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chapter seventeen — ❝ i told you something safe, something i've never said before ❞
[ ∞ · ♡ ]
Things fell back into place rather quickly. It was almost as if the past few short weeks had never even happened.
Summer had definitely begun with a bumpy start, but once their family was all under one roof, everything was pretty much normal. Their parents were back to their miniscule interactions as they went along through their separation and divorce, and the two elder siblings were spending more time with Holly, just as they had promised sooner.
But, while things were nearly the same, they were simultaneously evidently different.
All the while, Nancy was trying to decide the best way to bring the news of her pregnancy to Jonathan. Mike thought it would be easy, but apparently, Nancy thought otherwise. His sister snapped at him that she didn't want Jonathan to freak out about the news, especially with the fact they were both still in college. But Mike tried to keep her composed every time her mouth was spitting out a thousand words a minute as she tried to think of some way to tell him. Normally, he wouldn't have kept his composure, but he remembered his mom saying something about the hormones taking over most of what she was saying or doing, so he decided he would let her behavior slide for the time being.
And in the end, she decided to keep it simple. Sometime in the morning, she told Mike that later that night she would hint about it to him after she would go for a family dinner with him and the Hopper-Byers household. The last thing she wanted was for him to cause a huge scene, so she knew they would need their privacy, and luckily, that was going to be the best place to find it.
Before she was going to start getting herself ready, the three siblings were lounging around the living room as they played a board game while their mom was preparing dinner in the kitchen.
It was a lazy day for the family. The summer heat had rolled in heavily on that day, so not too many people in general were feeling up to leaving their houses during the day. Most were playing it safe and staying cooped up inside the air-conditioned buildings.
"Hey, Mike, why hasn't El been over?" Holly piped up curiously, tilting her head as she began to move her play piece along to a different space on the board game.
Mike's brows pinched together at the sudden realization. He had been so busy adjusting back to his home life, spending so much time with Holly and helping Nancy, that he had admittedly barely even noticed how his best friend hadn't been lingering around as she normally would. He was shocked to realize that he hadn't noticed sooner. Even more shocked that he had nearly forgotten about the revelation of feelings that she admitted to him just before he had stepped back into his home. It was so odd that she hadn't been around, but he figured, maybe she was embarrassed with having told him she loved him more than just a friend.
