Shutter [Jonathan Byers] Stranger Things I

XLI: Atonement

a·tone·ment

noun

reparation for a wrong or injury.

She clung to his warmth, and to everything else that he was able to make her feel when she held him like that. Emilia wanted to forget the world around her was spinning and going on, moving beyond the discovery of Will's body, moving beyond everything and back to their day-to-day lives. When she held onto Jonathan she felt all the anxiety slip away, and so she embraced him a little longer. She could feel his heart beating against his chest, his own arms wrapped tightly around her in such a protective manner that she had never felt before. She nibbled her lip, nuzzling her forehead against his chest, and taking a deep breath before breaking free from the embrace.

A car honked their horn, and Jonathan and Emilia were forced to dart out of the middle of the crosswalk they were standing on. On the sidewalk now, Emilia and Jonathan stood facing each other, hands clasped loosely. His hands were cold, clammy. Hers were bitter cold to the touch, pale too. Looking up at Jonathan, she took another deep breath and this time allowed the words to come from her lips.

"I'm so sorry, Jonathan," her voice was far quieter than she intended, but he'd heard her.

He nodded, although he had not accepted his brothers death, he wasn't about to go chasing possibilities that he was in the walls or in the lights. He believed that his mother was grasping at any possibility, and he understood that, but it had gone too far now. His lip quivered, and to hide this, Jonathan put his head down on Emilia's shoulder, and tried not to cry. This was not how he was supposed to be spending her senior year, his Christmas break; crying on his girlfriend's shoulder. It was pathetic, he felt that so deeply, but Emilia did nothing to make him feel ashamed for it. That was something he loved about her.

"W-ll y- c-me w-th me,"he mumbled into her shoulder.

"What?" She pulled back, looking at his red eyes.

"Will you, uhm, come with me...? To the funeral home..."

She nodded, "Of course."

She never got to pick out a casket for her mother, and she always knew that her father had been secretly pleased with that. The money that should have gone to a casket or to funeral arrangements went instead to booze. They hadn't chosen a casket because there was no body, her father chose no plot in a cemetery. They had not even had a wake, no way to mourn the dead and move on. Emilia knew it was important to try and heal by having one final goodbye, even if the person was gone already. Aside from a death certificate shoved in a drawer somewhere, there was no evidence that her mother even died. And given that there were no pictures of her left, Emilia wondered if there was even any proof that she ever lived either.

They drove the few blocks down to the funeral home; although they could have walked, it was clear that Emilia was freezing and Jonathan had parked illegally in order to chase after his mum and shout at her. The guilt still clung to him like a bad odour, but he felt it dissipate slightly as he sat next to Emilia. In the short time it took them to drive, Jonathan asked her how she ended up staying with Hopper, and how Hopper knew about them.

Emilia shrugged, "Got in a fight with my dad, ended up almost getting hit by Hopper."

"Hit?"