Elijah Brooks's life is turned upside down when his best friend Will Byers goes missing one night. Teaming up with an unlikely group of friends, Eli finds himself transforming from a quiet bookworm to a courageous adventurer willing to do anything f...
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"SO HE'S REALLY GONNA DO IT?" Martha chuckled, eyes shoved forward at Brandy's closed bedroom door. Somewhere on the other side of that chipped white wood, Eli was preparing to tell Mike Wheeler about his crush.
"Yep," Brandy nodded, huddling her knees deeper into her chest. The girl's mouth wrung tight with a smile, her cheeks crinkling. "I'm actually kinda nervous for him."
"Do you think it's a good idea?" Martha's gaze jumped back to her best friend, finally showing the concern glinting in her dark pupils. "I mean, it's pretty obvious Mike and El still have their thing."
"Yeah..." Brandy mumbled, fingers fastening like a buckle at the top of her knees. "I don't think he's doing it because he thinks Mike likes him. I think maybe...maybe he just wants to be honest."
"So he doesn't get his hopes up?"
Brandy quivered at that, her shoulders moving in a shrug weakly. "I don't know. Turns out the psychology of my thirteen year old brother is a little more complicated than I thought."
Martha licked at her chapped lips warily, the room bearing hotter as she contemplated her next move. "I think it's pretty brave of him. I'm...proud of him."
Brandy had shuffled her attention from the rough skin on her knuckles to her book again, pencil tracing notes into the margin. Not many people knew, but the Brooks girl enjoyed annotating her books. That was, when she chose to read one.
Martha clearly wasn't going to get an answer from her, so she swallowed the massively rising lump and continued. "I think it's important to tell your best friends how you feel. They deserve to know."
"Uh, sure..." Brandy agreed quietly, still invested in the weathered pages of her novel.
The Baker girl could feel her throat tightening, and the body heat that had consumed her felt like a wave of nausea. She had never done this before, she didn't even know where to start.
"So...I haven't been totally honest with you."
Brandy's head snapped up, her interest piqued as the pencil slid back into the spine of the open book. She noticed the way her best friend was squeezed into herself, wedged uncomfortably in her spot on the bed. "What do you mean?"
"So, um...I'm...I'm..." she hesitated, the words failing to find her lips. Her eyes scrunched shut for a moment, another breath pulsating through shaky lips. "I'm into girls, basically."
Brandy didn't move. "What?"
"And boys," she added quickly, her hands flying out defensively. Her mind was racing almost as fast as her eyes, unable to brave a look at Brandy. "I like both. I'm bisexual, is what they call it. A-And I know that's probably...really weird..."
