🚲Behind That Fake Smile💔ZodiacTheSpringer

Sixteen

Will Pov

We were eventually kicked from Mike's hospital room since we had been there too long. We were giggling a lot about it but Lucas cut in before we reached the elevator.

"Guys." He told us whilst he blocked our path to the elevator. "Shouldn't we visit Max?".

"You visit her a lot already." Dustin pointed out.

"What about as 80 percent of the party?".

We all exchanged looks at one another and we all sort of agreed without saying anything to each other.

We went down the hall and reached Max's hospital room.

We walked into the room quietly just incase there was an employee in there that was caring for her.
We hadn't been invited into the hospital to see Max. We had only been expecting to visit Mike.

"Hey, Max." Lucas said even though it was visible to see that she was still in her long lasting coma.

Nobody really said anything but we did speak to Max occasionally when Lucas gave us 'the look'.

We all took turns holding onto her hand or giving her a light weighted hug.

We made it a quick visit though. We took ten minutes to give her affection before we snuck back out of the room before anybody could notice us.

We all left the hospital and rode into town. It was full of news reporters that had gathered around the gate that identified to them as an earthquake.
I didn't know people still cared about this stuff.

We snuck past the people that directed others onto a different road, and continued to make our way to the other side of town.

On this side of town: everything was completely abandoned.
Nobody was around and not a single store was still opened.
Our bikes and skateboard sounded like a large truck on the quiet streets.

We parked our bikes in front of the old book store that had shut long before the gate had opened.

The party had been hanging out here while Mike had been in a coma.
We usually spoke to each other but we mainly flicked through different books and even found a few old board games hidden in little drawers that we had found in between books.

We all gathered around a wooden table and Dustin dumped his backpack he had brought with him on top of it.
He pulled out a handful of chocolate and passed one piece around to each of us.

"To celebrate." He explained. "To the awakening of Mike!".

"I would've given him one but he's not aloud to take in food from beyond the hospital." Dustin added quietly.

We all raised our bars of chocolate and repeated what Dustin had said before in cinq: "to the awakening of Mike!".

We all took a big bite from the chocolate before we all went off to do our own things. To find books and stuff like that.

I headed off towards the back of the store where all the good books were.
All the stuff down there was a lot more interesting and I didn't want any of the others to take in the good stuff as well, so I told them it was just filled with all the children's picture books.

I grabbed a book down from the shelf and started to flick through the pages as I sat in a corner with a bookshelf to lean against.

Everybody was quiet apart from a few snorts of laughter and exchanged whispers.

We were an hour in before the sky started to actually get really dark.
You could see the tiny specks of stars scattered across the sky like the freckles that were splattered across Mike's face.

Jeez Will. You've just got to relate Mike to the stars don't you!

Everybody started to leave Hawkins bookstore to go our seperate ways for the night.
The most of us rode in different directions but I rode beside Dustin for a bit until his house appeared beside us and he swerved into his driveway.

I rode home the rest of the way on my own.

El's Pov

I was back in the cabin with my dad. He had stayed up late to wait for me to come home.
He had heard about Mike as well.

"How is he?" He asked me as I walked through the door.

"He's doing well." I responded to him. "I don't think he remembers what happened though..".

I remembered how Mike was completely clueless of what had happened before the coma while we were at the hospital.
He spoke nothing about it as though him being at the hospital was just a regular thing he did in his life.
I didn't want to tell him what happened though. That was Will's job.

"I think that's a good thing. He's probably mad enough at Will for breaking his nose. We don't want things to get any worse. It will ruin Will's chances at dating Mike.".

"Wait? You know about that?!" I was confused. Did Hopper know that Will was gay?

"It's kind of obvious...."

"Did Joyce tell you." I smirked at him while I placed my hands on my hips mockingly.

"Maybe.." he flicked on the television and smiled back at me as he slowly turned his head to face the screen.

I stayed up late with Dad, watching random shows on tv, flicking through the channels when we couldn't find something we liked.
We snacked on food and drinks.

I ended up getting tired. It was two o'clock when I went to bed.
I was exhausted and couldn't wait to sink into my bed to drift off into sleep.

Hopper tucked me in like the gentle father he was. It felt weird to have him treat me as though I was eleven years old but I allowed it for this one time since I didn't have the energy to comment on his actions.