MELANCHOLY [S.T. B. Hargrove]

37

"Jesus fucking.." I curse, nausea flooding through my body. "Drift much, Nance?"

"Come on. We can patch up El here," she hurries us out of the car.

Nancy then throws a rock at the glass door so we can go inside. We carry El inside and lay her by the medical aisle.

"I got this," I speak up.

"You know medicine?" Jonathan asks.

"Enough.. I patch up Billy all the time. I got this," I promise. "I just need towels, rubbing alcohol, water, bandages, gauze, and antibiotic cream."

Everyone looks to each other.

"Now!" I shout.

They all jump and hurry around the store to get the items.

I pull El's pant leg up so I can see the wound that the monster left. It was about the size of a small gunshot wound, but it didn't go all the way through.

"Who.. Who is Javier?" El asks.

"What?" I ask.

"Javier.. Who is he?"

I wipe the wound with a towel then place it over to try and stop the bleeding.

"A friend," I answer.

"I saw him. In your mind," she reveals.

"Ah.." I nod.

That would explain it.

"He was like a brother," she continues. "Where is he now?"

El's already seen the inside of my head, anyway.

"I've never told anyone except Billy," I inform.

I peek up at her and she nods with a grimace-fueled smile. I realize she must want to talk about something to take her mind off of the pain in her leg.

"He was a drug dealer," I explain.

"Drug.. dealer?"

"He sold bad things to people even though it was illegal. He was the kind of guy that Hopper would arrest."

El hums, letting me know she heard me and understood.

"He took me in when my mom left and I didn't have much else to do. He was like a big brother. I trusted him. He was family."

I wipe the wound again. The bleeding had slowed down.

"We were in this thing called a 'gang'. It's just.. a bunch of people looking for a place to belong and so they find it in each other," I explain the concept for her before she asks. "And we were close."

"How many?"

"There was about ten of us.. We did dumb things. We ended up having to run from the cops because.."

I sigh heavily.

"Run from the cops?" El repeats.

"The only other girl in our gang.. she got.. hurt.. by a man," I cringe.

"Hurt.. how?"

I shake my head. "She just got really hurt."

I could never bring myself to say the word in full. 

It's why I refused to let a man get too close. 

Why I hated talking about sex. Why I stayed a virgin until.. until Billy.

"She was really upset after it happened. And.. she just.." I pause.

I blink the tears away.

I hated letting anyone know this story.

Billy was the only person that wasn't a part of the gang to know what happened to her.

"She found a high building.. An apartment building.. And.. she jumped," I say, voice breaking.

"She.. died?"

I sniffle and force myself to nod.

El tilts her head in confusion.

"I uh.. I got really upset. Because that girl meant a lot to me. So.. I looked for the man that hurt her. I found him."

Memories dare to creep back in.

"The gas station," El whispers. "You killed the man at a gas station."

"Did you see that memory, too?" I ask.

"I did.." she nods. "You put a needle in his arm and he dies in the bathroom."

"I overdosed him," I admit. "The cops started looking for me. I went on the run. Hid from the cops for a few months."

"Then, what?"

"Well, it turns out that the man was a part of another gang. And when his friends found out what happened, they started looking for the reason why. They found out I was the one that did it. They found where my gang lived.. and they came in with guns.."

I set the towel aside and pick up the disinfectant. 

"They killed my friends. All because I killed their's."

"But.. that man hurt someone first."

"Eye for an eye," I repeat the phrase one of the members said before shooting Javie.

"Then you showed up at Billy's house. Bleeding. Scared," she recalls another memory.

"And now I'm here," I force a smile through my tears.

El rubs her lips together in thought. "Who was the girl? The one that got hurt?"

I look back at El's wound to avoid her eyes.

"My little sister."

I clear my throat and wipe my tears on my shoulder. 

"How old was she?" El asks.

"She was fourteen when everything happened. When she got hurt."

"She was.. the same age I was when we met," El points out.

"Yeah.. she was," I say through my tears.

El leans forward. I half expected her to be angry. I killed a man. Because of that, my friends died. 

Instead, El wraps me in a hug.

"I'm sorry bad things happened," she whispers.

A sob breaks from my lips and I gently hug El back. She doesn't say anything for awhile. She just lets me cry on her shoulder.

𝒶𝓊𝓉𝒽𝑜𝓇 𝓇𝒶𝓂𝒷𝓁𝑒𝓈--

I FINALLY GOT TO TELL ROC'S BACKSTORY AHH

I hope more things fall into place I just wanted this to be a super specific moment with a specific person and el is The One to find out the whole story