That hour and a half, waiting to hear back from Jonathan honestly felt more like an eternity. That was an exaggeration, but it hadn’t been fun, had been quite the opposite actually. Filled with stress and anxiety, which was only made worse when her parents showed up, and Nancy had had to fumble for some sort of excuse about why she looked paler than usual and why she was lingering around the phone.
She hadn’t exactly come up with a good excuse for why she was so stressed, but as for the phone call, she caved and told them that Jonathan was heading down to visit – she just neglected to explain to them why.
The phone rang, and she practically bolted for the phone, earning a sort of suspicious look from Mike and a curious one from Holly. Her mom looked surprised too, but her dad… He was asleep in his chair, snoring. “ Hey! “ Her voice was jittery, and her mom seemed to pick up on it, so she simply offered a weak smile and then turned to face the phone on the wall, as if that would stop her mom from being able to see her.
“ Did you manage to get it figured out? “ She asked, fingers anxiously twirling the phone cord around themselves. She’d have to be careful with what she said, especially now that everyone else was home.
Jonathan shoos his mom away from where she’s anxiously watching him and the phone. He doesn’t really have anything else to keep from her, but he doesn’t want her breathing down his neck when he’s talking to Nancy either. He’s relieved when it’s her who picks up the phone, there’s no way he could’ve sounded casual for Mr or Mrs. Wheeler - or even Mike - at this point.
“Yeah, yeah,” He says quickly. “I - I can’t uh - i can’t talk for long i have to leave for the airport but my flight gets in at like midnight.” He says, glancing at the piece of paper in his hand “Sorry, 12:45 am, i uh - it’s late I know but - but it’s the first flight I could get, look if you can meet me - tell your mom you’re sleeping over at -” He faulters, he doesn’t know any of her friends names. “at Robin’s or something and we can get - there’s this cheap motel by the airport. It’s a little seedy but - but we can stay there and - and it’s right near the planned parenthood too so we can go in the morning.”
He’s not going to tell her how he knows all of this. That he’d ridden in Lonnie’s car driving that route a hundred times, past the planned parenthood, to that motel where he sat in the car and Lonnie and some woman Jonathan didn’t know went inside. Jonathan would wait, and few hours later Lonnie would come out and they’d go home and Lonnie would tell his mom they’d been at a baseball game, and Jonathan wouldn’t say anything because he knew what would happen if he did. He squeezes his eyes shut, willing the memory away so he can focus.
“Is - is that okay? If - if it’s not I can figure something else out -maybe get a - a bus to Hawkins and meet you there and we can drive to the clinic tomorrow?”