"Hey, Y/N, wait up a minute." The teenager called out at you as you walked out the school doors, hand placing itself on your shoulder. Jonathan grinned at you, adjusting the strap of his satchel on his shoulder before starting to speak. He looked happy, a feeling that hardly crosses his face.
Your heart lurched a little at his smile, his arm wrapping around your shoulder as the two of you walked to the middle school to pick up Will and your sister.
"I haven't seen you all day, Byers." You let out a smile as you glanced at him, moving a piece of hair away from your eyes.
"Yeah, I've needed to get some photos developed." You nodded back to him, the two of you then walking silently to the front of the middle school. The two of you waited patiently as kids flooded out the front doors, the bell ringing loudly and cars pulling up with mums and dads. You were still standing outside ten minutes later when neither your sister or Will had appeared.
"Can I ask you something?" Jonathan broke the silence suddenly, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly as he kept his eyes on the door.
"What is it?" You expected him to start speaking, but instead he shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and looked down for a moment. He walked towards you then, leaning against the wall of the brick building and sliding down to sit on the pavement.
"If I was to ask a girl out on a date, how would I do it?" A look of surprise washed over your face, freezing in your spot for a short while. To say that you were shocked was a slight understatement, but maybe the strongest feeling you had was a sense of sadness and jealousy. But instead of letting him know this, you plastered a fake grin on your face and looked at the boy.
"You want to ask Nancy on a date, don't you?" He looked up at you with a bewildered expression, mouth opening and closing but no words coming out. Instead, he shook his head and stood up.
"No, not Nancy. Another girl." You were confused, thinking the only women in his life were his mother and Nancy. You stood there in silence for a moment, trying to process this information. You knew that you didn't know everything about the quiet and reserved Jonathan Byers, but being best friends, you thought you would know if he was interested in a girl. And for a slight moment, maybe, just maybe, you hoped it would be you. "Look, all I want to do is ask her out on a date, maybe to the movies or something." He looked at you, a frown on your face from the lack of help you were giving. But soon your sister was coming out the doors of the school, an annoyed look on her face.
"Can we go now Y/N?" She puffed out a breath, hair falling in front of her face as she looked at you. You nodded to her, passing a small glance at Jonathan before you hooked your bag onto your back and walked down the concrete steps.
"We'll see you later Jonathan, good luck with your girl troubles." You left him there, standing at the school doors alone, a small frown on his face, when all you felt was guilt and frustration. He could handle it by himself. Just because you were a girl doesn't mean you had to help him get a date.
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Jonathan let out a sigh, shaking his head slightly as he watched you and your sister walk away with out so much as a wave or a friendly smile. He would have offered you a ride home, but he lost the chance before he could take it. Plus, he thought you didn't want to be around him at that moment.
He groaned as he leaned against the building, still waiting for Will to come out. But soon enough he did, a large grin on his face and a piece of paper clutched in his hand. He passed his art piece to Jonathan, the older brother grinning at the figures that littered the paper, ruffling a hand through his brother's hair before walking with him to the old brown car.
"I saw Y/N leave with her sister. Why did she look so annoyed?" Will asked as he buckled his seat belt and Jonathan started the car. He looked over to him, noticed his expression changing slightly as he brought up the topic.
"Somehow I pissed her off. Don't know how though." Hands clutching the steering wheel and foot on the gas, Jonathan stared out the window, focused on the road ahead of him as Will opened his mouth to talk.
"Well, did you bring up anything she might not have liked? Did you argue?" In that moment, Jonathan noticed what he did wrong, letting out a curse under his breath. Will laughed at him, shaking his head gently as he looked back at the man behind the wheel.
"I asked her how to ask a girl out on a date." The words came out muttered, a hand coming up from the wheel to rub against his weary face. Will didn't say anything to that, instead sitting in the passenger side, quiet.
The car rolled across the road, head lights turning on in the fading autumn light and illuminating the bright yellow lines that made the car's path. Soon they were turning into their driveway, jostling around in the seats as the car slowly came to a stop.
"You need to tell her you like her." Will turned to Jonathan, catching a glimpse of surprise washing over the older boy's face.
"How did you know?" Jonathan asked, pulling the key out of the ignition and shoving it in his pocket as he tried to avoid his younger brother's stare. Will huffed, opening the door and picking up his bag from the car floor.
"You always talk about her, and when you do you get this look on your face as if everything with the word is alright." Jonathan couldn't think of a response, instead walking to the door of the house, pushing the key in and yanking the piece of wood open. He flung his bag into the corner of his room quickly, before coming back to find his brother sitting at the old kitchen table.
"But why did she react so weirdly when I asked her about a date?"
"Because she thought you were talking about another girl. I'm guessing she thought you were talking about Nancy." Jonathan nodded in reply, pouring himself a glass of orange juice as he did so. "Well then, I would think that she was jealous. Think about it, you're friends with one of the prettiest girls in your school, who's had heaps of boys trying to take her out on a date, all the while saying no to each and every one, instead spending the time hanging out with you."
Suddenly it started to make sense, the memory of saddening face as he asked the question quickly flooding into his mind. He groaned out loud, ignoring the way that Will laughed at him for the next passing minutes. Soon, he was sitting down, moping about how he had made a fool out of himself, while also hurting the girl he cared for.
An arm extended itself out to him then, a brown phone hooked to the wall on the end of it, a grinning Will holding it out. Jonathan sent him a sceptical look, only to have Will mouth the words 'call her' back at him. With a sigh, and a slight shove, Jonathan took the phone, moving to the wall to dial the girl's number. It rang, and rang, until he was nearly tempted to put the phone down and give up. But suddenly there you were, your voice on the other end of the phone line.
"Hello, Y/N here."
"Y/N, it's Jonathan." He steadied his voice for a second, leaning against the wall as he held the phone close to his ear.
"What's up?" Your voice was tense, and all Jonathan could imagine was you sitting on your bed with the phone next to your ear, a small from cast over your face.
"Look, after I ask you this, please don't laugh if you think the idea is insane. I just want an answer." He took a deep breath as you held the silence for him to continue, and soon, the coming question had your eyebrows raising and a large smile covering your face from ear to ear. "Would you like to go on a date with me?" He let the question rest there, in the silence but soon you were answering him back energetically.
"Of course Jonathan, of course I would like to go on a date with you. I'd thought you never ask." A full blown grin was taking over his face, a laugh echoing across the room as relief filled him. "God, the amounts of times I wanted to ask you on a date but never had the guts because I thought you liked Nancy."
"I never liked Nancy, Y/N. The only girl I've ever liked is you, only you." He smiled as he heard you laugh on the other end of the line. "When I asked you about asking someone out on a date, I planned to ask you, but didn't know how to go about it. I didn't mean to hurt you."
"It's okay now Jonathan, you're forgiven. Now, my mum wants to know if you and Will want to come over for dinner, she know's your mum will be back late."
Soon the two of you were talking like you always had, forgetting about the moment that had happened only hours before, instead laughing and joking around.
The two Byers' boys went over to yours for dinner, and afterwards, you couldn't help but drag Jonathan to your room, kissing him as if you had been holding back for years, because, in a way, you had.
Who knew a simple mistake could turn out so perfectly?
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