could do was look at her. Then he nodded.
They moved together into the radio station building. Steve sat down on the couch, Nancy in the armchair beside it. An awkward silence stretched between them for several long seconds.
“I don’t want to pretend I don’t see it,” Nancy began. “I don’t want this to stay between us as something we never said out loud, only for it to explode like a pressure cooker years from now, not when I know you haven’t really closed that chapter, and not when I know it’s holding you back from what you want out of life.”
Steve sighed. “You’re right, but… I don’t want you to think I expect anything from you. I don’t want to ruin what we have now. I don’t want to lose our friendship. I don’t want things to feel awkward whenever we see each other… and I know what I said didn’t exactly help with that.” He shook his head.
He looked down at his hands folded in front of him, resting on his knees, then stared ahead instead of directly at her. He decided to say what he’d been forbidding himself to admit for a long time.
“I really thought I’d closed that chapter inside myself. I was convinced of it, more than once, actually… and I kept convincing everyone else, too, like that would somehow make it true. I said I’d moved on. But then we see each other again and—”
He looked at her, and the words caught in his throat.
She was watching him, listening, and he didn’t feel judged. That somehow made it harder. Part of him almost wished she’d just tell him he was an idiot and that he needed to stop.
“I’m sorry… I know it shouldn’t be like this, but I just can’t help it.”
Nancy nodded and looked down at her own folded hands. “It would be so much easier if it were different… if I knew you were happy with someone else,” she said, meeting his eyes. “I truly wish you were happy, really happy, with someone it makes sense with.”
Steve was sure that, for Nancy, this was already a closed chapter, until she continued.
“But at the same time, I know that whenever I’d see you together, somewhere in the back of my mind I’d be wondering what it would be like if I were in her place. And whenever I hear that another one of your relationships didn’t work out, a small part of me is glad, and believe me, I know how terrible that is.”
“Is it really that terrible?” he breathed, a flicker of hope in his voice.
“Of course it is,” Nancy said, letting out a strange little laugh. “You and me, we should both be somewhere else by now, don’t you think?”
Steve nodded vaguely.
Nancy ran both hands through her hair and looked at him again. “You know… I probably shouldn’t say this either, but there was a time when I thought the two of us, we’d be together forever.” She smiled sadly. “Back then, before everything happened… you were the first person I ever fell in love with, and I truly believed we’d have a house in the suburbs and a family together someday.”
“And when exactly did you stop believing that?”
Nancy shrugged. “I don’t know… probably when everything became more complicated than just studying for exams and planning Saturday nights.”
Steve looked at her, hesitating, but he knew that if they were really going to talk this through, it had to be the whole truth.
“I know you never forgave me for what happened back then… and you had every right not to.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
“Barb,” he said carefully, seeing the change in her expression. “I know that night… everything changed. And then it just piled on, one thing after another, all the insane things we’ve been through over the years.”
Nancy nodded. She knew it was true.
“And that might be the main problem,” Nancy said. “We fell in love before all of that… and now we’re both completely different people. We want completely different things.”
“Maybe not that different.”
“Really?” she challenged. “You want to stay here. I don’t. Even though my family’s here, I can’t imagine living here again. And those six kids? I don’t even know yet when I’ll be ready to be a mother… whether I’ll want one child or two… or any at all—” Her voice started to rise with panic.
“Hey, Nancy,” he said, taking her hand. She looked at him. “It’s okay. Really.”
Nancy let out a breath when she saw the way he was looking at her.
“When I told you about my dream back then, I knew it probably sounded a little crazy, and maybe a bit unrealistic,” he chuckled softly, letting go of her hand. “I just meant that it would be nice to have a big family… because I never really had one myself. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be happy with fewer kids… someday… when the time was right.”
Nancy smiled faintly, and he returned the smile.
“The most important part of that dream was you,” he said gently. “I dreamed about having that family with you someday. But that never meant I wanted to dismiss your dreams, I would never want that. And I’m sorry if what I said back then scared you. I know I didn’t have the right to say it, especially when you were with Jonathan. But…” He paused. “Something made me want to at least try.”
