Hello readers! Thanks for bearing with me. I've been slow going on his fic with a lot of life buzzing around but I'm definitely not abandoning it so never fear. Enjoy chapter 3!
"So, you're sick, huh?"
"Yes?"
"Right..."
El shifted uncomfortably on the couch as she listened to her father's footsteps shuffle behind her. The zipper of his jacket played in the air before he huffed it off and hung it on its hook. She heard his footsteps head through the kitchen. His heavy sigh mixed with the sound of the refrigerator door opening, and El worked to steady her breath as the door shut and his fingernail cracked the seal of a fresh beer. Before she knew it, his footsteps once again entered her vision.
Jim Hopper sat heavily in the threadbare armchair across from her normal spot on the couch. A long day was indicative in his movements. He leaned forward, took a drink, and caught her eyes with a sense of dry amusement.
Her palms began to sweat as she looked up.
"You know," he started, nodding along with narrowed eyes, "I guess it does totally normal for sick people to drive over an hour just to sit on their Dad's couch and wait for hours for him to come home just so he can make them chicken soup."
"Yours is better than anyone else's?" El replied weakly.
"It's from a can, kid," Hopper replied dryly, a smirk quirking beneath his moustache. "Listen, it's not like I'm not happy to see you. Of course I am. But you don't come home unannounced unless something's going on. So, spare me the anxiety. What is it?"
El stared blankly at the man who had been her only true support for over a decade. The man who was single handedly responsible for her kept freedom from a life that she tried with everything in her power to forget. Her blood bubbled with long unfelt shame.
Why? Oh, maybe because less than 24 hours prior she had exploded an entire set of outdoor lights simply because the tingling anticipation in her body was too much for her to handle. Simply because's Mike's breath near her lips had felt more real than any kiss she had ever had. Or maybe she was here because the week she had she had treated her secrets like a parlour tricks for the very first time in her life and shot that very same stranger with the intoxicating presence straight up into the air. Maybe, just maybe, that was one of the reasons why she was here on a Tuesday night, trying to drown in the cushions of the well worn couch in her dad's house in the woods.
Hopper seemed to see the gears moving behind her eyes, "You might as well just spit it out, kid. You already came all the way here."
A little part of her heart died as her lips accepted their fate and unsealed.
"I uh…" she spoke slowly, "I had an accident last night."
"An accident…" he repeated, leaning forward with interest, "What kind of accident?"
"Um…" she stuttered, her cheeks turning red against her will, "I lost control. The lights at my front door exploded."
Jim Hopper's brow furrowed in surprise. He was silent for a moment as he tried to process the information. "Did you get scared or something?"
"Not exactly…" she said quietly as her eyes darted away with her words.
"Did anyone else see it?" he said, his voice low and beginning to fill with the heaviness she desperately wanted to avoid.
El cringed, "Yes."
Hopper leaned back slowly, "Who?"
"A guy," she breathed, almost on a whisper.
"A guy?" he asked, amusement once again present in his voice, "What guy?"
'What guy', indeed.
It all cracked within her at that moment. Her feeble restraints against her emotions, which had served to keep her upright the entire day, fell upon his words. In its place she felt the drivers that had brought her here. The fear. The confusion. The outright shock of something that had never occurred once before in her life.
Her cheeks, now flaming hot, were not flaming for the reasons that she wanted anymore. They were no longer flaming from the softness of his voice as he promised to call, or the true apology he'd held in his eyes in that soft moment. A moment she had felt so lucky to have. A moment she would have chosen to live in forever. Her heart was no longer alight from the reflection of the orange lights in his eyes, a reflection so clear that she could see her own self within his depths, pulling her in with a warmth that she was wholly unprepared for. She was no longer aflutter from the movement of his lips. The soft 'oh' they shaped as she gave into the buzzing sensation in her chest and let her eyelids slide shut. She was no longer weak from the feeling of his breath, slow and hesitant, against her lips as she paused ever so slightly, ready for his touch.
…so ready for his touch that she had lost all control.
"Look," El said slowly as she swallowed it back down in harsh gulp, "I wouldn't come to you for help with men, usually. But... I can't talk to anyone else. I need your advice."
"Okay..." Hopper replied, confusion now mixing into his tone, "El, you know my opinion on this. You're a grown woman. All I ask is that you're safe and you keep your secrets quiet. But… it sounds like you didn't keep your secrets quiet, huh?"
"No…" El moaned miserably.
Hopper was quiet for a long moment.
"How long have you known him?" he finally asked. His voice was soft, subtle, and carrying none of the frustration she'd been prepared for. It was something for which she was wholly grateful.
El let out a sigh as she began the interrogation, "I've met him twice."
"And this is the only thing that's happened?" he asked, "You burned out some lights?"
El averted her eyes once again, shame thickening in her chest, "Um…"
"El…" he pressed, full worry entering his voice in an instant.
"Okay, fine!" she burst suddenly, "He came in for a tandem jump a couple weeks back and it was his birthday and when I was jumping with him I might have been a complete idiot and done a tiny bit of anti gravity stuff."
"EL!" Hopper boomed with a sudden ferociousness that made her suddenly feel fourteen years old.
"I know!" she agreed with a matching yell as she helplessly threw her hands in the air, "Believe me, I know. I don't know what I was thinking! But now I think I… Dad, I don't think I was thinking. I don't …. I don't know if I can control myself around him. This stuff is just...happening. This has never happened before."
"This is a problem, kid."
"You think I don't know that?" she retorted darkly, "Do you think I would just drive all the way home to talk to you about boys!? I know it's a problem. I don't know what to do!"
Her dad sighed and took a breath, but his eyes did not shift from hers.
"Okay, okay, El. Calm down. It's going to be fine," her father said, his voice softening as he leaned forward closer to her. "You do know what to do."
"I – "
"Listen," he said in a voice that was plainly factual, "This doesn't sound like one of those isolated incidents. Even those were bad. You can't do stuff like this. It's not safe. Your old hero antics weren't safe for us, for you, and this isn't safe either."
El scoffed in an instant, "- Why do you bring that up every time we talk about it? It's been years, Dad."
Hopper snorted, "You pulled this shit in the front yard, kid. You never know what happened to that person. One slip of the tongue to the wrong person and our cover could have been blown entirely. And the plane? Don't get me started about the plane - "
"- My friends were on that plane, Dad. And I haven't done anything like that in years. I got the message, believe me," she said darkly. "This isn't that."
"I know," he said slowly. He pinched the bridge of his nose in a way that was so familiar it made El's stomach drop. "But we have rules, El. It's not very many rules. Just a few. And they're not there because I like them. They're there because they're necessary. They keep you and me safe."
"I know. That's why I'm here," she said sternly. "I don't know what to do."
"Yes you do," he said, almost to himself, "This guy, did he catch on at all?"
"Did he catch on that I'm manipulating gravity and electricity…" she deadpanned, her eyes narrow. "No. I don't think so."
"Not at all?" He pressed, "No questions or anything?"
