El sat in the waiting room, tapping an irregular beat on the arm of her hair. Mike sat beside her, and their knees touched. He offered her hand and she took it, but it did little to ease the panic boiling in her gut. She hated the hospital. She hated the way it smelled, like bleach and antiseptic and illness. She hated the color, or the absence thereof; the white tiled floor and white walls and white ceiling accentuated the artificial light, and all of hit way too close to home. It reminded her of the lab. El tried to stamp down the bile rising in her throat, the ringing her ears.
Negative energy surrounded the place. Too many lives had been shattered or torn apart or turned inside out within these walls. It brushed against the edges of her mind like a dark entity, threatening to tug her into the past, into that place she sometimes went, where monsters came out to play and Brenner's voice echoed in her head, planting seeds of doubt and fear and shame in her that she'd spent a lifetime trying to convince herself were lies.
When she was younger, fresh out of the lab, she got these flashbacks. They weren't exactly nightmares, just . . . episodes. They happened at random and without warning, suffocating her, stirring up the dregs of memories and nightmares and monsters that lived inside her head. Fragments of real life that ensnared her, like she was caught in a time loop she couldn't escape.
El remembered lying awake, those countless nights, watching the red numbers on her digital alarm clock climb as the minutes crept by. Sleep evaded her, and she'd stare at the light shining through the crack in the door. The light threw odd shadows over the furniture. She stared at them, until they begin to shift and morph, peeling themselves off the wall, claws outstretched, reaching for her. Hot, moist breath rubs across her face and neck, permeating the air with the sweet stench of wet and decay, dying things.
A familiar coldness would settle in the pit of her stomach, extending to her extremities, her fingers and toes, her earlobes, chasing its way down her spine. She'd struggle against the sheets, which somehow wound themselves around her legs, trapping her. She'd try to scream, lungs constricting, as the monsters drew closer, lusting for blood.
Eventually, the fight or flight response in her brain would kick in, and she'd muster up the courage throw the blankets off and leap out of bed, bolting down the hall and into the kitchen. She membered the sound of stocking feet whisper across the linoleum floor. She'd stop when her palms hit the edge of the sink and she'd stare into the dark, glistening eye of the drain, pulling breaths of air in through her nose, out through the mouth.
Like we practiced, she'd hear Hop's phantom voice, in the darkness, soothing her. The hammering of her heart against her ribs, her temple, began to slow. She'd turn the faucet on and take a few, deep gulps of water from the tap, and then she'd sink to the floor, pulling her knees to her chest. She kept the water running, letting the white noise fill up the room, choking the voices and static inside her head. She'd try to pinch herself, pressing her palms against her cheeks, trying to stop the shaking in her hands, reassuring herself of her own solidity, her own existence.
These flashes weren't uncommon. She grew older, and they'd happen once a week. They didn't just happen at night, they happened any time of day, usually when something triggered her. Mrs. Mancusi, her psychiatrist, called them "panic attacks". She gave El some additional breathing exercises, taught her to identify the triggers, and prescribed an anxiety medication. El didn't touch the little yellow pill bottle, and it sat in the bathroom cabinet, collecting dust. It made her drowsy, worn-down, and it didn't stop the nightmares or the flashbacks, only prolonged them, locking her inside a terrible dreamland of her own invention.
She still got panic attacks, maybe once or twice a month. They'd never really go away. They' were a part of her, and prescription drugs were a band-aid on a festering wound.
Festering.
The dictionary defined "to fester" as "to undergo decay, to rot".
That's the word Kali used. It cropped up in El's mind, a lot. More than it should. In big, bold print.
Fester.
To rot.
She remembers thinking she might be rotting. She remembers thinking the monsters were eating her insides. They were eating her brain. Maybe she was going crazy. Maybe she was already too far gone.
She'd imagine a zombie version of herself—rotting, skin tinged a sickly green and studded with open sores, lolling, white-coated tongue, bulging eyeballs streaked with veins black as ink, chalky fingernails and organs bulging from the places where her skin has rotted away, completely, revealing a diseased heart, a liver, a lung . . .
