#homegirl would be triggered by so many little things on the daily and I want to see her friends helping her thru it

[givehimthemedicine]

pool party. (a sorta elmax ficlet) (don't be alarmed by the second person, this is an El pov fic, not an x reader fic)

Mike's birthday is a pool party.

Max already had a bathing suit, but you did not, so she took you shopping for one. You are glad she must like shopping so much that she goes with you even when she does not buy anything.

At the store she held up something really small, two little pieces of cloth with strings hanging off, and you didn't understand what you were supposed to think about it. She laughed and explained that it was clothes. You laughed too, even though really you still did not understand.

The one you picked is the whole kind instead of the falling apart little pieces kind. It is striped.

Max's is red.

The pool is blue.

You like Mike, and parties are a fun thing, people say, and maybe it was on purpose you did not think about the pool part of this until you got to Mike's backyard.

The cement is hot under your feet. You stand there in the bright sun, staring down at the blue water, and you want to shiver.

Lucas and Max and Will are already in the water, splashing on a floating thing. Mike and Dustin are standing talking still dry. You try to remember if you have ever seen Dustin with no hat before right now.

The water makes you think of how metal smells. It looks like feeling heavy.

You touch the stomach of your new suit to make sure it is not the kind with weights on it.

It looks like you can see the bottom of the pool, but maybe there is more beneath that. The black water that's beyond the blue water, where it is dark and endless. A place where you could scream and nobody-

"What's wrong?"

Max is looking up at you from near your feet, her arms folded on the edge of the pool. Her hair looks smooth and dark. You did not notice her coming over.

How did she know anything was wrong? You must be acting wrong.

"You don't know how to swim," she guesses, and you realize you have not said anything back.

No. No, you guess you don't know how, not if swimming is what Lucas is doing right now at the far end, so you shake your head.

Max pushes up, climbing out of the water and making a big drippy trail over to where Mike is standing.

Now is your chance to go in the pool while nobody is paying attention.

You want to be like the others, and the others are not bothered about the things you are. Normal takes practice like everything else. Lots more, maybe.

This is a pool party, and that means everybody is going into the pool, and you have to go into the pool too or else it would not be a pool party. You are going to pretend that you are normal and you are just going to do it. It will just be done, and no one will know this is one more way you are not normal.

Right when you are about to convince your foot to move, Dustin runs and yells and jumps and hugs his knees and makes a big splash that startles you and makes you take a step backwards. He is laughing. He is smart, and he would not laugh if there was a dark place where he might get trapped.

Although maybe he just does not know. And if he did get trapped, if any of them did, you are the one who would have to help them.

You stare at a tile design at the bottom of the pool. Wavy wavy. Trying to judge its distance makes you feel a little like crying.

You look up at a noise and find Mike's face, and Max's next to it. If you think for a second, you can hear what he just said - "Here, El," and that his voice sounded like it maybe was not the first time he said it. "They're Holly's, but they'll fit you."

He is holding out two... things. Purple puffy plasticky things with little dolphins on them. You stare. Maybe they are clothes, but again, you do not understand how.

"They go on your arms. Like this. They help you float." Mike picks up your hand and puts one of the things on it, like a big puffy bracelet, that goes up and up high on your arm. It does not weigh anything.

Mike and Max are not wearing purple things with dolphins on them. You look around. Neither are Will or Dustin or Lucas.

"Nobody'll laugh," Max says. You know she would make sure.

"C'mon," Mike urges, putting the other one on your other arm. "I'll teach you how to swim."

"Do you even know how to swim?" Max asks.

"Uh? Yes?" Mike scrunches up his face at her. "Why wouldn't I know how to swim, cause I'm not from California?"

"Cause you spend your life in that fart dungeon playing board games and you look like you've never been outside before right now?"

"Bite me." Mike walks over to the edge and steps right off it and drops straight down into the water, and it makes something sharp happen in your chest, even when you see his head and shoulders still sticking out.

