Chapter Text
No one in the Byers family was a heavy sleeper.
As far as he could think back, Will had always slept rigid, face to the door. He’d need to be ready when Lonnie barged home, be sure he had a chance to crawl under his bed or inside his closet behind a heavy set of coats. After his father had left, that old habit had failed to go with him. He knew it was no different for Jonathan or his mom.
Perhaps this was why El fit right in.
On their first night in Lenora she screamed. Joyce got to her mattress first, perhaps she had even slept in the same room. Will merely stood in the doorframe, watching the silhouette of the two women huddled between the covers before Jonathan came tumbling to a stand next to him.
“Shh, it’s okay sweetie,” said Joyce, and the shadow of her hand caressed El’s head as she stifled a sob. “It was just a bad dream.” Another sob. “I’m here, sweetie. It’s okay, it wasn’t real.”
This was a lie and Will knew it. Perhaps it had been a bad dream, but it was never not real. It was an echo of something that had very much happened, something that had shredded a wound into reality and left behind an ugly scar.
“Go back to bed, boys,” Joyce said, and Will didn’t need to be told twice. Jonathan hadn’t even lifted a foot when the door to Will’s room closed with a silent click. For the remainder of the night, Will scribbled away in his sketchbook. He listened to his mom’s and El’s hushed voices die out, resurface, then die out again, before hunger chased him out of the room at five in the morning into the kitchen. His back screamed from sitting on the floor in his still near-empty room all night, eyes puffy from exhaustion. He slept for the rest of the day, neglecting the pile of boxes scattered around his mattress. It felt a little like the days after he got out of the hospital, the first time after the Upside Down.
The next night, El whimpered. A quiet sound, barely a sob damped through the thin walls, but it woke Will regardless. Joyce hurried to her side again, and Will did not sleep that night either.
Unfortunately, the next day was Monday. Which meant school. New school.
El looked well rested. Or as well rested as someone who’d been torn out of sleep by nightmares two nights in a row could look. She wore the colorful jumpsuit she’d shopped with Max back in the Summer and one of Will’s old plaid shirts above, tied at the front with a knot. Will didn‘t remember giving it to her.
“Look for the principal’s office before you do anything else,” Joyce told Jonathan for the third time that morning. “You tell her—”
“—that we’re the Byers-Hoppers,” Jonathan said.
“The new students from Indiana,” Will chimed in.
Jonathan pulled her into a quick hug. “We can handle this, mom.”
“Oh, baby, if only I could take you three myself—”
“Mom, I got this.” Jonathan made his way to the car, keys in hand. “You’re gonna make us be late.”
“Right, right, sorry!” She pulled El into a hug which El quickly reciprocated, face buried into Joyce’s shoulder. “It’s going to be fine, okay sweetie? New schools are always nerve wracking for everyone, so just remember to take deep breaths—”
“Mom!” Jonathan said, already inside his car.
“Right!” She pressed a kiss on El’s forehead before hugging her again. “Nothing to worry about, okay?”
“Okay,” said El. Will waited beside them, arms half raised at his sides.
“Will!” Jonathan called. “El!”
Joyce shot away from El, tapping both their backs and ushered them to the car. “Off with you two!” She waved after them, cupping her hands to enhance her voice as she added: “Drive carefully!”
Will watched through the rear window of the car, her figure on the sidewalk getting smaller and smaller until Jonathan drove into an exit and she was gone.
The nerves over the new school nearly made him forget that he had not been able to get a proper hug from his mom.
“Please welcome Jane Hopper and William Byers, all the way from Hawkins, Indiana.”
A silence swept over the class, like wind over a flat street. Next to him, El gave a small wave, though no one in the class moved to return it. Will repressed the urge to fidget with his watch.
“Welcome,” a girl said then, smiling sweetly from further back in the room and setting alight a fit of giggles at the desks around her. At his side, he felt the tension in El’s shoulders melt and he glimpsed her pulling a smile in the girl‘s direction.
“Go ahead,” said Ms Gracey, beckoning them towards the desks. “Those empty ones are reserved for you.”
