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Mike found the sketchbook because Will was terrible at hiding things from him.
Not from everyone. From everyone else, Will was careful. He had spent most of his life learning how to be careful. He could tuck a feeling behind his ribs and keep it there for years. He could lie with his mouth and tell the truth with his eyes and rely on people not knowing him well enough to notice the difference.
But Mike noticed. Mike had always noticed. Which was why it was kind of insane that Will still thought shoving a sketchbook under a half-reviewed stack of art history notes counted as hiding it.
Mike spotted the corner of it as soon as he walked into Will’s dorm room.
He had a reason to be there. A normal one. A non-suspicious one. Will had left his copy of The Fellowship of the Ring in Mike’s car the night before, and Mike had come to return it before driving back to Hawkins.
That was the reason. That was the whole reason.
It definitely had nothing to do with the fact that Mike had spent the last twenty-four hours thinking about the way Will had fallen asleep in his passenger seat on the drive back from the diner, head tipped against the window, hands tucked into the sleeves of his jacket, face soft in the glow from the streetlights.
It had nothing to do with the fact that Mike had driven slower once Will fell asleep.
It had nothing to do with the fact that when they got back to campus and Will blinked awake, embarrassed and mumbling, “Sorry,” Mike had wanted, violently, to say, Don’t be.
Instead, he had said, “You drooled on my window.”
Will had not drooled on his window. Mike was an asshole. He knew this about himself.
Now he stood in Will’s doorway with the book tucked under his arm, staring at the sketchbook half-hidden on Will’s desk like it had personally challenged him.
The dorm room was empty. Will’s roommate, some guy named Graham who wore too much flannel and played R.E.M. on repeat, had opened the door for him before rushing off, claiming he had to be at practice. For what, Mike did not know. Will was probably still in figure drawing, which was supposed to end at four but always ran late because his professor apparently believed clocks were a form of artistic oppression.
Mike checked his watch. 4:17. He should leave the book and go.
He was supposed to be back in Hawkins by dinner. His mom had said they were having a family pot roast dinner, like that was an event. Like Mike should be grateful to be back at the Wheeler dining table, listening to his father ask whether anyone had seen the remote and his mother ask Nancy about work and Holly talk about school while Mike sat there, twenty years old, still sleeping under the same roof as his parents.
Not in college. Not on campus. Not moving forward like everyone else. Just… home.
He took one step into the room. “Will?” he called, even though he knew Will was not there.
Nothing.
Mike crossed to the desk and set Fellowship down beside Will’s lamp. It landed too close to the stack of papers. The sketchbook shifted.
A loose page slid out. Mike grabbed for it automatically, then froze.
It was him. Not a finished drawing. Just a pencil sketch, quick and light, like Will had been trying to catch something before it disappeared. Mike sitting on the floor of Will’s dorm, knees bent, one hand tangled in his hair. His mouth was slightly open, caught mid-rant. There were lines around his eyes from laughing or arguing or both.
Mike knew the day. Three weeks ago. He had driven up on a Saturday because Will said everyone else was busy and he was “bored,” which Mike knew meant lonely but did not say out loud. They had ordered terrible pizza, called Dustin, and spent two hours trying to explain over the phone why Mike’s latest campaign idea was not “derivative of Tolkien in the legally actionable sense.”
Mike had forgotten Will was even drawing. He stared down at the paper. It was weird.
Not the drawing. The drawing was good. Of course it was good. Will was annoyingly good at everything that involved a pencil. Even his grocery lists had better composition than Mike’s actual handwriting.
No, the weird part was the person in it.
The person in the sketch looked…happy. Not cool. Not impressive. Not handsome in the way college guys on Will’s campus were handsome, all easy smiles and worn denim jackets and confidence Mike could not figure out how to fake. Just happy. Alive.
Like someone had looked at Mike Wheeler and found something worth keeping.
His stomach did something uncomfortable. He should put it back. He was absolutely going to put it back.
He picked up the sketchbook instead.
“Just checking if the page fell from here,” he muttered to the empty room, because apparently he was now the kind of person who defended himself to furniture.
The cover was black and soft at the corners, worn down from being shoved into backpacks and carried under Will’s arm across campus. There was a tiny paint stain near the spine. Blue. Mike ran his thumb over it before he could stop himself.
He opened to the first page. A tree outside the fine arts building. A coffee mug. Graham’s sneaker, unlaced, probably drawn during a boring roommate conversation.
