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Chapter 27

Relationships

During lunch there was a little murmur among the people squished in the dining room. There was just enough talk so others couldn't hear what the others were saying. El sat at one end of the table not talking to anyone, just in her own mind. Looking around at the others, she realized just how much she missed when she was gone. And Max listing one thing after another didn't help her feel like she got caught up.

"You all right kid? You haven't eaten much." Hopper interrupted her thoughts. She looked down at her plate and saw that she maybe ate three bites of her sandwich, while everyone else was almost done.

She started to get a sick feeling in her stomach as tears pricked her eyes. "Excuse me." She whispered hoarsely as she got up from the table keeping her head low. She was well aware that everyone's eyes are on her as she leaves. The murmurs died down and the room was sucked into complete silence.

"I'll go talk to her." Nancy stated standing up and walking in the direction El went.

"Is she going to be okay?" Mike asked after a beat of silence.

"I hope so." Hopper sighed before taking another bite of his sandwich.

"El?" Nancy muffled voice came from the other side of her bedroom door along with some light knocks.

"Come in." El's voice barely came through the door. Nancy opened the door and saw El in her bay window looking out to the Wheeler's house. She saw that El had tear stains under her eyes and immediately walked over to the hunched over girl, giving her a hug.

El sniffled, happily embracing the hug. She hated feeling this way. Like, she was missing a lot of stories and she would probably never hear them. She felt like a new kid all over again. She was lucky it went so well the first time, this time it was under different circumstances.

"Talk to me." Nancy said taking a seat beside El. "What's going on inside that head of yours?"

El didn't know where to start. Her thoughts had been running around her head like a crazy pack of lunatics since she woke up this morning. It was overwhelming.

"I've been gone for year, and so much has happened." El tried to explain as Nancy sat there and listen carefully. "Like, suddenly there's more people in the party and I don't know exactly how they came about. And somehow one of them is your ex, I don't even know how that happened!"

El took in a sharp breath trying to calm her shaking body. Nancy put a hand on top of El's just to give the girl some form of comfort. "How much did I miss?" El's voice became strained from holding back all of her emotions.

"I'm not going to lie, you missed a lot." Nancy answered truthfully. "But your going to get caught up, I promise. It might take some time, but you will."

El shoot her a small grateful smile. The smile fell after a second when El returned to her thoughts. "Max said you started dating again?" It came out as more of a question, but Nancy knew El knew she was dating.

"Yeah." Nancy nodded with a tiny smile on her face. "Yeah, you were right."

El's face scrunched up in confusion. "What?"

"Before you left," Nancy explained, "when I was crying over Steve, you said that maybe he was standing in the way of someone. You were right. I found someone who makes me a lot happier."

"Who?" El's eyes sparkled in wonder.

Nancy chuckled softly before replying, "Jonathan."

Nancy watched the mixture of emotions run across El face as she processed the information. It was enough for her to started laughing softly. El started off confused, to realization, to shock, and finally pure joy.

"Oh wow!" El laughed hugging Nancy around her neck. When she pulled back, a sea of questions came. "How? When? Where? What happened?"

"You, you happened." Nancy stated making El confused once again. "After we found your fake body, my family came over and me and Jonathan talked. Just about the memories we have of you, soon after talking though we started talking about what we like and we found out we had a lot in common. And one day, Mike told me everything. About your powers, about what really happened, everything. It gave us more of a reason to talk to one another and soon enough we started doing fun things just to get out."

"How long have you guys been dating?" El asked wanting to know more.

"About 9 months now."

"That's great." El beamed.

"You feeling better?" Nancy asked being careful of her words.

"Yeah, a lot better." El nodded. She watched as Nancy stood up and reached her hand toward El.

"Good. Let's go. You made some people worried down there." Nancy nodded her head towards the door.

"Okay." El replied grabbing Nancy's hand.

The two made their way to the door to join the others, but they opened it a figure stood in their way of the staircase.

"Mike?" Nancy asked confused on why the boy was standing at the top of the stairs.

"Yeah." Mike looked her and then at El and back at her. She got the message.

"I'll let you guys catch up." Nancy said letting go of her hand a made her way down the stairs.

Mike and El were left all alone in awkward silence. Both of them turned to face each other when they no longer heard Nancy's footsteps.

After a while of silence, Mike decided he would be the one to start up conversation. "Hi."

"Hey."

Authors note
I am so sorry for leaving it like I did. It's just another reason to look forward to the next chapter!

Anyways, as always thank you guys for reading this, I really appreciate it. And also thank you for 1k reads on Letters to El!! And almost 5k on Neighbors!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I seriously can thank you guys enough for this!!

Love ya!! ❤️❤️❤️