TWIX WAS MIKE'S FAVORITE.

Eli learned that very quickly, the same way Mike stumbled upon the realization that Eli enjoyed a pack of Skittles over anything chocolate. The trade-offs initially began with careful negotiation, but it reached a point where Mike would toss Eli a set of Twizzlers while the Brooks boy dropped another Hershey's in the Wheeler's bag.

"I still can't believe you don't like chocolate," Mike prodded, resurfacing the ordeal once again. His tone was light with amusement, and Eli took it upon himself to nudge his shoulder against the taller boy. "I mean, who doesn't?"

"I didn't say I don't like it," Eli jumped in defensively, watching the small cloud that puffed out of Mike's lips every time he exhaled. "I just don't like it in exorbitant amounts."

"What does that even mean? 'Exorbitant'? Not everyone has a dictionary for a brain," Mike laughed, his sound bubbling above their heads and floating towards the stars. Eli very well could've been among them, given the incredible feeling that had consumed him.

"Did you hear that? Mike just admitted to me being smarter than him," Eli turned to Will, where he was met with a glistening camera lens capturing the playful display.

"You're smarter than everyone," Will mumbled from behind the hefty camera, struggling to balance it on his shoulder.

"Isn't he!" Mike agreed.

Eli looked ahead of the three boys, watching Lucas, Dustin, and Max exchanging their own banter. The redhead had met up with the party earlier, making Lucas scream an unearthly sound with her Michael Myers costume. Eli had no idea how she agreed to trick or treat with them, given her hostile note directed at the four boys yesterday.

"Woah, hey," Mike's hand landed softly on Eli's shoulder, steadying the Brooks boy to a stop. His voice had changed from its youthful bemusement to one of worry, and Eli noted why almost instantly.

"Where's Will?" Eli demanded, his eyes wildly flying past Mike to roam around the hoard of costumes swimming around every corner.

"I don't know."

A panic began to set in, and Eli felt himself drawing back to that night at the arcade. Will's empty, hollow eyes while looking at him, until they burned with fear while gazing at something unseen in the sky.

"Hey, Eli!"

Mike was ahead of him now, and the Brooks boy broke into a sprint to catch up to him, eyeing what the raven-haired Wheeler was scooping up from the ground. The knot in Eli's stomach doubled seeing Will's camera now nestled in one of Mike's arms, and the two shared an uncomfortable, anxious gaze.

Eli, still feeling the wind knocked out of him, whirled around and brought his cupped hands to his lips. "Will!"

Mike joined in, until they were a chorus of Will's name, ignoring the dirty looks they received from strangers. They doubled back, their sneakers pounding the pavement as they took the curve in the road back the way they came.

Eli almost didn't hear it, but when he did, he halted completely and felt Mike's body slam into his back. Normally the contact would make Eli's insides feel like glitter, but there were only stones piling in his stomach. "You hear that?" Eli turned to Mike, his eyes pleading. There was a soft, babyish whimpering and he knew he wasn't being crazy.

"Where's it coming from?" Mike questioned, their heads spinning frantically.

"There!" Eli's thumb pointed at an alley-like space between two houses like a needle.

Eli got to Will first, placing both of his hands on the boy's arms with desperation, his name falling off the tongue like salt. Will jumped back in response, his own arms reaching out and strapping themselves onto him.

"Will! Are you okay?" Eli dropped to his knees, securely fastening his grip on Will's frail forearms, noting the way they quivered under his touch like a shivering cat.

Will didn't respond, keeping his huge, terrified eyes pointed at the blackened sky. Eli didn't say it aloud, and neither did Mike as he joined Eli on the ground to assure the Byers boy, but they both knew.

Will had seen something.

The other party members had joined them by now, spewing a list of questions that Eli couldn't answer or even hear. He was too busy helping Will to his feet, nothing but feverish whimpers coming out of him as the Brooks boy used his free arm to pull Will tighter against his chest. Mike must've said something to the others, because they only watched the three boys leave with glossy, confused eyes.

