A/N: Wow! It was great for me to read your reviews on the last chapter, I copletely agree that El had to say something at some point. Anyway, there's some well deserved Mileven here, I hope you like it though, I've sort of really debated with myself a lot about the twist I wanted to give this story.

Chapter 8: Feels like there's oceans between you and me

Saturday 3rd, February 2018

Despite the few people in the dark classroom, there was a companionable silence in the room.

Well, except for the soft dialogues and vibrant music.

Will had invited El to one of the movie screenings of the AV and Cinema Club, of which he was a member. She knew that despite being such a small thing, this particular event meant a lot for him. Especially since he had been the one in charge of the theme and logistics this weekend. Eleven thought it was really nice that her best friend had found an extracurricular activity he enjoyed so much.

On the other hand, Max's big date with Lucas was tonight and, if it weren't for Will's random phone call that afternoon, El knew she'd probably be spending another Saturday holed up on her room. Max asking Lucas out had actually taken everyone by surprise. And although Eleven was pretty damn proud of her friend, she had been a tiny bit worried about her friend's sheer boldness. The last thing El wanted was to see her friend get hurt.

Of course, it turned out there was nothing to worry about, since Lucas was obviously interested in Max (he would be an idiot if he wasn't) and had enthusiastically agreed. The two girls had spent most of the morning having a lot of laughs while getting ready for Max's date. El had to admit, it had actually been pretty fun to try and strengthen the redhead's abundant and beautiful wavy hair and help her choose her outfit. It had been such mindless fun and Eleven couldn't have been happier for the distraction.

The two of them were spending a lot of time together lately. Actually, Max had been the first one El had called once she'd gotten to her room that fateful night, after pouring out all of her feelings to an unsuspecting Mike. After the depressing phone call, the redhead girl had unexpectedly showed up in El's room with what she called an Emergency Kit – which consisted in lots of bags of Oreos and chips. They'd stayed up late that night, talking and crying over past and present heartbreaks and laughing at the stupid jokes in the four Adam Sandler movies they watched in a row.

And now El was happy for Max. She knew in her heart that Lucas would be good to her, he was just the kind of person her friend needed to balance her out. They helped each other be better, wasn't that what a relationship should be about?

However, right now, Eleven felt really glad to be spending time with Will for a change. Lately, it seemed that their schedules kept conflicting and they barely ever hung out together anymore. Which was actually sad. It was always been so easy and comfortable to spend time with her best friend, especially since his unusual perceptiveness always allowed him to read her mood perfectly. Plus, Will had always seemed to have a calming effect on her, with his quiet and wise presence.

As she immersed herself in the dramatic French movie Will had picked for the afternoon and they were currently watching, El couldn't help but decide to come to these screenings more often. If it weren't for Jonathan and Will, she would know only the basics about films – actually, it was yet another reason to be thankful for the Byers.

It was amazing, she thought, how convincingly the two main actresses were conveying their feelings. How heartbreaking it could be to witness the beginning and the fall out of a love story in the span of a few hours.

The screening was over sooner than she'd expected, and some of the people (including Will) had gathered in a small circle to discuss the themes and the art and the story and the hidden metaphors. Despite feeling the conversation was quite interesting, El couldn't shake the uncomfortable feeling welling up inside her. The feeling that kept reminding her that she didn't belong her.

She hated feeling this way.

Recently, after learning some more about what her anxiety was about, Eleven had decided to fight back.

Inconspicuously, El took a couple of deep, calming breaths. It was important to remind herself that these sort of situations shouldn't have to ignite the fight-or-flight instinct in her. Afterwards, it was all a bit better.

When it was all over, they walked through the darkened campus.

"Thanks for staying through everything," Will said.

"It was actually alright," she answered sincerely, "I'll probably stop by often."

The small boy smiled at her.

"I'm glad you seem better lately, El."

Of course he meant the fact that she was slowly getting over her fall out with Mike, of which he knew all about.

