neighbors ~ mileven

five thousand and one

                                        ~*~

It was 11 am when El woke up, with a slight headache. El brought her hand up to her temple when she felt the weight of an arm laying on the curve of her waist.

Not only that, but she could hear sniffling from close behind her.

She craned her neck slowly to see Mike Wheeler with his chest against her back and his head buried in her hair.

"Mike?"

Mike wiped the dried tears off his face before removing his arm, allowing her to turn around and face him.
"Hey, how are you feeling?"


"Kind of confused. Why are you crying?"

"No nothing. It's your conditioner or something; I have allergies."

"You and I both know you use more conditioner than I do. Seriously what's wrong?"

"Seriously, nothing." Mike said through a tight lipped smile


"Mike. Please don't pull that distance shit on me right now okay? We actually had a real conversation last night, most of it did consist of me venting and you just standing there, but still. Please just talk to me." El pleaded.

Mike was always able to ignore anything when it came to El if he put enough distance between them. Now, with her looking at him with those big soulful brown eyes and her hair in his hands, it was impossible.

"I'm so sorry El. I'm just so fucking sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when your mom passed. I'm sorry I cut you off without telling you why. I'm sorry I'm still not able to talk about it. I still care about you too and I have missed you like crazy. I've missed us going thrift store hunting. I've missed us going to your job and buying terrible music. I've missed us going to the lost and found and claiming dumb stuff. I've missed all of it and I'm so, so, so sorry for everything I let you go through without me. I know I don't deserve your forgiveness at all, but I just want you to know that I'm gonna work like hell to earn it."

El tried to fight the tears brimming the edge of her eye lids.

"Damn right you don't deserve my forgiveness. And I deserve to know why you cut me off all those years ago." El said.

Through her angry façade, it was clear she still wanted to accept his apology and hope for their relationship to go back to the way it used to be.

But a lot has yet to be forgiven. And one apology sure as hell isn't gonna make up for all of it.


"And I wanna tell you El. I do. And I hate that it still fucking affects me the way it does, and I hate that I drove you away and im so sorry. Is there any way that you'd be willing to be open to the idea of forgiving me? Even without the truth because it's been almost 5 years and I still can't even fucking talk about it."

"Why?" El asked.

"Why what?"

"Why can't you talk about it? Is it because it makes you sad? Or angry? Or resentful? I wanna know what's going on in your head."

"I guess all of it. Anger mostly. But mainly because I didn't realize how shitty I had it until after everything went down. I know I will tell you one day El. Even if you choose to never want to see me again. Which I know will never happen because from here on out im gonna prove to you that you can trust me; meaning I'll never leave you alone." Mike said with a serious smile, earning a chuckle out of El.

"You always did do that."

"Did what?" Mike asked.

"Whenever you would do something dumb and/or make me upset, you would apologize and then never leave my side until I forgave you, even though it would make me angrier at first." El said, reminiscently.

"I am serious El. I know part of you will forever hate me for what I did; all of me would too. But I can't take missing you anymore. And I know it's extremely unfair of me to even ask you but I'm willing to do anything for your forgiveness"


"Anything?" El asked.