Eleven just wanted to go to a rock concert. Was that really too much to ask? Max had been shocked when she'd first admitted it to her, both girls sitting in English class, waiting on the bell to ring. Eleven sat fidgeting in her seat, posture as delicate and feminine as ever, dressed in Nancy's pink hand-me-down sweater and faded jeans.

She'd been trying to work up the courage to ask her only girlfriend to go with her since first period, but the unsettling flutter of her stomach and the way her heart began to race every time the words were about come out of her mouth kept her from actually taking the plunge, fearing she'd mess it up. Of course, she wouldn't have been so anxious if it were just some normal concert.

Finally, she decided that she would just have to live with whatever came out of her mouth. She needed to be at this concert, and she knew she couldn't go alone — if Hopper found out she'd gone anywhere alone she'd get grounded again. Really, if Hopper found out she went to a rock concert at all, he'd probably be pretty ornery — or at least more so than usual.

Ornery, she said to herself in her head. Adjective that means angry or combative. Her lips twitched into a half-smile of their own accord. She remembered learning that word when scanning through her dictionary to find a suitable way to tell Hop that his behavior had been entirely unacceptable after she'd interrogated him about Joyce Byers. She'd only been trying to convince him that if he loved her, then he should marry her and have babies, like in the movies. He'd gotten all red and spluttery and was angry at her for the rest of the night. Hop could definitely be ornery, but he had a soft side that she suspected she was almost exclusively privy too. He'd always been a good dad to her, grouchy and paranoid as he was.

Clammy hands still balled up in her lap, Eleven cast a quick glance to her left at Max sprawled out in her seat, slouched so far down that it looked more like she'd mistaken her desk for a bed. Her eyes were trained faithfully on the clock, counting down every last minute until the bell.

"Um...hey, Max?" Eleven nearly whispered. Max didn't bother looking over to respond.

"Yeah?" she sighed in misplaced exasperation.

"I want to go to the concert on Friday. At the Hawkins Theater." There. That didn't turn out so bad after all.

Max's eyes narrowed at first, though she didn't look away from the clock. Then, her head tilted in confusion, eyebrows migrating south. Eleven could nearly see the gears turning, meshing together under that remarkably thick shock of fire adorning her hard, stubborn head.

Oh no, she thought. Her thinking face.

"The concert on Friday..." Max mumbled to herself, trying to remember what she'd heard about it. It seemed that Eleven had said something strange enough to finally tear her gaze away from the wall-clock of destiny, because Max looked at her, albeit confusedly. "Isn't that like a rock n' roll show or something?" she asked. "Why would you want to go to that, Ele–" she caught herself, realizing they were still at school. "Jane. Why would you want to go to that, Jane?"

Eleven shrugged as innocently as she could manage. "Because I like rock," she said.

Max ran a hand through her semi-tamed mane of hair, thinking. "Yeah, I mean, I guess I know that you like The Clash and whatever else was on that mixtape Jonathan gave you. But I don't know that you'd actually like a rock concert, Jane. Do you know anything about them?"

"They play music. Like on albums, but they play it in real life, right in front of you. With instruments."

"That's the gist of it," Max conceded. "But those shows are usually loud — like really loud. And usually everyone there is wasted. Anyway, we're talking about a concert in Hawkins, not like Chicago or something. I didn't hear anything about the one on Friday, but it's probably just another trash local band that can't play worth a damn. No one good ever comes here."

Eleven was sure she probably looked disappointed, but it wasn't because Max was actually managing to dissuade her. She just really wanted her friend to be on board for this. So, she summoned all the enthusiasm she could and tried to look excited. It wasn't that hard to do when she thought about the real reason she wanted to go. There was no way this band could be trash.

"Oh. Well that sounds fun!" she said. She had to admit, the way Max had described rock concerts did not sound very fun. But maybe this one would be different. It would be different. It would be different because of—

"How did anything I just said sound fun to you, Jane?" Max sighed, sitting up and lowering her voice. "We're supposed to be watching out for you, making sure people don't get too close, not hauling you off to shifty concerts where there'll be loads of people and plenty opportunity for something to happen. Not to mention the fact that the Chief would kill me if he found out I exposed Little Miss Innocent to the world of sex, drugs, and rock n' roll."

