Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Will Byers knows one thing or two about change.

Life changed when he was haunted by some nightly creature in the middle of the night on his way home, until it materialized in a monster with a gaping mouth, and before he could even knew what had happened, he awoke somewhere that eerily resembled home but lacked any of its warmth.

Life changed when the waken nightmares that would catch him at the most unsuspecting moments turned out to be a tangible shadowy representation of his worst fears materialized right in front of him, taking control and possession of his own body and will.

Life changed when he watched with his feet rooted to the earth core as everyone around him grew up and moved on with their lives, leaving him with the few lingering tendrils of fleeting memories deteriorating as he clung to them with sore fingers.

Life even changed, for better and for worse, when his father became just a mere phantom of echoed screams bouncing off the walls and the sporadic hushed sounds of glass and ceramic shattering against brick walls, and a guilty sense of relief washing over him.

Moving to the other side of the country, far away from everything and everyone he has ever known besides his family it’s just another change in a long list of changes.

“Can you help carrying that box upstairs?” El asks him.

That is another change— he has a sister now.

He still isn’t sure how to feel about that.

“Sure,” he replies and proceeds to grab the box laying by the side of the entrance doorframe.

There is a strange tension between him and El. There is probably some strange tension between her and Jonathan as well, now that he thinks about it. During those three months, after Hopper died and Dr. Owens practically sent them to solitary confinement and isolated them from all their friends, she glued herself to his mother like a silent shadow. Even during their two-day trip between Hawkins and Lenora Hills, they didn’t talk more than a couple of formal and polite ‘good mornings’ and ‘good nights’.

He thinks that he count with one hand the amount of clipped sentences they have exchanged to each other; they probably never shared an actual conversation, and now they have been exiled to the other side of the country, away from the people that actually know them, and forced to act like they are a family to the students and teachers of Lenora Hills High School when they are barely a step over mere acquaintances.

Maybe they would know how to live with each other if she and Mike hadn’t spent six months swapping spit with each other instead of inviting the whole Party over to Hopper’s cabin, that treacherous voice in the back of his mind tells him. He tightens the hold on the box he is carrying— he will not be the kind of person that gets jealous and bitter because his friends are too busy hanging out with their girlfriends to spare a day with him. Well, not anymore at least. There is no point in acting like a child and cling to an argument that occurred months ago when there are two thousand and forty-eight miles separating them now.

It seems like a lifetime ago. He feels like he has lived through too many lifetimes in one already.

Besides, there are some changes he never wanted to face, and he has realized that he doesn’t have to face them as long as he can force them out of his mind. If he has no choice but to deal with another change in his life, then that means he can choose what to bring with him. If he desires to leave some things in the past, like everything that happened last summer, he plans to do so.

One of the best changes from living in Hawkins to living in California is definitely the school. Back in his hometown, he used to be known as the local queer, that one kid that most parents told their children to avoid since elementary school, as if homosexuality were something contagious like a cold or lice. After that week, fed by conspiracy theories and paranoia, the slurs carelessly thrown at him were replaced by the nickname ‘Zombie Boy’.

A couple of times, his old childhood label would seep through his bullies’ insults or in hushed conversations in the school corridors, but most of the time, ‘Zombie Boy’ became his new moniker, the first thing that anyone would know about him before they even got to meet him, as Max once confessed to him. She quickly followed her admission by affirming that only a superhero would be capable of coming back from the death. Although they both turned slightly embarrassed and continued to play Asteroids in silence, he kept her words as a reminder, of what, he isn’t completely sure. 

In an odd way that would be admonished by more than one person in his life, he is more bothered by the name ‘Zombie Boy’ than by any slur spit at him. Maybe it’s because he is an odd person, or maybe because that nickname is a lie, a product of ignorant assumptions, while the other is just the plain truth.

The sky is blue, water is wet, and Will Byers is a fag.

He wonders what his dad would say if his dad knew that the whole time he was right. Would he snarl his usual harsh words, his face reddening as the vein in his temple throbs with such intensity that it would explode, marring his face in a deeper shade of crimson? Or would he just sit at the other end of the table, gripping the neck of a bottle of cheap beer, with a vitriolic smirk of his face, smug with the knowledge that he knew what his own mother has denied to herself for so many years?

But he doesn’t have to think about that; it’s one of the things he is delighted to have abandoned back in Hawkins. In Lenora, he is no longer a walking corpse or something gone wrong— he is simply invisible. What would be terrifying for so many, it’s his own version of paradise. He is no one here, which means he is the one that get to determine who he is, and no one else.

He walks in his first class of the morning and sits on one of the desks further from the front of the class, close by El. He doesn’t know for sure what kind of agreement Dr. Owens and his mom have going on with each other, but he considers that him and El being paired together for most of their classes it’s related to it. He doesn’t give it much of a thought; sometimes, the less he knows the better. Besides, he is not going to complain about Dr. Owens making special accommodations for them if it means living in such a spacious house and not having to worry about money for the first time in his life.

As the class slowly starts to fill in, he takes out his sketchbook of his bag. It may be that his brain is still asleep, but he gently lets his pencil dance over the blank page, doodling without adding much force, expecting to make something out of the squiggly lines. However, he can’t come up with nothing, and when the bell rings, indicating the start of the school day, he swiftly closes the sketchbook and dumps it back into his backpack. He notices a guy whipping his head and pretending he wasn’t looking to whatever he was sketching. He rolls his eyes, and he is about to call him out on his unsubtlety when the teacher comes in.

The class proceeds as expected. English class tends to be boring considering that most of the mandatory reading list is composed of books that don’t catch his attention like The Lord of the Rings series or horror stories but nothing could ever be worse than math. He supposes it doesn't help that he started this school year a month later than he should have to. Once again, he doesn’t bother to ask or even think of the kind of strings that Dr. Owens must have pulled without him knowing.

He turns to his left to watch El frantically scribble down everything and anything that Ms. Baldwin dictates. He grimaces in sympathy. If starting high school a month later was hard enough on him, he can’t imagine how hard it must be for someone that has never even gone to school before. He should try to discern who is the best student at this class is so he can ask them for their notes later.

Everyone starts getting up of their desks, and he now realizes he had accidentally zoned out for most of the period. When he notices people are getting in pairs, he turns to look at El, but to his surprise, she is lively talking to a blonde girl with an unsettling smile plastered on her face.

“Hey,” he jumps at the sudden voice coming from behind him. His surprise is washed away when he recognizes him as the guy that was spying on his drawing before the class started and his expression settles on a frown, which doesn’t seem to discourage him from talking to him. “Do you want to partner up?”

“Okay,” he replies quickly. “Um… what for?” he asks.

The annoying guy snickers with obnoxiously pristine white teeth, “Oh, you were totally out of it.”

Much to his embarrassment, he was out of it. He is used to spacing out at this point. However, it still doesn’t make it any less mortifying when it happens, and especially when some random guy he doesn’t know makes fun of him for it.

He must have noticed something in his face, because he immediately tampers down his laughter. “I’m serious though; do you want to do the project together?” he asks again. Will nods.

“What’s your name?” Will questions, not willing to let this random guy leave the conversation with the upper hand.

“Ale. Alejandro,” he replies, his dark eyes shining bright. “Yours?”

“Will.”

“Just Will?”

“Just Will.”

As he was later informed by Alejandro, their project consists of choosing a book from the reading list their teacher gave to them on their first day of school and present their project at the end of the semester. Apparently, he has to work alongside Alejandro for what is left of the semester.

Fantastic.

He tosses his backpack against the partition wall separating the living room from his mom’s office (and how strange it’s that they are now living in a house big enough that his mom can afford to have her own working space?) and wearily lets himself fall on the couch. Eventually, when the arm that is beneath his entire bodyweight starts cramping, he twists around in a more comfortable position.

From the corner of his eye, he notices his brother moving around in a fastened pace, doing his best attempt to drink his cup of coffee without choking on it while searching for… something, he guesses.

“Jonathan,” he calls him. When he doesn’t seem to hear him, he yells. “Jonathan!”

“What?” he asks, looking puzzled and with a piece of toast hanging from his mouth.

“Do… do you want to watch something on the TV with me?” he asks, although there is something that tells him his offer is about to be turned down.

“Sorry, dude,” he says, genuinely apologetic. “Some weird guy invited me to join the carpentry club and I’m already running late.”

Since when do you like carpentry? “Okay, have fun.”

He watches as he leaves, an unsettling feeling prickling in the back of his neck. For a moment he freezes; he closes his eyes and focuses on his breathing, reminding himself that it can’t possibly be that. They are thousands of miles away from Hawkins and the gate was closed last summer— everything is fine.

You all thought the gate was closed before last summer and look what happened…

Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!

“Will!” El shakes his shoulder, making him flinch.

If she considered his jumpiness to be weird, she doesn’t mention it. “I want to watch something.”

She doesn’t wait for him to move, or even bothers to leave some comfortable distance between the two of them, sitting in the middle cushion right next to him. This may be the first time that they voluntary share time outside of their classes and meals. Usually, El would arrive from school and immediately stick to his mother’s side, and Will would either seclude himself in his bedroom until dinner or do his homework on the dining room table.

“What do you want to watch?” he asks her.

He realizes now that he has no idea what kind of television shows or movies does El like.

“The usual,” she replies.

Unbeknownst to her, he is a bit in a spiral over El having a show that she likes to frequently watch, because when did that happen?

“Joyce!” she shouts, “It’s about to start!”

His mom makes her way in a hurry, forgoing the responsibility of work for the next half hour, and sits to her right. They excitedly speak about what happened yesterday in ‘Press Your Luck’, because apparently this a normal, daily occurrence for them and he had no idea about it.

He pinches the inside of his wrist; he is not going to let that venomous jealousy that tinted all of his actions and words the last summer to keep on draining him rotten and poisoning his life. It’s one of the things he swore to himself that he would leave back at Hawkins and he will keep on honoring that promise to himself even if he has to force himself to do it.

Besides, it makes sense that El would grow to share stuff like TV shows with his mom. She lost the closest thing she ever had to a parent just a couple of months ago, so of course she is attached to his mom and she is to her. And is not like Will has been the most welcoming person to her, something he knows he should improve.

He exhales the tension out of his body and sinks on the pillows, watching quietly as El and his mom celebrate every trivia question they get right.

One of the biggest perks of his mother working from home is that she is no longer stuck in a frenzy every morning, and she can actually sit down to share the first meal of the day with them. The biggest drawbacks in these changes of circumstances is that, now that she has more time to spare in the morning, his mom has insisted that she would be the one in charge of making breakfast every morning. He loves his mom, but cooking has never been her strongest forte. 

“How are your eggs, honey?” she asks, stabbing a bite of food on her plate.

He takes a look at his brother, who is sitting in the chair in front of him, who is staring back at him with an intensity that manages to wordlessly convey the message his eyes are telling. He gives her a thumbs up, his mouth full with the chewy scrambled eggs. Nothing that a generous drizzling of maple syrup can’t fix.

El sits, practically jumps on the seat next to his, far more cheerful than any sane person should be on a Thursday morning. He has gotten used to her being a morning person, speaking lively in a way that it would be less of a shared conversation and more of a monologue. However, today she seems more excited than usual, her leg bouncing against his.

She cannot longer curb her enthusiasm. “I made a friend yesterday!”

“Honey, that’s fantastic!” his mum affirms. “What’s their name?”

“Her name is Angela,” she announces proudly. “She is really pretty.”

The fork that is carrying a piece of eggs to his mouth freezes half-way through, and he ends up placing it on the plate without taking a bite. He remembers that girl with blonde, silky hair, that was wearing a frilly baby pink sweater, and who approached El the other day in English class and insisted that they needed to partner up for the project. Now that he actually sees El, he notices that she is wearing a white shirt with small pink roses, a pair of ill-fitting light-blue jeans, and a beige cardigan he is certain she took from his mom’s closet.

Throughout the years, he has developed a remarkable intuition to determine whether someone is trustworthy or not, or, like Dustin likes to call it, a bullshit-meter. Will may had seen Angela only once in his life, but it was one time enough to get the red sirens going wild in his head.

Will wants to tell El that people that look at her with sharp shark-like teeth are probably not a potential friend, but he swallows his words down. Maybe he is the one that is wrong and Angela is a completely nice person with an unfortunate-looking creepy smile. Besides, it’s not like Will has the best judgment of people considering that he has been sticking to the same three persons his whole life so he never had to take the risk of making new friends.

Or maybe, he is just envious that a girl that has been out in the world for only two years has an easier time making friends and getting people to like her than he does. He shoves a bite of eggs into his mouth with more force than necessary, willing to let himself leave that bitterness, which used to feel so unusual to him once upon a time, in the past.

One of the greatest benefits of moving to California from Indiana it’s the increase of budget in the school, which, in consequence, means that his art class it’s actually filled with brand-new paints, and even with some products that weren’t available at school (or all of Hawkins), and when they were, he could never afford buying them.

Mr. Salazar, his art teacher, a lithe man with the habit of constantly touching the bridge of his glasses, passes by next to him, stops for almost half a minute to examine what he is working on, gives him a gentle smile and a thumbs up, and keeps walking with the intention of checking on everyone’s works.

There have been a few times in prior classes in which Mr. Salazar complimented his projects as a great demonstration of a piece of abstract art. Will would always blush at the praise, partially because any sort of effusive words directed him embarrass him, but also because he doesn’t have the heart to tell his teacher he just poured some paint on the canvas and started moving it around with his brush because he couldn’t come up with an idea of what to draw. Then again, maybe his teacher was just content that at least someone was interested in his class and didn’t use the time period to take a nap or do homework for other classes. The man probably has some very low standards easy to meet and is satisfied with little.

He stares at the painting, his thumb hovering but not touching, mindful of not smearing the still fresh paint. The shades of green, from the dull pine to the pale sage and all through the bright emerald, created a familiar image that makes him feel wistful. He dares to touch one of the olive thin strokes.

If there is something that he misses about living in Hawkins is the forest, which it’s something he never thought about until he moved to California.

For a while, he thought that his whole experience with the Upside Down, or how Lucas and Dustin labeled it as, ‘The Week of Hell’, had forever ruined his enjoyment of forests.

One of the few advantages of growing up at the border of the town (probably the only advantage if he was being honest to himself) it was living so close by the woods. There were times, whether it was because he had a hard day at school, or because his parents were fighting yet again, or because his dad was home and he didn’t want to be alone with him, that he would walk into the woods until he found somewhere that more or less resembled a clearing and he would lay down on the smooth, tall grass, and just lay down there. The forest became even more of a refuge than it already was when he and Jonathan built Castle Byers and he had a proper place to hide away from everyone and everything.

After he returned, the woods, which once felt like an odd-looking heaven, became a taunting menace outside of his window, with its thin, rustling branches being swung by the hissing wind as if it they were grotesque, sharp claws, challenging him to come back if he dared, promising further peril and misery. During the nights when he would tirelessly turn on his bed, willing himself to fall asleep, he swears that sometimes he would hear a shrill howl piercing through the still night.

California has its foothills and plains areas covered with shrubs but rarely any trees, let alone an actual forest. The dry air will sometimes bring a putrid odor of dead fish and seaweed, courtesy of the ocean not so far away from Lenora Hills. He misses walking through the woods, sensing the moss on the trunks with his finger pads, smelling the mild sweet and fresh scent of the elms and the oaks.

Some of the best settings for their D&D campaigns came to existence because of the forests of Hawkins. The shallow and often banal landscapes of California doesn’t inspire any sort of creativity to create stories about paladins leading his comrades through the enchanted forest, where wonders and dangers alike awaited for them.

Maybe a person doesn’t have to love their home to miss it. Or maybe missing his hometown, a tangible and relatively unchanging place, means he doesn’t have to face how he is homesick for the people that used to inhabit every second of his life. People are ever-changing and unreachable even when they are right next to you, let alone when they are over two thousand miles away, and they will inevitably and eventually become strangers that once were a part of you, a home that no longer exists, and Will is going to inevitably become just a mere anecdote for them to tell.

He can feel his fragile composure slipping away from him. He takes a deep breath and bites his lower lip, trying to keep the strangled sob from bursting out of his throat, but an unbidden single tear rolls down his left cheek anyway. He quickly and subtly wipes it away with the back of his hand, and hopes that no one noticed. He is a bit of an enigma among the student population, quiet and reserved, but if anyone sees him randomly start crying in the middle of class for no good reason, he would earn a reputation of being a weeping crybaby— again.

He knows he can’t keep the façade for much longer; he had never been one to be able to keep his emotions in check, much to his chagrin. He raises his hand and Mr. Salazar doesn’t hesitate to give him the restroom pass. He rushes there and closes himself in one of the stalls further from the door, the click of the lock sounding louder than it actually is in the emptiness of the bathroom.

He leans his forehead against the cool, tiled wall and tries to take deep breaths, but despite how much he is trying to calm down, angry wet tears continue to trickle down his face. He feels like the cramped bathroom stall it’s becoming smaller than it already is. He wants to scream, a hoarse and pitiful cry from the bottom of his stomach, but he feels as if his throat is closing up. He needs to wash his face, but he can’t get out of the stall and risk someone seeing him in this state, and regardless of how many times he has hit rock bottom in his life, he is not going to wash his face with toilet water. That would be a new low, even for him.

He hears someone entering the bathroom. He holds his breath, his just recently shaken body stilling as if he were trying to hide from a predator. Considering everything he has learned from high school, and his hellish middle school experience, he might as well be a prey hiding from the hunter. The sound of footsteps approach him, and the blood roaring in his ears is deafening.

“Is everything okay?” the voice from the other side of the door sounds warm and deep.

“Everything is fine,” he replies in a strained tone.

He expects that whoever asked just did it for the sake of being polite and decides to leave him alone.

“Will?” the person exclaims.

Now he remembers that voice: Alejandro. Fantastic.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he confirms, and hopes that it will be enough to make him leave, that he didn’t notice how drained he sounds.

“Have you been crying?” he asks.

Fuck me.

He gets out of the bathroom stall, bumping Ale’s shoulder on purpose, and heads for the sinks to finally wash his face. His cheeks are red and splotchy on the reflection and he hates it. He splashes his face with the cold water, some of it spattering on the mirror. Alejandro walks towards him and stands next to him.

“Are you okay?” he asks in a gentle tone.

Will tries to find any sign of maliciousness in his expression, something that warns him that whatever he may get out of this conversation it’s going to be used against him some day. He finds nothing but a genuine concern in his dark eyes.

“Yes,” he pushes him to the side with his shoulder and grabs a tissue of paper towel to dry his face.

“I know what it’s like,” he says, and a small flame of anger ignites inside of his chest. He chooses to remain quiet, wishing that he will take the hint and leave him alone already. “I used to live in New Jersey with my parents, but when my dad was moved to a station in Texas, I moved here to live with my aunt and cousins.”

The soggy paper towel remains unmoving in his hands. “What?”

“I know what it’s like to move away from everyone you know,” he says and shrugs. “It sucks.”

He fiddles with the paper towel, a sense of guilt gnawing at him. That is another recent change regarding him that has happened this past year: inexplicable bouts of anger that spurt in unfortunate moments against people that did nothing wrong but being in his presence when it happens and having to deal with the retaliation of his lashing out.

“I’m sorry,” he admits in a low voice and his head bowed.

“It’s okay,” Ale reassures him, patting his shoulder, “the first months are the worst, but you’ll get used to it; I promise.”

The anger makes resurges from deep within, but at least now he is aware of it to tamper it down. Although there is a part of him that wishes he could move on from everything and start over, there is also that part of him, the one that still finds shelter in fantasy stories and clings to childish desires, that doesn’t want to move on. And that is without taking in consideration that part of him that has never gotten over anything that has ever happened to him, whether he wants to or not.

But Alejandro doesn’t need to know all that.

“Thank you,” he smiles, but it comes off as a grimace instead.

If he noticed, he doesn’t say anything. “No problem,” he says. “You know, we were already going to meet up for our project, but you could come to my house this weekend, if you want.”

“Um.”

He continues babbling. “Well, it’s my aunt’s house, technically, but I’ve been living there for a while already, so it is my home too, and you don’t seem like the kind of person that would make friends easily, no offense, so I thought—“.

“I’ll think about it,” he interrupts him, shutting him up.

“Oh,” he seems surprised, but his features quickly settles in a pleased expression. “Great; um, I’ll call you.”

Friday arrives as a small blessing, signalizing the end of a week that felt longer than previous weeks since he has moved to California. The fact that he had an emotional outburst in a bathroom stall the day before doesn’t help, but overall, this past week had felt unexplainable too long.

El probably wouldn’t agree with his statement; ever since she found a new friend in Angela, she seems to be glowing, or at least her eyes look brighter than they had ever looked since Hopper died. Jonathan wouldn’t have an opinion either way, considering that his eyes are glazed over, as if he were in a completely different reality than everyone else’s. If they were back in Hawkins, he would think that his brother might actually be possessed.

When they enter the household, his mom is busy talking through the phone, but covers the transmitter with her palm and mouths something to El he can’t decipher. By the look of El immediately walking to the dining room to grab whatever is laying on the dining table, unlike him, she doesn’t struggle to understand what his mom meant.

She almost squeals when she realizes what she is holding in her hands. Will discreetly tries to move by her, and does his best attempt to pretend he isn’t trying to see what she is holding. Then he realizes: a letter. He doesn’t need to think or ask her who sent it because he already knows.

He makes the beeline towards his bedroom downstairs, relieved that El is reading her letter, mom is still busy with work and Jonathan is too far away somewhere in wonderland to notice him leaving.

He throws himself onto his bed and groans in his pillow. He isn’t an idiot; he can assume what they talk about in their letters, but he doesn’t want an actual confirmation of his suspicions. Besides, his ability to pretend has its limits, and he doesn’t want to test them today in front of his whole family, especially when lately it feels like jealousy has made a home in his chest like an infection that keeps festering and making his whole body sick.

He wonders what it would be like to receive a letter like that, paragraphs filled with words of adoration, of memories he could only dream of creating, of promises that would never be made. At this point he would settle for just a page, torn from a school notebook, telling him about the weather or complaining about anything, a sign that would reassure him he still cares about him.

He needs to move on— that is something he has known for a while, but it’s also something that is easier said than done. Watching someone else, a person that lives with him and spends majority of their time with him, receiving the kind of affection and attention he wishes he would get only serves a constant reminder of what he longs for but he can never have, of something he had never had the permission to desire in the first place.

There have been so many changes he had no choice but to accept and adapt to them, but he always thought that if there was some sort of unmoving force in the universe it would be them. Now he doesn’t know whether to blame him for not even bothering to show him he still cares about him or blame himself for his useless feelings he can’t make go away.

He wants to be able to turn off his emotions like the switch of a light bulb, to stop the feeling of disappoint and envy from brewing inside of his stomach, to will away the sense of sadness and loss gnawing at his chest. But after all of his trials of wishing and trying, he has already learn that stop feeling doesn’t work, at least not for him.

He turns on his back and stares at the ceiling, stewing in his own stupid jealousy and longing. Pathetic— that is what he is. A lot of people would agree with his judgment of character, even if only for a first and only time.

But maybe he doesn’t have to live his entire high school life in a self-imposed seclusion because he pities himself way too much. He can and he should attempt to get to know some of his classmates, maybe even make friends, or at least acquaintances that he can pretend they are his friends. There is no possible way he can move on if he chooses to confine his life to the four walls of his room.

Chapter Text

“Is this how people in Indiana have fun during the weekend? Working on a project that isn’t due until the end of the semester?” the annoying and deep voice says from the sofa, keeping his hands busy with the mindless task of throwing a small ball to the ceiling and catching it when it falls back down.

Will, who is crouched in front of one the lower shelves of the massive bookcase, stands up and turns around, hoping that he Ale will notice his irritated expression. “It’s November already.”

“Yeah, exactly,” he affirms and stands up from his seat, and grabs him by the shoulders. “Which means that we got at least another four weeks until due date.”

Although the pressure of his hands is light, his body tenses at the contact and he shrugs them off.

“Four weeks quickly turns into four days if you get distracted,” he mutters, and turns around again to keep looking in the bookcase.

Truth to be told, he knows they have plenty of time left to work in this project, and if it were up to him, Sundays would never be delegated to do homework; always for resting or anything else that isn’t school-related. Truth to be told, when he noticed El stretching out the letter that Mike sent her on the dining table, and prepare the pretty notebook she designated to write letters back to him, he knew he needed to leave before he accidentally blurt out something too honest or became too visible. He and Mike had only spoken once since he moved to California, in Halloween.

The conversation was too short for his need, and he held to that little demonstration of care, that blink-and-miss-it sign that said ‘I still think of you’ like a lifeline.

“Are you trying to get over with this project as soon as possible so you don’t have to deal with me?” Ale asks from behind him.

“That’s not what I—.”

Will swiftly turns around, determined to not let his sullenness transform him into a douchebag to anyone that crossed his path today. However, when he looks at Ale, despite him trying to maintain a neutral expression, he notices the corners of his lips twitching, losing the fight to refuse a smug smirk from forming on his face.

Oh; okay.

“You got me,” Will deadpans, “you’re intolerable and I’m trying to get rid of you.”

“I knew it,” he grins. “Well, let me help you with that.”

He walks towards to the bookcase with a determination unlike Will’s. He touches the hardcover of each book, tracing the titles printed on the spines as if it he could recognize whatever book he is looking for by touch alone.

“You really couldn’t find anything before? Don’t you read?” he asks, teasing him.

“Of course I read,” he responds, crossing his arms against his chest. “Just, not anything on that stupid list.”

He is not going to tell Ale that he has borrowed all of Tolkien’s works from Mike, after he begged his parents to buy him ‘real books’ when his mom’s romantic novellas weren’t deemed acceptable reading material anymore, or the expensive comic books from Dustin. The only books that are actually his are whatever shitty horror book he could find at the one-dollar store and old second-hand comics that were being resold. He is not going to tell him all that especially after finding out that him and his family have a massive wall bookcase that looks like something out of a fancy manor house.

At last, he stands still in front of one the shelves furthest to the left. He remains rooted to spot on the parquet wood flooring for a couple of moments, and then, with slightly trembling hands, he reaches for a book. When he turns to face him and give him the book, his demeanor is suddenly and uncharacteristically shy.

“Here”, he whispers. When he places the book in his hands, their fingers touch for a fraction of a second, but it doesn’t go unnoticed by Will, who startles the slightest. Neither of them acknowledge it; Will isn’t even sure if Ale realized.

The book is heavy, bound with a coarse, cobalt blue cloth. The spine is slightly creased, and some of the edges of the pages are worn and discolored. He copies Ale’s actions from before and gently traces the gold imprint of a butterfly and the golden stamped title: ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde.

“It’s on the reading list and I’ve read it more times than I can count, so I thought that if we worked with a book I already know we could get this over quick and,” he stammers, fidgeting with the knuckles of his fingers, “have you… have you read it before?”

“No,” Will admits, his cheeks reddening with the feeling that Ale is going to consider him an illiterate redneck for never have read the book.

“Oh”, he stares at him open-mouthed, “well, I think you’ll enjoy it— I mean! I hope you do, at least.”

Will looks down at the book in his hands, rubbing the prickly material. “Why do you like it so much?” at his puzzled expression, he continues, “I mean, if you read it so many times, this book must be amazing.”

The frown between his brows dissipates, and his features soften into a placid smile. “Man, I don’t even know where to start.” He remains pensive, carefully selecting his words.

“Well, it was written like almost a hundred years ago and it still manages to feel relevant,” Will looks at him beginning to pace around the room, frenetically moving his hands. The familiarity of that small mannerism causes him to feel a pang in his heart, of too many occasions in which he would remain quiet and listen to his excited rambling.

“I mean, Dorian is this rich aristocrat Victorian dude that is obsessed with immortality and eternal beauty, but he is still so relatable. He is just trying discover who he really is while dealing with a bunch of bullshit societal pressure, so he has to—.”

Will unintentionally zones out of Ale’s spoken literature essay. He tries to push that unwelcome ache throbbing in his chest by attempting to concentrate on what Alejandro is saying, but it only makes the pang gain more tenacity. It’s like the most he tries to fight it and make it go away, the deeper and more uncomfortably it logs inside of him, assuring him it will always hurt.

“Hey, Ale,” he calls him with a strangled voice.

His eyes are twinkling with that type of excitement that indicates you have lost yourself in something that you are truly passionate about, the kind that makes you tune out the rest of the world. “What?”

Will clears his throat. “I need to go,” at his inquiring eyebrow, he clarifies, “I promised my mom I would help her make dinner.”

It’s a blatant lie; the only person that is less trusted their way around the oven is El and at least she has a valid excuse. At most, when he gets home he will be delegated to the task of cutting up vegetables for the salad.

“Oh, sorry,” he beams, “I’ll take you home, if you want."

“That’s not necessary,” he is quick to affirm.

“How did you get here?” he asks, although something tells Will he already knows the answer.

“…Walking?”

He raises his eyebrows at him, and then picks a jacket from the hanger and a keyset from the small bowl on top of a small table in the hallway. “C’mon; I’ll take you home.”

He sits at the table, poking the green beans on his plate. There are only a couple of vegetables he can accept to eat, but he needs to make a conscious effort to not gag at the soggy green beans that came out of the can. He chooses to eat the side of rice and meatloaf instead and hopes his mom doesn’t call him out on it.

Fortunately for him, his mom and El seem to be deep in conversation about how Angela presented her to her group of friends. She taps her foot, probably out of excitement at the prospect of making new friends. He thought he would be envious at how easy it has been for her to meet and get to know other people, but surprisingly he doesn’t feel anything beyond some mild gratitude that at least one of them is doing alright.

He takes a sip of his iced tea and looks over Jonathan, who is sitting across the table from him. His brother had arrived shortly before dinner after spending time with some new friend he made at the woodwork shop they have at school.

Their mom had been over the moon when he told her that he was hanging out with a friend. Between Will’s difficulty to talk to people he doesn’t know, Jonathan’s outright aversion at wanting to meet new people at all, and El’s complete lack of social skills, their mom was concerned that moving out of Hawkins, however necessary it was, would drive the three of them at borderline isolation and alienation.

Will had started to notice how forced and strained his mom’s smiles have become over the course of the last months, but when the three of them told her separately they were meeting and spending time with new people, her smile seemed to reach her eyes for the first time in a long time.

He watches Jonathan, who appears to be quieter than usual, spaced out even. He has never been a very talkative person, but even for someone like him it’s strange that he isn’t participating or trying to add anything at the conversation. When Will blatantly squints his eyes, which his brother doesn’t notice at all, he realizes his eyes are slightly bloodshot, intensely focusing on the meal, thoroughly inspecting it but not taking a single bite.

Will is not stupid; he has seen enough classmates stumbling their way towards class, barely managing to seat without falling to the floor, completely inattentive to whatever the teacher is saying, and absolutely enthralled by the shape of their hands as if they just have found out they possess extremities.

He rolls his eyes, overtly so, because it’s not like Jonathan is going to notice, considering that he has been watching him for a good couple of minutes already. He doesn’t say anything though; every single person at the table seems to be in a good mood for the first time since they have moved to California— he is not going to be the one that ruins it.

When everyone finishes eating, he helps clear the dishes off the table and then goes downstairs to his room and falls on his bed. He turns his head to the left and sees that the book that Ale gave him a couple of hours ago is lying on his bedside table. It doesn’t seem like the kind of book that would interest him, but there is something about Ale’s fascination for the story that intrigues him and makes him want to devour the whole book in one night.

With a sense of trepidation, he reaches for the book and once again traces the coarse clothing with his fingertips. He has never read a book like this before, and he is apprehensive to read it and be disappointed by it. Ale had seemed so enamored with the book, and he knows that if he doesn’t like it he would fail to lie to him.

Taking a deep breathe, he opens the cover and begins reading. In spite of the book possessing a much more complex and poetic language than he is used to, and despite not being a wonderfully-crafted and enthralling fantasy book that immerses him in the story… he is into the book. It would never be his first choice of reading, but it manages to compel him enough to read it regardless of already being late and having to wake up for school tomorrow morning.

Just a couple of paragraphs into the first chapter of the novel, the first character to be introduced is Basil, an artist working on a full-length portrait of a man that is said to possess ‘an extraordinary personal beauty’. He refuses to exhibit his portrait to the public, and when pushed to it, he admits that the painting is of a man called Dorian Gray. When the other character, an older man called Henry, asks him why he didn’t intent to tell, he simply answers: “When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy”.

Will takes a moment to reread the whole paragraph. He wouldn’t say he has grown to love secrecy per se, even though secrecy has unintentionally become his most valuable tool, but he feels like he understands what Basil is saying. There are so many drawings he has produced in the past that he had no qualms in showing to others. However, there are those drawings, usually done in the middle of the night, when sleep wouldn’t find him and his room felt as if it were shrinking to the point of suffocation, that he would never show to anyone.

