tea stained newpapers. mileven au.

thirty four.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR:
MY MIND IS A WONDER WITHOUT YOU.
EL'S POV.

he wasn't sleeping, she didn't need to call him to even remotely come to that conclusion.

she knew what he was doing, constructing and constricting himself into while she wasn't there. because as much as mike wheeler loved to play perfect, her heart could feel his hurting from where she was.

miles and miles away.

from where the bed was cold, like the bitter bite of winter or snow sliding underneath spinning tires. everything lately had felt too cold for the artist's heart to bare.

and even worse the floors of her apartment were burning like ice, terribly freezing as she pulled herself into a sitting position and dangled her slouchy sock covered feet onto the wood panels beneath her.

the brunette had felt empty ever since leaving new york, her mind whirling and spinning into oblivion as she replayed the reminiscing memories back from the last seconds she had been there.

i don't want to let you go.

mike had called every night since she landed, the dragging two weeks she had already spent packing her life feeling like years. and just simply without the strand of hope tying them together, she felt like she couldn't breathe or possibly function without his movements rippling around her.

it was dramatic. she honestly felt so stupid for how much of her life depended on his soul existence now. how she would shuffle to her dark kitchen every morning, remembering how his arms would wrap around her waist as she attempted to make them breakfast. how his knuckles would brush the soft skin of her stomach, how her heart felt like it was floating as his lips brushed the shell of her ear...

your eyes are sad, sweet.

she shook the memory from her mind. they hadn't spoken about how much it hurt to leave each other. the brunette knew her stubbornness was quite literally the only thing that held her together that day. and mike was too perfect to admit that he was forever calculating whatever he had planned, desperately pulling at that bond that tethered their souls together.

el hopper was becoming the epitome of what she never thought she would become.

it was so odd, looking back now as she peered around the room she had built for herself, the place she had considered her personal haven since she ran away from her mom.

left.

she was strong enough to admit that she had left now.

as much as she attempted to avoid it, there was always a sinking voice in the back of her head that told her one day she would fall in love. that it was possible for her to let someone in and allow them to see everything that she had tried so hard to hide from the rest of the world. and for some reason, for some stupid reason, she had convinced herself it would be the most awful thing in her life to happen to her.

because love was terrifying, absolutely horrific. it was a grey storm cloud, waiting to spill over as each second passed. a dreaded rose covered in talons of thorns, beautiful but dangerous to touch.

the devil themself dressed as an angel.

until her writer boy showed up.