The next page was a study of hands. Will’s own, Mike thought at first.
Then he noticed the chewed thumbnail on the left hand. The crooked middle finger from when Mike had jammed it catching a football in eighth grade and refused to admit it hurt until Joyce threatened to call his mother.
Mike turned the page. His own face looked back at him. He stopped breathing.
This one was not quick. This one was careful. He was sitting at Will’s desk, hunched over a notebook, face half-lit by a green desk lamp. His hair fell messily over his forehead. His brow was furrowed, mouth pressed thin in concentration. Will had drawn the curve of his neck where it disappeared into his sweater, the sharp bend of his wrist, the shadows under his eyes.
Mike looked tired in it. That part, at least, was accurate.
But there was something else in the way Will had drawn him. Something gentle. The line of his mouth was not cruel or awkward or too big. His nose was not weird. His shoulders did not look bony. He did not look like a collection of parts assembled in a hurry and then stretched too tall by accident.
He looked…he did not know.
He turned the page too fast. Another one. Him asleep in the passenger seat of his own car, head tipped against the window, one hand still loosely curled around the keys. Mike remembered waking up in the dorm parking lot with a neck cramp and the radio still playing low. He had complained for ten straight minutes.
Will had only smiled and said, “You looked peaceful.”
Mike had told him, “I looked dead.”
In the sketch, he did not look dead. He looked young. No. Not young. Loved.
The thought arrived so suddenly Mike snapped the sketchbook shut.
His pulse pounded in his throat. Nope. No. That was insane.
That was a totally insane thing to think about a drawing. Will drew everything. Will drew napkins and street signs and Professor Langley’s weird bald spot. It did not mean anything. It could not mean anything.
Mike had spent years getting good at not letting things mean anything.
Will smiling at him from across a room? Nothing. Will calling him every Sunday night, even when he had homework? Habit. Will asking when Mike was visiting again before Mike had even left? Friendship. Will saying Hawkins must be boring without him and then looking away too quickly? Joke. Will drawing him over and over like he was something soft enough to touch?
Mike opened the sketchbook again. He hated himself a little for it.
The next page was worse. Him in profile, standing in front of a vending machine in the basement of Will’s humanities building. There was a Snickers bar stuck behind the glass. Mike remembered that too. He had been outraged. Will had laughed so hard he’d had to sit down on the floor.
In the drawing, Mike was pointing accusingly at the machine. His mouth was open. His coat was too big. His hair was a disaster from the wind.
Will had written something in the corner.
tragic hero defeated by capitalism, 1991
Mike snorted before he could stop himself.
Then he heard footsteps in the hallway. He dropped the sketchbook like it had burned him.
The door opened. Will stood there with his bag slung over one shoulder, cheeks pink from the cold, a roll of newsprint tucked under one arm. He froze when he saw Mike.
Mike froze too.
For one horrible second, neither of them moved.
Then Will’s eyes dropped to the sketchbook on the desk. His face changed. Not dramatically. Will was too contained for that. But all the color drained from his expression, leaving something bare and panicked underneath.
“Mike,” he said.
Mike’s mouth opened. Nothing came out.
Will stepped inside and shut the door behind him slowly. “What are you doing?”
“I brought your book back.”
Will looked at Fellowship on the desk.
Then at the sketchbook.
Mike followed his gaze and felt his stomach plummet. “I wasn’t—” he started.
Will’s jaw tightened. “You weren’t what?”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“To what?”
Mike dragged a hand over his face. “I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I know.”
Will set his bag down carefully, which was somehow worse than if he had thrown it. The newsprint roll slid from under his arm and bumped against the leg of the desk.
“How much did you look at?” Will asked.
Mike’s throat felt dry. “Not that much.”
Will stared at him.
Mike winced. “Some.”
“Some.”
“A few pages.”
Will laughed once under his breath. It was not a happy sound.
Mike hated it.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I know I shouldn’t have. One of the pages fell out when I put the book down, and then I saw it, and I should’ve just put it back, but I didn’t, because I’m apparently a terrible person with no impulse control.”
Will looked away.
“That’s not funny,” Mike added, even though Will had not laughed.
“I wasn’t going to say it was.”
“Right.” Mike swallowed. “Sorry.”
