CHAPTER 7 – YOU PIERCED ME IN DAGGERS OF BLUE

~Soundtrack: Noah Cyrus – July~

July came as fast as a thunder and passed as quick as a storm, and before the small town of Hawkins could know it, August was there bringing Indiana heat, boredom, dullness and at the same time, a promise of new beginnings.

For Billy, the summer felt like it could not end soon enough. He spent most of his time working double shifts at the pool so he could raise the money he had planned on putting aside, and when he wasn't, he was either out partying or looking out for Max whenever that shit bird felt like making him drive her somewhere. And it wasn't like he had the choice of saying no. But even the parties felt duller now, and working felt irritating in every sense of the world, so whatever free time Billy had on his hands, he planned on using it to picture all the things he would do once he would be long gone from Hawkins and forgotten.

At first, it had all started as just a crazy idea, wondering to himself what it would be like if he just went back to California. His first thought was how badly he missed the waves, feeling them raise him up in the air on his surfboard or push him under all that refreshing, cold ocean saltiness. He missed that heat too, the humidity in the air, the hot sand on his toes, and he missed it so much that it almost made him forget that he was stuck in this dry, cow smelling, shithole of a town. And instead, it reminded him of something else. It reminded him of sunny days surfing until dawn. It reminded him of happier days, of the face of a smiling woman. It reminded him of seven feet.

So Billy put his plan together. He would go back to California, maybe even find a job there and never come back. He wasn't much of a planning person, not when all he wanted to see clearly was himself back home, so he didn't bother to put together the specifics. He just knew the endgame and that, if he wanted to go back home and leave Hawkins, even for just a visit, he would have to tell Neil.

Telling his dad wasn't something Billy wanted to do. Quite the opposite in fact, if it would've been his choice, he would have gotten in his car, drove and never looked back. But Billy knew better, he knew it didn't work like that. Neil would never just let him go without looking for him. He would hunt him down to wherever he would choose to go, and drag him back forcefully if he had to. He knew his father too well, knew that he wouldn't let his son run away from him after his wife had too.

So, Billy thought it through. He would go to Neil, and tell him he'd raised money to go visit his mother back home. He would tell him he would stay a few days and then come back, and he would never even have to know he was gone. Billy repeated it in his head, telling himself it was a reasonable demand. There would be no reason for Neil to say no. Yet, even though he knew that, Billy couldn't help but postpone the day he would have to go and tell his dad.

He waited a few days, until he had repeated the entire speech in his head enough times to make it sound harmless enough, until he decided today was going to be the day he would do it. He spent half of his shift going through everything he would say, and making sure he would say it in a way Neil would like. Even now, Billy knew exactly what his dad would say if he as much as wouldn't like the tone of his voice.

Respect and responsibility

So Billy would make sure to fake just that.

When five o'clock came, Billy got up from the desk and took off his shirt, getting ready for the outside shift, and ready for the 30 seconds it would take from the main desk to the lifeguard chair. And in spite of the fact that he'd been doing it every day for the past couple of weeks now, it was still the hardest thing he had to go through every day. Because no matter what, at the end of that distance there was always Penelope.

It was a process that should have gotten old by now. He would open the door, start walking towards the lifeguard chair as she would climb down and start walking too, while every middle aged woman gawked at him or every high school girl tried to give a giggled hi, and while his eyes could do nothing but ignore everyone and stare at her. And she would come closer and so would he, and in the three seconds they met halfway, neither of them would say anything. They would just look at each other, unable to come up with anything good enough to say that would give any sense to this fuckery they were in.

After that party and their kiss in front of the house, Billy had decided to finally to stop chasing whatever trick Penelope wiggled on a string in front of him. He was a guy used to some rejections here and there, his ego was bruised enough as it was to not care enough about another bump, but even after he'd reached his limit with Penelope and still kept on going after her only to realize he'd been running in circles, all it had taken to get him to finally back off had been that "no".

And yes, at first he'd wanted to protest, wanted to call her on her bullshit and say that she could not come to him and kiss him and then go back to being cold and mean, not when she was always setting a pace he could not keep up with. But after it had all registered, Billy had realized she had never said no to him, not really. It had always been a back and forth, a game she'd started and he'd gone along with, but never a blunt refusal. Never a no. Yet that night she'd said it. She'd said it at the most confusing of times, when everything he had ever fought to push back into denial had surfaced back up, and he'd admitted that, as unreasonable as it was, he wanted Penelope to himself, and that whatever they'd shared that night, he could not stop thinking about it.

No.

From then, how was he supposed to keep going after her? How was he supposed to find it in him to make a fool of himself again? He couldn't. He couldn't let her give him something just so she could take it away again. Because he'd heard an awful lot of things in his life, but that no had stung like few could.

And even after his final decision to let Penelope chase her own tail for a change, seeing her everyday didn't get any easier. Not even if it took only 30 seconds.

He walked towards her now, cursing himself for forgetting his sunglasses today because now it was finally showing how bluntly he could not stop staring at her. He heard someone say a few hi's to him, yet none of it registered. Not when Penelope was walking towards him at a slow pace, looking like that swimsuit was some form of cruelty against him with how well it tightened around her body. Every day he saw it, and every day it felt like a major effort not to rip it off of her.

No.

But she'd said no to whatever he was offering, hadn't she?

And today out of all days, Penelope stared back. She got closer and closer enough for Billy to notice that her eyes were on him too, and Billy felt like he was on the verge of just losing it. He wanted to tell her she was the stupidest, most illogical thing he'd ever wanted that he couldn't have. He wanted to tell her he still thought about her, in spite of his efforts to stop playing into her games. He wanted to tell her about his dad, about his plans for tonight, about how he just wanted to go back home. He wanted to tell someone. He wanted Penelope.

They finally met halfway, and in those three brief seconds, when her sky blue eyes pierced into his, taking him aback like he was still stuck in that stupid parking lot where he'd first seen her, only to have her walk by him without another word, Billy understood.

