Mike had thought about what Dustin said and knew it would be best to break up with El before he ended up hurting her. It would be the best, he knew that. So he was going to do it, he was going to break up with El.

But he didn't.

As soon as he was let into her bedroom he opened his mouth to tell the cute brunette in front of him sitting on her bed the heartbreaking news but nothing came out of his mouth. He stood there frozen like a rock, trying to find the words but unable to.

"Mike?" El asked curiously as she gave her boyfriend a confused look before getting off her bed and walking over to him. She poked his cheeks to try and get his attention back since he seemed to be deep in thought. He blinked before looking into her eyes and seeing the hope in them, realizing she thought what he had to say was good. He couldn't do it. He didn't want to break her fragile heart. He couldn't do that to her, she didn't deserve it at all. 

Besides he knew if he did do it Lucas would become curious and approach him about it and he wasn't sure if he would be able to keep his mouth shut, he was used to telling Lucas things just like he did with Dustin but this was something that could only stay between him and Dustin. And unfortunately Lucas was very skillful at making people talk about things they didn't want to.

Except when it came to Max since he, her very own boyfriend, still didn't know her problems. He knew of them since she had talked about them before with him but only vaguely. He had some guesses about what happened in her home but he had no idea which ones were right and which ones weren't. He was so great at getting people to talk but he hadn't gotten Max to.

It occurred to Mike that there had to be some reason for the fact that he knew more about Max's problems than her own boyfriend did. Maybe it was only because she knew Mike could understand since his family wasn't the best either but he felt it was something more than that. Max was someone who was hard to get to know and the fact that he knew more about her life than Lucas didn't settle well with him. He kept wondering about that, him constantly asking in his head, why is that? why is that? why is that?

Mike was stuck, he didn't know what to say to El. She was expecting him to say something so if he just brushed it off she would become confused. But he couldn't think of what else say besides the terrible words he needed to say. And he wasn't going to say those so he decided just to stick with brushing it off, not caring if he ended up confusing El, "nothing, nevermind."

El gave him another confused look, "weren't you going to say something?" That was why he had come over. He called before and told her he needed to talk to her about something in person. But now he had blown it. He nodded and replied, "yeah but I'm not ready yet, I'll tell you some other time." He figured that was a believable lie, at least for El. She studied him for a moment before nodding, "okay, let me know when you are ready to tell me. " He gave her a smile as he nodded back at her, "I will."

He then moved and was about ready to leave when she grabbed one of his arms with her hands, clinging on like she was a lost child who had just been found by their guardian. He looked down at her, giving her a look as if asking what she was doing. "Can you stay for a little bit?" She asked him with her big puppy dog eyes. He knew well enough by now that whenever she asked him to stay it meant she wanted to cuddle or kiss and he didn't feel like doing either after what he had failed to do. He bit his lip as he thought for a moment, knowing she would need a good reason for why he couldn't stay if he told her no. "Sure," he eventually said after a moment, figuring that would just be the easiest thing to do. He was tired of trying to come up with good lies. He was tired of lying in general.

El gave him a happy smile before lightly bringing him over to her bed, letting go of his arm before jumping onto her bed and plopping on it. He sat down on the bed next to her and as soon as he did she moved to sit across from him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He wrapped his arms around her waist in return as he did his best to keep a smile. "I love you Mike," she told him softly with a warm expression full of pure adoration. "I love you too El," he replied in a similar soft tone as he forced his smile to grow. He knew for sure that he didn't mean that anymore, at least not in a romantic way.

El beamed at his response before leaning forward and kissing him. He kissed her back but this time it felt so wrong and he felt gross in a way. This didn't give him the same feeling it used to and he was mad about that. After a moment she pulled away and rested her head against his. He let out a breath, actually relieved that they weren't kissing anymore. He wasn't sure how long he could go on with this. With being with El even though he wasn't in love with her anymore. He knew he probably wouldn't be able to go long so he needed to break up with her, soon. But he was worried he would end up chickening out everytime. He wouldn't be surprised if Dustin had to break up with her for him.

He and El hung out for a few hours, him avoiding kisses as much as he could without making it obvious something was up. Once their time together was over he immediately rushed back home, pedaling as fast as he could, causing himself to become exhausted by the time he made it home.

