purple's our color- mileven au

EIGHT

"And I'd never seen a mouth that I would kill to kiss, and I'm terrified but I can't resist"- Finally// Beautiful Stranger, Halsey

    After a stressful week, things were settling down for the Hopper's. Sara was stable and happy and El had been grounded till probably college, but it was better than being kicked out or disowned, in her opinion. El had even convinced Hopper and Joyce to let her have her friends over when Will initiated the plans, or Sara when it was Holly and Mike. Plus she still had her phone.

    It was late at night and pitch black out, El was watching a movie with her siblings and a big bowl of ice cream. "Ellie, can you finish my ice cream?" Sara asks sweetly.

    "You don't want it?" El questions. That was strange for her. Sara nods defeatedly, sliding the bowl to her older sister. Even little instances like this freaked El out, and they happened all the time now. Sara wouldn't finish all her food or she'd want to go inside in the middle of a sidewalk chalk competition or rain dance party, and she never used to turn those things down. Sure, it was normal for her current state, but it upset El in a way she couldn't explain.

    The brunette sighed and nodded, taking the bowl but not eating it yet. Her phone started ringing, and she grabbed it quickly. "It's um Max, be right back," El lied.

    "Doesn't Max have a different ringtone?" Will smiled slyly. His sister rolled her eyes and ran up the stairs, in the midst of answering Mike's facetime. "What do you want?" El snarked.

    "Mean. Are you doing anything?"
    El scoffed, "no? Are you outside?" Mike nodded, confusing the girl on the other line.

"Can you open your door so I can talk to you?"

Mike was outside of her house? And not to see Will? A pig could've flown and no one would be shocked. "Will and Sara are downstairs, meet me in the backyard."

Maybe she didn't know what she was thinking, but it didn't matter anyways. El lied to her siblings on her way downstairs saying she needed to check on her plants and ran out to her big yard where they hopefully couldn't see much, Mike meeting her. "So what did you wanna tell me?"

Mike started fidgeting his hands, "well I was just thinking about everything. I know we're not really on the same page- and that's ok! I just- um, maybe we could just like, hangout but not like a huge commitment thing because that might be confusing, uh, but we could still, you know, hangout." You'd think Mike Wheeler wouldn't be such a nervous wreck talking to a girl. Maybe it was because it was El.

El was so confused at what he meant. So they could be friends? It didn't sound like he meant just friends, but they weren't exactly dating either. But he loved her, apparently. How did this make any sense? Scrambling for an answer, she comes up with a rather specific question. "Hm, can I still kiss you?" That might make her sound a bit less confused.
   
Mike smiled, "it's whatever." The short girl in front of him laughed and kept the smile on her face. "Well then sure," she stands up on her toes to reach the boy's face, "that works, for now."

****

"Sara!" Holly squeezed her friend that she hadn't seen in a while.

    "Am I squeezing too hard?" she asks innocently, scared she'd hurt her fragile friend.
    Sara giggles, "of course not!" The smaller girl broke them apart, grabbing Holly's hand and running off to play with her barbies. El smiled at the two friends, with their innocent interactions and obvious sweet infatuation with each other. She remembered when she was that young, getting to know Max unknowing that they would still be best friends ten years later.

    El turned around and looked up at Mike. "Come in," she pulled on his hand, "you're so weird." She dragged him to the kitchen island, grabbing sodas from the fridge and sliding one across to him. "I'm gonna ask if Max and them wanna come, k?"
    "Trying to get away from me?"
    "Definitely."