Together Again

Chapter One - The New Kid (part 1)

  Mike, Lucas, Dustin and Will were hanging out in Mikes basement, in the late August of 1985. They heard a car door slam. "Bye" came a small voice from outside.

  "Ooh, here comes el" Lucas cooed, while beside him Dustin made a kissy face.

  "You just wait until Max gets here, remember, your girlfriend." Mike joked

  "Oh, Max is coming." Came Elevens disgusted voice from the top of the stairs

  The boys all went silent.

Dustin broke the silence and went on to tell her yes, because he was Lucas' girlfriend, to which Lucas responded with "is not", then the fight of "is not's" and "is too's" flooded the room.

~about a week after the snowball~
"I'm telling you, El doesn't like me"  Max exclaimed, "we can't be together if your best friend is dating her." The argument continued. They both wonted to be together but didn't know how to make it work with Mike and El, with tears in her eyes Max said "I don't want to lose you stalker, but you have to stay loyal to Mike" she planted a kiss on his cheek and mumbled "I'm gonna miss you stalker" then turned away leaving Lucas speechless.

  After she got home she ran to her room, her mom was out again, she was stuck with Billy. She slammed her door and started sobbing, they were tears of both sadness and anger.Why did that stupid Eleven have to come back and ruin everything? Why would she break up with Lucas for people who didn't even like her?

  She looked up to see Billy leaning in the doorway, a smug look on his face. "I told you to stay away from Sinclair, you should have listened to me"

  "And I told you to stay away from me and my friends! This is none of your business!!"  She shouted back angrily

  "Your friends!? Last I checked friends weren't supposed to make you run home crying" Billy stated harshly, he started to soften slightly "I just don't want to see you get hurt Maxine." Max couldn't believe that she was hearing, Billy say that he....cared about her?

  Dustin and Lucas's arguing was interrupted by Eleven asking Mike if he would help her practice for tomorrow. She was so nervous about starting school tomorrow. What would the other kids think of her? Her vocabulary had improved but was still no where near Mikes. The other kids had helped her practice making complete sentences and she was getting the hang of it, but her stomach still felt like it had just been punched every time she thought of school. After all, last time she was there on a school day she made some kid pee his pants in front of everyone, she hoped no one would recognize her. Mike helped her practice having a conversation with people and introducing herself, and even her fake life story. What if she accidentally said something about the lab?

  Mike could tell that something was wrong. "Hey, you'll do great tomorrow" he said and leaned towards her to brush a hair out of her face, be hind her he could see Will, Dustin, and Lucas silently mocking him and making kissy faces, that stopped him from actually kissing her, although he desperately longed to.

  Their moment was interrupted by Max entering the room. El rolled her eyes and mumbled "great" under her breath.

  "Hey!" Lucas said cheerfully as he walked over to her "I was wondering when you'd get here"

  "Did you miss me that much Stalker?" Max said sarcastically

  And embarrassed Lucas looked down at his feet as an awkward silence lingered, but lucky for him the silence was broken by Max asking what they were up to. In the background El squeezed Mikes hand, she always got a weird feeling when she was around Max. Feeling the warmth and familiarity of Mikes hand helped her to relax. Mike had noticed how tightly she gripped his hand whenever Max was around, but he didn't think he should ask why.

  "We were just about to go to the junkyard" replied Will, answering her question

  The group grabbed their bikes, and El borrowed Nancy's Max had finally decided she should get a bike because her skateboard didn't do very well off-road. The group hopped on and rode into the sunset towards the junkyard.