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chapter eleven - ❝ on this night, and in this light, i think i'm falling, i'm falling for you ❞
[ ∞ · ♡ ]
Hawkins Community Pool was the best place to go for a swim. Unless, of course, you were a little rebel and wanted to go swimming in the murky dark water of the quarry. But most people decided to go to the public pool. Especially many teenagers.
Mike and El had been talking all day continuously about wanting to swim. The only problem with this particular activity was that they couldn't risk the chance of being seen in the town, because surely somebody would have reported seeing the police chief's runaway daughter.
The quarry was definitely not happening, though. Ever since an incident where he almost fell off the cliff's edge, Mike had been rather wary of returning back to the quarry for any reason. The fear he felt in those few seconds before El arrived ready to pull him back by the fabric of his jacket and scare off Troy with a simple threat of reporting that whole scene to her dad, he had never wanted to go back.
So, the only option would have been swimming at the public pool, which Mike was also against because he knew somebody was bound to recognize either of them out in the open like that. And though it seemed inevitable that at some point they would need to return to their own homes, he was still enjoying the little home they had here for themselves.
However, El really found the whole swimming thing very appealing, and the gears in her brain began to whir with an idea. And this idea is exactly what El suggested to Mike on their fifth day alone together in the cabin.
After much discussion back and forth, constant worry from Mike, El being incredibly stubborn with each point she made, she finally managed to convince him to follow through on her idea.
But for this particular idea, it involved them needing to head out once the sun was beginning to set.
With his backpack packed up with a towel for each and slung over his shoulders, flashlights in their hands shining along the ground outside even though it wasn't entirely dark yet, they trudged through the woods side by side together.
It was much like any other thing they did together in those days. Talking and laughing and teasing and smiling. El would poke Mike's cheek with her index finger as she teased him because his cheeks were turning red, Mike would lightly bump his hip against hers when she was starting to get annoyed with him. When he made a joke about Troy being her perfect match, El abruptly jumped onto his back, but Mike would only grin to himself as he pretended to try to peel her arms away from him.