He understood how shit his life was. He understood that he'd wanted a lot of things he'd never gotten the chance to have, like a mother, a normal father, someone who understood, control, a relief of all his anger, Penelope. He should have been done feeling sorry for himself by now. And he should have understood that, wherever he was supposed to be, it was not Hawkins.

So, first thing tonight after the shift, he would tell his dad about going back to California, he would go through with his plan. And he would get the hell out of this place, once and for all.

o-o-o

~Soundtrack: The Neighborhood – Daddy issues~

Penelope was in bed when she heard the first scream.

She stopped the music coming from the stereo, wondering if maybe she hadn't heard anything at all, when another yell came in response to the first one. She walked towards her window, peaking through the curtains and looking at the Hargrove house for any clue as to what was happening, but found the curtains drawn. She sighed, knowing what that meant.

She turned on the stereo again, trying to ignore the yelling in spite of how much she didn't want to. It had been easier to ignore before, the occasional shouting sessions coming from the Hargrove house, especially since it hadn't happened in a while, but now Penelope felt like she couldn't. Not when she knew that Billy was in the middle of it, and that she'd been a victim of abusive parents for long enough to know what it meant. She didn't want to ignore what Billy was going through.

But what the hell was she supposed to do? Call the cops on his asshole dad? She knew all too well it never worked like that.

She looked out the window again and again, hoping to see something while gnawing at her bottom lip and hating how much she seemed to care, enough to wonder what the hell was going on. It was none of her business, it never had been and she'd never bothered to check or look out the window before, no matter how loud the screams got. But then again, a lot of things had changed between then and now. Billy was no longer just the messed up kid next door.

Ten minutes later, Penelope couldn't hear the muffled voices over the loud music. She sat in her bed, facing the ceiling and wondering why the hell she hadn't gone out tonight, when she could have been shitfaced instead of alone, wondering about Billy Hargrove's shitty family. She sat like that for a few more minutes, when eventually the claustrophobia feeling kicked in and her hands itched for a cigarette. She told herself that was why she was going outside as she climbed down the stairs, not because of Billy and whatever was going on. No, she just needed fresh hair.

She closed the door behind her and stepped onto the front porch and the déjà vu feeling hit her hard. The summer air was just as sweltering, the neighborhood just as quiet, and Billy Hargrove was a few steps away from her, leaning on his blue Camaro.

Penelope remembered with a lump in her throat that the last time she'd been put in this scenario had been on her graduation day, when she'd felt so alone she'd kissed him. Funny how many things had changed since then. Now Penelope felt a million different ways about Billy Hargrove, lacking an explanation for every one of them.

She felt like she didn't know how to be around him anymore. Dealing with Billy had always been like a roulette, a hit or miss, and she couldn't understand how it had all gone from casual fun to whatever this confusion was, with jealousy and want and this inexplicable desire to go to him right now. She wanted things to go back. She wanted them to stay the same. She wanted paradox after paradox, and because of it, she couldn't be around him for more than a couple of seconds without feeling like it all too much to deal with.

But tonight was different. She remembered the screams, the crashing, the unusual way they had seemed to last longer than normal. And whatever had happened inside the Hargrove house, Penelope was staring at the aftermath of it.

Billy's clothes were ruffled, his hair a mess and his posture leaning against the car looked defeated. But those were none of the things that caught Penelope's attention first. What did was the violet circle forming around his eye and the broken lip where a little blood was still coming out of.

Jesus.

She knew it must have been bad considering all those loud noises, but she wouldn't have thought it had gone that far. And then it was like everything she knew about Billy was coming in focus through new lenses, all of his fights at parties and his alpha attitude where he wanted to tower over everyone, it all made sense. It was all just a way to make sure the things that happened at home wouldn't happen anywhere else, that no one could have any sort of power over him, and a way to pour out all of that anger he had to hold in with every beating.

She sighed once, looking at that image of a defeated Billy and contemplated her choices. She could go back inside, pretend she'd never seen anything, especially since she must have been the last person Billy wanted to see. But she didn't want to do that, not when tonight every issue they had with each other felt so insignificant.

Penelope climbed down the stairs at a careful pace, looking at him and hoping she would see something in his eyes that would make her either turn around and go back or walk towards him with more confidence, but Billy kept his eyes glued to the ground the entire time, making Penelope wonder if this might have been stupider than when she'd kissed him in this exact same spot.

She reached the Camaro and stopped, leaning next to him against the car, and Billy kept on not acknowledging her presence. She didn't know where to start.

"Hey," she said eventually after a few silent moments, and took out her pack of cigarettes out of her jeans, grabbing one and offering him another.

"Hey," he took the cigarette and put it between his lips, lightning it. "Thanks."

She couldn't read his tone, couldn't figure out if he wanted her there with him or dead in a ditch right now, and couldn't remember the last time she'd cared enough to interpret someone's tone. She took a long drag out of her cigarette and rested her head on the hood of the car, looking up at the clear night sky full of stars.

Too many minutes were passing without them talking.

"I'm not good with awkward silences," she eventually offered, going for the truth.

"Yeah well, you're the one that came here."

Penelope let out a huff. She couldn't really argue with that, nor could she understand now what the hell had been going on in her head. "You looked like you really needed a cigarette," she took another drag and puffed out a smoke. "And maybe I don't want to be alone right now."

A few more moments passed before Billy answered. "Then what do you want?"

That was indeed the hundred dollar question, Penelope thought. And maybe if she knew the real answer to that, she wouldn't be on the hood of a guy 's car she hooked up with once, wondering why she was making a fool out of herself by going out on a limp and assuming she wasn't making Billy's night worse. Maybe she really was.

She looked sideways at him finally, at the mess he was, the kind of mess she suspected he never was or liked to be in any case, and found her answer.

"To put a pause on whatever the hell has been going on with us and talk about anything else," she said.