"Yeah… stuff gets easier with time, you know?"

Will gave her a sympathetic look.

The first couple of weeks had been harder than she'd expected, for sure. She'd spent a lot of time thinking back to the whole incident and wondering if it had been the right thing to do. Also, it still hurt to realize where her stupid hope had gotten her once again. Now, however, the hurt was mostly hindered by the fact that she was mostly ashamed for all the embarrassing crap she'd let out. The whole situation was made worse, however, since she would occasionally bump unexpectedly with Mike around campus and relieve all of the damned feelings that got them there in the first place.

She knew he wanted to talk to her and figure stuff out, he'd been texting nonstop for quite a few days now. But she decided that if she couldn't get over her feelings, then she should get over him altogether.

It was probably for the best, she knew, that she'd finally had the strength to come clean and stop that whole masochistic situation for good.

It was probably for the best that she'd stopped everything before it got out of hand again and she was left hurting.

"That just about sums up my whole high school experience," Will smiled, attempting a weak joke and successfully interrupting El's line of thought.

Eleven smiled at her best friend, seeing in his face all the worry he felt for her.

She was truly lucky to have him in her life.

And to have Max.

"How do you feel about going for dessert? I haven't had a good cheesecake in forever," she suddenly asked, remembering the small café near her dorm building.

-….-…-…-

Sunday 25th, February 2018

She woke up to an insistent knock on her bedroom door.

What the actual hell?

Must be the girl next door, locked out of her room and asking to crash on the spare bed again, her sleepy mind suddenly remembered.

Well, she could wait some more.

The knocking, however, turned into pounding.

Grumpily, Eleven threw the door open, cursing the day she allowed the neighbor to crash for a few hours as a random act of kindness.

She took in the person in her doorway. It was Max.

"Why aren't you answering your phone?" the redhead asked as she made her way into El's bedroom and unceremoniously plopped on her messy bed.

"It's eight o'clock on a Sunday, I was sleeping," the brown-haired girl replied with a roll of her eyes. Then, she made a point to yawn as dramatically as possible.

"This is so worth a couple of less hours of sleep. I sent you like a thousand messages, Ellie."

"Fine, what's the emergency? Because it better be urgent," Eleven groaned, as she laid on the spare, empty bed and closed her eyes.

El was so not a morning person.

"First of all, shower, get dressed nicely… and do something with your hair," Max said, as she stared at El critically.

"What? Why?" El complained, rubbing her eyes and still lying in the spare bed.

She was suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious.

"Come on!" the redhead exclaimed, pulling Eleven out of the bed, "I promise you'll love what I've planned," she added cryptically.

Still groaning and muttering a string of complaints, El slowly did as her friend said, while Max waited patiently for her, texting excitedly all the time.

An hour later, Eleven was clean and dressed up in an oversized mustard-colored sweater and black leggings. Her brown hair was still hopeless though, and she bit her lip as she tried to comb it into compliance. Max sighed as she saw her friend's struggle with her messy hair.

"Come over here Ellie, I'll braid it for you," the redhead said patting the comforter beside her. Max was quite nimble with her fingers, always had been, and actually enjoyed doing people's hair.

"Will you finally tell me what's up today?" Eleven asked.

"So the long version… Lucas had four tickets for this ridiculous comedy show at the city since like last year or something, he was planning to go with the guys. Turns out I showed up and then he can't help but prefer me instead, since his favorite comedian ever is going to be there or something."

Eleven snorted at Max's narration. Of course Lucas would prefer a Sunday with Max, he spent time with his friends every day!

"A fun Lumax Sunday?" joked El, knowing her friend got annoyed whenever she mentioned the ship name she'd come up with for them, "What's that have to do with old, grumpy me?"

Max pulled her hair a little in retaliation as she made the final twist in the loose French braid she'd been working on.

