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“Wait!”
El stopped in her tracks, Mike blocking her path as she made her way through her father’s cabin. He was standing the way he normally did when he knew he’d messed up, shoulders slightly hunched and eyes wide as he fiddle with his fingers. She’d been hoping to avoid talking to him with the same stealth Will had been blessed with, but it seemed her boy problems had finally caught up to her.
“Wait. El, please, just…I know we’re not really talking right now, but I just wanted to say thank you. For the painting, I mean.”
She blinked up at her (now) ex-boyfriend, thrown off by the bizarre question. Painting?
“What painting?”
Now it was Mike’s turn to scrunch his nose in confusion.
“The painting? The one you commissioned from Will? Y’know, red three-headed dragon…D&D gear…” he rubbed at the back of his neck, sheepish, “kinda hard to forget?”
“Mike,” El started, hesitant, “I…do not know what you’re talking about. Will only had one painting, the one for the girl in Lenora.”
She narrowed her eyes, mouth set in disappointment, “You know. The one I told you about in my letter to you?”
“I…That was the only one?”
“That was the only one. I mean, we were only in California for six months, Mike.”
The expression that formed on Mike’s face was equally as unsettling as his initial question. El watched as his confusion flashed into hurt and then settled into a blank, angry mix of the two.
“Is…everything okay?”
Mike shook his head briefly, dark curls bouncing with the motion.
“I need to talk to Will. You seen him around?”
She nodded, gesturing behind her with a toss of her head.
“He is in the backyard with Jonathan. They were getting wood for the burner.”
Her ex-boyfriend turned on his heel, throwing a quick thanks over his shoulder. With a minute shake of her head, she continued on her way, tucking the interaction in the back of her mind as she hauled out the very last of the debris.
Will was exactly where El said he’d be, thankfully. Mike wasn’t in the mood to go searching, not again, not now of all times. If he were able to keep an eye on his best friend for the rest of his life, the ability would not come a moment too soon. Part of him was always worried the other boy would disappear off the face of the Earth again. Maybe by choice this time, his mind piped up unhelpfully, seeing as he’s already lying to you.
As he passed by Jonathan on his way out, Mike caught a peculiar brand of stare; it was equal parts warning and imploring, like Jonathan was begging him to say something and simultaneously daring him to be anything but kind about it. It was nothing short of unnerving, considering Mike felt like he was the one in need of explanations here. It had stung, the realization that Will had not only lied to him about the painting and the feelings attached to it, but also that maybe, for some reason, Will had felt the need to lie to him about it. Old guilt resurfaced, bloated and warm with rain from a mid-summer fight. Mike didn’t know whether to be angry with Will or to apologize to him. It felt like it was fall again, evenings spent waiting by the phone on a busy signal that never cleared.
Mike thought they’d been getting better, that maybe there was something between them, an understanding, anything, but now he found himself right back at square one. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he couldn’t manage to balance a relationship with a girl and his friendship with Will…he wasn’t even sure he wanted to anymore. The more he thought about what Will had said before the painting came up, the more he realized that that was exactly what he wanted, Las Vegas fraud schemes and all. A lifetime of sitting around with Will, playing video games and just existing together…it sounded idyllic. Too good to be true, something that had never been on the table before.
He had been so sure Will would want to leave him behind eventually, that he’d find some pretty girl and they’d have such sweet, pretty children in a nice, pretty home…but then that happened. D&D and Nintendo? Forever? Will wanted that with him? Mind-boggling. Now, though, in the wake of his conversation…he wasn’t sure that Will had actually meant any of it. He could feel his face scrunching the way it usually did when he was upset, and tried his best to smooth it out as he marched over to Will. No matter what, he was at least going to get an answer.
“Mike?”
Will sounded confused, bordering on nervous. Mike didn’t know exactly what his face was doing anymore, but it couldn’t’ve been good, given the way the other boy’s eyes widened as his shoulders curled in. Shit, Mike remarked mentally, this is going badly already.
“Why’d you lie?”
Fuck. That was not the way he’d intended to start this conversation, all blunt and harsh and sharp edges, but that was the way it came out nonetheless.
“What’re you talking about? I haven’t lied about anything.”
The way Will seemed to shy away as he defended himself was a gut-punch, but once the words started…Mike was hard-pressed to hold himself back.
“The painting, Will. I know about the painting. El told me she had no idea what I was talking about. So…what, was all of it a lie? Because clearly El doesn’t feel any of what you said she did. Was the rest of it made-up too? Was it some twisted way of trying to make me feel better? Because that’s a really fucked up thing to do, Will.”
The other boy’s face had gone sheet-white, his eyes flicking around like a small animal looking for an escape route.
“No, Mike, you have to believe me. It wasn’t a lie, I promise—”
“Clearly it was! Just come out with it already, okay?”
“You don’t understand, Mike! Everything I said was true! Maybe not for El, but it was true! All of it!”
They stared at each other mutely as Will’s voice echoed in the woods, neither of them having expected a yelling match. Pale as a ghost, Will stared pointedly at the ground, refusing to meet Mike’s eyes.
“I…I’m sorry, Mike. I screwed up, I know, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t true. I meant everything I said.”
