Chapter Text
It is time for the swim unit in her gym class. In the school basement there is a pool, and every term they are required to learn swimming. She knows how to swim...well, she knows how to be in water without drowning.
On the first day, she walks into the change room and immediately notices the tiles. They remind her of the lab. She grows anxious, but grounds herself by watching the pretty girls with long hair–if she was in the lab, they would not look like that. She puts on her new one piece suit. She likes it because it is bright with a fun pattern. The straps are wide and do not cross in the back, and there are no ruffles. She hates ruffles because they make her feel bad.
She sees Angela, a girl she knows from her class with Will, staring at her. Angela has a two-piece polka dot suit. She thinks maybe Angela likes the pattern of her suit, because polka dot is also a fun pattern. El smiles at her to try and be friendly, but Angela wrinkles her nose and turns to whisper in her friend's ear. El wonders what she did wrong; Joyce said people like it when you smile at them. El shuts her locker and goes out into the pool room.
It is different than the bath; she knows this. But then she sees an overhead fluorescent flicker, and suddenly the water is dangerous. She does not want to go in–what if she awakens another monster? In that moment, it does not matter that her powers are gone–she is afraid. And Papa is not here to make her go in. So she stays still. Everyone has gathered around the stairs into the pool. Mr. Amani, the gym teacher, calls her to join them but she shakes her head.
She does not like Mr. Amani. He scowls and yells a lot. He yells at her a lot, when she does not immediately understand instructions. Now, his expression turns mean and he says, "C'mon Jane, we need to start going over pool safety!"
She crosses her arms and shakes her head again, "No."
Mr. Amani sighs and walks over. "I don't have time for this, little lady, now let's go."
When she refuses to move, he puts his big hand on her shoulder to move her, and then he is a guard, marching her along the platform towards the bath. She wrenches her body away from him and screams, "NO!"
Everyone stares at her. She is afraid she will be punished, because she disobeyed Papa.
"What– Ms. Hopper, you're too old for a tantrum like this! You will join us or I will see you in the principal's office."
El ends up in the principal's office. They do not call Joyce, but she is told her behavior was unacceptable. She sulks for the rest of the day. She feels very conflicted– she desperately wants to be a good student, to be normal, like a regular girl. But…her past, the lab, it is always present in her thoughts. She is different, and the teachers will never understand.
***
The next class, she knows how to avoid the pool. She remembers once earlier that year when she wanted to go to the beach. Her stomach was hurting a lot, and she thought a trip to the beach would be relaxing. She could float in the water or bounce in the waves; she liked doing that. The water was salty but the waves were unpredictable, so she always knew it was not a bad place.
She walked out of the bathroom with some pads just in case, but Joyce saw her and said, "Oh honey, is it your time of the month?" El nods. "Ohh, so when you said your stomach was hurting..." She trails off and gives her a sympathetic look. "You shouldn't really go swimming when you're on your period. Unless you want to use a tampon?"
El shakes her head vigorously. So they did not go to the beach that day, instead opting to watch movies while El curled around a hot water bottle.
***
El does not actually have her period, but Mr. Amani does not know that. When he asks why she is still fully clothed, she says confidently, "I am on my period."
His face instantly goes red. He stutters and tells her that she can sit the class out. El smiles to herself, happy to avoid pool anxiety today.
She uses the excuse for the rest of the swim unit. She is sad she does not get to wear her nice bathing suit, but she can usually get Jonathan to take her to the beach on the weekends. He smokes his funny smelling stuff there–weed, Will told her is what it's called. She does not mind the smell if it lets her go to the beach.
***
A few classes after she began using the period excuse, Angela comes up to her after class.
"Hey, Jane! I noticed you've been sitting out every class lately."
"Yes…it's my period."
"C'mon Jane, it's not really your period, is it?"
El must look frightened, because Angela continues "'Cause I to-o-tally get it. When I first heard we had to swim, I was so worried 'cause like, who wants to get their hair wet in the middle of the school day, right?" When El still doesn't respond, Angela says, "Don't worry, I won't tell Mr. Amani. It'll be our little secret."