"I mean…" El squirmed, the memory of his frenzied post accidental kiss ramble flitting through her mind, "He was pretty blown away by the thing during the tandem jump – "
Hopper groaned.
"- But he didn't know it was me!" she defended strongly, "I promise. He's never going to jump again anyway so he'll never figure that out. I told him it was a trick of the air."
"A trick of the air," Hopper said with rolled eyes and a snort. "What about last night? The lights."
"I was…" the nervousness El had felt as he'd first walked in the door returned as the root of her fear reemerged. "He walked me home. I'd had too much to drink. I was…. I was about to kiss him goodnight so my eyes were closed. I didn't know what was happening, but I think he saw it. They got really bright. He pulled me from the porch because the lights got so bright. Then they exploded."
"Okay," he repeated carefully.
"The lights…" El said with a cringe, "And the glass covers."
"Wow," Hopper said with a whistle. "You really did a number on that one."
"Yeah… and then… ugh," she groaned, "He noticed the nosebleed before I was able to get out of there."
"Okay…" he said darkly as he scratched his beard with compulsive nervousness, "What do you know about this guy?"
El shrugged, the question suddenly weighing on her mind.
What did she know about him?
He was tall. 25 years old, just last week. He emitted a unique combination of being both fearful and reckless; intense and vulnerable; so serious and yet so wonderfully goofy at the same time. He had precious black hair that looked so wonderful tousled by the wind, and his eyes were so deep they made her feel like she could swim in them from the very first second they landed on hers. His hand felt like a perfect fit in an instant way she had never felt and –
"His name's Mike."
"Mike what?" Hopper asked, the voice of a cop conducting a report seemed to override his emotions.
"Um…"
"El Hopper," he scolded, "you kiss a guy before you even know his last name?"
El scoffed and rolled her eyes, "Don't tell me you never kissed a woman without knowing her last name, hypocrite."
"Okay, okay, we're not talking about me," Hopper said, backtracking as quickly as possible, "What do you know about him? Anything I can use to do a background check?"
"You want to do a background check?!" El yelped in surprise.
"Of course I do," he said simply, "This is serious, El. We need to know who we're dealing with and you're not giving me much to go on. Do you know his job?"
"No…"
"Address?"
"No…"
"License plate or phone number?"
"No, and he doesn't drive."
"So let me get this straight," Hopper said with a chortle, "This guy named Mike, who you know absolutely nothing about, makes you lose control of yourself to the point that you exploded something for the first time in a decade."
"Yes?" she squeaked.
"You know the answer here, kid."
"I – "
"You know it's the right answer."
"But – "
"You came home because you needed someone else to tell you what you didn't want to hear. So I'm saying it. You've gotta cut this guy off."
El bit her lip. The acid in her stomach bubbled to the point where she felt sick.
"Listen," he said, a bit softer this time. "You know I keep an eye on everything. I think we're still safe, for right now at least. But you can't risk it. You can't risk spending time with someone who puts you in jeopardy."
"I know," she said weakly, the words so much heavier now that they were said by someone other than the terrified voice in the back of her head.
Her hand, beneath the blanket, gripped tightly onto her phone where, just a few hours prior, his number had finally appeared.
And with it had come a message she'd read so many times she'd memorized it:
Hi, it's Mike. It was so great to see you last night. Thanks for being our MVP! I was worried after last night, are you feeling better?
Followed by, in the next hours, not one, but two, calls.
Just like he'd promised.
El's chest tightened hard as she looked into her dad's eyes and accepted the words she knew she'd needed to hear from him.
The writing was on the wall.
Mike had kept his promise.
But she was going to have break her promise to him.
He simply couldn't explain it.
Residential electricity did not act like that.
Okay, maybe there was a world in which electrical current could surge enough so the lightbulbs themselves could be overtaxed in that way. Yet, the amount of current necessary would be disastrous.
And for the surge to be so strong that it shattered the glass of the encasements?
There was no way.
Mike groaned as he came to the same dead end yet again. He pushed back a fully scribbled piece of paper and folded it over to reveal a fresh piece on his tablet, below.
This was supposed to be Mike's forte. Staring at the seeming mysteries of the world and piecing them out. It had never been an interest to 'fix' anything, but to simply understand it. A constant search to explain everything he could to himself.
Maybe his therapist was right. Maybe the obsession had always been an effort to control.
But that was a fool's errand. He knew that. The deeper he'd gotten into his studies, the more that was clear.
Yet, everyday things that happened here on Earth? Those were almost always easy to understand.
This, though? This was not easy to understand at all.
And it was driving him crazy.
Not as crazy as the girl he'd been standing with while it had occurred, but close.
And this? This half filled tablet chock full of desperate attempts to crack the mystery? This was serving as a wonderful distraction from her.
From everything about her.
From the soft smile that had played lazily on her lips as she'd twirled her winner's token between her fingers, a smile he felt, in that moment, was the most beautiful one he'd ever seen. From the way her eyes had twinkled in the lights right before they had exploded, amber hues swimming with something that had seemed, he'd hoped, deeper than intoxication. From the crushing disappointment of an almost sealed kiss. From the abject fear that had arisen into her eyes as her nose bled suddenly in the moonlight, a fear that had seemed to come to her from nowhere, but one he understood, deep in his chest, in a way he could not explain.
From two full days of unanswered texts and calls that were plaguing him and making him lose his mind no matter how hard he tried to keep it together.
Was she okay, at least? Had she been hit by glass? Had she known what had happened? Or had she been more drunk than he'd thought? So drunk that when she sobered up she realized she never wanted to see him again?
Mike tried to shake the worry that compounded upon the rest of it, but something about the specific brand of fear he'd seen in her eyes had branded itself onto his mind. Mike scoffed at himself.
This girl literally jumps out of a plane every day. She can't be afraid of anything. You were drunk.
Yet, for reasons he couldn't comprehend, he couldn't believe the logic.
He'd recognized something in her reaction like he watching a mirror of his own self. It was a sign that something was truly wrong. And while he didn't know what it was, where it stemmed from, or how to fix it… he desperately wanted to.
Should he try to reach out again?
No, Wheeler, a text and two missed calls seemed to be more than enough. Don't get desperate and stalkerish.
Should he stop by her house? Just to make sure she was okay?
Okay. Yeah, no. If calling again seems stalkerish, that is definitely too stalkerish.
"Did you leave some coffee for me?"
Mike jumped as a familiar voice echoed behind him from the hallway.
"Maybe half a cup, sorry," Mike grumbled as he dropped his pencil upon the pad and brought his palms to his eyes to apply some much relieving pressure.
"Rude," Dustin scoffed as he made his way across the kitchen and wrestled out a breakfast bar from his highly disorganized shelf. "You know, Wheeler, you're forgetting our deal. You make me coffee and I'm your chauffeur."
"I just poured myself this one, you can have it," Mike offered, "I've had too much anyway."
"Now, that's more like it!" Dustin exclaimed happily. He dropped into the chair opposite of Mike and and the full coffee cup toward himself before he finally made his opinion known, "You look like shit, man. The girl still not call back?"
Mike groaned and dropped his head back into his hands, "I swear I shouldn't tell you anything."