Usually those illustrations were more sinister, like his graphic representations of the Upside Down, not necessarily focusing on the monsters habituating the place, but rather, an attempt to capture the desolating feeling of the barren landscape of layers of ash and decay, the freezing temperatures he can still feel sometimes even in the middle of July. There were also those drawings which he found even more unsettling, with the peeling wall paint and chipped cupboards and the remaining empty beer bottles strewn on the kitchen table, emanating a nauseating smell of stale alcohol.

But there were also a different type of drawings, so different in its appearance in comparison with his illustration of the Upside Down or his old home. Those drawings were usually drawn with the sunlight flickering in through the blinds, a photo taken with his eyes of a lazy afternoon, and sun-kissed freckles and full, rosy-red lips settled on a sweet smile. Those somehow would manage to be even more sinister than anything his mind could ever conjure.

‘The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul’, Basil affirms, and Will feels some sort of familiarity, almost like a camaraderie with what the character says. Basil’s infatuation, which quickly descends into an intense obsession feels off-putting to him, and yet, he understands what he means about someone consuming your art, shamefully enough.

Will suddenly takes his eyes of the page and looks at a spot on the wall, a feverish feeling begins washing over his whole body. He swallows with difficulty, feeling the meatloaf he ate around an hour ago revolting in his stomach. Alejandro hesitantly giving him this book feels like such an obvious ploy now— bullies in California are more creative than the ones in Hawkins, he has to admit that.

Was Alejandro expecting him to arrive to their literature class next week, a wide smile stretched across his features as he begrudgingly admit that he had enjoyed the novel, and confess how pathetic and relatable he found the character of Basil, only for Alejandro to flash him with a malicious grin as he revels in Will naively confiding in him and ruining the next four years of his life just after he thought he had already escaped the worst of it? 

He closes the book with loud thud that vibrates through the room. He tosses it to somewhere where he can’t see it underneath his desk. He turns off the light of his bedside table and turns around to face the wall farthest from the book. He guesses this is what he deserves for being so stupid and gaining a false sense of security after leaving Hawkins. He buries his face in the soft cushion of the pillow and let out a muffled groan.

His eyes open up abruptly to the darkness of his room. The first thing he notices it’s the cold sweat covering his body and making the shirt stick to his wet chest and back. His heart is pounding violently against his ribcage, and every time he tries to breath, it comes in sharp gasps that cut his larynx like smithereens of glass. He remembers himself of the breathing exercises that he was taught, and tries to take deep breaths to slow his galloping heart and ground himself.

In painstakingly slow seconds, he manages to steady his breathing to a comfortable point that doesn’t hurt him. However, when he tries and fails to sit up, he realizes something is wrong— he can’t move.

He attempts to wiggle his toes, shift his arms, move any sort of muscle, all to no avail. Panic sets in as he comes with the horrifying conclusion that he is completely frozen. The last time he couldn’t move he was in the Upside Down, when the only thing that kept him going was his desire to escape despite the hunger and lack of sleep, but there was some sort of slimy and gelatinous tentacle shoving his way down his throat and—

You’re not there, you’re not there, you’re not there—

A shadowy figure stands tall and imposing from at the top of the stairs. He tries to shout for help, and although his vocal chords painfully snap with the effort of his screams, no sound but a gasped choke comes out of his mouth. The dark creature notices him lying on his bed, defenseless. It slowly makes him way towards him, dragging each step on purpose, heightening the sense of dread weighting on his throat.

The creature gets closer and looms menacingly over him. There is no point in denying to himself what is in front of him when he is about to die. The humanoid beast opens his rotten flower-shaped mouth and utters a deafening, shrilling howl as a viscid string falls of its sharp teeth to the pronounced slope of his nose and into his nostrils, gagging him.

As the Demogorgon closes his mouth on his face, a sudden jolt of electricity surges through his body, and it’s over as it quickly began. He tries to move his toes and fingers and lets out a sound that is somewhere between a whimper and a cry of relief when he realizes he can move again.

Then, he notices a figure standing still in front of him. It’s much smaller and more auspicious-looking than the one in his nightmare, dressed in a simple white camisole. However, the feeling of terror from his nightmare lingers, and he jumps away from the creature, hitting his head against the headboard.

“Are you okay?” the figure asks, and even though he hasn’t known her for long, he recognizes her voice.

“El, what are you doing here? It’s late!” he hisses, not bothering to subdue the aggravation that poisons his tone.

“I had a bad dream,” she confides.

Great— not only am I an idiot, I’m also an asshole.

“I’m sorry about that,” he says, rubbing the growing bump in the back of his head and trying to shake off the remnants of his nightmare.

“Did you have a bad dream, too?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he admits. She nods and lowers her head, almost as if she is trying to avoid looking at him in the eyes.

The silence weighs heavy in the darkness, with only the faintest hints of moonlight seeping through the small window, casting the bedroom in an otherworldly hue. In the yellowy white glow, he notices the evidence of dry tear tracks on her cheeks and the slight purplish discoloration under her eyes. The two of them are not close by any means, but he wants to believe he isn’t completely desensitized at this stage of his life already.

“Do you want to sleep with me?” he offers. At her curiosity, he continues. “The bed is big enough for the two of us.”

Her mouth opens and closes twice before finally setting on an answer and she nods. “Okay.”

Will scoots to the left part of the bed and pushes the covers aside, making room for El to climb in besides him. She seems to hesitate at first, but thankfully for the two of them, she doesn’t ask for a verbal invitation and settles on the other side of the bed. As they lay on their sides, their hands accidentally brush against each other. Unsure of how he is supposed to comfort someone he doesn’t actually know, he turns his hand over, palm up. El stares at it with narrowed eyes and burrowed brows, then proceeds by tentatively interlocking their fingers together.

“Do you want to talk about your bad dream?” he whispers, making the offer blatant in his tone.

Will, despite being obnoxiously sensitive about everything, has never been one to talk about his feelings to other people, always reluctant to open up and possibly become another thing to deal with. The only times in his life that he has chosen to confide in someone was always after a breaking-point, and even then, it would still take a lot of nudging and convincing for him to open up. It’s like being a volcano that has been dormant for years, an innocuous backdrop in a beautiful landscape, until it finally erupts and its magma flows down the slopes, destroying everything and anything that dares to cross its path.

Thankfully for him and everyone else, El is nothing like him.

Her sight remains fixed on their interlaced hands. In the twilight, her quiet voice manages to sound even softer. “I think… I think I was back at the lab.”

A sense of nausea forms in the pit of his stomach. He doesn’t know much about what she went through during the first twelve years of her life, but what little he knows is enough to make him feel sick. He wonders if she ever told anyone about her old life, maybe his mom or Mike. Maybe the person that knew the most about it was Hopper, but he can’t exactly consult him about the subject now.

“Do you know why?” he asks.

She shakes her head against the pillow, disheveling her already messy hair even more. “It just happens sometimes.”

“Yeah,” he agrees.

There have been so many times during his life in which he seemed to be doing perfectly fine, only for something to flick a switch in his brain, and he would be back at the Upside Down or at his old home, spiraling and stumbling through an inextricable labyrinth. It’s demoralizing to try to move forwards only to be thrown back to before out of sudden, and having to find it in himself the resilience to attempt to keep on trying when he knows that, sooner or later, it will happen again.

Before meeting her, his friends filled him with stories of Eleven, an almighty superhero out of a Marvel comic book, but under the yellowish moon glow she doesn’t look like a powerful being, capable of greatness and destruction alike— she just looks a girl. For the first time since they have been forced to pretend to be a family, he sees her, an underlying understanding of a sort of hurt that is tinted with bitterness, an exhaustion that seeps through the cracks of their bones and feels unique to the two of them.

“Will,” she whispers even quieter than before to the point he has to strain his hearing to listen to her.

“Yes?”

Her eyes are glazed over, whether it’s from the remnants of her nightmares or just simple fatigue, he can’t tell. “Are all papas mean?”

“No,” he asserts, “at least they are not supposed to be.”

“Was your papa mean?” she asks.

He is taken aback. This is the type of subject he refuses to talk to even his closest friends, diverting the subject to anything else. His mom and Jonathan don’t mention him nor bring him up in conversation at all, which he is grateful for. His jaw tightens for a second but then it relaxes; he can tell by the sincere curiosity glistening in her eyes that she isn’t asking him about his dad to mock him like the bullies back at Hawkins or because one of his friends felt like being inquisitive a particular day.

No; it’s just the internal pondering that comes with the need to understand the unexplainable cruelty of those who are supposed to show you the greatest kindness and unconditional love.

“Yes,” he admits, maybe only because he is half-covered in the shadows of the night. He squeezes her hand. “We should go to sleep.”

“Okay”, she replies without prodding for more information.

They turn around so their backs are facing each other. “Good night, Will.”

The wind gently hums and the leaves rustle outside, and there is no shadowy monsters lurking in the dark. “Good night, El.”

Chapter Text

When Will overslept through the uproarious sound of his alarm, he expected to find his mother already on the phone trying to sell whatever product she has been tasked with that day, and his brother and El in a hurry to leave for school, reprimanding him for making them late. He forfeits the appetizing idea of eating his usual stack of pancakes and scrambled eggs drowned in maple syrup and chooses to grab a brown sugar cinnamon pop-tart to eat on the way to school.

However, when he walks into the kitchen, there is no such flurry of activity that happens every morning in the household. In fact, the whole house is uncharacteristically quiet and still as if no one lives there. He ponders for a moment, trying to think if they were supposed to go somewhere early before school, or if it is even a school day.

He exhales out a tense breath when he spots El standing in the middle of their living room, with her schoolbag hanging from her right shoulder. Although he can only see her back, if he were to judge by the way her arms are flexed and bent at the elbow, she is holding something. Any other person would be perplexed by the sight of her standing motionless without uttering a single word or sound, but these last couple of weeks he has gotten used to her personal brand of eccentricity.

“El, what are you doing? Where are Jonathan and mom?” he asks her.

Instead of saying anything, she just simply points towards the window facing outside with her chin, her hands too busy carrying a bowl of honey smacks with milk. Outside, Jonathan has the hood of his car propped up and his head buried in the engine. His brother had complained about the car leaking reddish fluid on their driveway and how it was becoming increasingly difficult shifting the gear these past few weeks. El had even once whispered to his ear that she could smell something like burnt rubber coming out of the engine.

She chews and swallows down a mouthful of the cereal and clarifies. “Joyce had to go the office today. And I think the car finally broke down.”

The moment she finishes explaining the current situation, Jonathan enters the house from the backdoor, cleaning his grease-stained hands and the drops of sweat off his forehead with some old charcoal grey rag that was probably once white.

“The car is dead?” Will deadpans with a grimace on his face.

Jonathan sighs. “Don’t be like that— that car is older than you.”

“Are we going to miss school?” El asks, her brows slightly furrowed.

She has been coming from school almost every day gushing about something that their new friends did or said. One of the few times that they had spoken to each other before moving to California was a conversation about school. If Will, who had assisted to it since he was five years old, was scared about starting high school, he couldn’t imagine how terrifying the prospect must have been for her, and yet, despite the odds being against her favor, she seemed to have adjusted perfectly fine, and even has her own group of friends now.

Although he is happy for her —at least most of the time— he wouldn’t mind skipping school today. It’s Wednesday, which means he has English class, which means that he will have to face Ale today after successfully avoiding him for the previous days. He decided to give the book another chance, trying to find signs that he was being paranoid, but reading it further only confirmed its suspicions that he was ridiculing him. He knows he can’t avoid him forever; maybe he can avoid him for most of his time at school, but definitely not for the one class they shared besides P.E, and the project they have to work on together. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean he will stop trying.

“Don’t worry,” Jonathan walks to the kitchen and serves himself a glass of water from the tap, “I got it covered.” Only a couple of seconds later, an irritating van horn begins blaring from outside. Jonathan gulps the last of the water, throws the glass into the sink, and grabs his schoolbag from the stool in front of the kitchen island. “Ride is here.”

Will and El follow him outside in a hurry, and are met by the obnoxious sight of a yellow van, which color could be considered bright enough to burn his corneas, and the loud noise of the engine grate his nerves.

Then, a guy with a warm-toned brown skin and luscious long black hair steps out of the van. If Will thought that the bright yellow of the vehicle was an offense on his eyes, the guy’s clothing was even more of a sore sight, drowning in oversized acid-washed jeans decorated with mismatched patches and embroidery, and a garish shirt of neon colors, with swirls of pink, green and blue, creating a dizzying kaleidoscope aura.

“Strap in, brochachos,” the guy shouts while motioning with one hand to get into the vehicle. His loud voice is almost as aggravating as the horn of his van.

When Will gets closer to him, he notices his bloodshot eyes and rolls his eyes.

“Why is he high?” he whispers-shouts at his brother, though he doubts his friend could hear a thing.

“It just helps him relax, okay?” Jonathan reasons.

“It’s not even eight yet! Who needs to relax this early in the morning already?” he snaps.

Jonathan doesn’t say anything; instead, he just stares at him with his eyebrows cocked —which remarks the tired expression lines on his forehead— and pursed lips. They drop the subject all together and move to get inside the van, Jonathan on the passenger seat next to his friend and Will in the backseat next to El.

“I like your clothes,” El says.

“Thanks, little dude,” the guy responds back, confusing her. After a pensive moment, his eyebrows furrows. “Who are you?”

Will groans and unsuccessfully tries to quell the need to smack his face.

In the passenger seat up front, his brother sighs. “Argyle, these are my siblings, Will and El.” He motions with his hand, “Will and El, this is my friend, Argyle.”

El says ‘hi’ at the same time Will responds with an unenthusiastic ‘hey’.

Jonathan palms his friend’s shoulder. “Dude, c’mon, we’re late.”

“All right, time to hustle if we don’t wanna be tardy,” he explains with while driving the van out of the driveway, with one hand on the steering wheel and the other one on the passenger headset. “Stop signs are suggestions, so buckle up and hold tight."

The ride to school feels like being a rollercoaster, but even more intense and nausea-inducing considering that he has never ever gone to an amusement park first thing in the morning. In fact, turning his head to the side to see El, whose skin has turned pale and clammy as she holds on the grab handle for dear life, he remembers he still hasn’t kept his promise of taking her to ride a rollercoaster yet. Maybe this bumpy ride will make any desire in her to go to an amusement park vanish. The car jolts and bounces, and he holds tightly onto the passenger seat headset, as that stupidly insistent song with its catchy melody and upbeat rhythm keeps on drilling in his brain like a jackhammer. His stomach churns with every lurch and veer, that single brown sugar cinnamon pop-tart he ate earlier revolting. In one brusque swerve, his fingertips lose their grip and he is violently tossed against the window and on top of El and then back to the other side of the car as he stammers a string of apologies.

Finally, the car arrives at destination in an abrupt stop that throws him against the front seat and makes his neck jerk forward, causing it to crack loudly.

“Man, we made it just in time!” Argyle declares proudly, seemingly ignorant at the state of the rest of the passengers. “I think I hit some speed bumps.”

“Or all of them,” Will mutters scathingly to himself, rubbing a particular stiff part of his neck.

He stumbles out of the car, his legs wobbling beneath him. He extends an arm towards El, who is looking in even worse conditions that he is feeling, and tosses her arm over his shoulders to offer some support as she regains some control over her legs. In an instant, Jonathan is in front of them.

“El! Are you okay?” he frets over her.

“Yeah,” she breathes, “I’m okay.”

“You sure?” he asks again, just to be certain.

When she nods, he hesitantly leaves, ordering her to tell him if she wanted to go home at any point of the day. Will doesn’t know how Jonathan would take her home without a car but he doesn’t mention that. Once she deems her legs have reacquired most of its strength, she removes herself off his support, mutters a small gratitude, and leaves as the morning bell tolls.

Although his mom –and probably some government official of a branch he doesn’t even know it exists– had pulled some strings so he and El could share most of their classes, some of them couldn’t be fit in the same schedule. All the same, he shouldn’t worry too much about El taking Algebra 1 by herself; he always had the bare minimum grades to pass any math-related classes, so is not like he could have been much help. She is probably supported by some of her new Californian friends anyway. His shoulders relax and his neck pop, and with that in mind, he hurries to Biology 1.

Lunches have always been an exhaustive part of the everyday school experience. The dread and nervousness that come with it had remained dormant for years, with the unintentional assistance of his friends that would walk into the cafeteria towards the table farthest from their bullies without their bones shaking in expectation for the next big thing to fall in front of him and make him stumble and fall face flat against the concrete floor.

Ever since he has moved to California, away from the odd shelter of the party, lunches have become a harrowing experience once again, as if he was reliving the first day of kindergarten when he still didn’t have people to call his own home. However, all things considered and despite his mind running wild in panic with the most far-fetched and terrifying ideas… it was actually kind of boring.

Don’t get him wrong; he is grateful for the anonymity that his condition as a new student –even when they are quickly approaching the end of the semester and he is still the new student— gives him. There are no whispered conversations in the hallways with half-truths and conspiracy speculations, their words always dripping of venomous malice. There is no ‘Zombie Boy’ and the menacing shadow of the remnants of the Upside Down hanging over him like a somber specter, waiting for the right time moment to attack him and haunt him again.

In California, he is a nobody with no remarkable features, either physical or personal. He goes on with his days like a ghost, floating from class to class, from social interaction to social interaction, never disturbing, never standing out, and, most importantly, not calling undesirable attention on him. He doesn’t exist here.

Although it’s a far better development from what he had in Hawkins, sometimes, when he looks at El, with fidgety hands and blinking eyes but trying to immerse herself in her group table conversation regardless, or when he looks over a table with four boys whose sight pulls at the tendrils of his chest, he can’t help himself from wanting. In spite of how bad things were bad at Hawkins, he wishes he could be at home, even with the worst of it, because at least he could satisfy that craving that he can’t quiet satisfy by being alone.

He sits at the furthest edge of the worn-out table that is commonly used by the other untethered students, each trying to avoid looking at anyone in the eyes, and stares down at the meal on his tray. The chicken sandwich looks dry and disappointing, with a thin, rubbery slice of chicken for an excuse for food between two stale pieces of bread. The vegetables on the side don’t fare much better, with a wilted and overcooked quality, and a strange brownish color permeating it. The only salvageable food item is the neon-yellow colored square of Jell-O.

Will shrugs to himself and dives into the meal. Shortly after his dad left, his mom started picking up more shifts and even his brother decided to get a job to cover up the bills when he was finally allowed to. Between the limited amount of money and his brother’s and mother’s work overload, he would often end up eating frozen meals they got with a discount or from food cans they got for free because were indented or they indent them on purpose. Even then, when he would get tired of eating the same dull food, or he just simply wanted to try to cook something, he would usually end up mismanaging the amount of ingredients or confusing which ingredients could go with which ones. If there is something that Will has learned growing up is to never waste away food, no matter how disgusting it may taste, because food isn’t cheap.

He mindlessly keeps eating, the meal becoming a bland mush in his mouth.

He hurries to his locker. English it’s his last class of the day, and for some reason, it’s on the west side of the school, while the class prior it, the one he just walked out of it, it’s on the east side. The academic advisor that formed his schedule deserves to get fired. Although, on the other hand, and in a more lenient way, he has to thank his academic advisor for managing to get him in his art class despite it being overcrowded already by the time he got to start school.

He opens his locker door in a haste, ignoring the sharp, metallic clank sound against the locker next to him. He is reaching for the worksheet notebook he needs for English class, when a piece of paper falls out of it and on the vinyl-tiled floor. He stares at it with furrowed eyebrows for a second, then proceeds by crouching to the ground and grabbing it. He unfolds the paper:

You don’t smile often, but when you do, it’s really pretty <3

xxxx

It’s an innocuous piece of pastel pink paper, with a sweet and innocent short message with its words written in a beautiful cursive letter that stands out by the elegant loops and flourishes of the calligraphy.

Will scowls and crumples the note in the front pocket of his jeans. It’s one thing to mess with him by making him read a very obviously gay book with the clear objective of discomforting him. It’s another thing to put fake secret love notes in his locker to give him the fraction of a second in which he feels his stomach flutter before he remembers who he is and where he is, painting his face in a feverish scarlet tone and causing his stomach to twist painfully. He slams the locker door shut and turns in direction to the west wing.

He must be losing the ability to conceal his emotions lately, because when he enters the nearly full classroom and El notices him and gives a small wave, her gentle smile is replaced with knitted eyebrows and the downward curved-shaped of her mouth. She immediately stands up and holds him by his flexed elbow, guiding him to his usual seat on the row next to hers.

“Is everything okay?” she enquires. The soft lines on her forehead and between her brows gets more pronounced.

It’s then when he notices the pale white grip on his notebook and how his jaw hurts with the strength he is unintentionally using to grit his teeth. The genuine concern and slight confusion in her expression relaxes the muscles of his body and he slumps a little on his seat when he exhales.

“Yeah, everything is fine," he lies to her.

He has always been a good liar, at least when he wanted to, and life circumstances have only refined those skills to a scary mastery. Yet, he is certain that she knows he is lying. For someone who has been raised without any substantial human interaction for most of her life, her perceptiveness and perspicacity are ridiculously impressive, and it often leaves him feeling like she is staring at his very core.

He changes the subject. “Where is Ms. Baldwin?”

Fortunately for him, she takes the bait, or, more possibly, she understands that trying to pry off whatever is bothering him at the moment it’s a lost cause. It’s probably the second one.

“She is running late,” she explains. “Can I ask you a favor?”

“Of course,” he answers, grateful to do anything to avoid the subject altogether.

She turns around so he can see her back, and therefore, her matted hair. Before she says anything, he knows what she is going to ask.

“Can you fix my hair?” she requests, and he is content to oblige.

Hair is not something that he ever stopped too long to think about. Every two weeks or so, his mom would sit him and Jonathan in their kitchen. She would comb through their hair and section it off in manageable parts, and after placing a kitchen bowl on their heads, she would begin the short-lived task of trimming their growing hair. It would only take around fifteen minutes or so between the two of them, and Will would never give it much of a thought.

On the other hand, for El, hair was a whole different, serious matter. He remembers, back when they were still in Hawkins, when he woke up to the sound of her squealing and looking at the reflection in the mirror with exuberant glee when she noticed that her hair was past her shoulders. Once her hair reached past her collarbones, his mom offered to take her to an actual hairstylist that could give her a nice haircut. However, when she saw his mom cutting his and Jonathan’s hair, she timidly asked if she could be the one to give her a haircut. And that is how their improvised hair salon for two made space for a third person. When his mom finished cutting her hair, her eyes, slightly covered by her new, uneven bangs, were bright and brimming. Ever since, El has amounted an impressive assortment of colorful hair clips and bobby pins, and even one particular glittery, pink headband that she is waiting the perfect occasion to wear.

He carefully weaves the strands of hair together, mindful of pulling each strand of her hair tight as he weaves it into the braid, and he ties off the end of it with a small elastic band that El gives him.

When the teacher finally arrives, just shy of ten minutes past the time of start of class, everyone quickly make their way to their usual seats. He spots Ale trailing behind Ms. Baldwin, and when he notices him, his soft smile breaks into a beaming grin. Will just contorts his eyebrows inwards and gives him a displeased stare in return. Ale, seemingly oblivious to his mood, sits down next to him without a single care.

“Did you read the book?” he asks.

He is leaning towards him, with half of his torso practically falling on his lap. His eyes are bright and lively, and his right leg is bouncing up and down in a quick and constant rhythm that unintentionally shakes the desk.

Oh; so we are doing this now? He doesn’t understand why Ale would go to such length to play with his head and humiliate him in two very creative and different ways if he is going to reveal his intentions at this moment and not later.

“Yeah, I did,” he responds noncommittally.

His eyebrows shoot up on his forehead. “Really?” the cheeriness in his tone almost sounds so sincere it makes his stomach churn with guilt.

“I mean,” he is quick to clarify, “I only read the first couple of chapters.”

That is an overstatement; he only read the first chapter and quitted half-way through the second when one particular sentence struck a raw nerve:

‘The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful’.

He remembers, the night after he had his nightmare that he decided to continue reading, give the book one more chance. Four pages into the second chapter, the words read stood out in rusty red, mocking him. He accidentally crumpled the page when his hands began shaking, out of fear or out of anger, he doesn’t know, and pushed the book away from him, determined not to think about it again. Of course, that is not possible considering that he has to create a project based on the story, and partner with a sadistic asshole whose idea of having fun is mentally torturing a friendless person. The previous guilt turns into fury at how unashamed Ale is.

Mrs. Baldwin begins writing on the blackboard and he opens his notebook.

“So…” Ale whispers in his ear, making him shiver, “did you like it so far?”

“We’re in class,” he pointedly reminds him, making his best attempt to ignore him.

It doesn’t work. “It’s for our project, so technically it is part of the class.”

He brusquely turns on his seat to look at him with prickling, hot eyes and his jaw taunt. He wants to unleash the torrent that is currently being blocked by the conscious grinding of his teeth. His lips part the slightly, but the storm that he was ready to lash against him, a classroom filled with their classmates be damned, dries as his throat tightens.

“No,” he rasps, “I didn’t like it.”

“Oh.” The corners of his mouth turn down in a deep frown, and his voice slightly quavers. “Not even the underlined parts?”

The underlined parts? What’s he talking about? “No,” he repeats himself, expecting Alejandro to drop the subject.

His lips press tightly and his eyes shine. “Okay,” he nods and turns to look at the blackboard. “Sorry.”

The rest of the class transpires in an uncomfortable silence, only made more bearable by the constant bustling that serves as a buffer sound between the two. When they open their own worksheet notebook, despite the teacher ordering them to work with their desk mate, they work on their own, with the occasional scratch of the pen on paper reminding them that there is a person sitting next to them.

When the bell rings, Alejandro practically bolts out of his seat, just barely taking the responsibility on putting his things in his bag before making his haste exit. He doesn’t say goodbye.

Not even the underlined parts?

Those words have been haunting him the last couple of days, and he doesn’t understand why. He is currently lying on his bed, stuck on what he said; a simple, but extremely charged sentence that has kept him second-guessing himself for the past week or so.

He thought that avoiding Alejandro at school was going to be a grueling struggle. Instead, the complete opposite turned out to happen. He and Alejandro never really hung out at school besides the two classes they shared, but it would be a daily occurrence for them to cross path during the day, maybe exchange some half-hearted greetings and polite smiles. Now it seemed like he had vanished overnight, and despite Will’s denial, it hurts him. Not a like a sharp, piercing pain, but more of a dull and disappointing ache. He is now realizing that Ale is the closest thing he has a friend in California. Or was. He is still not sure why he is the one that is walking with his head bowed like he is being weighted down with affliction when he is the one that hurt him.

He pushes himself further into the mattress, grousing the frustration of a too-long week, but instead of emitting it out of his mouth, the groan vibrates all its way back down his throat, settling uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach. His right arm falls along one side of the bed, touching the floor. His fingertips graze something firm and pleasingly rough to the touch. He turns on his side and extend both of his arms to grab the book he had try to ignore for the last couple of days.

Not even the underlined parts?

When he opens the book, the pages are thick and sturdy, and slightly translucent. He traces the ridges of the paper, a testament of the time transfixed in the words read. He remains by the initial page of the book— the title. It’s a good safe point to stay at, weary of what he will read once he turns the pages.

Not even the underlined parts?

All of his strength and resolution vanishes by the appearance of a temptation that consumes him faster than he can will himself to resist.

The book starts innocuous as he remembered it being when he first read it. Basil is still as pitifully enamored with Dorian as he was in his previous reading. The first chapter contain just a few lines highlighted, mostly to point out how pathetic the character of Basil is when it comes to his infatuation with Dorian.

When he reaches the second chapter, the one that made him want to rip apart the hardcover and rip each page, piece by piece, he takes a deep breath. He eyes pace from left and right as he reads the sentences, and if he wasn’t so nervous right now, he would enjoy the beauty of the prose. When he keeps reading past the fourth page, he is surprised to see that the infamous passage is underlined as well. In a contradictory spin of events, the red scratch almost touching the calligraphy makes him feel… comfortable. Seen, even.

Once he no longer feels specifically targeted by the book, he reads through the pages, indulging in each sentence and paragraph, and he finds himself almost enjoying the book. He reads about the conflicting relationships between Dorian and Basil and Dorian and Henry, like a tug-of-war of what Dorian it’s supposed to be and how he wants to be. As Dorian becomes progressively callous and cruel, the moral decay of his soul presents itself in the corruption of his portrait, which is being kept hidden in an attic, away from the prying eyes of anyone who could see his true self in the painting. A few underlined fragments stand out every once in a while, but nothing that makes him stop in his tracks and ponder about it, as Dorian grows more and more obsessed with the portrait, which holds the burden of his shame.

Chapter nine begins with Basil desperately trying to make his way to Dorian after he heard the news that Sybil, Dorian’s love, has passed away from the newspaper. He expects him to be heartbroken after the tragic series of events, but instead, he is horrified by Dorian’s lack of sympathy and care towards Sybil. ‘I am different, but you must not like me less. I am changed, but you must always be my friend’, Dorian tries to explain himself to Basil, which, unsurprisingly because Basil is a lost cause, it works.

‘"Basil," he said, coming over quite close, and looking him straight in the face, "we have each of us a secret. Let me know yours and I shall tell you mine. What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my picture?”’ Dorian asks.

‘The painter shuddered in spite of himself. "Dorian, if I told you, you might like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me. I could not bear your doing either of those two things.”’

Will stops his reading for a second. This feels extremely familiar, not in a way that he has lived, but in a way he has played out in his head in many versions in his head many times before.

Basil explains: “’You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream. I worshipped you. I grew jealous of everyone to whom you spoke. I wanted to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I was with you. When you were away from me you were still present in my art’”.

The rest of the words fade into unison in his brain as his eyes keep reading, too focused on those specific sentences. Basil continues to be frustratingly naïve and gullible and hopelessly infatuated with someone who will never care about him in the same way he does. It resonates with him, much to his misfortune. But then, he considers: if he can relate to the story, and this is Ale’s favorite book, then maybe…

‘There seemed to him to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured by romance.’

When he puts the book down, it isn’t in indignation and revolt like the days before, but rather, a doubt swirling through his mind, a sense that gnaws at him that perhaps he has rushed to judgment.

The next day at school, his brain is still running and crashing against walls and dead-ends at lightning speed with the growing sensation that he had gotten it all wrong. Maybe Alejandro wasn’t being a douchebag that managed to figure him out in the one single afternoon they spent time together and was trying to get him riled up. Maybe the reason why Alejandro was making himself scarce it’s because he thought that Will understood perfectly what he meant by giving him the book, and that Will was avoiding him because—

Oh, no. He doesn’t really know Alejandro, and his recently-developed presumptions of him might be wrong again, but if he is right, then he needs to find him and reassure him right away.

Will finds him by his locker with his schoolbag hanging from his left shoulder and facing away from him as he grabs something from his locker. He is about to approach him when a girl comes up to him. He recognizes her as Anabella, the girl who occasionally helps him in Algebra 1 with linear equations, as well as the girl that sometimes asks him for advice in Art class with her shading and blending.

When she puts a hand on his shoulder, causing a smile to appear on his otherwise sullen face, Will understands. Even someone like him can see that she is beautiful and well-liked, with amber-bright doe-like eyes as the central focus of a delicate face, and with an infectious smile that could easily charm anyone, especially those that want to resist her. Ale says something that makes her beam, and Will takes that as his cue to leave.

Alejandro might have not been trying to fool him, but he definitely fooled himself.

Chapter Text

Life goes back to the way it was before Alejandro befriended him. His days are once more brushed in tints of old, familiar monotony and loneliness. Whenever either of his siblings mention their friends, the knot forming in his stomach isn’t from envy and resentment, but rather from longing and melancholy, a stone shoved up his ribcage that makes it painful to breathe and drags hi underneath the water where his body belongs.

It’s surprising how much he can miss and want back someone he didn’t know at all. He created a Machiavellian villain in his head, and when he realized he was wrong, he went to the other extreme and made him a beacon, an alluring light to ships left adrift in a turbulent sea. That is his fault to assume and carry without complains and causing impositions.

Will feels better living in California. Although his default feeling would be more of resignation rather than actual happiness, at least he feels more relaxed. The mere fact of being invisible in a fairly larger town than Hawkins means that he doesn’t have to tense and brace himself to whatever he could find in his locker, nor does he has to quicken his pace and watch his back whenever he is by himself. He also doesn’t have to walk into any room with the dispiriting knowledge that people have already formed their opinions and judgments of him without bothering to meet him yet.

