Chapter Twelve: The Breakup, Pt. II

(The Mall Rats, Pt. 4)

***

To safe the say the mood is glum would be an understatement. 

Alistair tied his bag holding his comic to the handlebar of his bike, Will doing the same as Mike grumbled, "That's ridiculous. Why can't I just buy it later?"

He rattled his bike viciously, as if to emphasise his point.

"This is a mall, Mike. Malls, especially ones with fancy stores, always pull this shit," Alistair snarked, rolling his eyes heavily. Never was he more looking forward to leaving than he was now.

"Yeah, but, what if I mow Old Man Humphrey's Lawn?" Mike suggested.

"He hasn't got that much," Lucas informed him.

"Okay, what if we split it?" Mike pitched, desperate for a way to get more money. If his friend wanted money quickly, then he could help Alistair's aunt scam people.

"Split it with what?" Lucas countered. "Does that even make sense?"

Alistair shrugged. "I don't have much money on me anyway. Perks of being a trailer park kid."

He gave Mike a pointed look, but before anymore could be said, another voice joined the conversation—a familiar one.

"Isn't this a nice surprise?"

As one, all four boys turned, and saw with shock Max, Cami... and El.

Mike's bike dropped out from his slack hands, landing with a clatter on the ground as Alistair stared with wide eyes before hurriedly checking around—were they mental? Did Max and Cami remember the very real danger El was in if the wrong people saw her wandering around before her guaranteed safety?

"What are you doing here?" Mike demanded, voicing Alistair's thoughts into being.

"Shopping," El answered, holding her ice cream as Alistair now registered the black jumpsuit with a crazy pattern on it. It was nice and suited her, but Alistair was still wrapped up in the fear of some government spies seeing El and recognising her, that her chance of freedom and a normal life was shot before it could properly begin.

"This is her new style," Max said, eyebrows raised in challenge at Mike. "What do you think?"

"It suits her pretty well, don't you think?" Cami wondered out loud innocently, her smirk cracking the facade of innocence as she licked her ice cream.

"What is wrong with you two?" Mike hissed. "You know she's not allowed to be here."

Cami scoffed as Max shot back, "What is she, your little pet?"

"Yeah. Am I your pet?" El demanded.

Mike looked taken aback, exclaiming, "What? No!"

"Mike has a fair point, actually," Alistair jumped in, looking at Max and Cami as he went on, "Look, the whole reason we didn't know El was alive last year was because she had government after her, and they could still be after her until it's certain it's safe that she won't be kidnapped and used as a lab rat again or killed!"

"One day out isn't gonna hurt her, Al," Max said, rolling her eyes, but Cami looked a little bit guilty.

Alistair narrowed his eyes. "You don't know for certain it won't. You never do when the government wants you as their living weapon."

Max rolled her eyes again, but a flicker of guilt crossed over her face as Cami also looked guilty. They both knew Alistair's past, how close he and Rowan had come to being experiments just like El. How much the guarantee of not becoming that, of not being forced to be weapons, meant to them. Alistair agreed—El shouldn't stay locked up in the cabin for long and find her own style, even though Alistair hoped she would keep wearing the flannels he let her keep—but this had put El in great risk. He did indeed hope no one had caught her among the hundreds crowding Starcourt, but he didn't want to put his faith in it.

It's Cami who broke the silence, saying, "Okay, maybe not a pet—"

"Thank you, Cami," Mike said.

"—but you still acted pretty shitty earlier to her, apparently," Cami finished, giving Mike a hard glare as the smile that had begun to form dropped. Alistair looked between his friend and his person, understanding that El must have talked to Max and Cami about what happened.

"Yeah, why do you treat me like garbage?" El demanded, prompting a confused, "What?" from Mike.

"You said Nana was sick," El said.

"She is!" Mike lied, turning to Lucas, Will and Alistair as he kept lying, "She is. She is sick."

Lucas caught on first, saying, "Yeah, sick... she's sick."

Will nodded. "She's sick."

Alistair only looked at Cami, the two of them rolling their eyes.

"She's super sick," Lucas went on. "That's why we're here, actually."

"Yeah, we're shopping," Mike said, latching on to the lie and hoping to add some truth to it. "Not for us, but for her, for Nana."

"For Nana!" Lucas echoed.

"Also, we're here to get a gift for you," Mike went on. "Just, we couldn't find anything that suited you and I only have, like, three dollars and fifty cents, so it's hard."

"Super hard," Lucas pitched in while Alistair rolled his eyes, thinking, Yeah, come talk to me when you only have a couple quarters in your allowance, Mike.

"It's... it's expensive," Lucas finished. On that, Alistair agreed with.

El was silent for a second before she walked forward to Mike, saying, "You lie. Why do you lie?"

Mike didn't say anything, only looking at El as she waited for his answer. Alistair looked at Cami again, the both of them wondering what El would do, before Alistair all but screamed at Mike to be honest with El. Behind them, Alistair heard the bus pull up, doors creaking open.

It was then that El came to her decision and said with finality, "I dump your ass."

Alistair blinked, stunned as Max's eyes widened and she grinned, Cami staring in shock at El as she turned, Max a step behind her. Before Cami could follow, Alistair got the swiped perfumes out and said, "Here. There's one for you, and some I thought El might like."

Cami stared at them, lips quirked up at the corner as she asked, "I assuming you went the Aco way of getting them, right?"

Alistair grinned. "With a little bit of the Alistair way that is feeling guilty for the attendants and leaving a couple bills behind."

Cami smirked, before she said, "Thanks, Al."

She blew him a kiss before hopping on the bus just as the doors closed, Alistair watching it trundle away along with Mike, Lucas and Will, who still looked stunned.

It broke when Will asked, voice tinged with exasperation, "Now can we play D&D?"

"No," Lucas said while Mike stared after the bus the girls had gotten on.

Alistair rolled his eyes, so much so he was definitely surprised they hadn't fallen into the Upside Down.

Still, he followed after his friends as they went back to their bikes and made the bike ride back to Mike's place. Before they did, Alistair squeezed Will's shoulder in comfort and Will sent him a smile, knowing that at least one person would absolutely play D&D with him.

"Let's bully them into playing it after Mike's done moping," Alistair whispered and Will snorted, as they rode after Mike and Lucas.

And off to where Mike would wallow in his broken heart.

***

Ah, yes... the breakup

I'm not gonna lie, while it was wrong that Mike lied, and that Alistair was desperately yelling at him to tell El the truth and while I love Max helping El find her own style and be a good female friend for her, the comment about El being his "pet" and implying he's wrong to be worried about her being out in public when he has every right to be worried about his girlfriend who the government would be VERY keen to either has back as a weapon or killed before she's guaranteed safety was also wrong. And, since Alistair has kinda lived with that fear, he would call it out on that and remind Max and Cami of that fact. So, there

But yeah, next episode... next episode will be a lot. Brace yourselves

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GhostWriterGirl out!