"I'm telling you! Just sign up for her class. Best way to get back around her," Dustin offered as he peeled the wrapper back on his bar.
Mike raised his eyes darkly toward Dustin, "You want me to commit to jumping out of a plane ten more times just to be around a girl."
"Anything for love, man," Dustin shrugged casually, "You ready to go?"
"Yeah," Mike sighed, "Just let me grab my bag."
Mike haphazardly swiped the tablet covered in his failed electrical puzzle off of the table and hurried to his room. He passed the mirror as he entered his door and grimaced at the reflection. He did look terrible. Dark circles had appeared beneath his eyes from two nights of mismanaged sleep. His hair was shooting every which way, looking uncomfortably like that of a mad scientist working on a conspiracy theory. Which he was increasingly starting to worry... he was.
Mike shook his head hard and ran his fingers through it in a vain attempt to calm it down. Then quickly, giving up on himself in the interest of time, he straightened his glasses and swept his tablet, now filled with two confusing mysteries in two weeks, off of his desk and into his bag. Pulling his fingers away, he felt a familiar piece of cardstock slip between his fingers.
He stopped instantly, the distractions of the day fading easily at the sight of her name.
"If I give my number to someone I actually want them to call me."
Mike took a deep breath, and for just a moment, let the disappoint wash over him.
That night had been almost perfect.
There'd been a question in his mind since he'd met her. It had plagued him all throughout the week as he'd tried and failed and tried and failed to get himself to use her number. Had it simply been the insanity of the moment? The adrenalin? The long known sweeping fear followed by a searing jolt of sweeping joy that he hadn't felt in so very long?
Had his gut feeling for her simply been from the fact he'd fallen 13,000 feet with her through the sky?
Well, on Monday night he'd gotten his answer.
No. Not that all.
It wasn't the jump.
It was her.
Despite the abject nervousness that had raced through is body when his eyes had landed on her in the bar, he'd found it shockingly easy to be beside her that entire night. It was almost like his senses had been heightened by her presence. He couldn't explain it, but something about her seemed to light up the very molecules in the air that surrounded her. He'd been captivated by the uniquely careful way she'd seemed to think through everything she said. Her light laugh had seemed to tingle along his skin. He'd spent more time than he'd like to admit watching her from the corner of his eyes, mapping the way her forehead creased when she was deep in concentration, possessing an intensity to her expression that almost seemed like she was trying to move things on the table with her mind.
There was something so different about her.
She was intriguing to a point that he could not explain.
"If I give my number to someone I actually want them to call me."
"MIKE! Come on!"
Mike jumped, pulled back to reality through Dustin's bark. Likely running late for class now, he grabbed his day bag and rushed out of his bedroom door. Wordlessly, just as they did every Thursday morning at 9:30am, Mike followed Dustin to his car parked in front of their rental house, his mind attempting to focus on the class he had to lead ahead.
The drive went along quietly, Mike only flinching at two fast brakes, as he laid out his plan for class. It wasn't like he needed much of one, to be honest, given that it was the last class of the semester. An easy morning was ahead. All he had to look forward to was handing out the tests and blue books, sitting back, and then agonizing over unanswered calls and texts for the next two hours while eighty undergrads explained the basic concepts of Physics back to him to the best of their ability.
"You know, you could just text her again," Dustin said, invading his thoughts, "You two did survive flying projectile glass together, that's gotta be a bonding experience if I've ever heard of one."
Mike rolled his eyes, "If nothing else to let her know she really needs an electrician to take a look at her house."
"Are you sure this one really happened? It sounds insane," Dustin said as he pulled off the main road toward campus, "How drunk were you guys? Maybe you imagined it like you imagined that the girl could fly on your birthday?"
"I didn't say she could fly!" Mike exclaimed for the twentieth time in two weeks, "I just said I didn't know how she did what she did."
"Listen! Maybe she can fly! Who knows!"
"Right," Mike deadpanned.
"All I'm saying is there's only one way you're going to find out anything. And that's to not give up so easily. She told you twice she wants to see you again, the least you can do is try to text or call one more time. Or, you could sign up for her class."
"I'm not signing up for her class," Mike said dismissively, "But I'll think about texting her," Mike said, his heart deeply wanting to take Dustin's advice, but his head knowing better than to ever listen to a word the man said. "Thanks for the ride."
"Anytime, sweetie!" Dustin sang, "Don't forget your backpack and your packed lunch!"
"Thanks, mom," Mike grimaced with a well worn eye roll as he crawled out of the car.
Mike watched Dustin drive off as he played with his phone in his pocket and attempted the impossible yet again.
To figure out if there was anything at all he could say to get her to reply.
El's eyes glazed with boredom toward the empty TV screen. All the while, a corner of her mind opened the freezer door, jostled a half empty carton of Ben and Jerry's Americone Dream ice cream free from the cluttered contents, and loosened a spoon from the half open drawer. They floated together through ten feet of air from the kitchen, landing in a thud in her lap with a little too much force, her mind was simply too tired and lazy to give the machinations any finesse. She grimaced as the freezer burn of the container rained ice flakes on her blanket.
It was a pitiful and ill advised breakfast, yet it soothed her in a way that seemed to massage the very ache in her heart. She moaned at the sweet taste and pulled her blanket up against her chin.
El's listless eyes, unsatisfied with what she'd been able to find on Netflix, shifted toward the scattering of old dvds from her teen years on the shelf below the TV. Covered in dust, their titles were still apparent as they called out their untold lies. She had them all. Disney movies and rom coms. Fantasies and historical dramas. Indies and grand blockbusters. All threaded with the same story in different weaves over and over again.
A story that El, once again, had to remind herself was strictly not for her.
Especially not this time. Especially not now.
It was the story she knew too well. Her own. The story of a girl who wanted nothing but to fall in love and bare everything about herself to someone who would accept her, just as she'd seen played out on the screen so very many times. Yet there was too much about her that she couldn't share. So much about her that was more difficult than any story was every willing too tell. So many ways that it was all too unsafe. And all very very unfair.
El bit back the tears that stung her eyes as they threatened to fall yet again.
It felt absolutely silly to think about it now, knowing the limitations that she required. But she couldn't shake it.
Because she had never, not once in her life, felt something like that before.
It had swam through her veins with endless reverie all through Monday night as the world had afforded her a second chance to spend time by his side, this time on an even playing field. And she couldn't deny it. His presence was calming. Both simple and exciting at the same time. An explosion of dualities that seemed to collapse into each other into a perfect harmony.
For once, she'd felt what she thought was, maybe, just maybe, what they explained in the movies she'd held so dear.
Most of life's experiences had been explained to her through movies, to be honest. After a childhood behind closed doors, she'd had a lot of catching up to do, and life in a remote cabin with only one other person didn't really afford much exposure. So instead, El had lost herself in everything she could watch, sucking up life through the stories as though they were her own.
Two genres had become her favorites. Fantasy and romance. In one, she could see representations of herself. Role models, if you will. Fictional bearers of the same secret she possessed. Superheroes and wizards and Jedis and enchanted elves fighting evil with enhanced yet deadly good. It felt like a roadmap for an identity that had none.