You have a wound, Eleven. A terrible wound.
That thought was always enough to work her into another state, and she wound up on her hands and knees on that tiled floor, shaking, breaking into a cold, clammy sweat.
And in the heart of those dark, sleepless nights, there'd be heavy footsteps, and the scent of tobacco, and the silhouette of a large man, standing in the doorway.
"Whasthematter?" He'd mumble.
He'd cross to the sink, turn off the faucet, and kneel beside her.
"El? You okay?"
She'd nod, try to tell him she's fine, don't worry, but the words would get lodged in her throat. She'd open her mouth, and, unable to stop the dam in her chest from bursting, melt into tears. Hopper's arms would encircle her slender shoulders, and he'd pull her to his chest, murmuring words of comfort as she sobbed into his shirt, relinquishing the cold, steel knot of fear onto his shoulders.
"I got you, Ellie." He'd say. "I got you."
She'd nod, unable to speak.
"I'm s-sorry."
"El, it's okay." He'd say, voice tinged with exhaustion and sadness and guilt. He'd rub a hand over the stubble lining his jaw, gazing at her. A few more lines would appear around his eyes.
"You don't have to fight it alone, you know. I'm here."
The ache in El's chest would ease, and she'd find the strength to crack a smile. , She'd cup a palm against his cheek, whispering
"Promise?"
"I promise."
Hopper wasn't the only person who could bring her back. Mike was her shoulder to cry on, more often than not. Sometimes, when she lay in the darkness, ensnared in the sheets and in her mind, when she'd wake from a nightmare that was all too real, she'd reach for the super com. Her thumb would find the switch, and she'd cling to it, reaching across the static and the space between them, and he'd always answer. His voice would float through the radio, roughened with sleep, even if it was three o'clock in the morning. Even if they had school the next day, even if she'd already woken him up two times in the last week. He'd always answer, and he'd talk and talk and tell her stories or something interesting he'd read, until his voice obscured everything else, grounding her in the present, and she'd lay with the supercom resting against her chest. Eventually, one of them would fall asleep. Sometimes she drifted away first, letting his voice soothe her into slumber. Other times, his voice would get quieter and slower, punctuated by yawns and long pauses, until eventually he stopped talking altogether, but she could hear him breathing and that was enough.
She wasn't the only one suffering from panic attacks and nightmares. She knew Hopper sometimes woke with the skin of his palms ripped to shreds, he'd dug his fingernails so deeply into them. She knew he screamed for Sara. And sometimes he screamed for her.
Mike's eyes sometimes glossed over, and he'd stare at nothing, lips pressed into a tight line and pale. He'd forget where he was, forget what he was doing, lost in some bad memory. He kept his supercom by his bedside table, in case she needed him. And sometimes he'd reach out and touch her. If they were sitting at the table, doing homework. If they were in the basement or walking the tracks. He'd reach out and touch her shoulder or her hand or her cheek. If she knew what he was thinking in those stolen moments, tracing patterns over her knuckles or pushing his index finger over place where her pulse beat in her wrist, she'd know he did it to reassure himself she was really there. Because he spent a year trying to decide what was real and what wasn't, convinced he might be going crazy. Going crazy, because he still heard her voice and felt her presence, so near and yet so far away, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn't pull back that curtain. He spent a year denying the possibility that if you stole something from the Upside Down, it required a trade. And El's life was a fair price to pay. So, when she came back, when she stepped through the Byers' front door, hair grown out, eyes painted black, he finally released a breath he'd been holding for so long, he'd forgotten how to breathe. He'd embraced her, clinging to her so tightly, afraid she might slip through his fingers again. He searched her eyes, looking for any sign of the old pain, the fear, she once carried with her. It was still there, but it was less, somehow, and he counted his lucky stars.
Will suffered the most out of any of them. He was always quiet and shy but now he was quieter and shier. He looked sick, sometimes, and pale. He battled his monsters with a set of colored pencils, because that was the only way he knew how. When nightmares plagued his sleep, which was all the time, he didn't scream. He suffocated.
"Jane Hopper?"
