Max rouses at the sound of her full name, and now the bedroom is bright.
The vague notes of Joyce's voice seep through the wall. It sounds like she's excusing them from school.
Max and El have not budged. The bedroom door isn't closed all the way, and the realization strikes her that Joyce must have seen them and taken mercy. She decides not to be too embarrassed to be caught weak by Joyce. Any other parent, yes, but... she would get it.
Still, whatever miraculous reprieve this was, it's time to let go now. Which is a terrible shame because El is sleeping now with her hand on Max's head, and few things have ever felt so much like being wanted - not just tolerated but actually wanted right where she is - as the soft weight of it resting across her temple. She wishes she could go back to sleep all over again.
Okay, one more minute, for real this time. One minute to burn that into her memory as best she can, and then that's it.
Reluctantly, she lifts her face from El's shoulder, coming to focus groggily on the collar of the black and white shirt whose contour is imprinted in her chin.
Why does she have to be wearing that stupid hellfire shirt?
Her eyes widen at the sight of El with a red-stained tissue stuffed up her nose.
Awake already, El offers a smile, "hi," and no explanation.
"What are you doing..." Max frowns, sitting up and peeking over the edge of the bed, afraid of finding more discarded tissues, and she does. "El? What were you doing?"
"Staying with you."
"Right, but what were you using- wait. Wait, you..." she squints and considers El's shirt. "You weren't in my dream because you were, like... IN my dream...?"
El wipes her nose clean and nods up at her calmly. "You came to be not alone."
"You can do that?" Max gapes. "Wait, does this mean you've been awake all night?"
A little smile and a stretch is the only answer she's getting to that. "You slept."
Max stares, equal parts touched and mortified.
She bled all night so you could rest. And you thought you were deep in her debt before?
El sits up and studies her, messy-haired and earnest and lost, and Max doesn't realize she must look pissed instead of grateful until she adds, "I didn't do it to spy..."
"Wh-? No! I just can't believe.." she rubs her face, flaky with dried tear tracks. "Feels like I.. used you, or something."
El's face softens with understanding. "You didn't."
"I would never have asked-"
"You didn't."
"I just wanted your company."
"I know," El nods gently. "Do you feel any better?"
Max feels bad, but that's an upgrade from horrible. Her chin wants to go quivery again, so she looks across the room and nods hard.
Fantastic at expressing yourself as always. Really earning your welcome.
"We don't have to go to school today. There is nobody here until Will comes home," El says, and tucked between each of those words is, Stay?
It's not like Max has anywhere to be, and as long as El doesn't seem to be in any hurry for this to end, she guesses she doesn't have to be either. The sense of connection she feels right now is too valuable, too hard won, and not something she can count on recapturing later. She'd hate to give it up by leaving just for the sake of leaving.
Tentatively she sits back against the pillows. And for a while they stay there, side by side but no longer touching, just waking up. Resting from resting.
Max can think of nothing except El staying awake all night long, keeping her safe and comforting her. The more she thinks about it, the more she's sure it's the most loved she can remember feeling.
"Was that your dad? In the car?"
She nods.
El makes no comment, just a soft smile, and Max loves her for it.
Why don't you tell her so? She said it to you. Why has that always been hard for you to say?
A bird sings outside.
How about at least thanking her, idiot?
Max stares at a poster on the wall. "That was the first time I've dreamed about anything nice in a long time. I don't know how you made me do that, but.." she rolls her eyes at how not enough this is. "Thanks."
"I didn't make you. I just went with you."
Max wonders how this works. El's question from last night lingers in her ears.
"Do you get bad dreams too?"
"Sometimes."
"You ever... get the same one a bunch?"
"Yes. Mostly the one you had."
Max's eyes dart to her. "Of... that thing? Getting you?" ...while your quote-unquote best friend stands there not helping?
"No. Just what happened," El shakes her head, playing with a loose thread on her bedsheet. "Failing."
What.
"It felt good to do it over right. Even if it was just pretend. ...Max?" El looks over at her, eyes going shiny. "I know you don't blame me, but.. I'm sorry I couldn't do it like that really."
"Wait, what? Why would I blame you?"
"You don't. You are only... disappointed. I am, too."
"But.. no, but why would you say it like that?" Max asks worriedly. "What could I have blamed you for?"
El examines her face like she's trying to decide if the question is real.
"For not helping you."
Max frowns. "What are you talking about?"