And then there was the romance. A roadmap for an identity she craved, but could not hold at all.
Sure, El had dated from time to time shortly after moving to Indianapolis in her late teens, but it had always ended with a simple lack of interest. None of the sparks she'd learned to seek had shot off in her body, not a single time. Maybe her expectations had been raised too high. A common pitfall of too many happy endings.
But this time… this time she'd felt a spark, or something like it. It had felt like an invitation from inside of her. A burning request to explore the kind man with the darkest eyes she'd ever seen.
Or… as she was trying desperately to accept… not.
A heavy banging on the door drew her out of her mind.
"Ellie, open up!"
El groaned guiltily at the arrival of Max's voice. Truth be told, it had only been a matter of time.
"Ellie, are you dead in there?! What the hell?!"
"Coming!" El finally called, her voice cracking from misuse as she grumpily tossed off her blanket and dragged her body up from the couch and toward the door.
She hardly had the door open before Max's voice cut right through. Her eyes were scrutinizing and her voice was a little too honest for El's liking, "Wow, Hopper. You look like shit. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," El said quietly, hiding her face halfway behind the door as she leaned against it.
"Okay…" Max replied, clearly not buying it, "Why haven't you been answering my texts? I've been trying to get ahold of you since Tuesday."
"I've been sick," El groaned, the words feeling right though they were an outright lie.
"Yeah, I can see that," Max said plainly, "What the hell happened to these lights? Did someone vandalize your house?"
El sighed as a now familiar acid once again bubbled in her gut at the topic, "Long story."
Max took a step in around El and surveyed the space with a scrutiny that only a good friend would. "Okay, Hopper. I love you and support you but this doesn't look like you've been sick. This looks like you're moping."
"How – " El stuttered, her eyes going wide in surprise.
Max pointed to the kitchen table as she stared at El plainly, "Oh, I don't know, maybe the pile of empty Eggo and ice cream containers tipped me off?"
And with that, El sighed and shut the door, caught in the act.
"What the hell happened Monday night?" Max asked.
"I –" El started and stopped, stuttering on words she couldn't say. "I'm sorry I didn't text you back," she interjected suddenly, "Did you have a good night Monday night?"
"Oh, I had a great night," Max replied casually as she made her way to the sofa, "I never thought trivia would actually be fun. It's way more fun when you're winning."
"I know…" El sighed, "It was."
"I'm sorry I disappeared," Max said, a hint of guilt in her eyes as she sat, "I should have let you know but I…"
"No, I get it," El said, shaking her head as she held up her hand for Max to stop her unnecessary excuses. Her body directed her back beneath her blanket in her molded corner of the couch as she continued, "Will… that was his name, right? Will told me that you two were uh… 'busy' in the hallway. How did that happen?"
Max smiled. A sweet blush brushed her cheeks in a shockingly un-Max way as she averted her eyes for a quick moment. Something surprisingly light entered her voice as she bit her lip, "I honestly don't know. It was weird, right? When I met Lucas at the field we totally hit it off, but after we jumped he wouldn't even look at me."
"Yeah," El replied dryly, "Because you mocked him all the way down while he screamed."
"Right, good point," Max replied with a snicker, "But uh… yeah, it took a couple drinks, obviously. But he lightened back up and um… things just kind of hit back off between us like the first time."
It faded away momentarily, El's own sadness, as she saw the look of excitement twinkling at the edges of Max's eyes, "He's a nerd, alright," Max added as she leaned back and rolled her eyes, a secret in her expression as she side eyed toward her friend, her voice going low, "but he's a great kisser."
"Yeah?" El asked, her mood rising along beside her friend.
"Yeah," Max said with a nod, "BUT, enough about me," Max smirked, her wall closing back up in an instant. "What happened with Mike?"
El sighed, almost cringing as the attention instantly relayed back to her.
"I mean, that had to have ended well," Max added, "It was obvious from the second we ran into him that he thinks you're a goddess."
"A goddess," El said quietly, her eyes tracking down to her hands as she found no more energy to lie, "I… uh… I can't see him again."
"Wait," Max said, her eyes going wide with surprise, "What do you mean? Did he do something to you? Because I will legit fuck him up if he – "
"No!" El replied instantly, almost laughing at the absurdity of the assertion, "He didn't do anything. I just – "
El stopped herself. How was she to explain?
How was she to explain that her brain had betrayed her in front of this guy, for a second time? That her brain had exploded the light fixtures? That before, her brain had shot him into the air? That her stupid reckless brain, which she had had almost complete control over for her entire life, was suddenly acting out, changing the rules on her, and exposing her every single time she saw the guy?
How was she to explain to a girl who knew nothing about her secret that she wasn't safe to him, to herself, or to anyone?
She couldn't.
"I just… it's just not going to work," she finally stumbled, her voice taking on a stubborn tone that felt thick and necessary.
"Okay…" Max replied carefully, "Are you getting cold feet or something? Because you… you do this, you know."
"No, I don't," El replied harshly, her walls strengthening against her friend as she pulled herself deeper beneath her blanket. "I just... I don't know. Something feels off."
"Off," Max repeated dryly, her eyebrow cocked with suspicion.
"Yes. Off," El replied, her voice laced with pure defense.
"Off like that blonde guy last year who tried for three months to take you out and you said no because he was, what did you say? A mouthbreather?"
"Max…"
"Off like that gorgeous guy two years ago that you turned down after he sent you flowers because he lived 'long distance?' Because you somehow seem to think that 'long distance' is the other side of town?"
"Max, I - "
"Off like that pilot who spent a year trying to get on your good side and you refused to even learn his first name?"
"Listen!" El finally bellowed, "Just because you'd date these guys and I decided not to doesn't mean that there's something wrong with me saying no!"
"I didn't say that!" Max quipped back, her hands in the air in surrender. "It's just… this time… El, I just don't want you to get in the way of yourself if you actually are interested."
"You don't know what you're talking about," El said grimly, her voice dripping with self reproach.
She reached for her ice cream almost like a security blanket as Max fell quiet for a moment.
"Look," Max finally said, her voice softer this time, "I know I tease you for not dating and keeping everyone at arm's length. And I'm sorry. I'll stop it, I promise. But this one? This time you actually seem like you're stopping yourself from something that could maybe, just maybe, be something. And I really don't understand why."
Tears itched at El's eyes without warning as Max's words struck her square in the chest. She blinked and kept her hands trained down hard onto her hands.
"Okay," Max sighed softly as she pulled herself closer to her friend. Her touch against El's shoulder made her jump, "I really have no idea what's going on, but I think I know the remedy." Max leaned forward and picked up the remote. Then, she leaned back, pulled El into her by wrapping her arm around her shoulder, and kindly asked, "Do you want Eternal Sunshine or The Notebook?"
"Eternal Sunshine," El replied instantly, "Fits my mood better."
"Well then, Eternal Sunshine it is."