In all his feelings of lonesomeness and self-pitying, he wishes that he could meet someone like him.

So many times before, he has pictured himself in the most of ordinary scenarios: sitting at the dining table with his family, or watching an uninteresting movie that no one is paying attention to, or after a long and arduous D&D campaign, and just… saying it, blurting it out. Shut down that incessant murmur in the back of his head, rip off the Band-Aid and face whatever the consequences are with his head held high, because you can only pretend for so long until you lose yourself in the mask you put on every day and you no longer know who you are at all.

After everything he has lived through, after everything they have all gone through together, what’s the worst thing that could happen? He affirms to himself that there is only so much you can survive with someone to the point that there is nothing that would drive people away, but he doesn’t actually know that, not for sure.

If there is something he has come to learn in the course of the past year is that, even the most steadfast and loving of relationships, the most unbreakable and intimate of bonds, can disintegrate into ashes fading in the wind or explode into a blazing forest fire without a warning. Or maybe there are always warnings, and he ignores the red blaring lights, pushes his head in the sand until he realizes he is standing alone in the middle of a deserted field, with dark clouds looming above him while everyone else had already sought shelter and left him behind.

People, he understands now, can be fickle like the weather; it doesn’t matter how much you might think you know them— you can never truly predict them.

Even in the best of circumstances and outcomes, even if his family and his friends reaffirm their love for him as an unwavering force, he doesn’t believe they would understand. He has long gone abandoned naïve pretenses of having a person to love and being loved by them that way. And yet, he might be an idealistic at heart, because he still wishes he could meet someone who could understand, someone who he wouldn’t have to translate his thoughts in digestible words to avoid causing any discomfort that would send them away. Someone who would know what he is talking about, even when he doesn’t know it himself.

He still shares English 1 with Alejandro, shocked that he wasn’t repellant enough to speak to his academic advisor and beg them to place them in another class at a different period and day so he wouldn’t have to deal with Will. Or maybe he did, and he decided that getting away from the redneck freak wasn’t worth losing his credits over. He misses talking to him in class and in-between classes; nowadays they spend most of the entire period in an uncomfortable silence, with only the occasional grunt of acknowledge, and if he gets lucky, a clipped sentence or two.

Needless to say, the last two couple of weeks have been miserable.

He has tried to diffuse the situation by mentioning he finished reading the book and enjoyed it without divulging that he did a great effort in trying to understand the underlined parts. Ale didn’t say much; he just pointedly stared at him with pursed lips, highlighting the tension of his jaw, and suspiciously wet and narrowed eyes before turning to work back in the vocabulary exercises they had to complete for that class. The longest they had talked ever since was almost a week ago, in their last English 1 class before Thanksgiving break. It was less of a conversation and more of a monologue in which Alejandro stated that he would overtake the project and do it himself, and assured him he would share the credit with Will. The unspoken promise and plea was understood immediately and was accepted without any retort.

They haven’t spoken much ever since.

On Wednesday, the first day of Thanksgiving break, El decides that the break is the perfect excuse to watch all the soap operas and game shows she can’t watch in a normal week due to school. Between watching her favorite game shows and daytime dramas, El is hooked to the NBC channel from late morning until midafternoon, only taking a short pause during Super Password to eat lunch with the rest of the family. The only time she switches to any other channel is to watch Press Your Luck with his mom, a custom that not even the holidays can interrupt.

El watches the dramatic movies and series in almost complete silence, sitting in the center of the couch with her legs pulled to her chest and arms wrapped around them, cocooning herself against the cushioned back. She presses her chin against her knees, and a myriad of luminous colors reflect on her fixed gaze, watching the screen with undivided and unwavering attention. She tends to slightly lean forward when certain scenes that piques her interest occurs, and she also tends to grip the fabric of her pants with tense fingers when suspense builds. Sometimes, when Will is sitting next to her, too preoccupied with doodling in his sketchbook to be paying attention to the television, he can hear her murmuring underneath her breath.

It’s a complete different scenario when she watches her game shows. In those moments, she sits cross-legged on the center of the couch with a notebook and a pen in hand, writing down anything that she considers of value that could be mentioned while watching: new words and its spelling, common phrases and idioms, pop culture facts and topics, and just random trivia in general.

On Tuesday, she wakes up with the intention of repeating the plans of the day before, but his mother gently reminds her that is Thanksgiving Day, and besides the possibility of an unforeseen change in the programming, that they would also cook and eat around the time she watches TV. Surprisingly to every member of the household, instead of complaining, her face breaks out in a beaming grin and immediately demands a role in the making of the meal.

Will relegates himself to the cooking task with the lower risk of starting a house fire or ruining the food. After peeling and cutting the potatoes in cubes, he pours them in a pot of boiling water, and proceeds by sitting on the stool at the island to cut in bite-sized pieces the washed and trimmed green beans. He watches his brother standing up by the counter, sprinkling generous amounts of salt and pepper on the small turkey, placing chunks of onion inside the cavity, while his mother and El work on creating the pie’s crust. He makes himself a place in front of the skillet and next to Jonathan, who is massaging the sage into the meat, so he can mix the green beans with onion, garlic and cream, and sauté them until they are soft. From the corner of his eye, he sees his brother brush the entire surface of the turkey with melted butter, place the turkey in the oven to roast, and then take over the boiling potatoes, that are deemed soft and tender enough. After Will put the vegetables in the casserole and Jonathan begin smashing the potatoes, El takes one of the stoves, and, instructed and guided by his mom, stirs the mix of ingredients for the filling until it becomes a smooth and creamy custard, ready to be poured into the prepared pie crust.

In his family’s typical tradition, they mismanaged the time for when each meal needed to be made so it could be cooked, but it turns out alright anyway. The turkey is golden brown and crispy, with a slight sweet and herbal smell, the casserole looks creamy, and the smashed potatoes resemble a cloud with how fluffy they look. They enjoy the meal, exchanging conversation, but otherwise too busy enjoying the small feast to talk. In spite of how full all of them are, none of them decline the dessert of sugar cream pie, and relish in the sweetness of the vanilla and nutmeg.

By the end of the meal, around five in the afternoon, they are all too stuffed to even move from the table, but eventually, they do. El cleans and tidy up the dining table, while he and Jonathan work on the task of washing and drying the cookware.

His mom kisses El on the crown of her hair. “Happy first Thanksgiving that counts, sweetheart,” she says and busies herself with the task of scrapping off the stubborn parts that cling to the casserole and pans.

On Friday, the serenity of family seclusion, that bubble keeping them away from the world, is bursted.

El has been invited to a sleepover over at Angela’s. She was invited a while ago as well, but she didn’t have the self-assurance enough to spend time away from them and with people she didn’t know back then. Now, not only does she feels confident enough to stay the night over, but she does so with an assertive head held high and a contagious excitement twinkling in her eyes.

When she asks him for advice on what she is supposed to do at a sleepover, he is lost at words. Will had his first sleepover at Mike’s the summer before starting first grade by complete accident. Neither of them meant to fall asleep in the basement couch while watching The Adventures of Robin Hood, and neither of them foresaw Mrs. Wheeler covering and tucking them with a blanket while they were sleeping instead of waking up Will so his mom could take him home.

Ever since that impromptu first sleepover, Will had spent a lot of nights at the Wheelers, to the point that he used to have an extra toothbrush in the bathroom sink and his own blanket stored in the hallway closet for him. On days he did not want to return home, he didn’t have to give a verbal explanation for Mike to understand, and he would take refuge in the basement or sleep in the bunk bed reserved for him. The sleepover became a staple of their routine, and then Lucas and Dustin were added to it in second grade and fourth grade respectively.

The point is, Will doesn’t know what advice to give her. He would hate to go to someone else’s house for the first time and dealing with the nervousness and dread of entering that household as if he was facing a test, the sensation that every single other person that has known each other for much longer is secretly judging everything he says or does.

He is not, however, going to say that to El, and possibly tumble down her fortitude. Instead, he nudges her to remember the sleepovers that she and Max had over the summer, to consider the things she did and said with her and just try to apply it with her friends.

Her eyes glaze over, with her mind wandering somewhere deep within herself. When she realizes he had spoken to her, the corners of her mouth pull upwards painfully and she gives him a curt nod. She leaves a while afterwards, her steps a little more hesitant than before. He gives her two thumbs up and she smiles back again at him, genuinely this time.

Jonathan doesn’t say much besides uttering a quiet goodbye and telling his mom he was returning late as he was walking through the backdoor, asking her if she could place the keys underneath the mat of the front door. He and his mom watch a movie together in the living room; a rare, quiet occasion for just the two of them without anyone else monopolizing her time, but not even spending time with his mom could make his sulking vanish away.

When the movie ends and her mom starts yawning, he bids farewell and goes to his sub-basement bedroom, closing the door. He turns on the light of his bedside lamp, places it on the floor so it lights up the room in a soft, amber glow that doesn’t overwhelm his sight, and turns off the wall lights. He stands in front of the vinyl player, holding an album that Jonathan gifted him. The background of the cover is white, with bold, black letters spelling out the title of the record, and it features an ominous and lugubrious image that invokes an image of the statues of a mausoleum coming to life. He places the vinyl record on the turntable and lowers the needle onto the first track before lying on his bed.

He stares blankly at the roof, losing himself in the constant pattern of the wooden boards as the intense, pulsing beat of the drums and the haunting melodies of the electric guitar fill the room. As the deep and resonant voice of the vocalist blares through the room, he closes his eyes. ‘Behind his eyes, he says: ‘I still exist’,' he repeats the lyrics to himself, a little mantra to motivate him the whole way.

He knows he is different. People have already labeled him as it, although with less nicer names like ‘freak’, and ‘deviant, and ‘mistake’. The thing is, for most of his life, he had managed to delude himself that despite his otherness, he could always fit somewhere. He belonged with his friends, a group formed by a bunch of socially maladapted misfits that most people looked at with disdain. He belonged to his family, facing their town’s hatred and alienation as a united front while managing to maintain their pride intact somehow.

But lately, it’s like he has managed to reach a new level of being different. He no longer belongs with his friends, who have all moved on from him and are probably living a less stressful life because he is no longer around to act like a magnet that attract the horrors of an alternate dimension. He feels like he doesn’t belong to his family either sometimes, with each of them adapting to their new lives so easily, and his mom and brother leaving him behind and moving on to easier and more enjoyable things to handle.

He has never felt so alone before.

He has always known he was different, that he could never quite fit in with everyone else. For as long as he can remember, he had the vicious, hissing whisper in the back of his head making sure he remembers. It’s a constant source of anxiety, to wonder when they are all going to figure out what he has known for a long time already: that he doesn’t belong. He fears that one day in the future, after everyone finds out they have living with an imposter, that that it’s going it be it for him.

One day, he will get tired of walking that precarious tightrope between being who he is and being who others can accept him to be. One day, the illusion of normalcy will shatter, and he will be living a lonely existence, one that he will force himself to believe that it is what he has always wanted. One day, he will wake up alone in a cramped and shabby apartment in a run-down decrepit town, on a twin-sized bed with a fading and worn bedding and a thin and lumpy mattress, and he will ask himself how he ended up there, seeking for freedom but finding a life of solitude instead. One day, he will wake up all by himself, he will look back in retrospect and ask himself why he just didn’t bother to act like the bars of his cage didn’t exist.

As the album continues playing, he nods his head and tap his fingers against his thighs along to the beat and he pictures the lyrics in his brain, willing the thoughts away. When another track starts, with a beginning slow and steady drumbeat, a mournful bass line, and dissonant guitar, his thoughts become a pleasant haze and his breathing slows down. Before the song even ends, he has already fallen at sleep.

On Saturday, his mom wakes him and his brother up early, or at least earlier than it should ever be allowed during the weekend. He attempts to rub the last remnants of sleep, discomforted by the crusty eye gunk clinging to his eyelashes, and struggles to keep his head from falling into his bowl of cocoa puffs with milk. Shortly after, Jonathan stumbles into the kitchen, barely missing the wall separating it from the living room, and sits down in his usual seat, and gobbles down a tower of thick pancakes dry. Next to him, his mother, seemingly unfazed by his brother, is practically vibrating with excitement.

When Will finishes eating his cereal and Jonathan is taking the last couples of bites of the pancake tower, their mother announces that she is taking the whole family to an aquarium in the outskirts of San Diego. He doesn’t understand why they have to an aquarium that is three hours away instead of choosing one nearer to them, but his mom seems genuinely excited about going out with them, so he keeps his mouth shut. He would also be somewhat offended that his mom assumed that he wouldn’t hang out with anyone on a Saturday and planned the whole day already, but to be fair to her, he doesn’t really have any friends, so it’s a safe presumption to make on her part.

Around fifty minutes later, their car is parked in front of Angela’s house, a beige-colored, red-tiled residence built with stucco. The front of it stands intimidating, dripping of opulence, with a prominent entryway consisting of a set of double doors with glass panels and a large window on top of it serving as a univocal and impossible to ignore focal point. It’s a bit garish, in his opinion.

His mom gets out of the car to pick up El. He thought that, considering how excited she seemed to be the night before, that she would be more resistant to leave her friends. However, not even a minute later, she steps out of main entrance, and walks to the car with a stilted and lethargic pace. When she sits next to him in the backseat, she mutters a quiet and uninterested ‘hi’ and turns to look out of the window.

When his mom announces to her that they are going to an aquarium three hours away, El barely reacts. On the contrary, when his mom advises her and teases her to take advantage of the long drive to catch the sleep she probably missed having fun with her friends the night before, El stiffens next to him, wraps her arms around her torso and squeezes herself tight against the car door as if she was trying to melt with it. He can’t look at her expression at the moment, though he can imagine what she probably looks like. He wants to ask her what happened, maybe offer comfort or preferably let his mother comfort her, but everything about her body language screams ‘leave me alone’— and so he does.

The drive to San Diego is done in almost complete silence, only broken by the constant murmur of the radio and the occasional spoken insertion of his mom, who seems more excited about the prospect of visiting the aquarium than either of his siblings are. Half an hour before arriving to their set destination, his mom orders him to grab the Tupper from beneath his seat filled with one sandwich for each of them; three BLTs and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for El who dislikes bacon, lettuce and tomato.

Just a couple of minutes after everyone finishes eating their lunch, his mom parks the car on the side of the road, quipping something about avoiding parking fees this way, and they walk to the aquarium, or at least the entrance of it, with a big roundabout and a monument of two whales welcoming them.

El remains silent, even after walking through the tide pool plaza and the seahorses’ exhibition, and Will can only stare at the back of her neck for moments. But then, everything changes when they enter the main part of the aquarium, the wing that gives this place its name.

When he steps inside the aquarium, his eyes widen in wonder. He takes in the sight in front of him, an explosion of mismatched colors that manages to keep the peace and harmony in spite of how the discordance of tones and shades should feel jarring to his eyesight, but it doesn’t. The sound of water sloshing and the soft murmurs of other visitors around him fade into the background, barely registering in his ears. Instead, he is too transfixed by the brightly-colored fish dancing and darting through the water, their scales catching light and reflecting like tiny, sentient jewels on the glass, and the colorful coral completing the picture in front of him. It’s more beautiful than anything he could ever create.

Next to him, El stands with her shoulders loose and open-mouthed, fascinated by a particular mottled reddish-brown octopus swimming at a fast speed, its arms undulating like flowing ribbons. A couple of feet away from him, Jonathan gazes at a milky-colored, translucent bell-shaped jellyfish floating adrift, with its delicate, frilly tentacles hanging of its body like an afterthought. He doesn’t look like high-strung and on edge like he has known him for most of his life, or zoned out and high off his ass like he is being getting used to see him lately, but rather just… pensive.

From his spot, Will notices a pair of small, brown-and-yellow seahorses holding each other by their coiled tails. Then, one of the seahorses break its hold off its partner. It begins propelling itself forwards with its fins, yet somehow maintains it characteristic elegance, gliding through the water with immaculate grace until it reaches the glass separating the sea life from the people. The seahorse stays almost still in front of him, scanning the surroundings, until one of its eyes settle on him for a couple of seconds, and it glides away, joining its partner again.

By the time he and his family decide to leave and begin driving their way home, the sun is setting on the horizon. The sky is set ablaze in a kaleidoscope of amber, magenta and lavender, and the soft clouds take on a golden glow. The warm hues of the sunset envelops everything in a bleared, rosy hue, transforming the skyline in a canvas of deep oranges and fiery reds, with streaks of yellow and pink, that Will could never even dare to dream to recreate.

It’s the happiest Will has felt in a long time, and judging by the tired but placid faces of every other passenger in the car, and the overall mood of serenity and bliss settled over them, he considers that the feeling might be shared by everyone.

On Sunday, his family spend the whole day together, although not doing much besides killing time. He and his siblings catch on some homework due to for the week in the dining room while their mom does a deep cleaning of the house just because she had the time. Most days they would usually debate what should they eat, which could take a whole other hour of heated discussion. Today, however, everyone wordlessly agree on ordering some mozzarella pizza.

Half an hour later, the two boxes of pizzas arrive, and so does Argyle, who is immediately invited to have lunch with the rest of his family by his mother, much to Will’s chagrin. Neither Argyle nor Jonathan are high today; it should be bearable, but instead, it reminds him of how it used to be with him and his brother.

He feels a seething, burning jealousy bubbling up his throat that he makes a great effort to swallow down. Once his brother called him best friend and now he can’t remember the last time the two of them had a proper conversation. He wants to hate Argyle, but when he notices how much more relaxed his brother looks lately, how he has an actual friend for probably the first time in his life, that green fury vanishes into guilt. He can’t blame Jonathan for seeking someone that he doesn’t have to take care of, someone that won’t burden him with unnecessary problems.

At some point of the late afternoon, his mom heats up milk and stir it up with squared-size bits of dark chocolate. When the mix is done, she pours it in five different cups, and sprays whipped cream to four of the cups, with two of them also having some mini marshmallows thrown on top of it. He helps her carry the mugs to the living room, where Jonathan is already surfing through the channels and switching between them, nothing truly satisfying him. Thankfully, their mom ends up insisting they remain on the current channel, and his brother just shrugs.

He sits next to El, who is snuggled against one of the arms of the couch and offers to share the blanket. His mom sits on the cushion next to him, while his brother sits on the floor, using the welt of the couch as a backrest, and Argyle sits on the one armchair they have. The opening credits roll, with the sound of a gradual crescendo of orchestral instruments beginning the movie, and Will tries not to concern himself with school the following day.

For the next three hours or so, he gets engrossed in the green scenery of the Austrian Alps and the reflection of the snow-capped mountains on the crystalline lagoons. He snuggles against his mom, who doesn’t hesitate to shift to wrap an arm around his shoulders and pull him closer. He closes his eyes, soothed by the warmth of his mom’s embrace and the angelic voice of Julie Andrews, and he deludes himself into believing he can widen the cage until the bars are invisible.

Chapter Text

The van parks in front of the school entrance with approximately five minutes to spare. Ever since Jonathan’s car broke down, he had made an arrangement with Argyle so he would pick them up every morning in his van. It’s not absolutely terrible, if he has to admit it only to himself. To be completely honest, he actually enjoys being taken to school by Argyle. Now that he picks them up at a reasonable time, the drive to school is done in a leisure pace, so they aren´t being tossed around the van like ragdolls. Even his older brother, who tended to drive him and El to school with tense shoulders and shifty eyes, is calmer early in the mornings now that he can relax in the passenger seat instead of concerning himself with the road.

His schoolbag feels heavy on his shoulders today, with the glumness and grief of losing the closest thing he had for a friend in California. Or maybe it’s the extra clothes inside that weighs him down. The sound of the morning bell echoes through the hallways of the high school, reminding him he has to hurry to the locker room, dread already building in the pit of his stomach.

He has always hated P.E class. He has never been the athletic kind; if he can avoid any type of physical activity, he will take the chance to ditch class and do practically anything else. However, his biggest grievance with P.E class isn’t the forced exercising or the sweat running down his back and disgustingly sticking to his back. Although he isn’t a big fan of either of those things, the thing which he struggles the most with for P.E class is the moment before.

The stench of cheap deodorant and teenage body odor hits him before he even has the chance to get inside, making him feel a bit lightheaded. The locker room is crowded, with boys jostling for space to change into their gym clothes. He takes a deep breath, which he immediately regrets when the combined smell of both things enter and burns his nostrils, and walks in.

Back in Hawkins, he would avoid the locker room like the plague. Most people would reciprocate the sentiment and stayed away from him, but there were also those, mostly Troy and his friends, that would take advantage of the small five-minute window to unleash whatever verbal attack he had prepared beforehand. He could handle that, expertly tune out whatever he would say to him and remain quiet. The real problem began when other boys noticed that he wouldn’t fight back, and motivated by Troy’s own lack of moral limits, began joining in. By the second time it escalated, creating a conflict that managed to involucrate The Party, Will started to get himself changed in the privacy of a bathroom stall, away from the locker room.

‘I’m invisible here,’ he reminds himself. For better and for worse, no one cares about him in California. On one hand, it means he spends most of his day talking to himself in his head and clings to the short-lived exchanged conversations with some of his most well-meaning classmates. On the other hand, it also means he can sit on one of the benches and change into his gym clothes with the relaxing knowledge that no one will hound him for sharing the same space as them. As long as he stays silent and with his head low, he can get dressed undisturbed.

He goes to the gymnasium, still keeping his head bowed. He takes his place on one of the middle rows, farthest from a group of chatting boys and sticks close by the wall, with his back slightly turned so he is aware of everyone sitting nearby and he can’t be caught by surprise–that is when he sees Alejandro walking towards the bleachers. They haven’t spoken not even once since the last English class they had before Thanksgiving break, but to his surprise, he decides to sit, not exactly next to him, but a couple of feet away from him in the same row. Will takes that as a win, maybe even an extension of an olive branch.

Before he can muster the courage to break the ice, Mr. Preston, the gym teacher, arrives. They remain in silence as he drills on the outline of the plan for today, but Will can’t focus, fidgeting with the hem of the sleeves of his sweatshirt. He is thinking about how to apologize to Ale, but he isn’t even aware of what he would be apologizing for. All he knows is that he doesn’t want to lose the closest thing he had for a friend since he moved to California.

Soon after Mr. Preston is done explaining the lesson, everyone gets off their seats on the bleachers in direction to the outdoors field and El glues herself to his side. It’s weird; the last couple of classes she would hang out with Angela and her group of friends, always a couple of steps behind them, quietly, as if she was trying to assert the right moment to insert herself in the conversation but always failing to find it. Angela and her entourage of cronies walk pass by, cackling louder than it should ever be allowed this early in the morning and El’s eyes cast down to the ground.

“Did something happen?” he asks, but his stomach twists with the inkling that he might already know.

El presses her lips tightly, and forces a smile that looks like a grimace in her soft features. “No, everything is fine.”

Before he can inquire any further, Mrs. Miller, the other P.E teacher, blows the whistle, ordering them to begin doing laps on the running track. Usually during this mandatory exercises he would keep a jogging pace that was barely one level above just walking while distracting himself with anything else in his head. But right now he is trying to keep up with El, who seems to have suddenly developed the speed ability of Quicksilver in her attempt to avoid talking to him. Maybe he and she are more similarly that he had previously thought before, except he would probably never go through this type of physical overexertion to avoid the topic altogether.

After running the mandatory mile, he jogs to the middle of the track, where a group of his classmates, El included, are already gathered around the teacher. He is trying to catch his breath, pondering about how to approach her. He is not an idiot; he knows that something happened and she is hiding it from him. He perfected that behavior— of course he would know. However, before he can ask her, once again, Mrs. Miller blows her whistle, wordlessly commanding everyone to keep silent as he separates them in smaller groups and assign them to different events.

Unfortunately for him, he and El are divided in different groups, and while she goes to one side of the field to practice javelin throw and shot put, he is sent to the other to practice long jump and high jump, thus making it easier for her to escape his interrogation. Usually he would be bothered by the sand getting in his shoes and the subsequent sensation of it rubbing against his ankles, but right now he can only focus on El on the other side of the field. She has been always been quiet and closed-off, at least at first and with strangers, but the way she is carrying herself reminds him of their first day in high school. At least Angela was placed in his group instead of hers; he can count the blessing in that, at least. Not for the first time in his life, he wishes he could be braver person and confront her about what she did to El, but alas, he is a coward that prefers to stay quiet.

Afterwards, they are brought back to inside the gymnasium. When Mr. Preston announces of what the second half of the class will consist of, Will groans: dodge ball. If there is something he knows about that game is that bullies love to take advantage of the physicality and violence of it and use it as an opportunity to target you. It’s basically the perfect combination between brutality and public humiliation, designed to torture you in every way they want. When the teacher asks for team captains and Angela gleefully raises her hand, getting chosen, his stomach twists painfully.

The uneasiness must manifest on his face, because next thing he knows, he feels a hand nudging the crook of his elbow.

“Are you okay?” Ale asks, his brows furrowed.

“I really don’t like her,” he admits, not really thinking about it.

“Who? Angela?” he looks over where Will is looking at her. “No one actually does. She is…”

“Mean?” Will suggests.

“I was going to say evil, but sure,” he whispers.

He goes to the side of the court meant for his team, followed by El, who, surprisingly to him, wasn’t chosen by Angela. The group quickly divide itself in two smaller groups: those who actually enjoy physical activity and prepare themselves to join the rush and run towards the centerline to grab the balls, and those who huddle themselves in the border of the court away from the other team so they don’t get hit right away.

Whenever he would be forced to play dodge ball in middle school, he would pretend to try to get one of the balls off the centerline and then he would subtly let a person from the opposite team hit him on the arm so he could go the bleachers and watch. Mike tended to follow him soon after, and they would discreetly laugh at Lucas and Dustin, who would actually try to win the game. He wishes he could do that right now with El, but he never told her about it, and between trying to dodge the balls thrown at them and their tumbling teammates, he can’t find the moment to tell her.

At one point, Mrs. Miller notices El’s tendency to stick to one corner of the court, and demands her to actually get involved in the game. Before he can say anything to her, El follows some of their teammates running towards the centerline, where, unbeknownst to her, Angela is waiting for her with a ball. Before El can react and retreat, Angela slams her on the stomach with the ball, and two of her friends follows suit by throwing theirs to her chest and face.

El falls to the ground with a thud, momentarily pausing the game. Before Will can reach her, Angela leans down to whisper something to her face that provokes to stand up quickly and run out the gymnasium in a hurry. He glares at Angela, who seems too proud of herself, and follows El. After a couple of minutes of searching, peering through the window of any empty room he stumbles upon, he arrives to the library.

He quietly makes his way in, avoiding the watchful eye of the librarian. He walks through each book hall, trying to find her. Suddenly, the usual silence of the place is disrupted by the sound of sniffling coming from one of the farthest points of the library, hidden behind one of the tallest bookcases. He follows the noise until he finds her, with her face buried in her knees and her shoulders shaking with no effort to stifle her weeping.

Wary of not making the wrong move or saying the wrong choice of words, he sits by her side, wraps an arm around her shoulders, and gently presses her to his side. He rubs his thumb up and down her clothed bicep, attempting to offer what little comfort he can. El stills and raises her head to meet his gaze with swollen and red-rimmed eyes.

“I thought she was my friend,” she cries. “I don’t understand.”

Her features twist in a pained expression, and he is quick to catch her in an embrace when she buries her face in his chest. He shushes her as she begins trembling and her sobs become more unrestrained. Absentmindedly, he thinks that the librarian might hear them and get up from her seat at the front to hush them, but no one bothers them. He holds her as she breaks down in her arms, soothingly running his fingers through her tangled low ponytail, wanting to take some of her pain in himself so he can alleviate some of the weight of the hurt off her.

“Do you want to ask Jonathan to take us home?” he asks and she shakes her head. “Do you want to stay here?” he asks skeptically, and the response is the same. “What do you want to do, then?”

She raises her head of the cocoon she has made in his chest and roughly wipes off the tears of her face, but her cheeks remain blotchy. She opens her mouth to say something, when they hear the sound of muffled footsteps coming their way.

“Oh, here you are,” Ale says. “Jane, right? Are you okay?”

Before she can answer, Will talks for her. “She is fine. Why were you looking for us?”

He shrugs. “I know how much of an asshole Angela can be, so, just wanted to check.”

The sincerity in his tone relives some of the tension in his shoulders and his prickliness. “We are fine, we are just… trying to figure out what to do”.

“What do you mean?” Ale asks.

El responds, cutting him off. “I don’t want to stay here, and I don’t want to go home.”

Ale ponders for a moment. Then, the concerned frown in his face fades into a small, pleased grin. “I have an idea.”

The drive in Ale’s car is shared in a melancholic silence, only interrupted by the low hum of the radio emitting the latest hits. Will sits in the center of the backseat, ready to comfort El again if she needs to. She prefers to lean against the window instead, trying to make herself as small as possible. Her gaze is unfocused, yet somehow manages to be pensive as well on the dusty reflection. Will catches Ale staring at them through the rearview mirror, his brows slightly raised and drawn together and eyes fixed on them.

When they finally reach their destination, Will unbuckles El’s seatbelt for her, gently pulls her by the hand, and follows behind Ale. They enter a red and white building, with lime green awnings, and which logo stands proudly at the entrance with a sun emerging from the horizon. He is immediately hit by the scent of charred meat and the aroma of different spices and sizzling oil on the pan wafting through the air.

Ale guides the way towards a small booth.

“I think it’s too early for lunch, yet” he reminds Ale.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he exclaims. “We’re having burritos for breakfast.”

His brows furrow. Judging by the pure bewilderment on El’s face, they must be sporting matching expressions.

“I already had breakfast,” she tells him.

“Yeah, like three hours ago,” he says. “Since then we had P.E and you had a shitty day, ergo, breakfast.”

Will is about to accept the unexpected plans until he remembers: “I didn’t bring my wallet”. If a wallet means saving whatever money he would find on the street in the inside of the pockets of his flannel shirts and jeans.

Ale grins at them. “Don’t worry; it’s on me.”

The waitress comes eventually to take their order. He and El are still at lost at the concept of having a lunch meal for breakfast, so Ale takes the lead and orders for them. The food arrives quickly enough, and each of them are given a burrito and a bottle of orange juice. Will grabs his, feeling the warmth and the softness of the tortilla in his hands. Before he can keep overthinking it, he takes a bite. His teeth break through it to reveal a medley of flavors: the savory taste of the grilled and marinated chicken, the creamy cheddar cheese, the sweet tomatoes, and the blend of seasonings that compose the sauce.

El sighs contently, eyes widen slightly, and speaks through a mouthful of food. “This is so good.”

Will can only nod in agreement, too busy enjoying his burrito to add to the conversation.

“I can’t believe you two have been living here for almost an entire semester and you have never tried burritos for breakfast,” he exclaims in disbelief. “Don’t you ever leave the house?”

The question is meant to be rhetorical, but both Will and El look at each other with a knowing, and slightly embarrassing look.

“So… verdict?” Ale asks.

“Bitching,” is the only response that El gives before she continues eating her burrito.

“She means ‘amazing’,” Will clarifies.

“I told you,” Ale says.

“Do you eat this for breakfast every day?” El asks, remembering to cover her mouth, her question slightly muffled by the mouthful food.

“No way. That would kill my budget,” he says and adds, “And my stomach. Anyway, I need to pay,” he stands up, leaving him and El alone.

He turns to look at her; she is not looking as pale as before, with some of her usual rosiness returning to her cheeks. Yet, that faraway look in her eyes remain, as if her mood being lifted by a hearty meal was erased in a swish as soon as she was left long enough with herself.

“Hey,” he exclaims softly, breaking through her daze so she looks at him. “Are you doing better?”

She nods. “I was thinking.”

He winces; if there is something he can corroborate is that, after experiencing a vulnerable and hurtful moment like that, your mind tends to betray you and take you to places and conclusions you don’t want to reach.

He suddenly remembers the moment from before, when El was lying on the dirty gymnasium floor and Angela leaned down to say something that only the two of them could hear, which sent El in an emotional spiral.

“El,” he calls her attention without thinking. He knows he is possible threading a dangerous line here, but he needs to know. “What did— what did Angela say to you? Before you ran out?”

Her eyes widen and fill with renewed tears, washing him with a sense of guilt for bringing that response out of her. She lowers her head and plays with the drawstrings of her forest green sweatshirt which, looking at the space-inspired imprint, might be a farewell gift from Dustin. Even through her disheveled hair hiding most of her face, he can see the painful tug of the corners of her mouth and the pronounced lines over her forehead and between her brows.

“She asked me if I was going to go crying to my dad,” she murmurs. Nausea rises up his throat, but he doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything at all. “I don’t understand why some people are so mean.”

