Elijah Brooks's life is turned upside down when his best friend Will Byers goes missing one night. Teaming up with an unlikely group of friends, Eli finds himself transforming from a quiet bookworm to a courageous adventurer willing to do anything f...
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BRANDY WAS TRYING HER BEST TO FOCUS on pinning gray duct tape to the walls of the Byers shed, but it felt nearly impossible with Steve's eyes digging into her back like talons.
"Steve, your silence is speaking volumes," Brandy spoke up, and she could sense the boy shifting awkwardly behind her. "You're scaring Nancy, for Christ's sake."
"Okay," the Wheeler girl chirped in her usual bubblegum tone that Brandy sometimes envied. "I'll, uh, leave you guys to it." Her footsteps pattered towards the door and Brandy didn't turn to watch her go.
"Smart girl," she uttered quietly, planting a few staples into the wall. "Always best to get out of an awkward situation."
"I wasn't staring, Brandy," Steve murmured.
"Okay, then what were you doing? Trying to figure out what brand my jacket is?" Her boots clattered against the wooden floorboards as she hopped off the step ladder, finally switching her gaze to the taller boy. "You wanna talk about it?"
"It? You mean us?" He sounded incredulous. "Right now?"
"The world's about to end, Steve. Better now than never, right?" Truthfully, Brandy didn't want to talk about it either. She had really only discovered her actual feelings this afternoon and now she had to communicate it to the boy himself? Scary.
"I-I guess..." His hands trailed awkwardly away from where they'd been planted on his hips. "Look, Brandy, I like you. A-And I'm really sorry for not kissing you back on Halloween. I just—I was a little drunk. I was scared I'd mess things up. It just didn't feel right to kiss you there. Y-You're too special to me, you know?"
The silence that followed his bold and assertive claim felt lethal, and Brandy realized she had never been in such a horrible position.
Oh, God. "Damn it, Steve! You're making this way too hard."
"Making what too hard?" His eyes darkened and stung with hurt. He was realizing it for himself. Maybe Brandy wouldn't have to entirely crush his heart. "You don't like me back."
Fingernails dug into the bridge of Brandy's nose as she let out a gutted sigh. "Steve, you're...you're great and all—"
"Oh my God, I'm gonna be sick," he shuffled away from her, a hand clutching his stomach as the other ran through his hair. A groan sounded from his lips as he kept near the wall, and Brandy actually thought he was about to puke. "This doesn't make any sense, Brandy."
"I know."
"I mean, what about Halloween? And earlier, that stunt you pulled in the junkyard? Saving my life and shit and...and hugging me..."