"Well, you see, Lucas couldn't just choose someone to un-invite. Plus, I thought that maybe you'd like to go to the city for a change-"

"– Max, who's got the fourth ticket?" asked Eleven as dread suddenly balled up in the pit of her stomach.

Apparently, now that the redhead was finally and officially dating Lucas, it was okay for them to hang out together with the guys again. All of them. However, the few times El had finally agreed to hang out as a group (not an easy task for Max to achieve), the awkwardness between her and Mike was obvious to everyone. Especially when she ignored him as much as possible and he sported a sad and hurt look all the time.

Actually, El had the feeling that their group of friends already knew the gory details of what had happened. She noticed the guys and even Max try to make things better, but there was really not much they could do. El refused to talk, see or even text Mike back, still too mortified and hurt. Thankfully, Mike had almost altogether stopped insisting they talk (she now only got an occasional text every other day) and he hadn't waited for her after class again since their last talk (something she had been anxious about).

Oh no, hell no.

Max had been trying to get her to agree to talk to Mike for a while now and she wouldn't budge. Apparently they'd been talking a lot for a few weeks now, a fact that Eleven tried not to dwell on too much. The redhead had told El several times that she'd given Mike shit for what happened and he'd seemed really sorry. Unfortunately, that was still just not enough for Eleven. Of course it made her feel guilty, but she needed more time on her own to figure out how she felt about it and if she could get over it completely.

Plus, El had decided not to stomp on her own feelings again because of guilt or anything or anyone.

"So, I texted Will yesterday about it but he was really busy, big test or project or something… and then I thought about someone else you might feel comfortable around-"

Mike. She just knew it.

"-Tim," Max said.

The dread subsided significantly. But… wait, what?

"Are you setting me up on a date with your sporty friend?" El asked horrified.

"Not a date, just, you know, a couple of friends going to the city for lunch and a show-"

"With another couple? More like a double date," Eleven said cynically, "I can't believe you'd do this to me Max."

"Oh, Ellie, you'll thank me later, I promise," the redhead answered, her blue eyes full of sympathy, "You know it's not as if I'm pushing you guys together or anything."

That's almost what Will had said all those months ago to get her to go with him and his friends to that stupid, fateful party.

"I'm only trying to get you to experiment some things and just get out there and we both know you wouldn't have agreed if I'd asked you beforehand… I still remember Valentine's day," Max continued, giving her friend a pointed look.

"It worries me that you're always on your own, Ellie."

"I'm not. I hang out with Will and you and Lucas… and your soccer friends," El replied weakly, already seeing the meaning behind her friend's words.

Max gave her a see-what-I'm-talking-about look.

"You look beautiful El, we'll have a great time!"

The two friends hurried outside. Apparently, Max had agreed with Lucas to be picked up from El's dorm at eleven, since they were planning to have lunch in the city and the ride there took a good couple of hours.

As expected, Lucas was a punctual guy and by the time they were outside the building, he was already parked, waiting for them. Tim was sitting in the seat beside him, looking genuinely happy.

As soon as they saw the girls, Tim got out so Max could ride shotgun next to her boyfriend. El gave him a shy smile. He was nice enough, she figured, but she just wasn't ready or willing to have her hopes hurt her again.

The two-hour ride was fun enough. Everyone showed of their singing skills (or lack thereof). It turned out that Lucas and Eleven were the only ones who could actually sing in tune, but the four of them had a lot of fun butchering the lyrics of the popular songs on the radio. El hadn't laughed that much in quite a long while.

-….-…-…-

"Again, why are you doing this babe?" Lucas asked in amusement as he watched his pretty girlfriend smiling devilishly.

They were sitting in a coffee shop, having muffins and hot drinks with fancy names they couldn't pronounce. The comedy show had been hilarious and had just ended. However, none of them had wanted to return to college so soon, so they'd decided to delay the ride back for a while. Max was currently making the most of the fact that El was still standing waiting for her drink and Tim was in the bathroom. Eleven had carelessly left her purse with Max and the redhead was now spamming the brown-haired girl's social media accounts by posting a ton of pictures of their day out. Mainly pictures of El and Tim she'd took without any of them noticing.

