chapter 29

"I know that!"

The argument escalated from there. The both of them fought with each other, throwing insults and threats at each other as if they were already enemies who had gone through the same struggles as each other. It was almost impossible for both of them to keep their temper. Jonathan ended up pushing Nancy against the nearest wall and grabbed her collar roughly, preventing her from getting away from him. As he pinned her against the wall, she struggled violently against his grip and tried to get free, only to fail miserably. Her hands scratched uselessly at his bicep, trying desperately to pry him off of her. Jonathan leaned forward as far as possible to prevent her from escaping him and glared down at her.

"Stay away from my family! And stay away from Dustin. If you hurt him or anybody in my family, I swear on my life, I will hunt you down until I find you and kill you myself." Jonathan threatened.

With his threat being heard loud and clear by Nancy, she shut her mouth and stopped struggling against him, knowing that she should just listen to him. It wasn't worth it anyway. Instead, she rested her head against the wall, breathing heavily from exertion and anger. Jonathan slowly released her shirt and pulled his hand away from her collar.

"Come on. Let's go. Don't worry about it, Max is doing just fine. There's no reason for you to worry." Jonathan said, patting her shoulder before continuing to walk in the direction of the stairs.

"Yeah. Whatever."

When they reached the ground floor, they took the first staircase available to them which led directly to the parking lot. The three of them sat inside his car silently for a moment before Jonathan spoke up once again.

"So... Max. Do you know why Dustin suddenly started acting strange?"

"Uhh, no. Why? Did something happen between you guys recently?" Max questioned.

"Uh... well.." Nancy trailed off, unable to hide the hint of concern in her voice.

Both Jonathan and Max noticed this. They exchanged glances before turning to Nancy expectantly and waiting for her to continue speaking.

Nancy sighed. This was going to take some time.

"How'd the interrogation go?"

The familiar voice of Mike Wheeler rang through Nancy's ears as she stood awkwardly outside of his house. Although her brother seemed happy to finally see her, she didn't feel as excited as Mike looked to see her. After spending a long amount of time with Jonathan the previous afternoon, she had realised that her feelings towards Jonathan might be less intense than she initially thought. She still loved him, of course, but not enough for her to constantly obsessively worry about his every move and try to figure out whether he actually liked her. After having her whole world destroyed by someone who claimed to love her, Nancy had made it her priority to learn everything she could regarding Jonathan. For example, she also learned the true identity of the boy who used to live next to her. However, he ended up moving out soon after the accident and was never seen again afterwards, meaning Nancy couldn't really investigate the matter further.

Unfortunately, the investigation hadn't exactly given her much information about Jonathan. Despite her efforts, she couldn' t figure him out no matter how hard she tried. In the end, it had become apparent to her that she needed to talk more to Jonathan about those subjects. At least, that is the reason she had originally come to Mike Wheeler's house to discuss the situation with him. It was obvious that he wanted to talk about it more as well.

He sighed tiredly while shaking his head.

"It was frustrating! I mean, it turns out that it was just a misunderstanding, so why does everybody seem to believe it was somehow my fault?!" He complained loudly. "I mean, come on! Who even thinks that?! It's so ridiculous!"

"Calm down Mike." Nancy advised softly. "Everything'll be alright."

Although Nancy was trying to comfort him, she couldn't bring herself to fully believe in what she said either. There was no doubt that Mike had done something wrong in the past, but he seemed completely sincere in telling everyone the complete opposite. Nancy knew that she shouldn't doubt his words, because after all, he was the closest person she had to a brother, and she didn't want him to get into trouble, but still... she just couldn't understand it. How was it possible for him to have made such mistakes? Couldn't Jonathan have found out about them as well? Maybe that was why the two of them seemed to avoid talking to each other whenever they got close during these days. After what happened to Nancy's dad and Nancy's mom back then, she wasn't really sure how to act around Jonathan anymore. Even so, he still acted the same as usual. She wondered whether he ever thought about the past, especially considering that Joyce and Jonathan apparently shared a strong bond back then. She decided it would be best to ask him about it later, once he has calmed down.

"So why didn't you go and check on Joyce and Jonathan yourself?"

"Huh?"

"Why didn't you check on them after you finished questioning Dustin? I'm assuming you had to, seeing as how you're always checking up on them."

"Oh, yeah. But I forgot about that... sorry about that."

"Hey, don't worry about it."

They remained silent for a moment as they continued driving in complete silence. Mike was clearly thinking about something, but Nancy wasn't sure what it was. She had never seen him this stressed and worried about something. Before, she would have probably been able to help him ease his burden, but now she couldn't even offer him advice about something so personal. She wished she could just fix things and be his emotional support friend again, even if she wasn' t entirely sure if it would work.

After walking through many corridors of Hawkins Lab, Nancy was finally approaching a particular door which belonged to the Science Department.

"Here we are. My office." Nancy smiled awkwardly while pointing at the door. "Thanks for taking the time to meet with me today, Mike. Sorry I caused so much trouble to your schedule..."

Mike chuckled wryly and replied, "No worries Nance. No big deal. Come on; let's go and finish the interrogation. I've still got lots of things to tell you."

Nancy nodded in agreement and opened the door. The room inside was quite large, and filled with several tables stacked high with files, notebooks, pens, and books. All of these items were piled neatly together. Several of them contained blueprints of various objects, ranging from microscopes to atomic devices to an array of chemicals.