Shutter [Jonathan Byers] Stranger Things I

VI: Broken

bro·ken

adjective

(of a person) having given up all hope; despairing.

Once again the car ride was near silent, only the hum of the engine and the faintest of music coming from the speakers in the back made any noise. There was no tension of awkwardness this time, as if Jonathan and Emilia had broken through a boundary that both of them struggled with. That boundary was opening up to each other, trusting someone other than themselves, accepting that they were outcasts among the masses. Emilia leaned back in her seat and kept her eyes ahead of her; ever since the accident she was always too aware on the roads. Always shoulder checking for the driver, her hand darting out as if to warn them of something that wasn't there, her foot pressing hard against the floor of the car as if she could slow the car down with her mind. She relaxed a tiny bit, feeling safe with Jonathan driving beside her. Because he knew of the accident, he took it slow.

He was also driving slow because he knew that their time was almost up. Part of him wanted to invite her over for dinner, and yet that seemed so pathetically formal in his mind. Girls didn't like formal, right? Girls liked edgy? He laughed out loud at the thought, a small scoff coming from his lips that was audible and turned Emilia's head in his direction. The moment he felt her blue eyes upon him, he realized that he had made a mistake and didn't know how to explain himself.

Oh god, he's laughing at me.

"You can just drop me off here," she said sternly all of a sudden, and before Jonathan could protest she added, "I can walk."

"You live at the edge of town, it's freezing out there," he argued, "I'm not letting you walk in the dark."

"So you're just going to make fun of me? Like everyone else?" She felt irrational tears well up in her eyes, something she couldn't prevent when she became a target. At school she often found herself numb to the bullying, but one on one was so much more brutal. She had learned that first hand a long time ago.

"N-no!" Jonathan slowed the car only because he was paying less attention to his driving now. "Where did you get that from?"

"Why were you laughing?" Emilia's voice wavered when she asked, unsure now.

Jonathan let out half a scoff, worried now that he had to explain the reason behind his laughter. He lifted one hand off of the steering wheel to gesture a sort of shrug, and when he saw Emilia flinch in his peripheral vision, he quickly replaced it. "I thought about asking you over for... for dinner. And then I thought that was corny, or something."

A brutal silence filled the car as the both of them processed the unhinged situation that had just occurred. Jonathan had learned that Emilia was definitely less stable than she seemed, and he wondered what else caused her to be so quick to jump to conclusions. He had a thought, a suspicion of where that came from, but did not choose to comment his thought. Emilia had learned that there was still kind people in Hawkins, a realization that she had thought impossible, or at least improbable.

Emilia scrunched her face as she tried to formulate her apology. "I'm sorry, I'm not used to-"

"It's alright." He smiled authentically. "So that's a no to dinner?"