And it was true, too. As simple and easy and unlike every confusing thing they'd ever done was, that was really it. All she wanted was one honest moment between her and someone else, where she wouldn't hide behind mind games and indifference, and he wouldn't hide behind bravado and a badass attitude. What a silly thing to end up wanting, Penelope thought.

Billy didn't turn his head to look at her, and she knew he was still perhaps hoping she hadn't seen his bruised eye. But she could see the corner of his mouth slightly turning upwards, just barely enough for her to catch or miss.

"Like what?" he asked finally, and Penelope had to bite her tongue against telling him this wasn't some ask and answer game going around. Now she felt stupid again, like she'd suggested talking about something and then found there was barely anything interesting left to them behind all that angst.

Penelope let out another smoke, and blurted out the first awkward thing that came to mind. "Summer is over soon."

Fucking hell. What was next, weather talk?

But whatever awkwardness she emanated didn't seem to catch up to Billy, because he let out a small laugh this time that had Penelope staring for a second. "Yeah, can you believe we won't have to work that shit job 10 hours every day anymore?"

Maybe she needed a therapist. Because there must have definitely been something wrong with her to go through these swings of playing with Billy and ignoring Billy and sleeping with him and then pushing him away only to be alone with him in front of their houses at midnight on a summer day, staring at his smile and letting it grow contagious on her own lips.

"It's not always bad," she said, still looking at him.

~Soundtrack: Taylor Swift- The Archer~

Another few second passed without any of them saying anything, before it came his turn to cut the silence with a random thing. "Where are you going next?"

The question took Penelope so aback that she let out a raw laugh. "Fuck knows," she lifted her shoulders and took another drag out of her half gone cigarette before continuing. "Anywhere to be honest. I was thinking Chicago for a while there, but now I feel like that's not far enough," she stopped for a few seconds, wondering if she should go on with whatever she was thinking or drop it and let him think that was it. But there was something about tonight. There was something about seeing Billy vulnerable like this that had her involuntarily telling the unfiltered truth.

"I don't know, maybe it's crazy, but I want more, you know? And I know every kid our age wants more from life than Hawkins, more than mediocrity, but I want more than just more. I want to be on my own, and I want fun, I want adventure and madness and to feel like I'm alive and not rotting away in some forgotten place where everything interesting happens outside the border of this fucking city," she paused to catch her breath, realizing how frenetic she sounded, but unable to pull the plug on it now. "I'm wasting away the best years of my life feeling sorry for myself because I am stuck someplace of my own free will. And I wasted even more years thinking that getting even just a few miles out of here will do it, when I should be reaching for the goddamn galaxies, not the stars. But fuck that. I don't wanna be stuck. I don't want roots. I want an escape and enough gasoline for it."

She stopped now, not looking at Billy for a reaction, but taking in what she said as if she was listening to her own voice on a recorder. It sounded sad, if she had to be honest, and she'd always hated sounding sad, but then again it sounded like the first real thing she'd said in a while.

"California." Billy said all of a sudden, stopping her train of thought and making her rewind the last thing she'd said for any sign of a connection.

"What?"

"California is the place for that, all you just said about freedom and adventure and all that crap," he went on explaining. "You're never going to feel more alive than when you're near the ocean, and there's wind in your hair and sand on your feet and…"

He stopped, staring ahead with a look in his eyes Penelope couldn't place, as if he'd caught himself on a bad thought.

"And what?"

"And seven feet waves," he whispered barely loud enough for her to hear, but she did, and knew that was something said for him, not for her to understand.

"It does seem like the perfect place for an escape," she offered instead, and when he just nodded solemnly and glued his eyes to the ground, Penelope went on. "You sound like you were happy there."

"I was."

"Then go back."

Billy gave a humorless laugh, like she hadn't just told him the simplest solution to his problem. "I have roots too, Lopes. I just can't cut mine off."

And she knew what he meant by that. She knew he felt like he was stuck here, unable to get out, stuck in what was a toxic environment and like most people in his situation, he couldn't see that there was always a door out away from all the abuse. He couldn't see that sometimes, it really was as simple as leaving.

So for some reason Penelope couldn't explain, she couldn't hold her tongue anymore.

"You shouldn't let him do that to you, Billy," she threw her cigarette on the ground as she spoke, more confident than she should have been about the situation, and turned to face him this time.

She couldn't sit here and pretend everything was normal and like she wasn't noticing his busted lip and black eye. She couldn't let him believe she'd heard all of it and then saw him, but didn't do anything about it, not even as much as a word. And quite frankly, she felt angry too. Especially with parents like hers and Billy's who thought messing up their kids' lives was justified in their sick minds.

Billy turned now to look at her too, confusion written all over his face. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I said you shouldn't let your dad do that to you," she repeated, and went on at the sight of his parted lips and furrow between his brows. "Yeah, I know. The whole neighborhood knows every time he yells at you and pushes you around loud for everyone to hear. I mean, are we not going to talk about this?" she gestured with her hand at his black eye. "Are you really letting everyone see how that piece of shit you call a father does whatever he wants with you, while you're out here feeling sorry for yourself?"

Billy took a step closer, his voice lowering in the way she supposed only the people daring to piss off Billy Hargrove heard. "You better shut up while you still can, Penelope."

"Or what?" she also took a step closer, practically face to face with him now. "You'll show me that side of you? Don't think I haven't heard about the bad side of Billy Hargrove, how you beat up people if they look wrong at you, or how you treat your sister Max," she took a deep breath before continuing, voice louder this time. "Are you trying to turn into him, Billy, is that it? Or can't you see that the more you misplace your anger on others instead of standing up for yourself in front of him, the more you just become the bad guy of everyone else's story?"

And it was like an out of body experience, really. She could hear herself talking, see herself looking up at him with defiance written in her eyes, but couldn't stop the words from just pouring out. It was like being unable to pull the brakes on a car accident that was already happening.

Billy shook his head in disbelief, staring at her for what seemed like forever before replying. "How the fuck is any of this your business, anyway?"