Eli almost jumped out of his skin when he felt another arm slap itself on top of his, only to realize it was Mike holding Will from the other side. They met eyes long enough for the Wheeler to mumble, "My house."

~

The new guy really isn't that hot.

That's what Brandy was thinking as she observed Billy Hargrove from Tina's backyard, noting the way beer spilled down his steely abs and dripped from his curled lips. Most girls would grow dizzy with nerves and swoon at such a sight, but Brandy could only describe Billy's appearance as feral. She was certain she had seen some sort of wild animal on television that looked just like the blonde teen.

"That guy's really something, huh?" A voice beckoned, and it belonged to a mousy boy with wiry hair and bug eyes peering from behind glasses.

Brandy huffed out a sigh, kicking her boot up against the wall as her breath came out in a shallow cloud. The night was young, and frustratingly cold, and Brandy just wished Steve would hurry up with her drink so she didn't have to talk to James Kibbler from anatomy.

"Sure," the Brooks teen replied lazily, focusing on the worn leather of her jacket rather than the boy glancing nervously at her. "If you're into toxic masculinity."

"Heh, that's kind of funny," James chuckled drily, letting the warm beer in his cup swirl along the plastic insides. "You know, considering—"

"Considering what?" Brandy cut him off hastily, tossing a menacing glare with her rum-colored gaze. She watched the boy freeze under that pinpointed look, squirming in his poorly done zombie makeup. Something about the way his eyes flickered uneasily to the wet grass blades below their feet told her she probably guessed the answer right.

"Get lost, Kibbler," another, more familiar voice dragged behind Brandy, and the relief swimming in her chest was almost unwelcoming. Steve prodded a cup of spiked punch into Brandy's open palm, keeping his eyes glued to the boy.

James sucked in his lips, giving them both a curt nod and ducking his head as he passed, but his quick exchange with Brandy had done enough damage. Even if that damage would just get swept under a tarnished rug for now, Brandy could feel its presence like a beaming light. Kibbler has taken classes with her for ages now, and she never missed the dirty glances he would throw her way when she was around Steve. Glances that did enough to make guilt pool in her gut uncomfortably.

"What the hell did he want?" Steve asked coolly, placing his hand on the wall above Brandy's head as he began to gingerly sip from his own cup.

"Nothing," she lied, enjoying the bitterness floating on her tongue from the drink. "Making small talk about Mr. Mullet," she rasped with a quick nod at Billy, who was storming around the backyard with a triumphant expression and an entire audience to support him.

"God he's only been here a day and I hate him," Steve admitted in a hushed breath, so quiet it was almost suffocated by the blasting music.

"Listen, I have to pick up my brother, so I don't plan on drinking that much," Brandy announced, deftly switching topics from the grotesque machine gun stomping all over Tina's flower garden.

"No problem," Steve shook his head with a glassy smile, downing the remaining contents of his drink with a wet exhale. He surveyed the backyard with one final sweep before his dark eyes were back on Brandy, bringing new mischief to them. "Alright, c'mon party girl."

Brandy nearly gasped when she felt Steve's hand encompass hers, pulling her towards the back door with an inviting motion. "C'mon, Harrington. I specifically told you I came as a girl who hates parties."

"Well, I guess you're breaking character."

"Oh, and so soon?" Brandy pouted teasingly back, letting the boy lead her inside where the air was warmer and damper, insulated by several moving bodies.

"We're dancing," Steve smirked, sliding his ridiculous sunglasses over his face as he began wildly moving about. "So you better put your party face on."

Brandy wasn't normally a dancer, but with the drink sparking a buzz and the laughing boy bouncing in front of her, she found herself falling for the trap of high school parties.

And Steve Harrington. Who, after a half hour more, had downed more than a few drinks and was wildly slinging her arms around. Their bodies had increasingly pressed closer, and with Kibbler's hidden insult still burning flakes in her mind, Brandy grew restless.

