CHAPTER TWELVE.
2x02: Trick or Treat, Freak

"I thought you didn't even want to go trick-or-treating this year," Stephanie murmured, holding Sam's chin with her hand.

She was painting on Sam's face with oranges and yellow, and some black here and there. The costume Sam, Stephanie, and Corey ended up putting together was a very last-minute scarecrow.

Sam wore a white turtleneck of her own with an old, oversized flannel of Corey's on top of it. She also wore overalls of his that he no longer wanted, with a hat of Aunt Kat's they'd stolen from her room. In between Sam's layers of clothes, they stuffed her with straw taken from Aunt Kat's hay-bale Halloween decoration outside. The boots she wore were being borrowed ("yes, Steph, I know I'm just borrowing them, jeez") from Stephanie, and she'd also plaited Sam's hair into two simple braids.

The only thing they needed to do now was paint Sam's face. Stephanie was dressed in her Shaggy costume as she painted on the circle cheeks, triangular nose, and stitched smile.

"I didn't," Sam agreed, trying not to shiver at the cold paint being applied to her face. "But I made a friend today, and I think she's coming with us. So."

Sam shrugged.

"Wait," Corey interjected from where his legs were dangling off the side of Stephanie's bed. "Max is coming with us?"

Sam turned to Corey, confused that he was confused, until it hit her.

"I knew they didn't take a vote!"

"Stop moving your head!" Stephanie hissed, gripping harshly onto Sam's chin again and forcing Sam to look forward. As she continued painting, Stephanie commented, "I'm proud of you for making a friend that's not an idiot boy. You need more of a female influence in your life."

"I've made another friend that's a girl!" Sam protested, quicker than she should have.

Stephanie stopped painting to shoot Sam a disbelieving look. "Really? Like who?"

El, Sam wanted to say, but forgot she couldn't.

She panicked over speaking too fast, and made worried eye contact with Corey—he also looked nervous. He shook his head and shrugged cluelessly. He was absolutely no help at all.

"Uh..." Sam searching her brain for a lie, looking at Stephanie again. "Well, you, right? You're my friend?"

And luckily, Stephanie reacted as if she felt bad for being so rude about Sam's choice of wording. Sam let out a relieved breath, grateful the sad little sister move had worked once again.

"Yeah, Sammy." Stephanie smiled encouragingly, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. "I am."

Sam laughed nervously, sharing a look with Corey in a way that couldn't have been discreet.

"Right. Awesome. Yeah."

She really hated keeping secrets from Stephanie.

╰━━━ ◦ ✸ ◦ ✸ ◦ ━━━╯

At 7:00 on the dot, Sam, Lucas, Mike, Corey, and Dustin left Mike's house with their pillowcase bags in hand to meet up with Will and begin trick-or-treating. With perfect timing, Jonathan's car pulled up outside of Mike's as they were walking across Mike's large lawn. They all called out greetings to Will. They waved when Jonathan's car slowed to a stop.

The five kids waited on the sidewalk for Will to join them, and Sam was struck by just how impatient the boys were—they'd broken out into a pillowcase fight of sorts. Sam laughed, watching her friends slap each other with empty, harmless pillowcases.

Sam heard a car door slam, and looked away from the boys to see Will finally approaching them.

"Will!" she called, gaining the attention of her other friends, momentarily pausing their pillowcase war.

"Egon!" Lucas greeted in excitement as Will started running towards them.

Dustin whooped. "Yeah!" he cheered. "You ready for tonight, man?"

"You know I am!" Will beamed back, finally reaching the group of five before him. Sam noted that, while he was holding an empty pillowcase with one hand, he was grasping something else in the other.

Sam's mouth dropped to the floor, gasping so loudly that the boys' heads whipped to her, wondering if something was wrong. But Sam's eyes were just glued on the large camera Will was lugging along.

"Is that a JVC?!" Sam nearly screeched.

Will seemed confused for a moment at the terminology, until realizing she was referring to the video camera in his hands. He held it up for a moment, eyeing it before looking back at Sam.

"Yeah." Will smiled. "Bob lent it to me for tonight!"

Sam's excited grin grew. "That's so cool!"

Will sent Sam a fond look.