It wasn't. She had no right to say any of that. But she couldn't see that right then, all she could see was the unfairness of it all.

She lifted her arms and dropped them back at her side. "It's not," she admitted. "But I can't sit here and watch you feel sorry for yourself. Not when I can tell you that you should do something about it. Cut your own fucking roots for a change."

"I got this because I was trying to cut off my roots, Penelope," he yelled abruptly and gestured at his face, almost making Penelope want to take a step back. "I as much as mentioned going back to California, and he flipped like I was telling him I wanna fuck his whore of a new wife."

"Then run off!" Penelope spat back exasperatedly." Don't tell anyone, don't tell him, don't tell the whore wife. Just go."

Billy scoffed, looking at her again in a way that made Penelope want to turn around and forget everything she had just said. "What the fuck do you know?"

She sighed heavily.

"More than you think," Penelope whispered quietly into the night, dropping her eyes to the ground now.

And maybe that was really it, her entire frustration with Billy's situation was a way to relate to her own crappy condition, to her own share of unfairness coming from the people who were supposed to be the only ones whose responsibility was to take care of her. Why couldn't Billy see that she wasn't saying any of this to be mean, but to help him?

"Right," Billy spat, startling Penelope out of her thoughts." Because Princess Penelope sure had a tough life, too. What happened, did someone crash your tea party? Was graduating too hard, did you get B's instead of straight A's and now you wanna pout and crash in my car again? Grow the fuck up, Penelope. Not everyone has it as easy as you do."

Now it was her turn to part her lips and frown in confusion.

"Easy?" she retorted, feeling that frustration turn into anger now." You don't know jack shit about my life enough to even say half of the things you just did."

"And you know about mine?"

"I know you got a black eye, that's what I fucking know. And I know you don't mean any of that, this is just some way for you to take out your anger until you can go again and beat someone else into a coma."

"What do you know about what it's like? You have a little fight with your folks and you run away like a little girl and sleep in someone else's car, but you come here and try to preach me about facing my problems. Cry me a fucking river."

She blinked once. Twice. Her cheeks were burning with barely contained anger, because frankly, she was sure she must have heard wrong.

"I didn't run away, Billy," Penelope said after a long pause where she considered and reconsidered her next words. "My parents kicked me out. I didn't just decide one night my own bed isn't comfortable enough to sleep in. They kicked me out of the house and told me to figure out my own shit, because they won't give me a roof over my head until I learn some respect. They never miss a chance to tell me how much of a failure I am, and they sure as hell don't care enough if I get any fucking passing grade, because they couldn't even bother to show up at my graduation," she paused, pointing a finger at him. "But at least I stand up for myself. And I would never accuse someone of having it easier than me. Not when I don't know what the hell I'm talking about."

Her eyes were stinging. Funny, Penelope thought. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt that burning in her eyes. But it was like she'd build this whole brick wall around that resentment, solidified it with cement, turned her back on it and didn't realize that when truth would come crashing it down, it would crush everything. The bigger the walls were, the harder they fell.

And it looked like Billy wasn't done tearing hers apart.

"Why the fuck did you come here then? To yell at me and then pour out your sob drama? Maybe you should've just stuck to fucking me, Penelope. Clearly that's the only thing that worked out between us."

And maybe that was the truest sentence any of them had said tonight.

Penelope took a deep breath, feeling the energy being drained out with every angry word she said, and looking at this whole mess now unable to tell whose fault it was by this point.

"Yeah," she said eventually, looking at the darkened ocean in his eyes. "Clearly."

And with that, Penelope turned around and left Billy behind, feeling like whatever had just happened, there was no undoing it.

o-o-o

~Soundtrack: Harry Styles – Fine Line~

Days came and days passed for Penelope. The summer started fading away little by little each day, barely enough to register for someone who wasn't counting the days on the calendar like she was, and the pool became less crowded and less noisy and less difficult for her to handle. Her parents were gone most days, and when they weren't they didn't bother to check on her, so it was easy for Penelope to come to terms with the fact that she was leaving in a month. Nothing stopped her, least of all remorse.

Yet, it felt like nothing grew easier. It was hard to deal with things you've been dealing with for the past 18 years if you knew you were moments away from reaching the escape door. She supposed that was how prisoners felt too in a way, becoming suddenly claustrophobic in their own cells when they knew they were going to be out soon. But she couldn't help it. Her room felt like it was closing in, the heated air unbreathable, the people she came in contact with marginally more annoying than they'd been in the past. Even hanging out at parties felt like something she couldn't do anymore. Her clock was simply not thinking fast enough.

Or so she liked to think those were most of her problems. But then again, there was Billy Hargrove.

It must have been five days since that fight. Five days. Five days in which Penelope's remorse had learned to appear and disappear, to ferment in her own skin and then justify itself over and over again. She must have played that night on repeat in her head to the point of driving herself mad, just because it didn't feel right, this whole situation.

There was no other way of putting it. She felt guilty.

She remembered what it had felt like to have that fight with him, to know that every word that was coming out of her mouth was the wrong thing to say and the jerkiest way to deal with Billy's situation, but unable to stop herself. There had been no time to breathe between mean remarks and spiteful words, but now that she was away from the smoke and seeing it so clear, she felt like the biggest idiot on the planet.

There were two ways that situation could have gone better from the moment she'd stepped onto the front porch and seen Billy, Penelope had come to that conclusion. One, she could have realized there was nothing she could have said to make it better and gone back inside, letting him deal with the consequences of a shitty night on his own. And two, she could have gone there, tried to distract him from it or told him she understood, or maybe she didn't but she was there to. But instead, what Penelope had done had been to go there in spite of knowing that damaged people couldn't comfort damaged people, and spat in his face all the ways he was dealing wrong with his own problems.

What had she been thinking? What had made her think that she had any sort of right to meddle into an issue the person clearly didn't want to talk about? Why did she think bringing her own mess into the whole puddle of crap had been a good idea?