"When it was your turn needing help... I couldn't." She looks back down to her fidgeting. "I couldn't protect you from Billy, and.. I couldn't help him either, and... I know that you understand I didn't do it on purpose, but... it's not fair I let you down, when you are my best friend. I meant to fight for you best. And I couldn't at all."
Something heavy sinks in Max's chest as she realizes how her behavior might look to El. Like she thinks of Billy's death as a failure on El's part. Like she thinks it's El's job to save the day, and has grown disillusioned with her for not doing it. It's devastating to think El might be carrying any form of guilt about what happened.
"But I am getting strong again now," El continues hopefully. "And I can protect you whenever you want. Even if it's only from dreams."
"Do you think I think- no. No," Max covers El's hand with her own. "You didn't let me down. I've never been disappointed in you. I never felt like that, not for one second. I didn't even realize it could look that way until right now, I.. I know I've been... weird lately, I'm just..." say it. "...sad. Is all. And it comes out looking.. a way I don't mean. I'm so sorry if it looked like that. Nothing about what happened was your fault. You never let me down. Okay?"
El smiles, but there's some quiet resignation in it. "Yes. I did. It is not my fault, but it is still what happened."
Max stares. The weight of El's powers must be crushing, and she could die of guilt over her share of the load.
"El.." she sighs. "I'm so sorry for how we've all treated you."
The other girl tilts her head. "What?"
"Like.. it was all on you to handle all that insane shit, just 'cause of what you can do. Like it was your responsibility 'cause you've known about it the longest." That ache is starting up inside her temples again. "You talk like you're some superhero whose job is to protect us. And it's our fault for acting like you are. When you're not. You're just a girl. You get scared, same as us. You deserve protection. It should've been us protecting you."
"You did. I am only here now because you all protected me."
"Not all of us," she answers more bitterly than she means to. "Not me. When it was your turn needing it.. I didn't even try."
It's only because El has a terrible poker face that Max believes she's really as puzzled as she looks. "You protected me," she insists.
Max shakes her head.
"You did. I remember it. I remember you holding onto me when it tried to take me. And taking care of my leg, trying to stop it from hurting. And catching me when I fell. I remember your arm around me the whole time. Staying with me to help me walk when you could have run faster y-"
"Billy almost killed you! Like, multiple times. And I just stood there. I let you down." Her voice starts out much too loud and then halfway through, goes missing entirely. "You're always protecting me from monsters and.. I didn't protect you from mine."
El blinks at her as if this is absurd. She shakes her head. "I don't understand? There was-"
"He hurt you and then... and then! He's the one who protected you! And I hate him for both. And I hate me for both," she wipes away tears that are immediately replaced.
"Max, don't. There was nothing you could have done. Why would it be on you to -"
"That was my brother. I should've protected you from him."
"How did you used to protect yourself from him?"
Max's tears pause as she looks up quickly. It's certainly never been a secret that she hated Billy, but she never actually gave El any details about why. She wonders whether El is just that perceptive or if it's just that obvious.
Oh, El doesn't ask rhetorical questions. She's actually waiting.
There's no need for Max to play dumb like she once might've. She shakes her head, at a loss.
"The only thing that ever worked was to stay out of his way in the first place. And by the time he was, y'know, strangling you it was kinda late for that super helpful tip."
"You tried that."
"What?"
"To keep me out of his way. You kept telling me it was nothing, what I saw. That he seemed fine to you. You think I believed that?" El looks a little incredulous. "You think I didn't see you only had me over to your house when he wasn't there? You didn't want me near him. You were protecting me. And that was before we knew..."
It dawns on Max like she hadn't realized it herself. That is actually true. It counts, sort of? It may have totally failed, but it's one thing she can say in her defense: at least she really did try something. She looks up at El with almost hope.
"He was not your responsibility, Max. Just because he hurt you the longest."
The air goes out of her lungs and won't come back. If that were only true, it would be an anvil off her shoulders.
It doesn't even matter. It wouldn't fix everything. You're still a piece of shit.
"That doesn't.." she struggles, denying herself the hug that El opens her arms for. "It's not like that's the only reason...!"
El is trying hard to follow, asking gently, "Reason for what?"
She shrugs and starts crying again. "To hate me."
"What?"
Max turns away, letting her feet down to the floor.