"Here," he started, propping it on his shoulder and began rolling it to record. "You can do the intro for the video."

Getting into character, Sam pretended to be a famous broadcaster. "Hello, people of the world!" She waved. "I'm Sam Hughes, your host, and today we are proud to show 'A Party's Halloween' on Bob Newby's amazing camera!"

Lucas jumped into Sam's side obnoxiously, throwing an arm around her neck. "I'm Lucas, Sam's beautiful co-host!"

"Luke, get away!" Sam cried, trying to pry Lucas off of her while simultaneously trying to hide her amused laugh. Giving up on both subjects, Sam went slack in Lucas's grip and laughed into the camera. "He's not a co-host, everyone. Don't worry."

Dustin darted in front of Sam and Lucas, arms spreading out as if it were his big debut. "Because I'm the co-host! The one, the only, Dustin Henderson!"

"Can you nerds get on with it so we can start trick-or-treating?"

"Yeah, if I'm agreeing with Gray then you guys need to hurry up!"

Sam, Lucas, Will, and Dustin looked to where Corey and Mike were impatiently waiting. Then, the trio faced the camera Will was holding, with Dustin no longer blocking Sam and Lucas from view.

"That's Corey and Mike," Dustin stage-whispered to the camera.

Sam and Lucas nodded. Lucas continued, "They pretend to hate each other, but they actually don't. Not really."

"Will?" Sam changed the subject, taking the camera from Will's hands and pointing it at him instead. "Got anything to say to our lovely, willing viewers?"

"Um..." Will looked shy now that he was in front of the camera and not behind it. He shrugged bashfully. "Hi?"

Lucas sighed, feigning disappointment. "See, this is why he's the camera man. Give him his camera back, Sam."

Sam rolled her eyes, but ultimately did hand Will the camera.

To the imaginary audience, Lucas commented, "Sam's just wants Will's camera for herself. She's really into cameras and radios stuff."

"That's not true!" Sam shot back. "I would never want to steal from Will!"

Dustin scoffed. "You're just biased. Will's definitely your favorite."

"I do not have favorites!" Sam shot them an assholish grin. "I tolerate all of you equally." She opened her mouth to say more, but was yanked away.

"Seriously, nerds. Can we go now?" Corey snapped, dragging Sam by her wrist.

"Alright! Alright!" Will paused recording, sounding exasperated. He shared a look with Lucas. "We're coming!"

╰━━━ ◦ ✸ ◦ ✸ ◦ ━━━╯

"Trick or treat!" six kids exclaimed with bright smiles. They were all huddled together at the front door of an old lady's home.

The women beamed the sight of them. "Oh, well aren't you cute? The four little exterminators, their science experiment, and a scarecrow!"

She stuck out a bowl of candy bars.

All the boys' smiles quickly turned upside down while Sam thanked her. Dustin scoffed softly, taking a much larger handful of candy than all the party members.

They turned around, starting to make their way down the porch.

It wasn't until they were far enough away from the house that Lucas said, "If I get another 3 Musketeers, I'm gonna kill myself."

Dustin peered past Sam to look at Lucas in confusion. "What's wrong with 3 Musketeers?"

"What's wrong with 3 Musketeers?" Lucas scoffed

Mike's nose wrinkled. "No one likes 3 Musketeers."

"Yeah, it's just nougat," Will said.

Dustin gaped incredulously. "Woah, 'just nougat'?! No way! Specks, Corey, what about you?"

"3 Musketeers is ass," Corey deadpanned.

Sam scrunched her nose, looking at Dustin a little more empathetically. "It's... okay..."

"That means, 'it's disgusting' in Sam terms," Lucas interjected, shooting Dustin a smug look.

Sam elbowed Lucas with a pointed look.

"I can't believe this," Dustin muttered, shaking his head. "It is top three for me."

"Top three?" Lucas echoed in disbelief as they reached the road.

Dustin nodded proudly. "Top three!"

"Oh God." Mike's face screwed up, disgusted. "Give me a break."

"Seriously, I could just eat a whole bowl nougat," Dustin said, ignoring his friends' protests. "Just straight up—"

And then Michael Myers was jumping out of the bushes, yelling at the whole group, causing them to let out terrified shrieks. Sam scrambled behind Lucas for protection. She thought she heard herself screaming before realizing it was Lucas.