Restless enough to grip tightly at Steve's jacket collar, yank him forward, and furiously press her lips against his.

She wasn't sure what she was expecting, whether it be a film-worthy, firework moment where time moves like molasses, or a gentle kiss where he knew exactly how to cup her cheeks in his hand. Truthfully she felt nothing, and she didn't get enough time to find something to feel.

Steve pulled away, his eyes suddenly a lot clearer than before with its alcoholic haze. "Woah woah woah," Steve breathed heavily, his eyebrows curled upwards in bewilderment. His lips were smudged with a rose tint from where she had violently kissed him, and the ruby mark was enough to make her glare at the floor in embarrassment. "What are you doing, Bran?"

Stupidly, she froze, unsure of what to feel or how to answer, growing stiff under his confused, demanding eyes. But that's when she remembered Kibbler again, and the anger rose up like bubbles.

Two hands on his chest and a hard shove, she knocked him into a few more warm bodies and earned him annoyed glares and curses. "What the hell do you want, Harrington? Huh?"

"What are you talking about?"

From somewhere near the front door, Brandy could catch a pair of puzzled looks, one coming from the incredibly sober Jonathan Byers and the less so Nancy Wheeler, which Brandy could judge from the giant punch stain on her stark white dress. In that moment, it could've been anybody, even Billy Hargrove or James. But seeing Nancy watch them with her innocent, fawn eyes made the wound deepen.

"I just don't get it!" She slapped his arm again, her knuckles roughing up against his strikingly nice coat. "You want to hold my hand and hit on me, but then when it comes to actually dating me, you freak out! You've been doing it for months. It's two summers ago all over again."

Steve choked on his words like they were poison, shaking his head furiously. "Brandy, I—"

"No," Brandy spat. "You don't get to explain yourself. You don't get to apologize." A groan fell from her lips, and Brandy could feel the eyes start to snake towards them.

"I'm not playing your games anymore, Steve. Find someone else to take advantage of."

~

"Just please don't tell the others," Will begged with glistening eyes, his throat wound up tightly like a guitar string. "They wouldn't understand like you guys."

Eli's mind was reeling, furiously working to process the information Will had just confessed to the both of them. It struck Eli's innermost anxieties, imagining Will lodged between worlds, the Upside Down pawing at the back of his mind while everything seemed like the real world (mostly).

Mike sat to Will's right, making the frail Byers boy snugged between his two best friends. Eli had been occasionally glancing at him, checking to see if the same befuddled and shocked expression had created upon his freckled facade. Instead, his eyes had glazed over with a strange sort of reminiscence. "Eleven would," he spoke softly.

Eleven. Eli hadn't heard her name nor thought of the heroic girl since November. He knew her disappearance (he chose to ignore the much darker, heavier word that floated in his head) had weighed a bit heavier on Mike than the others. Still, hearing him speak of her brought a strange pang to Eli's chest, one that made his lungs feel like shriveled, coiled cocoons.

"She would?" Will pondered.

"Yeah," Mike nodded, a blissful smile betraying the light wetness in his eyes. "I don't know. She was really cool, and would probably know what to do about this."

"She was pretty cool," Eli reflected, his thoughts roaming back to their one, private exchange. Two earthy gazes and a small moment of gratitude. Maybe even a moment of understanding. His eyes were back on Mike, his voice remaining meek as he asked, "Do you miss her?"

The Wheeler's shoulders shrugged lamely, and Eli knew that such an incomplete answer would make his insides rattle with disappointment. It was selfish, and the secretive wanting for a shake of the head, or some proud explanation of how the emptiness from Eleven leaving was filled with new friends, made him shake with guilt.

New friends. Mike had only made one new friend, really.

"I don't know," Mike replied absently, and his hooded eyes told Eli he was losing himself to his thoughts. "Sometimes I feel like...like she's still here?" He was even less confident in his answer than Eli was. "I know it's stupid. I'm probably going crazy."

