Strange Happenings

23

Will's POV

It was after supper when El came home. She was quiet, not that she was trying to sneak in or anything, El was always quiet. 

I was sitting in my room going through a list of everything I was supposed to do today compared to everything I did do, which ended up just making me feel anxious. 

El didn't even knock before coming into my room and sitting down next to me on my bed. Not that I minded, she just usually knocked unless something was really bothering her.

"Hey Will," her voice was off, like it was distant. I looked to meet her eyes but she was staring at the ground.

"Is everything okay?" I asked.

El just shook her head. 

"Did something happen at Max's?" 

She shrugged.

When El was truly upset, she would stop talking, not completely though. She would shake or nod her head and say short phrases or just one word. I think it was because she just got so stuck in her head, but I wasn't really sure.

I took a deep breath in and just waited. I wasn't very good at comforting people, even El. I had learned that she usually broke out of her muteness and starting talking again after a moment. SO I gave her that moment.

"Nothing bad happened," she said suddenly, her voice was still distant and her eyes still lowered. "It's just, moving back here brings back so many bad memories-"

I nodded solemnly.

"-and everything seems to be so much different now but I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, I could still have Mike. He could be my constant...." she sighed, "I don't know, maybe I'm just being stupid."

I laughed, surprising both me and El.

Feeling the need to explain myself, I said, "I'm not laughing at you, trust me. I guess I just realized that I had thought the same thing, not so much about Mike but of our whole friend group." I shook my head.

El laughed then. "What a couple of naive idiots," she remarked.

She was right, we were idiots. But in a young sort of way. 

I heard her suck in an uneven breath.

"I don't even know if I like Mike anymore, or if I ever did."

I tried not to let my heart soar too high, but it was hard not to even hope a little bit that she would stop being interested in him like he was in her. Her heart wouldn't have to be broken.

"Really?" I questioned. "How come?"

El bit her lip, I could tell she was deep in thought.

"It just seems like we had started dating because it made sense for us to date. I was his secret, no one else in the friend group liked or trusted me, he was the first normal kid that I saw. I don't know, maybe it was also because we hung out a lot and I was the first girl he had probably ever talked to."

I laughed then, "You were definitely the first girl he ever talked to."

But El didn't join in. 

"I think he only liked me because I was a mystery, and I only liked him because he was kind." El huffed in annoyance and groaned. "And now it's different because I'm no longer mysterious and honestly, Mike's kind of a dick."

I really laughed then and El joined me this time. Both just giggling on my bed. 

Mike was kind of a dick, but I still hadn't lost my attraction for him like El had. Maybe it was because I liked dicks, or maybe it was just because I always saw something in him that he kept hidden. 

"So...are you going to tell Mike you aren't interested anymore?"

El shrugged, "soon. Once I'm better settled maybe."

I really hoped she told him before he told her, even though she didn't seem to like him much anymore, I knew she would still be crushed. Attraction was funny that way.

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I was going to apologize for my lateness but fuck that, I write on my own time and for my own happiness. I am fucking selfish and even though I crave others approval, I write for my own mental health. 

But I still love you guys. I'm just a bitch