El watched the screen mindlessly, her eyes focusing on the colors in an attempt to bleach the rise of emotions from her heart, as Max toggled through the streaming options until she found the title. Max rubbed El's shoulder with a comfort that she desperately needed as she pressed play.
"El Hopper," Max said sweetly, "A love story for every mood."
"Shit," Mike cursed under his breath. "Five minutes left!"
The students in the lecture hall rustled for the first time in over an hour. A chorus of quiet groans and gasps echoed like a wave across the room. Pencils began to scratch faster. Papers began to shuffle louder.
Mike groaned in shame. The moderator of the final losing track of time was not exactly a good precedent to set if he had any hope of being promoted to actually teaching the class next term, as a head TA. Yet, that fact hadn't seemed to mattered as he'd paid absolutely no attention to the students in his room for a full two hours, and instead stared helplessly at his phone.
It had been an ordeal that had taken all of his attention.
Hi El, it's Mike. Just checking if you're okay.
Too motherly.
Hey El! Mike here. Have you had a good week?
Too casual.
Hi El! Wanted to make sure you got my text from two days ago at 1:47 pm on Tuesday.
Okay, he'd just written that as a joke.
It was ridiculous, how jittery digital letters on a digital screen could make him feel. But he couldn't help it. He couldn't help his jumpy fingers that seemed deadset on misspelling every single word he typed the entire more. He couldn't help his unsteady heartbeat rising and falling with every new attempt like a sick game. He couldn't stop his brain from reading into the depths of every single potential word until nothing in the English language felt right.
One more try.
Hey, El. It's Mike. Are you free this weekend? I'd love to see you again.
Mike stared blankly at the words, and shockingly, he found that no part of himself that fought against them with screaming defeat. For one, they were true. Secondly, they pulled his desperate focus away from her lack of reply and pushed the conversation forward toward a future date. That was good. And third, likely the most important element of all, they didn't make him sound like a simpering idiot.
Mike breathed out heavily and smiled with relief.
Finally, after so many days, he had an acceptable text within his hands.
"Excuse me?" a voice popped up, cutting like a bullet through his thoughts, "It's been ten minutes."
"Shit," he murmured again as his body jarred back to reality. He dropped his phone on the desk and stood abruptly, attempting to seem like he had some semblance of control, "I uh… I wanted to give you guys a few bonus minutes. But yeah… pencils down. Times up."
Again, a crash of annoyed tones bled through the air of the large lecture hall.
If Mike was any one of these students he'd probably have been annoyed, too.
"Drop your materials here on your way out," he called with as much authority as he could muster in his altered state. "Grades will be up within one week. Have a good summer!"
One by one, the students packed up their things and ambled past, most of them not giving him so much as a cursory glance as they dropped their final exams into the box on the desk in front of him.
One kid, who reminded Mike bizarrely of Dustin, looked him straight in the eye with pure frustration as he grimaced, "Could've given us more warning, you know. I was taking my time because you're supposed to be on top of that. Communication is useful."
Mike's voice caught in his throat as the kid shoved his test heavily into the box and disappeared out of the door.
Mike made a point to pay attention to the students as they left, and one by one they disappeared, off to a summer devoid of studies. However, inside his head, all he was really doing was physically forcing his eyes forward, and away from his phone.
Which, when he finally looked down when the room was empty, he found to be dead.
Dead.
Mike groaned in annoyance. He lunged for his bag and shuffled through the pockets, grumbling to himself as he came up empty in his search for a charger.
Dead.
No way to send his text.
No way to call the Lyft he'd been planning to take home.
Nothing was ahead of him now other than a three mile walk home.
"Not even mind erasure can keep them apart!" El sniffed dramatically against her best friend's shoulder as Joel and Clementine laughed in the hallway and the credits began to roll, "I want that."
Max snorted, "You want to have a relationship so toxic that you want to erase it from your memory and then have it all over again?"
"You're seeing it all wrong!" El retorted as she wiped her eyes, "I want to have a love so powerful it exists everywhere. All those dimensions! They chased each other through their brains, Max. Through their memories! They fell in love again inside of each other's minds. Its… its beautiful."
"Okay, sure but – "
"You always wonder why I don't date?" El asked with a dark self-deprecating laugh, "It's because of stuff like this."
"You want an interdimensional love story that transcends time and space…"
"Yes," El confirmed with a laugh. "That's exactly what I want."
"Well, good luck with that. That's not real."
"Obviously it's not real," El replied with a heavy sigh, "And that right there is why I don't date."
"Right…"
"Benny's."
El popped up as an instant sensation coursed through her. It was a hunger. Or something close? But before she knew it she was up on her feet and walking with purpose toward her keys on her hook.
"Wait, what?" Max asked, surprised.
"Let's going to Benny's," El said simply, "I want a waffle."
"Okay, wow. Someone's hungry," Max replied as she shoved up from the couch and followed.
"I just want to get out of the house, I guess?" El said, a little confused by her instant urge herself. She tossed on her lightest hoodie and pushed up her sleeves as she noticed the sun streaming through the window. "Do you have time to get lunch?"
Max nodded as she joined El at the door. "Yep, I have literally no plans today."
El grabbed her keys and her sunglasses. Then, for the first time since she'd returned home from her dad's on Wednesday morning, she walked out the door.
"Okay, we've got you off the couch and out of the house, success!" Max cheered sarcastically as they reached the sidewalk and began the short trek to the diner. "Are you feeling better?"
El shrugged calmly. A strange yet oddly familiar sensation of focus had overtaken her in such a way that the question seemed to roll straight off her her back.
"I'm fine," El replied as her eyes trained forward like a dog on a hunt.
She could feel Max's curious eyes on her.
"Okay..." El replied slowly as she shook her head, "You're an odd one, Hopper."
"I am not!" El scoffed as they rounded they crossed the final street, Benny's side wall now in view.
"Hmmph, okay. Let's see," Max said in a teasing tone, "You eat breakfast food for almost every meal. You pretty much refuse to eat anything green, yet you don't gain a pound. You talk to the TV like its talking back to you. You believe in hilariously bizarre conspiracy theories, but the more normal conspiracy theories hold no weight for you. You're acting like a very calm zombie in a trance right now - "
" – Okay, Max – "
"- Oh!" Max exclaimed, clearly enjoying herself, "And you don't laugh at any of my jokes. Like, you full on dead pan stare at me ninety percent of the time, but every once in a while I say something that isn't funny at all and that's when you laugh. And then you laugh so hard that you hurt yourself. I will never understand your sense of humor."
"Okay, fine. I'm weird," she conceded simply as she rounded the corner toward the front door of the diner.
"Hey!" Max said, "Don't get me wrong. It's definitely why we're friends. We're both – oh!" Max gasped, "Would you look at that."
Max's voice trailed off just as El's feet stopped dead in their tracks.
And in an instant, the oddly familiar sensation in El's bones suddenly took on a name.
No no no no no this can't be happening no no no no no
El's stomach and heart shot up into her throat and fought for the miminal space in a manner that almost choked her as her face began to flame with both shock and shame.
Because, for the first time in as long as she could remember, for the first time since she had been a child, El had tracked someone.