A familiar laugh came from behind the mask, and Sam could feel her heartbeat start to slow down. She tried calming her breathing, turning to face Max, who was chuckling and had now removed the mask.

"Very funny, Max," Sam huffed.

"Holy shit! You should have seen the look on your faces!" Max cackled at the shaken group of friends. "And you," she looked at Lucas, who had his hand pressed to this chest to try and regain his composure, "who screams like that? You sound like a little girl!"

They were all still trying to recover when Max began walking off from them. Upon realizing no one was following her, she turned on her heel, waving around her plastic pumpkin basket around.

"Hey, you guys coming or not? Ooh! I heard we should hit up Loch Nora—that's where all the rich people live, right?"

It was also where Justin Zimmerman and Carrie Cunningham lived, but Sam didn't need to let anyone know that. Max let out another chuckle before turning around and resuming her steps. Sam shrugged as she followed Max, catching up to her side. Lucas and Dustin shared excited grins before they caught up with Max and Sam, followed by Corey and Will.

Mike, however, was not sharing the sentiment.

╰━━━ ◦ ✸ ◦ ✸ ◦ ━━━╯

They'd just finished another mansion in Loch Nora, walking down the steps and enjoying the night. Sam was ninety percent sure that house belonged to Justin, but she wasn't going to say anything in fear of being berated like she had been earlier.

"Another full-size," Dustin scoffed. "Like, seriously, rich people are such suckers." He, Sam, Lucas, and Max continued to walk side by side from the large house. Then to Max, "Wait, you're not rich, right?

Max laughed at the absurdity of the question. "No, I live up Old Cherry Road."

"Oh," Dustin said, falling quiet.

She shrugged. "No, it's fine. I mean, the street's good for skating."

Dustin hummed, nodding while he munched on a full-size 3 Musketeer bar. "Yeah, totally tubular."

Sam made a face at Dustin. "'Tubular,' Dustin? Really?"

"What?" Dustin shrugged, nodding at Max. "Did I say that right? Or is it like, tubulah?"

Dustin said the word in such a horrible mocking of a surfer bro that Sam and Max looking to each other in amusement before giggling.

"It's—it's like," Lucas started, imitating a surfer, "totally tubularrr!"

"Toootally tubular!" Dustin mimicked Lucas's mocking of what a Californian sounded like.

Sticking out his pinky and thumb, Lucas fisted the rest of his fingers and shook his hand. "What a gnarly wave, dude!"

"Totally brodacious, dude!"

"Stop!" Max spoke through her chuckles. "My ears are hurting!"

Sam let out the laugh she'd been holding back. "Oh my God, you guys'd be eaten alive in California!"

"What, Sam?" Lucas feigned confusion. He leaned into Sam's side obnoxiously, rolling his hand through a wave motion. "Am I not totally tubular?"

"No!" Sam pretended to be annoyed, but she was being overtaken by her laughs and smile. She tried pushing Lucas off of her, but Lucas was forcing Sam into Max, and therefore Max into Dustin. The four of them collectively laughed as they stumbled over each other's feet. "Oh my God, Lucas, get off!"

"But I'm riding the gnarly wave, bro!" Lucas continued his imitation, squished against Sam's side.

Corey watched the four of them continue their weird banter, hiding a fond smile as he fell a few feet behind. He and Will had ended up walking together while Mike, annoyed, followed everyone.

"Hey, Core," Will called, and Corey glanced to see Will was pointing the camera at him. "Say hi to your future self!"

Corey felt awkward in front of the camera, but he held up a hand. "Hi, Future Corey. I hope you're not in jail yet."

"You're not gonna end up in jail," Will scolded.

Corey shrugged. "Tell that to my dad. He's convinced I'm a felon," he said. "Technically I was, so it's warranted. But I'm just... a reformed felon. Hopefully."

"Hopefully," Will echoed, snorting in amusement.

Will turned the camera to Mike, wanting Mike to do the same, but he was quick to speak his mind.

"Did you guys agree to this?"

Confused, Will put the camera down. "What?"

"To her," Mike nodded at Max, "joining our Party."

