― 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒄𝒓𝒐𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒅.
❝ you never knew the stars had
a flavor until you first kissed him.
it turns out they taste like ambition
and ancient fire, desperation, and
dark matter, and the mind-numbing
fear of bei...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
STARCROSSED (book one). °• CHAPTER TWENTY •°
" HEY, BAMBI. "
▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅
HAPPY ENDINGS DIDN'T ALWAYS EXIST. Elijah Wolfhart was convinced he was going to die the night that the full-grown Demogorgon was lured with the blood of his and his friends had cornered him with a drooling petal-like mouth and razor-sharp claws, and that would've been it. The end of his story. The book closed. And it wouldn't have been the first time in Elijah's life that he felt like that. It didn't seem to matter he was a child, the cruel reality of life would spare nobody at all. If Elijah's story was a chaptered book series, he sincerely doubted any volume would hold a happy ending. For almost a year, Elijah had been under the presumption that Eleven was dead, having sacrificed herself to destroy the monster and save her friends. It'd be the most tragic ending he could've thought of for a kid having deserved so, so much better. So, he doesn't know what to do or say when he sees the same child he thought bit it a long time ago. He doesn't know what to say when the ending suddenly changes.
The change in Eleven was obvious and seemed deeper than her physical appearance. While her shaved head had grown into a mop of brown curls that had been slicked back, her attire had been swapped for darker shades, and her dark stare held a different level of maturity that matched the trickle of blood leaking from her nostril, something was different. Eleven had come back from the dead and distanced herself from the girl she used to be. Elijah saw it right away, but his jaw is still slacked, and Mike doesn't care at all, because this was the girl he fell deeply for all the same.
Mike stared at her with tears in his eyes as if it's been lifetimes. Elijah supposed it could've felt like that. The pair whisper each other's names before they fall into a tight embrace. Max glanced from Dustin to Lucas with confusion. "Is that..." She trailed off. Her new friends nodded to confirm her question.
"I never gave up on you." Elijah can hear the sob Mike held back when he released Eleven and how it escaped behind the poor kid's words. "I called you every night. Every night for - "
"Three-hundred and fifty-three days," Eleven finished. Her lower lips trembled and a tear started to roll down her cheek. "I heard."
A hurt look crossed Mike's face. He tried to understand, interrogating, "Why didn't you tell me you were there? That you were okay?"
"Because I wouldn't let her," Hopper cut in. He stepped past Mike to shoot Eleven a disappointed stare that Elijah had only seen from his father when he had his hand caught in the cookie jar. "The hell is this? Where you been?" He demanded to know.
