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“Come on, losers!” Max hollers over the blasting speakers. “Dance with someone!” Her and Lucas are jumping and swaying to “Tainted Love.”
Mike and Will sit alone together on the gym bleachers, tense. They’re finally upperclassmen, attending their first prom date-less. They watch the gym swirl around them, a raging ocean of pink, orange, purple, blue, red, people hopping and sweating and laughing in a world completely removed from the bleacher bubble. “No thanks,” Mike shouts back.
“Lame!” She laughs and turns back to Lucas, who gives a quick grin and a wave. Dustin and Suzie (who flew out just for prom), dance a few feet away from them.
“This is so dumb,” Mike grumbles. “Why do we have to be here if we don’t have dates?”
Mike looks past the happy couples, watching Eleven. She is dancing with a boy he doesn’t know. She looks happy. Will follows his gaze. “Do you wish you were still together?”
Mike thinks about it. “No,” he decides. “I mean, I still… love her. But it’s different than it was. It’s less…” Will listens intently, trying, like always, to decipher Mike’s coded speech. Mike scoffs. “I don’t know what it is.”
The song ends. Silence lingers between the two of them for a few seconds too long. “Do you want something to drink or something?” Will spits out. He feels awkward, like as soon as the words escape his lips, the sentence is all wrong. He tries to revise it, “Or we could get a snack, or water from the hallwa-”
“Let’s go to the water fountains. It’s stuffy in here.”
“Yeah, okay.” The boys walk through the gym doors into the dark, empty hallway. They walk side by side and turn the corner to get to the fountain. From inside of the gym, they hear a muffled version of “Tell It to My Heart” blasting out into the halls. Will leans down to get a sip of water and Mike slumps against the wall.
“I hate this song.”
“What?” Will pops up. “No way you do.”
“Yes way!”
“Why?”
“It is so overplayed.” Mike rolls his eyes, stepping away from the wall to take a more assertive stance. “You can’t listen to a single radio station for more than 15 minutes without hearing it.”
“Yeah, because it’s good.” Will takes Mike’s spot on the wall, folding his arms across his chest. “People want to hear it! You have to admit it’s catchy.”
“Sure, but I’d rather hear guitar than synth-”
“Aha! Nope, you said 'sure', you said it was catchy! You like this song, Mike Wheeler.”
“No, no, I meant that I can see the appeal-” Will stared Mike down with a cheeky grin.
“Don’t deny it, Mike.” Mike gaped at Will, taken aback by the subtle fierceness in him.
“Okay.” Mike stepped towards Will, miming a confrontational attitude. “It’s a horrible song to dance to, though.”
“Oh, really?” Will said, repressing a giggle and stepping even closer to Mike. “How would you know?”
Mike assumes the personality of a posh critic, muttering, “I happen to have an excellent ear for ‘epic club beats,’ and this, my good sir, is not one of them.”
“Oh well, my good sir,” Will grins widely. “Do you have some sort of system for measuring a song’s ‘danceability’?”
“Yes, actually,” Mike snickers, putting down the facade he’s been holding up. “It’s called dancing.”
“Well, should we put this song to the test then?” Will smiles up at Mike, but he sees a flash of panic in Mike's eyes. Seeing this, he steps away, his back hitting the wall. “Or we can go back inside-”
“No.” Mike steps forward, filling the new space between him and Will. He offers his hands to Will, palms up. Will places his hands on Mike’s, beaming. Mike swings their hands back and forth, slowly matching the high tempo of the song. They are jumping, laughing, singing as if they were inside with everyone else, but this moment belongs to them only, and they know it.
The two of them slow, though the song does not. Their broad smiles turn to shy grins. Both of them are shaking slightly, but in a moment of bravery, Mike places Will’s hands on his shoulders, left, then right. He sets his own on Will’s waist. They rock for a moment. Will closes their distance, resting his head on Mike’s shoulder. The song ends. There is quiet.
“Mike?” There is uncertainty in his voice. They don’t move.
“Yeah?”
“This is crazy.”
“Yeah.” Quiet.
Will moves to look him in the eye. “Is this real?”
“This time?" He thinks. "Yeah. I think so.”
As if by cue, "Take My Breath Away" echoes out of the gym. A smile creeps back onto Will’s face. He looks away and giggles. “This is crazy.”
Mike laughs along with him. “We’re crazy.”
Their laughter dies down. Will looks up at Mike. “Can we be crazy together?”
Mike stares at Will. His heart is racing, and before he can think, he’s kissed Will. He pulls away, shocked, but happier than he’s been in a long time. This was love he knew. This was crazy.
“Yeah, Will. Crazy together.”