Corey looked over at Max, then at Sam next to her. Both girls had big, genuine grins on their faces. He heard Stephanie talking to Sam in his mind, saying, You need more of a female influence in your life. He remembered the hurt look on Sam's face while she thought about Eleven, almost accidentally spilling to Stephanie about the lost girl.

Will shrugged. "It's just for Halloween."

"You should've checked with me," Mike scoffed.

Corey rolled his eyes. "What's so bad about Max joining anyway? Look at how happy they all are. Sam finally has another girl to hang around."

"Yeah, they were excited about this," Will said. "I guess we thought you'd be okay with it."

But Mike snapped, "She's ruining the best night of the year," before stalking away.

Corey watched Mike march away with a tired exhale. Will seemed upset that Mike was upset, but Corey just put a hand on Will's shoulder, stopping him. His eyes were trained on where Mike had gone off to.

"I'll go knock some sense into him," Corey said, patting Will's shoulder. "You go catch up with the others."

And so, doing exactly what he said he would, Corey went after Mike Wheeler. The world must be backwards today if he was the one (please read this sarcastically) chosen for the honors.

"Come on, Wheeler," Corey started once he found Mike, grabbing his oversized sleeve. "What's actually wrong—?"

"Sam already had another girl to hang around!" Mike whipped around to face Corey, finally going off. "She had El! And you're all trying to replace her with Max!"

Corey was at first taken a back, but quickly recuperated himself to match Mike's energy. "Dude, no one is trying to replace El!"

Now, Corey was well aware he wasn't apart of any of the shit that went down last year until the very end—he didn't know Eleven like the rest of them did—but he knew enough to confidently say they all were way too fond of Eleven to replace her. They missed her, in fact.

"You can't replace a girl like that," he finished.

"Tell that to Sam, Lucas, and Dustin!" Mike shouted, but Corey heard his voice crack. Face hardening, he rambled, "Next thing you know, they're replacing me next. They didn't even care to ask my opinion about this!"

"Well the party's a democracy—"

"I know! I know the party's a democracy!" Mike cried, as if that wasn't the point. "But it still would've been nice to feel included! I feel like... I feel like everyone hates me now, and I'm being left in the dust like El!"

Then Mike's voice wavered, and—oh shit, Corey wasn't equipped to handle this.

"Come on, man, let's sit down," Corey said, guiding him with an arm around his shoulder, speaking to Mike in a voice he'd never spoken to him with before.

Mike was breathing sharply in and out, and Corey knew then Mike was also showing a new side of himself tonight. He set both of them down on the nearest curb that was relatively empty for a rich neighborhood on Halloween night.

"Mike. Mike, look at me."

Mike's head snapped to the side, and as much as it looked like he was trying to glare at Corey in annoyance, there was also a profound sadness to his features.

"No one is ever going to replace you," Corey said slowly, making sure Mike truly understood his words. "You're the leader of this party. You're irreplaceable." Then, "I'm gonna be honest, I didn't understand when I first joined the party, 'cause you're a total douche—"

"Hey!" Mike cried in offense. "This is a shitty pep talk!"

"Would you let me finish, Wheeler?" Corey snapped. Mike silently glowered. "Thank you. Like I was saying, I didn't understand how you could be the leader of the party... until I did. Until I saw their eyes turn to you when they're unsure about something, wanting to hear your opinion on the matter. Until I saw you acting as Dungeon Master in all of their campaigns. Until I heard the way they speak about you—like Sam. Especially Sam. She adores you, dude."

"Does she really?" Mike asked, brows pulling together in a way that was kind of adorable, really.

"Yes!" Corey said exasperatedly. "You're her best friend! Actually, you're all of their best friends. Even..." Oh God, he was going to have to say it, wasn't he? "You know, even me. So—trust my word when I tell you you're not being replaced. Neither is El."

"Yeah?" Mike whispered.

His tone was soft, and Corey had never heard this before. It caught him completely off guard, face flushing.

"Yeah, dude." Corey coughed, turning his head away to hide his face. To keep things surface level, he said, "Who else am I going to argue with without having to feel bad about it?"

"Oh," Mike said. Then he grinned. "So I'm your best friend?"