She hadn't been thinking, that was the answer to all three of those questions.

Remorse wasn't something Penelope knew how to deal with well. Frankly, she rarely even dealt with it. It was always people mistreating her, always her parents abusing her, and she was always the victim. Now? She was a fucking wrecking ball.

So how was she supposed to apologize to Billy? She wanted to, she ached to, just so she could take the blame off her shoulders and walk a little lighter, or wash it off her skin and watch it go down the drain. But she was doing anything but apologizing. In fact, she took as many steps away from an apology as possible. For those five days, she didn't allow herself those 10 seconds at work when they'd meet to change shifts, but instead she would walk through the parking lot and go through the other entrance, making sure she wouldn't see him. She left work early, before he could see her, and even went as far as to check through her windows if he was outside before stepping out of her house.

She was acting like a kid. She knew she was, and she was not stopping it, therefore adding more to the guilt. She was not good with apologizing, and there was no saying what would actually come out of her mouth once she would be face to face with Billy.

She was an utter piece of shit, was the natural conclusion to follow. And if she wanted to change that, she had to finally face that she was and apologize for it.

So today, on her way to the Hawkins Pool, Penelope told herself she was acting ridiculous and that she was not one to shy away from confronting someone. Even though confronting Billy wasn't the problem, but confronting her own mistake that she'd have to apologize for, in spite of the fact that she'd never apologized for anything in her life. She let the hours pass on her shift, watching the clock tick closer to the hour where she'd have to climb down from the lifeguard chair and come face to face with Billy. She was determined to put an end to this silly circling around guilt thing, but that didn't make the waiting for it any easier.

Finally, the clock struck five and she climbed down from the chair, waiting to see Billy come through the door anytime now. Except she never did. She walked the distance from her spot to the doors through the main desk without running into him, and even when she took her spot down at the desk, he was nowhere to be seen.

Huh, she thought. That was odd. Maybe he hadn't come into work at all.

But after ten minutes of sitting at her desk and wondering, Penelope got up and opened the door to the pool just slight enough to take a look through, and saw Billy right on the lifeguard chair with his usual sunglasses in his eyes and blowing through his whistle already at some poor kids.

So they weren't over avoiding each other already. Not since he must have taken the back door to not run into her, just like she'd done until now. Penelope let out a frustrated sigh, feeling stupid all of a sudden. After all, why was she the only one considering an apology? He had things to apologize for, too, like calling her a spoiled brat with no real issues, and it was looking like he had no intention of doing so anytime soon. Why would she bother, if he didn't want to meet her halfway?

Yep, she declared officially, closing the door and going back to her desk. It was clear that apologizing wasn't in any of their vocabularies.

Penelope let the shift pass without thinking too much about it. She did her job, faking every smile as she handed towels and took bags, and hated every minute of it because of how close she was to being done with all of it. She spent the rest of days thinking everything over to the point of dreading her overthinking, and had enough time to realize that she could not be upset at Billy for avoiding her, when he had every right. But it was like she didn't know what else to be except pissed lately. And she didn't want to open that door and find out what exactly was so terribly wrong with her.

So, Penelope spent the five hours trying to occupy her mind as best as she could, and even offered to stay and close instead of Parker, her desk mate, just because she didn't want to go home and do nothing again. She was not safe alone with her thoughts right now, so at least there was still her job she could put to use for tonight.

Penelope saw every single one of the kids with their parents leave and then half an hour later all of her colleagues too, making a mental note not to check for Billy's whereabouts as she went to her locker room to put on her baggy red shirt over her swimsuit. She closed the main desk, after putting every single one of the dirty, used towels in the laundry bag and cleaning around, deciding to head straight for the pool next.

There was a certain calm to taking a closing shift that Penelope hadn't known about but wish she had. Everything was quiet for a change and the summer heat was making room for that autumn coldness slowly creeping enough to briefly be felt in the air by a cold breeze. The lights were mostly out, except for the few white ones shining in the now empty parking lot, making the blue end of the large pool even darker. Penelope felt like she could breathe easier now as she walked towards the edges of the pool, looking up at the bright summer sky full of stars and with her hands wrapped around herself to keep away the cold. She wondered if she enjoyed all of this because it was quiet or because she was alone.

Almost on cue, as soon as that thought crossed her mind, Penelope heard the sound of moving water coming from the pool, and panic rose in her chest. There was someone else here. It was too dark to make out the face, but she could see it now, someone swimming in the pool breaking the entire silence of the night, and next to the edge of the pool there was a small bundle of clothes.

Penelope sighed, figuring this must have been some asshole who'd thought they would stay past closing without anyone noticing, and she walked at a faster pace, ready to give whoever was in the pool a piece of her mind. But as soon as she walked closer and noticed that the only clothes left on the edge of the pool were a Hawkins Pool employee shirt and a whistle, Penelope took a better look at who was swimming in the pool and froze.

Billy Hargrove was swimming in the pool, floating on his back slowly and looking with a blank expression at the dark sky, either unaware Penelope was watching him or aware and not caring, and just like that, everything in Penelope's head went from quite to loud. And it was that kind of loud only someone's presence could bring, when everything from thoughts to feelings was a clutter of doubt that there was no untangling from. Penelope felt that. She felt like she did a full 180 from feeling calm and alone in the night to feeling scared, feeling guilty, feeling like even with all of that, Billy swimming in the pool with the moonlight shining down on him was still one of the prettiest things she'd seen in a while.

What the hell was she supposed to do here?

She felt the déjà vu hitting when she realized this was the same situation she'd been in a few nights ago just before the fight, when she wasn't sure what would be worse, leaving or staying. She'd decided to stay then and come face to face with a broken Billy, only to realize she was looking at a slightly more cracked mirror of herself and decide she didn't like it. What would staying here and watching him float in the dark water like that mean now, what other mess could it bring her into? But also how could she leave? What would that make her?