The room felt too small. Will’s room usually felt comfortable in a cramped, messy way. Like a place Mike could visit and pretend, for a few hours, that he belonged somewhere other than Hawkins. Books stacked on the windowsill. Two mugs on the dresser even though only one of them lived there. A sweatshirt Mike had left on Will’s chair during his last visit and still pretended he did not notice Will wearing sometimes. Now every object seemed to be looking at him accusingly.
Will crossed his arms. “You shouldn’t have looked.”
“I know.”
“They’re private.”
“I know.”
“I mean it, Mike.”
“I know,” Mike said, sharper than he meant to.
Will’s expression flickered.
Mike immediately deflated. “I know,” he said again, softer.
Will moved to the desk and picked up the sketchbook. He held it against his chest, knuckles white.
Mike’s stomach twisted. “I’m sorry,” he said again, because he did not know what else to do.
“Stop saying that.”
“Okay.”
Silence.
Mike nodded toward the door. “I should go.”
Will did not answer. That was answer enough.
Mike turned to leave.
“Why did you laugh?”
Mike stopped with his hand near the doorknob. “What?”
Will’s voice was quiet. “Before I came in. I heard you laugh.”
Mike looked back at him.
Will’s face was guarded, but there was something else there too. Hurt, yes. Embarrassment. But also curiosity, unwilling and nervous.
Mike shifted. “The vending machine one.”
A little color came back into Will’s cheeks. “Oh.”
“I remember that day,” Mike said.
“Yeah.”
“That machine stole from me.”
“It was sixty cents.”
“It was the principle of the thing.”
Will’s mouth twitched. Barely. Mike saw it and felt something unclench in his chest. Then Will looked down at the sketchbook and the almost-smile disappeared.
“I didn’t think you’d see them,” Will said.
“I know.”
“I didn’t draw them for you to see.”
Mike nodded, because that made sense. Of course they were not for him. Why would they be for him? They were probably just studies. Practice. Will had to draw people for class all the time. Mike was around sometimes, that was all. Convenient. Bony. Full of weird angles. Probably good practice if you wanted to learn how to draw elbows that looked like a medical condition.
“Right,” Mike said. “Yeah. Obviously.”
Will looked up. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“No, what does it mean?”
Mike shrugged too hard. “It means obviously they’re not for me.”
Will’s brow furrowed. “That’s not what I meant.”
“No, I know.”
“I said I didn’t draw them for you to see.”
“Yeah. I got it.”
Will stared at him. “Mike.”
“What?”
“You’re doing that thing.”
“I’m not doing a thing.”
“You are.”
Mike laughed, defensive and ugly. “Okay, well, maybe I don’t know what thing you’re talking about because I do a lot of things. I’m very annoying.”
Will’s face softened in a way that made Mike want to climb out the window. “You’re not annoying.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Not to me.”
Mike looked away fast. There it was again. That warmth. That awful hope.
He hated hope. Hope was humiliating. Hope made people stupid. Hope made you stand in your best friend’s dorm room in 1991 with your heart trying to crawl out of your chest because maybe, maybe, maybe a sketchbook full of your face meant something you were too scared to name.
He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. “You don’t have to say stuff like that.”
Will blinked. “Like what?”
“Like I’m not annoying.”
“But I don’t think you are.”
“You should.”
“Why?”
Mike laughed again. “Why?”
“Yeah, Mike. Why?”
Because I talk too much. Because I say the wrong thing constantly. Because I’m still living with my parents while everyone else figured out how to live. Because I work at Bradley’s Big Buy four days a week and pretend I am “taking time to figure things out,” which is a nice way of saying I have no idea what I'm doing with my life. Because I visit your dorm so much that everyone assumes I go here too, and every time I have to say I don’t, I feel like something small and pathetic crawls up my throat. Because I’m too skinny and too loud and my face looks weird from the side. Because every time I try to be normal, I turn into some version of my father or some version of a guy everyone tolerates until he leaves the room. Because you drew me like I’m worth looking at, and I don’t know what the hell to do with that.
He said none of it.
Instead, he shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Will’s grip on the sketchbook loosened slightly. Mike could tell he did not believe him. That was the thing about Will. He had spent so long being invisible that he had become almost unbearably good at seeing.
“Why did you keep looking?” Will asked.
Mike went still. There were a dozen easy answers. Curiosity. Stupidity. Invasion of privacy. Take your pick. The truth sat heavy on his tongue. He could not say it.
Will watched him, waiting.
Mike looked down at his shoes. One lace was untied. He had tied it that morning. Badly, apparently. Everything about him was badly assembled.