"I made you think I dropped you because you didn't do some super shit for me. I made it look like that's all I care about you for. I hate myself for not being there for you at school. I never meant to ditch you. I never meant for things to be how they are, I'm just.." she tries to catch a breath, closing her eyes against the building pain. "Depressed, okay? And I've always been alone and that's the only way I know how to be when things are hard. I can't stand that it looks like I don't care-" she hurries, weird-voiced and crying, because it's rare for words to be in reach, and she just wants to grab as many as she can before they scatter. "I know I'm being a shitty friend and I'm sorry. I'm sorry but I'll probably just keep doing it. And I can't stand that you're still nice to me when you should hate me... you know I've actually hidden from you 'cause I don't deserve- ...and then I just show up here out of nowhere and you stay awake all-"
Pain pierces her head, letting all the words escape. She gives up and cries silently, face in her hands.
"I could never hate you," El says. "I can't stand you hating you, either. Please? I know you don't feel like that about me. You are the only one who has never made me feel that way. That's not what I meant."
Max couldn't answer even if she had anything to say.
A soft weight which can only be El's head takes a rest on her shoulder blade.
"Do you know why you are my best friend?"
Present tense?
"I'm the only girl you know?" she murmurs, earning a breath of laughter behind her.
"No." El lifts her head, and Max sort of misses it. "Every person that's ever wanted to know me... it was because, at least at first, because... they wanted me to use my powers for them. Every person. Even the good ones. Mike... Joyce... everyone. Except you. You were the first time anyone ever treated me like... like I was what mattered about me."
Max stares at the carpet, focusing on the gentle way El's voice is treating these words.
"I showed up out of nowhere. And you only wanted to help me. To be my friend. Even though I didn't deserve it. Because I was not nice to you before. You didn't ask me to use my powers. You were the first time I ever got to want to show them to someone. You have never asked me for anything. I don't think you would, not even if you really needed it.
"That's why I am so disappointed about not protecting you. Not because it's my job, or you would be mad. Because with you.. I really wanted to. I mean- I want to protect everyone. But it was most important to me to protect you. So you would know you matter. Sometimes I am afraid you don't know, because... I am not so good with words."
Max turns over this concept in her mind, trying to find its edges. It's like a puzzle piece that fits perfectly but has the wrong picture on it.
It's her turn to say something. There are multiple important things that need replying to, but they're all drifting in different directions in her mind and she's too drained to choose which to chase. She misses being comfortably blank and half asleep on El's shoulder.
She's being so nice to you and you can't even say anything back.
She reaches back for El's hand and squeezes it, hoping she understands that's the best reply she's capable of right now. El squeezes back with both hands, and maybe it feels like she does.
After a quiet minute, El asks, "You are taking bad medicine?"
"N-" Max frowns. "No. What?"
"Hopper told me about depressed once. He said people do that to try to feel better."
"Oh.. yeah. Some people." She thinks of the empty cans that reappear every night on the coffee table. "But not me. I guess... music's more my thing."
"Ohh. Is that why you go away at lunch? To hear your music better?"
Max sighs, nudging her shoe around with her foot. It would be easiest to say yes, but it would be too much like a lie.
"No. It's just.. hard. Being around people. Even my favorite people."
El says nothing, but Max can practically hear her wheels turning, trying to figure if that includes her, and if so, why she came here.
"What do they do that is hard? Maybe I can stop them."
Max smiles. "Nothing. It's not anybody else, it's me. I just... it's easier with nobody talking to me or looking at me 'cause I can't act right... I can't talk right or listen right and it makes me wanna start crying or something," she mutters, pressing at the pain behind her brow. "I don't know, it's stupid."
"Not stupid." Max feels El touch her head again. "You're hurting agai-"
"Don't." she pulls away too sharply, making El withdraw her hand silently, probably feeling stung. Max clamps her eyes shut in frustration at how wrong an impression she could make.
Like she doesn't wish she could lie back down and enjoy ten more hours of that. Like she wouldn't give anything to come to El any time like last night. To deserve to, any time she's weary, and rest her aching head.
The wrong thing is always coming out, and without the energy to chase it down, she's always letting it stand. She lets people think she's a bitch, because they might as well. It doesn't matter.
But El matters. Fix it, asshole.
"I didn't mean I didn't like that, I.. " she turns to offer eye contact, but El's gaze shifts away to stare across the room. "El."
You finally pissed her off. You got all this way only to screw it up. That's almost funny.
"El, I'm sorry," she tries harder, pressing bitten nails into her palm. "That was really nice. Last night. I.. I don't know if you could understand.. what that meant to me. Being... close like that. I mean, I never... It just... felt..." she struggles. This is the most important part to communicate, and yet jumbled memories and sensations just roll around loose in her mind refusing to form into words.
