purple's our color- mileven au

NINE

"Should I give up, or should I just keep chasing pavements, even if it leads nowhere?"- Chasing Pavements, Adele

    The last three months of school flew by for the party members, important tests and stressful meetings taking up most of their time. Unfortunately, there was little time for any of them to hangout or spend time together, making Mike's offer difficult.

    "So this is gonna sound like a long shot," Mike explains, "but I was talking to Nancy and I don't know if Jonathan talked to you guys, Will and El, yet, but they said they were going to Florida for a couple days and wanted to bring the three of us. So I asked if it'd be alright if Dustin, Lucas and Max could come too, and they agreed."

    All of their faces lit up in excitement. They were going to Florida together? The only face that stayed still was El's. She was still grounded, how could she convince her dad to let her go? Plus, maybe this just wasn't a good time. Sara had been starting treatment and she didn't know where she stood with Mike anymore.

  Their voices overlapped with questions and excitement, and they all agreed it'd probably work out, if they begged really hard. "Jonathan and Nancy are basically adults, and we are too. So, what could go wrong?" Dustin toothily grins. 

Everything. "But you said Will could go and I've known them all my entire life! It's been three months, I learned my lesson!" El stood in the kitchen with Joyce and Hopper, begging them to allow her to go to Florida.

"Hop, I think you should let her go, it's only five nights." Joyce says softly. El smiles at her step-mom, who always helped her out of trouble with her father. "I'm just not sure it's a good time for you to leave, you know that," Hopper replies.

El's face falls. "I'll call everynight to check in and make sure everything's fine. I won't even miss any appointments she needs me at for support and if anything at all goes wrong I'm sure I can book a flight home." Of course El took that into consideration. But she couldn't hold herself back any longer for her sister. She knew that things would be alright without her, and this was a good distraction.

"We have it all planned out! Please," El pleads. Hopper huffs and rolls his eyes. "Fine."

****

    The day they were going came quickly. It was two days before, all of them hanging out at the Hopper's. Max and El were packing up in El's room, deciding between outfits. It was obvious El was in a weird mood, and Max wasn't sure why.

    "This dress or this one?" El picked up two dresses from her closet. Max looked over to look at them. She plopped a chip in her mouth, "why do you need a dress?"

    "In case we go somewhere fancy or take pictures," the brunette responds. Max shrugs and points to the blue dress on the left. It was scrunched lightly at the top, a hem line under her chest and the rest of the dress was straight until a hem line a few inches above her knee, below that it opens up a little and has a flowy design. As she threw a few more things in her suitcase, it was silent, a very unusual occurrence for the two.

    "I'm gonna go ask Lucas something, be right back," Max stood up and left the room. She practically sprinted down the steps. "Something's up with El. Will, did something happen?"

    Will shook his head, "I don't think so."
    "Something with Sara?"
    "No."
    "Hopper didn't let her go?"
    "She's definitely going." Max was out of ideas with what could be wrong. Until it hit her. There was one name that El hadn't brought up in weeks. Could something have happened there?

    "You don't think-" Max began.
    It clicked in Will's brain too, "definitely." The two ran up to El's room without giving any word of details to Dustin, Lucas, or Mike.