“Because I didn’t understand,” he said finally.
Will’s voice softened. “Understand what?”
Mike swallowed. “The way you drew me.”
Will did not say anything.
Mike took the silence as punishment and nodded once, quick and jerky. “Yeah. Okay. I should go.”
He reached for the door again.
“Mike.”
He stopped.
Will moved closer, not much, but enough that Mike could feel the shift in the room.
“What do you mean?” Will asked.
Mike kept his hand on the doorknob. It was cool under his palm. Solid. A way out.
“I mean…” He exhaled sharply. “You made me look different.”
“Different how?”
“Better.”
Will’s face changed.
Mike regretted saying it instantly.
“Not better,” Will said.
Mike stared at the door. “Will.”
“I didn’t make you look better.”
“Okay.”
“I didn’t.”
“Okay.”
“You keep saying okay like you want me to stop talking.”
“I do want you to stop talking.”
Will flinched.
Mike turned around immediately. “No, I didn’t mean—shit. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“How did you mean it?”
“I meant I want you to stop talking because you’re going to say something nice, and then I’m going to have to stand here and be normal about it, and I’m not good at that.”
Will’s expression went very still.
Mike’s face burned. Great. Great job, Wheeler.
He looked down. “Forget it.”
“No.”
“Will—”
“No,” Will said, and there was something firm in his voice now. Not angry exactly. Scared, maybe, but steady. “I don’t want to forget it.”
Mike glanced up.
Will held the sketchbook against his chest like a shield. “You think I made you look better?”
Mike’s mouth tightened.
“Mike.”
“Yes,” he snapped. “Yes, okay? I think you made me look better. Happier. Less weird. Less…” He gestured vaguely at himself. “This.”
Will looked at him like he had said something terrible.
Mike hated that too. “Don’t,” he muttered.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t look sad. I’m not trying to make you sad.”
“I know you’re not.”
“It’s not a big deal.”
“It is to me.”
Mike looked up sharply. Will seemed surprised by his own words, but he did not take them back.
Outside, someone shouted in the hallway. A door slammed. Music drifted faintly from someone’s room, tinny and distant. R.E.M. again, probably. You could not walk ten feet through Will’s building without hearing someone be melancholy through a wall.
Inside Will’s room, everything felt suspended.
Mike forced a laugh. “Why?”
Will’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Why what?”
“Why does it matter to you?”
“Because it’s you.”
That was not fair. That was not fair at all.
Mike looked away, chest aching. “That’s not an answer.”
“It is.”
“No, it’s not. It’s just—” Mike swallowed. “It’s just a thing people say.”
“I’m not people.”
Mike froze. Will looked scared now. Like he knew he had stepped too close to something and did not know whether to retreat.
Mike could barely breathe. “No,” he said quietly. “You’re not.”
Will’s eyes flickered.
The sketchbook was still between them.
Mike hated it. Loved it. Wanted to throw it out the window. Wanted to ask Will to show him every page.
Will looked down at the cover, then back at Mike. “Do you want to see them?” he asked.
Mike stared at him. “What?”
“The drawings.”
“I already saw them.”
“A few,” Will said. “Without permission.”
Mike winced. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Will hesitated. “I’m asking now.”
Mike did not understand. “Why?”
“Because maybe it would be different if I showed you.”
Mike’s heart kicked hard.
He shook his head automatically. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
“Seriously, I shouldn’t have looked in the first place.”
“I know that too.”
“And you were mad.”
“I still am a little.”
“Right, so—”
“Mike.”
He shut up.
Will’s expression softened. “Do you want to see them?”
Mike wanted so badly that he felt sick. That seemed dangerous. Wanting like that. Wanting to know how Will saw him. Wanting to sit beside him and let him point out things Mike had never noticed about his own face. Wanting proof, maybe, that there was some version of him that existed outside the one in his head.
“I don’t know,” Mike said.
Will nodded. He did not push. That somehow made Mike want to answer honestly.
“Yes,” Mike said, barely audible.
Will’s fingers tightened around the sketchbook. “Okay.”
They sat on Will’s bed because there was nowhere else. Graham’s side of the room was a disaster of laundry and old pizza boxes. Will’s desk had only one chair, and the idea of Mike sitting there while Will stood over him felt unbearable.
So the bed. The bed was worse.
They sat shoulder to shoulder, not touching, close enough that Mike could feel warmth radiating from Will’s arm.
