Shutter [Jonathan Byers] Stranger Things I

XVI: Divulge

di·vulge

verb

make known (private or sensitive information).

Even though thoughts of what Emilia might have done along with the words of warning from his mother, Jonathan found Emilia at the end of the day with a smile on his face. The thoughts were forced to a further corner of his mind, not to be brought up or mentioned as he repeated the mantra that they meant nothing. When he was happy, when he was with Emilia, it didn't make sense to bring up anything that might tarnish such things. Why let others infringe on the one thing that he looked forward to every day? He knew how he felt about Emilia, and did not let that get in the way of their friendship. Carol was plain rude, Jonathan knew that first hand. And his mother, well, she wasn't the best person to be giving him relationship advice.

"I have an idea," those were the first words Jonathan said to Emilia. They were well past the small talk, even if it was still hard to get Emilia to talk. Somehow, it was as if they could convey so much without words. His main goal was not to win her over, regardless of how he felt inside. No, his main goal was still to make her happy. To do that was a challenge, but he suspected that he was doing a good enough job as she stuck around, and she smiled a lot more.

"Oh yeah?" Emilia closed her locker, brought her hands instinctively to the camera around her neck. She fingered the protective clasp around the lens. "And what big idea does Jonathan Byers have today?"

"I didn't say it was big," he furrowed his brow, and then realized the words he had spoken could have another meaning. His cheeks reddened as he saw Emilia's eyebrows raise, and then she looked away. Jonathan steered away from even correcting himself, back to the idea. "The pool is half price tonight, I thought we could go."

Emilia recoiled from his words; swimming meant bathing suits, and bathing suits meant revealing her stomach. She had not gone swimming since the accident, and had no desire to. Something twisted inside of Emilia as she wondered if Carol had mentioned something to Jonathan, and he wanted to see for himself if her scars were as ugly as she said. Her mind jumped back to the other day at Jonathan's, when she had taken her sweater off and her shirt had clung to the sweater. Her stomach had been revealed then, and he had mentioned nothing. Had he seen her marks? She wondered, nervous as ever.

"I don't know..." She pursed her lips together.

There was something about his expression -that modest puppy dog look that crossed his face more than once every single day- that made Emilia cave. She dropped her defences and agreed to it. When she arrived home, she was surprised to find her dad there. Home earlier than she expected, or perhaps he had never bothered leaving yet, Emilia decided to approach him head on with honesty. Ignoring him and neglecting to talk to him had not been successful thus far, and something inside of her had changed since formally meeting Jonathan. She felt braver, stronger, as though her pieces were coming back together. She never knew that was possible, but it felt good.

"Dad," She called as she crouched down to unlace her boots. "I'm going out tonight, when do you want me home?"

There was a groan followed by a shuffle, and he appeared at the end of the hall, leaning against the wall. "Goin' out again?"

She nodded, "I'd like to, if that's alright."

His eyes narrowed, "With who?"

"My tutor, Alyce," she lied, thinking of the first person that came to mind. She sat next to Alyce in English, although they had never actually talked.