“Sometimes people are just like that,” he answers truthfully.

He has long ago stopped trying to understand why some people seemed to have been born with the intention or predestination to hurt others, why some people seem to derive some sick twisted pleasure of watching you at your most hurt. But he has to remind himself he had a whole lifetime to understand that, while El has only been out in the real world for just a couple of months. She will eventually learn what he and everyone else has. A part of him wishes she didn’t have to do that.

"That doesn't make any sense," she murmurs, more to herself than anything else.

“I know”, he replies back anyway.

Ale walks up to them while putting his wallet in the front pocket of his hoodie and sits on the booth in front of them.

“So,” he asks El, “what do you want to do next?”. At her puzzled expression, he continues. “We had breakfast, we should do something else next.”

Her brows furrow. “Like what?”

“Whatever you want,” Ale shrugs.

“I do not know what I want,” she replies.

He raises his eyebrows, bemusement painted all over his face. “You two really don’t leave your house often, do you?”

“No,” El responds sincerely, not realizing that question was meant to be rhetorical again. Will doesn’t know whether to feel embarrassed by the admission or laugh.

Ale fixes his gaze on his fingers tapping the table, then grins to them. “Lucky for you, I have been living here for a while.”

Upon entering the roller skate rink, the first thing that strikes him is the kaleidoscope of blue, yellow, purple and pink reflecting on the polished smooth flooring coming from the mounted disco lights, casting a vibrant aura over the place, and the disco ball at the center of it, shining. Then, he notices the beat of the synths and the booming percussion coming from the speakers. Although this place would probably be crowded most of the times, considering that isn’t past noon yet, it’s pretty much deserted, giving them free will to make use of the entire space.

Next to him, El looks around, slightly open-mouthed and with her eyes widened. Will looks around the place, enthralled by the rainbow hues reflecting on every inch of the rink. Ale grabs the two of them by the elbow and takes them to the rental counter, where he asks the staff member for three pairs of skates. They mutter their shoe size, and Ale pays for the three of them.

“I need to repay you tomorrow,” Will tells him while the three of them walk to one of the benches to put on the skates.

“Don’t worry,” Ale says back, “I’m sure you’ll get your chance someday,” he grins. Will is just thankful that the disco lights conceal his blush.

They put on the skaters, tie and adjust the laces to a snug fit, and get up from their seats. Despite the two of them wearing beginner-friendly skates with support, Ale helps them get to move, and they hold tightly to his arms as their legs wobble and try to keep their balance. In slow and careful strides, they make it to the rink, where an employee that was on the edge of falling asleep with the lack of work to do while standing, opens the small door for them. Ale enters first, then hold their hands to guide them inside.

Both he and El glue themselves to the railing, not daring to make the first step forward and actually skate, while Ale decides to skate to the center of the rink. He moves with a natural grace, effortlessly gliding across the polished surface, accompanied by the sound of funky synths, a crisp bass line and drums. He pushes forwards in a fluid motion, slightly elevating his body from the ground in a spin and landing back with enviable ease. Will can only stare in awe as he rolls towards him.

“I promise it’s even more fun when you’re actually skating,” he shouts, and glides away with one foot while the other is raised horizontally to the ground.

In a deep breath, El steps forward with trembling legs, letting go of the safety of the railing. Before he can think of whether to join her or not, she grabs him by his free hand and pulls him with her to the center of the rink. They clumsily shuffle forwards, holding each other with one hand while their free arms are flailing in a pitiful attempt to maintain their balance and not fall. Somehow, they manage to stand up right, and in a painstakingly slow pace, make it to the center of the rink, where Ale is still spinning in place.

They hold onto each other, shaking, hoping not to fall. When they manage to make a few shaky but successful strides without stumbling to the ground, they gain enough confide to let go of each other and try to skate on their own. While he stands still in the middle of the rink, he turns when he hears, for the first time in the day, and probably the first time since El had come back from her sleepover on that Saturday morning, a boisterous laugh coming out of her.

Ale, bathed in the swirling patterns of neon lights and the shadows of the shining snowball, rolls towards him and offers him his hand. After a moment of hesitation in which he scrutinizes the place and determines it’s sufficiently empty, he accepts his offer. They embark in an uncoordinated dance, in which Ale glides with natural fineness and elegance, while Will holds on his hand as to not fall, but can surprisingly keep with his noticeable more advanced skills.

After the tense week of silence and avoidance, this feels like the unspoken extension of the olive branch, and he takes it. They keep rolling until El, who got a bit too confident skating on her own, accidentally crosses paths with them. Although Ale realizes just in time to get out of the way, Will isn’t quick enough, and he and El collide, bringing the two of them into a fit of laughter and on the floor.

After an hour or so of skating they take one of the booths. Since the three of them are still full from their breakfast burritos, they opt for ordering three milkshakes. Ale pays, yet again, and Will is mentally calculating how much he will have to repay; considering that he always achieved the minimum passing grade for math, he fears that he will probably end up overpaying or underpaying him.

But he doesn’t concern himself with that for now; El seems to be doing much better than she has been for the last couple of days and Ale and he are friends again. He takes a sip of his peanut butter milkshake, feeling like his new paradigm of normalcy has been restored his lungs are working properly again.

Chapter Text

The following day, Will and El go to school and walk in as a united front. It almost feels like if he were back in Hawkins with the party. The bubbling pleasure of nostalgia is vanished like a flame in without oxygen, and he is washed in shame when he remembers the reason why. Whereas El and he would usually break off so she can hang out with her friends and he would be by himself, today they are staying together, more for her sake’s than for anything else.

Although the two of them, aided by Ale, made it back in time for the end of school so they could they could make it look to Jonathan that they hadn’t ditched class, the school notified their mom about what their absences after P.E class. For a moment, he expected the scolding of a century; he had ditched class a couple of times back in Hawkins, but he had never ditched school for a whole day before. Either because it was uncharacteristic of them to do such thing or because she had a particular tedious day at work, his mom let it go with just a halfhearted admonishment and a warning not to do it again.

When she asked why they decided to skip school altogether, he saved El, who had already began paling, by making an excuse about helping her with homework. They spent the rest of the afternoon holed up in his bedroom, with her reading some of his X-Men comic books while he drew in his sketchbook. He was absentmindedly tracing the graphite pencil over the blank page when the realization hit him— it was the first time they had willingly spent time together, just the two of them, with no one to play as an intermediary between them. And he smiled to himself.

He just wishes that the circumstances that brought them together were different. He wishes that El never had to lose the closest thing she ever had for a parent, he wishes that she didn’t have to be beaten by the reality that wickedness comes in many and unexpected shapes and appearances than just monsters from other dimensions and men in lab coats, he wishes they didn’t have to abandon their home and group of friends, and most importantly, he wishes they had become friends before all of it happened.

She stands quietly behind him while he takes a thick book from his locker. Fortunately, they are sharing all their classes today, starting with Social Studies; not ideal this early in the morning, but doable regardless. When he turns around, he sees her fiddling with the green scrunchie that Max gave her as a parting gift that she wears on her wrist like a bracelet.

“Hey,” he says softly, making her rise her sight to meet his.

Neither of them say much; they both know that questions about her wellbeing aren’t going to be answered sincerely, and that any answer besides ‘I’m fine’ would need to lead the two of them to have a conversation neither of them want to have this early in the morning. So, instead of trying to fill in the silence with falsehoods and forced pretenses, they just silently walk side by side for their first class of the day.

By the time the ring bells, signalizing the end of a particularly grueling Physics class and the start of their lunch period, he is ready for the day to be over, although he knows that is just wishful thinking and he is stuck here for another three hours. A short time to play Dungeons and Dragons with his friends; an eternity when he has to passively observe El tensioning any time Angela and her friends snicker in her direction every chance they get. His stomach churns with guilt when he thinks that any other of their friends wouldn’t be a coward like him and would had already said something in her defense already.

He is too deep in thought to realize El has left until she is already out of sight. He sighs, fetching his book and worksheet and putting in his backpack before going to the cafeteria, hoping that he gets to her before she is intercepted by Angela and her group.

However, when he gets there, she is nowhere to be found. Granted, the place is big and crowded enough that he might miss her in the mass of moving people, but his gut feeling tells him that something is wrong. He turns his head to look at where Angela and her cronies are sitting; even from far away, he notices the out-of-a-magazine smug smirk that is plastered on her face. A seething heat surges in the pit of his stomach like molten lava simmering to the surface. If he were Max, he would have already gone to Angela and probably do something that would get him suspended; if he were anyone else in the party, he would know where El is right now.

The person behind him in the line pushes him to hurry up. He grabs two apple juice boxes, a pack of saltine crackers and two bananas, and leaves the cafeteria with the single-minded focus of finding El.

He tries his luck by going where he found her hiding yesterday, in the back corner of the library. When he gets there, however, the door is locked, with a note attached to the door that notifies her return in an hour. He groans, trying to think of where in the massive building she might be until he considers: the library was probably El’s first choice to hide, he was right about that, so if she came here first, she is probably close by. He turns to his left where he came from, and he sees it— the restrooms.

He enters the female bathroom, crossing his fingers that there is no girl inside who might call him a pervert, albeit for completely different reasons for which he has heard that accusation hurled at him before. He walks on the tiled-floor with inaudible steps, a skill learnt from too many years trying to avoid making the wood board from his old home beneath his feet creak— he hears sniveling coming from one of the stalls.

He approaches it and raps the door gently. The quiet sobs from the person on the other side of the door are replaced by a surprised and wet gasp.

“El?” he calls her. “I know you’re in there.” No response. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

A minute of silence transfixes between the two of them. Considering for how long both of them are capable of not saying a single word, this could last all day.

“They said I couldn’t sit at their table anymore because I don’t belong with them,” she rasps. “I was not going to.”

The ‘click’ of the door unlocking is loud like a firecracker in the stillness of the sterile room. He pushes the door forwards; she is sitting on the toilet with her legs bent and pressed against her chest, her arms tightly wrapped around them. She looks at him with wide and pitiful eyes, the tear tracks on her cheeks standing out as carved, glistening pathways on her flushed cheeks.

“I brought you something to eat, and before you say anything, I’m not telling you to go back to the cafeteria,” he affirms. “That place is too noisy anyway.”

“Eating in the bathroom is disgusting,” she says.

“I have a better place to eat lunch,” he states and extends his hand to help her stand up, and causing the joints of her numb legs to pop.

“The art classroom?” she asks as he opens the door, letting her inside and putting the paperclip on his jeans front pocket back.

At this time of the day, the sunlight infiltrates the room through the window, which is currently covered by the mesmerizing tapestry of multihued animals made of cling film, casting the room in an ethereal symphony of colors like the stained-glass windows of a church. It reminds him of yesterday when they spent their afternoon skating at Rink-O-Mania, but whereas the colors of that place were brash and electrifying, the colors in here are soft and diffused, as if the room was painted with gentle and meticulous brushstrokes to look phantasmagoric.

They sit on the table in one of the corners of class, away from the junior students’ current attempt at working with ceramics. The air carries a strong scent, a fusion of temperas and acrylics, of clay and the graphite of pencils. For most people, the smell could be considered too overwhelming and may deter them from eating there. For Will, it feels like the crunch beneath his feet when walking from the woods of Hawkins, or the blending sounds of the digital beeps and melodic jingles inside the arcade.

“Mr. Salazar trusted me to use the classroom whenever I need it,” he says, opening the packet of crackers, and shrugs. “He also told me the lock doesn’t actually work too well.”

It was only his second art class, his third week living in California, and… well, just because someone is used to change doesn’t mean they know how to handle it well. Will has always known how to hide in plain sight; it’s a skill that he learned at home, perfected at school, and probably saved his life while he was stuck in the Upside Down. He has learned to hide not just physically, but in every possible way he has needed to. He takes pride in it; his mother reproaches him for it.

He did not expect for a crack to appear, an entrance to the true visage kept concealed beneath his calculated indifferent and calm demeanor, and for his teacher to notice it. When he was kept after class, and Mr. Salazar began asking about how he was adapting, while implying that he has noticed his quietness and reticence, he fiddled with the straps of his backpack, bracing himself for the promise of a call home that would only worry his mom when that was the last thing she needed. Instead, his teacher said that it stood out to him how the only times that he let his guard down was when he was focused on a drawing, and promised to let him reign of the art classroom with the sole condition of not messing anything up.

There have been times in the past couples of months in which he had come here: to avoid going to class certain days, to stay hours past his last period; there was even that time in which he needed to escape home and told his mom he was meeting with a classmate only to hide in the classroom. He hadn’t had the chance to frequent this place as often as he thought he would, but for the few times he needed it, it was like noticing the nebulous shape of an island in the middle of a shipwreck.

They have lunch in silence; if it weren’t for the occasional sound of chewing or slurping, he would think he has gone deaf with how quiet and calm everything is. Neither of them are used to this kind of serene nothingness, so the fact that they have nothing to worry about only worries them more. It’s almost as if it’s ingrained in their brain chemistry to be always on the lookout for the next time when the shoe drops, experiencing every moment of peace like the calm before a raging and catastrophic storm, the next potential start of the apocalypse.  

He notices that she has suddenly gone very still. “El?” he calls her name, warily.

She looks doe-eyed as she stares at him. Her eyes remain a bit puffy and glassy from before, but they also look more focused, so he takes that as a small victory. Sunbeams seep through the kaleidoscopic butterflies on the windows, painting her in an iridescent aura, which is only amplified by her slightly frizzy long hair. She looks tired but effortlessly pretty, in way he can objectively understand why boys can be attracted to, although not actually comprehend despite futile past attempts. It almost look as if a butterfly is standing on her shoulder.

“I still have to do the English homework with Angela,” she whispers, not taking her eyes away from her juice box’ straw.

Fuck— he had completely forgotten about that. In fact, El’s admission just reminded him that, now that he and Ale are back on speaking terms, he should ask about their project. He knows that Ale said that he was going to do it himself, but he may still be in time to at least do whatever he hadn’t finished so he can contribute something.

An idea crosses his mind. “Let me talk to Ale.” He can still fix this.

There is one problem to his plan: he doesn’t know Ale’s schedule. He knows where his locker is, but he considers that waiting for him to show up between classes would make him look a creepy stalker. Despite having been living in California for almost three months now, he still doesn’t have a reputation or anything that makes him recognizable, but he doesn’t want to earn that particular denomination.

He found out El’s new nickname yesterday in Social Studies class— the weirdo. All things considered, not the worst moniker she could have gotten, but he can see the effect it’s starting to have on her. Whenever she dares to raise her hand to ask a question or to answer to whatever the teacher asked, she immediately lowers it when she hears barely-concealed laughter behind her.

He could wait for their shared English class on Thursday, but the deadline date for the project is in two weeks and he wants to solve this as soon as possible. He decides to risk being haunted for the rest of his high school with the accusations of ‘stalker’ and ‘pervert’ and wait by his locker for him to show up. Like an answer to his prayers, he does.

He beams across the hallway and hurries his pace towards him, waving his hand like a little kid. “Hey, Will!”

“Hey,” he says back.

Maybe El isn’t peculiarly good at reading people; maybe Will is more transparent than he officially thought so, because Ale’s cheerful demeanor from before dampers, and the inner corners of his brows pinch. “Is everything okay?”

Will sighs. “Not really.” Before Ale can question him, he clarifies, “it’s not about me.”

“Jane?” he assumes correctly, and Will nods when he remembers that everyone at school knows her by her legal name and not the nickname that was given to her by their friends. “Is she doing better?” he asks.

“Yeah, she is, I mean, she will be fine,” he answer and licks his lips, nervous to ask the question he had spent a while formulating in his head, but never ended up sounding right to him. “I—I need to ask you something,” he winces.

“Sure, anything,” Ale reassures him.

Will inhales deeply. “Can El—Jane be your partner for the project?”

“What?” he asks. He looks…confused, but not angry at the sudden changes of plans, so Will considers that a small win.

“Jane and Angela were partners for the project,” he explains, the name of ‘Jane’ feeling so foreign and wrong coming out of his mouth. “I don’t think she can work with her now.”

As a sophomore who has English I as his sole freshman class due to a mishap in the transference of credits, Ale isn’t a witness to most of the interactions that transpire between El and Angela like Will is, so he probably doesn’t understand how dire the situation truly is.

Ale nods, pensive. “Yeah, that would probably be cruel."

Will exhales a sigh of relief. “Thank you."

“But you probably shouldn’t work with Angela,” he adds.

“What?” Now it’s Will’s turn to be confused.

Ale smirks cheekily. “You have a very expressive face, you know that, right?”

“What do you mean?” Wills questions him, blood rushing into his cheeks and feeling even more puzzled than he was thirty seconds ago.

He looks to both sides of the hallway before continuing to speak. “Yesterday you looked at Angela like you wanted to cry, sure, but you also looked at her like you were going to throttle her right there and there.”

Will can feel his eyes widen and he swallows. Ale just looks at him with amusement tinting his pretty auburn eyes. “I—. I’m not a violent person."

“Hey, I’m not blaming you,” he raises his hands in defense as to placate a supposedly incoming rant. “My cousins are like my siblings; if someone did anything like that to either of them I would be feel slightly murderous too.”

“She is not my sister," Will is quick to clarify. “We just live together.” Ale tilts his head, and Will can’t tamper down his rambling. “It’s a long story.” And the government probably doesn’t allow me to tell most of it, anyway, he almost says.

Ale frowns to himself while fetching something from his locker. “Oh.”

“I thought having different last names would give it away.”

Ale shrugs. “I thought maybe your family had particular traditions with your surnames. I mean, some people look at my mom weird for keeping her maiden surname instead of taking my dad’s. Besides,” he closes his locker door and puts some book in his bag, “you two look related.”

Will blatantly decides to ignore what he just said about him and El. “So, you have your mum’s surname?”

Will doesn’t even know what was her mom’s last name was before marrying his dad. He wishes she would had kept it; maybe then it would be his last name too.

“I have two surnames,” Ale smiles. “‘Rivera’ from my dad and ‘Valladares’ from my mom.”

Will presses his lips, almost smiling back. “So… Alejandro Rivera Valladares?”

“Alejandro Ciro Rivera Valladares,” he corrects him.

“Were your parents trying to reach a word count when they were filling in your birth certificate?” Will deadpans but the quirk of his lips betrays him.

Alejandro erupts into a roaring laughter and for a moment everything feels right. Then, he is sobered up when he remembers the topic of their conversation in the first place.

“So, if I don’t work with Angela, what should I do?” he asks.

“Let me work with her, and you and Jane can do the presentation on Dorian Grey,” he says.

“But… you worked so much on it already,” Will reasons.

Ale shrugs. “I told you, it’s my favorite book; it didn’t even feel like homework to me.”

Will feels like he is lying for his sake, and that he is taking advantage of his overwhelming kindness and generosity, but he doesn’t see other viable options on the short time he has been given to work a solution for this.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

Although he can already anticipate the answer, he needs to know for certain, and to offer Ale a chance to back out and admit he doesn’t want to give up the project he has already worked on.

“I’m sure,” Ale affirms. “Only thing is missing it’s both of your personal conclusions.” The guilt of basically stealing someone’s work must conspicuously show on his face, because Ale doesn’t allow him to interject, “and yes, I still want you and Jane to present the book.”

Will winces and swallows down another attempt to make Ale keep the project he worked on. “Thank you."

Ale smiles at him. “No problem.”

Then, Will remembers the other part of the problem that still needs to be solved. “How are you going to convince Angela to change partners?”

“Don’t worry about it; I’ll just ask my cousin to talk to her,” he reassures him. Will frowns and wrinkles his nose, provoking Ale to burst out laughing again. “My cousin doesn’t like Angela; she is just the kind of person that is friends with everyone.”

‘A friend to all is a friend to none’; those are the words his mother told him a long time ago, when one day he came from kindergarten, his face red and covered in snot and tear tracks, wondering why most people seemed to dislike him. ‘You can’t please everyone and be yourself at the same time’, his mum continued, swiping away the wetness of his cheeks as he sniffled. It’s interesting to think back on the things one experienced during childhood and realize which ones were lost to time and which one have remained with oneself.

“Will!” his voice takes him back to reality and outside his mind. “I asked you what book Angela and Jane were working on.”

“Uh…” Will tries to remember for a good minute, “I think it was called ‘Mice and Men?”

“’Of Mice and Men?’”, Ale asks him. When Will nods, Ale snorts and rolls his eyes, muttering to himself, “Of course she chose that one.”

Outside his window, the sky is shrouded in dark grey clouds, and exorbitant amounts of rainfall is lashing against the house, shaking it to its foundations whenever a thunder decides to scourges the earth. He shivers involuntarily. It’s so uncharacteristic of the usual Southern California weather he has been getting used to these last few months, with its extremely dry air and its abnormal high temperature that has him wearing thin shirts just two weeks shy from Christmas.

He was even coming to terms with the idea that he was probably going to see the rain only a very few times a year, if he was lucky. There are so many harrowing and woeful past memories of his that are attached with the rain, and yet, he can’t deny the calming effect watching the sky dissolve into downpour has on him, or much he missed just watching the rain fall from the comfort and warmth a blanket wrapped around him and a cup of hot chocolate in his hands offer to him.

He stares El lying belly down on the floor while working on the poster they were going to present for their project. Usually whenever he had to pair up with Mike or do any group projects with the Party for school, he would overtake over the management of their presentation, but when El asked if she could be the one to make the poster, he didn’t mind delegating the task to her. She licks the chocolate moustache that had formed over her upper lip.

Early in the day, a letter addressed to both El and Will had come in the mail; it was a surprise to him, but a pleasant surprise regardless. The quiet and quick moment of disappointment when he saw that the correspondent wasn’t Mike immediately vanished when he read the names: Dustin, Lucas and Max.

He grinned in such way that he almost felt like the corners of his mouth were stretched beyond the realms of what is considered physical possible. Next to him, El squealed in excitement, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

When they ripped open the envelope, they weren’t meet by a letter or a bunch of them, but rather a series of Polaroid photos that fell on the dining table. They viewed each of them with scrutiny and care.

Most of the pictures were from Dustin and Lucas: in some of them, they were wearing white shirts with long, black sleeves that had a diabolical image printed on them, and they were sitting around a table that had a D&D board on it, with the caption, D&D Friday Nights, at the bottom of it. He felt a pang in his chest at the reminder that he was no longer with them to enjoy the pastime that had accompanied them for a good part of their childhood.

He grabbed a picture from the pile and almost laughed at the sight of Mike wearing his usual disgruntled expression whenever someone takes pictures of him. After holding the picture for a bit longer, he began noticing his longer and curlier hair that almost reached his shoulders, the sharper angles of his cheekbones and beaky nose, telling of baby fat loss. He looked… handsome. He also looked more despondent that he could remember ever seeing him, but before he could keep looking at the picture, El snatched it from his fingers and pocketed it.

The rest of the pictures consisted of mostly of Lucas, who was rocking a new flat top hairstyle and the green and white uniform of the basketball team, and of Dustin, who he was gratified to see that he kept his unusual fashion, and would often appear in pictures with not just Lucas, but also Steve and even Robin. There were only three pictures of Max, and in each of them she looked progressively more tired, with the pronounced dark circles beneath her glacial eyes, the seemingly permanent frown between her brows and a forced smile that never reached the eyes.

Neither he nor El mentioned how Max looked, trying to maintain the cheerful mood from before when they received the envelope, although he is certain the concern he felt when he looked at the pictures was a shared sentiment.

It was a great way to wake up to on a Sunday they were meant to work the whole day on their project.

“I think I’m done,” El claims and stands up, putting the cap back on the marker she was just using.

She grabs the poster and stands up, showing him with pride what she has been working on for the last five hours. The poster commands attention, with its eye-catching golden title at the center of it. Quotes and snippets from the book that represent the themes were placed strategically as to also show how the story progresses with each chapter and the revealing symbols and metaphors woven into the narrative. It impresses him how the poster managed to capture the most pivotal moments of the novel and the most significant parts of their presentation while drowning in exaggerated amounts of glitter.

“It looks amazing,” he praises sincerely.

“Really?”, she asks, genuinely shocked at the positive response of her work.

The greyish light filter through the rain-spattered window, casting a pattern of droplets trickling down her face and drawing a cobweb on her tired but ecstatic expression.

“Really,” he affirms. She lies down next to him and closes her eyes, half exhaustion taking over her, half contentment washing her over. “You know, you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”

She opens her eyes and looks at him with a smile. “I know, but it feels good here.”

She closes her eyes again and he turns back to a comic book that was lying on his bedside table, a warmth that isn’t reminiscent of anything in California heating up his chilly skin. The rain outside lashes and drums on the window, asking for permission to come inside.

The English classroom is bustling in a mixture of anxiety and dread as the rest of their classmates arrive in a hurry, clutching their poster presentations and annotations in their hands. Around him, people are reading their notes, eyes shifting from side to side, trying to take as much last-minute information as possible. His own notes crumple in his hands, his knuckles paling with the accidental overuse of strength. He turns his head to look at El, who has her head between her hands, pulling her hair.

“El,” he calls her name. When she raises her head to meet his eyes, she is chewing her lips and her eyes are wide. It reminds him of his old dog Chester when they found him, a lonely and trembling puppy wandering the streets during a torrential downpour. “You got this,” he reassures her in a soothing tone.

She gives him a taut nod and turns her sight back to her notes on the desk; when she is no longer looking at him, he sighs. El is not stupid— that is something he has learned since they have been forced to live together. There is no amount of placating words that could change her mind or delude her into believing him no matter how convincing he might try to sound. He just hopes that by the time it’s their turn to present their project, she doesn’t freeze.

Unfortunately for them, Ms. Baldwin had told them the previous class that they were going to be called to present their work in alphabetical order, and with his surname starting with ‘B’, they were going to the fourth pair to present. Their teacher was displeased when he and Ale asked for a last-minute change of partners; he doesn’t know what Ale, her self-proclaimed favorite student had to say to convince her, but he somehow managed to do it. However, Will still fears that causing unnecessary trouble, at least from her point of view, may cause them to suffer points deduction from their work.

He looks across the classroom where Ale is sitting next to Angela, both in their separate bubbles and pretending their partners don’t exist. When he and Ale lock eyes, his friend extends his index and middle fingers to make a finger gun, raises his hand to his temple, and mimics shooting himself, throwing his head backwards and rolling his eyes.

Will slaps a hand over his mouth to suppress an incoming giggle, but when the teacher finally arrives, only three minutes later that the starting time stipulated, the humor dies down immediately. So does that the incessant sound of the students talking, and the class is suddenly submerged in a suffocating silence.

The teacher sits down at the table while he and his classmates wait expectantly. She states the surname of the first student, and their project partner, to come forwards to present. “Álvarez”.

By the time the name ‘Byers’ is said by the teacher, El’s hands are exponentially shaking and her eyes are blinking quicker than necessary. Will places a comforting hand on her shoulder and squeezes it before standing up from his chair. She follows him close behind, gripping the poster. They stand in front of their whole class.

“This is our presentation,” El affirms loudly in the unusual quiet classroom, earning the snicker of Angela and a couple of her friends two rows behind.

She averts her gaze away from their classmates and looks down at the floor.

“Um… ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’ was written by Oscar Wilder”—

“Oscar Wilde,” their teacher corrects her, making her wince.

“It was written by Oscar Wilde in 1890,” she stutters in muted voice, barely getting the words out. Her notes are shaking in her hands.

Will has never been good at oral presentations or public speeches or anything that meant putting himself in front of a group of people and willingly calling their attention, especially when he does just that without trying already, usually with less than wanted results. He would had never expected to be the one that has to save the other person from humiliating themselves and possibly fail the assignment, but he doesn’t have an option now.

“Psst!” Will whispers so only El can hear him. “Don’t look at her.”

He smiles at her with as much encouragement as he can muster to offer in an expression and mouths ‘You got this’. She exhales deeply and nods to herself. She tilts her body to look at the left side of the classroom, deliberately trying to avoid looking at the right side of it where Angela is sitting.

She restarts the presentation. “’The Picture of Dorian Grey’ is a novel that was written by Oscar Wilde and published in 1890…”

The rest of their presentation goes on without a hitch. Although there are times in which her anxiety threatens to take over and swallow her voice, he interject himself with small gestures, such as gentle nods and encouraging smiles, that are probably not perceptible to the rest of their classmates but El notices. Whenever she stumbles on her words, he picks up where she gets lost and pretend he was meant to say that part. She even gets to return the favor once, when he forgets the relation between one of the themes with the character of Sybil, which she remembers. By the end of their presentation, both of their nerves have gradually subsided, and they are even capable of answering the question-and-answer part of their presentation with calmness and expertise.

When the teacher offers an impassive ‘good job’ and commands them to go back to their seats, he can physically see the tension lift off her shoulders. He bumps her shoulders with his fingers and smiles at her in congratulations. They share a brief but triumphant glance and relax in their seats, watching the rest of their classmates present.

When it’s Angela’s and Ale’s turn to present, he finally understands why he had acted with so much disdain the other day when he explained the predicament he was in. The moment Angela begins talking about the book’s themes of ‘prejudice’, and ‘loneliness’, and ‘isolation’ in an overly saccharine voice, Will rolls his eyes in such way he could see the back of his own head. When she pointedly looks at El, making her shrink in herself, he wishes he could do more than just blatantly glower at her. Her name is a fucking lie.

The blood rushing to his ears is loud, and he only notices the presentation is over because his classmates are applauding politely. He only joins in it because he doesn’t want to risk the teacher considering him rude and possible deduct points of their work. Next to him, El applauds enthusiastically, with far more fervor than Angela could ever deserve.

After the two remaining pairs present their project, Ms. Baldwin finally allows them to leave, almost twenty minutes past the finishing time. Usually getting to the lockers at the end of the day it’s challenge and a half, with the hallways turning into some sort of human busy highway, but today the path is clear for him to walk. However, before putting his things back in his locker so he can go back home with his siblings and Argyle, he decides he needs to do something first.

“Hey, El,” he calls her attention. She turns to look at him. “Can you wait me up? I need to do something first.”

She tilts her head to the side and her brows draw together, but ultimately just nods and walks in direction to the parking lot. On the other hand, Will turns to the left hallway, in opposite direction of where his locker is.

“Ale,” he calls his name, making him turn around to look at him.

His puzzled expression is replaced by a placid smile as he closes the distance between them.

“Hey, good job on the presentation,” he praises him.

He flushes. “It was mostly you— seriously,” he affirms. “And congrats for your presentation, too.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he assures him, and puts away a couple of books in his locker, slamming the door of it. “Besides, now I can say I survived the devil in pink,” he quips.

Will winces. “That bad?”

He shakes his head. “Nah, I’m just joking”. When he notices that Will isn’t meeting his eyes, he touches his shoulder, calling his attention. “Hey, I’m the one that suggested that I work with her, okay? So, don’t feel guilty about it.”

“I’m still sorry,” Will says.

He can see that Ale wants to say something back, even opens his mouth to do so, but ultimately decides against it. Before they can keep talking, the pretty girl from the other day, Anabella, appear from behind him, surprising him. They greet each other, and his eyes shift to anywhere but Alejandro and Anabella in front of him. Just like the day before Thanksgiving break, he takes her arrival as his clue to leave the two alone, so he sets to leave.

“Hey, where are you going?” her melodic voice calls him back.

“Uh…” he utters nonsensically like he has just lost the ability to speak.

She takes a step forwards, and suddenly he misses his personal space. “Did you receive my note the other day?”

He frowns; his mouth open and close repeatedly, trying to find the words. “What?”

Her brows furrow, provoking a small line to appear in between them. “The note. The one I left you in your locker,” she explains, her cheeks darkening in a rose blush.

The note she left in my locker…—oh. Oh. “Oh; yeah, I—I saw it,” he stammers.

She purses her lips and bounces on the ball of her feet. “And…?”

“Sorry, I…” like boys, “… have a girlfriend,” he cringes, the lie sounding too obvious to his ears.

“Oh,” her mouth falls into an o-shaped form, which is quickly replaced by a forced smile. “What’s her name?”

He blinks, suddenly coming blank with any female name he has learned of in his life vanishing in a haze in his brain. “…Max.”

She frowns, and he can see Ale’s matching expression behind her, albeit with more humor in his eyes than in hers. “Your girlfriend’s name is… Max”.

“Maxine, but she prefers to be called Max.” She narrows her eyes at him and crosses her arms against her chest. “She likes the arcade, and comic books, and… skateboarding.”

Please, someone kill me so I stop talking. Lucas won’t kill him, probably even find it hilarious, but Max might actually start digging his grave, maybe even a second one for Lucas for laughing.