Mike's hand is reaching out. Yours is supposed to reach out and go in it, but it doesn't. He is squinting against the sun in a way that makes his teeth show without it being a smile. It makes you not recognize his face all the way. "Come on, El."

You hear yourself breathing. You stare at his hand. His fingers flex twice like waving you over.

"Orrr, you don't have to go in the water," Max's voice says behind you, and you look at her hopefully. You would love for it to be true. But.

"Pool party," you answer, pressing your teeth together hard and turning back to the water.

"Use the steps," Mike says, and his open hand turns into a pointing finger. "You don't have to jump in."

You make yourself step down onto the first step and feel the water wrap around your leg. You stand still for a minute, making sure that you are only imagining the step lowering you down into the water.

Something touches the small of your back.

"Hey, I'll be right next to you," Max says near your ear, kind of quiet, maybe so Mike does not hear, "and I'm actually a good swimmer, so don't worry."

And it makes you feel better, a little.

When you take another step down, the purple dolphin things go up and take your arms with them. This water is not cold but you shudder at the way it finds all your edges at once. You have always hated that moment.

"Stay by this side," Mike tells you. "If you go over by the middle it gets deeper, but over here you can stand up."

You look wide-eyed across the water, not sure where counts as the middle, and grab hard onto the ledge.

The water presses around you and it's harder than normal to breathe, and you do not like that feeling at all, and wherever you move you cannot wriggle out of it.

Max is close like she said she would be. She is standing between you and the middle, like she is guarding you from it. She smiles when you look at her face. You would like to smile back, but you don't think you are.

The boys are hollering and splashing.

Mike still wants your hand, but you need both to hang onto the edge, even though your feet are touching the bottom. You are not so sure you can trust them.

"Let go of the side, El, you can hang onto me," Mike says.

But if you let go, you might never find the edge again. All your friends might be gone. You might get shut in here by yourself in water with no edges.

The others come splashing over.

"Are you learning how to swim?"

"I thought she could already swim."

"Try floating on your back."

"Yeah, remember in the gym," Lucas says. "You did it easy."

You do not want to remember in the gym. The only good thing about in the gym is when it was over, and Will's mom put her arms around you. You wish this was over too, and for arms to be around you.

You can't imagine floating now like you did before. It was easy before. That water just held you. This water would drop you, you can tell. If you trusted it for a second it would swallow you.

"That was salt water."

"She's less buoyant-"

"You're less buoyant-"

Dustin and Mike push each other back and forth until Mike puts his hand on top of Dustin's head and pushes it down under the water.

Panic shoots through you and you spin to Max with wide eyes.

"We're not doing that," she says quickly. "Nobody is gonna dunk you, I promise."

"I wouldn't dunk you, El. I could dunk Max though," Mike grins, fending off Dustin who - "You're so dead!" - is trying to do the same thing back to him.

"Don't."

He makes a move toward Max and she sticks out a shielding arm.

"Mike, stop," Will says.

"Come on, you're making her nervous," Max says seriously, and Mike looks at you and stops. You are glad, because you were about one heartbeat away from stopping him yourself, and it would not have been very nice to do on his birthday.

It's still hard to breathe. Too many voices are saying things at once.

"Kick your legs like this-"

"You have to let go of-"

"Give her some space -"

"If you hold your breath-"

"This is called a doggy paddle-"

"Hang onto me-"

"Come on, just try-"

Mike's hand touches your hand and tries to pull it off of the side and you yank it away.

Your breath goes away and it is silent. Black. You scramble against the edge and it feels like smooth glass against your palms. You feel being locked alone in the dark with something you can not run from. You feel ice in "El?" your veins and screaming so loud in a tiny space that "El?" it makes your whole head ring like it will crack apart-

"El! Are you okay?"

It's so bright it hurts. The water is moving but everybody is still and quiet and looking at you, Mike and Max holding onto you with four hands and worried faces. Your head still rings and your throat hurts. Your lungs push hard against the water.