It had crashed into her stomach like a rusty and long forgotten honing beam. A quiet yet undeniable GPS beeping inside of her with no option to ignore. The ability had shot awake from nowhere and everywhere within her all at once as Benny's had materialized like a pop into her mind.
It was a sensation so old and so forgotten that it hadn't even been clear until it was done.
And now, here she stood, shaking and shocked, directly in Mike Wheeler's wake.
He hadn't seen them yet, and in that moment her brain attempted to force an escape. Just because her body had brought her here didn't mean she needed to say, right? Yet, her eyes would not leave him and her feet would not listen enough to move.
He was walking slowly toward them. His hands were shoved into the pockets of well fitted slacks, and his eyes were trained down onto his feet. His hair was tousled, dark and thick and setting off his pale features in such a way that it seemed to highlight the darkness in his expression. His glasses were dipped just a bit off of the bridge of his nose, giving him the look like the was exhausted. While his clothing looked professional, a dark green sweater, sleeves pushed up along his trim arms, grey slacks and a leather messenger bag hanging from his arm on his side, the hunch in his shoulders seemed to read the opposite.
Something painfully ashamed bubbled in El's gut as her eyes stitched onto him and refused to let go.
"Mike! Hi!"
El cringed and pressed her eyes shut in surprise as Max's voice cut through the air with a sense of joy that seemed to ooze through the air. When she opened them again, she was surprised to find her gaze fell directly onto his. Wide eyed surprise met her with a and a sudden smile, and in an instant he seemed to grow a foot as he stood up straight and began to close the twenty feet between them.
"H-hi!" he called as he waved, his voice lilting.
El waved weakly on instinct as Max hissed, "Did you know?"
"How could I know?!" El whispered frantically, her palms sweating as the idea was put into the air.
"Okay," Max replied quickly. "Well, I'm in charge now because you're hopeless and clearly so is he."
"Max," El gasped, "What are you– ?"
But there was no stopping her as she waved again, grabbed El's arm, and closed the gap between them.
"Mike! What's up?" Max said with a casual effortlessness that sounded so incredibly real but was clearly, to El, so incredibly fake.
Mike tousled his hair from his eyes and pointed behind them, his gaze falling onto El as he answered Max's question, "I was just walking home from teaching,"
"Teaching, huh? That's interesting. Take a break and have lunch with us!" Max said happily, "We were just going to duck into Benny's. Ellie here needs a waffle fix."
"Hi," El said bashfully, her stomach turning flips in every which direction, attempting to both escape from the situation and pull herself in closer to him at the same time.
There was going to be no room in there for a waffle, that was for sure.
Mike, however, didn't seem to need convincing. "That'd be… that'd be great. If that's okay with you?" he asked, his eyes trained back on El.
Nothing was said in that split second as they looked at each other, but she could read he wasn't saying in the subtlest depths of his expression. It was there. Behind his smile, behind the sparkle in his eyes, there laid a hesitation. It was one that had likely been on her face just a few days prior in very similar moment on Monday night. A kind mask that worked as a cover for all the confusion of unrequited interest, of ignored communications, mixed signals, and potential disappointments.
"Ellie?"
Max's voice cut in through her frenzied thoughts with such sharp force that she jumped.
"Sure! Lunch, yes," El forced herself to chirp, nervousness and surprise peeling off of her in a flood as she pressed her lips into a smile in Mike's direction, "Of course."
"Oh. Okay, great," Mike replied softly, his feet unmoving as his lips curved up in grateful relief.
"Okay, iiiin we go," Max said after a spell, her tone highly amused as she moved El in a shooing motion toward the door. "Have you been here before, Mike?" Max asked as she shunted the now trio toward a booth in the back corner. She all but forced El to sit on the inside before she took a seat beside her, effectively trapping her in, and laid out menus for everyone.
"No," Mike replied as he accepted the menu from Max's hand and took a look around, "I've walked past here hundreds of times but I never thought to stop in."
"Well, welcome to our spot," Max said happily, "Or, El's spot is more like it. I'm pretty sure they're going to put her picture on the wall at her thousandth waffle."
"Max…" El growled as she continued to work on steadying her breath, her flight mechanisms triggering with every slip of her gaze in Mike's direction.
"Oh, whoops!" Max said suddenly. She jumped up from her seat and grabbed her bag in a flurry. "Shit Ellie, I'm so sorry, but my mom's calling and I just remembered that I was supposed to help her move some things out of the storage unit today."
"Max!" El quipped in sudden desperation.
"Gonna have to take a raincheck!" her traitor of a friend sing song-ed as she waved goodbye, "At least you have Mike here to keep you company."
"M - "
"Bye, Mike!" she called, already halfway to the door, "Nice to see you. Have a nice lunch!"
El watched in shellshocked horror as her Max practically skipped out of the door of the restaurant. Through the wall of windows, she watched in full view as Max rounded the corner and pocketed her phone. Her face was positively beaming. Her red hair danced as she walked in a way that almost felt like it was mocking El. As she neared the window beside El, she shot her a big thumbs up and a wink before she quickly disappeared down the street.
El looked back to find Mike equally stunned.
"Well, that happened fast," he said with a laugh.
"Yeah..." El replied, her brow furrowing as she snuck a final look out the window.
Awkwardness hung thick and tense above the table as El turned back and realized, with completely clarity, that she was now alone, staring at the man she had told herself she could never see again.
"It's uh… it's good to see you," Mike finally said, his eyes hopeful as he spoke, "Are you feeling better?"
It was curious, but something soft within his voice spoke with a sincerity that made something within her chest cool from a frenzy to a loud purr. Her eyes swept up to meet his but words did not register on her lips.
"Um.. after Monday night?" he added helpfully.
"Oh, yeah," she stuttered, her brain whirring back to life, "I just drank too much," she said with an awkward shrug.
"And projectile glass didn't really help," he added with a light laugh.
El forced a laugh that felt a little too fake as she cringed at the memory, "Yeah. I got that fixed by the way. It's all fine now. Crazy wiring, I guess."
Mike's forehead creased at her words. He bit his lip for a short moment as his gaze penetrated on hers, but it only lasted an instant before his face shifted instantly back to normal and he nodded, "Right. Really crazy wiring."
"Yeah…" she breathed unsteadily.
The conversation then fell off yet another cliff. It was loud inside of her mind, screaming voices that sang endless conflicting truths, so much so that no words could filter through the din. El's palms began to sweat as she stared in his eyes and felt her tongue stuck uselessly against her teeth.
Well, at least if she couldn't avoid him, she clearly had the next best thing.
Self sabatoge.
"Is this…" Mike stuttered, almost looking pained as he seemed to register her discomfort, "Is this okay? You don't have to have lunch with me just because your friend seems to have set us up, It's okay, I – "
"No!" El stuttered, her voice finally finding her tongue, "It's uh… no, it's good to see you. I'm just surprised."
And surprised she was. Her heart was hammering like a jackhammer. The hairs on the back of her neck were tingling in a way that made her weak. She felt like she was one bad move away from floating straight out of the seat.