"I take it back," Corey said quickly. "You're the bane of my existence."

"Nope, it's too late. I'm your best friend and you think I'm irreplaceable. Are you in love with me?" Mike teased, wiggling his eyebrows.

"You repulse me," Corey said, but he was smiling and Mike was laughing, and even though Corey's face was flaming, it felt like they were going to be just fine. Even if everything went to shit again, they would be okay.

"There you guys are!" came the voice of Sam, scaring the boys. They jumped apart from each other, as if they were being caught of something, and stared dumbly up at her. "We've been looking all over. Where's Will?"

Corey stood with a confused face.

"I thought he was with you guys?"

"You lost Will?" Mike cried incredulously to Corey, standing up as well.

"You were the one who marched off having a temper tantrum!" Corey said. "This is not my fault!"

Lucas groaned, throwing his head back. "Oh God, not right now, you guys. Let's just split up and look for him, okay?"

And so that was exactly what they did. They searched for Will Byers.

"Will?" they called, zigzagging between trick-or-treaters. "Will?"

They turned, pushing past a couple of older teenagers who stole candy from kids.

"Will?!"

This all felt too familiar for Sam, she thought with a sinking heart. Here they were again, searching desperately for Will, who was lost again. Sam didn't want to freak out with Max right here, but it was definitely hard not to. She hoped Will was okay. She prayed he wasn't actually lost or in any pain.

"Specks! Max! We found him!" Dustin yelled breathlessly, running up to the two girls. He tugged on Sam's arm, pulling her away. "Come, this way!"

Sam quickly grabbed Max's arm, and the three ran off in a chain, rushing down the side of someone's house.

They found Will with Mike's arms on his shoulders, looking around horrified, lost in a different world and out of breath.

"Is he okay?" Sam asked immediately, staring down at the pair.

"I don't know," Mike said, before turning his attention back to Will. "I'm gonna get you home, okay?"

Will whimpered, and Sam could feel her heard shatter.

"I'm gonna get you home," Mike said again. "Hold on."

He struggled to get Will to stand up, something Dustin noticed and tried helping with. But Mike shook him off quickly.

"I got him! I got him." Mike threw an arm around Will, trying to get Will up the stairs.

The kids stared back at him, a little too stunned to do anything about how Mike wasn't letting anyone help out with Will. They were Will's friends too.

"Mike!" Lucas called desperately, wanting to help and not knowing where the sudden mood change had come from.

"Keep trick-or-treating," Mike grunted, turning around with Will under his wing. "I'm bored anyways."

And then Mike was walking away, getting smaller from their view. Sam, Lucas, Corey, and Dustin shared eye contact that Max luckily hadn't noticed from the way she was looking at Will.

"What's wrong with him?" Max asked in concern, facing the party so that they broke apart from their silent conversation.

Trying to smooth the situation along, Sam shrugged casually.

"Oh, you know... Mike's just... like that..."

"I wasn't talking about Mike?"

And Sam knew that.

╰━━━ ◦ ✸ ◦ ✸ ◦ ━━━╯

Although the whole Will thing had depleted the mood of the night, Sam had still promised Max a sleepover, so that was what she was going to give her.

Now, mind you, Sam had never actually had a sleepover before, so she didn't really know what to do, but she had to be doing something right, because Max hadn't asked to go home just yet.

"I'm sorry about your brother," Sam told Max. The two had been talking away the night, and were now landed on the subject of their difficult families. "He sounds like a horrible person to live with."

Max snorted, tilting her head down for a moment. She was lying on Sam's bed stomach down, feet dangling in the air.

"Yeah," she chuckled dryly. "Billy's always been an asshole, but now he's just angry."

Sam had her back on the floor, feet up on the side of her bed. She nodded, understanding completely. Sam didn't think that Uncle Dan... abused... the kids in the house. That was an ugly word. She would just say he mistreated them.

"I'm sorry about your parents. They sounded like such great people," Max said sincerely, which Sam could tell by the tone in her voice.

Sam bit on her tongue and found herself smiling back, green eyes twinkling under Sam's star string lights. "Yeah, they were..."

It went silent. Not awkwardly silent, or anything—a comfortable silent. Sam liked this kind of silent. Sam liked having someone to talk to about this kind of stuff. Sam liked Max.