Will opened the sketchbook. The first few pages were normal. Buildings. Hands. Coffee cups. Mike tried to relax.
Then Will turned to the desk-lamp drawing. Mike’s stomach flipped.
Will did not look at him. “This was when you came up after Thanksgiving.”
“Yeah.”
“You were working on the campaign.”
Mike shrugged. “Trying to.”
“You kept crossing things out.”
“It was bad.”
“It wasn’t bad.”
“You didn’t read it.”
“You told me about it.”
“Exactly. That’s different. I can make anything sound less stupid if I talk fast enough.”
Will glanced over. “You think your campaign was stupid?”
Mike shrugged again. It was easier than saying yes.
Will looked back at the drawing. “You looked tired.”
“I was tired.”
“I know.”
The way he said it made Mike glance over. Will was looking at the drawing, not him.
His voice was quiet. “But you still drove three hours to see me.”
Mike had no idea what to do with that. “I like driving,” he said.
Will gave him a look. Mike’s mouth snapped shut.
Will turned the page. Passenger seat Mike. Asleep, head against the window.
Mike groaned. “God, I look like a corpse.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do. I look like I died in my own car.”
“You don’t.”
“You’re blinded by artistic bias.”
Will gave him another look. Mike shut up again.
Will looked back at the drawing. “You always complain when you sleep in cars.”
“Because my neck is basically decorative. It provides no structural support.”
Will smiled a little. “You were quiet for once.”
“Wow.”
“I liked it.”
Mike’s face heated.
Will realized what that sounded like and flushed too. “I mean, not because you’re annoying.”
“No, no, it’s fine. You liked me unconscious. Great.”
“Michael.”
“I’m kidding.”
“You’re deflecting.”
Mike blinked. “I’m what?”
Will turned another page. “Deflecting.”
“I don’t deflect.”
“You do it constantly.”
“I do not.”
“You’re doing it right now.”
Mike opened his mouth, then shut it. Will’s smile was tiny but victorious.
Mike rolled his eyes, trying to ignore how fond it made him feel. “Fine. I deflect. Sue me.”
Will turned the page again. Vending machine Mike.
Mike relaxed a little. “This one’s historically significant.”
“It is.”
“I was robbed.”
“You shook the machine so hard a professor came out of his office.”
“He should’ve helped.”
“He offered you a banana.”
“I didn’t want fruit, William. I wanted justice.”
Will laughed, and for a second it was easy. So easy Mike almost forgot to be terrified.
Then Will turned the page. Mike went quiet. This drawing was newer. He knew because of the jacket. Black denim, fraying at the cuffs. He was wearing it now.
In the sketch, he sat on the floor beside Will’s bed, back against the wall, a book open in his lap. But he was not reading. His head was tilted slightly toward the bed, eyes lifted, mouth soft with some expression Mike could not name.
Will had drawn him from above. From the bed.
Mike remembered the night immediately. Rain against the windows. Graham gone for the weekend. Will lying under a blanket with a cold, insisting he was not sick while looking like a Victorian child on the brink of death. Mike reading aloud from The Two Towers because Will’s head hurt too much to read himself.
“You drew me that night?” Mike asked.
Will nodded.
“You had a fever.”
“Only a little.”
“You told me your bones were ringing.”
“That doesn’t mean I couldn’t draw.”
Mike stared at the page. His own face looked unbearably open.
“You made me look…” He stopped.
Will waited.
Mike swallowed. “I don’t know.”
Will looked down at the page. “Worried?”
“Maybe.”
“You were worried.”
“Yeah, but…” Mike frowned, frustrated. “I look nice.”
Will turned toward him. Mike regretted the word immediately.
Nice.
What a stupid, childish word. He sounded like a five-year-old describing a dog.
But Will did not laugh. “You are nice,” he said.
Mike barked out a laugh before he could stop himself. “No, I’m not.”
Will’s face tightened. “Yes, you are.”
“I’m really not.”
“Mike.”
“I’m serious. I’m not nice. I’m loud, and I’m—” He stopped, embarrassed by how quickly the list came. “I don’t know. I’m difficult.”
Will looked at him steadily. “You think being difficult means you aren’t worth loving?”
Mike’s entire body went still. Will seemed to realize what he had said a second too late. The room changed again.
Mike could hear the radiator ticking beneath the window. Someone laughing down the hall. The soft scrape of Will’s thumb against the paper.