They made their way to the seats, El trailing close after him. Once sat, Will eyed the girl that had made the welcoming comment, the ghost of a saccharine smile still on her face. Her near-white hair was puffed up and she’d drenched herself in pastel pinks. She reminded Will of the cotton candy he’d used to get at the Hawkins fair, and he couldn’t help but think of Stacey back in middle school, who’d never hesitated to call Dustin all variations of freak after he’d attempted to ask her for a dance at the Snowball.
Will looked over to El, but she didn’t look bothered. On the contrary; She threw the girl a smile, causing the group around her to erupt in giggles.
He stifled a sigh.
This was going to be a long school year.
The same day, Will and El opted for a table in the darkest corner of the cafeteria, furthest away from any windows and the canteen counter. They sat in silence, ladling their macaroni and cheese until someone slammed a tray down on their table.
“So, Jane and William, huh?”
Above them towered the cotton candy girl, smiling brightly. Behind her stood three more students, all with matching grins plastered on. Will’s stomach turned.
“Yeah,” said El, and Will glanced over to find her face pleasantly unperturbed. “Nice to meet you, what is your name?”
Will recoiled. Behind Cotton Candy Girl, one of the two boys doubled over in silent laughter.
“Oh, I’m Angela.” The girl— Angela— shoved back the chair next to El and sat on it. “But that’s not what’s interesting here. I was wondering, why do you two have different last names? Aren’t you siblings?”
El threw Will a quizzical look, and he shrugged instinctively. He should have thought this through. He’d been too busy mourning Hawkins and everything he’d left behind, he hadn’t given much thought to how strange their situation must look to outsiders.
“Oh, now that’s sad.” Will looked back up, finding Angela’s lips pursed. “So you’re saying one of you is adopted?” She turned to El, eyes widening innocently. “It’s probably you, is it?”
El looked at the table and shrugged. “Yes?”
The group behind Angela giggled. Will wanted to bang his head on the table.
“Oh, I could tell the moment I saw you.” Angela put a hand on El’s shoulder and caressed it slowly.
El looked up at the touch, face tinged with confusion. “Really?”
“Oh yeah. It’s hard to miss.”
Will straightened, but before he could think of something helpful to retort, someone slid into the seat next to him. He was met with the bright grin of the boy who’d doubled over laughing before. He had a pair of sunglasses posed on his head and wore three layers of different colored unbuttoned shirts on top of each other. He quirked his brows at Will before turning back to El and Angela.
“It’s your clothes,” Angela said, tugging at the plaid shirt on El’s shoulders. “I love your style. Really fits your whole… vibe.”
El’s face reddened, a smile blooming on her lips. “Thank you.”
“Where’d you get that jumpsuit?” Said the other girl, coming up to El’s other side to run a finger over the jumpsuit’s collar. “It’s so… colorful.”
“I, um–” El blinked, head turning back and forth between Angela and the other girl. “I got it from the GAP. In Hawkins.”
“How fancy,” Angela said, brows raised in mock-fascination. Her friends exchanged grins. “Did your daddy buy it for you?”
El’s face fell. To Will’s horror, Angela’s eyes glinted in response.
“Well,” she said, “welcome to Lenora Hills High School, Jane. And you—”
Will shrunk under her stare.
“I’ll see you around too, yeah?” She shot him a smile under heavy-lidded eyes, and then gracefully lifted herself up, picked up her tray, and strode away with the others in tow.
Will breathed out an embarrassingly loud exhale. That could have gone much worse.
“She’s so pretty,” El said, breathless.
Or not. He stared at her. “What?”
“She likes my style.” El beamed, her gaze still following Angela and her group towards the other end of the hall. “I knew it was a good idea to wear this on my first day.”
“Wha—” It took Will five seconds to grasp what he was hearing. “El— no. She doesn’t.”
El frowned at him. “But she said it.”
“She was being sarcastic.”
“Sar— Sarca— what?”
“Sarcastic,” he repeated. The confusion on her face didn’t waver, and it struck him that she didn’t know the word. “It’s— It’s like lying. Saying things you don’t mean on purpose.”
“What? How do you know that?”
