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There were so many better things Will could have been doing other than sitting on his family’s couch, pouting his entire day away. Will had been staying at home, going between his room, the kitchen, and the living room for longer than he was willing to admit. He had nowhere else to be. No one else to see. Summer before going to high school and he was spending the best weather on his couch, arms crossed and staring at the same few comic books; he didn’t have it in him to bike to the comic book store. He didn’t want to run into anyone.
“Will.” Jonathan also happened to be home more often since he had started working freelance with a local newspaper, which Will wished wasn’t the case. “You can’t sit on the couch again today.”
“Watch me.”
“What? You’re just going to spend your entire summer vacation in our house?” Jonathan laughed, coming in from the kitchen with, strangely enough, a mug of hot tea. Will moved away from the steam, it already making him sweat. “What about the guys? I haven’t seen them in a while! And… what’s her name? Mel? Max! I haven’t seen her and El in ages either!”
“I don’t feel like hanging out today.” Will muttered.
“You say that every day.” Jonathan reasoned, sipping from his mug. “I’m beginning to think you guys had a huge fight.” He laughed into his mug, but Will pursed his lips, trying to keep his story to himself. Jonathan waited for Will to laugh too, to deny the joke, but his silence made Jonathan take a long, awkward sip of his tea. “Oh.”
“I don’t really want to see them right now.” Will said, sighing. “I’m mad at Mike.”
“Mike? What happened there?” Jonathan asked, quickly leaning forward to put his mug on the coffee table. “I thought you guys were going really well!”
“I thought so too.” Will said softly, picking at his shirt hem.
“What happened? Talk to me.” Jonathan said, placing a hand on Will’s shoulder. “Did he say something to you?”
“No.” Will grumbled.
“Will.” Jonathan said again, nudging his side. “What’s going on?”
Will didn’t want to articulate it to anyone except his reflected grimace over the bathroom sink. He and Mike had all but a screaming match in his basement the other day. Will had experienced a sudden traumatic episode, all of it a hallucination but all of it feeling real all over again. Will had gone to Mike’s house to try and take his mind off the nightmares loitering in his bathroom sink and crawling up to his hands, only to find Mike trying to pick a fight. Mike was short with him, telling him to keep his voice down when he was speaking barely above a whisper. Will hadn’t told Mike why he had come over by the time he started yelling, asking Mike if he was quiet enough for him. It was childish, foolish, and embarrassing. Will didn’t know who he was more upset with, Mike or himself, so he chose punishing himself on the couch in the time it took him to make up his mind.
“Nothing. It’s nothing.” Will said under his breath.
“When’s the last time you talked to Mike?” Jonathan asked, as if trying to suggest that time had healed the wound already.
“Uh…” Will had to think about it. It was August. Last time he spoke to Mike was within the weeks following the last bell he’d hear in Hawkin Middle. “June?”
“What?” Jonathan sputtered, nearly spitting at Will even though his tea was still on the table. “Will. That’s the entire summer! What have you two been doing!”
“Sitting here.” Will said, motioning to himself and his things scattered around the couch. “I can recite this entire X-Men now… That’s cool, I guess.”
“Get up.” Jonathan said firmly, grabbing Will’s arm. “You have to get out of the house.”
“No.” Will said, pulling away from Jonathan. “I don’t want to.”
“William.”
“Jonathan.” Will said back. “Leave me alone. Please.”
“When Mom gets back from work, I’m going to tell her you’ve been moping around for months. She is going to drag you out by your ears.” Jonathan said. “Better do it yourself.”
“I’ll think about it.” He sighed.
Will wanted to go outside, he wanted to go over to Dustin’s house or go see Lucas and see his sister who just happened to like Will over any of the other boys. He wanted to leave, but that meant maybe running into Mike. Will didn’t know if he was ready to face their argument– what if they would just start fighting again? Seeing Mike would mean that Will might have to come to terms with the fact that they weren’t friends anymore. They had broken up in a rash of angry words and hot tears. Will would rather be in silence than sit with the truth.
Jonathan leaned back into the couch with his mug of tea, sipping it purposefully louder than usual, trying to force Will to get up from the couch. Will picked up his comic book again and began reading it backwards, trying to pronounce the new words. They were in a standoff, Will trying to speak over Jonathan’s obnoxious sipping while he kept chugging, trying to keep the other from winning. Neither though had it in them to be louder than the rapid knocking at the front door.
“I’ll get it.” Will volunteered, trying to use it as an excuse to stand from Jonathan if only for a moment without forfeiting; he wasn’t going outside. He was just going to stand in the doorway, get the mail, and enjoy the summer breeze. It would be a lift from Will’s punishment, if only for a moment. “Coming!” Will answered to the continued knocking. The mailman was apparently more impatient than usual– and the dog wasn’t even on him yet.
