𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐎𝐍 𝐌𝐄 || 𝘔𝘈𝘟 𝘔𝘈𝘠𝘍𝘐𝘌𝘓𝘋

21. he's a little boy

HE'S A LITTLE BOY

June 29th, 1985
⏰ 9:15 pm, 📍Hawkins, Indiana

༺♥༻ Stephanie, Max, and Eleven retired to El's house for the night.

Stephanie let Steve know she would be spending the night, since her parents had left again earlier that week letting Stephanie know only by a letter stuck to the fridge saying, 'Be back soon. -Diane' Thats right. Diane. She didn't even care enough to say mom. Just Diane. Per-usual.

Either way, Stephanie is having fun. Her and El were reading magazines while Max was dancing and singing along to Angel, a Madonna song, playing on the radio that sits on El's dresser.

Stephanie's flipping through the pages of a Seventeen magazine back from February with Terry Farrell on the cover, while El gawked at pictures of countless boys in one of the Superteen magazines.

You must be an angel

I can see it in your eyes

Stephanie watches El flip to a page and smile while looking at whoever was on it.

Max takes notice at the page and says over the song, "oh, you found Ralph Macchio." Max laughs while kneeling down to the side of the bed.

"Macchio?" El repeats.

Max takes a look at the pages. "Yeah, he's the Karate Kid."

"The Karate Kid?" Stephanie asks.

"Of course! Hai-yah!" Max pretends to hit Stephanie karate style.

Stephanie laughs when Max turns back to El. "He's so hot, right?"

El nods. "Yeah. Stephanie what do you think?"

What? He looks like he's ten years old.

"He looks like he's ten," Stephanie says, readjusting herself on the bed.

"He's not." Max laughs.

Stephanie grabs the photo from El to over-dramatically examine it. "No. He's a little boy, Max."

"He's twenty three." Max rolls her eyes.

Stephanie stares at Max in fake disgust and throws the magazine back onto the bed. "How do you know that?"

"It's a secret." Max turns to El. "I bet he's an amazing kisser, too."

"Ew." Stephanie whispers to herself.

"Hey, uh..." Max jumps onto the bed in between Stephanie and El. "Is Mike a good kisser?"

This is Stephanie's cue to mentally clock out for a few minutes. She hates it when Max or even anyone talks about dating. She didn't know why her friends and basically everyone in school suddenly started liking boys. She didn't know why no one liked her. Max had three people basically fighting for her the first week she came to this school and Stephanie couldn't find someone in three years? Not one lousy boy. Not that she wants a boyfriend, she just wants the reassurance of knowing that someone likes her. But even if someone did like her, would she date them? Probably not. So why does she want someone to like her? To feel included? To feel liked? Middle school love is too confusing.