Forgiveness felt like a blanket from the dryer making her teeth stop chattering and that hand on her head felt how a lullaby sounded when she was 1 and resting on her after crying so hard she couldn't breathe felt like being saved from drowning and dried tears were itchy like the sand she was grateful to have stuck to her face, but how would she say any of that?
But El sees her pat at her own chest in the fruitless search for words, and she smiles to herself like this is some absolute little treasure to her.
"I could understand."
Max wonders if El has managed to accurately receive a message she's utterly failed to send.
That's when she realizes El isn't angry. That's not why she's avoiding her eyes. It's because Max just said she didn't want to be looked at. She considers telling her that that doesn't apply to her, but it's sweet of her to do, and it honestly does make this easier.
She loves her for it. She tries very hard to tell her so.
"I just can't let you do even more for me that I can't repay," is what comes out instead. "Okay?"
That sweet smile is chased off by a confused blink. "Re pay? For being close?" El asks. "You don't owe me anything."
How can she explain? She watches El, because it's safe to.
She looks lost in thought for a minute, something that brings a series of expressions across her face that Max wonders about.
"There was a place," she says finally. "Where I used to have to stay. When I was bad."
Max's attention zeroes in. This is about the lab. It must be. El never volunteers anything about it, and nobody ever knows whether they should ask, so Max has never really known what to picture.
"The little room that was all cold floor. Where I would be alone in the dark... for so long that I would miss people. Even though people were bad."
Max's eyes want to go watery, her own problems completely nonexistent for the moment.
Do not cry.
"And sometimes my head hurt from the wires and..." Max watches with sad recognition as El's fingers slip for a moment into her own hair. "I would sit in the corner and try to think... what a soft place would be like. I would lean my head on the wall and.. if I stayed in the same place, the tile would get warm there. And to sleep I would.." she flicks a hesitant glance halfway up to Max, almost like embarrassed, and one tear makes a dark circle on the sheet. "I would try to pretend the warm place... was somebody. Like there was such a thing as somebody who would be nice to me."
Do not even bother trying not to cry.
"El.." Max reaches for her hand, and El's fingers curl around hers, but she doesn't look up yet.
"I thought about that when I got in your bed," El smiles. "And you made me comfortable. And you read to me. And I put my head on you.. and you were warm and soft and nice to me," El quavers, twin tears streaking down her cheeks. "And I was not alone."
Whether this story is done or not, Max pulls El against her in a crushing hug, crying for the little girl in her mind's eye. El squeezes back, and they sit tight, trading sniffles against each other.
"Being close could never be for you and not for me too.. see? Together, we are both not alone."
"El," Max groans, thinking back on all the sleepovers where she always seemed to find El's head resting on her. "If I ever knew that I would've broken all your ribs squeezing you."
"You're breaking them now," El laughs.
"Sorry," she eases up.
"I didn't mean stop." El doesn't let them part until she's ready, pulling back just enough to look at each other up close with tears still lodged in their lashes. Max's instinct is to shy away, uncomfortable being looked at that way even when she isn't fresh off an ugly cry in broad daylight, but she surprises herself by allowing it.
El is looking at her as if she can see inside or something, and maybe her fond expression means whatever she sees in there is deserving enough.
Max looks back hopefully, maybe considering believing her. Kind of.
"There is nothing you could ever owe me, Max. And there is nothing I wouldn't do to be a soft place for your head."
There's nothing Max can do but slump back into the hug, but a different one now, her curling fingers searching for shoulder blades and oh, there's that hand at the back of her head again that makes her want to melt. She gives her head to El's shoulder and it feels like rest.
Do not start crying all over again.
You love her. Say it. It's words. They're in your mouth already, just make sound come out.
It just comes out "El."
But the "Max." she gets back sounds like maybe she heard it.
"Whenever-" they both freeze as El's stomach growls very loudly, and even though it isn't that funny, the break in tone is so welcome that they both laugh much too hard.
As important as all this talk is, Max is fried and eager for it to be over for now.
"Could you possibly be a tiny bit hungry?"
"It sounds like. Are you?"
For the first morning in a while, Max finds that she actually does have an appetite.
"Got anything besides Eggos?" she teases, wiping her eyes with both hands.
El rolls her eyes dramatically, scooting off her bed. "I eat other things."