"Hey, who was that guy?" Max blurted randomly.

Sam's eyebrows furrowed from the floor. She did a sort of pull up to look at Max in confusion. "What?"

"That dude you were talking to in the hall earlier," Max elaborated, referring to Sam and Justin's little moment from the morning. "He was holding onto your—"

"My wrist, yeah," Sam finished, nodding to herself in embarrassment. "Yep. That would be Justin Zimmerman. His friends call him Jay."

Max suddenly peered over the side of Sam's bed to make eye contact with her. She wiggled her eyebrows. "Do you call him Jay?"

Sam sat up abruptly, hoping her face wasn't getting pink. On guard, she asked, "What does that mean?"

Max sent Sam a, Really? look.

"Sam," Max deadpanned, when Sam didn't let up the act. "Be serious. He's totally into you!"

Sam paused. Sam blinked. Then—

She bursted out into laughter, shaking her head. Max watched Sam in confusion, wondering what was so funny about the whole ordeal. Sam had to calm down before she could speak again, exhaling to stabilize herself.

"Max, no." Sam shook her head, smiling sadly. "I'm not the kind of girl that guys like Jay are ever actually into... He's probably already dating Carrie Cunningham for all I know."

Max's nose scrunched up in distaste. "That rich cheerleader girl?"

Sam laughed at Max's description, but ultimately nodded. "Yes. The 'rich cheerleader girl.' They've been friends since like, diapers, 'cause they live next to each other in Loch Nora—a fact Carrie will never let me forget."

"Okay, well, screw her." Max shrugged, as if it were easy. When Sam looked confused, Max continued, "It sounds like Carrie's the problem here, not Justin. So just, you know, forget about her evil ass. I saw the way that guy was looking at you. He likes you."

Sam smiled gratefully at Max. When Max started getting down from Sam's bed, Sam pushed herself back so that her back was against her wall. Now, Max had her back against the side of Sam's bed so the girls could properly stare at each other.

"I don't know." Sam mumbled in a breath. "Sometimes I think so. Then other times..."

I wish I said behind you. That way I could cheat and not have a C anymore.

Hey, being a jock is better than being a weirdo. I mean, did you see the nerds who were dressed up today?

She realized she had yet to finish her statement, as told by Max's expectant look. "Other times he's just weird. I don't know how to explain it."

"Well," Max started, "a wise woman once told me the best people tend to be the weirder ones."

Sam smiled, recalling her first ever interaction with Max.

"Yes, this woman does sound very wise," Sam played along, though her smile soon fell afterwards. "But... Jay's a different kind of weird. I can... It's like this, right? I'm usually really good at figuring things out about people—like how or why they function. But with Jay it's like... I can't. Or maybe I should be able to, and there's something important I'm missing. But it's hard to figure out, so it's easier to leave it alone. He's not... he's not like Lucas, or any of them."

Max raised an eyebrow of Sam's choice of words in the last sentence, but she opted not to comment on it—she'd already pressed Sam about too many things tonight. So, to change the subject, her eyes moved over to the guitar propped up in the corner of Sam's room.

"I didn't know you could play guitar," Max said.

Sam's head turned up from where her eyes were glued to her lap, following Max's gaze to the acoustic guitar in the corner. She smiled at the sight of it.

"Oh, that was my dad's," Sam began, standing to pick up the guitar before resuming her earlier position across from Max. She positioned the guitar in her lap like how it should be if she were to play it right now. "He taught me how to play a bunch of instruments when I was younger, but the guitar always just stuck."

Max grinned, looking excited. "That's awesome. I wish I could play an instrument. My dad only ever taught me how to surf."

Sam looked up from how she had been tuning her guitar, sending Max a terrified glance.

"Don't let Lucas or Dustin hear that," she worried, but her dramatic demeanor dropped when both of the girls set off in giggles.

"No, that would not be tubular," Max joked.

She watched Sam tune the guitar, randomly plucking a string or two. She wondered how someone could simply know if a chord was right or wrong just by listening to it. She figured it just came with a lot of practice. That, or Sam really was a genius, like everyone else was saying.

