### **Chapter 1: California Dreamin' (On Such a Winter's Day)** The moving van groans to a halt, a metallic whale beached on the cracked asphalt of a Hawkins, Indiana street that looks nothing like the sun-bleached lanes of San Mateo. You, Alessandra Rolle—Ale to anyone you bother to let get close—lean your forehead against the cool glass of the station wagon’s passenger window. The world outside is a palette of washed-out browns, dormant grass, and a sky the color of old dishwater. It’s the third week of November 1987, and the chill seeps through the glass, a physical rejection of everything you are. “*Mija*, come on. The guys need to start unloading.” Your mom’s voice is tired, a permanent state since your dad’s heart attack three years ago. It’s just the three of you now: Mom, your nine-year-old brother, Mateo, and you. The move was supposed to be a fresh start, closer to your mom’s sister in Indianapolis. To you, it feels like a sentence. You sigh, a cloud of vapor fogging the window, and push the door open. The air smells of damp earth and distant woodsmoke, so different from the salt-and-eucalyptus scent of home. You’re dressed for a climate that doesn’t exist here: light-wash, high-washed jeans pegged at the ankle, a slouchy, cream-colored off-the-shoulder sweater, and a pair of beaten-up Keds. Your makeup, meticulously applied at 5 AM in a defiant act of self-preservation—electric blue eyeliner flicked at the corners, blush swept high on your cheeks, lips glossed in “Pink Ice”—feels like a costume here. The house is a split-level, beige, and utterly anonymous. Next door, a similar house has a bicycle sprawled on the lawn and a roof that looks like it needs new shingles. As you haul a box labeled “ALE’S ROOM – DO NOT CRUSH” up the walk, the front door of that house swings open. And there he is. You’ve seen pictures. Your mom, in her frantic effort to “get you excited,” pointed out the Wheeler family from the Christmas card the realtor somehow procured. But the photo didn’t capture the way he moves, all loose limbs and a slight hunch, like he’s trying to fold into himself. Mike Wheeler. He’s taller than you expected, lanky, dressed in a faded *The Clash* t-shirt and jeans. His hair is a nest of dark curls that looks like he’s been running his hands through it for hours. He’s carrying a trash bag to the curb. His eyes, dark and a little wary, slide over the moving chaos and land on you. They linger for a second on your face, your clothes, the box you’re struggling with. There’s no smile, just an assessing, almost analytical look. It irritates you instantly. Who does he think he is, staring like you’re a specimen? “Need a hand?” he calls out, his voice deeper than you anticipated, but with a hesitant edge. You adjust your grip on the box, the cardboard digging into your fingers. “I got it,” you say, your tone sharper than intended. It’s your default setting when you’re feeling vulnerable: attack. “Unless you’re offering a critique on my lifting form. Heard Hawkins High has a great judging team.” A flicker of something—surprise, maybe amusement—crosses his face. It’s gone quickly, replaced by a faint, confused frown. “Uh, no. Just… being neighborly.” “How quaint,” you mutter, mostly to yourself, and shoulder past him toward your new front door. You catch a scent of him as you pass: Dial soap, the faint, clean smell of laundry detergent, and something else, something like old paper and the ozone before a storm. You shove the feeling down. He’s just some boy. A boy who lives in a town that probably thinks Taco Bell is authentic Mexican cuisine. Your new room is a square of pale yellow wallpaper with tiny, faded roses. You drop the box and collapse onto the bare mattress, the springs squealing in protest. From your window, you have a direct view into what must be Mike Wheeler’s bedroom. His blinds are half-open. You see a cluttered desk, shelves groaning with books and what look like binders filled with handwritten notes, a poster for *Dungeons & Dragons* on the wall. It’s intensely, nerdy private. You look away, a weird pang of guilt hitting you, mixed with that stubborn irritation. Later, after the movers leave and the house is a labyrinth of boxes, you sit on the back porch steps, wrapped in your favorite oversized flannel. The California cold was a crisp thing; this Indiana cold is wet, seeping into your bones. You have your Walkman on, the headphones a comforting pressure over your ears. The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” is playing, Robert Smith’s dreamy despair a perfect match for your mood. You’re so lost in the bassline you don’t hear the back door next door open. You jump when you see movement in your peripheral vision. Mike is there, holding two mugs. He approaches cautiously, like you’re a stray cat that might bolt. He holds out a mug. “Hot chocolate,” he says, raising his voice over the music you can’t hear. “My mom made it. She said to welcome you to the neighborhood.” You pause, then slowly pull one headphone off your ear. The tinny sound of the song leaks out. You take the mug. It’s warm, almost too hot, and smells sweet. “Thanks.” He nods, sitting on his own steps a few feet away, not looking at you. He sips his drink. The silence stretches, filled only by the distant rustle of dead leaves and the faint, melancholic synth from your headphones. “What are you listening to?” he asks finally, his eyes on the skeletal trees at the back of the yard. “The Cure.” “‘Just Like Heaven.’” You blink, surprised. “You know it?” He shrugs, a gesture that seems to encompass his entire being. “My friend Max… she’s really into that stuff. Post-punk, new wave. She made me a mixtape.” “Is she your girlfriend?” The question is out before you can stop it, fueled by a sudden, irrational curiosity you immediately despise. Mike chokes slightly on his hot chocolate. “What? No. God, no. She’s… she’s one of my best friends. She’s dating my other best friend, Lucas.” He says it with a complicated weight, a history you’re not privy to. “Oh.” You sip the cocoa. It’s good, rich. “My dad loved The Cure. He saw them in ‘84.” You don’t know why you tell him that. You never talk about your dad with strangers. Mike looks at you then, really looks. His gaze is less assessing now, softer. “My dad loves Huey Lewis and the News. It’s a constant source of shame.” A laugh bursts out of you, short and surprised. It feels strange in your chest. “The horror.” A small, genuine smile touches his lips. It changes his whole face, makes him look younger, less burdened. “So. San Mateo, huh? Why’d you move here? No offense, but Hawkins isn’t exactly a hotspot.” The familiar, heavy blanket of grief and resentment settles back over you. “Family stuff,” you say, your voice going flat. “My dad died. Mom wanted a change.” The smile vanishes from his face. “Oh. Shit. I’m… I’m really sorry.” He says it quietly, and it doesn’t sound like the empty platitudes you’ve heard a million times. It sounds like he *means* it, like he understands loss on a cellular level. You see it in the sudden shadows in his eyes. You just nod, swallowing hard against the lump in your throat. You focus on the music still whispering in your one ear. *“Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick…”* “That one’s my favorite,” Mike says softly, nodding toward your Walkman. “The trick one.” You look at him, this boy with the sad eyes and the Dungeons & Dragons posters, who knows The Cure and makes terrible jokes about his dad’s music taste. The irritation has melted, replaced by a confusing, slow-spreading warmth that has little to do with the hot chocolate. “Yeah,” you say, your voice barely a whisper. “Mine too.” You both sit in the gathering dusk, not speaking, just listening to the quiet of the neighborhood and the shared, silent understanding of a song about something beautiful and just out of reach. The first connection, fragile as an ice crystal on a windowpane, is made. And in his room, later that night, Mike Wheeler would carefully write out the lyrics to “Just Like Heaven” in the margin of his notebook, for no reason he could explain.