Shutter [Jonathan Byers] Stranger Things I

XXXVII: Forsaken

for·sak·en

adjective

abandoned or deserted.

"Emilia!" His voice cracked behind her.

She didn't stop walking, although the bus she needed to get home had already left the school. She'd have to walk to a home where she wasn't even wanted. At the time, she wasn't even considering going to Hopper's; she wanted him to find Will, and her being at his house only made that more difficult. She'd wanted to go talk to Joyce, to tell her what she had heard because maybe to her it would make sense, and maybe Joyce could convince Emilia that she wasn't losing her mind. But instead, she was walking away from the one person who had ever made her feel like she was wanted.

She felt utterly forsaken.

"Emilia, wait!" Jonathan yelled again, this time his voice was firmer, "Let me say something!"

She slammed on her metaphorical brakes, stopping so fast that Jonathan nearly ran into her; he'd been only a few steps behind her, shattered camera in hand. She turned around so quickly that Jonathan took a step back, as if she was a vicious animal giving him a warning before it attacked for real. Her blue eyes glistened like the ocean, each tear like a wave disrupting the normal placidity of them. He felt so much shame in that moment, with her tear-streaked face looking back at him, unsure of who he was and why he had done what he had. He didn't truly know why he did it, but he had a feeling it was similar to why he had taken the pictures of Emilia back when she was in the hospital. He saw something sad in Nancy, and he wanted to capture that emotion. He didn't take the picture because she wasn't wearing a shirt.

Now, he had to figure out how to put that into words. But if anyone would understand, it would be Emilia.

"What?! Jonathan!" She shouted louder than she meant to, turning a few heads. "What do you have to say?"

"Tha-" he paused, crinkling his brow. "That those pictures aren't what..."

"What everyone thinks they are?" She asked, her voice steadier than his for once. "I know that, Jonathan. You don't think I don't understand that you were taking them because you see things the rest of us don't?"

"You mean you..."

"Does that make it any easier?" She lifted her shoulders, eyes still watering, then dropped her shoulders and wiped the tears. The dripped from her fingertips to the concrete. "Does it make it easier to hear that you had nude photos of Nancy? At first I thought... I thought they were the ones of me. Then I figured it out, of course I did. You know, after last night... Where I felt that the only... The only person in the world who cared about me was you and, I don't know, your mother, I wanted nothing more than to be with you. But where were you when I was-"

Of everything he'd heard, he asked, "When you were what?"

"Doesn't matter," she mumbled. "You were out there taking pictures of Nancy, and I thought- I thought you only saw me that way, okay?"

"I do!" He exclaimed, raising his hands as if it accented his point. "I do only see you that way, Emilia. I wasn't out there looking to take pictures of her, I didn't know she was even going to be there. I was looking for Will, I promise you that is true, and I ended up there."