🅢🅐🅕🅔 🅗🅐🅥🅔🅝| Madwheeler

chapter 10

Mike had thought about what Dustin said and knew it would be best to break up with El before he ended up hurting her. It would be the best, he knew that. So he was going to do it, he was going to break up with El.

But he didn't.

As soon as he was let into her bedroom he opened his mouth to tell the cute brunette in front of him sitting on her bed the heartbreaking news but nothing came out of his mouth. He stood there frozen like a rock, trying to find the words but unable to.

"Mike?" El asked curiously as she gave her boyfriend a confused look before getting off her bed and walking over to him. She poked his cheeks to try and get his attention back since he seemed to be deep in thought. He blinked before looking into her eyes and seeing the hope in them, realizing she thought what he had to say was good. He couldn't do it. He didn't want to break her fragile heart. He couldn't do that to her, she didn't deserve it at all. 

Besides he knew if he did do it Lucas would become curious and approach him about it and he wasn't sure if he would be able to keep his mouth shut, he was used to telling Lucas things just like he did with Dustin but this was something that could only stay between him and Dustin. And unfortunately Lucas was very skillful at making people talk about things they didn't want to.

Except when it came to Max since he, her very own boyfriend, still didn't know her problems. He knew of them since she had talked about them before with him but only vaguely. He had some guesses about what happened in her home but he had no idea which ones were right and which ones weren't. He was so great at getting people to talk but he hadn't gotten Max to.

It occurred to Mike that there had to be some reason for the fact that he knew more about Max's problems than her own boyfriend did. Maybe it was only because she knew Mike could understand since his family wasn't the best either but he felt it was something more than that. Max was someone who was hard to get to know and the fact that he knew more about her life than Lucas didn't settle well with him. He kept wondering about that, him constantly asking in his head, why is that? why is that? why is that?

Mike was stuck, he didn't know what to say to El. She was expecting him to say something so if he just brushed it off she would become confused. But he couldn't think of what else say besides the terrible words he needed to say. And he wasn't going to say those so he decided just to stick with brushing it off, not caring if he ended up confusing El, "nothing, nevermind."

El gave him another confused look, "weren't you going to say something?" That was why he had come over. He called before and told her he needed to talk to her about something in person. But now he had blown it. He nodded and replied, "yeah but I'm not ready yet, I'll tell you some other time." He figured that was a believable lie, at least for El. She studied him for a moment before nodding, "okay, let me know when you are ready to tell me. " He gave her a smile as he nodded back at her, "I will."

He then moved and was about ready to leave when she grabbed one of his arms with her hands, clinging on like she was a lost child who had just been found by their guardian. He looked down at her, giving her a look as if asking what she was doing. "Can you stay for a little bit?" She asked him with her big puppy dog eyes. He knew well enough by now that whenever she asked him to stay it meant she wanted to cuddle or kiss and he didn't feel like doing either after what he had failed to do. He bit his lip as he thought for a moment, knowing she would need a good reason for why he couldn't stay if he told her no. "Sure," he eventually said after a moment, figuring that would just be the easiest thing to do. He was tired of trying to come up with good lies. He was tired of lying in general.

El gave him a happy smile before lightly bringing him over to her bed, letting go of his arm before jumping onto her bed and plopping on it. He sat down on the bed next to her and as soon as he did she moved to sit across from him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He wrapped his arms around her waist in return as he did his best to keep a smile. "I love you Mike," she told him softly with a warm expression full of pure adoration. "I love you too El," he replied in a similar soft tone as he forced his smile to grow. He knew for sure that he didn't mean that anymore, at least not in a romantic way.