It's Not Three Inches With You

Chapter 2

Max

I spent the entire day with Hopper and Dr. Owens from the lab, finalising legal things and making sure that Neil and Billy wouldn't come back. Hopper asked me if I wanted to go back to living with my mother but in truth, I didn't. El was my best friend and she and Hopper had been better family to me than my own ever had. This summer was already strange and it had only just begun.

I broke up with Lucas a week before summer started. I'm still not exactly sure why.

El and I haven't hung out with the others as much as we did before, and I think Mike is happy about that. Well, about not seeing me at least.

Ever since I dumped Lucas, he's been calling me even though I told him to stop. Now I'm living with El he called her phone and I can tell Hopper's getting mad; he doesn't pick up the phone at all anymore, even when its just Joyce or someone calling. He joked once that if it's an emergency, they'll have to wait, but Joyce almost killed him when he said that. I told him he should get caller ID, but I don't think he even knows what that is.

I sleep on this little mattress Joyce gave me in the spare room and on the long hot nights it's nice, but...it's also easy to notice how alone I am. I shouldn't have gone into El's room last night. I don't know what I was planning on saying, or doing or...anything. I just did.

I had woken up with her head on my chest and it horrified me that I kind of...liked it. I knew what Neil would say if he had seen me but... he's not here anymore. But its not like that with El. And it would never be like that with a girl. I was snapped out of my thoughts when Hopper walked into the spare room where I was sitting on the mattress.

"Sorry." He said suddenly.

"What?" I asked, having barely heard what he had said.

"I should have knocked." He explained awkwardly and I shrugged.

"Its fine. Did you, uh, need something?" I asked and he stared at me for a second before shaking his head.

"Uh, no. I, uh yeah. No." he said and shut the door. I looked away, not knowing what to do. Everything was such a mess. A single tear fell down my face and I buried my head in my hands, crying quietly to myself.

The door slowly creaked open again. I didn't look up.

"Max?" asked a soft voice. I turned, trying not to show the tears. El stood in the doorway.

"Can I...come in?" she asked tentatively and I nodded. She stepped inside.

"Mike called again." She told me. I groaned, as I wiped away the last of the tears that she hadn't seemed to notice.

"What did he say?" I asked and she looked over at me.

"He says he just wants to talk. That he doesn't understand why I...broke up with him." She said, as if the words were foreign in her mouth.

"Well, he should. He lied to you. He treated you like garbage. You didn't do anything wrong by standing up for yourself," I told her and she nodded slowly.

"Don't worry. Lucas has been calling me ever since I broke up with him too."

"What does he say?" asked El and I rolled my eyes.

"Just a load of sh!t." I told her and she sighed, pushing her short hair out of her eyes.

"You know boys are just stupid. They're like this everywhere." I told her.

"E-everywhere?" she asked, confused.

"Yeah. Like, back in California too"

El nodded.

"Do you miss California?" she asked me and I looked away.

"Sometimes. I miss my dad. And Disneyland." I said, laughing a little.

El stared at me.

"D-disneyland?"

(A/N: Hellooooo my fantastic readers! Thanks for coming back! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, as you can see things are starting to get more fun hehe. Anyway, how are you guys? I've been so busy writing this past week, finally finished Can You Still Hear Me? but now I have to edit the whole thing 😭 Ah well, that's my struggle haha. Thanks for all the support, you guys mean the world to me :) Don't forget to comment and vote and stay totally tubular! xx)