There was that word again: sex. Eleven was beyond frustrated by this one word. All she wanted was to be like her friends, to understand all the things they did so she could talk like a normal girl. The problem was that everyone always got uncomfortable when she asked about sex — and that had always hurt her a bit, because she felt like she was doing something wrong.

Usually, whenever she asked Hop or her friends what something means, they're happy to help, all gentle and eager and willing to teach her something new.

Sex, clearly, was different. All she had about this forbidden topic were the few things she'd been able to glean from people's reactions when she asked about it, and a few things she'd heard girls talking about at school.

It occurred to her now, though, that she had never thought to ask Max — at least, not that she could remember.

"Max, what is sex?" she said tentatively.

Max had gone back to looking at the clock, but, as Eleven had suspected, the redhead's gaze snapped to her at the mention of sex, eyes wide.

"Everyone but me knows, but nobody will tell me," El mourned, hoping Max would understand. "Hopper even crossed it out of the dictionary at home. He gets red and forgets how to talk normal when I ask about it."

Max laughed sharply at that. "Wow. He really is sheltering you, isn't he? I don't get what the big deal is, anyway. You're sixteen now, I think you should know these things. How did he avoid telling you about sex when you had your first period? Did he explain anything to you?" she asked.

"He had Joyce come over. She explained some things to me. But...you're saying sex has something to do with my period?" Eleven asked, truly perplexed now.

Max looked uncomfortable. "Um...kind of, I guess. But I really don't want to be the one to explain this to you, so — you should just ask Joyce to tell you everything. I'm sure she will as long as you ask when Hopper's not around. I think the only reason she hasn't told you sooner is to spare him a heart attack. Otherwise, I know you missed sex ed by a year, but we'll be taking anatomy next semester. You'll learn more then."

"Oh," Eleven replied. Max sighed in relief and looked back at the clock as she seemed to drop the subject until, "So people will be sexing at the concert?"

Max's head whipped back around, flaming hair fanning out dramatically. "What?" was all she managed at first. After fumbling for but a second, she got the rest out. "No! People won't be — I mean, at least I hope nobody will be sexi–" she stumbled, slowing down to correct herself. "Having sex. That's how you say it, by the way. Having sex. And no, people won't be. Why would you think that?"

In all honesty, Eleven had guessed that from the way people talked about sex that it was just another one of those things that wasn't done in public — like changing clothes, or going to the bathroom. She'd had to get used to the idea of privacy after she got out of the lab.

She could still remember the night when the shower wouldn't turn on and she'd called Hopper for help. He had barged right in assuming she was still dressed and had quite the fit because, "WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU CALL ME IN HERE WHEN YOU'RE BUCK ASS NUDE?"

People got weird whenever sex was mentioned, just like people got weird about nudity and private parts and whatever else. So she had figured it was a privacy thing. But Max had confused her.

"You said you'd get in trouble with Hop if you take me to the concert because it would expose me to sex," Eleven reminded her.

"Oh, jeez . . . okay. At least that came from somewhere that made sense. I was just exaggerating. People won't actually be having sex, but rock music has always just kind of been associated with sex, I guess. I don't know why. You don't need to worry about it. I don't really think it's a good idea to go to the concert anyway, Jane."

"Oh," was all Eleven said before the bell rang and Max sprang out of her seat.

"Now, are we getting out of here or are you just gonna sit there and look pouty all day? You know your puppy dog face doesn't work on me," Max said, throwing her backpack over one shoulder.

"I do not have a puppy dog face," Eleven mumbled indignantly as she rose from her seat and attempted to keep up with Max, who was cutting through the crowd of students funneling out the door. She finally caught up with her as she stopped to open her locker. "Still want to go," Eleven said more firmly. "To the concert," she added when Max gave no reply.

Max finished retrieving her books and closed her locker. "Why do you wanna go so bad?" she asked. "Didn't I scare you off with my description? You know, alcohol, puke, ear-bleed inducing music, random sweaty boys trying to touch you because they're drunk — doesn't really seem like your scene, Jane. And I swear, I'm not trying to be mean or anything, I just — I don't wanna see anything happen to you."

Eleven sighed, but could feel her mouth curving upward just the barest bit. She'd never grow tired of feeling cared for, even after four whole years living outside the lab.