“Her friends were laughing,” he said. “She was making fun of you.”
El scowled. “That’s not true. She was nice.”
Will couldn’t help but wonder if she genuinely hadn’t noticed, or if she’d chosen to lie to herself. “She is not nice, I’m telling you. You shouldn’t believe anything she says.”
El turned her scowl to her plate and stabbed the mac & cheese with her fork. “You don’t know her too.”
Will sighed, and decided to leave her to it. They spent the rest of their lunch break in silence.
Two weeks later, the first letter arrived.
Will had been tasked to fetch the mail, and his heart made an embarrassing jump when he flipped through the envelopes on his way back to the breakfast table. Revealing one— in Mike’s unmistakeable handwriting— saying To: El, right above their new address. He quickly flipped through the rest, looking for the one for him, but just circled back to El’s. He frowned.
“What’s wrong, honey?” Mom said, sipping her coffee.
“Nothing, just—” He flipped through the stack again, but he hadn’t missed any. “Let me just check if I got everything.” He wordlessly handed El her letter, set the rest down on the table before jogging back outside to the mailbox. It was empty.
Everything inside him sank. He closed the mailbox and searched the floor around it, searched the ground all the way back to the kitchen. Nothing.
“Were you expecting something?” Jonathan said. He’d taken the stack of mail into his hands, looking up to Will with a questioning look.
Will sat back down, evading his gaze, and fixed his eyes on the half eaten plate of Eggos in front of him. “Not really. Just wanted to make sure.”
He could feel both his mom’s and Jonathan’s eyes on him, so he took another bite of the waffles. It was like chewing cardboard.
It was fine. Maybe the letter had gotten lost on the way. They lived in a tiny town at the brink of the state, so it was no stretch to assume that the mailing system wasn’t the most reliable. Or maybe it would get there a few days later. Perhaps Mike had just decided to prioritize his girlfriend in the very first letter he’d send. There were endless possibilities.
Still, Will couldn’t help the painful twist in his stomach at the sight of El’s growing smile, letter unwrapped in both hands as she held it up to read.
It was fine.
He stabbed his Eggo.
It’s all fine.
It took two more letters arriving in the same week for Will to decide it couldn't be a coincidence anymore. He stopped volunteering to get the mail, but it was no problem because El seemed eager to take over the job anyways.
“How’s he doing?” Joyce would ask, and a bright-faced El would respond with: “Pretty good! He says hello to all of you.”
Will gnawed at his lip. Better than nothing, I guess.
“Is he still coming over for Thanksgiving?”
“Yeah.” El skimmed the newest letter again, eyes fixed on a line somewhere in the middle. “He booked the flight already. For November 28th. He’ll get here in the evening and fly back on Sunday the 1st.”
“The whole weekend,” Joyce said, giving her a warm smile. “That’s great, honey, you can show him around town a bit, show him where your new school is too.”
Their voices faded into the back of Will’s head, echoes inside a tunnel.
One month and a half. Will knew it wasn’t much, but considering how long these past three weeks had felt, it seemed like an eternity. Even more if he was not going to hear a word from Mike until then.
Was it his fault? Should he have called, or sent a letter himself? It wasn’t like Mike to wait much until Will reached out to him first. Mike had apparently not wasted a day to send El a letter once Owens had given him their address.
Then again, Mike hadn’t really been Mike with him for the past year. So Will wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting.
“...doing okay?”
The thoughts crumpled inside his head, clearing to make way for the scene in front of him. El and Joyce were looking at him, matching frowns on their faces. “Huh? What?”
His mom’s frown shifted into straight up worry. “Are you okay, honey? I thought you’d be more excited about Mike coming over.”
His heart jumped, clogging his throat, and his gaze dropped back to his breakfast plate. (Eggos. Again.) “Yeah. Yeah, I am. I’m just–” Disappointed. Anxious. Wallowing in self pity. “Tired. Didn’t sleep very well.”
That was the wrong thing to say, because now his mom’s eyes widened, and she reached forward to feel his forehead. “Have you been having episodes again? Or nightmares?”
