Escaping Her Mind

Chapter Three: Into Her Mind

"I thought you said she wasn't in there." Mike says as the group rushes to the driveway and jumps into the Surfer Boy Pizza car. 

The group of Mike, Eleven, Will, Lucas, Dustin, Robin, and Jonathan pile into the back while Steve jumps in the front to drive and Nancy takes the passenger seat. Argyle was way too high to join the group for this 4 am trip to the Pizza Place where Eleven would once again jump into a pizza dough freezer of salt water. 

"Yet." Eleven correct. "She wasn't there yet. She is now." She says, looking at Lucas who had tears in his eyes. "I connected with a memory of hers. She's in there."

"What changed?" Will questions. "Why now? Why is her mind there now?" With those questions, Eleven is silent and looks down.

Mike takes notice. "El?" He questions. "What were you doing there by yourself in the middle of the night?"

Eleven takes a deep breath and looks at him. "I was saying goodbye." She whispers. 

"Are you going somewhere?" Mike questions to which she shakes her head no. "Then why were you saying goodbye? What's going on?"

"Hey, dude, maybe you should give her a second to actually answer." Robin speaks up to which Mike looks over at her. "Just a suggestion." She says, putting her hands up in defense. 

"I...I'm sorry." Eleven whispers, looking at Lucas. "I didn't want to try and connect to her mind anymore. I was going there to tell her that I was stopping."

"Why?" Lucas asks. 

"It was too much." Eleven says. "It was all too much for me."

"I am...I am so sorry." Lucas tells Eleven in a whisper. "I didn't even realize the emotional toll this was taking on you." He reaches over and grabs her hand. "I'm sorry." 

"Thank you." Eleven whispers.

Steve whips around the corner and the group goes flying to the side. 

"Dude!" Robin exclaims.

"Sorry!" Steve apologizes, turning into the parking lot. 

The group rushes out of the car the moment Steve pulled to a stop in the parking lot. They begin to make their way to the pizza shop, Robin kicking the door open. 

"And we have found ourselves, once again, in a pizza shop to save Max." Mike says with a small laugh, looking over at Eleven who offers him a small smile as a response. 

"Okay, so how are we going to do this?" Robin questions, looking at the group. 

"We've got salt." Will says, looking over at Mike who nods.

"Great." Jonathan says. "We'll get the pizza dough freezer." He says, looking over at Steve, Nancy, and Robin. 

Each group begins to get things ready, Will and Mike grab the salt from the pantries and the others get the pizza dough freezer empty and begin filling it with water. While they work on that, Lucas walks over to Eleven, who is sitting at one of the tables. 

"I should have known." Lucas says, sitting down.

"Stop." Eleven tells him. "It's okay. You already apologized."

"But I haven't truly listened yet." Lucas tells her. "Do you want to tell me about some of the stuff you've been going through?"

Eleven nods and takes a deep breath, ready to recount everything she had been going through the past three months. She talks about the failed connections every day, and talks about how upset she had been every time she had failed. Talked about how she snuck into the hospital and about how she was saying goodbye to Max. "And that's when the memory came, when the connection opened to her mind."'