"You sound like Hopper," she said.

Max rolled her eyes. "Let's not make that comparison."

After stopping by Eleven's locker, they made their way out the front doors and started to head for the underclass' parking lot. Max had just started to drive, and she often gave Eleven rides to and from school. They were usually together anyway.

"So really, why do you want to go to this concert so bad? You've never shown interest in going to any before," Max said, striding up to her car.

They were standing by the car now, but neither one of them were getting in. Max was waiting on Eleven's response, determined to figure this out, and Eleven was staring at the ground and . . . blushing? Definitely blushing.

"Who's playing, anyway?" Max prompted at her friend's silence.

Eleven muttered something nearly inaudible, still far too interested in the pavement.

"What was that?" Max asked.

Eleven huffed, barely looking up and wishing for something to hide her face. "Mike's band," she said.

"Ooooohh, the fabled Mike Wheeler. It all makes perfect sense now," Max said, rolling her eyes and getting into her car.

Eleven opened the passenger door and slid slowly into her seat, now settling for staring at her white Converse sneakers since she was robbed of the pavement. She hadn't wanted to tell Max that Mike was the real reason she wanted to go. She knew there'd be almost no chance of going now. So she sat looking dejected and hopeless, hugging her history textbook to her body as if those that came before her would understand her struggle and comfort her. In reality, the edge was digging into her ribs.

All of her friends knew she had a thing for Mike Wheeler. They had quickly come to call it an obsession, but she remained that that was too strong of a word. She wasn't obsessed, she just — really liked Mike. And she couldn't fully explain why, seeing as she didn't even know him. She'd had a grand total of one conversation with him. Two if you counted when she'd said "hi" to him in the hallway, but she didn't think she had said it loud enough for him to even hear, and he hadn't looked her way. The other instance hardly counted either, since the only time she'd worked up the nerve to introduce herself to him at lunch, she'd been cut off by a mob of girls trying to swarm him.

According to her friends, Mike was "a total douche" and "a traitorous bastard, at that." Lucas and Dustin had explained everything to her a couple years back when she'd first started going to school. They had all gone over to the Byers' house after school to play Dungeons & Dragons, but Eleven just couldn't stay focused. She couldn't stop thinking about the pretty, unruly haired boy who sat across the room from her in science class. Mike, she remembered from when the teacher called attendance. He had these things all over his face that looked like the stars spread out across the night sky — freckles, Max had told her they're called and, "I have them too. How have you seriously not noticed?" And he did this thing with his eyebrows whenever he was really concentrating on a problem, and Eleven always found herself sinking into her seat and sighing "like a cliché little schoolgirl," Dustin would tell her later.

Her friends were not happy when she'd told them the reason she couldn't concentrate that afternoon. They had quickly diagnosed her affliction as a crush and assured her that it was normal, especially for someone their age, but "why couldn't it be anyone else, Eleven?"

The story went something like this . . .

Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and Will had been best friends for a long time. They all shared similar interests in D&D, Star Wars, video games, and science, among other things. It was a no brainer that they were meant to be friends. They all knew what it was liked to be picked on by the other kids at school, and they relied on each other. So they had formed their party, each boy taking up a different role based on their D&D characters. Any member of the party would do anything for another; it was common knowledge, and it was the rule of law, besides.

Mike had been in Chicago visiting family when Will went missing. He'd taken the opportunity to get away from school for a little while, going with Holly and his mom to stay with her side of the family. Nancy had stayed at home with his dad for fear of her GPA dropping even a hundredth of a point.

When Will suddenly disappeared, Dustin and Lucas had resolved that they needed to do their part in helping to find him since the police didn't seem to be making any real progress. And on one, fateful, stormy night, they had stumbled across a drenched, terrified girl sporting a shaved head and dressed in nothing but an oversized t-shirt.

What followed that night was something of a nightmare for all involved. The discovery of Will's (fake) body and his funeral; Barbara Holland's disappearance; Nancy, Steve, and Jonathan's fight with an inter-dimensional monster; Joyce and Hopper's trip into the Upside Down to save Will; Eleven's last stand against the bad men and the Demogorgon.

After it was all over, Hopper had been exceedingly clear with everyone. No one else could know that Eleven existed, at least for the foreseeable future. No one. And with that, he'd taken her to live with him in the old cabin that the boys would be allowed to visit every so often.