“What?” He shoved her hand away, standing up. “No, mom. Really, I’m just tired. I think I’m gonna go lay back down, actually.”
He made his way to the kitchen, hesitated, and then dumped his barely nibbled Eggos into the trash.
“Will—” Joyce started.
“Sorry,” he said, without looking up. “Feeling a bit sick.”
He placed the plate into the sink and just barely stopped himself from breaking into a sprint to his room.
“I would’ve eaten those,” he heard El from the kitchen before the door closed behind him.
He threw himself on his bed, seizing the pillow and squeezed it between his arms. He waited, but there was no creak of a chair or steps in the corridor indicating his mom had followed. He found himself missing Jonathan, who loved making his way into Will’s room without permission and would sit on his bed, prying and nudging him until he got on Will’s nerves enough that he’d tell him what was wrong. Maybe it was good that Jonathan was spending the weekend at his new friend’s, because this time, Will didn’t think he could tell Jonathan what was wrong even if he wanted to.
He closed his eyes, holding the pillow tight. The ghost of Mike’s last embrace was still warm between his arms, on his chest, Mike’s bony shoulder under his chin. His body solid and soft, wrapping him careful but tight, protecting him from the world without smothering him. Taller but always at eye level. The sparkle of his smile when Will had assured him he wouldn’t join another party.
Had it been for nothing? Had it just been a polite act, out of guilt from their fight? How had Mike said goodbye to El? What had his smile looked like during their last conversation, just the two of them? Had he even smiled, or just sobbed uncontrollably?
Will wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
It wasn’t like Will hadn’t expected the new school to bring out any bullies. He’d lived in Hawkins his whole life, but he’d always known bullies found their way to you no matter where you were in the world. Be it in kindergarten, in school, on the playground by the swings, even at home— they always knew how to spot you in a hundred.
Which was why he wasn’t surprised when he and El got to school one day and found the word ‘Freak’ scribbled on her locker, with something Will could only guess was lipstick.
He was, however, surprised to find his locker clean. Or perhaps unsettled was a better word.
He opened it, expecting a stink bomb to explode in his face. Or at least a note with a badly drawn fairy on it, perhaps the old newspaper article about his mysterious return to life graffitied with the word ‘Zombie Boy.’ But he only found his books neatly stacked, unharmed and just like he’d left them.
“I told you,” Will said to El during their morning break, as he scrubbed the locker door with wet paper towels, slowly getting rid of the monstrously pink smudges.
El, who hadn’t said a word since they’d found her locker like this in the morning, scowled. “You don’t know if it was Angela.”
Will paused his scrubbing to give her a look. “Has she ever done anything nice for you?”
“She smiles at me in the corridors and in class,” she spat. “There are other girls who are much meaner to me.”
That was news to Will. But then again, he knew bullies also loved to catch their victims alone. “Like who?”
El snatched the chunk of wet paper towels from his hand and shoved him aside, aggressively rubbing at the scrawl.
“El—”
“Go to class,” she said. “You will be late.”
He was, but so was she. “I’ll go get more towels.”
“No.” She did not look up from her violent wiping. “Go to class.”
He was tempted to stay, tempted to be what he knew he’d needed all those times he’d found an unflattering note on his locker. But he could feel El sizzling in front of him like a match, her gaze dark on the red smudges and her hand with the towels rubbing more for the sake of it rather than actually getting rid of them.
He sighed, picked up his backpack and slung it over his shoulders. “I’ll see you at lunch?”
She didn’t respond.
Okay, he thought, okay, I’m leaving already. And with that he made his way to math, ignoring the growing bitter taste crawling into his throat.
As if to prove things could always get weirder, lunch break presented him with two situations he’d never encountered before.
Firstly, Will had never had to eat lunch alone. No matter how bad things got, he could have always counted on Dustin, Lucas and Mike to be there. They had never been truly losers, because they always had each other. They’d never had to stoop to the level of eating lunch alone, never had to worry they’d have no one to pair up with for a school project. He had never felt truly lonely.