"Shouldn't you be home?" Billy's voice broke the loud silence all of a sudden, making Penelope startle. So he had known she was here, just like he'd probably known she was watching him like a creeper without saying a word.

Well, there was no leaving now. She was doing this.

"Shouldn't you not be in the pool after closing?" Penelope retorted, crossing her arms over her chest. Billy didn't reply to that for a few seconds or look at her, so when the silence got heavier again, Penelope sighed and answered his question. "I felt like staying up tonight."

Billy kept floating, feet dangling slightly in the water and his arms swinging by his side. "I felt like going for a swim," he answered too, eventually.

And there were so many reasons why Penelope felt like she couldn't do this. Everything felt so bitter, every breath between words and every minute of their silence, like everything gone wrong was hanging in the air wanting to come to the surface but hitting a wall every time. And for the first time, Penelope felt like this was more than just a game. This was more than flirty and snarky conversations, more than sexually charged moments, more than shouted fights about jealousy. They'd overstepped that fine line between game and reality just a few nights ago, when they'd both scratched the other's already bleeding wounds, when they'd walked into the unknown territory of having yourself and your deepest issues exposed to someone else, only to watch all of that being used against you. It hit Penelope hard how she'd never meant for any of this to be anything but a game, only to realize she'd ended up in the aftermath of her own mess, unwilling to claim her blame in it. How did one recover from that?

It crossed Penelope's mind that maybe she'd started off the right foot that night when she'd approached Billy by trying to lighten the awkward silence, it had been everything afterwards that had been wrong. Maybe she could do the same now and hope it wouldn't turn against her.

~Soundtrack: Billie Eillish – Ocean Eyes~

So, she took a few steps forward, coming closer to where he was and stood at the edge of the pool watching him.

"I thought you knew better than to get in the pool after those kids were there the whole day," she said, deciding to damn every ounce of overthinking in her body and just push everything in denial by going back to her old teasing self.

And if that was a bad idea, Billy didn't let her know because he answered in the same tone as her. "I figured all the piss must be gone by now."

She let out a sudden snort, wrinkling her nose at his words. "You didn't have to paint a picture."

She finally sat down on the edge, crossing her legs and taking her eyes off of him for the first time since she spotted him. She leaned back on her hands and turned her face upwards, closing her eyes as the cold breeze danced on her skin and hair.

"I never saw you take a closing shift before," Billy spoke again, and Penelope didn't move or open her eyes as she replied.

"For good reason. I don't wanna be the one to clean the cock snot from the showers."

In the silence, Billy's laugh rang for the first time. His voice sounded closer to her this time. "You didn't have to paint a picture either."

Penelope opened her eyes and let her feet dangle free into the swimming pool. "Sure I did."

The only sound that came after that was the sound of the pool water moving as Billy kept floating on his back and Penelope moved her feet. The water felt cold on her toes and mixed with the light breeze in the air, it sent a shiver though her body. So this was the moment she'd been dreaded for the last couple of days, she thought. It all seemed so harmless, how they sat in the empty Hawkins Pool at night, making jokes and sharing the silence after them, like nothing had happened. Like they hadn't been avoiding each other. Like she hadn't felt miserable for the past couple of days. Like they weren't a few wrong moves away from exploding.

"So why did you take the closing shift then?" Billy said all of a sudden, coming to float closer and closer to her.

For a second before she answered, Penelope wondered what had he been feeling for the past couple of days. He didn't sound pissed at her, as much as he had the right to, he sounded like he was hiding behind normal conversations like her too.

Even though he couldn't see her, Penelope shrugged, going for the only half truth she could give. "I told you, I felt like staying up."

Billy let out a small huff. "Parties don't just do it for you anymore, huh?"

Penelope's first instinct was to let a smile form on her lips at that. Parties really didn't work for her anymore, just like nothing seemed to lately when everything felt like a cage and when her key out of it was inches away. But then her smile died on her lips at the thought of the last party she'd gone to, the one from days ago when she'd run into Billy. Only to watch him kiss another girl, while she was dancing against another guy. The party where he'd kissed her and she'd let him, and then run away at how different it had all felt. It was funny. With everything that had happened, with their fight about their parents, Penelope had completely forgotten about that. She told herself it felt insignificant compared to everything else that was going on, but the repressed thought of that party brought too many confusing things she wanted to keep pushing down.

Penelope realized seconds or maybe minutes passed without her talking, and so let out the first thing that crossed her mind, "Look at us. Talking like normal, mature adults."

Billy's answer came right away, like he'd been itching for her to as much as mention the absurdity of the situation. "Yeah, who would've thought you can take a break from all that avoiding you've been doing."

Penelope's mouth opened slightly in indignation. "You're one to talk, considering you figured you'd rather take the back door than see me today."

Billy finally reached Penelope and rested his elbows on the edge next to her right, facing her and just looking at her for a few seconds. God, Penelope forgot at times how excruciating beautiful he could be, especially now in this dark blue lightning and with his normally curly hair wet clinging to his shoulders. There were few droplets of water on his annoyingly perfect chest, on his cheeks, on his pink lips. Penelope wished she could just reach over with her hand and –

She blinked once and looked away, catching herself mid-thought. What was wrong with her?

"I wasn't avoiding you because I didn't want to see you, Lopes," Billy's now soft voice said, making Penelope look back at him again.

Lopes. Funny how that nickname had annoyed her most of the time, and now she felt relieved to hear it. He was saying it like they were back to square one, back to him calling her that and back to when they didn't yell spiteful things at each other.

All of a sudden, Billy extended his hand at her. "Come on, get in."

"What?"

"Get in the pool, come for a swim."

Penelope let out a sarcastic laugh."In the piss water? No thanks."

But Billy didn't drop his hand. "Come on, I didn't even ask for skinny dipping," he said, giving her that trademark smirk she almost caught herself thinking she'd missed. "I'll let you keep your clothes on."

