011 ~ A Mileven Fanfic

Chapter the Eleventh

MIKE'S POV

It's been a month since the whole nightmare situation. She still has nightmares quite often and every time I simply run down to the basement and hold her in my arms until she stops crying. And she does the same for me. And we both do the same for Nancy.

It's kind of like an unspoken bond between the three of us. Every night we hold each others, whispering the others' fears away and in the morning we simply go on with our normal lives, never mentioning it. We all go to school, do our homework, hang out with our friends, and then go to bed wondering who it'll be this night.

El and I haven't talked about that first night. I had tried to ask her about the apology but she just froze up and hasn't said anything since. I have heard some concerning things in her sleep though. Threatening things. Sometimes she'll mutter the names of her enemies or just the word "kill". Once she repeatedly screamed the name of the man who ran the movie theater downtown. Neither Nancy and I could figure it out. The man showed up dead the next day. His body was found in his car, in the quarry. There were no skid marks so they claimed suicide though everyone who knew him knew he was the nicest, happiest fellow out there. Also, as they reported suicide on the news, El screamed "no!" and ran out of the house. It took me two hours to find her.

We haven't really questioned it though. El is just coming out of her shell and we don't want to ruin it. In fact, her opening up is amazing. She's incredibly happy now and keeping the boys, my family, Hopper, Jonathan, all of us happy, a shining light we all desperately need.

My mom's now homeschooling El. They both quite like it. My mom finally has something to do and El has a passion for learning. Her favorite subject is history. I asked her about it once and she said that history teaches us about the future. It's quite poetic.

El's english is also really coming along. Of course, she's still not as articulate as most other 14 year old girls but she's getting there. We can hold long conversations now and she doesn't need me to explain everything.

We haven't kissed yet. I don't know yet if she really knows what is means. However, she and Nancy have become best friends and they often spend their evenings in Nancy's room, giggling and talking about girl things. And my girl things I mean complex chemistry and Nancy's chances of getting into Harvard. Which is basically 100%. Nevertheless, I'm sure Nancy has told her about kissing and I'm sure she knows we kissed.

I've held hands with El a lot and we keep getting stuck in that almost kiss phase where you're staring into each other's eyes and then suddenly something forces you to pull apart. I just don't know what to do.

Actually I have some idea of what to do. I've been talking to the guys and I'm going to ask her to be my girlfriend. At this point I'm sure Nancy has told her what it is and asked her about me.

I was originally going to get her some cheesy bracelet or necklace but I realized that El wasn't into that material stuff. I think I'm just going to have a nice meal with her and ask. I know her answer will probably be yes but for some reason I'm still so, so nervous.