But after checking all the corridors around the cafeteria for half an hour without finding a trace of El, Will resigned himself to his fate. Their usual table at the corner of the hall was full, so he simply took the next best he could find further up front. His mind flooded with all sorts of terrible scenarios where El could be. In the girls’ bathroom with her face shoved down a toilet. Half a mile away from school, attempting to find her way home and getting horribly lost. Hiding inside a broom cupboard to avoid being spotted crying.
The spaghetti in his mouth tasted like sand.
“Is that spot free?”
Oh, and secondly, here was the weirdest thing to happen to him, ever: A girl, one he’d never seen before, approached him. Alone, at lunch.
He swallowed the sand-spaghetti. “What?”
“Is that seat taken,” she said, and it didn’t sound like a question this time. She pointed at the chair directly across from him, that he’d very deliberately chosen to be empty.
“Um.” He supposed it was reserved for El, but he doubted she’d show up anytime soon. He knew he wouldn’t, had he been the one whose locker had been smeared with an insult this morning, and had the only other person at school he knew been his unhelpful barely-friend. “No, it’s free.”
The girl smiled and slid into the seat with such ease, as if there’d never been a doubt that it belonged to her. “Thanks,” she said, flashing her white teeth. “That’s really nice.”
Will nodded, unsure what he’d been nice about. The girl looked normal, stylish clothes and a puffy updo he was sure he’d seen a dozen other girls wear in the cafeteria alone. He couldn’t imagine her having trouble inserting herself into any table that wasn’t the one with the lonely new guy.
“Of course,” he said anyway.
“You’re William Byers, right?” she said, her smile unwavering. “The new guy from Indiana?”
“Yeah.” He fumbled through his spaghetti, looking for nothing, when he remembered basic human etiquette. “And what’s your name?”
“I’m Melissa. Maybe you remember me from math, I’m the one who couldn’t solve the equation on the board yesterday.”
Will did not remember. He nodded, feigning a chuckle. “Oh, right.”
“How have you been liking it here so far?”
“Well.” He looked around. Still no sign of El. “Okay, I guess? I don’t know, you’re the first person to really approach me.”
“Really?” She seemed genuinely taken aback. “That’s weird. You look really approachable, I think.”
“I do?”
“You do.” She paused. “Where’s your friend, though? Aren’t you always hanging out with her?”
Will eyed her, suddenly wary. So this girl had been watching them for a while. He thought of the lipstick graffiti on El’s locker, of the sneering looks he’d caught when El was beside him but somehow barely when he was alone. Of Angela, who’d apparently made it her pastime hobby to take advantage of El’s weak grasp on social cues. Of the fact that currently, El was nowhere to be found.
“She’s my sister, actually,” he said, maybe a bit harsher than intended. It felt strange to say it, like a lie. But if this girl thought she could make fun of El with him, he wanted to let her know he wasn’t having it.
He expected a grimace. A sarcastic retort. Something along the lines of ‘Jeez, okay, don’t be so defensive.’
He did not expect her eyes to widen and light up like a million Christmas lights. “She is?”
He stared at her. “I mean—”
“Okay, sorry, it’s just—” She shook her head, letting out a small laugh. “I wouldn’t have guessed because you guys got different last names, and everything. You do, right? I didn’t remember wrong? Also you don’t really look like siblings, but maybe that’s just– Or I guess you do? You both have brown hair, and stuff…”
Oh.
Well.
“We’re not really related,” he admitted. “It’s… complicated.”
“Right.” She nodded. “But you are siblings, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Cool. That’s cool.”
“Yeah.”
The silence lingered. Will twirled another forkful of his spaghetti, ducking from her bright gaze. Now that mocking El was off the table, he couldn’t figure out what other reason she must’ve had to sit with him.
“So I saw your art, the other day in class.”
He stopped twirling. “In class?”
“Art class.” She smiled. “What other? Do you doodle in math?”
In fact, he doodled in every class, but he’d never paid much attention what people he shared several classes with. Much less girls. “Right. Sorry. I mean— Yeah, I guess I kinda do?”
“Makes sense.” She took a sip from her juice carton and smiled at him again. “I saw your portrait study. And your sketch of the perspective study from the schoolyard. You’re like, insanely good.”