"Just trying to prove a hypothesis," Max answered cryptically, smiling widely as she wrote a ridiculously girly quote under one of the pictures.

"That Eleven's love for you does have a limit?"

"No silly," she said, looking at Lucas as if he was crazy and finally tucking the phone carefully inside El's black bag, "I'm playing the double agent here, remember?"

Lucas snickered, knowing what she meant all too well.

"You'll fix everything, like you always do," Lucas said in amazement, as he finally figured his girlfriend's plan.

Unable to help himself, he planted a loud kiss on Max's laughing mouth.

"Gross, no making out during meals please," El said, sitting in one of the empty chairs and pretending to gag.

The ride home was a lot quiet in comparison to the ride to the city. Mostly because everyone was quite tired after the long day.

El stared out of the foggy window, watching the city slowly disappear behind them.

-….-…-…-

Tuesday 27th, February 2018 (Nighttime – late)

"Ellie, wake up, we're at your dorm!" Max said loudly, successfully managing to wake her friend from her slumber.

Against her better judgment, El had fallen asleep in Lucas' car during the short ride. There was something about the soft rocking of moving cars that had always relaxed her. Plus, her week already sucked despite it being only the beginning of the week. She had had so many essays due that day that she hadn't slept at all Monday night. Needless to say, she was tired as hell.

Thankfully, Max and Lucas had kindly offered to pick her up whenever her classes ended too late (mostly Tuesdays), so she wouldn't have to make the twenty minute walk home alone in the cold.

She was dreading getting out of the warm car and facing the biting cold of the wind. And having to tortuously climb the flight of stairs to her room. Yawning, she got out of the car, thinking about her warm bed as motivation as she struggled to make her way up the stairs.

There was someone sitting on her hall, with the back to her room's wooden door.

Not just someone… She could have recognized him even miles away.

Actually, now that the situation she was feeling so anxious about was finally happening, El was surprised to discover she was feeling rather calm. She couldn't keep postponing the inevitable conversation that had been due days, even weeks ago.

His floppy black hair was hanging over his eyes. Eleven sighed, apparently, he'd fallen asleep waiting for her to show up. She was surprised that nobody had come to kick him out yet.

Sighing, she kneeled in front of him.

Wordlessly, Eleven shook him gently, hoping it would be enough to wake him.

"El?" his dark sleepy eyes focused on her, "Oh."

Suddenly, almost as if he'd realized where he was and why, Mike straightened up.

"We, um, we need to talk," he said hesitatingly.

"I know," she conceded with a sigh as she settled beside him, with her back on the hard door to her bedroom.

It was silent for a while, neither of them knew what to say or how to begin the conversation.

"You know, there's actually a good reason why I never mention Bex," suddenly said Mike in a hushed voice, "It's actually very complicated and, um, it has a lot to do with a promise I made a while ago, but… well, I can tell you about it now."

Eleven could not deny that she was very intrigued; however, she was not expecting to talk about that, about her, so soon.

"We've always been friends, we were neighbors too for a while. Actually, she was the only girl who would talk to me when I hit my awkward phase," Mike said with a sad smile, "and I kind of had a crush on her."

"So, we were fourteen and there was this birthday party," he continued quietly, "they made everybody go down to the basement to play that stupid spin the bottle or seven minutes in heaven game, I don't know, but I just… I felt that it was important to wait on that kind of stuff. So I stayed upstairs. I just wanted those sort of things to mean something, you know?"

Despite knowing he wouldn't see her, since he was currently looking at his long legs splayed out beneath him, El nodded.

"And Bex… she got to finally kiss her crush, this cute girl in our year. And it would have been okay, I guess, if she'd had come out of the closet by then and people in our town weren't so closed-minded. But I mean, we were fourteen, she'd told a few people and her family but nobody took it seriously… her mom was convinced that it was just a phase."

