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School has started back up, and Eleven feels strange, with all of her new memories bumping into the old ones in her mind. Angela is a bruise in her thoughts, and every girl with blonde hair and bangs is her until El sees their faces or hears their voices. She's grumpy for her first week, frowning down at the floors as she walks and only speaking when spoken to directly. It isn't normal for her, but it's what she does.
She feels off balance. She feels angry. She feels afraid. She wants to find her way back to Hawkins and kill Henry for what he did to Max and her home. But she knows as well as anyone that she can't leave this place, so she has to just live with knowing that Hawkins is burning and the rest of her friends are in danger.
How have Will and Hop and Joyce managed this? Will has known the entire time. Joyce, she thinks, has too, and Hop remembered it the same way El has. How have they been able to know these things, and not try to break down Darrow's invisible barriers? How is she supposed to? She has to. She has no choice. But how is she supposed to?
She sighs, unable to focus on the homework laid out in front of her. She needs a break, and to get out of her own head. Which means no Looking, no Void, and no Hawkins. It stings to think about ignoring everything like that, but maybe just taking a break from thinking about it will help her be able to do the things she’s still supposed to be doing. She isn’t sure what else to do. So she takes a deep breath and grabs a light jacket, her phone, and her house key, pats Dustin the cat on the way out, and heads out to look for somewhere to get ice cream.
She finds a place called Cone of Truth a few blocks from her house. It definitely wasn’t in that building before; she knows that with certainty only because she’s walked by this place several times in the two years she’s been in Darrow. She stands outside, right in the middle of the sidewalk, looking up at the sign and the window, frowning with equal parts concern and curiosity when she reads ‘the ice cream chooses you!’ under the name.
She feels off balance. She feels angry. She feels afraid. She wants to find her way back to Hawkins and kill Henry for what he did to Max and her home. But she knows as well as anyone that she can't leave this place, so she has to just live with knowing that Hawkins is burning and the rest of her friends are in danger.
How have Will and Hop and Joyce managed this? Will has known the entire time. Joyce, she thinks, has too, and Hop remembered it the same way El has. How have they been able to know these things, and not try to break down Darrow's invisible barriers? How is she supposed to? She has to. She has no choice. But how is she supposed to?
She sighs, unable to focus on the homework laid out in front of her. She needs a break, and to get out of her own head. Which means no Looking, no Void, and no Hawkins. It stings to think about ignoring everything like that, but maybe just taking a break from thinking about it will help her be able to do the things she’s still supposed to be doing. She isn’t sure what else to do. So she takes a deep breath and grabs a light jacket, her phone, and her house key, pats Dustin the cat on the way out, and heads out to look for somewhere to get ice cream.
She finds a place called Cone of Truth a few blocks from her house. It definitely wasn’t in that building before; she knows that with certainty only because she’s walked by this place several times in the two years she’s been in Darrow. She stands outside, right in the middle of the sidewalk, looking up at the sign and the window, frowning with equal parts concern and curiosity when she reads ‘the ice cream chooses you!’ under the name.
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When even my new friend's manners don't alter the employee's behavior, my temper flares. I know I can't vault the counter and kick the fucker. I adapt. I drop my hands so I'm not tempted to beat against the glass. I wait.
He lumbers back - still silent - with an ice cream in each hand. Mine is out of a book. Literally. It was a picture book I remember from the FEDRA nursery. A waffle-patterned cone with white ice cream, brown goo and little dots of nuts and colorful flecks, all topped with a bright red cherry.
I've never seen anything so beautiful. I go to reach for it, but I hesitate. I look at the other girl for some kind of cue to follow.
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"...H-how much?" she asks.
"Your order's already been paid for," the server says, and El frowns, so he points at a sign by the register. It reads Your order has been paid for: be kind — pay it forward! paying it forward since 1955
Pay it forward. Eleven knows the term: Someone who got ice cream before them paid for an order that hasn't happened yet. Her order. So she can either take the ice cream now, and walk away with free ice cream, or she can pay for the order of whoever comes after her, so they can get free ice cream, too. It is a gesture of kindness, she knows.
She wants to be kind.
"Yes," she answers. She looks at the girl beside her and says, "I will 'pay it forward' for two ice creams, because we got two ice creams."
"That's great!" the guy chirps. It's the first real inflection or sign of personality either of them have seen since they walked in. He moves to the register and rings up two orders. "That's 9.98 total."
She pulls a ten dollar bill out of her pocket, then drops the two pennies she gets back into a clay bowl that looks like a top hat, with another small sign that reads 'I tip my hat to you!' She has seen enough signs like this to know what that means, and besides that, it saves her from having two pennies clinking around in her pocket.