Following her out of the room, Max stops short at the mirror, cringing at the sight of herself. She's a wreck, dirty-haired and ugly from crying, and as she recalls her evening she realizes she must smell as bad as she looks. Poor El deserves some kind of medal for holding onto this all night.
"Hey, um.. mind if I shower super quick?"
..
Max appears quietly in the kitchen, scrubbed and scalded clean, hair wet.
She'd found two of her own shirts in El's drawer, ones she'd forgotten all about, and the idea of their laundry still being a little bit mixed up had made her smile. But the one she's put on instead is the one El had been wearing the last time she hid from her at school. Because... well, she just wanted to.
El is standing and staring out the kitchen window, spaced out, eating out of a box of Apple Jacks. Max watches for a second with a small smile at the trait she definitely picked up from Lucas.
"Did you fix my headache?"
It had dawned on her mid-shower that it didn't hurt. She hadn't noticed exactly when it stopped, but for that to happen twice in El's presence is too odd.
El's crunching pauses for half a second. "Mmhm," she wipes her hand on her shirt and opens the fridge without looking over.
"Wow. Well.. shit, thanks," Max combs back her wet hair with her fingers. "Is that like... new, or..? How come you never told me you could do that?"
"You didn't ask," El shrugs. "Sorry we don't have Lucky Charms."
Max watches her pour milk into the single bowl of cereal that's waiting on the kitchen table. It's been half a year, not a lifetime - too short, probably, to be happy that El still knows her favorite, and that she doesn't share the fondness for milkless cereal. For a second, it feels like nothing has changed.
"This is fine," Max smiles, taking a seat.
There's a note on a junk mail envelope on the table. Good morning girls, no school today, with a heart.
They eat in a silence that Max lets herself trust is a comfortable one.
Her brow furrows, and she stares thoughtfully at El, who is intently studying the back of her cereal box. "My head always seems to hurt the least in History..."
She doesn't look up. "No one laughs at me in History."
Max had hoped El wasn't aware of her efforts. She's annoyed at herself for overestimating how much goes over El's head - although in her defense, some stuff really does. This time, Max is the oblivious one. It never crossed her mind that El could have been easing her pain from across the classroom, and without saying anything. She shuts up and eats.
"Max?"
"Hm?"
El's mouth tries to start a couple times before any words come out.
"If I promise not to talk or look, and you just listen to your music.. could I sit with you at lunch one day?" she asks, eyes still glued to the box.
Let's start sitting together again all the time! is what Max wishes she would say, but she's actually a big enough asshole not to. Right now that sounds great, but it might be writing an emotional check that will bounce as soon as the lunch bell rings.
It's the old you she wants to sit with. Maybe don't worry too much about her wanting to come back after one time.
She tries not to sound any particular way when she asks, "You want to?"
El abandons the toddler-difficulty maze she's pretending to solve and looks right at her, doe-eyed, just long enough to say, "Yes."
Max softens her face. "Well, yeah. Sure."
"Okay."
"You don't have to literally not talk to me at all," Max adds, chasing a horseshoe around her bowl.
"I would be happier not talking to you than not talking to nobody."
Max smiles until she thinks that through. "What do you mean? Are you not talking to anybody?"
She shrugs. "Oh, I do, sometimes."
"What about Mike, and...?" she gestures at El's shirt. "Everybody?"
El does a little halfhearted look.
"Mike is funny, he... he writes long letters for me when he is bored in class. Saying he wishes he was with me. But when he is with me at lunch, he is only interested in his club. They all like it a lot, the boys. They've always liked that game." She shrugs. "I go in the library mostly now."
Max's face falls. She would never have stopped sitting by El if she realized it was like that.
"Where do you sit in the library?"
"One of the little tables along the wall. Under those high windows."
Max lets out a soft laugh and one tear tries to sneak out along with it.
"I sit on the other side of that wall. We've been sitting like five feet apart."
"Ohh," El says, as if something is clicking into place. "I know you sit by a brick wall behind some bushes, but I didn't know where."
Max squints at her. "You spied." She adds a small smile to clarify when El glances over, worried.
"Only for a second," El matches it. "I just.. wondered. Lucas... he said you wanted space. You would hate to be followed. Was he right?"
She thinks for a minute. That is exactly what she hissed at him multiple times; she has no right to be sad that he listened. She has no right for her first reaction, just for a microsecond, to be resentment at him for being the reason El never came. As if she wouldn't have been weird to El and then disappeared to a new secret spot.