There was a problem with Hopper's "tell no one" plan. Telling no one would mean that they couldn't tell Mike. The boys had confronted the Chief about it, because surely, he'd be okay with them telling Mike. He was a member of the party. He wouldn't tell a soul or he'd be banished by rule of law.

"If any one of you tells Mike Wheeler about Eleven, or anything at all that happened while he was gone, you're gonna be in deeper shit than you can imagine. Understand?" had been Hopper's response. He would take no chances where Eleven's safety was concerned. He'd made them all promise, one by one.

True to their word, when Mike got back, they didn't tell him a single thing about what had really happened. They tried to let things go back to normal. But naturally, that could only last so long. All Mike was told was that Will had gotten lost in the woods and been found days later, nearly dead from the cold. Nothing more.

He'd found this explanation too vague for his liking, but he eventually let the details drop, figuring it was just too soon for everyone to talk about it. Sometimes he'd notice subtle things that were different about his friends after the incident — like the way that one of them would say something and they'd all share glances like they were being reminded of something unpleasant. Or the fact that they seemed to have acquired far too many inside jokes in the short period of time that he was gone. Or the way that they always seemed so worried about where Will was, and how they coddled him far more than usual. Some of those things made sense, given what he'd heard they'd been through.

But some things didn't make sense. He'd often find out that his friends were doing things without him — leaving him behind. They wouldn't even tell him what they were up to. Even when he was with them, sometimes they'd all look at each other like they wanted to talk about something, but then they'd all look back at Mike and decide against it. He wasn't stupid. He knew there were things they weren't telling him. It hurt that they apparently didn't trust him enough to let him in.

When he left a room they all talked in rapid, hushed voices, but when he came back they all shut up immediately. Sometimes they would all go off together for a whole day after school and not even tell him what they were doing. They would give lame excuses like they all had homework or they were grounded, but he knew better. They hardly ever even bothered to ride their bikes off in the direction of their houses.

Mike couldn't help but feel angry with them. These were his best friends — really, they were his only friends — and they were cutting him off. He found himself alone more and more often, and eventually realized that he didn't take the same joy from hanging out with them that he used to. He used to feel happy and recharged after spending time with them, relieving all of the stress of school and just being carefree. Now he found that he was getting more bitter every time he was around them, because they never failed to jilt him or cut him out of a conversation somehow. He felt like he didn't even really know his friends anymore and it was beyond frustrating.

This went on for a few months before he boiled over. They had just gotten out of school on a Friday and Mike had been planning what they could do with the rest of their day. He had settled on asking if everyone wanted to get takeout from Benny's and watch some movies at his house. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew this question would be infinitely more important than the words themselves could ever convey; he had been hurt and rejected too many times, and this was their last chance to prove that they still wanted to be his friend.

Dustin had been the one to reply. He always came up with the worst excuses. "Ah, you know what, Mike? We must've forgotten to tell you that we actually all have—" and he had paused, obviously glancing to Lucas for help, who had just shrugged. "Dentist appointments," Dustin finished. "We all have . . . uh, dentist appointments."

Mike's entire body had gone rigid with anger. It took him to the count of three to relax enough to reply. He made a sarcastically thoughtful face. "Dentist appointments, huh? Okay, so like you all scheduled your dentist appointments on the same day at the same time, alright, that's cool, that makes total sense. I guess I just have one question, then."

"Uh-huh?" Dustin asked, his voice cracking nervously.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU GUYS?" He yelled in their faces, turning and storming toward the bike rack, riding home shaking with anger.

The boys had given him the weekend to cool off and tried to apologize when they saw him at school, but that conversation had gone horribly. It was hard to fix something like that when they couldn't really explain to him why everything was so broken in the first place. They could only continue to give lame excuses.

They had all thought that Mike would cool down and come back to them with time, but every day they tried to talk to him or invited him to something, he ignored them completely. Day after day went by until all of a sudden, it had been months since Mike had even so much as looked at any of them. And just like he had grown bitter with them, they grew bitter with him.

That was around the time that Mike started hanging out with the "cool" crowd, growing his hair out longer and messier, wearing leather and denim jackets like some kind of rockstar. He was constantly growing, eventually shooting up past six feet and even sprouting some facial hair that definitely made him look just a little older than his mere sixteen years of age.

