Truth Be Told

Chapter 9: Jealousy

Will Byers

El comes out of the changing room with black plants, a pair of black suspenders, and a blue and purple shirt on. She looks pretty good.

"How do I look?" She asks. She looks so happy to be able to where something other than flannels and jeans.

"Bitch'n" Max replies with a smile, giving El a thumbs up while adjusting throws El the finger guns.

The group travels around to a bunch of random stores after finding El some new clothing. We also spent like two hours in the arcade, plus trying to teach El how to play DigDug. It didn't go so well.

"Where do you guys want to go next?" Max asks the group.

"First of all, take your icecream back, and second of all I have no idea." Dustin says as he hands both the girls back the icecream the purchased a little while ago. I'm honestly surprised it hasn't all melted yet.

"Oh, Will, look at the time. We have to be back to Scoops in a few minutes." Dustin says to me as he looks at the big clock hanging on the wall of the mall.

"Really? What time is it?" I ask.

"It's like 4:45, we gotta go. See you guys later!" Dustin yells to the girls as we both start to walk away.

"Bye guys! See you tomorrow maybe?" I ask as I wave goodbye.

"Maybe. See you later." Max waves back and so does El.

But Dustin and I are both stopped in our tracks by what we see next. Mike and Lucas looking around the mall aimlessly.

"Uh guys?" Dustin tries to get Max and El's attention.

"I thought you guys had to get back to Scoops?" El asks confused.

"Yeah well you might want to stall in a store somewhere right now. Mike is here with Lucas, and I think they just saw us." I say back.
We all look over to see that both the boys have now spotted us and are making their way over.

"What'd you want us to do?" I ask the girls.

"Nothing. Let us handle this."

Max meets the boys half way and greets them with: "Well, isn't this a nice surprise?" In a sarcastic voice.

"What. Is. She. Doing. Here?" Mike asks while pointing at El.

"Shopping." El responds while licking her icecream, seemingly unbothered.

"What's wrong with you guys? You know she's not aloud to be here! And Will I thought you said you were hanging out with Dustin today." Mike seems annoyed, but if I didn't know any better I'd think he was jealous. He probably wanted to be the one who took El on her first shopping trip.

"What does it matter that Will's hanging out with us instead of you? We're all friends here, right?" Max asks, waiting to hear what Mike has to say.

"I- I just wish you would've told me or something, I'm not mad!" Mike throws his hands up I defense. He does sound mad though. Maybe even jealous. But why would he be jealous? I mean, El's aloud to have friends too, she can't just hang out with him all the time.

"Good, because we didn't really ask for your input." Dustin snaps back.

"Will c'mon, let get to Scoops before we need to leave." Dustin speaks again as he pulls me with him by my arm. I mouth a 'sorry' to Mike and then turn around to walk with Dustin.

If I'm going to be honest, that's not really how I pictured today going at all. I didn't expect to see the girls here, but I'm glad we did because I had a great time.

"Come on Will, pick up the pace. We gotta get there withing the next 5 minutes!" Dustin exclaims. I don't know why he's rushing so much -- Scoops is litteraly right across the lobby.

"Dustin if you keep dragging me along by my arm, you might actually rip it off." He looks at me for a moment before tightening his gripp and dragging me again.

Damn it.

After a painfully long 30 seconds, we enter the shop and go behind the counter. Some people from one of the booths yell at us for it, but who cares? It's none of their business anyway.

"It's about damn time!" Steve shouts. Robin gives him an annoyed look.

"Sorry we got held up with friend stuff." Dustin says before his eyes make their way over to the map that's been layed out across the table.

"Have we found a place to scout from yet?" I ask Robin, because she's obviously the most responsible.

"The roof." She smirks.