And throughout it all he was looking at her with the softest, most relieved, smile.
"Okay, good. But, is everything okay?" he finally asked curiously.
"Yeah," she replied instantly, "Just…"
I can't control myself around you and I'm blowing over a decade of cover here and you're dangerous to be around but now that I'm around you I don't want to step away because you're the cutest guy I've ever seen in my life and I'm dying on the inside and -
"Hey, Ellie!" a familiar voice cut in beside them, "Know what you want?"
"Thanks, Benny," El said with a sense of abject relief as she looked up to find her saving grace standing at the edge of the table. A large bald man with the kindest face she'd ever seen. Her purveyor of endless waffles. The cherubic harmless version of her father. Benny. Her savior on this sunny Thursday afternoon.
"Thanks for what?" he asked curiously.
For saving me from myself because I can't function with this person under these circumstances?
"Illhaveawaffle," she suddenly spit out in a blur, "And he'll… uh…"
"I'll have a waffle, too," Mike replied easily as he folded up his menu and handed it to Benny.
"You will?" she chirped in surprise.
"You do know that it's lunch, right?" Benny added toward Mike with amusement. "I mean, I get her. She's a lost cause. But you?" he asked, looking over at Mike.
Mike shrugged, "El tells me you make the best waffles and I trust her. So, I'll have a waffle."
The traitorous part of El's heart forced a giggle from her mouth so loud and instant that it startled her. Mike's eyes grew wide in her direction as Benny snorted and disappeared back into the kitchen.
This was going so horribly wrong…
"You uh…" she stuttered, her tongue too thick in her mouth, her voice sounding an octave too high, but a kernel of a topic bubbling through her frenzy, "You said you just got done teaching? What um… what do you teach?"
"Oh," Mike replied helpfully, "I'm a TA, I help teach a physics 101 class. I'm getting my Masters in Physics. Though, today was the last class so I guess this lunch is the official start of my summer."
"Oh!" El replied in surprise, "Well, uh... happy summer, then."
Mike laughed bashfully, his eyes darting upward as his teeth pulled against his upper lip, "I'd say its starting out pretty well," he said quietly as he gestured toward her, "All things considered."
El felt her cheeks flame as the fear in her gut was dealt a fatal blow.
"So, what… what got you into Physics?" El asked, surprised at herself for the very natural and normal person follow up question.
"Oh," Mike shrugged, "I've always been interested in that kind of stuff. How the world works, you know? What everything means. Where it can lead. Stuff like that. But I just really attached to it a few years back, sophomore year of college. I needed something to focus on. Some uh… some stuff had happened and so I just kind of threw myself into my studies. What uh – what made you becoming a skydiving instructor?"
"Same thing, I guess," she heard herself say with a shrug, "I needed something to focus on, too, but instead of throwing myself into my studies I just threw myself out of a plane."
Mike laughed with a sudden shock that made her jump. She felt her own lips quirk in reply. His laugh filled her chest to the brim in an instant, and it became infectious. And suddenly, finally, through a simple crack that felt like a physical value, fifteen minutes, three days, two weeks of tension all spilled out on her laugh as the ridiculousness of her words sounded through her own mind.
And when his eyes finally reopened from laughter, she was hit with the most brilliant smile she had ever seen.
"Okay, so other than throwing yourself out of a plane, what drew you to it?" he finally asked, a giggle still dancing on his words.
"Oh, I uh…" El took a deep breath as she pushed her hair behind her shoulder and finally, fully arrived at lunch with Mike Wheeler. "Well. It was the first thing I found that made sense to me, I guess. I um…" El eyed Mike carefully as her chest began to ache with words it was suddenly, and very oddly, dying to say. They slipped through her guard with an ease that wasn't absolutely abnormal. "I had a… Some stuff happened when I was a kid that made it so I didn't go to a real school until 9th grade."
"Oh wow," Mike said in surprise, his face falling as his laughter receded in an instant, "Starting school in 9th grade? That must be rough."
"Yeah," she said with a relieved nod, "I was only in normal school for one year. I finished, but I homeschooled. After that, I tried community college for a semester, but it was the same thing. I just learn better alone."
"Hey, that's okay," Mike said honestly, his tone kind and open in a way that caught her off guard for a person pursuing a Master's degree. "Everyone learns differently. Plus, you seemed to find something you really love and you do it really well. That's all anyone's looking for, right?"
"Yeah," she said with surprise, "I've been a skydiving instructor for a couple of years now. I love it."
"You're really good at it," Mike said with a serious nod.
"Thanks," she replied, "Though, you don't have much to compare me to."
"I have endless people to compare you to. You make facing fear feel comfortable. Safe. That's a... that's a rare gift," Mike said, his tone softer than it had been.
"Thank you," El said softly as she felt herself ensnare, yet again, like every time, into his gaze. She needed to be careful there, though, she reminded herself with a jump.
"I uh..." El stuttered, trying to get back on track, "I was always curious where college would have been like if I'd stuck with it, though."
"Well," Mike said with an easy shrug, "I'm sure there's an alternate universe El that got to have all of those experiences. If you ever overlap you should ask her sometime."
"I'm sorry," El said suddenly, a record skipping in her brain, "What?"
"Oh," Mike said as he rolled his eyes at himself, "I just meant there's probably a world where it happened. Where you went to school. You know, a parallel reality."
El stared blankly at Mike.
"A… parallel reality?" she breathed.
"Oh yeah. Multiple realities? Many worlds interpretation?" Mike offered. When she didn't seem to reply brushed the air with fast hands, a fidget of nervousness seeming to cut through his body, "Sorry, I was about to go all physics nerd on you. I'll spare you if you like."
"No…" El yelped as she inhaled sharply, her heart beating fast for reasons she didn't quite understand, "I'm interested. I just don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh," Mike said, suddenly wide eyed, "Okay," he leaned toward her as, in an instant, his words began to speed. His whole face lighting up as he talked in a way that made El cling to his every word, "So, there's this line of theory that states that infinite realities are all existing at once. It's like, okay, so, for example, thirty minutes ago I was going to call a car to come and get me, but my phone died. I had two choices at that moment, right? Well, I could have chosen to run around and find a charger, or I could have chosen to walk home." Mike reached over to the side and grabbed the caddy of condiments and set it in the center of the table. He pulled out the pepper shaker and placed it on the formica top as he continued. "Now, I clearly chose to walk home and that reality ran me into you. Let's say the pepper shaker represents me here, having lunch because I made that choice."
"Okay…" she said quizzically.
"But," he said, his finger in the air to make a point, "since there was a choice I had to make, I also could have chosen the other way. I could have chosen to look for a charger and call a car home. Let's say the salt shaker is me if I'd done that."
El nodded as he placed the salt shaker down on another part of the table. "Okay, so Many Worlds Interpretation basically says the other choice did happen, and it created another parallel reality. So, I'd exist as the pepper here, and as the salt there. But they're both in existence, in their own realities.
"So, there's a you that's not having lunch with me… in another dimension," El stated, her heart beating fast as her head spun around his words.