El looked up. A nurse in scrubs stood in the doorway, holding a clipboard. El heart dropped through the floor. She stood, and Hop and Mike stood, too, trailing after her as she crossed the room. The nurse stopped them out the door, instructing Hop and Mike to wait outside, so she could have some privacy.
Mike opened his mouth, beginning to protest. He still had trust issues, after everything. El put a hand on his shoulder.
"I'll just be a few minutes." El said.
"I'll call you when she's ready." The nurse assured them. She smiled at El, and gestured down the hall. El squared her shoulders, battling a sharp flare of panic, and made her way down the hall. She tried no to think about the tiled floor, which was so like the lab's floor. Trying not to think that too often she saw blood running across the tiles, a shock of crimson against the white. But the hall seemed to go on forever, and El couldn't stop thinking that it would go on, forever, and her breath got all caught in her throat.
The nurse her into a separate ward, devoted to prenatal care and pediatrics. The walls were pink and trimmed with a floral pattern. The nurse paused outside a door and opened it. She followed the nurse inside.
"Okay, Jane, why don't you change out of your clothes and put this on?" The nurse held out a thin, white gown. El stared at it, nauseated. Her pulse quickened, so it felt like her heart might burst out of her chest and run away. El clutched the table for support, dizzy. She steeled herself and took it, pinching the fabric between her thumb and index finger, trying to minimize the amount of skin it came into contact with. Which was absurd, because she knew she'd have to wear it.
"Honey, are you feeling alright?" The nurse's voice was muffled and a thousand miles away, like El might be listening to her from under water.
"Yes." El tried to say, and the word felt like cardboard in her mouth. "Yes, I'm fine."
"Okay, well, go ahead and put that on. In the meantime, I'll let Doctor Simmons know you're here. She'll conduct the check-up. Okay?"
El nodded.
The nurse left, and El folded the gown in a neat little square and lay it on the examination table. She slumped to her knees, sucking breaths of air in through her nose, until her pulse slowed and her equilibrium returned. Slowly, she got to her feet, pulling her shirt over her head. She tossed it on the chair, by the door, then unbuttoned her jeans, letting them fall to the floor unceremoniously. She put on the gown, hating the way it felt against her skin—alien and cold.
Deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth . . .
She repeated it, over and over in her head. It helped, a little.
She settled herself on the exam table, legs dangling. She knotted her fingers together, glancing around the tiny exam room, at the surgical masks and the rubber glove dispenser on the wall, the floral wallpaper, the corkboard on the wall, where hundreds of pictures were pinned up, each one of them containing a different, smiling child. El slid off the exam table and stood by the board, looking at the pictures. Not for the first time, she wondered what theirs might look like. Someone rapped on the door as she gazed at a pudgy, blond baby dressed in a little red bowtie, for a holiday outing. The door opened, and a middle-age woman with blond hair and glasses stepped inside.
The woman smiled, offering her hand.
"Hello, Jane. I'm your doctor, Alicia Simmons." El shook her hand.
"You'll be visiting me for all your appointments during your pregnancy. I know this is a scary time for you, so I'm going to try my best to ease some of your concerns. If you have any questions, today or anytime, feel free to ask me." She said, warmly.
"First, I'm gonna ask you a couple of questions, and your job is to answer them the best you can, sound good?"
El nodded.
Simmons clicked her pen, ruffling the sheets of paper she'd pinned to her clipboard.
"When was the first day of your last period?"
El told her. Simmons asked about her lifestyle, her medications, her eating habits, if she drank or smoked, if she'd ever visited the OB/GYN, everything. When Simmons started to question El's family history, she just said "I don't know. I was adopted." Simmons left it at that.
When El answered what felt like a million questions, Simmons led her in the hall to measure her height, weight, and blood pressure, making notes on her clipboard. She took blood, tying a band around her upper arm and swabbing a section of her inner elbow with a cotton ball soaked in antiseptic. El wrinkled her nose as the scent stung her nostrils.
"This might pinch." Simmons warned, and inserted the needle. El winced. El watched the vial fill with blood, until the sight began to make her feel nauseous, so she looked away.