The quick-change from shouting to mumbling made Mike pause, unsure of how to move forward. If it wasn’t about El, but he still says it’s the truth…then?
“Who…Who did those words come from, then?”
He watched Will’s lips tremble the same way they used to when they were children, when he was scared and close to tears.
“Mike…”
“Say it, Will.” Mike dropped his voice into something softer, closer to pleading, “Please?”
Will looked up, locking gazes with his childhood best friend.
“Me. It’s me, okay? I need you. I’m different, but you make me feel like I’m not a mistake.”
Mike felt his heart lurch into his throat, warmth spreading through his chest. Maybe we’re not at square one after all. He watched Will chew at the inside of his cheek, a shadow crossing his face as Mike felt his own brows furrow the one last missing piece.
“Why’d you say all that came from El, though?”
Will shrugged, an aborted, choppy thing that reeked of defeat.
“I thought it would matter more. Like…like it would mean more if it came from her. I mean, she is your girlfriend, Mike, and me? I’m just Will.”
Whatever contented warmth had been burrowing itself inside him froze solid, something like regret crawling up the back of Mike’s throat.
“First: was. She was my girlfriend. Second…‘Just Will’? You’re like…my most important person. I—” he heard Will scoff under his breath, “what?”
“Your ‘most important person’, Mike? Really? I though we weren’t lying anymore.”
Mike blinked at him, dumbfounded.
“I’m not lying. Why would you think…?”
“We didn’t speak at all once I left for Lenora. It was like I never existed to you. Which…I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, given how things were last summer. I mean what was I supposed to think, Mike? That I could cheer you up better than the girl you ignored me for? Be serious.”
Mike didn’t know how to respond to that, his thoughts a swirl of dropped calls and guilty defensiveness.
“It was like you never existed to me? I called, Will. You just never called me back. Your phone was always busy, but you never made time to reach out. And then I find out from El that you’ve got some girl out there, because of course you would, you’re Will…What was I supposed to do? You ditched me.”
In the midst of his rambling, Will’s face had gone from deeply confused to incredulous.
“Girl? What girl?”
Mike felt like the ground had gone out from under him.
“There…wasn’t a girl?”
Will shook his head, bewildered laughter bubbling out of him.
“No? When have you ever seen me with a girl, Mike? And what did you mean ‘of course you would’?”
Caught off guard, Mike fumbled for an explanation.
“I-I mean. You’re you , of course you’d have no trouble finding a girlfriend. You’re everything someone—a girl, I mean—would want in a boyfriend. If you wanted a girlfriend. Because y’know it’s not like you have to have one I just thought you’d know that girls like you and—”
“Mike. There’s no girl. I…were you jealous?”
The teasing lilt that crept into Will’s voice was a balm, a relief even as his words made Mike flush bright pink.
“N-no. I was not jealous—”
“You were! You totally were. Oh my god, Mike, this is too good.”
If it meant Will would beam at him like that all the time, Mike would let him tease him endlessly.
“I…Okay, maybe a little .”
However, he didn’t like the inquisitive shine Will’s eyes took on.
“Can I ask why?”
“Why what?”
“The jealousy, the…everything. I just…is it really just because I’m your best friend? Because my other best friends don’t act like this, Mike.”
I’d almost forgotten how easily he gets me pinned in arguments, Mike’s mind supplied unhelpfully, it…might just be easier to rip off the bandaid at this point.
“Well, you see. And don’t be mad. Please don’t be mad. Like, I don’t think you’re gonna be mad, but if you could just promise not to be mad that would be really—”
“Mike,” Will cut his nervous word-vomit off with that gentle, firm tone he always used when Mike got like this, “I think I already know, but—”
“I don’t like you.”
Will blinked at him, baffled, and Mike rushed to finish the thought.
“I mean! I do like you! Just not as a friend. I thought maybe when you were saying all that stuff in the van that you felt the same , but then it was all coming from El instead, and then the pizza place, and—”
“Mike,” Will cut him off again, “I do.”
For once, Mike Wheeler was truly at a loss for words.
“Y-you do?”
Will nodded, barely-restrained joy brightening his eyes as he snagged one of Mike’s hands.
“Holy shit,” Mike breathed out, “you do. How long?”
“Since…forever? I don’t really know. Definitely since 1984, but probably earlier. You?”
1984…Mike remembered how stuck to Will’s side he’d been that fall, and was struck with the realization that he’d been head over heels for Will for far longer than that. He’d nearly killed himself trying to find the other boy in ‘83, and he couldn’t imagine a time when he wouldn’t do the very same.
“Earlier, I think. Kinda lost my mind when you went missing. That, uh. That really should’ve been the first clue, huh?”
Will just smiled at him, hazel eyes warm as he reeled Mike in for a tight hug, tucking his face into the crook of the taller boy’s neck.
“I know I don’t need to say it,” Mike could feel Will’s lips move against his skin as he murmured, “but I love you, Mike. Don’t ever forget that.”
He hadn’t been able to say it directly to El, not once, but as he turned his head to bury his nose in Will’s hair, something about it just felt right.
“I love you, too. Don’t you ever forget it.”