"Yeah, exactly," Mike replied, "This salt represents the me that's not having a lunch with you, which is a total shame because this reality is a lot better, clearly."
El let out a breathy laugh. "Total shame. Poor salt."
"Poor salt, indeed," Mike replied with a boyish smile, "So, the thought is that then that reality will now spin out into whatever that reality leads to. And realities will peel off of that one, to infinity. Just like they'll peel off of this one, the I'm existing in right now, to infinity."
"So, it just goes on forever…" El said as a sudden decadent shiver melted down the whole of her body.
"Yeah!" Mike replied excitedly, "And that's where it get fun. So, if that's true, and you go back and back and back over the years, there could be realities where…" he shrugged, "I don't know… anything could happen. There might be a reality where I've known you since I was like... twelve or something. There could be realities where you and I have a whole shared history. There's another reality where I'm just meeting right now, two weeks after I met you in this reality. And maybe there's one where ran into each other four years ago. Or twenty years from now."
"Wow…" El breathed.
"So, for you," he said, "that means there's a reality where you're every single thing you ever wanted to be. And realities where you're living every single life you could have ended up living. In every direction. Good, bad and in between. It really goes on and on forever. Those little tiny choices split and split and split over and over again, to infinity and… I'm sorry," he said suddenly as he ducked his head in an instant. "I'm rambling."
"No!" El exclaimed, "It's – "
"- Sorry," he said, "You just got me on a topic I love thinking about."
"No… I…" El yelped, her eyes stitched wide, her breath swelling, her mind bending against his words. El's hand reached out, seemingly beyond her control, and latched onto Mike's forearm, surprising both her and him as she said, "I love this."
"Really?" Mike asked in surprise, his wide eyes tracking down where she suddenly held onto him.
"Yes, really," she replied as she quickly pulled back her hand, "Sorry."
"No, it's okay," he said, his voice laced with the tiniest bit of awe, "It's just that… sorry... this is usually the point where people, unless they're science or math or sci-fi nerds like me or my friends, and sometimes my friends even, tell me to stop rambling."
"No. I don't think that," El breathed easily, her senses entranced with what he was telling her. The conversation so serendipitous it felt like her head might explode. "Tell me more."
And then, in reply, Mike smiled a smile of such brilliance that it made her entire body melt.
"Okay," he said quietly, his eyes dancing, "Sure."
And that was how the next two and a half hours of El Hopper's life slipped straight by. In a booth at Benny's, a place she had been to a million times, her eyes stitched wide as Mike gloriously spun her brain into a pretzel. There was something about the way he talked, so excited about the very molecules around him, that made the most simple things he said seem exciting.
"Ellie?" a gruff voice drifted through her thoughts, cutting her focus on Mike's lips as he stuttered to a stop, "Sorry to interrupt, but it's closing time."
"It's four?!" El yelped in surprise as she looked up at Benny.
"Yep, you two sure can talk," Benny said as he dropped the check.
She looked up to an empty restaurant and Benny removing his apron.
"I can't believe we… wow," Mike shook his head in surprise as he too took a look around at the now deserted diner, "You didn't have other plans that I made you miss or anything, did you?"
"No," El replied with an easy shrug, "And even if I did, I'm sure I made it in an alternate world."
Mike laughed as he leaned over and swiped up the check in his hand.
"You don't have to – " El retorted instantly, but Mike brushed her off and pulled out his wallet.
"Oh please," he said as he pulled out a bit of cash and laid it down on the table, "You just listened to me talk for two and a half hours straight. You deserve a medal. The least I can do is buy you lunch."
"Okay," she conceded, "but I feel like I just sat through the best lecture of my life. I feel like I owe you."
Mike smiled bashfully as he pocketed his wallet. His eyes met hers and in a split second the casual tone of the afternoon solidified into something that made her heart skip, "Well," he said slowly. He took a deep breath and pressed his eyes shut with a sudden rush of nervousness, "You just sat through a lecture of mine. I guess the only honest payback would be for me to sit through a lecture of yours."
El's eyes narrowed in surprise, "Are you saying you want to learn how to skydive?"
The exhale of air from his lungs was quick, frenzied, and completely unexpected. He shook his head in a cringe before his eyes fell back onto hers, "Okay, I'm going to be honest with you. And I don't know why I'm doing this. I think I might be going crazy. But… you helped me face fear that day better than anyone else ever has and… I think it's good for me to do that. Plus, it's summer so I have the time. So uh, yeah. Maybe I could take your class?"
El looked at Mike in surprise as her father's voice bellowed loudly through her mind for the first time in two hours.
You can't risk it.
But… El retorted back, suddenly emboldened, by what she didn't quite know... it had been over three hours. And no plates had been smashed. The lights were still functioning just fine. The radio had not slipped into static.
The only thing that was decimated was the waffle in front of her and her resolve.
And in that moment, looking into Mike's eyes, it all seemed so silly. The fear. The confusion. The perceived lack of control. He was just a man, after all. Albeit an incredibly cute and now she knew insanely smart one with the most gorgeous eyes that made her giddy and weak in the knees from simply looking at him.
But still, just a man.
She knew better now, clearly. That's all she needed. A simple understanding that she needed to be careful. She needed to control. She needed to pay attention.
Easy right?
Mike's eyes shown with a vulnerable nervousness that made her shake and before she could blink her lips betrayed her with an answer that would have made Jim Hopper howl in agony.
"Yes," she said, unable to contain her smile, "Do you want to start this weekend?"
"What. Was. I. THINKING?!"
"What were you thinking?!" Lucas echoed in alarm.
"It was him!" Mike yelped, pointing malevolently at Dustin.
"Hey! I was just telling you what I would do!" Dustin retorted, his hands in the air in a sign of innocence as he stood shellshocked by Mike's sudden tantrum, "I was not trying to actually tell you that you should sign up for skydiving lessons!"
"You literally told me to do that! Three times!" Mike bellowed, pulling his hair out as he paced the floor of the living room. His three friends stared at him in fear as though he might explode. "It was going so well!" Mike exclaimed, "So. Well. She was even interested in all the nerdy stuff I couldn't stop talking about. I could have just asked her out on a date like a normal fucking human being. But nooooo! I had to hear Dustin's terrible advice in my head and then I had to hear it come straight out of my mouth like idiotic self sabotaging word vomit. Oh my GOD!" he moaned, his voice falling short as he began to hyperventilate, "There's no turning back on this! I can't get out of this. She's the fucking instructor. I can't pull out now or I lose every chance with this girl. I - "
Mike's pocket vibrated, interrupting him midstream. His hands shook violently as he dug in and pulled his phone up to his eyes.
And for the first time, her name appeared on his screen.
Hi Mike, it's El. I had a great time at lunch. Thank you! I just realized I don't know your last name. For the registration for Saturday. I'll see you at 9am at the airfield.
Mike groaned as his eyes scanned over his sealed fate.
"What the hell am I going to do?" he breathed with a shaky sigh.
"Well," Will said softly as he dropped his hand in a consoling manner onto Mike's shoulder, "It seems to me like you're going to throw yourself out of a plane."