She smiles brightly at her. A secret…friends share secrets! Are they becoming friends now? Hair, El thinks…yes, that can be her explanation. El leans in a bit closer to Angela and giggles, "You are right, I am not on my period. I do not want to get my hair wet."
"I knew it!" Angela slaps El's arm playfully, "Jane, you are sooo clever! Will I see you at lunch tomorrow?"
"Ok!" El says brightly. She is finally making a friend!
***
The next day at lunch, she looks around the cafeteria for Angela. Angela sees her and waves, "Jane! Over here!"
Angela stands with two of her other friends. Once El approaches, Angela asks "So-o, what's up?"
El opens her mouth to respond, when suddenly her friends move and dump the contents of their water bottles on her: one over her head, and the other on the front of her dress. El just stands, shocked, and Angela laughs.
"What? Are you not going to scream? Your like, worst fear is getting your hair wet, right?" She stops addressing El and says to her friends, "You should have seen her on the first day of swimming…"
El stops listening and notices other people watching and pointing at her. She can tell they are laughing–tears spring to her eyes. She turns on her heel and walks as fast as she can to the bathroom. She closes the stall, sits on the toilet, and cries. Did she do something wrong to make Angela mad? Are they not really friends?
She sways back and forth as she tries to process what happened. She must sit there for a long time, because suddenly the warning bell rings. She thinks about if she should go to her next class–algebra. But it makes her stressed, and the last time she had an outburst she was put in detention. It was not like The Breakfast Club at all, El discovered. The detention monitor scolded her for fidgeting, but she was anxious and couldn't help it. She kept worrying that when she got up to leave the doors would be locked, like when she was punished in the lab. She was so relieved to see her brother waiting for her in the hallway–she knew she was safe if he was there.
She wonders if she would get detention for skipping class…she decides she needs to ask Will, but she has to hurry to catch him before class starts. She bursts out of the bathroom and races to where his English classroom is. She peeks in and sees him sketching in his seat. She wishes she had her powers to get his attention. She decides to just stare at him intensely. Eventually he senses eyes on him and looks up. His right hand moves towards his neck, but then he sees El. He looks surprised and confused. He mouths El? as he stands up and walks over to her.
In the hall, he asks, "What are you doing here, is everything ok?"
"Will I get detention if I skip class?"
She sees him look her over, and she remembers that she's still partially wet from earlier. His eyebrows furrow in concern.
"Uhh, I'm not sure…I don't think so? Do you want me to skip with you?"
"But…your class…"
"I'll just, uh…I'll say I'm not feeling well and ask to go to the nurse."
"You will lie?"
He shrugs, "It's fine. We can sit together and I'll like, read the next chapter of my book, or something. Wait here, I'll be back in two minutes."
He returns in one minute and thirty seconds. He sees her face and says, "Seriously, don't worry, El. We don't lie to our friends, but teachers are different."
"And boyfriends."
"What?!"
"Max said boyfriends lie."
“OH, I see. Yeah…right…so you get it–sometimes lying happens.”
“So…you are not really sick?” She wants to make sure.
“No! No, I’m not. Are you alright? It looks like something happened…”
At the concern in his voice, her eyes start to tear up again. She does not want to admit that Angela tricked her, so she does not answer.
He touches her elbow and says, "Come on, let's go somewhere the teachers won't bother us."
***
He leads her to a spot near the track field under a tree. She hasn't said anything since the hallway, and at first Will just sits with her. He takes out Romeo and Juliet and opens it somewhere mid-book. She is also reading that in her English class, unfortunately. (Mrs. Gracey said Shakespeare was "too important" to the yearly curriculum for her to remove it from El's studies entirely. She also said that since part of their grade will be performing a scene, El should have less difficulty being at the same level as her peers. El is not looking forward to it. Jonathan agrees with her that performing is almost worse than writing an essay, but Joyce and Will have been trying to encourage her. It is not working, but she appreciates the effort.)
She knows Will is not ignoring her while he reads. They developed this way of being there for each other during the summer. It started because she was mute, and Will would keep her company. If she wanted to talk/write about it, he was there for her, but he never pressured her to say anything. Then one time, Will had a particularly bad nightmare and it made him anxious the next morning. El wanted to comfort him, but he said it was better if he just sat with her while she did her schoolwork. He talked with her about it the next day; finally ready to verbalize what happened.