Will swung the door open and nearly slammed it back over; Mike stood on the Byers’s front step, timid smile on his lips and crumpled piece of paper in his hand. His eyes were looking at Will, but the dark smear of exhaustion under them made Will feel like Mike was staring through him. Will felt like he had opened the door to his own bathroom mirror.
“Hi.” Will said, releasing the doorknob and letting Mike have the option to enter. He stayed on the porch.
“Will,” Mike lifted the paper and cleared his throat, reading from it. “I’m sorry for the way I acted and–”
“Are you reading me an apology?” Will asked, reaching for the paper. “You wrote it down?” He couldn’t have remembered it all himself? He had to draft it and make sure he said all the right things? If Will knew he could have prepared a speech, he would have called for a debate far sooner. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“No! Will, please.” He pleaded, reaching outward and placing a hand against the door, even though Will hadn’t made a motion to shut it. “I can’t keep not talking to you. It freaking sucks.” Will nodded slowly, agreeing with Mike almost hesitantly. “It hurts.”
Will hadn’t considered the discomfort he was feeling as pain. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t really do much of anything, but he hadn’t thought of it as being a painful disruption in his life. But it was. It was painful staying away from Mike and not remembering the words he said, but the tone he had used to spit them. It was painful knowing he had hurt Mike. Will was in pain and it took looking at Mike’s face, haggard and tired, to begin feeling it in himself too.
“I’m sorry.” Will muttered, tears already pooling in his eyes. “Mike, I’m so sorry.”
“No! No, it’s my fault!” Mike said, shaking his head and waving his paper back and forth. “I was being a complete jerk!”
“No, I shouldn’t have started shouting.”
“I shouldn’t have brought my dad’s stupid shit to the basement.” Mike added, shaking his head now at the words he had written on the page. “It’s not your fault.” Will had no idea what Mike was talking about now, but he kept his mouth shut and words to himself. Mike was scanning the page again, tears forming in his own eyes. Mike had written it down so he could get through the apology, not to ambush Will. “Shit, I’m sorry. He… He had started getting on my case about everything that day. It wasn’t your fault, but it was all just pent up! He doesn’t even like when we hang out that much. So I was trying to keep your voice down so he didn’t hear you and yell at me– or you. It’s stupid. It’s so stupid.”
“It’s not stupid.” Will said, stepping out of the house and onto the porch. He reached forward and placed a hand on the top of Mike’s paper, slowly crumpling it in his hand. “It’s not stupid at all.” Mike didn’t have to explain himself anymore. Will couldn’t believe he had been mad, that he had thought for a minute to act like either one of them was to blame.
“I should have told you. I’m sorry, Will. I’m so sorry.” Mike’s apology was muddled by tears, his hands trying to wipe his eyes and nose, but the dam had broken and he was a rushing flood on Will’s front step.
“I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have yelled. I had one of my flashbacks and I just wanted to be with you and then you started-”
“You had another one?” Mike gasped, suddenly freezing. “Oh my god, and I was yelling at you? Oh my god, Will. I’m the worst boyfriend ever.” Mike sniffled and pushed the heel of his hand into his left eye, trying to stop the tears.
“No.” Will whispered, reaching forward for this other hand and taking Mike’s hand. “You wrote me an apology letter.” The sincerity was smearing off on his fingers.
Will held up the paper in his hand, slowly unfolding it to see the words scribbled across the lined page. The words barely behaved between the blue lines. There were words scratched out and rewritten sideways and over top of other ones. Words were pouring out of the lines and onto Will’s hands. The paper was heavy and light at the same time. It flapped in the wind, but it sat in the palm of Will’s hand like a dead weight. Will wasn’t sure he could read anything written on it, anguish being the main tongue scribed over it, but there were some he could pluck from its lines: regret, selfish, please and along the bottom, squished by the border of the paper as if not meant to fit on the page or in the apology, love.
Love. Love you. An outpouring of guilt was signed with an admission of love. Mike had written an apology with tears in his eyes, biked all the way to Will’s house, and had the intentions of telling Will he loved him. It hurt. It hurt Will to be away from Mike and now it hurt to read the truth he had been avoiding for the past three months. It hurt to be given sight back after being blind.
“I accept your apology if you’ll accept mine.” Will said, folding the paper neatly in his hands.
“Of course, I can’t stay mad at you like this!” Mike gasped, squeezing Will’s hand and stepping closer to him. He stared at Will, eyes frantically taking in every inch of his face like it would disappear again.
“Well, that’s good,” Will said softly, looking down at their hands, gripped tight and fusing back together after months of isolation. “because I love you too.”