After she'd undergone the preliminary tests, El followed Simmons to another room, one with machine hooked up to a computer monitor next to a big, cushion chair .
"I'll do an ultrasound today, just so we can get a good look at things." Simmons explained. "Get comfortable."
She left, and El lay back, fingers tracing patterns on the edge of the armrest. After a minute or two, Simmons returned with Mike and Hop in tow. El sat up, and Mike crossed the room, leaning down to plant a kiss on her forehead.
"How'd it go?" He asked, gently.
"Fine." She assured him. She looked at Hop. His lips formed a thin line. He met her eyes, gaze clouded and distant. There was a certain sadness written there, and seeing it made her gut tie itself in a knot. He stood by the door, leaning against the wall.
"Alright, now that we're all here, I thought I'd go over some of the things Jane can expect during the next four weeks of pregnancy, and beyond." Dr. Simmons took a seat by El's bedside, facing her.
"Fatigue is common. You'll sleep more, you'll tire easily. This'll continue for the rest of your pregnancy. Nausea is common, also. Your body is still adjusting to the new developments, so you're hormones may be completely out of whack. You should expect sudden changes in mood, maybe varying sleep patterns and increased anxiety." Simmons told her. "You may have to use the bathroom more often, and your blood pressure is changing, so it's normal to experience dizziness. Especially when standing up or sitting down." Simmons explained. El nodded.
"Right now, you don't need any extra calorie intake. In the second trimester, you'll need about three-hundred extra calories, and towards the end you'll need around four-hundred fifty. The most important thing is to stay fit and healthy. You should be exercising and managing a nutritious diet. Legumes and dairy products are important, so I suggest lots of milk, yogurt, beans, peanuts, and stuff like that. No drinking, no smoking. Limit your caffeine intake, also. Any questions?"
El shook her head.
"Good. I'm sending you home with a pamphlet that covers the first trimester in depth. I think it's a good idea to purchase a book on pregnancy, as well, so that you can track your baby's development. It will give you a more in-depth explanation of the things I've mentioned, today."
Simmons looked around at all of them.
"Ready for the fun part?"
Mike nodded. El caught his eye, and he offered an encouraging smile. Underneath it all, though, he looked just as terrified as she felt.
Simmons turned around, in her chair, pressing a button on the machine. It hummed, and the lights began to blink. The monitor lit up, to a blank screen. She put on a pair of surgical gloves and grabbed a small, plastic bottle from the shelf.
"Alright, Jane, go ahead and lift your gown, for me." El did.
"It's cold." She warned, as she squirted a palm-full of clear gel onto El's midriff. El winced, gooseflesh crawling over her skin as the gel came into contact with it. Simmons grabbed a little device connected to the monitor and pressed it over El's abdomen, applying a light pressure. Slowly, El lifted her eyes to the monitor.
At first, it was hard to see much of anything. It just looked like a patch of white, grainy film—television static. Simmons traced the device across her abdomen, looking for the baby. Lower, further to the left . . .
"There." She said, and tapped the keyboard, freezing the picture. El looked at the monitor.
Her baby.
She could see where it's head was, could see the heartbeat. Tears welled in her eyes. She clapped a hand over her mouth, the lump in her throat so big and painful it was hard to get any air. She reached for Mike's hand and clasped it, so hard her knuckles turned white. She watched the terror and awe cross his face, as he looked at the monitor. And El felt like she'd been tossed into a free-fall, once again. Her head spun, and tears streamed down her cheeks, and all she could think was that she loved him and she loved their child and she wouldn't let anything happen to either of them as long as there was breath in her body. Mike looked at her, finally, tearing his eyes away from the screen, mouth ajar. He squeezed her hand.
"We made that." He said, in a hushed voice. "Holy fuck."
She giggled, through her tears. Simmons smiled
"Congratulations!" She said. El smiled. "
"It looks like you're just over ten weeks along. Your baby is about an inch and a half in length, the size of a strawberry. It's growing rapidly, at this point. It's size will double in the next few weeks. While it grows, your uterus stretches, to accomodate. That's when you'll start getting a bump. Most first-time moms start showing around the fourth month, but every pregnancy is different."