Worth loving.
Mike stared at the drawing because looking at Will felt impossible. “I didn’t say that,” he said.
“No,” Will said softly. “You didn’t.”
Mike’s throat worked. He hated this. He hated how easily Will found the bruise. Hated that Will could press one careful finger to the ugliest part of him and make Mike want to fall apart from relief.
“I’m not…” Mike began, then stopped.
Will waited.
“I’m not what people think I am,” Mike said finally.
Will’s voice was gentle. “What do people think you are?”
Mike shrugged. “Better.”
“Better than what?”
“Than this.”
Will looked at him for a long moment. Mike kept his eyes on the sketchbook.
“I don’t know who told you that you had to be impressive to be loved,” Will said.
Mike laughed weakly. “Nobody.”
Will’s expression said he did not believe him.
Mike sighed. “Everybody. Nobody. My dad. School. Hawkins.” He picked at a loose thread on his jacket. “Me, mostly.”
Will’s mouth tilted sadly. Mike looked away.
“It’s stupid.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
“Mike.”
“What?” Mike snapped, then regretted it immediately. “Sorry.”
Will did not flinch this time. “Why is it stupid?”
Mike’s laugh came out bitter. “Because I’m twenty years old and still in my parents’ basement.”
Will’s eyes softened. Mike hated that more than anything.
“No, don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m tragic.”
“I don’t think you’re tragic.”
Mike gave him a look. “Will.”
“I don’t.”
“I am literally living at home while you’re here, and Dustin is at Purdue, and Lucas and Max are engaged, and Nancy’s a journalist, and Jonathan’s working on a film, and everybody is—” He broke off, chest tight. “Everybody is somewhere.”
Will’s voice was quiet. “And you think you’re nowhere.”
Mike stared at the floor. The silence answered for him.
Will closed the sketchbook halfway, one finger marking the page. “Mike.”
“I know what people think,” Mike said. “I know they’re being nice about it. My mom does this voice now when she asks if I’ve thought about applying again next semester. Like I’m sick. My dad keeps saying college isn’t for everyone, which is maybe the most insulting thing he could possibly say without actually trying.”
Will’s mouth tightened.
“And when I come here,” Mike continued, voice rougher now, “everyone asks what dorm I’m in, what I’m studying, if I’m in one of your classes. And every time I have to say I don’t go here, they get this look. Like, oh. You’re just visiting.”
Will said nothing.
Mike laughed without humor. “And then you draw me like…” He gestured toward the sketchbook.
“Like what?” Will asked.
Mike swallowed. “Like I belong here.”
Will looked at him for a long moment.
Then he said, “You belong with me.”
Mike stopped breathing. Will’s eyes widened slightly, like the words had surprised him too. But he did not take them back.
Mike looked down. His hands were shaking. “That’s not—” He swallowed. “That’s not the same thing.”
“I know.”
“I mean, it’s nice, but it doesn’t fix—”
“I know.”
“I’m still—”
“I know,” Will said softly.
Mike shut his mouth.
Will looked down at the sketchbook. “I’m not trying to fix it.”
Mike’s throat tightened.
“I know you’re not happy at home,” Will said. “I know you feel stuck. I know you hate feeling like everyone left and you didn’t.” He looked at Mike then. “But I don’t draw you because I think you’re secretly doing fine.”
Mike’s eyes burned.
Will’s voice stayed gentle. “I draw you because I see you.”
Mike stared at him. There were moments when Will said something so simple it made Mike feel like he had been living his whole life in the wrong language.
“Oh,” Mike said, uselessly.
Will turned another page. This one was unfinished. Mike standing in front of a mirror.
Not Will’s dorm mirror. Mike’s. The one over the dresser in his basement bedroom back in Hawkins, with the old D&D poster still taped beside it because Mike had never bothered to take it down. In the drawing, Mike was looking at his reflection, one hand pulling at the hem of his shirt. His mouth was tight. His shoulders hunched inward.
Mike remembered this too. He had not known Will was watching. It had been over winter break, before Steve’s New Year’s party. Will had come over to borrow a cassette, and Mike had been changing shirts for the fourth time, pretending he did not care how he looked. He had said something stupid like, “This shirt makes me look like a lamppost,” and Will had said, “No, it doesn’t.” Mike had not believed him. He still did not.
The sketch made him feel exposed in a different way than the others. The others were Will seeing him when Mike had not known he was being seen. This one was Will seeing him see himself. It was unbearable.
