purple's our color- mileven au

NINE

    "God, I thought a rhino came up the stairs," El comments.
    "Did something happen with Mike?" Will asks, sitting next to his sister on the floor. The exact opposite, actually.

    "No? That's what's wrong though," El begins, "since like May we haven't really talked and maybe it just blew over but I still feel weird." Max and Will ask what she meant by weird basically at the same time.

    "Whenever he's here or we're together I get all stupid. Warm and sweaty and shaky. I hate it. I shouldn't have started something I couldn't finish," El complains. The two others share a silly look. "It feels like a bad idea to go to Florida with him. I think he's over it, just when I'm not."

    "It's been busy Els. And yeah, maybe this all wasn't the best idea. But it'll all work out," Max comforts. The other girl nods, biting her fingernails. "What if I-" El starts, just to not finish.

    "You what?" Will questions her.
    El shakes her head, "nothing." What if I love him? She couldn't have ever expected this. But it felt so serious now, even though it wasn't exactly certain he felt the same way anymore. Well, she didn't know it. El lays her head onto Max's shoulder, silently thinking.

    "Dustin I won ten dollars!" Max cheered as the three who were upstairs ran down.

    Dustin's eyebrows raise, "the ten dollars?" Max nods, smiling. The two made a bet about El and Mike about a month ago. Max said El would fall in love with him and Dustin said it was over. "Did you actually make a bet about me?" El huffs. Max laughs, replying with maybe. The brunette's face turns into a frown and she walks over to Lucas and Mike. "Lucas, can you tell your girlfriend off for me," El pouts.

    "Why can't you?"
    "You know I hate doing that." El kept her eyes strictly on Lucas and his surrounding area, nervous about making it seem a certain way. And the feeling came. Her stomach was unsettled and her hands clammy. Some people could describe the feeling as out of this world, wonderful and exhilarating. To El, it was frustrating and disgusting.

    "Um, I'm gonna go check on my plants and the girls," El rushes to say. She walks over to her glass door, sliding it open and steps onto the warm pavement. There were some plants laying around the sides, and in a little garden a bit down.

    El loved to grow flowers, and food. It was something her mom did with her, and she never really grew out of it. Every year El buys one plant for Sara, and tells her about it and how her mom would've loved to see it and see her. There was a deep fear in El that Sara will never know anything about her mom. She didn't want it to be like some coming of age movie where Sara has to move out to Kansas to find out about her mom. So there were little things that El would cherish just because of her and tell Sara about.

    "Don't get tired!" El calls to the cartwheeling girls in the yard. Holly and Sara were giggling out in the yard, doing cartwheels and running around picking yellow flowers.

    Sara giggles, grabbing Holly's hands and twirling around, "I won't!" Her older sister rolls her eyes from far away, grabbing a small pot to water the flowers close to where she had sat down. The door slid open and shut again, El not paying any attention to notice.

    As soon as El came out, the conspiring Holly told Sara about a plan she had in mind for their older siblings. The two girls made faces at Mike for him to come outside and see them. Holly slapped Sara's arm playfully a few times, "it worked! Go, go!"

    The two small blondes ran up to Mike, Sara accidentally knocking into him. His hands grabbed her arms, "woah, you ok?"

    "Sorry!" Sara says between giggles. She discreetly checked to make sure the small yellow flowers she'd been holding were still secure, which they were. Holly motioned for her brother to come down to her size, so he did. They whispered a few silly words in his ear, handing him a huge pile of yellow flowers.

    "Why can't you do it?"
    "He doesn't get it," Holly groans to Sara, "because you have to do it!" She pushes his arm moving him a few steps since he didn't try to stop her. The taller boy rolls his eyes and walks away. Holly grabs her friend's hand, bolting towards the opposite side of the house.

    "They can't know we're watching!" Holly laughs. Sara nods, bursting out laughing.

    By this point El had been watching, unsure of what exactly was going on. "They wanted me to give these flowers to you," Mike strolls towards her. El grins easily and stands up. "That's cute."

    Mike shrugs, catching her glance for a moment. She places her hand out, his opening up to let the flowers into her grasp. Their hands brush for a quick second, and it was nothing, but it didn't seem that way. El's face lights up with deep reds and pinks, a forced smile placed on her face. Mike's eyes fell down to see the top of her head, feeling frozen in place. Both of them didn't know what to do with themselves. Suddenly El's hands held the flowers tightly, their eyes locked in a confused trance.

    "Um," El cleared her throat, "thanks." She drew in a short breath, looking down to the bright yellow flowers with small green stems she now held. Right now she realized just what the girls meant by their plan. "I've been meaning to ask you, since we're going on vacation like if, well, not, uh. We're still like friends right?" El finishes, internally scolding herself for messing up the last sentence.

    "Yeah, definitely," Mike sighs, looking over to an empty side of the patio. Did she seriously just say that? Now they're just back to friends, a zone they haven't been in since they were little kids. El sucked in a sharp breath, this time not letting it go, walking past Mike with no word inside the house. She stood frozen as soon as she got inside, every one of her friends staring at her, except Mike who gave himself a few seconds to go back inside. "El?" Max walks closer to her.

    "Upstairs?" El questions, snapping out of it. The redhead nodded quickly, grabbing the other's wrist. "Good or bad?" Max shuts the door, El sitting down right next to her bed.

    "I-I don't know. The girls asked him to hand me these flowers and he did. I was gonna ask him about us, about everything, I was so close! I asked if we'd still be friends. It was so stupid, I hate everything," El explains, clearly upset.

    Max frowns at her friend's distress, "hey it's ok. You said one stupid thing. It could be a lot worse. It'll be fine."

    Everything was definitely not fine. It was all so messed up, how could it be like this. It should be so simple, so easy. This was the opposite. "How did it get like this..."