Monday morning, January 15, 1984
Mike's POV
I was so tired I wanted to drop right there on the ground in front of Hawkins Middle. But I needed to be here for El. Today was her first day.
El smiled over at me nervously as we walked, and I could tell she was as tired as I was. But she still managed to smile for me. "You'll do great," I assured her.
"Thanks," she replied, seeming to gain more of a spring in her step. She was so fragile, yet so strong at the same time. She looked beautiful, illuminated by the soft yellow glow of the sun. She was wearing light blue overalls over a long-sleeved gray shirt; one of her new outfits.
We met Dustin, Lucas, and Max by the door to the school, and there was a feeling of knowledge between us as we walked in. The official story was that Will had been sitting outside and had accidentally fallen asleep in the rain, so he had gotten a mild case of hypothermia. But we knew better.
We walked in the classroom, and I told El to sit next to me. There was a guy that sat there named Matt, but he was the type who didn't care about that kind of stuff. He would just sit somewhere else.
As we waited for class to start, I noticed El had pulled a book out of nowhere. I watched her eyes scan the page of the book, and it was so quick that I was almost shocked. I hadn't needed to read to her, but she had let me anyway. She awed me more and more every damn day I knew her. And I loved it.
"El," I said as more people walked in, "you should probably know that we most likely wouldn't go to the Snow Ball alone. Dustin probably wants to take Max, judging from them yesterday, and Lucas wouldn't want to miss out." I noticed people staring at El, and I glared at them until they looked away.
El looked up at me from her book. "As long as I'm with you in some way, I'll be happy."
I smiled at her just as the bell rang, and Mr. Clarke looked up at us from his desk. "Okay, everyone here today? Oh!" he said, noticing El, "hello! You must be Mike's second cousin from Switzerland. Eleanor, if I'm not mistaken?"
"Yes, thank you," El replied easily with a smile. "You can call me El."
Mr. Clarke must have noticed that her hair was shorter and brown, but if he did, he didn't say anything. "Well, welcome to our class, El. Now," he began, addressing all of us now, "who can tell me the seven kingdoms? Anyone remember?"
El shot her hand in the air, and, surprised, he nodded to her. "Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species," she listed.
I stared at her, wide-eyed. Amazing.
YOU ARE READING
you are not alone → stranger things
Fanfiction**DISCLAIMER: i wrote this in like middle school before season two came out & it's pretty cringy but i'm leaving it published bc it has 20k reads😏 ❝ This is not yours to fix alone. You act like you're all alone out there in the world, but you're no...