This time, he couldn’t help but smile back. “Thanks. Yeah I… I really like drawing.”
“It shows. How long have you been drawing?”
“Since forever, I think? My mom says I started scribbling before I even knew how to say ‘mom.’”
Melissa giggled, and leaned forward to prop her chin on her hands. “Your girlfriend’s gotta be really lucky. You probably shower her with your art.”
Will choked, just barely stopping himself from showering Melissa in spit . “What?”
“She’s probably still in Indiana, right?” Her eyes were wide with innocence. “Do you miss her?”
It wasn’t the time, and it most certainly wasn’t his girlfriend, but Will couldn’t stop his thoughts from darting to Mike. His face heatened so quickly, he wondered if a part of the Mind Flayer had stayed inside him after all and another part of him was getting scorched to pieces in some faraway lab. “I don’t have a— girlfriend.”
Melissa’s eyes widened even further. “You don’t?”
He really didn’t. “I don’t.”
“Really? That’s weird. How come?”
“How—?” So this was the reason she’d come to sit down here. To mock him. “What do you mean ‘how come?’”
“I’m just surprised, that’s all.” She fell back in her seat, her smile somehow even brighter than before. “A guy like you? Sweet, an artist, pretty good-looking? Not a girlfriend? I don’t believe it.”
He was now one hundred percent certain that she was mocking him. “Good-looking?”
The bell screeched through the cafeteria and never in his life had Will been so relieved to hear that ear-tearing sound. He fired up his seat, nearly knocking over the chair behind him.
“Oops, gotta run.” Melissa had gotten up too, and for some hell-forsaken reason she was still giving him that smile. He started wondering if that smile he’d thought so genuine was her version of Angela’s saccharine grin. “See you around William, yeah?”
Will did not want to be seeing her around. In fact, he wanted to find whatever cupboard El had buried herself in and join her.
“Yeah,” he choked out.
She knows, a panicked voice shot through his head, all the way to his classroom. She knows, and soon everyone else will.
He found El curled up on her seat in their History classroom. In his panic from his interaction with Melissa, he’d completely forgotten that he’d been worried about her.
He dropped his notebooks on his desk and eyed her. She did not look like she’d recently had her face shoved down a toilet. And neither was she covered in dust from a cupboard or the streets. But she kept her gaze stubbornly on her desk, until he gave up and resigned himself to this unsolved mystery.
Instead, he wallowed in his own panic. He did not dare to look beyond his desk or the board, afraid of whatever gazes he might meet. In Hawkins, rumors spread like wildfire. In the morning before class, he could help a boy he’d never talked to before get his art project safely out of the bus, and by lunch break Troy would corner him with a horde of eighth graders, laughing and spitting on him for making a move on some guy named Samuel Walker. Until Mike would come, closely followed by Lucas and Dustin, and tear him out of the crowd no matter how many bruises he’d catch in the process.
But Mike wasn’t here. And neither were Lucas or Dustin. He couldn’t replace them, and even if he could, it would take years. Troy and his horde, however, could be replaced within seconds. Chances were that had already happened, and they’d taken the shapes of Angela and Stacey and whatever the names of their two gleefully grinning guy friends were.
Will was tempted to break into a sprint once the bell rang, but allowed reason take over and not let El out of his sight again. He needn’t have had to worry though, because El seemed just as eager to run out of school. He ended up trailing behind, eyes flickering between El in the front and the ground below whenever he felt a face turn to him.
He and El did not exchange a word for the rest of the day.
Every day for the rest of that week, he stepped into school prepared for the worst. He looked to his left and right when he arrived at his locker, then took two quick steps back when he opened it. He clung to El like a leech, as if he would somehow be less of a target by her side, and almost jumped out of his skin whenever he caught a sneer directed at them. To his cold relief, he found the stares were only directed at El, but that relief was followed by gut-twisting guilt.
He expected more judgment from El, something similar to annoyance. After all, it had been her, not him, who’d actually been a target up until now. But she said nothing all week, only spoke to him when spoken to, and even then she didn’t always answer. Somehow, that was so much worse.