"Alright, so are you playing me something, Hughes, or am I not special?" Max teased, noticing how Sam was fidgeting with the instrument but not doing anything with it.

Sam's head shot up to look at her.

"You want me to play?" Sam blanched, as if that was somehow an absurd insinuation. "I've never... I don't play in front of people."

Not since Dad, at least.

"Well, I'd be honored to be the witness of Samantha Hughes's first ever concert," Max said, grinning and fanning her face as if Sam's presence was enough for her to swoon alone.

Sam huffed, amused. "I am definitely not a musician."

"Would you ever want to be?" Max wondered, curious now.

"If I was good," Sam said, looking over her guitar at Max. "Which I'm not."

Max raised a disbelieving eyebrow. Then, "I'll be the judge of that."

Sam met Max's stare, putting the two girls in some sort of silent battle. Clearly though, Max wasn't going to back down from this. Sam faltered, exhaling incredulously.

"You really want to hear me play?" Sam asked suspiciously.

"No, Sam, I'm just pretending—" Max snarked before cutting herself off. "Yes! I really want to hear you play!"

Sam sighed, finally giving in and looking down at her guitar contemplatively.

Then, she began to play.

She didn't play loudly, of course, too afraid Uncle Dan would wake up and storm into Sam's room. But she still did play. Max was staring, entranced by the strumming of Sam's fingers on the strings. It didn't even look like Sam was meaning to, but she was humming along to the song as she played it. For some reason, Sam felt her eyes stinging. Nothing was wrong, it was just... this was her first time playing in front of someone since her dad died. And she certainly hadn't chosen a song to help cheer her up in her grief. She missed him. She just wanted her dad.

Sam sniffled when she was done, and if Max noticed Sam wiping underneath her eyes, she didn't comment on it. She looked back up at Max, a little nervously.

"That was 'Landslide,' right?" Max guessed. "Fleetwood Mac?"

Sam smiled with closed lips, nodding slightly. "Well, yeah, of course it's Fleetwood Mac."

"Hm. I was right."

She eyed Max oddly. "Right about what?"

"You're really good." Max nodded confidently. "And I will be the first person to buy a ticket at Samantha Hughes's second concert."

Sam laughed incredulously, shaking her head as if she'd never quite met someone like Max Mayfield. Finally, she stood to put the guitar back up. Unfortunately, she overestimated her strength, and the instrument slipped right from Sam's hands.

The guitar slammed right on Max's knee before Sam could do anything about it.

Max and Sam held their right knee in pain, hissing, "Ow!"

Max's head whipped up to Sam. "What are you saying 'ow' for?!"

"That hurt!" Sam cried in annoyance, like it should be obvious for Max to know that.

"Me getting hit by the guitar on my knee hurt you?" she snapped incredulously.

And now, Sam finally realized what was so odd about this whole ordeal. She finally understood it was Max who should be in pain, and not Sam in the slightest.

"Um," Sam scrambled for a response, hands still holding her knee until she began eyeing her hands wildly. Then she looked at Max, as if she were a deer stuck in headlights, then back at her knee and hands in a very distressed manner. "I... Uh... I don't..."

"Oh shit, Sam—" Max said, her finger pointing at Sam's nose as her voice became muffled.

Sam blinked, not hearing what Max had said. "What?"

"You're bleeding."

For some reason, Sam looked down at her pants first. Then, she felt a warm substance dripping from her nose. Instinctively, her fingers snapped up to wipe under her nose, then her hand came away from her face so she could see the deep red color that had now transferred to her hand.

"Your nose is bleeding."

╰━━━ ◦ ✸ ◦ ✸ ◦ ━━━╯

Published: January 14, 2024
Re-published: October 30, 2025

BAILEY YAPS...

This just in: Sam Hughes is a performative male who plays the guitar to score hoes

Anyway Samax sleepover who cheered. First Colorwheel heart-to-heart where two aggressive and hard-shelled boys became gentle and understanding who cheered.

It's actually October at the time I'm writing this (and I'm publishing it the day before Halloween yay) so I feel the need to share that my costumes for Halloween this year are David Bowie (my friend is Freddie Mercury) and Joe Cool (Snoopy)

Speaking of the costumes. This chapter is lowkey a Fiyero mention if you squint