"But I guess she made it too obvious or something back then, I don't know, I wasn't there. Next thing I knew, she went up to find me and she was crying and she was just so desperate, so sad. It confused me to see her like that. Bex… she'd always been so strong but she was crumbling down and all I wanted to do was help her, she was my friend."

Mike paused for a while, almost as if it overwhelmed him to remember.

"So I listened to her and then kissed her. And I don't know if she felt anything at all, but it was my first kiss and that made it special. Thinking back, it was probably the worst thing to do at the moment," he said, the ghost of a smile on his face, "That night, she asked me to go on a date with her, and she said that it would make our lives easier."

"I, um, guessed she meant the bullying she did get occasionally," he didn't need to say what about, it seemed pretty obvious.

She been a witness of what he meant, being Will's best friend since they were twelve years old. El understood just how hard it could be for someone to pretend to be someone they were not, to suppress their feelings because of shame. She thought back on how Will always seemed depressed during high school, how hard it was for him to get up and just function throughout the day. El remembered him saying how he was so glad he had a best friend and a family who loved him for who he was. Plus, Joyce took it into her own hands to make it clear that bullying was completely forbidden in the Hawkins school system.

Bex had had no support from her family, from her own mother. She'd had no authority stand up for her.

"But the times we went out… it was like nothing had changed and we were still friends and it was pretty damn confusing for me because I still had this crush on her. To anyone else in town, however, we were like an item."

"And Bex was right, once people saw our relationship lasted, the teasing and insults and mocking finally stopped for her. And people seemed to forget about that one incident, her mom was s-so happy," Mike continued, his voice sounding almost flat, "And I got used to it, it was easy…we'd always been real good together and pretty much nothing had changed. In public we would hold hand and occasionally kiss and in private, among ourselves, we would hang out like we always had."

"Everything was fine throughout high school. I didn't need anything else to be happy. But she did. I sort of knew how she really felt, but we never once talked about it… I knew it killed her inside to have to pretend so much and it killed her to think she was leading me on and, sort of using me."

"Which… she kind of was?" He smiled a bit at that, "But I was totally using her too. I wouldn't get teased either about not having a girlfriend and it was just so easy to pretend. I didn't need anything else, I'd never felt anything for anyone that would make me want to end whatever we had."

"Suddenly, everyone seemed to be getting ready for prom and, obviously, we were each other's dates. I said that we didn't have to go, I knew she was in a really, really bad place at the time and she wasn't excited at all about it."

El thought back to how Will and she had spent prom night having a movie marathon, none of them in the mood to witness everyone being so happy when they were both feeling so depressed.

"But, for a while that night, everything actually seemed fine… but the night ended and she reverted back into the unhappy shell she'd been hiding in. I had rented a room for the night, because it was what was expected. And I never even thought about anything else happening... Um, but she… sh-well she suddenly wanted to have sex."

"She said it was the normal thing to do on prom night. That we had to do it."

"But things had never been like that between us. And it just didn't feel right… It was sort of like taking advantage of each other's weaknesses. And we just weren't that kind of couple, that's not what our relationship was about and I knew she didn't really want, uh, that. So I had to stop her."

Eleven didn't need to know much about life and relationships to understand that not many guys would have acted like did.

"Bex stopped talking to me, she avoided me during the last few weeks of school. In fact, she left for the summer with her family and never returned any of my texts, emails or phone calls," he continued, "And, well, we both went to different colleges and that seemed to be it for good… even though we'd never really had a chance to properly break up back then."

A/N: By the way, the movie Will and El are watching at the beginning of the chapter is actually "Blue is the warmest color", have any of you watched it? It's such a great movie about how it's like to love an artist, the story is just beautiful. Anyway, I decided to exclude the name of the movie from the story since it could be too much of a foreshadow and even almost a spoiler for the ending of this chapter.