𝗖𝗥𝗨𝗘𝗟 𝗦𝗨𝗠𝗠𝗘𝗥

⁀➷ CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ALONE TOGETHER; PART 2

ELAINE KICKED AT THE pebbles underneath her feet as she left the comfort of her home behind, the party still on full blast as all the adults yelled along to another song like teenagers.

They hadn't even noticed the absence of her presence, but she didn't mind. Being alone in a room full of people was worse than being alone with only yourself to talk to. 

She took a drag of the cigarette in her shaking hands, hating how cold it got during the night. Elaine puffed out a circle of smoke and thought about how Annabeth would be clapping sarcastically at her familiar party trick.

But she knew that the girl was secretly impressed, because not even Annabeth could do it. 

So, taking another intake of smoke, she breathed it out through her nose, the sting making her eyes water slightly. But it was a good kind of pain, like after pulling a thorn from your foot or when you let all your anger out by punching a hole in your wall (Elaine hadn't tried it, but Johnny had told her about it).

"W-where'd you learn how to do t-that?" a voice spoke from behind her and Elaine couldn't help but roll her eyes, turning around to face him.

"What are you doing out here, Bill?" she chewed on the inside of her lip, glaring at him.

He shuffled where he stood and pulled the sleeves of his shirt over his hands "you're standing in front of m-my house, I saw you while sitting on my b-bed." He then looked down at the cigarette sitting between her fingers "a-aren't you scared that your p-parents might catch you with that?"

"They're too busy getting drunk to give a damn about their daughter at her own party" Elaine laughed humorously, staring down at her sneaker-clad feet. "Besides, they already found a pack in my side table. Said that as long as I didn't do it in front of people, they didn't care."

"Do I-I not count?" 

She scanned him from head to toe and shrugged "they already love you more than me, you could ask for my pack of cigarettes and they'd force me to give you them."

"C-Come on, you know that i-isn't true" he crossed his arms, but then scratched the back of his neck "at least I t-think it isn't"

"And there's your answer, not even you think it's false." She smiled bitterly, taking another drag of her cigarette "I just don't get it. I have the grades, I'm already perceived as perfect, and I've never done anything wrong in their eyes. What more do I have to do for them to love me?"

Somewhere along her rant, a tear had slipped from her blurry eyes and run down her cheek. Bill reached forward to wipe it away, but she took a step back, shaking her head as she laughed "oh no, you can't just do that. You can't just ignore me and then hope everything's okay between us."

"Elaine-"

"No, I'm not done." he snapped his mouth shut and she knitted her eyebrows together "I've tried to talk to you, what, 5 times in the last week. But you would see me and run the other way. The one thing I hated more than being alone...was being ignored. I'd much rather have you just tell me you don't want to talk than feel as if I've lost the one person I had left after Annabeth walked away from me."

She wiped the tears that had begun to stream down her face, laughing at the pity that probably shone through his eyes. But when she looked back up, they showed guilt instead.

And when he stepped forward, she didn't step back "when we were back at the Well House, I went to help you up, but you back away from my hand, like as if I had burned you-"

"So this is all of a sudden my fault?" Elaine narrowed her eyes again, but Bill rolled his eyes.

"Would you let me finish for once, woman!" he snapped and she almost smiled at the clear annoyance on his face, thinking back to when she had done the same thing while at his house last. "Thank you. When you said that...he...only hurt us once he had backed us all up into our own corners and shut all the doors. You thought I didn't notice the way your eyes looked over to me? I thought that you were afraid of me, and so I thought that you wouldn't want me around."

"You're such a dumbass" she muttered making him roll his eyes (yeah, he definitely had been hanging around her too much) "and what is this, you haven't stuttered once in the past.." she checked her non-existent watch "4 minutes. That's a Bill world record."

"Sometime's I think that you and Richie would make the perfect couple."

Elaine pursed her lips and shook her head "no, I don't think we would."

"And why is that?" he smiled, looking down at her.

The girl took an intake of air, and with a leap of faith, stood up on her tippy toes "because he isn't you."

Before he could reply, Elaine leaned forward and slowly placed her lips on his. When he didn't respond, she panicked as she leaned back, letting out a silent curse "fuck, I shouldn't have done that, I'm so sor-"

"Elaine?" he still looked frozen, but he managed to let a small smile stretch at his lips.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

He cupped her cheek, just like he had done back at Beverly's house, and pressed his mouth to hers, the two guessing how to do it as they went along. She moved her arms up to his neck and one of his moved to her waist as they pulled away with wide eyes.

"Are you wearing Sesame Street pajamas?"

authors note!

Another sort of filler chapter, but this time, they kissed (what the actual fuck?!). Also, how do you write a kissing scene, I don't have much experience other than when a boy kissed me while we were drunk and I was sober enough to pull away and when my first real boyfriend pecked me like once before we broke up a week later (LMAO).