She rolled her eyes, but didn't manage to stop the smile from forming on her lips. "So generous."

"Unless…" he trailed off.

"Cut your losses, Hargrove," she said, standing up.

She didn't really think it over as she reached for the hem of her oversized shirt and pulled it over her head, throwing it on the ground next to Billy's shirt. She didn't want to think anything over right now, when the night was quiet enough to keep her secrets. She leaned down and took Billy's hand, who didn't hesitate in pulling her into the water.

The initial cold hit fast and faded just as quickly once Penelope realized she had to adjust all of her body at once, so she plunged head first into the water, swimming under it for a while and coming back up.

"It's actually not bad," she said once she caught her breath, feeling the cold fading.

"Give me your hands," Billy said and Penelope complied without wavering. He dragged her backwards into the deepest end of the pool, the centre, spinning around as they did so. "It gets colder at night," Billy continued, without looking at her. "And most of the lights go out, everything is quiet and not full of people running around all day. It's just you and the water. Reminds me of home."

And he was right. If Penelope thought that just walking around after closing felt nice, swimming like this and feeling her skin being ignited by the cold water as their moving in circles created small waves made Penelope reach the nice kind of calm she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, enjoying everything from the sounds of the night to the feel of Billy's hands in hers, and opened them when she realized they'd stopped their circling.

And Billy was not looking at her. He was looking up at the starry night, unaware of how his face shone in this glow of the swimming pool lights, and Penelope's breath caught in her throat again. It was not fair. It was not fair that out of all the people, she'd had to run into him at closing, no fair how he'd made her forget for a split second everything that had happened, and no fair that he looked like a freaking masterpiece before her eyes right now. And it was not fair how all of this guilt made her unable to think of anything else, clouding her thoughts of any left saneness apparently. The cold must have frozen her brain.

She had to stop with the guilt, she decided. She had to get it out.

"I'm sorry for avoiding you," Penelope blurted out before she could change her mind, making Billy's eyes snap back to her. Well, there was no turning back now. "I shouldn't have."

Billy looked at her for what seemed like forever, before swallowing once and breaking the short silence, saying in an almost too quiet voice, "I'm an expert in things I shouldn't do, too."

"I –"

"I know what you want to say, Lopes," Billy interrupted her, the movement of the water bringing him slightly closer to her. "I don't know how to start apologizing either."

In spite of herself, a small smile lifted the corners of her lips. "That sounds like a good start."

Frankly, it was a better start then hers. And it felt ridiculous now, looking at how they were both struggling to get those apologies out when they had been going above and beyond to postpone them, either because of pride or shame. She was sure he couldn't tell which one it was just like she couldn't.

"I'm sorry for blowing up in your face like that," Billy said. And had it been in a different situation, Penelope would have laughed at how serious and sincere he sounded, so unlike himself. "I'm an asshole who wasn't thinking, I just felt angry and you were there and –"

It was Penelope's turn to interrupt him. "You don't have to go through with the speech, Billy. We obviously both suck at saying sorry."

Another small wave brought their bodies closer together, and Penelope steadied herself by putting her hands on his chest almost involuntarily, like touching him while they were so close was becoming a costume. She decided not to think about that either tonight.

But it was just striking her how similar they were, her and Billy. She'd spent so much of her time thinking they had nothing in common, that he was the high school douche just moved from California, who thought he could out-game her, while she was the rebel without a cause of Hawkins High who played with people just to prove things. And overnight it had gotten so much bigger than that, all because of a night who'd made them both realize how fucked over they were by their own issues, how deep in denial while also telling themselves no one could have it worse than them. And it was such an awful thing to be proved wrong. But now here they were, both of them owning up to it. Both of them willing to understand the other. Penelope wondered why that felt like an own sort of calmness in itself.

"I didn't know about your parents," Billy went on in spite of her previous words. "If I did I wouldn't have said all that bullshit."

"What I hate is that I knew about yours," Penelope confessed, feeling that guilt surface again. "I knew and I still said what I said. I shouldn't have –"

"I know," Billy reached for her face and tucked a loose strand of wet hair behind her ear, looking like he'd done that just as involuntarily as she'd touched him too.

And just like that, she felt the shift in the air that happened as fast as a flick of a switch. She felt that mutual understanding and previous guilt put aside, only to leave room for the next thing they'd been avoiding. She remembered all of a sudden the last thing he'd said to her in that fight, of how it was clear nothing had ever worked out between them when they weren't fucking.

A spiteful remark said just to get back at her, she told herself. But back then, she'd told him otherwise.

Yeah, clearly.

Had that also been a spiteful remark?

But God, how she didn't want to think about that now, not when he was so close. His hand had dropped from her face, coming underwater and resting on her waist, just as she was still steadying herself on his body. How had they gotten so close? And why was he looking at her like that?

"I didn't mean anything I said, Penelope," Billy spoke all of a sudden, almost like reading her mind. He hadn't meant anything. Had she?

"None of it?" she asked instead, not caring how her voice sounded so vulnerable right then, how fragile the moment felt too.

His eyes shone with something Penelope didn't recognize, and for the second time tonight, her breath caught again in her throat. They were so unbelievably blue. His eyes were the same shade as everything around them, like the blue of the swimming pool, the blue of the lights around them, yet they felt brighter too. Wilder. Penelope couldn't guess the last time she'd felt so trapped in such a shade of blue, if she had ever. Like she was on the highest cliff there was, ready to jump in the ocean of his eyes.

Billy's breath tickled her cheek as he answered. "Not a thing."

Penelope didn't know when her hands had ended up rested on his shoulders and then entangled behind his neck, or when their faces had gotten so close that their noses were touching. All she knew was that she didn't feel like turning back, she didn't feel like running. Every time, with every moment of thinking she had before kissing him, she'd felt different things. With their first kiss, she'd felt like diving into whatever it was, like it was reckless and wild but so was she. With their second, the one that had lasted the entire night, she'd felt excited, engulfed, like everything was hers to explore. Before he'd kissed her at the party, she'd felt like she was being hypnotized, drawn in by something she was not yet ready to explain.