Mike reached out and turned the page. Will let him. The next page was blank. Mike let out a breath. Neither of them said anything.
Mike rubbed his palms against his jeans. “That one was…”
“Yeah,” Will said.
“You saw that?”
“Yeah.”
Mike nodded, ashamed. “Cool.”
“Mike.”
“I know. Deflecting.”
Will’s mouth softened. “Yeah.”
Mike leaned back against the wall and stared at the ceiling. There was a water stain near the light fixture shaped vaguely like the state of Indiana. He had pointed it out the first week Will moved in. Will had said it looked more like a dragon. Will was usually right about these things.
“I hate looking in mirrors,” Mike said.
Will did not move beside him.
Mike kept his eyes on the ceiling. That made it easier. “I always think I’m going to get used to it, and then I don’t. I’ll be brushing my teeth or whatever, and it’s like—” He gestured vaguely. “Who let that guy happen?”
Will was quiet.
Mike laughed under his breath. “That sounds insane.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“It does.”
“It doesn’t.”
Mike swallowed. “I just don’t get what you’re drawing.”
Will’s voice was almost a whisper. “You.”
“No, I mean…” Mike closed his eyes. “I don’t get why you make it look like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m worth looking at.”
The words fell out before he could stop them. For a moment, there was only the radiator. The hallway. Their breathing.
Then Will said, “You are.”
Mike shook his head. “You can’t just say that.”
“I can.”
“No, Will.”
“Yes, Mike.”
Mike looked at him then, angry suddenly. Not at Will. Not really. At the ache in his chest. At the years of walking around with some horrible, half-formed certainty that he was too much and not enough at the exact same time. At the Wheeler house. At the basement. At every college brochure shoved into a drawer. At his father’s bored voice saying, You’ll figure it out, son, like Mike was a broken appliance that might start working again if ignored long enough.
“You don’t get it,” he said.
Will flinched, but he did not look away.
Mike immediately hated himself. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Will shook his head. “No. Keep going.”
“What?”
“Keep going.”
“I don’t want to yell at you.”
“Then don’t yell.”
Mike stared at him.
Will’s face was pale, but steady. “Just tell me.”
Mike looked away again. He did not deserve this. That was the thought that came, sharp and automatic. He did not deserve Will sitting beside him with those eyes and that patience and that stupid sketchbook full of proof that Mike had been loved in secret by someone who knew exactly where to look.
“I don’t know why you’d want to draw me,” Mike said.
Will’s breath caught.
Mike kept going before he could lose his nerve. “I don’t know why anyone would want to look that closely. I’m not…” His throat tightened. “I’m not anything special.”
Will was silent for so long that Mike’s chest started to hurt. Then he stood.
Mike looked up, startled. “What are you doing?”
Will crossed to his desk and pulled open the top drawer.
“Will?”
Will came back with a pencil. Then he sat down in front of Mike, not beside him. On the floor. Knees almost touching Mike’s.
Mike stared at him. “What are you doing?”
Will opened the sketchbook to a blank page. “Drawing you.”
Mike’s panic spiked. “Right now?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Will looked up. “No?”
“I mean—” Mike’s hands fluttered uselessly. “No as in, why?”
“Because you asked.”
“I did not ask.”
“You said you didn’t know why I’d want to look that closely.”
“That is not the same as asking you to look closely.”
Will’s mouth twitched. “It kind of is.”
“It really isn’t.”
“I won’t if you don’t want me to.”
Mike opened his mouth. The easy answer was no. No, because this was humiliating. No, because he was flushed and probably blotchy and his hair had been destroyed by the wind. No, because Will would stare at him for several minutes and Mike would have to sit there inside his own body, aware of every angle and flaw and failure. No, because he wanted it too much.
Will watched him. The pencil rested lightly in his hand.
Mike swallowed. “What do I have to do?”
Will’s face softened. “Nothing.”
“That seems fake.”
“You just sit there.”
“I’m bad at that.”
“I know.”
“Rude.”
Will smiled. “You can talk if you want.”
“That’s a dangerous offer.”
“I know that too.”
Mike tried not to smile back. Failed. Will’s eyes flicked briefly to his mouth. Mike’s smile disappeared.
The room went quiet again, but this time the quiet was different. Not empty. Not awkward. Charged.
Will looked down first. “Just…” He adjusted the sketchbook on his knee. “Look wherever you want.”