"Me too," Will admitted glassily, and Eli suddenly felt a rush of empathy wash over him as he gazed wondrously at the two boys.

"Hey, don't worry," Eli cut in, his tone surprisingly quaint. "I won't let either of you go crazy. Not unless I'm there too."

Both boys returned the heartfelt smile, and before more words could be spoken into the basement's dusty atmosphere, a car honk resounded from outside.

"Will, sweetie! It's your brother!" Karen called from upstairs.

Eli could picture her now, in a colored linen dress with curls pressed neatly into her blonde hair as she handled a bowl of candy meant for the trick or treaters. It was such a sickly contrast to what Eli saw earlier in his mother, a sullen body reclined on the couch, donned in baggy sweats and no makeup. Sometimes Sandra Brooks could be like Karen Wheeler, but other times she could be nothing, not even herself.

"He's early," Mike commented as Will rose to his feet, scooping his candy he discarded onto the table back into bag.

"I don't know why," Will mumbled, tossing the bag over his shoulder as he harbored the video camera with his other hand. "Thanks for listening, guys."

"Of course," Eli answered, smiling up at his best friend. It was then, as he watched the smaller boy clamber up the stairs with his hollow, yet always thinking face, he promised he would prioritize Will Byers more. More than he had lately, anyway.

And then Mike was looking at him, and Eli couldn't help but feel his insides melt into wax under such a pensive stare. "Now it's just us."

Why was he so nervous? Eli rubbed his palms together, noting their clamminess and silently begging Mike couldn't see his sudden unease. "Yep."

"Do you know when Brandy will be here?"

"Soon, I guess," Eli murmured, hastily reaching forward and snatching a popcorn ball from the mountain of delicacies. The motion had been enough for his blue jacket to slide up his forearm, riding his milky skin and, unbeknownst to the Brooks boy, revealing the menacing circle of dark marks on his wrist. It had morphed into a ring of purples and browns, and it caught Mike's eye almost instantly.

"Hey," his hand reached forward gently, like he was swooping down to brush his fingers against a stray animal's bloodied pelt. "What happened here?" He didn't touch it, rather he just pointed with the tip of his index finger.

Embarrassment flowed into Eli's system and his face colored into the hue of a split cherry as he pulled his sleeve back over his wrist. "Nothing," he lied blatantly, and there was no lame excuse like tripping off his bike to explain the uniquely shaped injury.

Mike's next question surprised and terrified him at the same time. "Did your dad do that?" His eyes were coated in concern, and a flash of pity hidden behind it that stung worse than the bruises themselves.

Eli grew defensive. "Did Will tell you something?" He demanded, his tone much sharper and sandpapery than he had tried for.

Mike flinched back slightly, as if Eli had struck him in the chest with two fingers or pinched his arm. "What? No. I just...I've heard things, you know?"

"Things?" Eli's heart was practically leaping out of his chest now.

"Yeah, like, Patty Miller in math class...and the things she sees at church," Mike's voice almost seemed far away, like Eli was becoming entangled in those memories behind church pews and organ music.

"Please don't tell anyone," Eli begged, his voice matching his trembling hands as he abandoned the unopened popcorn ball and focused on digging his nails into the pink flesh of his palm. He was already mortified at the fact that Mike Wheeler knew that his dad hit him sometimes, and where he heard it from guaranteed others knew too. It would be even worse if the raven-haired boy told his friends, until the secret trickled further and further like a web expanding its tendrils. Until it suddenly wasn't a secret anymore. Maybe it had already reached that point.

"Of course not," Mike mumbled assuringly, but it was like putting a bandaid on a glass frame seconds away from shattering into thousands of fragments.

