𝙨𝙞𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 [st/it]

₁₃ . sneaking out

June 21st, 1985
2:07 am

El gazed across the endless black expanse in front of her. She heard the voice of a boy behind her. El turned around to see her brother, talking to somebody. He had his hand outstretched, clutching another person's, most likely Beverly. El wondered to herself why he was out with her this late at night.

Suddenly, El jolted up in bed. Mike had shaken her awake.

"El are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine."

"Were you having a nightmare?"

"No. My dreams took me to see Bill. He's with Beverly."

Mike picked up his watch from the nightstand. "But it's 2 o'clock in the morning. do you think they snuck out?"

"Probably. Maybe I should find him." She almost felt as if that would be an invasion of his privacy, especially since Bill was with a girl El could tell he liked, but for some reason, she felt it was necessary. It had to mean something if he suddenly appeared in her dream. It's very rare that El finds someone in her sleep without looking. When it does happen she usually just sees Mike, who she is normally just asleep. While El contemplated, Mike patiently gazed at her, caught up in her dark, gleaming eyes for a minute.

"Pass me the blindfold," she said, knocking Mike out of his trance. Mike got up and pulled a bandana out of the side pocket in El's backpack that was resting at the foot of her bed on the floor. He got back on the bed and gestured for El to turn around. She did and he secured the fabric around her head.

El started thinking about Bill, and when she just saw him. In her mind, she had a sense of where he was. He was with Beverly at the quarry, which the losers had told them how to get to when they went on their tour of Derry. "At the quarry," she said, pulling the bandana off.

Mike was sitting right in front of her with his legs crossed. He reached forward and wiped the blood off her face, making El smile and blush, which then made Mike giggle.

"Do you want to go for a walk?," El asked, "I don't want to sleep."

"Sure. Or we could just bike to the quarry," said Mike.

✰

20 minutes later, after carefully leaving the house and biking away from the suburbs and into the woods, El and Mike reached the end of their path. They were at the bottom of the quarry. The water was almost still and had the reflection of the night sky and cliff above cast over it. The only noises were the sounds of crickets and a few owls.

"Where are they?" whispered Mike.

"I don't know," said El, placing her bike on the ground and turning off its light. She noticed two other bikes were leaned up against a tree next to hers. "They're here." She stepped forwards over to the edge of the rocks that began after the path. Over the water, about 50 yards away, she saw two figures sitting next to a large fire. She gestured for Mike to come over, so he joined her side.

"BILL! BEVERLY!," he yelled, the noise echoing in the silent quarry.

"RICHIE?" Bev responded.

"NO," yelled El. "IT'S EL AND MIKE!"

"COME OVER HERE!" said bill.

Mike and El walked over the rocks until they reached the area where Bill and Bev were sitting on a log. They had their fire blazing 20 feet from the water, right on the edge of the forest where the quarry started. There was another adjacent log, where Mike and El sat down after El had hugged her brother.