Melissa didn’t try to sit with him at lunch again, which was probably due to El’s presence, but she did greet him brightly both in math and in art class, and surrounded by her group of friends in the corridor. The first few times Will flinched, squeezing out his answer, as though she might turn into a Demogorgon on the spot and grab him with long, sharp claws.
“What is her name?”
Will’s gaze shot up. It was Friday, and this was the first thing El had said to him unprompted all week. She wasn’t looking at him, but she wasn’t just staring down at her plate either. Her eyes were on a table two rows away, and he didn’t have to turn his head to know who she was referring to.
“Her name’s Melissa,” he said, shoveling at his Chili con Carne in a way he hoped made him look bored. He had one rule when it came to potential bullies: ‘Keep your head down until they lose interest.’ If El kept staring at them, he could just as well wave a rainbow flag above his head and shout: “It’s me, the Queer! Come and get me!”
“Is she your friend?” El said, still staring at Melissa and completely unbothered by this very important rule.
“No, she’s not.”
“Then why does she say hi to you in the halls?”
“I don’t know,” Will said truthfully. In fact, he’d have expected something to happen by now, but Melissa had truly not done anything other than small talk. No more out-of-nowhere questions about girlfriends or other weirdly personal stuff. He was starting to doubt everything he knew about people, and he wanted El to stop staring at her, for god’s sake.
El did not stop staring at her. She hummed, and gave a nod as if approving. “She looks nice. And pretty.”
Will couldn’t contain his chuckle at that. El turned to him now, finally.
“What?”
“I’m starting to think you find all girls pretty,” he said.
She frowned. “You don’t?”
“I mean.” He looked at his plate, feigning boredom again. “Sure, yeah, but that doesn’t mean they’re all nice.”
“Melissa looks nice.” She said it in a persistent tone, as if posing an important argument. “No one says hi to me in the halls. Except—” She stopped, and suddenly she was scowling at the table again, but she didn’t need to say more. Except Angela.
Will fidgeted with his fork, contemplating. Angela had come to El surrounded by friends, an audience to laugh while she made comments about El’s clothes, about looking like she was adopted. Melissa had come to him alone. He was still unsure about her intentions, but they seemed vastly different from Angela’s.
“You’re right,” he said, and El’s gaze flew back up like a slingshot. “Melissa does seem nice. I don’t know why I’m so paranoid.”
El smiled at that, and he suddenly wondered whether her powers were truly gone. Otherwise he couldn’t explain the massive weight it lifted from his back.
When Jonathan dropped a letter envelope next to his breakfast plate that Saturday, Will almost had a heart attack.
It would have been pretty embarrassing if after everything, after spending a week in a decaying dimension and after having a figurative demon burned out of him, this had been the thing that killed him. Especially considering— and it took one look at the address’ handwriting for Will to know— it wasn’t even from Mike.
He tore it open anyways, and it contained not one, not two, but three papers worth of letters.
“Can I—” He said, but before he even finished the sentence his mom smiled at him and nodded. He stormed off to his room and nearly hurled himself onto his bed, hands clinging to the letters so hard he had to stop himself from accidentally crumpling them.
Max’s letter was the shortest, a fact that didn’t surprise him. In the short time he’d known her, he had spent little time actually trying to get to know her. A fact he lamented, knowing how cool of a person she truly was. Perhaps he was alone in this— Lucas and Mike sure didn’t seem to appreciate it— but he was thankful for the shove in the right direction she’d given El, and Mike by extension. Her letter didn’t say much more than formalities, but he appreciated it nonetheless.
Dustin’s was longer, and in true Dustin-fashion it contained a lot of humorous rambling about every single thing he’d done in the past month. How High School was terrible, because apparently nerds would always be nothing more than nerds in the eyes of everyone else, and how it was even worse with Lucas hanging out with random jocks and with Will gone.
With new warmth in his stomach, Will put aside Dustin’s letter and picked up Lucas’. It was, inarguably, the longest.
Hey Will,
I’m not gonna lie to you, it’s been weird without you. Really weird. And maybe not in the best way. I’ve decided to try out some new things for High School, and no one really seems as excited about it as me. I know you’d understand, and I guess it’s one of the reasons I miss you.