In all of the spare time he had without his former friend group, he'd even picked up playing the guitar, finding out he was actually something of a natural, and could sing pretty well to boot.

In short, Mike Wheeler had become the very thing that none of the original party ever thought they would be: the most popular guy in school. He had turned out more handsome, stylish, and talented than anyone would have imagined. And it didn't even hurt him that he still had the best GPA in his class. It looked like that would remain a Wheeler trademark.

Of course, this only fueled the feud between the former friends. The boys despised that Mike had become the very thing they could never be — and they would never admit it, but they were jealous. Well, maybe Will wasn't so jealous, but he had always been the most level-headed of the group, and he wasn't nearly as angry with Mike as Dustin and Lucas were. Will would have been ready to patch things up if Mike had been.

But it never happened, and Eleven remained an absolute secret.

After another horrifying incident with a creature from the Upside Down they had dubbed the "Mind Flayer," Max had come into the fold and become a member of the party, and Eleven had finally become official, acquiring a birth certificate through Dr. Owens with the promise that she'd be able to go to school in a year.

And so, Eleven had discovered Mike Wheeler. Her best friends' former best friend and Nancy's younger brother. How could such a pretty person exist in all the universe? The boys had assured her that he was nothing special and that he was a "douche" now, but he didn't seem that way to her. Dustin and Lucas had told her the whole story, but she could tell they were still angry about what had happened, so she asked Max, hoping for a more honest version.

Max had explained to her that she hadn't been around when the fallout with Mike happened since she'd moved to Hawkins the year after Eleven escaped the lab. But that meant she was totally removed from the situation, and wasn't swayed by emotions.

"Honestly, I can't blame Mike at all for his reaction," Max had told her. "A guy can only take so much neglect from his best friends. It wasn't fair to him at all, but at the same time, the guys were just trying to protect you and keep their promise to Hopper. It was a bad situation, and plain bad timing that Mike was out of town when everything went down."

"Really, I'm just surprised that the boys were so serious about keeping their promise. Usually they're pretty shit about that kind of stuff. But, then again, it is your safety on the line. And they'd do anything for you. So I guess it kind of makes sense. I just wish there'd been a better outcome. Mike doesn't seem all that bad."

Eleven had been more satisfied with this explanation than the boys' version. At least Max had tried to understand what Mike must have been feeling and didn't call him a douche. He definitely didn't seem like a douche. He seemed really nice — like, really nice. She could still remember that day in the ninth grade when she'd been getting something out of her locker and there was a loud clang not ten feet off to her left. She'd looked over to see the school bully, Troy, holding a much smaller boy against the lockers. He'd stripped the boy's backpack off of him and unzipped it, dumping all the contents on the ground and beginning to trample them before Mike had come out of nowhere and rammed into him with his shoulder, knocking the bully to the ground.

"The hell is wrong with you, Troy? What'd he do, look at you funny?" Mike had said before stooping to help the boy pick up his things, doing his best to salvage crushed assignments and dust off all the dirt.

That wasn't the only time Eleven had witnessed his kindness. She'd since seen him tutoring other students, lending strangers money for lunch, inviting loners to sit at his table. He was like the school's guardian angel. For some reason she just couldn't seem to work up the courage to approach him on her own.

She was still insecure about her comparatively lacking speaking skills, even though she was learning fast. And her friends certainly wouldn't help her even if she asked. Their job was to make sure people didn't get too close to her, not help her expose herself. And the fact that it was Mike — needless to say, the boys would not be helping her there. And Max agreed with Hopper that she shouldn't get to close to other people. Still, she couldn't help the feeling she got whenever she thought about him or saw him.

"You really want to go, don't you?"

Eleven refocused on the present, looking to Max who had her eyes on the road, driving along.

"Eleven?" Max prompted when she said nothing. "Do you really want to go see Mike play?" The redhead looked over at her and she nodded earnestly. Max sighed. "Okay," she said.

Eleven's eyes widened. "Okay?"

"Okay," Max confirmed, laughing at her now.

Max had no idea what she could be getting herself into, but Eleven gave her the most genuine, heart-warming smile she'd ever received and she decided it would be worth it.