you are not alone → stranger things

xxxii. talk

lol I wish I'd made it Friday the 13th instead of Saturday the 13th

Saturday afternoon
Mike's POV

The chief had made us get out of the car for nothing.

He had seemed to have some kind of plan to have us all sneak in, but it doesn't work as well as if it were just him. All of us couldn't get past that chain-link fence. So we had to walk back to the car.

At least one good thing came out of it. I found out how El had come back.

"Weren't you in the Upside Down? How'd you get back?" Max questioned her as we walked together.

After the long speech she'd given, El seemed even more reluctant to speak. "Will."

"He brought you back?" I asked, confused. "How?"

El sighed. "He came to the Upside Down every night. It was the weirdest thing: he would never remember the nights. We would always have the same conversation at the beginning, and I would have to remind him. Sometimes he would be himself, but other times mean and strange. He would say he wanted to kill me. But other times..." She coughed and went silent.

"El," I pleaded. "I know you don't usually talk so much, but this is the most I've ever learned about you. I didn't even know you could talk so much. If you answer, we won't bother you anymore. Right, Max?" I gave her a pointed look.

Max nodded. "Right."

El looked down. "We made a trade. If I helped him to stop coming there and have a normal life, he would try to bring me back. "

"Okay." And then we were silent for the rest of the walk.

Now, as we got into Chief Hopper's car, there was an awkward silence. "El," I murmured softly as the engine started, "why don't you like to talk?"

She wouldn't look at me. "Papa told me it was bad to talk. He would put me in isolation whenever I did."

I breathed out a sigh and kissed her cheek. "It isn't bad to talk, El."

Max cleared her throat, and I looked at her in annoyance. "If she doesn't want to talk, you can't force her," she said quietly, glancing at the adults.

I opened my mouth to protest, but I noticed the car was slowing. We were nearing something that looked like a ticket booth with a security guard inside.

Chief Hopper rolled the window down. "Chief of Hawkins. We need to get in."

The security guard leaned out of the window and looked at everyone in the car, his lips pursed. "Do you have identification?"

"Just let us in," he growled.

"Sir, I'm afraid I can't if you don't have clearance to get in."

The chief leaned out the window, his face twisted in a snarl. "You let us in that damn gate, asshole."

"If you don't have clearance-" The guard suddenly cut off, and his expression froze. El leaned forward, taking off her seatbelt and staring at him intensely through the window. He fell limply forward, his nose bashing into the control panel before he collapsed to the ground.

I looked at her in awe. She never seemed to fail to amaze me.

Max jumped out of the car and clambered into the ticket booth. After a moment, she pressed a button on the control panel, and the gate lifted.

As she got back in, I looked over at El again. She had leaned back, looking tired. Her nose was bloody. I wordlessly put my arm around her, and she leaned into me. Her breathing was still jagged, and I wondered if her ribs had gotten worse.

"I love you," I whispered into her growing hair. I hadn't said it since Monday night, when Mom had found out about her. She seemed to hear, and looked up at me with a tired smile.

"Love you too." She said it simply, quietly. She didn't say it like I'd seen it in the sappy movies Nancy likes, desperately and urgently like it was the last time they would speak to each other. She said it with just the intention of being understood.

Two words: mileven. trash.