Chapter Text
1st day of summer, June 13th 2004
The day started later than it had all year. He didn't wake up to his alarm telling him to get up for school. Instead Wil was greeted by the sun at an actual reasonable time.
10:30
He got up slowly and changed from his old t-shirt and basketball shorts to a Foo Fighters graphic tee and some baggy Junkos off of the floor. He never needed to look in the mirror since he never really thought to care about the things he wore.
He grabbed his dog's leash and started shaking it the sound of medal clinking together to get his dog's attention. "Nell!" he called as the golden retriever excitedly padded down the stairs. He clipped on her leash and grabbed his converse from beside the door before slipping them on.
he made sure his Walkman's batteries were still full before waving a goodbye to his mom.
Summer in Texas was one of Wil's favorite things ever. Summer meant spending days by the lake in the back of a pick up with his guitar, and skating all day long.
Suddenly, Nelli started pulling harder on the leash and barking. He started to become alert looking around him. He looked to his right and saw what she was barking at. A moving van.
They might not seem abnormal to anyone anywhere else but this was a small town in Texas moving vans only came if someone was leaving and Wil never thought he saw someone come in and out of that house.
He stopped to watch and Nelli followed, her barking easing as she realized Wil was calm. A light breeze started to blow when someone came out of the house. He was young about Wil's age and he has these beautiful blue eyes and long shaggy dirty blonde hair. He looked like he would be friends with the popular kids who would pick on Wil for being Asian and liking alternative music. So Wil kept his head down and hoped the Nelli's barking didn't make him want to come over to him.
He started to turn the corner back home but that boy never left his mind. He was beautiful. His eyes were piercing but seemed sad in a way and his hair blew in the wind like a model's on the cover of every magazine. Wil knew he liked guys and he was rather comfortable with himself but he always found himself fawning over the straight guy or the guys who would imagine their girlfriends as a guy and would never choose to accept that part of themselves. So as soon as Wil started to even think about him again he shut it down. But he knew that he would see him again, and he knew that pushing it down would make it come back even stronger when he looked at him with those stupid blue eyes. So he would be praying that maybe he wouldn't notice him but Wil never believed in God, or anything. So he knew that eventually he would notice him and he found a little part of him hoping that he would because if he was being honest just a glance of him made him crazy and if all it took was a glance Wil didn't know what would happen if he were to graze his shoulder.
Wil got home and unclipped Nelli's leash letting her free back into the house before grabbing his skateboard and turning his heel back outside. He found himself going towards that boys house again without thinking and soon enough there he was again. The moving van now gone it was just him sitting on his two front steps. Wil didn't realize he was skating closer to his house than he had meant until he stopped infront of it wondering why his Walkman suddenly stopped playing. Dead. He let out an annoyed sigh and when he looked up to continue the boy called out to him
'shit'
"Hey, uh, I like your shirt. "
Wil thought he would here some sort of mock in his voice or laughter towards the end but in sounded genuine so he looked over only to see him wearing the same one.
Wil laughed softly and smiled
"Thanks I like yours too." he said sort of in a joking way.
"You skate? " Wil found himself asking
What was he doing?
"Nah, I have a board but I never really picked it up. "
br />
"I could probably teach you sometime" Wil replied without thinking
"Sure I'm free tomorrow if you are and my name's Brando by the way"
Brando, Wil put that in his pocket to remember later
" Cool I'm Wil , yeah I'm free, but uh don't you have church tomorrow? " It was Sunday after all and he definitely expected Brando to be a typical small town boy and go to church but what did he know he never went himself.
"My family doesn't really do that but you know it's cool if you do, if you guys have that. " Brando said in a nice genuine way and for some reason that gave Wil a spark of hope when he looked at his bright blue eyes.
" No we don't either it's just kinda normal for people around here to so I just figured."
" Alright then meet me here at 11."
"I'll see you at 11."
Brando laughed a little " Got it. And you know if skating doesn't really work out we could just hang I need some friends." "Me too." said Wil plainly. He knew what he was getting himself into and it was going to destroy him "Alright." Brando turned back to his house and went inside leaving.
Wil walked into his house after about another hour skating around his block to his mom in the kitchen baking. Weird.
"Hey, mom."
"Hey sweetie, We've got new neighbor's so I decided to I don't know bake them a welcome gift. Would you like to help?"
That's why she was baking. />
"Actually I met their son. He wants me to come teach him to skate tomorrow."
"Okay yeah of course. Go have fun. Oh! And before I forget your brother called not to long ago. Do you want to see if he is still able to answer?"
His brother.
His brother is in the Army. And he's been deployed over seas for almost 7 months.
After Wil's father left his brother became the better father he never had. So when he left the house was quieter than it ever had been. His brother was the only person in the world he needed. He mumbled a thanks to his mom and ran to the phone and dialed the number he spent days memorizing so he could call even when he knew he could barely ever answer.
The phone clicked and went to a long voicemail. He was left in the dark of the hallway. his mom called him to come and bring cookies to the new neighbor's. He wondered how this would go.