"If you look right here, you can see it's hand . . ." She typed something into the keyboard, and the image enlarged. "Yes, this is your uterine wall, and this is fluid . . ." Simmons explained, pointing. "It's heart's beating at about one-hundred sixty beats per minute. See . . ." Simmons traced the trembling line tracing across the bottom of the screen, measuring out the pulse in little ridges and dips.
El nodded, still staring at the monitor. Simmons unfroze the image, so El could see the tiny heart fluttering and the image shifting, lightening and darkening, as she breathed.
El glanced at Hop. She knew he wasn't pleased in the slightest, but she thought she saw a bit of awe, a little bit of something else . . . something like love, in his eyes, and El knew they'd be alright.
"You're gonna be a grandad." She told him. Hop scoffed.
El returned her attention to the monitor.
"I'll have this information stored in your records. We'll let you know your other test results. You'll be receiving a call from us in a few days. In the meantime, minimize stress, rest often, and watch your diet. If you have any questions, feel free to call."
Simmons shut off the machine. She wiped away the gel with a paper towel, and El let the gown fall, covering her abdomen.
"We're done. I'll let you get dressed. You should schedule the next visit about four weeks from today." Simmons said, and smiled. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Jane." She said, shaking El's hand. El smiled.
"Thank you." She said. "For everything."
Simmons left. El got to her feet, and Mike walked her down the hall, so she could retrieve her clothes.
"We're having a baby." He breathed, as if he couldn't quite believe it. She nodded. Mike shook his head, running a nervous hand through his hair. "Hearing it is one thing, seeing it . . ."
"Is something else, entirely." El interjected, and Mike nodded. They lapsed into silence. El watched her feet as they walked down the hall.
"Hey." Mike paused, and she turned, cocking an eyebrow. He stepped toward her, holding her shoulders. "We're gonna be okay."
"I know."
In the waiting room, Hop spoke with the woman at the front desk. El and Mike waited, holding hands, lost in thought.
"Jane!"
El turned, toward the voice. Simmons approached her, shoving an envelope into her hands.
"I thought you might like a copy of baby's first picture." She said. El turned the envelope over in her hands, then opened it. Inside, she found two copies of the ultrasound. The corner of El's mouth twitched, heart crawling into her throat.
"I'll see you in a few weeks, okay?" Simmons said, touching her shoulder. El nodded.
"Thank you." She tried to say, but her words got stuck in her throat. Simmons turned, leaving the waiting room. El watched her go, then turned to Mike. She offered a copy of the photo, and he took it, fingernail tracing the edge. He shook his head, smiling—a big, stupid sort of smile. He looked at her.
"Holy shit, El." He said, waving the photo. "That's our kid."
El rolled her eyes, taking the picture and examining it, trying to reconcile the tiny life she carried inside her with the image in her hand, knowing she held something precious.
On the way home, they got lunch at a diner on the corner. The conversation bouncing between them was almost non-existent. The tensions between Mike and Hop were tangible, and El tried to dispel some of the dead air by making small-talk, which didn't work, because El wasn't a big conversationalist, either. She was out of her element, and she knew it, so she just kept making comments about the weather and the food.
She wished Hop would stop staring daggers. She knew he meant well, but he and Mike hadn't always gotten along. They tolerated one another, for her sake, but El knew Mike had never really forgiven him for keeping El hidden for an entire year, even if he understood the necessity. They were both stubborn and hot-headed, in the best of times. They were more alike than either of them realized. El knew each one of them wanted what was best for her, and sometimes their opinions on the matter conflicted. On top of it all, all three of them were digesting the fact that they'd just seen live footage of Mike and El's unborn child. And each of them were handling it a little differently. So, yes, tensions were high, but El was too tired to play devil's advocate, so her meager attempts at conversation fizzled out.
They ate in silence, and Mike's knee kept brushing against hers, under the table. She kept going over the last hour in her head, her mind again and again returning to the sight of their child's heartbeat. It was so tiny, so fragile, and yet it seemed like the strongest thing. A whole life-force. And El struggled to fathom it. A human being was living inside her, growing rapidly, conscious and whole—a person. The fact that she could sense it, in the void and in spaces between thoughts, proved that. It was surreal.