“Okay,” she says and leaves just like that, confusion coloring her twisted features as she is still trying to figure out the conversation they had while she walks away.

Will doesn’t get to breathe a sigh of relief before Ale is over his face, looking at him with a mixture of puzzlement and amusement.

“Girlfriend?” he quirks an eyebrow, his lips tugged upwards.

“Yeah,” he says, and starts walking to the parking lot, where his siblings and Argyle are probably already running out of patience. “You know, funny thing; I thought she was your girlfriend” he admits, avoiding looking at Ale in the eyes.

When he hears a choking sound realizes he has stopped walking next to him, he turns around to observe the serious, paling expression on his face. “What?”

“Dude, she is my cousin,” he explains, the skin of his cheeks becoming the slightest shade of green.

“What?” Will repeats, his eyes widening.

Ale matches his expression, a horrified look overcoming his usual warm brown eyes. “You thought I was dating my cousin?” Will reluctantly nods. “Oh my god!”

“I didn’t know she was your cousin!” his voice raises in pitch as he tries to defend himself.

All of a sudden, as if Will hadn’t just admitted he thought Ale and his cousin were together like a couple, Ale starts laughing. It begins with small snickers, with him biting down on his lip to keep the laughter in, but it quickly unfolds in a guffaw that has him holding himself upright by having an arm wrapped around his abdomen.

Will crosses his arms against his chest. “It’s not that funny,” he says, although he is too trying to contain his incoming laughter by pressing his lips tightly together.

“It is, it’s hilarious,” he says, the mirth shining bright in his eyes. He places a hand on his shoulder once the humor of the situation subsides. “It’s okay— really.”

Some of the tension evaporates off his body and they resume their walk back to the parking lot in a pleasant silence. It’s nice, after so long, to have laughed like that with someone.

“I really liked the book, by the way,” Will confesses.

“You did?” Ale asks. The good-natured humor of a minute ago is gone from his face, and he looks at him almost shyly, with expectant eyes.

He nods. “Yeah.” He starts to walk away, leaving him standing in the hallway, then pauses and turns around to add something more. “Especially the underlined parts.” When he notices Ale starting to grin, he doesn’t bother trying to suppress his.

Chapter Text

No one had prepared him for the hell that was going to be finals week. Despite all the warnings pointed over and over again in his conversations with Jonathan, despite watching Nancy fret around the Wheelers’ home while clutching some book or pile of notes against her chest and having developed a twitchy eye, product of stress or lack of sleep or both. He rues how he and Mike would snicker at her, and how he would agree when Mike would say that she was exaggerating.

How wrong he was.

How innocent he was.

Yet, against all odds, he somehow managed to survive his first final week in high school. He remembers the joy that overtook him when Ms. Baldwin gave them a B+ for their English project, not even for getting a decent score, but rather for the exuberant and tightly-gripped embrace he received from El when the teacher announced their grade. Yesterday, on Thursday, when they had received their grades for all their classes, they slumped on the living room couch, drained emotionally and physically but content.

Will spends much of the Friday before winter break, the last day before a two-week vacation, in a haze, observing the hands of the wall clocks above the blackboard move at a painstakingly sluggish pace. As time goes by and the minutes tickle down, he swears time has slowed down, dragging the last couple hours left of school to a whole week. By the time he is in his last period, no one is paying attention to whatever the teacher was saying. When the merciful bell finally rings, every student, including El, who would usually show enthusiasm to learn anything every day, jump off their seats and hurry outside, welcoming the much needed break. 

By this time of the year, the usual dreadful grey of Hawkins transforms into something that could almost be called inspiring if it were read in some short novel. The snow that fell while most people slept during the night covers the streets and the uninhabited terrains like pristine white blankets and dress the woods just the same. Sometimes, elementary kids would begin their winter break earlier, and in the way to school, he would watch them make snow angels, which he would later recreate with his own friends.

The square town shops are decked with decorations of gauche garlands and twinkling lights. Whenever he would walk through those streets, he would always be pleased by the familiar aroma of roasted chestnut, freshly baked cookies and others bakery goods alike, as well as hot cocoa with melting marshmallows filling the air. For a week or two, Hawkins manage to become a welcoming place, somewhere he actually enjoys living in.

California it’s nothing like back home. By this time of the year, he would already be bundled up in double layers of scarves and coats, with a knit cap to top it off, and his cheeks red as two round apples on his pallor to combat the piercing cold wind. He would be staring out the window, watching the snowflakes fall on the tree canopies and serving as its own, nature-produced ornaments and the kids play on the expanse of flat land before the woods.

Now there is nothing to watch but the everyday monotony of the undecorated houses of the neighborhood, as the arid Californian air and abnormally high temperature for winter won’t allow snow to form and fall from the sky. He can’t even close his eyes and let himself be haunted by echoed memories, and picture himself back in Hawkins to spend the winter break with his friends while wearing only a thin long-sleeved shirt.

He almost laughs in a bitter absurdity when he realizes that, of all the things he longs to feel back, it’s the fucking cold of Hawkins during this time of the year.

Enough dwelling, he reprimands himself. He follows the irresistible aroma of melting chocolate coming from the kitchen and enveloping the entire first floor in a warm and sweet scent. Following their unspoken family tradition, after sharing a dinner of baked ham and sweet potatoes casserole, they baked cookies to eat with their hot cocoa while watching a movie, although they forfeited their usual cinnamon-sugar cookies and chose to make chocolate chip cookies this time.

“Honey, can you wash the dishes while I heat up the milk?” his mom asks him while getting on her tiptoes to reach the highest shelf and grab the dark chocolate.

It’s another reason why Christmas is his favorite holiday of the year.

From a young age he had to learn that there are some things his family couldn’t afford, that he couldn’t have the same things as the Wheelers or the Sinclairs. He remembers the first time Mike invited him over to his house and he was in awe of the enormity and spaciousness of the place. His mind was practically blown when he saw the amount of toys he had to play with.

Following that day, there were several occasions in which he would ask his mom why they couldn’t afford to buy a new toy or comic book, which would quickly unfold in throwing a tantrum over it. Then one night, when he woke and tried to tiptoe to the bathroom, he heard his mom quiet sniffles coming from the kitchen while staring at the past-due notices laying on the kitchen table. He returned to his bedroom, his need to pee gone and forgotten; he never demanded anything from his mom ever again.

The only time of the year his family would indulge in expenses out of their budget was Christmas. They would cook actual food instead of eating cans from the discount shelf at the supermarket and frozen meals, and it would be the only day of the year they buy the good chocolate. Will would await impatiently on his bed until he would see the first rays of sunlight emerging from the darkness of the night, giving him the permission to get up to open the presents underneath the Christmas tree.

Although nowadays he can consider a cup of hot chocolate a weekly treat, it still feels special to drink one for Christmas.

He dries the last plate left and puts it back in the shelf where it belongs as Jonathan takes the baking sheet with the steaming batch cookies out of the oven and places it over the stove grates. With the milk warming up at a low heat, it should give them enough time to choose a movie tape and for the cookies to cool a bit. 

He notices El sitting in one of the chairs at the kitchen table with her chin resting on her knees, but instead of staring at the plate of cookies, she is fidgeting with the green scrunchie on her wrist. She is wearing a blue and ivory flannel shirt that swallows her with its sheer size on her small frame. He doesn’t know for sure whose flannel is it, but judging by the fact it isn’t his or Jonathan’s, and that it would be too big for either them to wear anyway, he can assume with certainty who it used to belong to. He has also seen a brown corduroy jacket in the back of his mom’s closet that he knows it doesn’t belong to her.

In spite not knowing each other much before moving to California, this isn’t their first time spending Christmas together.

After El closed the gate, and what he likes to call his ‘exorcism’ happened –despite his mom’s hatred for the denomination he chose to for it— and they all became aware that she was alive and well, things kind of changed. She didn’t suddenly join school with them, but now they knew where she was and they could visit her. It didn’t happen frequently, and indeed only occurred once, but at least now they could reassure themselves with the knowledge that she was safe.

He isn’t exactly sure what happened after she and Hopper had their first Thanksgiving together besides some muttered words from her about ‘not being like in the movies’. Apparently that was enough to make Hopper ask his mom if they could spend Christmas together, because, according to him El deserved to experience a great first Christmas. Although Jonathan was somewhat wary of the presence of two more people outside of their family, Will was actually excited about it.

She was a lot shyer than she is now, looking at everything with a twinkling wonder in her eye, but cautious and overtly aware of every movement she would make. In the end, she ended up taking some bites of her dinner plate, ate more cinnamon-sugar cookies with her hot chocolate that could probably be deemed healthy, and relaxed while they watched ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ together.

It was the only time he and El spent time together before she started dating Mike and then Will rarely saw either of them for the six months that followed the night of the Snow Ball dance.

He looks at El, whose gaze has somehow managed to become even more unfocused than it was a minute ago, and then stares at the latest letter they received from Hawkins, with the name ‘Wheelers Family’ written as the sender. He comes up with an idea to cheer her up and grabs it.

He sits on the chair next to hers and opens the envelope, taking the Christmas card out of it and showing it to her. “These ones are getting creepier by the year,” he jokes, trying to make her smile but only getting a forced grimace instead, bringing down his efforts.

He leans against the chair back, choosing to leave her alone. He looks at the card in his hand, observing with attention— he is right in his assessment that their Christmas cards are getting creepier with every year that passes.

Mike has never been the greatest fan of taking pictures, always making his distaste for them loud and clear, and for as long as Will has known him, Mr. Wheeler has never shown interest in anything in his life, his characteristic apathy shining through even in pictures. However, even Mrs. Wheeler and Nancy look miserable in this one, with their waxy complexion and the discernable shadows beneath their eyes despite the fact that the picture was probably taken a hired professional. They remind him of the mannequins of Tourist Trap— only Holly is looking somewhat human, and even her possess a quality that is reminiscent of a haunted Victorian portrait. An unexpected shiver runs down his spine, and he decides to leave the card ignored on the table.

“Sweetheart,” his mom’s gentle voice brings El out of her nearly-stupefied state, “do you want to choose the movie?” El just shrugs. “I rented some options I thought you might like,” she continues at her silence, and adds in a hushed and playful tone, “and I promise you that these cookies are more delicious than the ones you ate late year.”

El raises her gaze to meet his mom’s and smiles. It’s just a tiny one, but it’s more than any of them have seen from her throughout the whole day, and she stands up to go to the living to pick a movie. Wills stands up to help Jonathan carry their cups of hot chocolate and the plate of cookies, which have cooled down to a temperature edible for consumption, and place them on the coffee table in front of the television.

“Extra marshmallows and extra whipped cream”, Jonathan says to El, giving her the faded-pink cup and provoking an even bigger, more genuine smile than the one from before. “What are we watching?”

Their mom doesn’t responds, and instead puts the tape in the VHS player and presses ‘play’. The black-and-white movie starts, and the screen shows a hand grabbing a book from the shelf with the title ‘A Christmas Carol’ inscribed on the spine. The four of them huddle on the couch, forfeiting the need for a blanket to keep them warm this time around.

When he decides to spend his last Saturday of the weekend break lazing in the living room in front of the television, he doesn’t expect his plans to be warped by the unexpected sound of the doorbell ringing and blaring through the house. He and El, who is sitting next to him, look at each other with matching confused expressions. He shrugs and stands up to open the see who is randomly disturbing them on a Saturday at nine in the morning, holding his sketchbook open mid drawing under his arm.

His brows furrow when he sees the person on the other side of the door. “Ale?”

“Hi, Will,” he grins then tilts his head. “What are you holding there?”

“My sketchbook,” he responds. “It’s private,” he clarifies before he can inquire further.

Ever since they made up after Thanksgiving break, the comfort of having one friend by his side back, that isn’t related to him by blood or law, feels… nice. He and Ale hadn’t have much time to hang out together, considering that they both have been busy with end-of-semester evaluations, but they would still find moments between classes in which they would talk like friends do. High school is far from perfect but at least it doesn’t feel as lonely as it used to feel a couple of weeks ago.

Still, that doesn’t explain Ale’s unannounced presence at his entrance.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

Ale plays with his car keys, twirling them in the air with his index finger. He leans against the door frame, showing off the stylizing of his slim-fitting blue jeans and his blue, purple, yellow and pink windbreaker. Despite Will’s blatant puzzled face and mild skepticism in his narrowed eyes, Ale’s smile doesn’t falter.

“I told you; you and your sister need to leave the house more often,” he affirms as it were a matter of fact.

Will crosses his arms against his chest and raises an inquisitive eyebrow. “And you decided it’s your job to do that?”

Ale just shrugs and twists his lips. “Why not?”

Why not? “Well, El— Jane is sick”. As if to evidence his statement, El sneezes loudly from her place on the couch, shivering and tightening the blanket wrapped around her. Even Ale leans a bit forwards to see into the house and her.

“That sucks,” he says genuinely despite his smile, “but we could still hang out, just the two of us”.

Will is about to decline his offer when he stops to think: why would he say ‘no’? His last line of defense crumbles when he notices the eagerness and nervousness concealed beneath the glint of confidence in his brown eyes.

 “Okay,” he breathes out. “Give me five minutes”, he says, then considers that he needs to dress in a way he doesn’t look like a mismatched disaster next to him, “maybe ten,” and rushes to his bedroom.

Just a minute short of ten, Will leaves the house and gets in the passenger seat of Ale’s obnoxious burnt orange Camaro. Both of the windows are down, allowing the cool breeze of a California winter to slip through his mildly disheveled hair, with the midday sun warming them up. The radio hums with the latest hits, while his gaze remains fixed on the small hills that accompanied them alongside the route. They drive in an almost uninterrupted silence, with just the sound of other cars passing by in the lanes adjacent to theirs, but it somehow doesn’t feel uncomfortable.

When the sun begins to reach the highest point in the sky, the peaceful outskirts of small settlements and the unsuspecting hills change into a different landscape, with skyscrapers starting to rise from the ground, welcoming into the city of Los Angeles. The only other big city he had ever been to in his life was Indianapolis, and it didn’t compare. He is so enthralled by the sheer magnitude of the city that he doesn’t realize they have arrived somewhere until Ale drives them down some tunnel where there is a parking lot.

Ale guides him by gently holding by his elbow while he is too compelled by the high-rise buildings the boulevards lined with palm trees to pay attention where he is going. He doesn’t realize where they are walking to until he stares at a modern-looking building, with seamless blend of sleek lines, asymmetrical geometrical shapes and expansive glass panels. They approach the grand entrance, adorned with towering white columns serving as sentinels, observing the line of people that has already formed in front of them.

“Anabella told me you like art class so I thought you would like to go to an art museum,” Ale appears next to him startling.

“Oh,” is the only thing he manages to express.

“Have you,” he shrugs, trying and failing to be nonchalant, “ever been to a museum before?”

He quirks an eyebrow and crosses his arms against his chest. “Yes, I have.”

It was an old museum at the outskirts of Hawkins that he went with the rest of his fourth grade science class. The building was a just a tad bigger than their own classroom, and there was only one person in charge, a man in his late seventies whose voice had wasted away after decades of smoking. The visit lasted around forty minutes and he only talked about mosses and ferns. The biggest entertaining value he got out of that school expedition was that he and Mike teamed up against Lucas and Dustin as they tried to shove worms on each other’s cowls.

But Ale doesn’t need to know that; he can bedazzle the experience as much as he wants. “It was a really nice museum, actually.”

Ale raises his hands, palms outward. “Just asking.”

They join the rest of the people. The museum opens and the lines moves fast; when it’s their turn to pay for their tickets, Will quickly swats Ale’s wallet away from the counter and takes his own from his jeans front pocket.

“Hi, how much is it?” he asks the girl on the other side of the counter, probably only a couple of years older than his brother. When she tells him the price, he gives her a ten dollar bill. “Thank you.”

“I thought I was inviting you out,” Ale says with furrowed brows.

Will shrugs and smiles. “Taking my chance to pay you back.”

He doesn’t bother to look behind him, expecting Ale to follow him further into the museum. When he walks through the entrance and where the main exhibition is kept, his eyes widen in awe. Unlike that decrypt excuse of a museum his elementary school took him, this place is vast and clean, with the high ceilings and domed skylight above them allowing the midday sunshine to filter through the glass, giving the gallery an expansive effect. The sunlight also illuminate the artworks on display, casting an accentuated warm glow over them and bringing to life the textures and details.

“So,” Ale’s voice break his line of thinking, “what do you think?”

He doesn’t take his eyes away from a particular sculpture, a large-scale human face as tall as him created with thousands of compact mirrors. “This is amazing.”

“You think you can give me a tour through all this?” he asks, leaning in, his features soft in curiosity. “Art isn’t really my thing.”

Will feels like a deer caught in headlights, except instead of watching a literal car about to hit him, he fears the incoming reaction from Ale when he admits that he doesn’t know anything about this.

He had always loved making art, ever since he was a little kid and he found it hard to speak what he wanted to say so he chose to draw it instead and despite mockery thrown at him for it being girly. He went from drawing with crayons and the cheapest pack of twelve-color pencils his mom could afford to more sophisticated drawings done with charcoal pencils and actually painting with watercolors and oil on canvas now that he has the chance to do it.

He had always loved art, as a way to deal with everything that has ever happened to him, as a way to communicate what his voice would never allow to disclose aloud, as a repository of all his emotions, as an escape to somewhere better, sometime better. But the point is, he doesn’t know shit about art, and he doesn’t want to humiliate himself by admitting this to Ale.

He turns to look at him and shrugs. “It’s all very subjective,” it’s the only thing he says and walks towards another art piece before Ale can ask any more questions.

The art gallery extends in front of him, offering abstract paintings and striking sculptures, and he stands in front of each of them, gaping in wonder like a child in a candy store. The kaleidoscope-like mismatch of colors and delicate brushwork with bold stroke of the paintings, abstract and figurative and anything in between, hangs off the walls, beckoning him to come closer. The juxtaposition of the soft curves and sharp angles of the metal sculptures allure him to touch them until he becomes aware and refrains. It’s all beauty meant to be admired from afar and he does it so with experience.

He catches snippets of conversations between people far more knowledgeable than him, discussing the meaning behind the artwork, reveling in the most scandalous details about the artists’ lives, and arguing in favor of their interpretations. Will just takes it all in, craving to learn anything from them.

After almost two hours of strolling around the museum, they both decide to leave and have some lunch in a burger joint nearby. The small dining place, gathering only a couple of tables and a bar, is a buzzing stream of lively conversations and the sound of sizzling oil coming from the kitchen. They sit on the curb with their backs leaning against the wall, taking in the aroma of baked buns, smoking bacon, and charred beef, mixed with the fragrance of different spices and herbs. He savors each bite, watching and marveling at the vibrant tapestry of the city he is in. Even with the sun of a Californian winter searing on them, the streets are pulsing with life, as people hurry in both directions, on their feet, on skateboards, on roller-skates and on bikes.

Will eats his last three remaining fries and licks his fingers, tasting the lingering traces of salt and seasoning. “So, what now?” he asks, cleaning his hands with some napkins.

Ale shrugs. “Whatever you want— it’s your day.”

Will tilts his head, a mischievous smile forming on his face. “My day? I didn’t know it was my birthday.”

Ale chokes on the soda he is sipping, and his coughing it’s only more aggravated when he accidentally hits the roof of his mouth with the straw. “I didn’t know it was your birthday,” he bemoans.

“No, no, I’m just joking,” Will is quick to clarify.

Ale calms down, and he munches the last of his burger in silence as Will stands up to throw the burger wrap in the trash can.

When Will sits down next to him again, he smiles to him. “If you already don’t want to go home, I got an idea.”

“I’m listening,” Will says.

“Do you mind going for a walk?”

“I overestimated how much we were going to need to walk,” Ale pants, dragging his tired feet.

You don't say. Will just gives him a thumbs up in confirmation that he heard what he said. Even in the middle of winter, a walk in California is extraneous, with his moist undershirt clinging uncomfortably to his chest.

“Where are we going anyway?” he asks, his words dying in his lips on their way out when they walk out of the quiet street and reach a boulevard.

Despite the narrowness of the sidewalks, the place is filled to the brims with people, even more so than he has already seen before. It feels as if half of the population of Los Angeles is walking the same street as he is. A man wearing a feathery lavender jacket with a frilly white shirt pass by him while talking to a woman sporting a mullet and wearing high-rise leather pants with a black shirt, with its first five buttons unopened, showing the center gore and the inner curve of the cups of her bra. Someone accidentally bumps him with his shoulder, a man wearing a see-through mesh long-sleeved black shirt and calling everyone’s attention with his visible chest and smudged eyeliner, as well as his Mohawk buzz-cut and his leather jacket with spikes on the shoulder pads.

He can’t help himself from turning around, over and over again, trying to see and catch and keep everything he sees with his eyes. Everywhere he looks there is an explosion of mismatched colors and textures that stand out against the great gray of the city. He almost feel embarrassed by his dull clothes, like while he is trying to camouflage, everyone else is fighting for the chance to be seen.

“You alright?” Ale’s voice next to his startles him, and he finds himself under his caring gaze.

“Yeah, everything is great, it’s just that…” he feels his eyes beginning to prickle but he doesn’t want to mention it and ruin the day. “…the city it’s amazing.”

Ale snorts. “That is because you’ve never seen New York before.”

They walk up and down the boulevard, meandering around the city for the following couple of hours, drawn by the alluring strains of music coming from the bars and streets alike, booming with talent he had never heard before in the radio. Inside, he watches some musicians take on the small stage, the vocalist’s raw and raucous blaring through the room, mixing with the wailing of electric guitars and the thundering of drums. When the sound of the music and the smell of cigars and weed become too overwhelming, they step outside. He watches how in a quaint park, the constant chatter of the people and the squeaking of roller blades and skateboard get intertwined with the softer voices of the street performers and their gentle guitars and saxophones.

He sips on his can of cherry cola while he watches the sun begins to settle over the skyline horizon, casting a warm glow of pink and orange over the city. Between his exhaustion and his enthrallment with the city, he gets lost in the landscape of the street life. He wishes he would never have to leave, but as the sunlight dimmers, welcoming the incoming shadows of the night, he knows the day is ending.

“So,” Ale breaks the silence, and he has to force himself to take his eyes off the sky to look at him, “California isn’t that bad after all, huh?”

Los Angeles sprawls in front of him like the secret language from an ancient civilization enticing him to learn it, decipher it, but also like a giant blank canvas, begging to be painted and made his own with every stroke of his brush. Since the moment they entered the city, he has seen this place as if he were a human coming out of a spaceship, aged and worn-down after decades of traveling at the speed of light, and stepping on a whole different universe. He spent the first fourteen years of his life used to the claustrophobic nature of his hometown, without realizing until he got here that he has lived his whole life with a heavy hand holding him by the throat, suffocating him. Now the city spreads out for him to observe its vastness, because for the first time he sees it— a world of chance.

He smiles, mostly to himself. “Maybe California is okay.”

The neon lights of the billboards are beginning to be turned on as the sunlight dwindles and Ale drives them out of the city. A sensation of peace washes him over as they reach the highway, the skyscrapers becoming small particles in the rearview mirror, like watching the stars through a telescope, and a single thought runs through his mind: maybe I can still belong.

Chapter Text

Good things in life don’t last long— that is a phrase he reminds himself of it often, so when the disappointing expected happens, it doesn’t hurt as much. Good things in life don’t last long, so he must enjoy them while he still has the chance to do it.

After the winter break ended, he expected those two weeks to be some sort of fluke, some very vivid fantasy his brain, deprived of social interaction and meaningful connections outside of his family, conjured to comfort himself. After all, his mother has always complimented him on his endless creativity, or at least that is what she likes to call it. Will considers that the term ‘delusion’ is a more appropriate descriptor, but he doesn’t disagree with her, at least not aloud.

And yet, when the second term begins, he can sense a shift. Although everything looks exactly the same as the last time he was in school, he feels different— a good kind of different for a change. Fellow students pass him by as if he were a ghost haunting the halls, with the occasional classmate greeting him and exchange some expected polite words with him, but he doesn’t feel completely invisible at school anymore, and he isn’t visible to warrant the unwanted type of attention. It’s like he has somehow achieved some sort of a happy middle-ground.

El sticks to his side most of the time, walking through the crowded hallways, sitting with him for all the classes they share and having lunch in the art classroom where nobody can disturb them. Some sick, twisted part of him, one he wants he squashes to the depths of his mind and likes to pretend it doesn’t exist, it’s glad that she is his friend now and not Angela’s or anyone’s in her group. He tells himself is because he believes no one should have to pretend to be someone they are not to fit in. The truth is because he is grateful that he isn’t so alone anymore. He tries to convince himself that was always the best possible outcome for the two of them; maybe if he keep lying hard enough he will start believing it and the guilt will wash clean in his bloodstream.

The other thing that has changed, and the one he expected it to return back to normal after the ring of the bell officially marked the beginning of the second term, is Ale’s presence in his life. After that short but excruciating period of time in which Ale seemed to avoid him like the plague, they had made amends. Will expected things to go back to the way they were before, capable of being amiable to each other during class or waving at each other in the hallways. However, things have changed between them— for the better this time. They actually had conversations that didn’t involve homework or school at all, and their quick greetings while rushing to their next class transformed into time they took advantage of to share what the other person missed. Ale even joined him and El in one of their lunches in the art classroom once, and Will has gone to his house twice this past month since the second term started with no excuse of a homework to mediate them or justify his presence at his house.

His life has found a new sort of constant; it has taken him some time to adapt to, but now that he did, he feels… content. He still misses his home back at Hawkins frequently, but whereas it used to feel like being stabbed and gutted before, now it’s more of a tolerable ache, like walking barefoot on sharp gravel rather than having shards of glass piercing the soles of his feet.

But life has its funny ways of throwing him off-balance.

“A house party?” he repeats his question, expecting Ale to reassure that he just heard him wrong the first time.

“Yep,” he responds, overly punctuating the word with a pop, leaning expectantly against the locker adjacent to his.

He takes his course book for Geometry I and closes the locker door. “I’ve never been to a house party before,” he admits, his voice slightly wavering with some shame.

Ale arcs an eyebrow. “You haven’t?”

Now it’s Will’s turn to look at him in bewilderment. “Do I look like I get invited to parties?”

“Yes?” Ale answers hesitantly, now that he realizes he might had assumed incorrectly.

Will just shakes his head. “I’ve never been to a party.”

“Well, it’s okay,” he reassures him, placing a hand that scalds on his shoulder and squeezing it, “we are going together anyway.”

“Yeah, but… I don’t know anyone else,” Will reminds him.

“And going to a party it’s the best way to meet new people,” Ale affirms. “And if it gets too overwhelming just stick by my side,” he adds, trying his best to convince him.

Will bites the inside of his cheek, wanting to remain firm on his position, but the way that Ale is looking at him with such earnest eyes, like he is making him a favor by going to this party, tumbles the little bit of resistance had managed to put up before he was ambushed with this situation just a minute ago.

He sighs. “Okay.”

He really doesn’t want to go to this party. He expected that, at some point throughout the week, Ale would regret inviting him, admit that he didn’t actually want to go, and that they could have a nice night watching movies in his house or something that doesn’t involve going to a huge gathering of people he doesn’t know. Instead, the first thing Ale did after greeting him before his first period was talking about how excited he was about the party they were going to later that night. Will just nodded with a smile plastered on his face that faded once he was out of sight.

He looks at himself on the mirror and lowers his gaze when he catches his eyes on the reflection. He has never cared much about the way he dress, usually content with wearing his brother’s hand-me-downs and the sweaters and sweatshirts that his friends sometimes borrows him and end up becoming a permanent feature in his closet. And yet, trying to find the appropriate attire has become the bane of his existence for the last four hours.

When he really stops to consider it, going to a party isn’t the worst case scenario, at least not this Friday— February 14^th. Valentine’s Day used to be something he didn’t mind, even enjoyed when he was a little kid. Back then, the concept of love was something reserved for older people, an intangible future thing, and he and his friends could spend the day together and give to each other the cards they were told to make during art class.

Then he grew up and things changed; if there is something he can affirm with certainty about life is that it’s never stagnant, much to his chagrin. Overnight, he had to unlearn the idea that he could just hold hands or hug people outside of his family, because when he aged, and his squeaky voice deepened and he surpassed his mother in height, all those things gained a new meaning.

Holding hands and embracing a girl became the expected, a sign that he is no longer a child but a man now. Brushing fingers and arms wrapped around shoulders with a boy, however, suddenly became something he must associate with shame and prohibition. Or do it anyway and face the consequences.

Puberty is like waking up in alternate universe in which everything looks the same on the surface but having to learn fast and unaided a whole new set of rules he didn’t know it existed until he was hit with them on the face.

He remembers the past summer, when Mike would arrive at the cinema with swollen lips after spending the day with El, or when Lucas would casually throw an arm around Max’s shoulders or around her waist, or how Jonathan would greet Nancy with a kiss in front of their own mom without pretenses, or even that couple, whose names he doesn’t know, sharing a milkshake with just one straw for the two of them, and having to remind himself— No.

It’s just one word, but probably the most important one he knows, and the word he will hear more often than not in his life: No. He misses when he was a child, when he still didn’t know the concept of love, at least not in a profound and understanding level, and he was a freer and happier person because of it.

Growing up means learning how lonely love can be.

At least if he goes to this party, he doesn’t have to lock himself in his bedroom, knowing and picturing Jonathan and El glued to the phone on the wall and talking to their girlfriend and boyfriend. At least if he goes to this party he doesn’t have to think about it and pretend that there is a bitter envy lodged in the cavity of his chest, only possible to ignore by the feeling of hollowness that freezes his body rarely but intensely.

He steps out of the entryway and goes to the living room, where Jonathan is laying on the couch, his head on one couch arm and his feet on the other one. He is lazily surfing through the channels, mostly out of habit and to keep his hands busy rather than for wanting to actually watch anything on the television.

His vacant eyes shift from the television and direct his attention on him. “Hey, buddy.”

“Hey,” he greets back.

They both remain in an impassive silence. He wonders how much things have changed, to the point that even his relationship with his brother isn’t what used to be. He also wonders when it happened, without him realizing until it had already changed. His brother’s gaze, however, remains as scrutinizing and nerve-racking as ever.

He shrinks on himself. “Do I look bad?” he asks, fiddling with the hem of the denim.

He looks down at what he is wearing, a black jean jacket with a sheepskin collar and a Tom Petty shirt underneath. He has the sudden need to ask his brother if he is over-dressed, or under-dressed, or if he just should forgo going to the party at all.

“No, no, you look great,” he is quick to reassure him. “Is mom taking you or do you want me to drive you?”

“Um,” he starts, “actually, my friend is picking me up.”

Jonathan narrows his eyes for a fraction of a second, and Will tenses like he has been caught in a surprise evaluation. His brother watches him with far more attentiveness that Will has seen or received from him ever since they moved to California. He has lost some of his subtlety, but even high off his ass, his brother can read him like a book. What used to be comforting as a child it’s unnerving now.

“Aren’t you doing anything for Valentine’s Day?” Will asks him, if only to take the focus off him.

Jonathan offers him a wry smile. “Can’t exactly hop on a plane and be with Nancy right now.”

“You could call her though,” Will states. “I thought that was what you and El were going to do tonight, anyway.”

Jonathan opens his mouth, but whatever answer he was going to give die in his lips and he closes his mouth again. He averts his eyes away from him and fiddles with his hands on his lap.

“It’s more complicated than that, dude,” he says.

Will wants to say something, maybe apologize for being pushy or inquire further about what he means exactly. Instead, he just nods and chooses to go to the dining room, where El has a letter laid down on the table next to her notebook and pen. She is pensive, staring at the written page as if it could burn her if she touched it.

“Hey, El,” he calls her attention, but when she turns to look at him, he freezes. If looks could kill, she would had vanished him into dust already.

In an instant, the fire in her eyes die down, and returns back to her usual soft gaze. “What?”

The fleeting intensity he saw in her eyes leave him with a lingering unease in his mind that takes him a couple of minutes to shake out of. He was going to ask her if she had changed her mind, if she wanted to come to the party with him, but he is still a bit bewildered about what just happened.

A car horns outside, announcing the arrival of his ride. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he says and leaves.

Ale glides his car to a halt, finding a place to park it among the other vehicles filling the street and the front yard. He twists the keys on the ignition, silencing the roaring growl of the Camaro.

Even several feet away from the house and inside of the car, Will can feel the blasting of the music vibrating through his bones. He swings the door of the car open, stepping out of the vehicle, and watches as the already crowded house is being filled with even more people. Dread settles in the pit of his stomach, making him feel queasy and a single though running through his brain: he should have stayed at home.

A hand on his shoulder startles him. “Are you okay?” Ale asks with gentle eyes and a crease between his brows.

