Shatter [Jonathan Byers] Stranger Things II

XXXIII: Harmonious

har·mo·ni·ous

adjective

free from disagreement or dissent

Emilia woke up late the Sunday morning after the party, her head throbbing from staying up late, her eyes itching and red because she hadn't taken off her make up. But she felt with the rest that she had gotten, she was free from stress. She didn't need to think about what happened the night before, none of it mattered. Nancy and Steve possibly breaking up was sad, yes, but it certainly did not affect Emilia.

She crawled out of bed and walked into the kitchen, surprised to see Hopper sitting there.

"Morning," she said groggily.

"Hey kiddo," Hopper raised his mug of coffee like a salute. "Whose car is that in the driveway?"

"I drove a friend home last night, which reminds me, will you help me get my car back?" she asked him.

Hopper nodded, his eyes tired.

"Long night?" she asked him, sitting down beside him and reaching over to grab a mug and pouring her coffee. She stirred in a heap of sugar and then took a sip, relaxing incredibly. Her shoulders dropped and she felt at ease for just a few minutes.

"How'd you guess?" He rolled his eyes.

"Let's talk about it on the drive?" She asked, then threw the keys up in the air a few times. Hopper agreed solemnly, and they got into Steve's car. She'd drive them to her own car, Hopper would take one vehicle and Emilia the other, then they would drive together to Steve's, drop off the car and get into Emilia's for the ride home. Plenty of time to talk.

It was on the drive home in her car that Hopper told her that El had been acting up, and that he had failed her that night. He was supposed to bring her home some candy, and they would eat it together without caring about how unhealthy it was. He knew that all she wanted to do was go see Mike, but he still couldn't allow that. Emilia understood Hopper's side of it, but she also wanted to let El do what she wanted, to see Mike and her other friends, just so that they would know she is alive and relatively well.

"Want me to talk to her?" Emilia asked as they pulled back into Hopper's driveway together in her car.

"She misses you too, I think it would help," Hopper admitted. "I guess I was never meant to raise a teenage girl."

"Raising a teenage girl is the hardest parenting task, apparently. We all go through the 'I hate my parents' stage, it's emotionally draining."

"You can say that again," Hopper lightened up. "Dinner tonight?"

"You got it," Emilia smiled. She then adopted a voice that mimicked how teenage girls were supposed to speak in the movies when talking to their parents, "now get out of my car, dad! I need to see my boyfriend! You're ruining my life!"

Hopper grinned and stepped out, "Be safe, kiddo."

"Always am."

She pulled into the bowling alley, the crack of pins being knocked to the ground loud enough to sound through the closed door. Emilia saw Jonathan's car was already there, and so she rushed inside. She wasn't more than five minutes late, and presumed he just didn't want to sit in the cold of his car, and instead got their lane booked and ready. As she entered, she spotted him and grinned. Kicking off her shoes, she swapped them for the totally embarrassing bowling shoes and walked towards their lane. It was smack in the center, but there weren't too many people at the alley that Sunday morning. Just a couple of seniors who took their Sunday bowling seriously.

"Hey," Emilia kissed Jonathan, feeling his lips and thinking that her own had kissed someone else the night before. No, she told herself, she had not kissed Steve, Steve had kissed her and that made a world of a difference. She knew that she had to tell Jonathan, but she didn't know how to bring it up when everything felt so harmonious.

"I went back to the party last night and you were gone," he frowned.

Emilia typed in her name for the scoring computer, and glanced over her shoulder at Jonathan. "You disappeared, I wasn't sure if you would be coming back, I know you didn't want to be there in the first place. I ended up driving Steve home, he was wasted."

"Oh," Jonathan laughed a little, "I drove Nancy home because of how drunk she was."

"I know," Emilia replied.

Jonathan got up to take his turn, rolling the large bowling ball along the sleek alley. The ball looked as though it was gliding, and then it struck the middle pin and knocked over eight of the ten pins. The two on either end stood tall, unmoving, and like they were laughing. He grabbed another ball to throw again after the machine had removed the other fallen pins. Glancing over his shoulder, he asked Emilia, "You're not mad, right?"

He took his second roll.

"No, of course not! You did a really kind thing, and I guess I did the same," she stood up to start her turn, passing Jonathan as they traded places.

"I felt really bad, just so you know," Jonathan told her. "I told Jenny to let you know where I had gone, but I guess she didn't..."

Emilia shrugged, then took her roll, knocking down only a meager half of the pins. Bowling was never really something she'd been good at, but she had fun nonetheless, and that was what mattered. She took her second roll and still had pins left behind, and she already knew that Jonathan was probably going to win this game. They had all afternoon together, and so she didn't care if she won or lost, she just wanted to be by his side. No Billy to harass her, no Steve and Nancy to express their problems with, no one between them, but them.

"The party kind of sucked," Emilia admitted. "And I'm sorry I made you go."

Jonathan shrugged, "It was a compromise. We can't just do what we both want to do, sometimes we have to try new things."

"Like what?" she asked, referring to things other than going to boring, mundane, awkward high school social events.

Jonathan shrugged as he got up for his next turn. "Sort of like this summer, when we took off for the week."

Emilia thought about it, she had really enjoyed that week despite the one event. She leaned back in the hard, plastic semi-circle booth and watched Jonathan finish off his turn in one roll, hitting a strike with ease. He didn't show cockiness in his success, but there was a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Things were good, she realized, between them. She thought of Steve and Nancy, and how they were possibly broken up now, and what that would mean for the most popular couple in Hawkins high. She smiled at Jonathan, glad they didn't have that sort of popularity buzzing around their heads.

"Let's do something like that again," she suggested. "Maybe we can go to New York over Christmas?"

He glanced at her, "You're really serious about moving to New York with me, aren't you?"

She nodded, "Are... aren't you?"

"Yes!" he chimed as he slid into the booth next to her, "Of course I am."

She smiled crookedly, "You better be."

"But I'd also be happy here in Hawkins with you. Just as long as it's you and me."

"You and me," Emilia repeated quietly, nodding lovingly as she finished. 

I've completed my Bane (Dark Knight Rises) story so I have more time to focus on this again! I've started a Star Wars (Kylo Ren) story as well, and I'm comfortable with two fan fics at once! 

Question of the Day: Do you think Emilia should have told Jonathan that Steve (drunkenly) kissed her?