Eli felt like crying, knowing that storm of pity and worry mingling in Mike's entire presence. He didn't want this to change anything, and he especially didn't want Mike looking at him as a case that needed help, a toy requiring heavy repair. That sort of thing he was used to from his sisters, the ones who always saw him bearing the belt or a hand or even a foot sometimes. But he knew he wouldn't be able to take it from Mike.

"And don't worry about it," Mike suddenly offered, and to Eli's astonishment, there wasn't that same pitiful, remorseful kind of blaze in him. "I don't see you any different. We're still friends, and you're still Eli."

Eli finally looked up at Mike, a tear betraying his pride as it slithered down his cheek and onto his neck. There was a smile on the dark-haired boy's lips, the same one he had offered Will when he professed the truth about his episodes. A genuine, understanding curve in his mouth that told him nothing was going to change, that they were still connected.

"Thanks."

Mike nodded. "And if anything happens, and you need to run away from home, you can come here. I'll build you a fort down here. I can hide you, just like El."

But Eli was hardly thinking about El. He was thinking about himself, swamped in Mike Wheeler's blankets, tucked safely in a fort that, if he pretended hard enough, might just protect him from everything. His dad, his bullies, the Demogorgon. Anything. "Thank you, Mike."

A year ago, it had seemed so unlikely. But now, he sat in that strangely warm basement with him, and he just felt so lucky to be friends with Mike Wheeler.

Even if he wanted more.

Then, much like Eli could feel Mike's sincerity in his words, he could feel a realization dawning upon him. It was like drawing the blinds open in your carpeted bedroom in the morning, letting the sun hit you like a flash of white light. Eli knew, the knowledge washing over him like warm soap, that he could trust Mike. He could trust Mike with anything, seeing the way his father's abuse bounced off the boy like a spring and yet he still gazed at Eli all the same. Even if he wanted to protect him from his father's terrifying hand.

"Hey, Mike?" He could already feel an egg-sized lump surging forward in his throat, one he had to swallow with great difficulty.

"Yeah?"

"Do you ever..." His fingers still pricked mindlessly at his opposing hand, and he could feel his skin running cold like a faucet. "Do you ever feel things that...that you don't think you're supposed to?"

Mike's eyebrows had knitted together in that same numbing confusion as he peered over at the boy. He could tell from his shrunken posture, his head nearly bowed into his chest as his knees bunched up close, that he was anxious. Eli wasn't a stranger to being anxious, and Mike wasn't a stranger to seeing him anxious either.

"Like what?"

"Like..." His head was pounding with wordless music, like cymbals clanging together at the rate of his heart thudding rapidly inside him. He could feel a red wave crest over his face, and he gulped down another lump. His eyes screwed shut, and behind that mass of brown and hazy particles in his vision, he could see two hands wrenched together in a dirty middle school bathroom.

"Like wanting to kiss boys."

Mike didn't answer, and Eli began to tug on his ear. In fact, Mike still hadn't spoken after the fifth or sixth tug, and Eli began to fearfully wonder if trusting Mike with such a forbidden secret was the right choice.

"I don't know," Mike replied, his voice painfully casual while Eli felt as though his entire world was crumbling like paper cards curling into themselves in a puddle. "I've only kissed one girl." He didn't have to say who, Eli knew. But the kind of salt that confession could bring never reached Eli, because Mike was already asking his next, much worse question. "Do you feel those things?"

Eli knew all color had drained from his face by now, contrasting that wine red with a ghostly white and he's tugging on his ear again. He needs to change the subject, and quick, because suddenly he's realizing he doesn't have the heart to see the other side of what his answer would be. He doesn't hold the power in himself to meet Mike's gaze again, now or tomorrow, after telling him.

"Hey, you missed a Twix." The words came out too fast and too blurred into one another, and he knew that such an urgency had probably been answer  enough to Mike. Still, his feeble hand wrapped around the caramel candy bar and he held it out towards the raven-haired boy.

Mike felt his own disappointment shake down on him as he read the desperation on Eli's face. The yearning to take the candy bar and accept that no, he wasn't going to talk about it anymore. He wasn't going to open any further like a chapter book easy to read.  "Uh, sure, thanks."

