As promised, Nancy takes her to the mall. Mike comes along, mostly because she refuses to go anywhere without him. The crowds scare her, their voices much too loud and abrasive. Mike holds her hand.
Nancy kindly helps her sort through the racks of clothing. She takes a liking to soft clothes. Deep blues and forest greens. She wears overlarge sweaters that seem to swallow her up. They swath her in warmth and comfort.
But she is skinny. So thin. The clothes seem to weigh her down like the snow laden branches of a frail tree.
"Pretty?"
Hesitantly, she steps out of the fitting room in a frilly dress. For the Snow Ball, she claims, even though the dance has long since passed.
Mike nods and grins like an idiot. Nancy pretends not to notice.
They make their way out of the little square shops inside the mall. Her skeletal form attracts guilty stares. Mike's arm encircles her, quite instinctively. Nancy glares at the passerby, warning off any unwanted attention.
They get lunch in a small café. El is exhausted by the ordeal, arms laden with shopping bags. She wolfs down her sandwich in three seconds flat, and Mike ends up with a depleted supply of french fries.
He catches her levitating them onto her plate. He nudges her, suppressing a laugh, pointing frantically to the security cameras.
They make their way to Nancy's car. El drifts off almost immediately, lulled by the movement of the car. Because of the nightmares. Mike knows. She spends her nights haunted by shadows. He spends his nights telling stories.
...
She is allowed a year.
She can't go to school. Not like this. So she heals. Joyce feeds her three delicious meals a day. In the mornings, she reads childrens books they pick up from Goodwill. In the afternoon, Mr. Clarke stops by a brings her some of his easier science worksheets. Will teaches her to draw. Dustin teaches her the hopelessly knotted stories from the comic books they like. Mike claims he's teaching her the art of storytelling, but mostly he just takes the time to entertain her. She likes his lessons the most.
She absorbs the information, growing increasingly hungry for more. She reads the encyclopedias cover to cover. Mike brings her books from the library. The books themselves grow in size and content matter. On the weekends, she spends time with the boys. They take her into town, to the lake, past the school.
She gains the weight back. Her face is fuller, she grows into her overlarge sweaters. She begins to speak with the house, she rarely lets go of Mike's hand. She's learning, but the world is far bigger than she ever could've known.
The nightmares don't go away. Papa lingers, speaking to her in the dead of night. His memory hangs over her shoulders. She is most vulnerable in the dark. She shatters, but Mike is always there to pick up the pieces.
She learns to love them. All of them. Joyce and Jonathan and Will and Nancy and Lucas and Dustin and Mike. Especially Mike.
They make her feel like she belongs. Finally, she belongs.
She is thirteen years old when they come for her, in late October. She is also very much in love with Mike Wheeler.
Eleven spends her Saturday quietly. In the morning, she eats the towering stack of chocolate chip pancakes Joyce cooks. Jonathan leaves for work, promising to stop by the library on his way home.
Good. She thinks. She'd finished her latest novel just yesterday. El is always on the lookout for new reading material.
Without any more books to bury herself into, she joins Will in his room. He plays Jonathan's new mixtape, and the siblings find themselves bobbing their heads to the beat. Will grins. El starts giggling uncontrollably. The normalcy feels so good.
In the afternoon, the two ride to Mike's house. His face lights up when he sees them. He leads them inside excitedly, rushing down the stairs to the basement. Dustin and Lucas are already there, halfway through a pizza.
"Byers! El!" They exclaim, through full mouths. El laughs.
"Hello!"
Will bounds over, grabbing a piece.
"Want one, El?" Mike says, grinning. She nods.
She settles down beside Lucas, stuffing her face.
"We got a big day ahead of us, guys." Dustin says.
"What are you talking about?"
"My friend, I am talking about the journey that awaits . ." He says, exaggerating each word.
Lucas rolls his eyes.
"What journey? I was under the impression that we were gonna sit here all day and play on Mike's Atari system."
"Of course not! We are going to the woods."
"The woods?"
"Yeah, like where we found El."
"Why?"
"Because it'll be fun. Trust me."
El watches their conversation bounce back and forth.
"I guess we've got nothing better to do." Mike says, wedging himself next to El.
A few moments later, they are perched atop their bikes, riding down the street. The wind stirs the dead leaves so they skitter and dance around them.
El had received her own bike earlier that month. She found riding it to be pretty easy. The feeling of the cold air biting at her cheeks and the sound of their tires slicing through the puddles and dead leaves cast a sort of trance over her. She loved the freedom.
Mike watches the grin spread across her face and feels a sort of giddy exhilaration building in his chest. They speed down the road, challenging each other to go faster and faster.
Faster.
The word is delicious on her tongue. She feels the throbbing of her heart and the perfect coordination of each muscle in her body and the satisfaction of deep breaths bursting from full lungs.
They ditch their bikes by the road, trudging through the woods on foot. They spend the rest of the afternoon down by the lake. They gather sticks to build a fort. When Dustin pushes Mike in the lake, all thoughts of the fort are forgotten. The boys peel of their shirts and jump in. Even El wades in the water hesitantly.
It's cold. Really cold. It numbs her limbs. Her heart hammers in her ears. Lucas splashes her playfully. She sends water back in his face, laughing as he coughs and sputters. Mike pushes Dustin's head under.
"Be careful." El warns, shivering a little. Will rolls his eyes at them, shooting her a grin.
It's too cold to stay in the water for long. They clamber out, gooseflesh crawling over their skin.
"Well, that w-was a s-stupid idea." Dustin shivers, pulling on his dry t-shirt. Darkness falls fast, like blinds drawn over a window. They make their way up the hill. Mike throws his jacket over El's shoulders. In return, she grabs his hand. She feels him relax a little, moving closer to her, leaning his temple on the top of her head. The shared space between them is warm. She pushes against him mentally, too. Her thoughts are playful, teasing. She can see the grin creeping onto his face, and suppresses a small laugh.
Eventually, she lets her mind wander with his, half in the boys' conversation, half in their own. She loses track after a while, content to stay in his subconscious warmth.
Mike is sort of oblivious. El doesn't quite know what to think, other than it means safety and comfort.
It is more than friendship. You could call it love.