“Too many people,” is all what Will says in response, his gaze too focused on the packed crowd in front of him to look at him.

“It’ll be fine,” Ale reassures him, squeezing his shoulder. “I promise.”

The sound of music and bustling of people gets more overwhelming which step they take on the sidewalk until they finally reach pandemonium. When he enters the house, the loud beat of the music and the uproarious laughter and screaming pierce his eardrums, and the blinding fluorescent lights coming from a rented laser projector burn his retinas. A passing group of guys exhale smoke on his face and he feels like he has been slapped in the face and all his senses are under attack.

“You all right?” Ale asks him.

Although Will has been at the party for less than a minute and he already wants to leave, he knows that if he verbalizes that thought, Ale will take him home and probably stay with him. As alluring as the thought of being home right now sounds, he knows that Ale has been looking forward to this party the whole week, and he doesn’t want to ruin his night.

Will gives him a taut nod and a forced closed-lip smile. Ale narrows his eyes, clearly not buying his obvious lies, but before he can say anything, some guy from a year above him grabs him by the shoulder and asks him for help to bring some more beverages from the garage. When Ale turns to look at him, an unspoken request for permission in his eyes, Will nods, encouraging him to go.

He breathe a sigh of relief; as long as Ale is occupied by someone else, he doesn’t have to pretend that he wants to escape back to his house and to the shelter of his bed sheets. It’s only a couple of seconds later when he realizes he is alone, maybe in not the exact definition of the word, but he is surrounded by a multitude of people he doesn’t know all by himself. His shoulders hunch and he unconsciously press himself against the wall, trying to make himself as invisible and undisruptive as possible.

The cacophony of voices and sea of unfamiliar faces blend into pounding waves that threats him with the possibility of drowning. Then, amidst the turbulent tide, he sees a lifeboat in the form of the one person besides Ale that he can recognize in the entire house.

He rushes to the kitchen, accidentally bumping shoulders with a guy that gives him the dirty eye for it but he pays no mind. “Ana!” he shouts, calling her attention.

Anabella stands in front of the kitchen island, holding in her hand a glass filled with some sort of red liquid and tiny pieces of fruits. She stands out among the crowd in her fitted velvet ruby dress, complimented by her smudged penciled eyeliner, her glitter grey eye shadow and her blowout, wavy hair.

She turns to look at him while sipping from her cup, a few drops of crimson escaping out the corners of her lips. “Will!” she greets him loudly, grabbing one of his shoulders for balance. “You actually came!”

“I did,” he says. A smile breaks across his face, but her presence still isn’t enough to calm his nerves.

She squeezes his shoulder a couple of times, and narrows her eyes at him. She gets closer to his face to inspect his expression, uncaring of invading his personal space. He leans back a little bit when her mouth gets too close to his.

“You’re tense,” she says in a tone that higher-pitched than her usual voice.

“Yeah, I just, don’t really know anyone here and I don’t do well with strangers,” he explains.

Ana looks at the ceiling in an exaggerated thoughtful expression that almost makes him laugh. “You know what you need?” she asks. Although the question is probably rhetoric, he shakes his head. “Liquid courage.”

His brows furrow, perplexed. “What’s that?”

She shoves her cup to his face, throwing most of the drink on his cheeks and nose rather than the inside of his mouth. “Liquid courage.”

Oh. “I don’t drink,” he tells her.

“Me neither,” she shrugs. “Only at parties.”

She crouches to grab something from a mini-fridge, and when she stands up, she is holding a golden can in her hand. Her fingers curl around it, and with her other hand, she applies pressure to the pull tab, swiftly lifting it with a crisp metallic pop.

Before she even offers the drink to him, his stomach revolts at the familiar musty and pungent smell and he shakes his head. “I don’t drink beer.”

She tilts her head to the side and looks at him quizzically for a couple of seconds. Then, she just shrugs and proceeds by a grabbing a red cup and dipping it in the giant bowl filled with the same thing that is in her cup.

“Drink up,” she shoves the cup to his face without spilling anything this time.

He stares at her offer with suspicion. When he takes a sniff and the smell doesn’t automatically makes him want to throw up his internal organs, he takes a sip. It tastes sweet, almost too much to the point of being sickly. It would remind him of how his mom makes fruit salad during the hottest weeks of the summer if it weren’t for the odd bitter undertone that lingers in his mouth.

“You gave me fruit juice?” he asks.

She purses her lips and smiles widely. “The only way to make alcohol taste okay is by drowning it in juice and soda,” she explains.

Her eyes widen and she squeals when she notices a group of girls arriving, and he is once again left alone. The house fills up with more people than he thought it was possible to fit in one place. He finishes his cup quickly without even noticing it and he serves himself another cup.

He is sitting on the dirty kitchen floor, curled between the cabinet and the island. His red cup is still filled at the half point, but whenever he chooses to finish it, he feels queasy and like he wants to pee. He can’t remember if it’s his third cup; even if he could remember he probably wouldn’t know anyway, because he didn’t wait to finish drinking before he filled his cup again.

He leans his back against the furniture and stares at a group of girls doing the same as him a few feet away against the corner cabinet. He watches them, narrowing his eyes at them, trying to decipher in his brain fog memories of seeing them in the hallways but he comes up with nothing. He must have been looking at them for too long, because at some point one of the girls, the one with the voluminous and layered jet-black hair that reaches her clavicles, practically crawls towards to him.

She inspects him thoroughly, with complete disregard for his personal space. His mind feels too hazy to care. “What’s your name?”

What is my name?

Everyone knows his name back in his hometown: Zombie Boy, the queer, Lonnie’s boy. He had to be a bystander in his own life as he watched his name become an example, evidence to demonstrate that Hawkins is cursed.

Four people go missing in one week—only one returns alive. The other kid is discovered as the center of a governmental cover-up a year later, and two bodies are never recovered, whatever happened to them remaining forever unsolved. Beloved member of the community, Bob Newby, dies under mysterious circumstances; rumors say that his body was so disfigured beyond recognition that his sister had to ask the mortuary for a closed casket despite the Newbys being Catholics. A couple of months later, with the town lulled by a false of security, almost two dozen people die in a fire in the town’s local mall, including the town’s chief of police. What were all those people doing at that place after closing hours during Independence’s Day, no one knows to this day.

And at the center of it, Will has always been there. He is branded by all the losses like white, tiny scars scattered across his body, a sign of shame that responsibilizes him for all their deaths, because it always goes back to him. He isn’t a person, but rather the root of the problem, the thing people can point out when they ask themselves when did the beginning of the end of Hawkins started. He has been marked by death but no one mourns people like him, not in life nor in death.

He has escaped Hawkins, but he can’t escape himself. He wishes he could get away from himself for a little while; that would be nice.

He has to think the question for a long time until he remembers. “Will?”

The girl frowns and tilts her head. It reminds him of a puppy. “You will what?”

“No,” he explains, “my name is Will.”

“Oh,” she drawls and giggles, almost falling into his lap.

“What’s so funny?” he asks.

“You are,” she replies.

She pushes his shoulder in a way that is probably meant to be playful, but she underestimates her strength and his shoulder thuds loudly against the creaking wooden cabinet. He groans and looks at her, how her thick eyelashes and the smudged blue eyeliner frame her doe-like brown eyes in her pale face, cheeks slightly flushed by the cold and the alcohol in her bloodstream.

“You’re pretty,” he says, causing her to smile widely. She is; he thinks he may have seen a painting of a woman that looked just like her once.

Her eyes widen and she practically jumps off the floor with wobbling legs, using the counter for leverage to support her uncoordinated body. “I love this song!” she says when she hears the opening synths, and offers him a hand. “Want to dance?”

No. “Okay,” he shrugs and accepts her helping hand.

He doesn’t have time to ponder and change his mind, because the girl –he is now realizing he hasn’t ask her name yet— link her arm with his and drags him into the living room. The group of girls start dancing in front of next to him; he remains still and tightens the grip on his half-empty red cup.

“What is it?” one the girl yells into his ear above the music, making him flinch.

“I don’t know how to dance,” he yells back while rubbing his tender ear.

She just gives him an overly-exaggerated eye roll. “It’s not that hard.”

She sways her hips at the beat of the music blasting through the speakers, a smooth and graceful movement that wouldn’t look out of place in a highly produced music video. When he tries to emulate her, however, he comes off as stiff and mechanical, like a robot whose creator forgot to add the ball-and-socket and knee joints when he was being built. The closest thing he achieves for a fluid movement is when one neon beam flashes directly in his eyes and he misses his step for a second, making him lose his balance.

Nevertheless, the girl gives him two thumbs up and an encouraging nod. When the song reaches the chorus for the second time, she starts jumping and spinning in her place while belting the lyrics. He doesn’t attempt to dance again, and opts for just bobbing his head and shuffling his feet side to side to the rhythm, occasionally flexing his grip on the half-filled red cup.

One of the girls that he hasn’t talked to and is in front of him is dancing to the beat of the music when he is approached from behind by a guy. He towers over her, with his height and his broad back, and places his hands on her waist, squeezing just below her ribcage. She spins to see his face and guides his hands from their place on her waist to her hips so his fingertips lay on the curve of her backside.

It’s as if time has stopped or slowed down to a point he can see everything in every detail and he is the only one that can move or react. The room becomes just a little quieter and a whitish beam settles on them, like performers on a stage. They move and look like the world was built for them, and maybe in a way it was— such intimacy shown so publically and he is the only one staring.

He looks at them with the simple hurt of yearning for impossible things. He scrunches the growing sting in his nostrils and swallows down the knotted vocal chords in his throat. He gazes down at his half-filled cup of punch and chugs it down. It’s a bit warmer than before, causing the bitter and burning taste of vodka to be more palatable. He swipes some of the drops that spilled out of the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand. He begins moving with his head with more fervor until he is banging his head back and forth and turning on his axis, restarting time and ignoring the couple in front of him.

After three or four more songs –he isn’t completely sure, considering that the music is starting to mesh all together in an indiscernible blob— the girl that invited him to dance in the first place takes him by the bent elbow. He doesn’t know where are they going; the corners of his eyes are somewhat fuzzy, with his eyelids drooping every once in a while, and his head is throbbing, a result from drinking and the constant blasting of the music.

He is hit by the cold air of February, piercing and refreshing on his blushed face. The music from inside the house lowers down to a nice background buzz and not an overwhelming beat that had been drilling his skull for the past hour. He allows his tired body to slide down the bricked siding of the house until he is sitting on the tiled flooring of the backyard porch. He blinks his eyes repeatedly, his lids weighting down.

When he hears the rustling of clothing and then the warmth of a body against his, he opens his eyes to find the girl sitting next to him. He still hasn’t asked her name yet, he remembers. Names are important; they define who you are to yourself and others. They are the first things your mother ever gives to you. Names are the one thing you actually own.

“What’s your name?” he asks her.

“Cameron,” she smiles gently. He just nods.

She leans her head on his shoulder and nuzzles her head in the crook of his neck. He can feel the warm exhales of her nose against his clammy and uncovered clavicle. He wants to tell her to get off, that it makes him uncomfortable when people he doesn’t know touch him. He prefers to stay quiet and stare at the center of the backyard, where there is a tall tree with slender branches that droop forwards like a cascade, its elongated and brownish leaves caressing the ground.

From inside the house, where the party is still going, he hears the synths of some Foreigner’ song fading, giving space for the next one to begin. His eyes open and the corners of his lips tug upwards when he recognizes the familiar start of layered voices: ‘Is this real life? Is this just fantasy?

“Caught in a landslide”, he hums to himself, “no escape from reality.”

He recalls once in fifth grade, when Mr. Clarke told the party about quantum mechanics, how the solution of the dilemma of indeterminism may lay in the theory of the existence of many realities. The universe is continually splitting into a multiplicity of simultaneous and non-interacting but equally real worlds; we can only experience one reality but that doesn’t mean there aren’t multiple realities occurring parallel.

Will sometimes wonders if the only way to access to this alternate life is through dreams. Maybe any time he dreams it isn’t a complete fabrication of his own imagination, but rather a copy of himself he will never meet, because their worlds don’t and can’t coincide.

In another reality, no one came to save him and he died in the Upside Down, hiding where he always did, deluding himself with fantasies of grand kingdoms in which the big evil could be defeated. In another reality, no one could stop the Mind Flayer as he took over his body, limb by limb, inch by inch, until he stopped existing and he had killed everyone he loved, leaving behind an carcass that resembled him but was inhabited by something much sinister.

There were other realities, however, much more pleasant, enviable even. It’s never one concrete reality, but rather little smudged scenarios splattered across his life with no connection between them or settled chronology. There is an alternate Will that has received the love and acceptance from his family and friends, another him that is unscarred and unbruised by the world. It shows in the way he carries himself, with confidence and bravery, two qualities he would never choose to describe himself. And he is… happy. Sometimes he envies alternate Will.

“Mama, ooh”, he continues singing out of tune along with Freddie Mercury’s soaring vocal over the melancholic piano, “I don’t wanna die; I sometimes wish I’ve never been born at all.”

He remembers listening to that exact part of the song, sounding choppily out of their shitty car radio and thinking, that’s it; that is the feeling— not a desire for death, but rather the wish he had never known life at all, for he can’t miss something he had never experienced.

He feels the faint touch of her fingertips drawing patterns in his forearm, pulling him out of his thoughts. He attempts to ignore it, until her fingers start climbing up to the crook of his elbow.

“What are you doing?” he slurs, a combination of exhaustion and inebriety hindering his speech.

“I saw you staring at Amy and David dancing before,” she whispers. “You were interested.”

“I guess,” he confirms, guarded.

She leans forwards until she is close enough to his face that he can feel the little puffs coming out of her mouth on his. She can feel her words against the skin of his cheeks like cockroaches crawling in the space between his skin and his bones. “Are you still interested?”

No, he wants to say; he already knows that.

She is pretty; he can tell, even as someone like him that isn’t attracted to her. He gazes at her perfectly trimmed, arched eyebrows, her thick eyelashes drawn longer with mascara, the roundness of cheeks and the narrowness of her jawline and pointy chin, her soft lips under three layers of lipstick, the distinctive softness of her skin, especially between on the small slope between her nose and her mouth, and he knows.

“I’m not interested,” he murmurs.

Cameron pulls away, shifting her weight from her knees back to her ankles. “You­— you’re not interested in me?”

“No,” he repeats.

She looks taken aback for a moment, her previous warm eyes blanking in a matter of a second. He recognizes that look, the one you wear when you don’t want the person to see the swirl of emotions going inside your mind. Whoever said honesty is the best policy is a fucking liar; he knows that when the quiet anger in her eyes, white like a lightning shattering the night sky, turns into a brittle hurt shining through her fury.

“Every time,” she whispers to herself.

“I’m so—.”

“Fuck you,” she spews her venom at him. It’s easier to feel the anger than to feel the sadness, and it’s easier to unleash it than to keep it in; he knows that, so he doesn’t take it at heart.

She stands up, damns him one more time for good measure, and goes back inside, leaving him alone in faux solitude of the night. He considers standing up and apologizing to her, but maybe there is no point to it. He can’t give her what she wants, just like she can’t give him what he wants— prolonging the inevitable outcome would just be unnecessary and cruel.

In another reality, alternate Will would had found her beautiful, captivating even, would had perceived her like a moth to the flame. He would had leaned forwards and pressed his lips against hers, tasting the sweetness of the pineapple and the acidity of the lemon of the punch they both drank a while ago. He would had deepened the kiss, like a man dying of thirst finding the one oasis in the middle of the Sahara desert, and he would had understand for the first time when people describe kissing as a fireworks show.

In another reality, alternate Will would had bragged to all his friends the next day how he made out with the prettiest girl in their class, and he would had received their cheers and fist bumps of congratulations. He would had fallen in love with her and stayed with her all throughout high school, becoming one of those couples the old ladies coo at lovingly. They would had eventually gotten married and had children —however many she would had wanted— and one day he would had sat them down and told them the story of how he met the love of his life, how not a day goes by in which he isn’t grateful that he met him and he chose him.

But that is not his reality.

It will never be.

One can’t be abnormal and long for a normal life.

He hears the swooshing sound of the sliding door being opened, but he keeps his eyes closed, hoping he never has to.

“Will!” Ale shouts excitedly, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere and— why are you crying?” his voice softens in concern.

Will touches his left cheek and notices the cold wetness on his skin. “Sorry, I didn’t know.”

“Nah, dude, it’s okay,” he reassures him. “Better to be a weepy drunk than an angry one, you know?” He chuckles but his eyebrows are still pinched. “Sorry for leaving you alone for so long.”

Will shrugs. “It’s okay.” He turns to see him, his head lolling against the wall.

Ale purses his lips and looks at the transparent cup in his hand. “Drink,” he orders him, and so Will obeys.

It tastes like nothing. “Why did you give me water?”

Ale twists his lips in a grimace. “If vodka with 7UP tastes like water, it means you had too much to drink already.” Will bows his head, but with the little control he has left over him, he almost falls forwards. Fortunately Ale catches him before he can smash his head against the floor. “C’mon,” he says, lifting him off the ground by putting his hands beneath his armpits, “time to leave.”

“I’m sorry for ruining the party,” Will mumbles.

Ale throws his arm over his shoulders and wraps his own around his waist. “You didn’t ruin anything.”

Will doesn’t believe him.

Chapter Text

When he awakes, his head is pounding, as if a jackhammer is drilling on his cranium and splitting his skull open. He listens blurry, like the sound of the television static when there is no signal available, with some of the synths of the music he listened at the party last night sounding muffled in the back of his mind. His mouth feels dry like sandpaper, yet sickly sweet to the point his teeth hurt. He opens his eyes to a mostly darkened room, some slight sunlight slipping through the binds. His eyelids weight down, forcing him to close his eyes, so he decides to go back to sleep.

Then, he realizes; his bedspread is dark blue with a pattern of cartoonish-looking planes, which he has carried over since childhood— the comforter covering him is plain and forest green. He jolts widely awake, and a short-lived but intense sense of nausea lashes against the walls of his revolted stomach, causing him to close his eyes and focus on his breathing. Once he considers he won’t vomit, he can open his eyes again. He takes in his surroundings; wherever he is, is definitely not his bedroom, with its beige walls instead of yellow, and the amount of posters covering them instead of being sparsely spread out.

There have been only two times in his life that he can remember waking up somewhere strange without being able to reminisce how he got there: the first one when he woke up to see a mocking bluish copy of his hometown; the second time was when he woke drenched in sweat, with one of his hands tied to a post, and to the scent of charred meat, which he later found it was his own burnt flesh.

He throws the blanket off him and makes a move to stand up, then promptly falls back on the mattress when another wave of nausea washes him over. He takes a deep breath and gingerly swings his legs over the side of the bed; he notices he is wearing the same clothes from the night before except for his jean jacket. He remains there, with his back hunched and his head in his hands as he psyches himself to try to stand up again. Fortunately, when he manages to get on his feet, he does it so without falling.

His head throbs and the edges of his vision are fuzzed, but he remains standing. He wiggles his socked toes on the soft beige carpet matching the walls as the room stops spinning around him. He doesn’t hear much except the low clanking of pans coming from the other side of the door. After a minute of deliberation, he decides to drag himself towards the sound, carefully opening the bedroom door as to not make it creak.

When he closes the door, there are two things that he notices: the grayish blue walls with white panels on the bottom that he can’t recall but it’s somewhat familiar to him nevertheless, and the distinctive smell of melting cheese that makes his stomach churn and grumble at the same time. He walks through what he assumes to be the foyer, with some coats perched on the wall hangers and the shoes beneath them. He keeps walking, passes by an arch that gives the entrance to the living room, and notices a blanket rumpled on the couch. Then he sees it and remembers; the wall bookcase— he is at Ale’s house.

He twists his head to see the back of a guy in front of the stove, grabbing the handle of the pan with one hand and the spatula with the other one. He is humming a song he can’t identify underneath his breath, which is abruptly interrupted when he startles at his sudden presence.

“La puta madre,” he mutters while grasping his chest. He exhales and raises his sight to meet his. “Welcome back to the land of the living”.

“Sorry for scaring you,” he mumbles and tilts his head to see whatever food is being cooked behind Ale.

“Just two grilled cheese,” he says and purses his lips. “I’m not exactly a chef.”

Will just nods. Ale seems to notice his hesitation to do anything, so he grabs him by the crook of his elbow and gently sits him down on one of the chairs in the breakfast area next to the kitchen. There is a bowl filled with strawberries as the centerpiece, on top of a white doily. Will squints at the sunlight entering through the bay window and hides his head in his hands, groaning at his increasing headache.

He rejoices in the blessed darkness of his palms for a couple of minutes. He hears the sizzling coming from the pan, then some scraping, and when he hears a soft thud on the tablecloth, he raises his head to see the food on the plate. His stomach grumbles.

“Voila!” Ale says with too much enthusiasm in his voice, barely able to conceal the amusement in his smile when he sees his exhausted face. “Here,” he serves him two glasses, one filled with icy water and the other one with orange juice.

Will debates glaring at him, not having much patience to tolerate so much cheerfulness at the moment, but considers that one should never insult the person that cooks you food. He gulps down the glass, the coldness piercing his throat pleasantly, then proceeds to do the same with his glass of OJ. He grabs the sandwich and bites into the golden, crispy crust, tasting the mozzarella and the sharp cheddar.

“You’re an angel,” he praises in a hum.

Ale chuckles. “Best cure for a hangover, at least according to my older cousin.”

They eat in an amiable silence, with no need to insert forced conversation to alleviate the awkwardness. There is something about eating while starving that can make even the most simple of meals taste like a five-star course, and it seems is even more intensified after a rough night. The fog in his head began clearing as it stops pounding, and some recollections from the night before flash through his memory with each bite consumed.

“Your room is nice,” Will chooses to break the silence first.

“Thanks,” Ale smiles gently. “It’s actually the guest room, but my aunt and uncle told me I could decorate it however I wanted.”

Will pauses to think, then asks cautiously. “But why did I sleep in your room?”

“You don’t remember?” Ale frowns. When Will shakes his head —which he immediately regrets when it starts hurting again—, he continues, his mouth twisting in a grimace as he speaks. “You were crying and telling me you didn’t want your mom to see you drunk and get upset.” Will emits an undecipherable sound between a groan and a whine. “I called Jane and asked her if she could lie for you.”

Thank you, El.

Will hides his face in his hands and mumbles, “Was I that bad last night?”

“No, dude, I promise,” Will stares at him with skeptical, tired eyes. “Better to be a weepy drunk than an angry one, you know?”

Ale is smiling softly at him but Will turns his sight away from him and to his interlaced hands on top of the tablecloth. It is better to be a weepy drunk than an angry one— Will knows that well enough by years of seeing empty bottles and cans and immediately by instinct hurry up to lock himself in his hiding places. He leans his elbows on the wood and starts rubbing small circles on his temples; the headache that had receded into a mild ache after eating it’s slowly crawling its way back and threatening to explode and liquefy his brain.

He feels a poke on his shoulder and looks up to see at Ale offering him his refilled glass of water and some Tylenol. “Drink this and wash your face; it’ll make you feel better.”

Will watches him leave to his bedroom. He places the painkiller on his tongue and gulps down the freezing water, swallowing down the medication. He finishes drinking what little is left in his glass and stands up. He drags himself towards the bathroom hall connecting the kitchen and breakfast area with the family room and stares at his rough reflection on the mirror, his disheveled hair and the prominent dark circles beneath his puffy eyes. He turns on the water, cups his hands under the stream, and throws the cold water to his face. He spreads some more all over it, pausing to rub especially on his eyes.

Feeling slightly rejuvenated, he turns off the faucet and walks out of the bathroom, and stumbles his way through the living room and foyer back to Ale’s bedroom. He stares at him through the ajar door as he rearranges the bed sheets, ironing out the wrinkles with his palms, and puffs the pillows. The blinds are up, allowing some life to come into the room.

“I could’ve done that,” Will says, startling him again.

“You feeling better?” he asks and Will nods.

“So,” Will starts, “where is everyone?”

“My aunt, my uncle and my cousin, Mateo, are having lunch with their friends and Anabella left with her friends last night,” he says. “I think Sofía is studying upstairs.”

Ale sits on the revolving chair in front of his desk and sighs before grabbing his pencil. Will moves to sit on the bed, then considers how Ale has just tidied it up and sits on the floor with his back against the wall and his chin on his bent knees. Will sees how Ale goes from wiggling the pencil in his hand to chew the end of it and repeat. Occasionally he lets the pencil hang in the air on top of the paper, bites his lower lip and sighs again, slumping against the backrest.

He spins to look at him. “Am I boring you?”

“A little bit, yeah,” deadpans with as much humor as he muster in his state, and stands up from his place on the carpeted floor. “Can I help?”

“I don’t know, can you?” Ale smiles wryly at him.

He maintains a neutral expression. “You’re joking too much for a guy who hasn’t written anything in the past five minutes.”

Will looks at the worksheet in front of him and has a mild recognition of what he is staring at. “Draw Lewis structures for the following compounds,” he mumbles the assignment aloud.

“So,” he twists his head to look at Ale, who has his arms wrapped around his bent legs, “can you?”

He considers it for a moment. “Do you have the textbook for this?”

Ale raises his eyebrows. “Wait— you actually can?”

“Why are you so surprised?” he frowns.

“Because it’s sophomore homework,” he explains.

Will rolls his eyes and takes a look at the chemistry book Ale gives to him, reading over the explanation of the Lewis notation, using the H₂0 molecule as an example. “I think I can help you.”

After a moment hesitation, they end up on the floor, with Will using the footboard of the bed as a backrest while holding the textbook for guidance and with Ale lying belly down, actually making some progress with the assigned homework. Will stares at him, with his brows slightly pulled inwards and the tip of his tongue peeking out of his mouth in concentration. In the light of a sunny midafternoon, his skin shines like a bronze statue.

“Are you getting bored again?” Ale says without taking his eyes off the worksheet.

The corners of his lips tug in the beginning of a smirk. Will blushes at being caught staring, and when he doesn’t respond, Ale lifts his head to look at him.

“I was just thinking about last night.” His memory of the night before, hazy at first in fragmented images floating in and out of focus, start becoming more concrete with every passing second. The details that eluded him when he had just woken up, swallowed in the fog of alcohol and exhaustion, had become clearer. “I’m sorry.”

“What about exactly?” Ale moves on from his homework and seats in front of him, copying his position.

Will bows his head. “About yesterday for getting drunk.”

“Do you seriously think you’re the first person I had to look over for drinking too much?” he asks, although his question it’s obviously meant to be rhetorical. “Or that I haven’t someone do the same for me?”

Will shrugs. “I’m still sorry.”

Ale opens and closes his mouth, considering whether to say something or not. “Do you apologize for everything?”

Will doesn’t respond to that; he wouldn’t know where to begin if he did.

When he was younger, people used to compare him to his mother. He remembers Mrs. Henderson specifically remarking how he and his mother had the same Bambi-like eyes: big and round, glistening with the slight spark of innocence and wonder on an otherwise weary and wary face. He would hear other remarks, dripping with disdain and mockery, which would compare his appearance with his mother’s, usually pointing him out as having a girly face.

Nevertheless, he loved that people said that he looked his mother. Over the last couple of years grown, he has lost the softness that made him look like his mother to puberty, and with that, people mentioning their similitudes to make him remember. Nowadays, he escapes his reflection of his mirror, resenting the worn-out, dull-looking eyes of his father staring back at him.

He wishes he was more like his mother, because unlike him, his mother has always conducted herself through life unapologetic: she never apologized for when she chose to leave Hawkins as soon as she graduated high school; she never apologized for when she abruptly left the life she had created in Chicago to return back to Hawkins to take care of her father, who had suddenly fell ill; she never apologized for marrying the wrong man after years of telling herself not to; she never apologized for daring to leave him and raise two kids on her own; she never apologized for whatever perception their town had of her.

His mother never apologized for anything people had judged her for in life, but Will carried apologies in his pockets like it was synonym to his name, like his own existence is a reason for why he owes an apology to the world.

But he doesn’t say any of that.

“I mean, I should probably apologize to your cousin,” Will shrugs. “I’m not good at rejecting girls.” When Ale just frowns instead of saying something, he continues, hunching. “I also think I really hurt a girl last night.”

Ale purses his lips. “You know— it’s not your fault you don’t like girls.”

Will begins nodding until he realizes what he just said. The world around him freezes for a moment, a hot shiver running down his spine. He raises his head to look at Ale and swallows down the lump in his throat that is trying to shut him up in a last-ditch attempt at self-preservation.

“What did you say?” his voice comes out weak, barely audible.

Ale’s eyes widen. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out like that.” He leans forwards, barely an inch, but it’s enough to make Will press himself against the bedframe behind him. “Sorry, sorry!”

His breath is coming out of his lips in short and sharp puffs. The grip on his jeans tighten until his white fingers pale. His chest begins squeezing with the lack of air coming inside his lungs and his larynx clutches with the effort of pulling some air inside and he ends up in a cycle of not being able to breathe, which only makes him more scared, which in return makes it more difficult to breathe, which—.

“Please don’t cry,” Ale squeaks, his voice stricken with panic. He holds his hands up and maintains his distance.

“I’m not crying,” Will croaks. He winces at the distressed tone of his voice and furiously rubs his wet cheeks with his knuckles.

“Can I sit next to you?” Ale asks. Will just nods.

Ale moves and rests his back against the bed, leaving a couple of respectful inches between them. He imitates his position, bending his knees against his chest. They remain in silence, with Ale fiddling with the pad of his fingertips, attentive to the sound of his breathing slowly but surely calming down.

“How did you figure it out?” he rasps, his voice still somewhat brittle.

He remains looking ahead, afraid of looking at Ale’s face and see… he isn’t exactly sure of what to expect, but whatever is, he wants to delay the inevitable as much as possible— it probably won’t be for much longer. He had had so many dreams about scenarios like these, but now that he is actually experiencing it for real, he doesn’t feel ready to face the consequences. At least the truth is out, he tells himself, the smallest and only form of consolation he can find.

“You said your girlfriend’s name was Max.” When Will turns to look at him, he is grimacing. “I guess you’re just a bad liar,” he shrugs.

Will blinks, stupefied. “That was what gave it away? That my fake girlfriend’s name is Max?”

Ale nods. “That, and…,” he licks his lips and pulls them inwards; the hesitance is written on his features, with a tiny glint of trepidation in his deep eyes. “…I understand.”

“You understand?” Ale nods. “You— Oh.”

“Yep.”

Silence hangs between them; the truth is out, and neither of them know what to say. Will expected a moment like this to be terrifying, to be exhilarating, to be freeing. Instead, it’s just… awkward.

“Max exists,” Will says breaking the stilled quietness that had suddenly permeated the room. Ale stares at him puzzled with his brows pinched. “She is my friend, and she likes skateboarding, and going to the arcade, and it’s a girl.”

Ale snorts. “Sorry, but she sounded fake”. It’s Will’s turn to look confused. “Seriously, it’s even worse than saying ‘Oh, yeah I got girlfriend, you just never see her because she is from Canada, but I swear she is real.”

“Don’t tell my friend Lucas that,” he says.

Will can’t help but let his own chuckle escape, and with that, Ale follows right after. His laughter sounds like summer. Some of the tension that had settled between them, which had Will question how his life would look like come Monday, vanish.

“Have you ever…,” Will starts asking, then stops.

Ale gazes at him. “Have I ever what?”

“Like… a boy?” he says awkwardly, practically spewing the last word out.

Ale raises his eyebrows then takes a couple of seconds to think. “Not really.” At Will’s curious expression, he continues, making a blatant effort to avoid looking at him in the eyes. “I mean, there was one, and we kissed but it wasn’t an actual thing, you know?” he explains. “I was interested, he was just curious, and…well, nothing actually happened.”

Will nods, taking the information in.

“How about you?” Ale asks.

Will exhales loudly. “Not really. I mean, just me? It was never going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“Because.” Will says, suddenly feeling shy under his scrutinizing eyes. “He is not like that.” Ale nods in understanding, even though Will knows he can’t understand. “And he is in love with my sister,” he adds.

Ale snaps his neck to look at him. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Will offers a mirthless smile. “I don’t know if it’s bad luck or if I just make bad decisions.”

As much as admitting it aloud pains him, it also relieves him to finally have someone to talk openly about this without fear. He abstains from telling him that really creepy dream he had one night in which he visited Mike and El a little after they got married, but when they opened the door for him, their eyes were made of chipped glass. And any time they talked, another crack would appear in their eyes, and blood would start leaking from their eyes.

He can feel the tense silence returning, and he doesn’t want a moment that should feel like taking a huge weight off his back to crash him.