Now? Now she was thinking and seeing everything so clear. She didn't feel reckless or spell bound or anything irrational like that. She felt like she wanted to kiss Billy Hargrove. She felt like she wanted to jump off that cliff. She felt like everything seemed calm and clear for a change, and whether it had been the water or their own minds bringing their bodies closer, she didn't care anymore.

His ocean eyes were the last thing Penelope saw as their lips barely brushed against each other before leaning more into the kiss. She could taste the water on his lips now, feel the usual saltiness of his mouth, feel how much she'd missed it too. Both of their hands knew exactly what to do, how to draw each other closer so they did, and the way Penelope's hands tangled slowly in his wet curly hair felt like familiarity, like picking up an old forgotten habit just to find out you were not out of practice. And it was so slow and certain, so empty of any resentment and so unlike any mess her and Billy Hargrove had made until now. She felt in control this time.

So, when breath ran out of them both, they broke the kiss. And when Penelope looked at him again, Billy's ocean eyes were the first thing she saw.

o-o-o

~Soundtrack: Taylor Swift – Cornelia Street~

The next morning, Billy woke up at the usual hour. The sun barely shone through his thick curtains, a few rays managing to slip through the cracks and get in his eyes, almost as if they were telling him it was 8 and he was supposed to get ready for work. His alarm rang in the same annoying way it did every morning, and with a slam of his fist on the buttons, Billy grunted and got up.

He went to the bathroom, running a hand through his messy hair as he looked in the mirror. His eyes looked tired, granted since he hadn't slept that much last night, and there were still sleep lines on his face. He washed it, not before brushing his teeth, and dressed in the usual pool clothes.

He put a pair of jeans over his red swimming shorts and a simple white shirt over the whistle on his chest, and then moved on to his hair, which was always the reason he woke up this early. It took him about half an hour to get it right, to put every curl in place and use his hair spray to make sure it stayed there, and then look at himself for five more minutes after it was done to admire it. It was routine by this point.

He gave his reflection a wink after he was done and climbed downstairs, going in the kitchen. His dad wasn't there thankfully enough, but apparently the morning decided not to be too kind to him because Susan and Max were at the table having breakfast. Billy opened the fridge, ignoring Susan's cheerful "good morning", and grabbed an apple from the fruit container.

"You sure you don't wanna eat breakfast with us, Billy?" Susan asked, and it took everything out of him not to roll his eyes. "I made pancakes."

"I'm good, thanks."

"What are you so chipper about?" Max asked all of a sudden, looking at him while munching on a piece of pancake.

Billy gave her a pointed stare. "The hell do you mean? I'm not chipper."

But the only response Max gave was a suspicious squint of her big green eyes, making Billy sigh and reach for his pack of cigarettes already. He grabbed one and put it behind his ear for later, not bothering to say anything else as he took his car keys from the kitchen counter and heading out the door.

It was another sunny day, Billy noticed. It was a day like most days actually, when the cold from last night was still hanging in the air while the sunshine was slowly making way, and the birds chirped like they normally did every morning, too. None of it was annoying him today though. Funny actually, nothing seemed to annoy him today, not the sun waking him up, not Susan and her annoying pancakes or Max and her annoying remarks, not even the birds singing like that. Usually, everything did.

He paused on the front porch and took a deep breath. It all smelled fresh.

And then, Billy did his next bit of routine left and looked to his left at Penelope's house. He did it so often that it felt like just a natural turn of his head by now. Except this morning was different. This morning, he turned half knowing and half hoping he'd find her there.

And she was. On the front porch of her house stood Penelope, with a cigarette between her fingers and looking in the distance at the horizon. And it just made everything in his body stop dead in its tracks. Because Jesus, was she beautiful. The sun lit her face and her hair dangled freely over her shoulders, turning a light shade of brown under the rays of sunshine. And for some reason, it made him remember the first time he'd seen her on this street, on the first day he'd met her and minutes after she'd made a fool out of him in that parking lot. She'd stood on that same porch, and mockingly finger gun shot him. And now it felt like he'd been dead ever since then.

Almost as if she sensed him, Penelope's head turned to look at him, her blue eyes boring into his from across. And memories from last night flooded Billy like a California wave. How scared he'd felt to see her there, after all that avoiding, how natural it had felt to talk to her again, how on fire he'd been to have her body under his touch underwater. And then scared again as they'd kissed. Scared and then calm all of a sudden. Like Penelope Skye didn't feel like a hurricane anymore, or a rollercoaster.

Seeing her now made him feel the same. Scared and then calm. Frankly, he didn't know what any of this meant, but this time, he was willing to find out. So, Billy let a smile form on his lips as he looked at her. And to his complete surprise, Penelope smiled back.

And it all felt like a fresh start.

AN:Holy shit you guys. So this is it, the ending. :(((( I honestly loved this fanfic so much I can't believe I just finished it.

First things first, I hope you liked it! Not just the ending, but everything, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, good or bad as they may. As for the ending, I kind of wanted to leave it to up to interpretation, that's why it might seem a bit unclear. Maybe they get together, and it all works out. Maybe they get together and realize it's a horrible mistake and Penelope goes to Chicago and Billy to California. Maybe they have gorgeous Californian babies together. Who knows? It's all up to you, however you feel like it should end. All in all though, I hope you enjoyed it.
And now, I have a bit of a surprise for you. My sister made an amazing video with the two that i wanna share with you! Fanfic doesn't let me post the link, but if you look up on youtube Ocean Eyes, Penelope and Billy, it will show up.
Anyway. I guess i gotta leave you now. If any of you want to read some of my other writing, I have a quotev (28138443, You can find me under Laura) and a tumblr "poetry" page named writinghurricanes. Just putting it out there.
Again, let me know what you think of this fanfic, and thank you so much for reading and sticking with it! You rock