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When she puts 2 of the stupid coins back into a jar, that's too fucking much. This guy is suddenly employee of the fucking month and this girl is just giving her money away. Isn't that supposed to be a big deal? Books are always going on about that dumb shit, and I don't come from a big tipping society. Any society, really.
Once I have the thing in my hand, I rush out the exit like there's a horde of Infected assembling behind me. Food can be taken. I don't understand the customs of this place. And I'm going to have ice cream if it kills me. My heart is beating so fast. What the fuck is happening to me?
The only thing I can grab a hold of is the sudden realization that: "you paid for mine." I'm accusing her. No, it's a preemptive defense, just in case she tries to claim I stole from her. That's exactly the kind of shit that happened to Riley and me in FEDRA school all the time.
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"Yes," she agrees, looking a bit puzzled still. Yes, she recognizes this behavior. She's... resource-protective. Eleven'd had to be that way, too, for a time. "You did something nice for me," she explains. "In the bathroom? I wanted to do something nice for you back." She smiles, small and hopeful and a little uncertain. "I want us to be friends." She lifts a hand to point at herself. "I'm El. Hopper."
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"El?" I repeat, disbelieving. "I'm Ellie!" Yeah, I'm excited as hell for a friend, but not as excited as I am about the ice cream. I look between the glorious treat in my hands and my new friend one last time. This is my last moment as a kid who has never tried ice cream.
It's weird as hell -- I have to use my tongue and my lips. The sensation is shockingly cold against my teeth, my lips protected by layer of chocolate sauce. I bite into the thing like an apple. My eyes go wide.
"Holy. Shit." I sound serious, buy my face is lit up like one of those Christmas trees from a different picture book. Awed. Euphoric. My mouth is a chocolate sauce crime scene. The entire mouthful has become some freezing inferno. I want to spit my gums out, but I wouldn't dare. My mouth is overflowing. "This is the best fucking thing I've ever tasted."
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Ellie's mouth is a mess of chocolate sauce and rapidly melting ice cream, a cherry step peeking from her mouth, and El bursts into giggles.
"The stem," she finally manages. "Take the cherry stem out of your mouth." She licks her ice cream again, catching some of the whipped cream on it. It's the same exact cone she'd had the day she'd arrived — the last time she'd seen Max.
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El eats like a civilized human being. If she were to tell me now about who she is and where she came from, I wouldn't believe her. She... fits. In a way I fucking do not.
I wipe at my mouth with the long sleeve of my undershirt and make an even bigger mess. Her laugh makes me laugh.
Joel says we're safe. He says we're in a place something like before the Cordyceps infection. I think he's telling me to let my guard down just a little. Like he has. And he's still alive. Still looking after me.
Officers, teachers -- they all wanted me to be grateful. For their meager education, for their shelter and protection. Never. The more they wanted to smooth me out, the harder I fought. On the list of things I feel about FEDRA grateful is dead last. They made me believe I wasn't grateful.
"Thanks." No sarcasm, no frills. I helped her when she needed someone, and she helped me because she wanted to. Because she's grateful.
Fuck you, FEDRA. Turns out I was never the problem.
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"Here," El says once she's beside her again. "You will get sticky if it dries."
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"This is fuckin' amazing," I tell my new friend. My next interaction with the ice cream is much less painful. I actually feel... warm. Safe.
It's weird. And speaking of weird...
"What is the deal with that place?"
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She's quiet. Like, she doesn't say a whole lot. Her voice is also quiet. If I hadn't heard her promise to kill a man, I might not have expected it. She seems so... normal. Comfortable. Like she's safe. I guess I am, too.
"This is good shit," I agree, "but wouldn't you rather pick your own?" I don't like my choices to be made for me.
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Something else occurs to her, then, and her eyes widen. "Have you had root beer?" she asks, enunciating the two words separately instead of squishing them together the way many people do. "It is delicious by itself, but I also like to have it with a scoop of ice cream inside. It is called a root beer float. It is one of my favorites." It still doesn't stand up to her and Hop's Eggo Extravaganza, but she worries Ellie can handle only so much dessert news at once.
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I smile quietly - almost politely. As much as I like talking about all of the sugar I will doubtlessly ingest, there's something else on my mind -- something El said before I knew her name.
"So, did you kill that guy?"
I'm not great at transitions.
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It does, however, make her feel a little sad. She looks away guiltily, and shakes her head.
"No. He is... out of reach."
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El, at least, gives me a place to start.
"What does that mean?" I work on it a second and take an educated guess. "He's from before." A vendetta older than her time in Darrow. Badass.
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He isn't just from before Darrow. He's from before she'd known what Hawkins even was.
"I Look for him," she adds. "Every day. If he ever comes to Darrow, I'll know. And then I will kill him." She says it with conviction, brow furrowing as she looks at Ellie.