“My other friend has a Mormon girlfriend that lives in Utah,” he says, smiling at the knowledge of how Ale is going to react.

“What?” As expected, Ale is extremely bemused.

Will turns to look at him. “I’m not joking.”

“For real?”

Will nods. “He says that she looks like Phoebe Cates.”

“Damn,” he exclaims, impressed. “Have you met her?”

“Not exactly, but I heard her sing,” he says. He wants to explain, but he knows he can’t without revealing too much. “It’s a long story.”

“I feel like you finish more of your stories from Indiana like that,” Ale states with a frustrated look.

Will is about to apologize when he remembers that Ale doesn’t like that. “Indiana isn’t as boring as I wish it was,” he shrugs with a wry a smile.

“I figured,” Ale affirms. “Sometimes, you and your sister get this… haunted look in your eyes,” he explains, warily, “it reminds me of my dad.”

Will considers his words, but he doesn’t want to focus on what he can’t explain to Ale, so he chooses to talk about what he can. “Are you good at figuring out people?”

Ale deliberates on the answer for a couple of seconds. “I think that people are only easy to figure when they want to be figured out.”

Will gains a sudden awareness of how close they are; somehow, the couple of respectful inches between them had shrunk to the point that their pinky fingers brush slightly and electrifyingly.

In spite of his subpar memory, he remembers the first time he felt the weight of a boy’s hand on top of his in vivid detail: how it was weirdly spindly for a kid yet heavier than expected, how clammy it was despite being almost winter, the slight callouses of his palm after trying and failing to cross the monkey bars, the bitten cuticles that scrapped his fingertips, how it contradictorily made him feel light and grounded him at the same time. He should have known back then in that very moment, but maybe his brain was working overtime to shelter him from such awareness, because no boy should touch the hand of another boy and unconsciously compare it to touching heaven.

There were other times, however, that made it impossible to escape reality: the first time a boy flashed a smile at him and how his whole body inexplicably warmed up; when the Party went to the cinema to watch Return of the Jedi and most of the audience hollered at the sight of Princess Leia in a skimpy gold bikini but he was far more interested in any time Han Solo cocked his hip; how all of the excitement of befriending a girl would die down when he found out she liked him in other way; the time he looked through his brother’s magazines and tried to focus on the women but his eyes would inevitably end up shifting to the oiled and bare-chested men.

Maybe in all of his feelings of lonesomeness and self-pitying, all along he was shooting a flare up to the sky, hoping for another person like him to see.

Will swallows, causing his Adam’s apple to visibly bob. “Is that so?”

“Am I wrong?” Ale whispers.

He remembers the first time he could no longer deny the truth despite his many attempts to outrun it. He can still feel his throat burning with silent tears running down his temples and into his ears in the shadows of the still night. He can still taste the metallic taste of blood from biting the inside his cheek to suppress the sound of sobs; he was scared that his mother would wake up to check on him and somehow she would know. Sometimes, as much as it ashamed him, he can still hear his father’s crude words and insults, but the worst is remembering how his brother would comfort him by reassuring him that he didn’t know what he was talking about— the guilt of that in particular ate him hollow for a long time after that night.

He looks into Ale’s deep eyes, the discrepancy between its dark color and the light that lures him in, the glint of wanting in a way he has never been wanted but leaving the choice up to him. And he knows— he can’t stand to live a life that isn’t his.

He brushes his pinky finger with his again, intentionally this time, until they are hooked. Neither of them make an attempt to avoid each other’s gazes as unnerving as it feels. Heavy silence lingers between them, not even the chirping of a bird or the humming of a flurry of movement outside of the bedroom breaking it. The line of tension keeping their gazes on each other snaps for a moment so he can trace the outline of his mouth with his eyes, the bare hint of fuzz below his nose darker than his skin. It only makes him want to trace it with his lips.

And so he does.

It has always been a slow race to the finish line, so he shouldn’t expect, and doesn’t want this moment to be any faster. Ale moves his trembling hand on top of his, accidentally flexing his fingers and highlighting the bulging tendons. Will only hesitates for a second before he places his own shaky one on the scruffy nape of his neck, gripping the back and stroking the junction of his jaw with his thumb. Their legs and sides of their torsos are touching, like boiling water falling on them. As the harsh wind lashing against his face on the edge of a cliff, he closes his eyes and leans in, a leap of faith.

Ale moves the hand on top of his up his arm until he is holding himself upright by his bicep. His breath —warm and stuttered— brush on his cheeks. Then, two sets of lips slot in perfectly, like finding the last piece to complete a puzzle that had been missing for years. Ale’s lips are slightly chapped but feel velvety under his command when he stops just pressing and begins moving his mouth against his. His teeth catch his bottom lip in a faint bite as if he were famished and this is the only way he would ever want to be fed.

Will had taken every insult and back-handed compliment, every whispered rumor and hushed words thrown around him and to him, grabbed all of them and used them to build his own walls shrouded in barbed wire. For so long he had tried to convince himself he was content with being the sole habitant of his own castle, the loneliest ruler inside his own fortified home, but he knows he can’t. He just hopes that the tumbling wreckage of walls doesn’t fall on him and anyone around him, that the spikes doesn’t slash his throat.

Ale prods his lips, an invitation waiting for a response. Daring for the first time in his life, he plies them open. With his tongue inside his mouth, he feels the barrier that had been blocking his throat for years melt under his warmth, and he allows his tongue to speak for him. Will is unraveling him like a spool, the coiled threads that wrapped him and kept him standing all this time snapping with every small touch of his lips and hands. He is coming undone and he doesn’t want to stop this kind of pleasant destruction.

The nerves endings of his whole body are crackling to life. Between his hooked nose pressing against his skin and the adrenaline coursing through his veins, breathing had become a struggle and he is surviving on the tiniest puffs of air. And yet, he doesn’t pull away to take a gulp of air, deciding he never wants to breathe in oxygen ever again. If this is how he dies, by the double-edged sword of the kiss from a beautiful boy, he welcomes death and contently accepts the post-mortem perpetuity of this bliss.

Chapter Text

One of the first things Will ever learned about El, not the superhero, but the person, is that she is obsessed with romantic movies and soap operas. He would sit next to her on the couch, sketching whatever his hands would conjure, while she would be watching whatever romantic film she could find playing in the television. Every once in a while, he would take his eyes away from the paper and look at her lips mouthing and reciting the dialogue to herself.

El is in love with the idea of love, like a little girl watching a classical concert, fascinated by the ballerina dancer spinning on one leg in front of her, wishing she was in her place. Will is curious by the idea of love, like a little boy admiring a leopard in a zoo enclosure, too aware that the walls keeping the wild animal in aren’t tall enough and that it could jump and maul the entire audience in just one instant.

In a combination of wariness and plain disinterest, he has never paid any attention to El’s romance movies, but now he wishes he had. Although, he fears they wouldn’t have been good help anyway. No one tells you what happens after the first kiss: usually in the movies, it either fades to black, the two people kissing are interrupted by the sudden appearance of a third person, or it straight up cuts to the next scene needed to move the plot forward.

The truth is, what happens after the first kiss is nothing but a reduction to a sheer awkwardness that is contradictorily suffocating and liberating all at once. He has never known what to do after the long awaited kiss happens, or had the thought to ask, so when it finally happens to him, when he finally experiences what he never believed he would ever get to live in his own skin, he doesn’t know the appropriate way to act.

When their lips separate with smacking pop, their rattled breathing is the only constant sound that is saving them from being enraptured in complete silence. A string of saliva connects their mouths still, and he has to restrain himself from swiping his mouth to completely detach himself from Ale. They stare at each other for a while, like two cowboys on their marks, waiting to see who will be the one to draw his gun and shoot first.

“I should get going,” Will says for the sake of saying something.

It’s safe and non-committal, a choice of words that makes it extremely hard to fuck things up, and yet, judging by the knitting of Ale’s brows and the tightening of his mouth in a straight line, he fears he may had disappointed him. Will seems to have an enviable talent in doing that. Nevertheless, Ale says nothing and just nods. Before leaving, Will remembers to ask him if he can take a couple of strawberries home to thank El for covering for him.

Ale drives him home, and despite his almost crestfallen expression from before, he is humming along to some song in Spanish playing in the radio. Will stares right ahead of him, watching the monotonous roads that he still can’t quite get used to, with little interest besides a squashed butterfly on the windshield and a spider hiding in the right side wiper. He feels a strange emptiness spreading through his veins and weighting him down, but whenever Ale briefly takes his eyes off the road to look at him, he puts on the greatest show and smiles gently at him.

Fifteen minutes later, they arrive to his house. Ale pushes the gear shift to the neutral position and stretches above him to press the handle, opening the passenger door.

“Thanks for the ride,” he mutters.

“See you tomorrow,” Ale pecks him on the lips, casually.

Will allows it with another cordial smile but otherwise doesn’t know how to react to the nonchalance of it.

“Bye,” he says and steps out of the car, not bothering to look back, not wanting deal with having disappointed him again.

After that Sunday evening, everything changes, yet nothing truly does.

When Monday comes, for a moment it seems that life will go on as it was and Will sighs a breath of relief. Ale greets him in the locker room while changing into their gym clothes with his usual warm smile and they stick by each other’s side for the remaining of P.E class. Half way through the day, Ale joins him and El in the art classroom to share lunch together, which, although it’s an unexpected development, it’s not unpleasant at all.

However, the atmosphere of the moment changes when El leaves earlier than usual, her mouth still full with the food she hadn’t swallow yet, determined to get in the good graces of her Algebra I teacher, which reduced their lunch group of three to the two of them only. Will tries not to overthink it, tries to convince himself than the sudden weirdness between them it’s just a product of his own oddness. He keeps eating his share of the meal, hoping that Ale doesn’t call him out in his sudden fixation on the orange Jell-O.

Ale raises his wrist and checks his watch. “I should probably get going,” he says apologetic while Will is secretly glad that he is leaving. “My chemistry class is in the other wing.”

“Yeah, of course,” Will reassures him. “Good luck.”

Ale grabs his backpack off the floor and slides one strap over his left shoulder. He purses his lips deep in thought and his eyes are shifty as if he were assessing how to approach the situation. After what feels like a an hour-long deliberation, he closes the distance between them and bends his back so their eyes are at the same height, gently holds his chin with his thumb and index finger and presses his lips against his. The kiss is as soft and tender as the one they had the day before, but it’s less of a peck and more of an insistent push. This time, Will remembers to kiss back, and he can feel Ale’s lips twist the slightest in a pleased grin.

When he pulls away, he can actually see his smile. “That is my good luck,” he says and walks out of the art classroom, leaving Will alone with his thoughts and feeling cold.

By Thursday, he and Ale had kissed around once a day. He knows that because he counted each of them like a recluse carves little lines, adding to the tally, waiting for their time to be over. They kissed once in Ale’s house on Sunday, once on Monday during lunchtime, twice on Tuesday in-between classes, and another time before he had the chance to leave and go home. A total of five kisses; five lines added to the imperceptible wrinkled tally of his lips.

He believed once that kissing the person you are in love with would feel like a million previously invisible doors materializing and opening in front of him, or like the universe assuring him that he has reached the end of the road, the confirmation that the person connecting with him is the person he is in love with.

He realizes now that it was just a naïve belief, held together by hope and fueled by ignorance.

Because kissing Ale, at least in a carnal sense, feels thrilling as he ever expected it to feel. He likes the sensation of his fleshy lips against his. He loves the physicality that comes in addition with kissing: a thumb rubbing the behind of his ear, fingers gripping the skin of his bicep, a hand wrapping behind his back and around the slight curvature of his waist, the scraping of stubborn stubble that refuses to grow longer than a shadow against his cheeks. He takes a great enjoyment in learning what Ale likes to eat by the taste of his mouth alone —a strong, bitter cup of coffee for breakfast, cherry Starbursts snacked in-between classes—.

He loves everything that concerns kissing, but when he closes his eyes, there is no one in front of him.

He doesn’t picture sweet features, those dark eyes that overflows with concern and care, his straight-white flashing smile that still manages to irradiate warmth despite its perfection, or the old whitened scar that breaks the continuity of his left eyebrow, which would look intimidating on someone else but it makes him look approachable instead.

Whenever he closes his eyes and kisses him, he doesn’t feel anything, at least not what he hoped he would feel. In the shadows of his eyelids, kept tethered only by lips on top of his, hands over his, he doesn’t picture Ale in his mind, even though he knows his image enough to conjure with no true effort. There is a person kissing him without any discernible features that could distinguish him from a crowd, with a blurred silhouette and a body that belongs to no one.

His lips are a pleasant but shallow work of fiction. Will wants to sink and drown in him, but he always ends up floating back to the surface despite his best efforts to become one with the water. Each of Ale’s kisses feel like a promise he has been wanting to hear directed to him his whole life, but as much as Will wishes he could swear himself to him in oath, maybe return even just a fraction of the genuine and selfless love that he is given—he can’t. So, for now he focus how nice his lips feel on his, and decides to pretend for as long as he can, to try hard enough that he will find a meaning in his kisses someday.

Will considers himself a good liar. It’s not a fact that he brags about or is proud of, but is a fact nevertheless. When lying transforms from the biggest crime you could commit during childhood into your last line of defense, lying becomes second-nature, something as innate to him as breathing. And yet, in some way, it’s an exhausting life of toil that wears down his misshapen bones.

Growing up has turned him into an expert liar, always coming up with the correct choice of words in the blink of an eye and on the march. Whereas he used to fumble his sentences before, now it’s just ingrained in his speech to vomit lie after lie. But whenever he keeps quiet, his silence tells more of deception than any of his words could, marred with the inability to school his features into the perfect face of neutrality.

On Friday, almost as if Ale were calling him out on his cowardice, he asks him if they can have lunch just the two of them.

“I can’t tell El to have lunch in the cafeteria by herself,” Will tries to argue, aware of how he could ask that request to El and she would manage just fine on her own.

“It’s okay; I know other place we can go to while she has lunch in the art classroom,” Ale counter-argues and Will is out of excuses.

Will tells El about their change in their routine and allows Ale to guide him through the traffic of students that tend to occupy the hallways most time of the day. They walk in an uncomfortable silence, so unlike the last couple of weeks. Will gets the encroaching feeling that the background noise of others bustling around them is signalizing another end and change coming.

The constant chatter dims and silence envelops them as they get away from the hallways and walk up a flight of stairs. Ale opens the heavy door, creaking as they enter the rooftop of the school. There isn’t much to say about the place; it’s a very small terrace with grey walls and an equally grey floor, and a small brick shed that suggests that only maintenance is allowed to come to this part of the school.

“I made lunch” Ale says, making him turn.

Will looks at his offer, a BLT sandwich in his hand, and decides to sit next to him on the three steps stairs of the door. Although the space in itself doesn’t have much to offer, the view is undeniable captivating, with the small hills pretending to be larger than they actually are from above and some greenery growing back and taking over the shrubbery after winter. Salt air coming from the ocean is dragged by the wind and stroke his cheeks, a semblance of comfort that makes him shiver.

Despite the low murmur of the wind roaring in his ears, the silence between is deafening. Will hasn’t taken the plastic wrap off the sandwich yet, but his stomach is too knotted to eat anyway. “Ale?”

He doesn’t turn to look at him, his sight pensive and fixed on the landscape. “Do you love me?”

“Wh— what?” he stutters, caught off guard by his question.

But Ale doesn’t falter. He twists his body to look at him; his eyes are bright as ever, but the usual warmth swimming in his irises has been replaced by a glint of mistrust and animosity he would had never expected from him.

“Do you love me?” he repeats, his lips accentuating each syllable.

The thing about lying is that, when it’s ingrained in your psyche, it also becomes part of your body. He is nothing more than an entanglement of lies, and when the only thing that is keeping you going is concealed a truth that cannot be denied for much longer, things come apart very easily. When you spent your whole conscious life learning how to lie, eventually you forget how to be honest anymore.

Love is or is not: walking the tightrope between these two polar opposites just breaks everyone around you and then yourself— he knows it all too well.

For a moment, he imagines how easy it would be to fall in love with Ale, with his welcoming eyes and contagious smile, his good sense of humor and optimism, his never-ending patience and kindness, his capacity to captivate him any time he speaks about a subject he would otherwise not care about, and even the little physical quirks that others could find unattractive, like his scarred eyebrow and his slight protruding ears. He sees all of it, the life he wishes he would have in the depth of his eyes, but he can’t. He can’t drag the two of them into something that will just make the two of them miserable in the end. He isn’t in love with Ale but he cares about him deeply, and because he cares, he knows he must grant him the only little mercy he can give him.

The dagger is half-way embedded in his chest anyway.

“No,” he whispers, bowing his head and burying the dagger deeper until it touches the spine. This is just another item to add to the list of reasons why he is ashamed of himself: hurting an innocent and well-intentioned person because he was too selfish, too scared. “I’m sorry.”

Ale sinks his front teeth on his bottom lip, stifling whatever sound that it’s threatening to come out of his mouth, and nods. “I believe you.”

“It doesn’t fix anything, though, does it?” Will raises his head to look at him, because Ale is kind and caring and he doesn’t deserve the comfort Ale will inevitably offer if Will allows him to do so.

Ale shakes his head. “No.” He looks at him with sodden eyes and an ashen face. They both know what it’s coming before the words are uttered. “Goodbye, Will.”

Ale stands up and looks down at him with neither anger nor sadness, just eyelids heavy an indescribable feeling of exhaustion. He walks back inside the building, leaving Will with faint tears streaming down his face he can’t feel on his skin and the puddle of crimson he spilled surrounding him.

When he hears the soft ringing that indicates the end of lunch period, he goes down the stairs, not bothering to hurry to his next class. He remains numb for the rest of the school day, sitting for all his classes but not doing much else except for staring with unfocused eyes at the front of the classroom. When the bell blares once again, signalizing the end of the day and allowing them to go home, it takes him a full minute of students rising from their seats and El shoving his shoulder to react. He ignores her and anytime she unsubtly sneaks a concerned glance at his way or when his brother asks them how their day has gone, still stuck in grey hazy that might stay with him forever.

The front door of his house opens like a shelter, a place where he can go back into hiding and lick his wounds like a stray dog making a home out of the space between a wall and a dumpster in a run-down alley. He gives his mom an uninterested greeting and immediately heads down to his bedroom, closing the door behind him. Fortunately no one follows him nor tries to talk to him.

He doesn’t do anything, doesn’t grab his sketchbook or look through his comic books. He just lays on his side, head drowning in the cotton of the pillow and stares as the blue sky blurs into the oranges and pinks of the sunset, then succumbing to the shadows of the incoming night. A few specks of white twinkle appear on the dusk, but its glow it’s too dim to offer any kind of light.

The hinges of the door squeaks when it opens. He shifts his eyes from the window towards where the sound came from and it’s not surprised to see that it’s his mom.

“Hi,” he greets her again, his voice somewhat raspy from not using it for hours.

“Hi, baby,” she greets back and sits on the mattress. “I made dinner. Do you want me to grab you a plate?”

He and his siblings are usually not allowed to eat in their own bedrooms, with his mom insisting that dinner it’s the only time of the day they get to really spend together as a family during the week. So, for his mom to have changed her mind or gave him an exception tonight, he assumes that either El or Jonathan told her something. Yet, his mom doesn’t say anything, either because she doesn’t want to push him or because she doesn’t know. He hopes it’s the latter option.

Will shrugs. “If you want.”

She sighs. “Okay.” She kisses his hair. “I love you; I’ll be right back.”

He wants to apologize for worrying her, to add to the burden she has to carry even though the main reason why they moved was so they could live in peace, but his mouth is too dry to speak and his words fade like sand in the wind.

The next day, he follows a similar pattern. It’s the beginning of the weekend and he doesn’t have any homework due for the upcoming week, nor does he have any social commitment now that he lost for certain the one person he actually knew in California. On Saturday everything remains mostly the same; he makes a conscious effort to get up from bed and have breakfast as to not raise any more concerns from his mother. He even chooses to sit on the sofa and watches a movie with his family like they tend to do in the weekend. An hour or so after noon, after he finishes doing the dishes, he announces that he will be drawing in his bedroom in hopes that they will leave him alone.

Jonathan and his mom get the memo.

Apparently, El doesn’t.

“You´re not drawing,” El states, startling him with her sudden presence in his bedroom. “Why did you lie?”

Will tears his gaze off the window and drags his eyes to look at her, irritated by her disruption. “I felt like drawing; then I didn’t.”

It’s another lie because Will has forgotten everything he has ever learned and all he knows now is how to lie. And judging by El’s skeptical expression, he isn’t even that great at lying despite the time and effort put in.

“Did something happen?” El asks him, irritating him further.

He groans. “Can I just take a nap?”

“But you weren’t taking a nap,” El states the obvious once again.

Will sits on the bed and huffs, grinding his teeth. “What do you want, El?”

“I want you not to be sad,” she responds.

It’s not a mawkish plea or an annoyed reprimand; it’s just a plain sincerity that overwhelms him. Will wants to yell at her, order her to get out of his bedroom and leave him alone, but all of his anger poofs in the air in just one choked sob that is ripped from his throat. Immediately, El closes the distance between them, sitting on the mattress next to him. She hesitantly opens her arms, and like a needy child willing to find comfort in anyone that offers affection, he loses his last remaining strength and falls in her embrace.

“I’m sorry,” he bawls hot tears, his words muffled by the flannel she is wearing and that he suspects is his. The recognition of El wearing one of his shirts is oddly comforting.

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault,” she says, unintentionally taking away from his what little comfort she had given him.

There are many truths he has been keeping concealed beneath an entanglement of lies and an affable charade. Truths that follow him like a shadow, but as long as he hid in the night, he wouldn’t have to face them, but now the curtains have been ripped off the rod and he is washed in sunlight, and he has no choice left but to face the shadow he has feared for so long.

One of the things he frightens him the most about the truth being unveiled is El discovering how much he tried to hate her, how many times there have been in which he had been close to hating her.

He wishes that Mike had dated a loathsome girl, so then he could hate her and not himself. Instead, the girl he wishes he could despise is stroking his hair and holding him in her thin arms without protesting about the strenuous weight he is imposing on her.

He wishes that he could despise her, but he can’t. She is beautiful, with her compassionate eyes and affectionate smile, her natural curiosity for the world around her, her compassion and kindness that is so opposite to the way she has been treated for most of her life, and even her odd mannerisms that he has grown to find endearing.

He wishes that he could hate her, but he loves her— that is his damnation.

If love is just a mere series of events of who can hurt the other person the most, then who started the hurting? He definitely can’t blame El for daring to be in his life, for being the sister he didn’t know he wanted until she moved in with him and his family. He can’t blame Ale for picking him off the ground and being too blind to see he had grabbed the bitter and mean scraps of a person who used to be better. He can’t blame Mike for just existing in his stratosphere, unaware that his best friend hung on every little word and action from him, until it inevitably left him wounded and curled in a hole away from the world.

He was hurt by his own expectations and delusions, and instead of healing and moving on, he has been pointing fingers at everyone but the true culprit of his misery. Feeling is, frankly, a hazardous labor his brain is exhausted of performing; lobotomize him and he would become a happier person for being unaware of his own existence. He is, in simple, just exhausted.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, because even if she doesn’t believe he has anything to apologize for, he knows he does.

His wrung body deflates and melts into the twisted bed covers and the flannel shirt she is wearing. The stiffen air is impregnated with the kind of sadness that can only be attributed to having a love that never had a right to live and now its rotting corpse is poisoning his bloodstream.

“I’m so sorry,” he says again, broken words onto her lap, hoping that someone forgives him.

Maybe he was born cursed with loneliness and regret.

Chapter Text

He once heard that most people come into your life to teach a lesson. However brief their stay is, their impact remains with you for longer than you will remember. Like the sole owner of an abandoned house that is haunted by paintings that move out of focus and in your periphery, with phantom voices that follow you even in deep slumber, the people that touch you beneath your skin never truly leave you— especially after they actually do.

He isn’t sure what the lesson it’s supposed to be here.

Maybe that his expectations are too high and that he should lower them to realistic parameters; maybe that he self-sabotages, because as long as a fantasy remains a fantasy he can never be disappointed by reality, and he has been disappointed by reality too many times already.

Maybe that first loves aren’t meant to last or even exist, and just function as way to impact the person you’re supposed to be; maybe that for people like him, first loves aren’t meant to go beyond his wildest imaginations and just die in childhood memories after reaching adulthood.

Maybe growing up simply means losing your innocence and learn in the cracks of your bones about anguish and try to convince yourself that the ephemeral moments in between your bones aching make the anguish worth everything else. He wants to believe that everything happens for a reason, but as the world ages him, he thinks that such belief is losing its credibility.

He sees Ale a couple of times at school, less in the form of the person he got to know and more of a ghost that haunts his choices and mistakes. He expects to see his features twisted in disdain and contempt, but instead he has simply vanished. A squeak of his tennis shoes at the turn of the hallway, the faint silhouette of his profile through the textured window door when walking between classes, the outline of his shape a couple of rows behind him after he changed seats with another student so he wouldn’t have to sit next to him during English class.

If he didn’t know better, he would swear he had been in hibernation state and that the last couple months of his life had never happened, that Ale was just a figment of his imagination.

It’s strange how he wishes that at least Ale would be angry at him, maybe hate him for the way he hurt him. He wants to tell himself that it’s because he knows that the opposite of love isn’t hate but indifference, and if Ale burns him with the fury in his eyes, then that means there is a chance that he can loved in such way. Or maybe he wants to feel his hurt, sow it and tend to it until it becomes a part of him, for his guilt to be watered every day so it just keeps growing in some sort of masochist karmic retribution.

However, during those brief moments he has encountered his gaze, scattered and avoidant, he hasn’t been encountered by a blazing fire that promises to melt him, but rather just an empty and vast tundra. He had gotten so used to the warmth emanating from his eyes, like a blanket wrapped around his body during a winter night, that he never expected to see the world freezing from his stare.

And now he is burning alone.

Will has suffered from nightmares for as long as he has gained awareness. Sometimes, he can recall what they are about; a memory that he doesn’t allow to resurface during the day so it haunts him in his sleep, or two memories that his brain jumble together and create a nonsensical and terrifying play he can’t walk out from. Other times, however, by the time he has woken up, all traces of his nightmares have vanished back to his unconscious, and he is only aware of what happened by the rapid heartbeat that threatens to burst off his chest and the cold clamminess on his back.

This time, is one of the latter.

He raises his wrist to check his clock again; half an hour has gone by despite his attempt to chase after the elusive sleep. He huffs and throws the blanket and bedcovers, and an involuntary chill makes his body shiver. One of the advantages of choosing the bedroom separated from all the other bedrooms in the house is that he no longer wakes anyone up when he has a nightmare. The biggest disadvantage though, is that the closest bathroom is the one adjacent to the kitchen.

He climbs up the short stretch of stairs, seeing the amber light from the lamp in the living room softly glowing. He doesn’t think too much about it, reasoning that someone forgot to turn it off before going to bed. Then, he sees it: his mother sitting on the couch with some odd-looking book in her hands. She tends to look different in the night when she believes that none of them are looking at her. He wouldn’t exactly say she looks more relaxed, but the rigid posture with which she holds herself in front of them is loose now. In her assumed solitude she almost looks hunchbacked, as if she were allowing for the day to finally weight on her at night and out of sight.

In the perfect line of vision from his still position at the top of the stairs and her seat on the couch, she notices him. She immediately straightens her back and hides the book underneath her sleeping robe.

“Honey, what are you doing up?” she asks cheerily despite the bags beneath her eyes betraying her exhaustion.

Although growing up he envied much from the Wheelers, he never wanted his family to resemble theirs. He had been on the receiving end of Mike’s grievances about his family, varying from shouted and querulous complains to hushed and sniveled admissions. There has been much he has envied from others, but he never envied their families, content with his own however flawed it might be, however wrong it has been perceived. He considered his family to be different, a fact that had confirmed by other people, but growing up has brought him to the conclusion that maybe the foundation of all families are white lies and half-truths.

“I just wanted to go to the bathroom,” he shares his half-truth, keeping his part of the deal.

His mother has always been extremely perceptive, something for what everyone should thank her for, in his opinion. He sees the recognition in her eyes; whereas once she would had gently call him out and beg him to be honest, she just purses her lips and nods curtly, just a whispered ‘okay’ as a sign that she heard him, holding her part of the deal. Sometimes he is grateful that his mother has toned down her overbearing and overprotective nature; other times he wishes he was still a little kid and he could go crying to her for even the smallest of nuisances.

He doesn’t know whether to blame distancing themselves from Hawkins and its dangers, the likelihood that she is overwhelmed for having to take care of the three of them, or a combination of several factors for why they have started acting like other families. Maybe one of the benefits –or drawbacks?– of growing up is the loosening of the leash until the air slices it off your neck. Maybe growing up is acquainting yourself with the ambiguous loneliness and learn to accept it. Maybe freedom is just solitude in disguise.

But not tonight; tonight he still wants –needs– his mom.

“Actually, I couldn’t sleep,” he admits.

He fiddles with the hems of the sleeves of his shirt, scrutinized under her loving but acute stare. He had never liked to call attention on him, mostly because he is already capable of doing so without any input of effort from him. He had also never liked to burden people with his problems, refusing to allow people to perceive him as weak and helpless. The universe must have a dark sense of humor, unfortunately, but he would never feel like the butt of the joke with her.

His mom pats the couch seat next to hers, an unspoken invitation that he accepts. At a close range, her gaze manages to be compassionate but not pitiful, inquisitive but not pushy.

“Did you have a nightmare?” she asks, her voice overtly soft.

He gives her a stiff nod. His chin is balancing on his knees and his arms are wrapped around his bent legs. His hands are gripping his fleece pajama pants but he is not holing up in his bedroom; he is talking to her, offering her a semblance of honesty for once.

“Do you want to tell me what it was about?” she asks, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

She is stroking his bicep with her thumb. It’s a gesture that reminds him of childhood. It feels nice. “There isn’t much to say,” he settles for saying.

She purses her lips, stretching her mouth in a thin line. “Are you sure?”

And there is his mom, in conflict with trying to uphold the foundations of lies and half-truths that conform families and fighting the core aspects that makes her, her.

“It wasn’t anything related to the Upside-Down,” he explains and decides to ignore how he sees her flinch from the corner of his eye, “just a bad dream.”

“You promise?” she begs for a solemn swear of sincerity from him and he grants it.

“What were you doing up?” he asks, partially because of curiosity, partially because he has had her attention on him for an uncomfortable amount of time.

He expects her to deflect the question, but she surprises him when she doesn’t. “Couldn’t sleep either,” she quips.

“What were you reading?” he inquires her about the book she had tried to keep concealed.

She sighs, and unveils the book from under the fabric of her robe. He touches the coarse cloth of the green hardcover, the faded sticker of a tiger, and the indented words separated in two rows: Hawkins High, Class of 1960.

“Guess I was feeling nostalgic,” she chuckles and opens the book.

The yearbook is thinner than the ones he had seen in the showcase shelf at the entrance of Lenora High, and some of the pages have been yellowed and crisped by the passage of time. He snorts when he sees the picture of Mr. Hurley, around twenty-five years lighter. He possess only some faint expression lines around his mouth instead of his nowadays’ appearance that resembles a beige raisin, but the smile is the exact same. He never got to have Mr. Hurley as a teacher, but Jonathan seemed to enjoy having English with him.

When they get to the students section, the Senior Class of 1960, his mom slows down their pace and they go through each page thoroughly. She stops on each photograph, pointing with her index finger at any face that she remembers and retelling him of the people she knew. He sees her trace the photo of Hopper with her eyes, and they both silently skip past it with no acknowledgement.

His eyes halt at the sight of the picture of his mom; his mouth hangs agape. “Your last name was Maldonado?”

“Believe it or not, I wasn’t born being your mom,” she jokes, but there is something underneath her words, humorous and cynical, that he can’t quite decipher and doesn’t want to inquire further.

She keeps flipping through the pages at a brisker pace until they reach the junior sub-section. They both audibly laugh when they see Mr. Clarke, even as a young teenager, wearing a dark brown vest and giving a radiant smile to the camera. The silence returns once again when they reach the picture of Bob; just like before, they pass through it without uttering a single word.

By the end of the students section, when they are done looking through the last couple of freshmen, she turns the page to a practically blank page, without any of the coloring and blocking that decorated the previous pages, with the title ‘IN MEMORIAM’ at the top of the pages and a picture of two blue-eyed, blonde kids, captioned: ‘Alice and Henry Creel’.

“Oh, I had forgotten about this,” she murmurs.

“What happened to them?” he asks, incapable of taking his eyes off them.

