Love Me Back // Elmax Fanfiction

Chapter 14 ~ Woah

TW: MENTION OF SELF HARM SCARS

The Next Day
I'd slept on the floor of El's room. Of course I would have much rather slept with her in her bed, but I was afraid to go too quickly, and I was still unsure about what Eleven really felt for me.
The last thing I wanted was to get deeper into this void.
Of course, the brunette had wanted to sleep on the floor, but she ended up falling asleep on the bed while we were reading comics. She looked so peaceful; how could I possibly have awakened her?
I had woken up about five minutes ago, of course before El. She always slept for the longest time. I had an urge to stand up, lay next to her, and just appreciate her, but I decided that that would probably freak her out when she woke up.
Deciding instead to be productive with myself, I stood up, despite my entire body arguing with that decision. I grabbed my clothes for the day and turned toward El's wall, feeling oddly uncomfortable with changing while facing her. I pulled off my shirt and slipped into a clean one. Doing the same with my pants, I took a quick, shameful glance at the cut marks on my thighs before hurriedly pulling on a clean pair of jeans. I then walked up to the mirror in the brunette's room to inspect myself; I wanted to look extra pretty for her. I tucked my shirt in and inspected it from all angles, making sure there were no lumps in my pants from the shirt being all bunched up. Once that was done, I began to fix my hair.
Suddenly, I heard a light giggle from behind me. I jumped a little, as the noise was unexpected. This only made her giggle more.
"How long have you been watching me?" I questioned Eleven, raising an eyebrow. My attempt to make her flustered had succeeded— she began to glow a bright red. Now it was my turn to laugh. "Creep," I added jokingly. "I'll turn around then, so you can get dressed in peace," I said, twirling around  to face the wall. "Unlike some people," I let out under my breath, just loud enough so that I knew she had heard it. I was assured of this when she let out a short giggle. God, was she adorable.
"Done!" Eleven chirped. I turned back around and she was standing surprisingly close. I took a step back, taking a sharp breath and holding it. My face burned. She set her hands on the wall and leaned even closer, mere inches away from me. She leaned in but ghosted my lips and whispered in my ear. "Gotcha." Her face was so close to mine that I could feel her warm breath. My hands were wet with sweat, and my body wracked with a quick chill when I felt her breath on my neck. Her sudden dominance quickly diminished, though, as she pulled away, began giggling and booped my nose, linking her arm with mine.
"Woah," I whispered, unable to keep the feeling inside my head. Luckily, it was quiet enough that El couldn't hear it over her ridiculous giggling.

Later, at Mike's
Our arms had remained hooked all the way to Mike's house. The boys had wanted to play D&D, so naturally Mike had invited El and Lucas had invited me. I wasn't originally planning on going, but then the whole thing with Eleven happened, so I obviously had a change of heart.
I was not looking forward to seeing Mike, and I could tell that between our conversations on the way over, during the silences, that the brunette was thinking of the same thing.
The thought of El and Mike being together made me physically sick to my stomach.
We strolled up to the front door of Mike's house, and El used her free hand to knock at the door. Free hand. Suddenly terrified, I hurriedly unhooked my arm from Eleven's. She didn't have time to be disappointed, though, because Karen Wheeler threw the door open not a second later.
"Hi, girls!" She chirruped, her eyes looking back and forth between me and El. I shifted uncomfortably. "I haven't seen you in quite a while, Max." What am I even supposed to say to that?
I laughed awkwardly. "Yeah," I said. She took that as her signal to open the door to us all the way. Eleven let me pass by first, and I walked past Mrs. Wheeler, smiling. I stood off to the side for a split second, waiting for El to be at my side again.
I was nervous, and I knew she could tell. The brunette reached for my hand, and even though I knew she was just trying to be helpful and sweet, I pulled my hand away. Stupidly, my mind flashed back to this morning when she was standing right in my face. I was stopped in my tracks. Eleven seemed to shake off the hurt of me pulling my hand away, and instead grabbed my wrist to pull me along.
When we reached the basement, we found only Mike sitting on the main couch, playing Atari.
Fuck. We're alone.
"Oh, hi, El!" Mike enthused, jumping up off the couch to give her a kiss. I tried my best to contain myself without making it too obvious that I had to in the first place.
She appeared only slightly uncomfortable at his touch.
After he pulled away, he looked to me, "Max? I didn't know you were coming."
"I changed my mind," I attempted to say in the most annoyed tone possible.
"Oh, well, I was just playing Atari." Mike motioned toward the couch and grabbed El's hand to pull her over there. She looked into my eyes for only the shortest second, but I knew that she was trying to say sorry.
     It didn't hurt any less.
I awkwardly followed them to the couch and sat at a rather uncomfortable distance from them. I stared at my lap, playing with my hands, while Mike talked and kissed El's face off.
"Mike," El suddenly blurted, sounding annoyed.
"Yeah?" He looked oblivious to the fact that she was upset.
"I don't wanna just sit here and kiss right now... it's rude." She motioned towards where I was sitting.
"Oh, uh, yeah, sorry," Mike stuttered, slightly flustered and maybe a bit taken aback. I flashed El a grateful smile, and wondered how El could be so cute while she was flustered, thinking back to this morning, but Mike could be almost annoying. Silence hung thick in the air.
As if on cue, Lucas and Dustin burst through the door. Thank god.
This was going to be a long day.

I'm giving y'all an extra chapter because of that ranking! Thank you so much, like I seriously only expected to get like 20 views on this story! You're all awesome. That song was a bit out of character for me tbh, but the lyrics are very relatable.((Yeah, I ended up changing it because it didn't feel right for this chapter.))

lmao anyway, thanks again for the stars and for commenting. I'm glad you're enjoying this books so far!

Word Count: 1221

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