His hand reached over the candy, with full intent to take it but also to take another moment for himself. He wanted to brush his fingers against Eli's again, as he had earlier in the bathroom and in many other obscure times before that.

Yet, the moment their hands touched, an electric shock rattled between them and led both boys to jump back like the other had grown a second head.

"Sorry," Eli apologized, and Mike almost challenged it.

Why? Why are you sorry? Why do you apologize for things you have no control over?

"No worries," Mike smiled instead, and he just wished Eli would look at him. "Nothing but built up static, that's all."

The second car horn of the night went off, and Mike knew before Eli that it was his sister, and pretty soon he would be left alone in a pile of traded Twix bars and numerous questions.

"Guess that's me," Eli laughed drily, awkwardly shuffling to his feet as he rubbed the spot on his hand that still bristled from the tiny spark between him and Mike. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

Was it a question now, and not a statement? Why did it sound like he was asking for permission?

"Yeah," Mike grinned, although he was sure there was a surge of force behind the plastic curve of his lips. "Yeah, I'll see you."

Brandy didn't greet Eli when he joined her in the dark, hooded atmosphere of her Impala, meaning she didn't want to talk. Which he was grateful for, he realized, as he tossed his candy bag into the backseat. He didn't possess the energy to paste on a smile right now either, painting the night to be as great as he entailed. It had been okay, sure, but he felt empty. And full of shame.

He still didn't know if telling Mike ruined everything. What if it had? What if now, when he spotted Mike across the lunchroom, or walked with him to the next period like routine, would be different? As though some unspoken, mutual curiosity wavered between them, both too uncomfortable to explore and discuss.

Or worse, what if Mike hated him? What if Mike already knew, despite Eli's silence, that the Brooks boy wasn't like him? That he wasn't someone who kissed girls or dreamed about inviting them to cheesy dances. Someone who went to church every Sunday and prayed because he was a good Catholic boy that wasn't—

Eli could feel his hot tears shimmering down his face like a curtain, and he yanked open the car door the moment it tore into the Brooks driveway. Brandy watched him go, slightly confused but silent, as he peeled out of his seat without his candy and inside the house. Perhaps they both hadn't enjoyed their night.

Of course, Eli's tears weren't as transparent when he thrusted himself into his shared bedroom with Eve and flung himself onto his bed. The uneasy Brooks girl watched her brother's shoulders tremble for a moment before speaking. "What's wrong?"

Eli lifted his head from the pillow, ignoring the small wet circles on the fabric as he peeked a glance at her empty bed. "Where's Rene?"

"She ate too much popcorn and got sick," Eve answered quickly, much less inclined to deal with Eli's deflections. "What's wrong?"

Eli drew himself to his lap, still sniffling and wiping his sleeve against his nose. Eve's face was drawn with worry and curiosity, and he remembered all the times she had looked at him like this before. And how every time, she had always accepted him. Even when he had admitted he was still afraid of the dark at eight, or his during his first serious panic attack at nine, or even when he was convinced Will was still alive after his body was pulled out of the quarry.

He knew he could tell her without the same mind-numbing fear that had prevented him from telling Mike, but there was someone else he was admitting this to as well: himself. Eli had never said the word out loud, because it made everything so final. Especially since he had been trying to find ways to erase the bolded word out of his head ever since he started thinking about it with consideration.

The word had come up in so many areas of his life, all of which it was spat on like garbage. Church boys damning the word to hell, or school bullies treating the word like an insult greater than any other. He had to say it to himself before he could say it to Mike, and with his twin there to share the moment, it might just make it a little easier.

Maybe he was still too young to tell, but if there ever had to be a moment where he were to redact the confession that was about to tumble of out him, he knew it would feel much better than right now.

"I'm gay."