Hop put down his fork with a clang, startling El out of her thoughts. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and summoned the waitress, asking for a check.
During the ride home, El fiddled with the radio, searching for a song to fill the silence.
Mike planned to stay the rest of the weekend, and El didn't work weekends, which gave them forty-eight hours together. Hop left for the station, leaving them alone. They wasted the afternoon. They lay on the couch, snuggled against one another. Mike pored over a play he had to read for his advanced English class, and El thumbed through the pamphlet Simmons had given her, reading about the first trimester of pregnancy, until her eyes grew heavy and she set it aside, yawning. She lay her head on his chest, picking at a loose thread in the old Hawkins High sweatshirt he wore. He brushed his fingers through her curls.
"What does your pamphlet say?" He asked, gently.
"Nothing new" El said, stifling a yawn. "I'll be tired and moody and blah blah blah."
"Your doctor's right. There's plenty of books out there. We should get one, so we can track her development."
"Her?"
"I'm tired of saying 'it'." He said, sheepishly. "Plus, I think it's a girl."
El opened her mouth, closed it, thinking it over.
"A girl." She repeated. "What makes you think that?"
"No reason." Mike said, shrugging.
"I think it's a boy." El said, trying and failing to conceal a grin.
"Are you just saying that to disagree with me?"
"Maybe."
"I'm not buying it. You probably already know. You probably can talk to it with your psychic powers."
Mike's smile disappeared, at the look on her face.
"Wait, can you?"
"No." El said. "I can't talk to it. But I can . . . sense it, in a way."
Mike sat up, eyebrows disappearing under the cascade of dark locks falling over his forehead.
"And you were planning on telling me this when?"
El shrugged.
"I wasn't trying to keep it a secret. It just never came up."
Mike rolled his eyes. He fell silent, lost in thought.
"What's it like?" He asked, after a while.
"It's really hard to describe." She said. "It's like sometimes I can sense other people's thoughts or moods, you know, without meaning to. But those are brief, like snapshots. This is different. It's always there, like it's a part of me, but it's not. I don't know . . ." El sucked on her bottom lip, trying to find the right words. "It's like you know that article we read in English, last year, about the guy who lost his leg but he can still feel it, sometimes? Like there's an itch he can't scratch?"
"A phantom limb."
"Yeah." El nodded. "It's like that. I get colors and shapes, like a bunch of blurry images that don't make a lot of sense. It's how I found out. Before I even took the pregnancy test, I felt it."
Mike gazed at her, awed.
"So, it's a boy?"
"I don't know. I can't tell."
"Promise?"
El rolled her eyes.
"Promise."
Mike sat up, stretching.
"My life is weird." He said. "You're weird."
"Thanks?"
They lapsed into silence, again.
"We should go somewhere." Mike said, after a while.
"Where?"
"Dunno." He shrugged. "Anywhere."
They ended up grabbing a blanket and some PB&J sandwiches and headed to the junkyard. Mike drove, and El hummed along to the radio. At the junkyard, they went into an old, abandoned bus with broken windows, climbing through the exit door on the roof, and sat on top. El spread the blanket out so they could sit on it, then settled herself cross-legged next to Mike. She breathed a sigh of relief. It felt good to be out here, in the fresh air, away from everything else. From the top of the bus, they had a good view of the sky, bleeding a hundred shades of orange and pink as the sun sank.
It was cold. So cold her nose went numb and her breath swirled in little white clouds around her mouth. Mike enfolded her hands in his and breathed on them, to warm them up.
When she was fourteen, the party camped up here, for a night. It was summer, and their air was sultry and warm. They'd stopped by the convenience store and bought a ton of candy and chips. They laid their sleeping bags across the seats of the old bus. Lucas told ghost stories, holding a flashlight under his chin, and then Dustin unveiled a bottle of liquor he claimed to have gotten from a "source that shall remain unnamed" and Mike cocked an eyebrow, impressed. Dustin made a big show of pouring drinks into the little plastic cups they'd brought. El took the cup he handed to her, sniffing it curiously.