That Lucas and El have talked about her definitely gives her a feeling, but she can't say what it is. She hates the thought of being discussed. She loves the thought of the two who know her best breaking from their cliques to consult each other.
"I... I guess," she says sadly, watching El. "Come sit with me."
"When?"
"When you don't feel like sitting alone."
El grins, taking Max's bowl and putting it in the sink.
"So if you're not into hellfire, how come you wear that?"
"Will gave it to me," she looks down at her front. "He said they made too many. I hoped if I wore it maybe Mike..." she trails off. "I wear it at home, sometimes, when I run out of sleep shirts."
Max doesn't know why, but that makes her smile. "I kinda can't stand all that DnD shit, honestly."
El chuckles conspiratorially. "Me either."
And she goes and plops on the couch and turns on the TV.
Does that mean leave?
Why are you acting like she's a stranger? She did that all the time and it never meant leave.
It occurs to Max that she's heard El talk more, and more normally, this morning than she ever has before. But speech still isn't her strongest suit, and Max is relieved that she seems talked out. Otherwise, she would definitely leave now.
She lingers in the doorway to the living room, unsure what to do.
You've stayed long enough. Go away already and let the poor girl get some sleep.
Oh, you're just gonna leave now? Get what you came for and then just disappear again?
El looks up and offers a gentle smile. Not asking stay. Not with her mouth, but with the seat left wide open next to her.
Max still has nowhere to be, and she amazes herself by still not wanting to go. She would only go sit somewhere and space out, so it might as well be here. At least for a little while.
She sits.
It doesn't matter what's on TV; she isn't paying attention. Even El only half is. She looks a bit droopy.
Max tries hard to untangle gratitude from guilt. There's so much she wants to say, but she doesn't want to say anything.
She reaches for a pillow, settling it against her hip and giving El a glance shaped like a question mark.
El gives back a smile like a little exclamation, and curls up happily with her head on it.
Max looks down at her, wondering if she intends to grow her hair super long just because she can. Wondering how she used to look without any. Wondering what wires meant. Thinking about how sweet El's fingers had felt in her hair for half the night, having nothing to do with fixing her headache. That maybe she would like it if...
Hesitantly she brushes her fingers through El's hair once, watching to see what happens. El instantly trades open eyes for a smile, and Max matches it, knowing how she feels.
She relaxes, playing lazily with El's hair and half-watching some stupid daytime soap, not caring enough to try to commandeer the remote. Her mind wanders back to all the nights when any little affection she showed El must have meant the world to her, and now she wishes she had shown her a lot more.
She doesn't mean to still be there when Will comes home. She holds a finger to her lips in greeting.
"Are you guys okay?" he whispers, making her wonder if he saw into El's bedroom this morning. If he did.. well, he would understand.
"Yeah," she smiles at her best friend asleep in her lap. "We're okay."
...
School Tuesday is long and tedious. Or it might be a Thursday, but who cares. The only period that matters is lunch.
She recognizes the sneakers before she looks up. El has arrived at her hiding spot, in a huge plaid shirt that was probably Jonathan's before it was Will's.
Max tugs her headphones down around her neck to say hi, but the only greeting El offers is a sincere smile.
Plopping her backpack on the ground, El sits up against the library wall, one foot away. She pulls out a book and a peanut butter sandwich, and starts to eat and read. Max watches for a long time, long enough that El is definitely able to sense it. She really isn't even going to look over.
Max isn't sure how well she hoped El would observe these rules she made up on her own, but she's sort of touched that it looks like she's sticking to them strictly. Especially since Max's morning classes have drained her people battery to almost nothing.
She slides the headphones back over her ears, and her index finger rests on the play button, ghosting over the worn little triangle. Not pressing it.
She feels El over there. Not in the way she worried she would, but in a nice way. Just easy presence.
It's funny. She used to sit across that lunch table from her every day, crushed with stress at the silence between them. This isn't the same silence at all.
She'd like to say something just because she doesn't have to, but that might screw up what's such a relief about this.
Max unzips her backpack and pulls out her notebook and pen. She'll write El a letter. Not the long one she plans to write her, but one for right now, with just the critical stuff.
When she's done she tears the page from the spiral, folds it twice, and holds it out with two fingertips.
El lets her book flop shut to accept it and unfold it curiously. She grins huge after barely one second, because it's not a very long letter:
Dear El,
Love, Max.
El looks at it for much, much, much longer than it takes to read, and then presses the paper to her chest.
Max scoots closer, and they lean their heads together.
Do not cry.