Eve's expression shifted into one of understanding, of knowing and caring. It was the type of look he needed, and felt hurtfully deprived from after tonight. "That's okay, E."

His arms, which he had been using to prop himself up, shakily retreated into his lap. "What?" He asked, as if he had been hit by her or insulted in a way he wasn't expecting.

"I said that's okay," Eve smiled.

She had known for a while that her brother liked boys, it had become fairly apparent to her by the way he had devoted all his efforts to finding Will last year. Eli Brooks has never been the boy to break rules, but he had been doing it since that November. And now, he was breaking one of the biggest rules now, staring at her with a tear-streaked purple lightning bolt. But she knew telling him of his obviousness was not the right choice of wording, which is why she prayed this reaction would bode better for him.

"You're not upset?" He asked delicately, like she would soon snap from this facade into one of anger or disgust.

"No, of course not. You're my brother. No matter what, I still love you," Eve laughed lightly, and Eli would have too if there still wasn't a weight anchoring him down.

"So...you wouldn't hate me if I told you I had a crush on Mike?"

That was a little surprising, Eve had to admit. She had always mistaken Eli's nervousness around the taller boy as his normal anxiety he would get around new friends. He hadn't even warmed up to Rene until a year and a half after she started eating lunch with them and had sleepovers. She didn't let this show to Eli, out of fear it would be perceived incorrectly. "No, I would never hate you."

But the same way Eve had easily read the sadness on her brother's face, Eli could tell there was more to her story. "What's wrong?"

Eve hesitated, pulling a loose piece of wiry hair out of the corner of her lip. "I don't know, I just...I always thought it was gonna be Will."

He knew what she meant. And he didn't blame her either. Maybe all those years of Will being his only best friend had turned their friendship into something else, but he had always been too young to understand it. And now, everything had changed once Will went away for a little bit. He knew a wedge had been driven between himself and the Byers, something neither of them were in control of given it belonged to dark monsters and unworldly demons. But perhaps, at some point during those days, where it was just Eli Electro and Will the Wise, he had thought those things too.

"Maybe," was all Eli could muster, because he was too exhausted to think further about what he used to feel around Will. "Maybe at some point. But I really like Mike. And I...I didn't realize it could hurt so much."

Eve could only frown a little, nodding. "I know, E. I know."

Outside of their cracked bedroom door, Brandy Brooks clutched Eli's candy sack for life, her pupils widened with shock. She hadn't exactly tried to eavesdrop, but she couldn't help but stop herself from entering and instead hang around in the hall when she heard Eli's sniffling.

So, the rumors had been true.

Brandy left her brother's candy sack outside the door, turning around and snaking into her own bedroom.

Woah. Big chapter today. Lots of crazy things went down. I hate putting author's notes but I wanted to add this little tidbit because although I haven't seen any comments expressing disdain so far, I wanted to maybe address why I included the "plot twist" from Eli's feelings for Will to his crush on Mike.

I know it's a misleading plot point, and it consumes so much of the first part of the book. But I added the complexity of Eli and Will vs. Eli and Mike for a reason. And that's all to capture the immature "love" of a child's crush.

A crush as a child can feel like you're in love, like the person you have feelings for is the one for you and you're so heavily connected to them nobody could replace that. But then someone does, and it happens very quickly.

Of course kids can have crushes/romantic pairings that last for ages. Look at our canon couple in the show, Mike and Eleven. But I wanted to show the other type of kid crush, the one that feels strong but is actually just a "puppy crush" that can quickly switch to another. Kids are young and they don't have the concept of love fully grasped, and I think showing Eli's crush change from his best friend Will to his new friend Mike, even though the first pair seemed so "right" for each other, captures that well. It's also important to keep in mind at this point Eli and Mike are still only 13.

Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. I'm sure nobody had a problem with the sudden "plot twist" but I wanted to explain my reasoning for it.

Thank you so much for all the support! Your comments, votes, and enthusiasm means the world. See you in the next chapter!