“What do you mean?”
Steve straightened up and leaned back. “You know… back then… when you jumped into the lake after me…” He looked at her. “Eddie told me something I couldn’t get out of my head. And maybe that’s why I said things I probably shouldn’t have.”
“And… what did he tell you?”
Steve smiled slightly and looked down at his hands in his lap before meeting her eyes again. “He said that the way you jumped in after me without hesitation was a unambiguous sign of true love. And that even though he didn’t know exactly what had happened between us, if he were in my place… he’d get you back.”
This time, Nancy looked genuinely taken aback. She didn’t know how to respond.
Steve leaned closer. “Nancy?”
She looked up at him.
“If you tell me here and now that we don’t stand even the slightest chance anymore, that I’m just holding onto false hope, I’ll accept it. I mean it. I promise it won’t change our friendship, and I’ll finally be able to let it go. Maybe I just need to hear it from you directly so I can finally move on.” He sounded completely serious.
Nancy nervously tapped her foot, and he noticed.
“But… if there’s even the smallest chance that it’s different… that Eddie might have been, even just a little, right…”
“Then?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“Then I’ll try to do everything I can to be with you again.”
Nancy met Steve’s eyes, then briefly looked away, nervously running her fingers through her hair again, tucking a stray strand behind her ear.
He could tell how much what he’d said had shaken her. He took it his own way.
“I don’t want to pressure you,” Steve said gently, already prepared for the possibility that he wouldn’t get a clear answer at all. “I just needed to tell you.”
“If you need time to think about it, I can accept that too… I just don’t know,” he hesitated, “if we’ll ever really get another chance to have this conversation. And I don’t know if I want to spend the next few months wondering whether it makes sense to hope and… wait.”
Nancy looked at him again, but still didn’t say anything.
Everything inside her was pulling in different directions. She knew it would be more than fair to give him a clear answer, that he deserved to know where he stood, but at the same time, she wasn’t sure she was ready to close that door for good… or to open it all the way again.
It was as if that half-open door of their undefined relationship was exactly what she needed right now.
Steve smiled a little awkwardly, starting to feel like she simply didn’t want to take away the last bit of hope he had left.
“You know what? Let’s just leave it,” he said quietly. “Really. It’s okay.” He slowly got to his feet.
Even though he should have come to terms with this a long time ago, the familiar sting of disappointment still hit him, the realization that whatever chance they might have had was probably gone for good.
So he did what felt easier. He switched tracks, hiding his discomfort behind humor.
He didn’t see the way she was looking at him as he slowly moved away.
“Looks like next time we’ll be meeting at Robin’s weird uncle’s place, huh?” he chuckled softly. “If he’s anything like her, we’re definitely in for something. I’m curious whether—”
He stopped short when he felt Nancy grab his hand. He hadn’t even heard her stand up or move toward him. He turned back to her, their eyes meeting.
“I’m sorry,” Nancy said. “I—”
“You don’t have to apologize, I understand that—”
He didn’t get to finish, because Nancy closed the distance between them and kissed him without any warning.
It was an impulsive kiss, slightly awkward and brief.
Steve hadn’t expected it at all. For the first few seconds, his eyes were wide open in shock before he finally closed them, his body still frozen in place.
When she pulled back, he looked at her as if he couldn’t quite believe she’d actually done it.
“I just… I just wanted to remember… what it feels like…” she blurted out, her cheeks burning as the embarrassment of what she’d done washed over her.
And yet, even that single step on her part reignited a spark of hope inside him, one he’d tried to extinguish so many times before.
He lifted his hand to her face, and this time it was him who initiated the kiss.
There was no hesitation in it, only the question of how far she would let him go. At first, the kiss was almost innocent, slow. His hand slid to her neck, brushing against her skin, but the moment he felt her lean into him and wrap her arms around him, the kiss deepened automatically.
He hated how much he still wanted her, even after all this time, that kissing her couldn’t be compared to any other kiss he’d had before or after her.
And at the same time, he knew he would do it again and again, even if it were only for this fleeting moment...