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Why don’t I deserve to see her? Why should I be punished for love? Is it truly a sin that cannot be forgiven, or will you judge the content of my character and forgive me? Will Byers asked himself questions like these every day, but was never given the answers.
He prayed that his sins would be forgiven, that God would see the purity of his heart, and that he would one day be reunited with his sister.
Will had never been particularly religious throughout his life. His mom was always working and never had time to bring him and Jonathon to church on Sundays. He would occasionally attend with the Wheelers, though it was never a pleasant experience for boys like Will. Mr. Wheeler would always give him nasty looks from the other side of the pew. One Sunday, Will remembers dozing off onto Mike’s shoulder, when Mr. Wheeler grabbed Will’s shoulder, and he still remembers the words he said to this day: “I bring my son to church every week for a reason, I don’t need you infecting him.”
Mr. Wheeler's words didn’t make much sense to Will when they were first said to him. He knew what Mr. Wheeler thought that he was “infecting” Mike with, for he had an idea of how Mr. Wheeler perceived him from how Lonnie had always seen Will. In the mind of eight-year-old Will Byers, Mr. Wheeler's concerns were justified. He didn’t want Will to turn his son into a “fag”. The part that didn’t make much sense to Will was what Mike going to church had to do with it. Mike didn’t want to be there anymore than Will did. The boys would always talk about how much they hated church when they were alone. Their parents would have scolded them if they had heard them talking about church that way. It felt like their little secret, one their parents couldn’t know about.
In fact, Will had always felt a sense of shame when he went to church. As soon as he set foot into the chapel, a pit would form in his stomach. People would stare at him, whisper to each other when he passed. “Isn’t that Lonnie’s boy, the sensitive one that I always hear people fussing about?”
Once Will got older, he began to learn the source of the dread he got when religion was brought up. People would come to the Byers’ door to give them little pamphlets with “Leviticus 18:22” plastered all over them; they would be mailed as well, to which Joyce would always sigh and click her tongue, then hand them to Jonathon and say “Trash”. He would hear the guests that they would invite onto the news outlets talking about the “gay disease”. Joyce and Jonathon would always flick past those as fast as they could, but Will knew what they would have said next. He doesn’t know if he prefers knowing or not knowing where this lingering sense of guilt is from.
Will knew how others thought of him. Sinner. But whether God saw his sins as so disgusting that he was sentenced to an eternity of pain and suffering was a question that always seemed to stick. A question that he had tried to push down for most of his life. Though after he lost Jane, it was becoming impossible to keep out of his mind; in fact, it was all he thought about.
He would pray to God, begging and crying, to just let him know the answer. The answer never came though, and deep down he knew it never would. But he would continue to pray every night because he felt like he needed to try. Like if he just tried hard enough, God would see him, see how hard he tries, maybe even take mercy on him or pity him and let him into heaven or whatever the afterlife was.
Hell was different for Will than for most. Most imagined Hell as a place of eternal torture and suffering with torture devices and hot lava spouts or something of the sort. Hell for Will was an eternity of loneliness. A thousand lifetimes with no one. Without his mom, Jonathon, Mike, and the Party. Without Jane. Will and Jane's time on Earth together had run out; his only hope to ever see her again was in the afterlife.
He needed to prove to God that he was worthy. That he could make up for his sin. He would do anything to make it, to see her again. He would hide his sin for the rest of his life, make his life on Earth miserable, to have a chance at another life.
Divinity says destiny can’t be earned or returned
He was going to make himself nauseous if he thought about it anymore. He didn’t know what to do anymore. What he took away from church was that God loved everyone, no matter what, so why couldn’t God love him? Maybe he does, maybe everyone else has tricked Will, twisted God’s words to make Will feel unworthy. Will wants this to be the truth, but no matter how hard he tries to believe it, Leviticus 18:22 comes back, burned into his brain from every time it was recited to him, put on a pamphlet and thrown at him like it would change anything.
I feel when I question, my skin starts to burn
Why does my skin start to burn?
At least when people would throw these vile comments at Will, he had Jane to go to after an especially bad day. She always made his days better. In California, Will would paint at his easel while Jane would lie on his bed and tell him about her day; the good, the bad, what she missed about Hawkins, what she didn’t. They would sometimes sneak out together at night when Joyce was asleep, and Jonathon was too high to care. They would find constellations, and Jane would count the number of days until Mike was coming in stars.
Now Will has to pray that he gets one more chance to see her, and Jane has to count stars in heaven until Will gets there with her.
Stars blink like my sister's eyes
I dream of eternal life