𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐑, elmax [ discontinued ]

ch. 5

flashback continued

El's heart rate immediately raised, as she stepped into the decorated gym, filled with teenagers her age. She hated being around many people. She grabbed onto Mike's shoulder for comfort, and to not get lost in the big crowd.

She was too busy keeping an eye on the many kids in the room, she flinched as Mike lifted a waving hand at their friends from across the gym.

El looked in their direction, and just as she frightened; she made eye contact with Max, who was standing in between Dustin and Lucas.

Their eyes were locked for a few seconds, before Max quickly moved her gaze, to somewhere among the crowd of people.
Usually Eleven would be the one to break eye contact, but recently Max had decided to give El the cold shoulder, after months of being ignored herself.

"The others are over there," Mike said, looking back at El and Will.
As he saw the quite unhappy look on their faces, he grabbed around around their wrists, and guided both the friends through the hall.
"Cheer up, both of you," he grinned "let's just have some fun, alright?"
Both Will and El couldn't help it, but smile at their best friend, and follow him to the rest of the friend group.

The three were soon surrounded and greeted by their friends, as they made it to the other side of the room.
"How are y'all?" Dustin opened the conversation.
El always grinned at Dustin's optimism.
"Great!" Mike said, Eleven still lazily resting on his shoulder.

For a few hours El completely forgot about the awkward company of Max, before their eyes, later that night, met again.
El froze.
I can't keep acting like this, she thought, and finally opened her mouth to say something.

"SEVEN MINUTES IN HEAVEN!" she was interrupted, by a voice from the back of the gym. Dustin quickly got up.
"I know what you're thinking... but come on!" he looked excitedly at his friend. He grabbed Lucas and Max' around their upper arms, and got them out of the chairs.
"Alright, alright!" Max laughed, and let Dustin drag her towards the boy's locker room.

Will and El both looked up at Mike, who was now standing up as well.
"Remember what I told you. We should go have fun!" Mike said, and eventually convinced them to come along.

A bunch of students was already gathered in a circle, sitting on the benches and against the lockers, as they stepped inside.

Troy was standing in the middle of the circle with an empty wine bottle in his hand.
"Whoever spins the bottle has to go into the restroom with the person the bottle points to. Simple as that. Mayfield, you're up first," he said loudly, for everybody to hear.

"Whatever," Max shrugged. She grabbed the bottle, and spun it around in the middle of the circle of teenagers.
Meanwhile Mike was trying to find somewhere for them to scoot into being a part of the circle.

After a short while, the three were all sitting down, for El to notice the bottle slowly spinning off, right where she had placed herself.

For a second she panicked, and forgot who had spun the bottle, but she soon came to her senses and panicked even more.
For the third time that night, she locked eyes with the redhead, who was now right across from her.

What are the goddamn odds?

She slowly moved her glance to Lucas, sitting on the left side of Max, to simply see him send her a pity smile.

People around them were whistling teasingly. Of course they didn't know about their awkward state of relationship.

Since none of the two girl dared to get up first, Troy exclaimed: "Get up lesbos, we're accepting homos tonight."
He grabbed El's wrists and pulled her up, the other kids laughing at Troy's comment.

El's heart beat faster, as Max and her were getting pushed into a very small bathroom stall.
El hadn't even had the time to think about if the size of the room would be problematic, but she sure was now, as the door closed behind them.

"Seven minutes from now," they heard from the other side of the door, as they tried to position themselves in the small space.

They ended up standing as pushed up, against the opposite walls of each other, as possible.

El looked down, and she could feel that Max was doing the same.
Neither of them knew what to say or do.

Two whole minutes of silence went by, before Max finally breathed out:
"I-I'm a little... claustrophobic."

El looked up with wide eyes. Max always seemed so tough. As if she wasn't scared of anything. But here they were, and El could most definitely relate. She hated small spaces herself.
"Oh, um... me too."

Eleven wanted to say something, but she knew Max probably wouldn't care.
She figured she would have to apologise for her behaviour, before bringing anything else up.
But El had treated her like shit for more than a year, why would she listen or accept apologies now?

"Look..." she started, but instantly regretted speaking. She paused.

Max waited a little, before going:
"Yeah?"

"I'm- I'm sorry okay... you don't have to... forgive me-"

"I'm sorry too," she interrupted, "I... have been rude as well."

"But I started ignoring you?"

"But I've also been a bitch-"

"No, you haven't- look..."

"I'm sorry!" they exhaled at the same time, causing both the girls to giggle.

Max reached out her hand, for El to shake it. El grabbed her hand without even hesitating. She couldn't help it but smile i little.

In that moment El felt the weird bubbly feeling she'd had, slowly fade.

a/n
that was one long ass chapter i'm so sorry.
also, sorry for it being so lame and cliche lmaoo
hope you enjoyed anyways!
sorry if any typos or generally bad english, i'm so tired right now.