"I'd like to propose a toast." Dustin said. "To us." He held up his cup, and they murmured their agreement. Dustin tossed his back, grimacing as it went down. Mike did the same, and Max and Lucas. El raised it to her lips and sipped. It burned, overwhelming her other senses, stinging her nose and eyes.
"Ugh." She said. "It's horrible." Everyone laughed.
The second sip wasn't as bad as the first, so she nursed it, for a while. Dustin and Lucas were on their third drink by the time she finished her first. Will hadn't touched his. Mike was nursing his second, and Max was quickly outdoing all of them. Her cheeks were flushed, and her voice got increasingly louder as she argued with Dustin over something, probably the X-Men. El reached for the liquor bottle, pouring another drink, and tossed it back. As the alcohol worked its way into her system, everything started to feel floaty and warm, and she couldn't keep herself from smiling. Mike grinned at her.
They played Truth or Dare. Lucas nearly broke his leg, jumping off the roof of the old bus where Mike and El sat, now. That was also the night Dustin swallowed an earthworm and Max drew a dick on the door of rusted, '57 Volkswagen Beetle in permanent marker.
El poured drink number three on a dare, and everyone teased her about being a lightweight, but she didn't know what that meant and she didn't care.
Mike had to stop her from pouring a fourth, because she was starting to make things float.
"El, you're drunk." He'd taken her cup, and she just giggled, stifling a hiccup.
"I am?"
They'd settled in their sleeping bags, after a while, and she'd climbed in with Mike and snuggled against him. He kissed her, and he tasted like vodka and a promise. She drifted off, content.
El smiled, at the memory. It was one of her happiest, of that summer. She brought it up, and Mike laughed.
"I was shit-faced, that night." Mike said, grinning. "Those were the good old days."
El nodded, in agreement. She unwrapped her sandwich, acutely aware of how starving she was, even after she'd had a big lunch, and took a bite. She hummed, appreciatively. Mike pulled two cans of Dr. Pepper out of his backpack and cracked them. They polished off their sandwiches, then tossed the wrappers away. She lay back, gazing up at the sky as it grew darker and the stars appeared. Mike lay beside her.
They looked at the stars, and Mike pointed out a constellation or two. It was easy to lose yourself, up there, she thought. Too easy to gaze at those stars and float away.
"When are you going to tell your parents?" She asked, after a while. He shifted, looking at her.
"Tomorrow." His voice was barely more than a whisper.
"I'll come with you." She offered. "For emotional support."
He propped himself up on one elbow, so his face was a few inches above her. She fiddled with the drawstrings of his sweatshirt.
"My dad might say some stupid things." He warned. His brows furrowed, and little wrinkles appeared in his forehead, like they always did when he was worried or upset about something. He chewed his lip. "I don't want you to get hurt."
"I don't care what he thinks." She said. "This is my fault, I should be there."
"It's not anybody's fault." Mike said. "A stupid condom broke, that's all."
El reached up to brush a stray hair that had fallen in front of his eyes.
"I'm just saying if you want me there, I'll be there. But I understand if you don't." And she did. She imagined telling Hop with Mike there. It would've gone horribly wrong. It was probably better that she did it alone, better that the moment existed between the two of them and no one else. And if Mike needed similar space, she'd give it to him. But if he wanted her there, to fill up that terrible silence, to stand by his side when he needed her most, heaven and hell and every dimension in between wouldn't keep her from him. He just needed to say the word.
"I think I should be the one to tell them." Mike said, shrugging, which roughly translated to I need to do this alone.
"Okay," El said, and he must've seen the look on her face, because he frowned.
"Hey," Mike said. "It'll be alright. They'll get over it."
"Yeah." She said, though her voice didn't sound quite like her own, and let the conversation drop. She shivered, suddenly cold. She looked at him, and he leaned down and kissed her. The warmth emanating from him spread to the rest of her body, to her fingers and toes, and all the worries and fears and guilt escaped her mind as the sensation of his lips obliterated everything else.