“No one knows for sure, except that their dad killed his whole family,” she explains, shaking her head, “I babysat them once when their parents went out for a weekend, I met their dad; he seemed… nice.”

It feels as if the two kids are staring at him through the page and so he takes his eyes off the picture to look at his mom. “Why did he do it?”

She grimaces. “No one really knows; not even he could believe what he had done.”

Silence envelops once again, but when before it was tinted by grief and mourning, this time it’s the pure discomfort of the murder of two young children by the hand of their own father. His mom refuses the acknowledgment to stop them from enjoying browsing through her yearbook, so with an exaggerated exhale, she turns the page.

They go through the pictures together in silence that is only interrupted by the occasional input from his mom. He laughs when she sees her posing with the school band with their ridiculous uniform and then in another picture captioned ‘the woodwind quartette’ with her oboe. He sputters when he sees her conforming the team for a state-wide math competition –“clearly it wasn’t passed down on you and Jonathan” she teases him–, and another picture of her in the parking lot caught in fraganti trying to hide a box of cigarettes in her jacket pocket.

It’s strange to see her as the person that she was before she became a mother, because a mother is all that she has ever been to him. It makes him wonder about the person she would be today if it taken just one different choice, what kind of life she would had had, if she would resemble in the slightest the woman immortalized in the worn-out pages of her yearbook. He wonders if she ever wishes she would have chosen a different path, a different life devoid of them; if she were happier without them.

It’s even stranger to see her being so openly vulnerable in front of him. For so long he had considered his mother to be the image of strength than for to recognize her as this, as a tired and grieving woman, means having his whole world-view shaken. ‘Fragile’ is a word he would never use to describe his mother, but with her sunken eyes and gaunt cheeks, it might just suit her. Maybe strength isn’t the lack of weakness but rather the resilience to keep pushing forwards in spite of it, and she is plenty strong.

“I love you,” he whispers with his head on her shoulder, and hopes that those three simple words are enough to convey his gratefulness for everything she has done for him.

She twists her body to pull him closer and places her chin on the crown of his head. “I love you, sweetie,” her trembling lips kiss his hair, “so much that there are not enough words to explain it.”

When Will first befriended Mike in the first day of kindergarten, he seldom spent any of his time at home. Granted, most of the time he would escape his dad to the shelter of the Wheelers’ basement, but even after he left them for once and for all, he would still spend most of his free time with his friends.

Will feared, selfishly, that when his brother finally befriended another person that wasn’t him, that he would barely see him at home anymore. He had pictured Argyle coming and stealing Jonathan away at any chance he would get, making Will regret any time he had ever teased his brother or questioned him about spending all his free time with him.

Instead, despite Argyle’s introduction in his life, Jonathan seemed to still prefer to be alone most of the time. At first, Will would get disgruntled by the rare occasions his brother came home after spending a couple of hours with Argyle, eyes reddened and drooping, gaze unfocused and body loose. Then it began happening more often, not only after hanging out with his friend, but also after any moment Jonathan could be by himself, and each time, hours after not seeing his brother in the entire day, he would inevitably come out of his bedroom in a sluggish walk and eyes that would avoid his.

So when he sees Jonathan lying in the living room couch, a brand-new Kurt Vonnegut novel in his hands and eyes fixed on the written words in the pages, Will stands still at the top of the stairs. His brother startles and lowers his book to look at him with clear and attentive eyes. A sense of déjà vu washes him over, but unlike with his mother the other day, Jonathan doesn’t say anything. It relieves him as much as it upsets him.

He doesn’t say anything and just simply goes to the kitchen to heat up some pepperoni pizza rolls in the microwave. When his mom announced in the early morning that she and El were going shopping, he foresaw that he would spend most of the day alone, with Jonathan locked up in his bedroom smoking whatever he is having at the moment, and Will locked up in his own bedroom, trying and failing to draw something new.

The microwave beeps and he grabs his plate. He stares at Jonathan, who has gone back to his reading, and wonders when did talking to his brother, the person he would always trust the first and the most, became an impossible thing. Mike and Lucas would always comment on how weird it was that he and Jonathan were so close, using in comparison their own relationships with their sisters, but Will had been judged as strange and off-putting for so long that he didn’t mind being considered weird in that aspect of his life.

“Hey, Will,” his brother calls his name, stopping him in the middle of the living without even standing up. “Did something happen on Friday?”

It would only be his luck that his brother decided to make a return to his old self when he had already planned to be by himself for the rest of the day. But his eyes seem to be clear and present for the first time in ages, and as much as Will may had wanted to be alone for today, he has missed his brother.

He jumbles through the words in his brain, trying to determine how much he can divulge to him. “Just… had an argument with my friend.”

Jonathan regards him with a narrowed-eye look. “Are you sure that’s all that happened? You looked pretty upset.”

There is only so much he can tell without revealing everything. “Yeah, it was just stupid.”

“It’s not stupid if it bothers you,” Jonathan tells him.

Suddenly, it’s too much and too close, and he needs to shift the conversation and its inevitable outcome to a safer level.

“I thought you would be in your room smoking,” Will says.

His brother winces, and for a moment he feels guilty. Before he can apologize, Jonathan explains, “There is better sunlight to read here. Are those pizza rolls?”

“Yes,” he nods.

“Then sit down and share,” he orders him playfully.

Jonathan swings his legs and feet off the couch arm to make space for him. He reads the sentence that he had left of, places a flap in between the pages and lays the book on the coffee table.

“Why did you buy it?” Wills asks, pointing at the book with his chin.

Jonathan smiles at him. “I didn’t; Nancy sent it to me for Christmas.”

It’s almost March, Will almost tells him but swallows down his words at the last second. Back in Christmas, when his mom gifted him some sort of gadget to fire-off flashes for his camera, he remembers how forced the enthusiasm on his face was, how his thankfulness seemed less out of gratitude and more out of politeness. Come to think of, he can’t remember the last time he seen his brother taking pictures.

“How’s Nancy?” he asks.

“She is…,” he exhales, the lines of his mouth tightening, “she is doing alright.”

He raises his gaze to look at him with a forced smile that is too reminiscent from many times before. He expected that after their move to California, after the distance that had grown between them in the last couple of months as the two of them found new people, that he would never see that smile on his brother’s ever again.

He recalls the last Fourth of July, when their mother emerged from the base under the Starcourt Mall with disheveled hair and a thin coat of ashes on her skin. He jumped from the back of the truck and into her embrace. It wasn’t until he felt the coldness of her wet cheeks on his neck that he realized she wasn’t comforting him— he was comforting her. In hindsight, it was the first indication that he was growing up. Any time before, his mother would have hid the pain from him in sort of futile attempt of protection, but that time, in a moment that crippling grief was threatening to push her back underground, she leaned on him, let him keep her upright.

But if his mother relying on him was the first sign that he was getting older, then Jonathan must have been born an adult. He takes a look into his brother’s eyes and see the exhaustion of years draining the color of his irises, replaced by the redness provoked by the inhalation of smoke.

Pain is self-centered by nature, turning prosperous nations into incongruous archipelagos. If what his brother needs for now is for no one to rely on him, then he is willing to comply, munch on some pizza rolls with him while watching a movie on TV neither of them actually care about, and pretend that the distance between them doesn’t feel like another change to adapt to and grieve.

There is a laughable irony in that, in spite of everything the two of them had experienced on their own, Will and El are two wonderfully boring people. They have just started high school and have already lived through what most people can’t even begin to imagine, but their idea of a perfect Friday evening after school is lying next to each other in a congenial silence, Will rereading an old X-Men comic book while El is engrossed in her magazine.

“Who is Tommy Howell?” El asks.

Will whips his head to look at her. “What?”

“It says here: ‘an intimate look into the rising star of Tommy Howell’,” she reads aloud. “Who is Tommy Howell?”

The disbelief on his face must palpable, judging by her frowning reaction. “You don’t know who Tommy Howell is?”

El tilts her head and furrow her brows. “Should I know?”

His mouth opens and closes a couple of times. “The guy from The Outsiders?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You never watched The Outsiders?” he asks, his voice rising in pitch much to his embarrassment.

“No,” she shrugs, “what is it about?”

Will is about to explain her the complete film when he realizes— he can’t remember. There are a couple of scenes in particular that he can remember with burning cheeks, but nothing in his recollection of the happenings in the movie could properly explain the plot to her so he can convince her to watch it.

He remembers how only a couple of weeks after he and the Party had watched the movie at the cinema, he was waiting at the dentist waiting room for his appointment when he saw a magazine featuring the cast in the cover. At the first chance that he got, when his mom excused herself to the restroom and the old man in front of him had nodded off, he hid the magazine underneath his jacket. He didn’t know exactly back then what had compelled him to steal the magazine, but now that he understands, he still keeps the magazine hidden under piles of sketches and notebooks in his desk drawer, both shame and pride united and concealed in one.

“I watched it a long time ago, but we could watch it together,” he says. At the slight hesitation in her eyes, he adds, “Ralph Macchio is in it.”

Like the snap of fingers, her eyes light up and a smile grows in her face. Will doesn’t know for sure if El has a celebrity crush on Ralph Macchio or if it reminds her of the times she spent with Max, and he decides this isn’t the time to ask such question.

El had asked the day before why he and Ale never spent time together anymore. “Sometimes people just stop being friends,” is all he said, and El didn’t inquire any further than that. In spite all of her years of isolation, she seems more than capable of reading people. Or maybe she just had spent enough time living with him to understand him. The thought makes him smile.

He gazes at El, who had gone back to reading her magazine. El understands, he knows; she had tried to send letters to Max as soon as they moved to California, but after the fifth unanswered letter, she stopped trying. The last either of them had heard about Max was when Lucas relied them some information about her, and even then Lucas didn’t know much himself. El doesn’t talk much about Max anymore and Will doesn’t ask.

At least El can say she had tried; Will can’t even say that. El is brave and Will is a coward— that is probably the biggest difference between the two of them.

“Did Max introduce you to anything other than Karate Kid and Madonna?” he teases, but deep down, he fears that he may be treading some very precarious ground.

“Wonder Woman,” she admits with a smile.

Okay, so I haven’t upset her yet. “Really? I thought you would like Jean Grey more.”

She pinches her eyebrows. “Who is that?”

“Probably the most powerful member of the X-Men,” he explains. When she keeps frowning, he asks, “You don’t know what the X-Men are?”

“No,” she shakes her head.

Pat Benatar remains playing in the background, courtesy of the music tape that Jonathan gifted to El for Christmas. In all of Jonathan’s and Will’s numerous attempts to introduce El to music, she had vehemently refused to listen to anything they liked, blatantly expressing her dislike for some of their favorite artists, like ‘The Clash’ and ‘Talking Heads’. Ultimately, Jonathan sought for some sort of compromise between him and El and decided to make her a music tape composed of songs that she didn’t know but he thought she might like. So far, it had been a success, and now El is obsessed with Pat Benatar.

Between a life of isolation in the laboratory, saving the world twice, and then losing Hopper, El has never gotten the chance to figure out what does she likes and dislikes. Will gets an idea.

“Do you want to make a bucket list?” he asks her. Before she can respond, aware of what her answer will be, he explains, “It’s just a list of things you want to accomplish or might like to try.”

“What would I write?” she asks hesitantly.

He shrugs. “Whatever you like. Here,” he grabs a pink and purple notebook that is laying on her desk and writes with its matching pen, “’Read an X-Men comic book (Jean Grey)’.”

He extends the pen to El, who grabs it and writes in her scratchy handwriting ‘Watch ‘The Outsiders’ with Will’ in the row beneath the first one. She turns to look at him. “Do you have a bucket list?”

“No, but—“

“You should make one too,” she interrupts him but it hardly bothers him.

They go downstairs to his bedroom to fetch an unused notebook he had in his desk drawer and go back upstairs to lay belly down on her bed. They write in mostly silence, because neither of them like to speak much and they find enjoyment in the quietness. It’s the reason why he doesn’t realize she has stopped writing until she gives herself away by speaking up.

“’Go to the beach’?” she inquires him.

He shrugs and smiles wryly. “Never been to the beach before.”

“Me neither,” she expresses alike.

Indiana had always been too far inland to have a beach nearby growing up. When he was nine year old, Mike invited him to go on his family’s two-week vacation to Florida. It was only his luck that he lost his one chance to go to the beach because he just happened to get a fever two days before their parting date.

“You know, Lenora is only an hour away from Malibu,” he says, a smile tugging his lips upwards. “We could cross that one out tomorrow.”

They drive down the Pacific Coast Highway, having decided the day before to take the long road in their quest to find the best beach to spend their afternoon. They have been driving about an hour or so, but even from the small distance, the rippling blues and indigos of the ocean, merging with the turquoises and cobalt of the sky, lures him in. The ocean disappears behind the rising shrubbery.

“We’re stopping soon, if that’s okay with everyone,” his mom announces.

No one raises any complain and she turns to the right into some sort of residential area. They park in a dead-end street, enter through a tree-covered corridor, each one carrying something in their arms, walk down a flight of stairs and finally they arrive to the beach. Above him, a flock of seagulls circle over the water, sinking and raising back again, breaking the calm ebbing and flowing of the water with sardines in their beaks.

Out of nowhere, he is pushed to the wet sand. His face almost meets the ground, but the sight of El running towards the water gives him the impulse he needs to stand up and outrun her. They reach the shoreline at the exact moment, but the sudden halt of his speed doesn’t give him enough time to slow down and sends the two of them under the surface.

“The water is salty,” she splutters, emerging up again. Her brows furrow when she notices him frowning. “Why do you look like that?”

“I didn’t take my shoes before I followed you,” he says disgruntled but she just laughs.

They get out of the cold and silver of the sea, their wet clothes weighting down their gait and chilling their bodies to where his brother, who is already suppressing a laugh at the sight of them, and his mother, who is on her knees and laying a blanket on the sand, are.

His mom puts on her cardigan and hides her snort behind her hand when she finally takes a look at them. “You are supposed to take your clothes before getting into the water.”

“I forgot,” Will deadpans and scrunches his nose when he takes off his wet shoes and socks, laying them over his backpack to dry.

“I thought it would be warmer,” she grits through her teeth while Joyce wraps her with a towel and sits her down on the blanket.

“Technically, it’s still winter,” she reminds her.

Neither of them return to the water for the rest of the afternoon, and his mom and Jonathan are smart enough to not consider it. El insists on investigating the large rocks that stand stall in the beach under the argument that she never saw a beach like this in any of the movies she had watched before. He follows her close behind, curious by the sight of them as well, while his mom watches them from her rest on the blanket and Jonathan lays awake but with his eyes closed.

They climb the rocks, mindful steps on the fissures formed by the erosion of saltwater, watching for the soft slipperiness of the algae and the sharp cut of the black mussel bouquets. They sit under a cave-like concave space and watch the barnacles cling to the walls, hiding beaks of unbleached linen. A small crustacean walk sideways right by them, undisturbed by their presence.

“So, the beach, from one to ten?” he asks her.

“Remember last year,” she starts, eye focused on the greened rock enveloping her, “when Billy was flayed and I tried looking inside his mind?”

He nods, unsure of where she is going with this. Billy and his death is a topic that remained untouched by the Party, minus some exceptions. He never had a reason to talk about him and he expects in silence for El to finish whatever she is thinking aloud.

“We were on a beach,” she explains. “This one is much prettier.”

He looks at the soft smile in her face, eyes still focused on the rocks rather than choosing to look at him. A lot of times, El’s way of speech is blunt and shortened, even cryptic to some degree, leaving him puzzled and trying to figure out what she meant to say. But this isn’t one of these occasions; he holds her hand and gives her a strong squeeze.

When the water touches them, she stares at him confused. “The tide is rising; we should get back,” he says and extends a hand to help her up and go back to the rest of their family.

The rest of the evening is spent in a mostly amiable silence, with the four of them watching the ocean progressively becoming more volatile, waves rising and crashing against each other thunderously. He plays with the sand, holding it in his hand and letting it run between his fingers back to where it belongs. At some point, El takes the two notebooks out of her backpack and makes him cross ‘Go to the beach’ off the list after she does it in her own notebook.

The sky transforms from a pleasant light blue to a gorgeous magenta glinted with golden and the warming sun is replaced by the emerging gibbous moon. He observes as the waves crash closer and closer each time, until the tide climbs, filling the space between his toes ankle deep and freezing his feet over again.

Sitting between the edge of the ocean and the walled beginning of the beach, with the night encroaching on them, his mom announces it’s time to go. He picks his socks and decides to carry his shoes on his hands. They begin walking up the flight of stairs, and he only stops to look at a brown pelican glide above the water, webbed feet paddling in the coils of waves and settling in one of the rocks scattered in the submerged shoreline. He turns and follows his family out of the beach as the sun hides in the horizon, abandoning the silvery evening and salt air.

Chapter Text

He has been staring at a blank page, pencil balancing between his index and middle finger for the last hour. The slight indent of some previous doodling he had hastily erased incriminate him, faded outlines that mock him without the need of uttering words. Lately, he has not been able to draw. He browsed through his past sketches, gazed for long times at the landscape, watched his favorite movies, anything that would inspire his hands to materialize something on paper, but he comes empty.

He startles at the sudden ringing coming of the phone. He waits for the sound to stop; it does for a couple of seconds, but then it starts blaring through the house again. Remembering he is home alone, with El and mom running errands and Jonathan somewhere hanging out with Argyle, he groans and throws his sketchbook on the coffee table with an unnecessary amount of force.

He walks up to the incessant ringing phone and practically rips it off the wall. “It’s her day off,” he spits out without bothering to conceal his annoyance.

“Will? Is that you?” someone who is obviously not from his mom’s workplace asks.

“Mike?” he whispers.

“Hey! Hi,” Mike exclaims.

“Hi,” he greets back.

It’s impressive and utterly pathetic how despite the physical and emotional distance between, the long stretches of time void of any contact from either of them, Will still feels himself pulled back to Mike like gravity.

“You picked up, that’s,” there is some rustling on the other side of the line that makes it incapable of hearing clearly whatever is going on the other side of the line. Then, a sigh, “how are you doing?”

“I’m…” he considers for a moment, “I’m doing okay.”

“Oh,” Mike replies. If he didn’t know better, he would think he sounds almost disappointed but he quickly recovers. Mostly. “That’s— that’s great.”

“What about you?” he asks, deciding not to inquire too much and make this rare occasion of them actually talking to each other awkward. “I mean, El told me you were doing fine, but I haven’t heard from you for a while, so…,” he drawls, proud of how he managed not to allow any glint of bitterness of showing in his voice. He doesn’t answer or add anything to their conversation and the silence lasts uncomfortably long. “Mike?”

“Sorry! It’s just weird to hear your voice so deep.”

“Oh,” he replies very eloquently. “Is it bad?”

“No! No, it’s not weird, it’s just, different,” Mike is quick to assure him and emphasizes, “a good different.”

“Thanks,” he blushes and is thankful he can’t see him. He doesn’t want to underappreciate the rare opportunity he has been granted to speak to his best friend after months of only hearing about him from El’s second-hand retells but he must clarify for his own sake. “El is not here if you wanted to talk with her.”

“I didn’t want to talk to El,” he says so quietly that if his ear wasn’t glued to the phone, he would had missed it. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m coming for Spring Break.”

“Oh,” he exclaims, because apparently speech isn’t on his side today. “El didn’t tell me.”

“That’s probably because I haven’t told her yet?” he admits sheepishly. Will can picture the shifty eyes, the press of his lips and the tightening of his mouth to the side even after months of not seeing him. “I wanted you to know first.”

He doesn’t know what to respond to that. For the last year or two of his life, his friendship with Mike has been plagued with these endless silences, undecipherable in nature. Sometimes, it’s a sign of the years they had known each other, to the point that the use of words comes short to the understanding that lingers in the comforting silence between them, as it the silence itself told more than any words could say. However, there have other times, like this one, in which they remain at a stand-still, neither of them knowing how to proceed, fearing that the wrong set of words might ignite the next explosion that pulls them further apart. 

“So…,” Mike drawls, breaking the silence between them and out of his mind wandering, “how’s California?”

Will shrugs even though he can’t see him. “It’s alright.”

“C’mon,” he can picture him rolling his eyes even with over two thousand miles separating them, “California has to be more fun than Hawkins.”

Now it’s Will’s turn to roll his eyes. “Anywhere it’s more fun than Hawkins, Mike.”

“Okay, true.” He hears him softly chucking. “So?”

Will purses his lips, deliberating how much he can actually tell about the last couple months of his life. “We went to the beach the other day.”

“You finally went?” his voice brightens.

Will smiles at his enthusiasm for him and hums. “Yeah, I did.”

“Tell me everything,” he requests and pleads all at once and Will is more than happy to oblige, and for a moment he feels they have recovered something he considered long lost.

He repeats the conversation they had over the phone over and over again. For a moment, he could pretend that nothing had changed between them. He often finds himself longing for the simpler times, where it was he and Mike, just the two of them but never truly alone. He misses the easiness of childhood, hushed conversations under the shelter of covers where no else could hear them, soaring high in the rusty kindergarten swings with a freedom they will never experience again, play-pretending in a magical kingdom in which the world was a matter of black and white and easy to understand; he misses the times when the world was just reduced to the two of them— not Mike and Will, but us.

He is ashamed to admit that a part of him has always been selfish and naïve, and when his own delusional expectations inevitably hurt him, he becomes petty and avoidant to a default. Any time a new letter arrive in the mail for El or Mike complains on the phone about how they don’t get to talk often, Will wants to yell at him that they could if he wanted to. But if he did, he would be a hypocrite. He tells himself that it’s in his right to put some distance between them so he can move on, but if the phone call they shared the other day is any indication, his carefully calculated efforts have been in vain.

Move on; he wishes it was easy to walk away from him and feel nothing more than just nostalgia for the good times they had together. Alas, almost six months has passed and he still lingers in everything.

He wonders if he hurts too or if the few times he had bother contacting him was more of a sense of obligation for the friendship they once share. He holds onto the hope that it hasn’t been easy for him either. If he has to mourn their relationship, as selfish is it to admit, he hopes that he has grieved too, that despite the deterioration of their relationship, he still cared enough about him to make the distance and lack of communication hurt him as much it hurts him.

Will is painfully aware that he can never have him, feel it deep within him in the exacerbating of the cracks of his aching bones, bleeding and exhausted. And yet, a part of him clings to the idea that they could ever go back to the way there were before, cover all the shouted words and wounded moments between them like a portraiture on the wall concealing the hole in the wall beneath it. But he doesn’t think they could ever be the kids they used to be— that was left excruciatingly clear the past summer.

There is no comparable cruelty as confronting the fact you are in love with someone as they are ripping into you piece by piece. When it rains outside, the sky threatening to fall on earth, he doesn’t dare close his eyes. Sometimes it’s the vicious words coming out of his mouth that haunts him, lips that he had shamefully dreamed of kissing in whispered thoughts reiterating the things everyone has always said of him but that he would have never expected to hear coming from Mike. Other times, it’s not the words themselves but rather the look on his face, with his scowled expression and twitchy features, his tightened and rolled-in sweet lips as he spat his venom, the disdain and spite blazing his eyes in a way it had never been directed to him. He is somewhat cognizant that Mike tried to apologize, but by the time his voice and eyes had returned to its familiar kindness and sweetness, he had become almost numb and acted on automatic, biking away before he could see him cry.

He did cry, however, once he was sure he was out of sight of any prying eyes, including the ones he once believed in the most. Will had always been good at shoving down his feelings into a little hole in his chest and keep on hiding on plain sight, from everyone and himself, but in that moment, he allowed himself to disintegrate into nothing. He swung his bat down in the remnant of his childhood refuge, his last true attachment to a life he could no longer cling to. He unleashed the violence that had been inflicted for years on him with every strike and cursed at the sky as the downpour clogged his dry throat until he eventually fell defeated to the soil, hands bloodied with splinters and rain water mixed with more unshed tears.

When the anger consumed him, if even for the briefest moment, he swears he hated him. He wished his words had ricocheted on him, wished that each cut he carved on him would mirror on him so they would bleed the same. He learned an important lesson that day: to fall in love with someone and allow them to know you is to give them the perfectly-built weapon to destroy you. He also realized that in spite of everything he was still irrevocably in love with him, after all, the true death of love isn’t hate but indifference, and if he wishes he could hate him sometimes, then that means he still loves him. Most importantly —and much to his misfortune— he knows he could never be indifferent about Mike Wheeler.

The fight they had that day was a topic they never discussed. He wants to say that between struggling against the Flesh Monster, dealing with the troop of the flayed, the happening of Hopper’s and Billy’s death and its effects on El and Max respectively, and his subsequent moving to the other side of the country they never got the chance to talk about it, but to affirm such thing would be a lie.

Even if the rest of the summer had proceeded as normal without any intervention from the Upside Down, neither of them would had ever dared to bring up their fight, frightened by the prospect of having to be honest with each other and the consequences that it would had brought for the two of them. He knows this, because they spent his last night in Hawkins together and neither of them mentioned their fight. Then again, with only a few hours before sunrise, neither of them wanted to risk ruining the scarce hours they had left together before he had to leave indefinitely.

They had laid on the floor of his bedroom in their own sleeping bags after the mattress and bedframe had been stored in the truck a couple of hours before. The walls were stripped of any sign and indication that he had ever lived there his whole life, naked of anything distinctive that would give his personhood away. Even the blinds had been taken down off the window and stored. The only thing that remained in his childhood bedroom were two boys laying side by side in their individual sleeping bags, shoulders touching but with their eyes fixed on the ceiling stained with humidity.

Will had only taken his eyes off one particular stain and turned to look at him because he heard a strained whimper coming from besides him. He was caught off guard when he had seen him; Mike never tended to cry much, but when he did, it was in the form of a brutal hurricane, with sobs ripping from deep in his lungs, loud and unrestrained. So when Will had seen his face reddened with the effort of keeping the sobs inaudible, lips bitten raw and eyes likewise spilling tears down the slope of his temples and into his ears, he had found himself disconcerted.

Mike, he called his name. He had known that he had heard him by how body his tensed so he called his name again.

He turned to look at him and said in voice so brittle the words were practically mouthed: Don’t leave

I would stay if I could, Will had replied in a voice to match his. To this day, he doesn’t know if he meant it or not.

In a rare demonstration of a boldness uncharacteristic of him, he had hooked their pinky fingers together, offering as much comfort as he could, as much comfort he dared. Mike responded wordlessly, tentatively slipping his fingers and tightening his grip on his hand. Will expected it to be a quick squeeze, a sign of gratitude. Instead, their hands remained interlaced as they watched the sun rise through the bind-less window but never looking at each other.

Neither of them mentioned it in the morning and pretended it never happened like most things that had transpired between them throughout the past year, an obnoxious addition to their relationship he abhorred but had no choice but to accept.

When the time to leave had finally arrived, Will forgot for a moment of all the anger that resided in him, all of the bitter jealousy that poisoned him, and was only left by the inevitability of the change ahead of him. Will said goodbye to his friends and hugged for the last time in a long while, restraining himself from going to Mike, doubts and fears from their fight in the summer spinning through his head. But then Mike looked at him for a fraction of a second and pulled him into his embrace, and in spite of everything, they clung to each other.

Mike had confessed in a shaky breath, I’ll miss you.

I’ll miss you too, he had confessed back.

He took in the rawness of the abyss of his eyes, the soft touch of his fingers sliding down his waist and raising goose-bumps in its path, the air heavy with something left unspoken, and understood in that moment that sometimes, love can feel like the death of self.

When they inevitably had to pull away, they only looked at each other once, fleeting and painful, and never again. They didn’t look at each other when Will got inside his brother’s car and finally left Hawkins forever; Will hadn’t even dare to peek at him through the rearview mirror.

And now he has to deal with the information that Mike is coming to visit for Spring Break. Will doesn’t even try to hope that his embrace could feel the same as in that evening of September, or that they can pick up where they had left off and pretend everything was fine between them.

It’s a cruel and ironic tragedy of the universe that Will is in love with the person he can never have while he can’t fall in love with the person that he can have. He could be someone that loves him in a way he never imagined he could be loved and instead he is in love with someone that, not only is in love with his sister, but also has made his feelings very clear in the matter.

For all he knows, the person he fell in love with doesn’t even exist anymore. He is in love with the blurred silhouette and faded voice of a boy that has become a stranger that knows him better than he knows himself. He is in this limbo state of knowing him and not knowing him at all. He knows of his latent obsession with dinosaurs that he developed in first grade, of the written stories he is both proud and ashamed of and hides from everyone but him in the depth of his closet, of how little he thinks of himself despite of his occasional prickly and rude demeanor. Yet, he can’t remember the exact shade of brown of his eyes or the shape of the galaxy of freckles painted on his face.

Will knows that he needs to move on for everyone’s sake: so he and Mike don’t tiptoe around each other, so Mike and El can love each other without his dark cloud shadowing them wherever he goes— so Will can breathe without feeling like he is drowning, because loving Mike is as easy and instinctual as breathing, even when it burns his lungs.

Will is terrified of losing him forever, but he is becoming ill living in this uncertainty. First loves may scar your body and mind for however long you last, but he wouldn’t be the first person to rip the Band-Aid off to gain some sense of inner peace. He has never been good with verbalizing his thoughts, always known as quiet and timid his whole life, but he knows of a way to voice his feelings, the only way he has ever truly known.

He hasn’t been able to draw something for the last couple of weeks. It isn’t the first time it happens; occasionally his hands lose the ability to conjure anything on paper, and he has no choice left but to wait for them to regain its skills back. Fortunately to him, he has enough undone sketches drawn to select from. He browses through his sketchbook, trying to discern which one could convey everything he wants to say while also not giving himself away completely.

He has drawn Mike a couple of times before, of the last time he saw him minutes before embarking to California, of the fleeting look he took at one of the pictures in El’s box. The thought of Mike seeing any of those poorly-made portraits makes his face hotter and his body shiver unpleasantly; he would rather die than have to explain to him how he can draw his face from memory alone. Besides, there other ways in which he would rather illustrate his love for him, less obvious but also more personal and true to them.

He keeps looking through the sketchbook, turning page after page. He has dabbled in capturing whatever he was seeing at the moment in paper: a bird resting on the ledge of his window, the profile of El with her brows pinched in concentration while working on her scrapbook, a cat rummaging in the dumpster behind the school and looking for food, the wrinkles around his mother’s tired smile while fixing the entrance door for the umpteenth time, the arid landscape filled with dust and shrubbery, the outline of his brother with his head deep in the car engine while trying and failing to repair it, the cobalt waves at the beach crashing against the rock stacks and reaching shore.

However, most of his sketches still refer to his friends. He has some more sketches of El and even of Max riding her skateboard, but the biggest share of them is of Lucas, Dustin, Mike and him drawn in their Dungeons and Dragons identities. Lucas wearing a dark red leather belt bag over a tunica a couple of shades lighter and a quicker on his back brimming with arrows; Dustin would vary a lot, either wearing a flat cap or a horned helmet, either wielding a travel lute or double-blade axe, but always wearing his small leather pouch and vest; Mike shining in his steel armour set, always wielding a sword in one hand and a shield on the other one; and Will wearing his tunic, sometimes light grey or dark purple, with a matching tall, pointy hat and a staff in his hand as his only form of attack and defense.

It’s off these drawings that he finally feels inspired to create something new; it wouldn’t feel genuine to just take one of these otherwise.

In the privacy his bedroom offers, he spreads the cotton canvas on the easel, assuring that the corners don’t roll inwards. He selects thoroughly the elements he likes the most of each sketch and uses a graphite pencil for the outline: first the landscape of a forest that serves as the background for the centerpiece; the wicked villain to be defeated, a three-head dragon on the center left and the Party, smaller but brave, on the center right. He chuckles thinking of how Dustin would feel insulted if he were the only not wielding an actual weapon so he draws him using an axe, or how Lucas has made the occasional off-hand comment that he would like to try riding a horse someday. He also draws Mike in all of his glorious foolery and courage at the front of them like he knows he would.

In the weeks that follow, he spends most of his free time holed in his bedroom, his thoughts taken by his painting and nothing else. With each stroke of the brush, he vomits everything up: the crippling anguish, the poisonous jealousy, the blinding anger, the overwhelming sadness. He translates all of it into something feasible and tangible, something he can manifest on the canvas with each careful drop of the paint, and transform it into something more tolerable, something that he might even like. In a rare moment of indulgent, he even paints a tiny red heart on the shield and a golden crown on top of it, his face suddenly too hot but he doesn’t try it to deny it to himself and allow those feelings to scream in the light of day for the first time. He feels how with each bristle of the brush on the cotton, some of the shame and guilt that has riddled him for so long wash away, and for the first time in what feels like years, it’s easier to breath.