"Hey, you're okay," Mike says. "Just take a deep breath."

That is exactly what you can't do.

"That's enough," Max slides an arm around you. "We're getting out."

Out. Out yes out now please yes please out. You grab onto her shoulder.

"The steps are right-" but you are already using Max for a ladder. Getting straight out is not easy like when she did it, and you get stuck halfway, clinging to the side on your elbows until she gives you a heave up and you crawl out, knees hurting on the cement.

The boys are starting "Wait" and "Is she- ?" and "What hap-?" behind you, but there are not any words in you.

You don't know why you go straight to this spot like you already knew it existed, but your feet just take you around the side of Mike's house where it is shady, and you sit down on the grass against a big tree.

The air is easier over here.

Ten seconds behind you, Max comes and drapes a big towel around your shoulders. It feels nicer to have it around you. She sits down next to you.

Your palms are shaky and pink and scraped. You feel tired. Embarrassed.

Max is not talking. It does not seem like she is waiting for you to, either. But you like that she is there. She is just resting her head on the tree bark, looking up at the leaves moving in the breeze.

Her eyes are blue like the pool. It is funny you can fear a color in one place and trust it in another.

She is probably the one who likes swimming best, and she is sitting over here with you, looking at leaves instead. You are glad.

You lean just close enough for your shoulder to touch hers a little bit, hoping to sneak some comfort, but she gives it to you on purpose instead. She puts her arm around you and suddenly you are so close to crying that if she says one word, you will pop like a too full water balloon, so you wrap your arms around her and hide your face against her. She does not say one word, and she just lets you stay like that for a long time.

For a while all you hear is your own breathing. But then birds. Water noise and laughing. Cars driving by sometimes.

You let yourself slump back, but still with your shoulder leaning against hers.

"By my old house there were these trees," Max says after another long while, and you are surprised to hear her voice like you forgot talking was a thing. "Big fat trees all along the street with roots pushing up the sidewalk. It was way too cracked up to skate on. People were always tripping. I used to daydream about if I could just, like, poof, and make those roots disappear. Make the sidewalk all level, one square at a time."

You don't know why she told you this, but you do not wish she had stayed quiet instead.

"Would it help to tell me about it? It's not about drowning, exactly, is it."

You shake your head, even though she is not looking at you. She is looking at a brown leaf that she is twirling in her fingers.

It is not that you don't want her to know. You just don't know how to say, or what good it would do. She already saw how you feel about it.

"You coulda just told us you didn't wanna swim. We wouldn't have made you."

"I wanted to try." The breeze blows and you hug the towel around yourself. You do not like how your own cold wet hair feels.

That is the only thing you do not like about long hair. It stays wet long. When you had none, at least you would be dry right away.

"Okay, well.. if you ever wanna try again, I could help you. But you don't have to. And definitely not today. We could just, like, sit and work on our tans while those bozos try to drown each other. Or ditch 'em and go in, watch TV or something."

Going inside sounds nice. You do not really care about TV, but you would love to be somewhere warm and dry and soft and quiet and with Max.

Splashing sounds get your attention again.

"But Mike's birthday," you remind her.

You are all supposed to be having fun with him. People are special on their birthdays, Will said, and everyone does whatever they want. You wonder what you would want to do for your birthday, if you had one.

"It's more important for you to be comfortable. Mike would say so too," she says. "So what do you feel like doing?"

Closing your eyes is the real answer, and you do it instead of say it. But you can't rest here, not all the way, not wet and chilly and with tree bark sharp on your back.

"Inside," you answer, although your body doesn't want to obey you. It is tired and heavy. You wish one of your powers was making yourself be someplace else without moving.

"Okay." Max gets up and brushes grass off herself and offers you both of her hands. "C'mon."

You look up at her face. She smiles. Waiting.

Max is nice. It was a mistake not to be her friend sooner.

You smile back, a little one, and take her hands.