They bonded a lot that summer through these moments of companionship and processing. They were the only ones who truly understood each other when they talked about the Upside Down. Everyone was sympathetic, but Will knew. He knew the fear, the pain, the darkness and bone-deep cold. El thinks it is what took them from acquaintances to as close as blood siblings in only a few months.
Right now he sits next to her and scans the page in front of him. Three minutes go by before he speaks up.
"You know, El, if this is something that happened with Angela, you don't have to hide that from me…I know what it's like to be bullied." His expression turns distant. El wonders if he knows what it feels like to be such an outsider. She knows he was bullied before he got taken into the Upside Down, and after that they called him "Zombie Boy". But at least he grew up around other kids. He found close friends and went to school and learned how to interact with other people. El always feels a little off-balance when interacting with her peers at Lenora High. It is like everyone is in on a joke except for her. She did not know Angela was going to be mean to her, but she imagines Will probably would have realized her bad intentions from the start. And it frustrates El, because how is she supposed to know when people are speaking to her nicely or not? Angela had smiled at her and invited El to lunch–those were friendly things, weren't they? She groans internally–her brain keeps thinking in circles as she tries to understand. How can she explain this to Will?
Her knees are curled up to her chest and she picks at the grass by her feet. She says, "It felt worse this time, because I thought she wanted to be my friend," her voice cracks on the word. "But she was actually making f–fun of me. But I could not tell…" she looks at Will with watery eyes. "How do I know if she is being…gen-u-eyene?"
Will's look of sympathy turns contemplative. He is silent for another thirty seconds. He looks frustrated and scratches the back of his head.
"I– I don't know, El. It is hard to explain. I think a lot of it is tone of voice. But…but you don't wanna be Angela's friend anyway."
"I don't?"
"Well…maybe you do, but there's way better people out there to be friends with! Screw Angela! She's not worth your time."
"Is she a mouth-breather?"
"Yeah, definitely a mouth-breather," Will smiles, but it disappears quickly.
"She…she might still be mean to you. But– but next time you don't need to worry about analyzing her tone, or like, getting your hopes up about befriending her." She must look sad, because Will quickly corrects, "Look, I know it sounds really sad to say 'don't befriend people' when I know you want to make friends. But some people are just…not nice, and they don't deserve your friendship. You're too good to be friends with a mouth-breather like Angela."
El smiles at him a little. When he says "too good" she is pretty sure he means that El is better than Angela, and that Angela's friendship is "not worth" El's time. But also…
"I am…good?" Her voice wavers a little.
Will's expression softens and he reaches for her hands. She reaches back and he holds them firmly.
"We've been over this, but yes, you are good, El. Angela's been mean to you before, but you were still hopeful to be her friend, right? That's a good person."
El doubts herself sometimes because of her past. She worries that she will always be tainted by her worst actions and that she will never overcome them. Joyce says what she did was OK because it was for survival, but the memories still weigh on El. But if Angela is a bad person even though she has never killed anyone, then maybe El can accept that she is a good person even though she has.
El takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.
"Thank you, Will."
"Of course." He lets go of her hands and returns to Romeo and Juliet. Maybe while they are here together she should ask Will to explain some of the passages to her…but then she sees the confusion on his face and she thinks that maybe he does not understand it much either.
Her hair and clothes are dry now, which makes her feel a lot better. Getting used to the California weather was…different. But right now she is glad that even though it is October, it is sunny and warm out. Her and Will continue to sit under the tree until they hear the bell signaling next period. Will looks at her with raised eyebrows, “You ready to go back?”
He is still sitting and not making any movements to put his book away, so she thinks he is asking if she wants to skip another class. She remembers her schedule–right now she is supposed to be in…biology. She likes that class, so she nods. Will smiles at her, and they gather their things and start heading back.
He walks her to her class and before she goes in, he says, “If anything like that ever happens again, remember you can always come find me, alright?”
She smiles appreciatively, “Thank you, Will.”
They are not blood related, but she loves him all the same.