As soon as he did he quickly went down to the basement and dialed Dustin's number. "Dustin!" Mike exclaimed loudly into the phone as soon as his friend had picked up. "Jesus Mike, what?" Dustin asked back in slight annoyance since Mike talking so loud into the phone had hurt his ears. "I didn't break up with El," he let out more quietly. "You can always try again tomorrow," Dustin said like it was no big deal. "That's the thing, I can't break up with her! I don't want to break her heart and when I tried today I saw the look in her eyes and just couldn't!" Mike said back frantically as he started pacing in the small space he could with how far the phone cord could stretch.

"Mike you'll have to sooner or later unless you want to mess things up," Dustin told him pointedly. "I know," Mike said back with a sigh. "I just don't know what to do," he added after a moment, his voice becoming weak. It was Dustin's turn to sigh as he replied, "I don't really know what to tell you Mike. I really want to help but you got yourself in a tricky situation." When Mike didn't answer Dustin continued, "you have to break up with her though. Just try to figure out a way to do it that you think would be easiest. Maybe do it over the phone or write a letter to her." That was the best advice he had which would be helpful since the last thing Mike wanted to do was break up with El in person. He felt doing it over the phone would be a lot easier because then he wouldn't have the look in her face and he wouldn't feel as bad and he would actually be able to continue. As long as he wouldn't have to see the heartbroken expression she would get once he broke up with her he felt he would be able to actually do it.

"Yeah, I'll do it over the phone. Good idea Dustin," Mike answered, feeling a little more confident about the whole thing than he had been feeling earlier. "Okay, talk to you tomorrow," Dustin said back before hanging up, wanting to go back to what he had been doing and a little tired of dealing with Mike. Of course he wanted to help him but he didn't have the a whole lot of advice since he had never been in the situation Mike had himself in so he had no idea how to handle it, especially since he was still surprised about the fact that Mike did like Max. That he was falling in love with her.

Of course Mike hadn't admitted to that but Dustin knew that was what was happening. Mike had feelings for the redhead which he knew would develop into love sooner or later. He just wasn't going to say anything about that to Mike because he knew that would just make him more scared about all this. He was already acting weird because of the fact that he had caught feelings for her, Dustin couldn't imagine what he would do if he knew he was going to fall in love with her.

After Dustin had hung up Mike put the phone back and sighed, resting his head against the wall for a moment as he just thought to himself. He really was going to break up with El, his girlfriend of about two years. The girl he used to think he would marry. The girl he used to be so head over heels for. It was hard to believe how that had all been proven wrong by him catching feelings for another girl. That  another girl had made him realize he and El were only puppy love, even though the girl wasn't even aware of that.

He went up to his bedroom and laid down on his bed as he stared up at his ceiling, letting himself drown in his thoughts which he usually refrained from doing. He wondered to himself how Max was doing. How her and Lucas were working out this time. If she was happy.

To answer his last question the answer was no. Dating Lucas again wasn't helping Max at all and she wanted to break up with him before she caused any real damage but a voice in her head kept telling her that she had to stay with him. That she had to get Mike off her mind. That she had been an idiot to ever rely on him. She knew he had a nice side and that they very well could be friends but she knew she didn't deserve that and that she would mess it up anyways with all her thoughts.

Max had had an awful day that consisted of her and Lucas getting into an argument, her falling off her skateboard and skinning one of her knees and her getting abused by Neil again as soon as she had stepped foot through the front door of her home. Of the place that she was supposed to feel safe in. Take comfort in. But of course that wasn't the case for her and instead she knew her home was Mike's place and maybe even him himself. But she tried to quit thinking about that because that just proved how weak she was, that a person she wasn't even super close with was her home.

She was now alone in her room and alone in general since after Neil had taken his anger out on her he had left to go get drunk and her mother had followed in order to try and stop him. She knew that wouldn't end well for her mom but she could care less at the moment since she had too many other things on her mind. And her thoughts were about to take a toll on her.

Not a pretty one either.

***

This chapter I had so much trouble with so I hope it turned out okay. The next chapter will be much better since I already have it written and only have to edit it to make it better and because some interesting things happen in that chapter hehe