Will didn’t know why Lucas was so sure about that. He had, after all, spent the last six months desperately trying to have the party keep up their old group activities despite everyone’s growing disinterest. But if Lucas said he was excited about High School, Will couldn’t deny he wanted to be excited for him too.
Mike’s been weird too. It’s like he’s not even here anymore, to be honest. I have no idea how he’s doing, and he doesn’t really let anyone talk to him. I mean, I get it. If Max had moved away I think I’d also be pretty mopey, but I’m starting to feel like it’s not normal anymore. I hope he’s calling you, or sending you guys letters, because he definitely needs it.
Will’s heart came to a screeching halt. Mike had been moping? That did not align at all with the “He’s doing pretty good!” image El had described from his letters.
I think we all need a dose of Will Byers nagging us to play DnD again, honestly. Dustin seems more than down for another campaign, and I’d love to show Erica all about it because she’s been obsessed with trying it out ever since we gave her your old handbooks. But since Mike’s kinda moping right now, no one’s really taking initiative to organize or DM anything.
Will’s chest warmed. It wasn’t like he’d hold it against his friends if they didn’t miss him too much, but it was nice to know they did.
I know you didn’t let me last time I tried to, but I wanna apologize to you. You were right, you know. We were all a little too obsessed with moving on, we kind of forgot what held us all together. And it wasn’t that we were all too lame to get girlfriends, but it was that we did everything we loved with so much passion. It was that we lived up to everything we wanted to be, that we were never afraid to try out whatever we wanted because we had no one else’s opinion to care about. It was that we had each other through all of that, and I am so, so sorry that I just didn’t do that for you after everything we went through.
Will had to look away from the letter for a moment, as if he’d been holding eye contact with Lucas this whole time. He took a shaky breath, and turned back.
So I’m telling you, Byers: Try out shit. You’re living a whole new life, newer than any of us here no matter how weird things are for us back in the hometown. Please don’t mope, you’ll only make yourself miserable. Please go ahead and do everything you want to, and you better keep your head high. I mean, what better time to try shit out than now, right?
Will’s mind darted to Melissa before he could stop it. How he’d had to admit that El was right, and there was a good chance she was really just genuinely being nice. Will had never had the urge to befriend new people, but Lucas was right. He wasn’t in Hawkins anymore.
Sorry, that came out kinda cheesy. The worst thing about that is that I 100% mean it. I just really don’t want you to be miserable. Especially after everything that happened. To all of us, but you especially. And because you’re the one who’s now far away from your home and friends and everything. But I want you to know that if you wanna reinvent yourself, I’m cheering you on. I think Middle School— and, well, Hawkins— has done enough restricting to all of us.
I’m guessing you still got the number of our landline, but just in case I’m gonna write it down here anyways. Call me or send me a letter with the number of your landline. I wanna know everything about Cali.
Say hi to your family.
Love, Lucas
Will put down the letter and stared at his yellow bedroom wall for a solid ten minutes. Then he picked it back up, read it again, and again.
He hadn’t known what to expect from a letter from Lucas, and it sure as hell hadn't been all this, but the more he read it the more he felt it was exactly what he had needed to hear. If someone in the world understood that doing what you want was far from easy for some people, it was Lucas. And yet, he’d told Will repeatedly to do so.
What did Will want?
From the top of his head, Will could name one thing without hesitation. But that thing hadn’t sent him a single letter since he’d left, and although Will now had a hunch as to why, it wouldn’t change the fact that he could never have it.
It wasn’t that we were all too lame to get girlfriends, Lucas had said, about what held them together. But maybe Mike disagreed. Maybe Mike had just needed a friend back in kindergarten when he’d come up to Will on the swings. But Mike had more than that now. And if Mike wanted to mope in his basement because his girlfriend was gone, and if he wanted to cope by talking to her— and only her— then Will was going to give him that space.
Reinvent yourself, Lucas had said. I’m cheering you on.
Will gave his friend from over two thousand miles away a smile.
Let’s do it then.