Chapter Text
“Where the fuck is he?” Max exhales, they’ve been waiting around for a half hour. If Mike didn’t show up soon they were going to miss the movie.
“Just give him a bit, he’ll show.” Will says while scanning the parking lot for a black haired boy on a bike.
“A bit?” Lucas exclaims dramatically, “We’ve been here for like an hour!”
“Chill out Lucas, we have only been here for…” the Harrington girl checks her bright pink plastic watch, “32 minutes. Besides, we still have another 5 before it begins.”
“Well Lizzie, unlike you I deeply care about seeing this movie.” Lucas retorts, the blonde scoffs and tosses a curl out of her face.
“Who said I didn’t care?”
“Since when did you, miss princess, care about zombies?” Lucas says eyeing her up and down.
“I care about George A. Romero’s directing abilities, and for your information I thought Dawn of the Dead was quite good.”
“Oh really-“ Lucas is cut off by Will pointing to the overly crowded parking lot and acknowledging Mike Wheeler, he rolled down the rows of cars until slowing down and parking with the other bikes. “You’re late.” Lucas says ready to cut into him.
“Sorry!”
“Again!” Lucas is seriously way too pissed off about this.
“We’re going to miss the opening.” The redhead pipes up in a sing song type voice, Max only did that when she was truly fed up and wouldn’t let it fully show.
“Yeah, if you guys keep whining about it. Let’s go!” Mike starts his way through the doors, Max and Will follow.
“If you guys keep whining about it. Nyeh-nyeh-nyeh.” Lucas said as an impression of the Wheeler boy.
“Shut up Lucas.” Elizabeth says pulling him towards the rest of the group. They catch up and Lucas still can’t stop.
“Lemme guess, you were busy.” He makes kissing noises with his mouth.
“Oh, yeah, real mature, Lucas.”
“Oh, El, I wish we could make out forever, and never hang out with any of our friends.” Will and the girls giggle because it’s true, every single day this summer Mike and Eleven can not stop kissing. Secretly, Max and Liz couldn’t really be talking but at least they did something other than connect lips, like watch movies and actually talk to each other.
“Lucas, stop.” Elizabeth says after resting her giggles.
“Will thinks its funny.” The blonde turns and stares down Will, he shrugs.
“Because it is.”
“Yeah, it’s so funny that I want to spend romantic time with my girlfriend. Once all you single losers start dating you won’t be laughing.” Mike did have them beat there, no one else in the friend group was actually dating anybody. Lucas had given up on Max during the last half of eighth grade, Will had very much shut down anything with the girl at the snowball, Dustin’s crush on had resurfaced slightly with the amount of time the two spent with Steve but he too gave up, and Lizzie and Max we’re doing their own thing, that both girls categorized completely separately in their brains. Max would stay up in the dark just thinking about the younger Harrington and what they were, whereas Elizabeth shoved it all in a box.
Mike led them all down the escalator, there was lots of pushing and apologies given until they finally reached the bottom floor. The crowds at the mall were absolutely insane so it wasn’t very surprising when Lucas ran into some random girl with gigantic hair.
“Watch it!” Just as Lucas was about to apologize a little girl began to speak.
“Yeah watch it nerd!” It was his little sister Erica and her friends eating their Scoops Ahoy treats. Liz quite like Erica and would still sometimes babysit her, she always had been very witty and quick with insults. The siblings went back and forth.
“Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“Isn’t it time you died?”
“Psycho.”
“Butthead!”
“Mall rat!”
“Fartface!” Lucas then blew a raspberry in her direction.
“Oh, now that was mature” Max said making a callback to few moments earlier, Liz chuckled as they walked into Scoops. They walk up to counter, Mike and Liz in front. The current operator is Steve’s sarcastic co-worker: Robin Buckley. The younger Harrington was spending a lot of time with Steve this summer since he insisted her not to stay home alone. So, if she wasn’t with one of her friends or in her room with Max, she was working for free with her brother. She could say she hated it but Robin was pretty funny and she liked the company.
“Hey, dingus, your children are here.” Robin says loud enough for Steve to hear, she turns to the blonde, “Hey Liz.” She waves in response.
“Again? Seriously?” Steve says annoyed and worried about them getting caught. Mike rings the bell in response. After being let in the back, Steve opens the door meant for package deliveries but had been discovered as a free route to the movies by Elizabeth. They all file out and down the beige hallway. “Wait, E!” She turns and sees her brother gesturing towards her, there’s an eyeball but she does ultimately come back.
“I’ll be safe, Steve. No one’s murdering me at the movies.” She says crossing her arms.
“No it’s uh it’s not about that. Mom called.” Liz is puzzled, her mom never calls she just shows up and leaves with or without Mr. Harrington. “I know. Well, Grandma died.” The siblings hadn’t really known most of their grandparents. Their dad’s parents had both died before Liz was born, and their mother’s father had committed suicide when she was 15, making grandma the only elder relative left in contact. She would visit on occasion but she was rude and old. Constantly giving inputs on how everyone looked, even though she was quite large. Lizzie used to refer to her as “Rotund Rabbit” since she had a true obsession with bunnies. Now all that would be left of her were ugly miniatures of different hares that neither of the kids ever cared for. “She said something about needing to mourn and that her and dad wouldn’t be back for a while.”
“Shocker.” Elizabeth sad coldly, very fed up with her paternal and maternal figures.
“I don’t think there’s going to be a funeral or anything but, I just thought you should know.”
“Thanks Steve. Can I go now?”
“Yeah yeah sure.” She nodded and caught up with her friends, who hadn’t traveled far in those couple of minutes. Steve spoke up from far down the hallway. “If anybody hears about this-!”
“We’re dead!” They all finish for him.
Once they make it through to the theater, the group is greeted by the familiar pre-movie jingle. For the a millionth time they found theirselves pushing through different sizes of knees to get to the free seats. Mike next to Will, Will next to Liz, Liz next to Max, and Max next to Lucas.
“See Lucas we made it!” Mike said leaning over.
“We missed the previews!”
“Still made it, fart face.” Max interjects, causing William and Elizabeth to chuckle. Lucas makes a face and begins to watch the movie. “Everything okay?” Max says quietly to the blonde.
“Yeah, my grandma died.” Max’s eyes widened.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be it’s not a big deal, actually it’s not really a deal at all.” Liz fidgets with her hands for a second but the Mayfield girl’s eyes are still on her. “It’s fine. Really.” Max is satisfied enough and turns around. Will starts to pass out the snuck in snacks. The crinkling very much annoys the surrounding viewers.
“Want some?” Max says leaning her Apollo Bar over.
“I’ll stick with the water thanks.” She whispers, shaking her bottle slightly. Despite her grandma the thing that was actually protruding her brain was her constant battle with being “perfect.” Next year was going to be different, very different. She just wasn’t ready to tell the party that and especially not ready to tell Max.