Mike stared at him. That seemed dangerous too.
Will began to draw.
At first, Mike was painfully aware of everything. His knees. His hands. The way his jacket bunched at his wrists. The fact that one of his socks had a hole in it. The way Will’s eyes moved from the page to his face and back again, again and again, catching on details Mike usually tried to avoid. His nose. His mouth. The shadows under his eyes.
Mike wanted to make a joke. He did not.
Will’s pencil moved lightly over the paper. It made a soft, scratching sound that settled something in Mike’s chest.
After a while, Mike said, “I used to think if I got taller, I’d look less weird.”
Will’s pencil paused only for a second, then continued.
“Did it work?” Will asked.
“No. I just got weird higher up.”
Will huffed a laugh.
Mike looked at him then. Really looked. Will’s hair was falling into his eyes. There was charcoal smudged near his wrist. His brows were drawn together in concentration, mouth relaxed, shoulders slightly hunched over the page. He looked older and exactly the same in the ways that mattered.
Mike wondered what Will saw when he looked in mirrors. He wondered whether Will knew that Mike could draw him too, if he had any skill at all. Not on paper. Never on paper. Mike’s hands were useless that way.
But he could draw him in words, maybe. Will in the library, chewing on the end of a pencil. Will on the phone late at night, voice quiet so he would not wake Graham. Will laughing so hard at something stupid Mike said that he had to cover his mouth with his sleeve. Will asleep in Mike’s passenger seat. Will looking at Mike like looking was easy.
Mike’s chest ached.
“Do you draw everyone this much?” he asked.
Will’s pencil stopped. There it was. Mike had not meant to ask it. Not exactly. But he had.
Will did not look up. “No.”
Mike’s pulse thudded. “Oh.”
Will resumed drawing, but his hand had changed. Slower now. Less certain.
Mike swallowed. “Why me?”
Will’s fingers tightened around the pencil.
“You know why,” he said quietly.
Mike went still. No. He did not.
He did.
He did not.
“Will,” he said.
Will looked up. His face was flushed, but his gaze was steady in a way Mike’s had never been.
“Because it’s you,” Will said.
Mike’s heart pounded painfully. “That’s not fair,” he whispered.
Will’s expression flickered. “What?”
“You keep saying things like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like they’re obvious.”
Will looked down at the page. “They are to me.”
Mike laughed shakily. “Yeah, well, not to me.”
Will’s voice was soft. “I know.”
The pencil moved again.
Mike could barely sit still.
He wanted to ask the question. He wanted to never ask anything again. He wanted to run down the hall, out of the dorm, across campus, all the way back to Hawkins, where his old basement waited like a punishment he knew how to survive.
But he stayed. Because Will was looking at him. And Mike was tired of leaving rooms in his own head.
“Do you…” Mike stopped.
Will’s pencil paused.
Mike stared at his hands. “Never mind.”
“Mike.”
“It’s stupid.”
“I doubt that.”
“You shouldn’t.”
Will gave him a look.
Mike exhaled. “Do you draw me because you’re an artist and I’m around, or because…” His voice failed.
Will waited, very still.
Mike forced the rest out. “Because it’s me.”
Will’s face went terribly soft.
Mike almost looked away. He made himself stay.
“Because it’s you,” Will said.
The words were quiet. Simple. Devastating.
Mike nodded once, even though he did not know what he was agreeing to. “Okay,” he whispered.
Will looked back down at the page, but he did not start drawing again. “Mike.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not drawing some better version of you.”
Mike’s throat tightened.
Will continued carefully. “I’m not fixing things when I draw you. I’m not making you nicer or less weird or more impressive or more worth looking at.” He swallowed. “I’m drawing what I see.”
Mike shook his head. “I don’t see it.”
“I know.”
“I want to.”
Will looked up.
Mike’s voice cracked on the next words, which was humiliating, but he said them anyway. “I want to see what you see.”
Will’s eyes shone. He set the pencil down. For a second, Mike thought he had ruined it. Then Will turned the sketchbook around.
Mike looked. It was unfinished. Barely more than the shape of him. Long legs folded awkwardly. Oversized jacket sleeves pushed over knobby wrists. Hair falling into his eyes. Mouth slightly parted, like he was halfway through saying something he was afraid to finish.
Will had not made him look handsome. Not in the clean, easy way Mike had thought he wanted. He had made him look uncertain. Guarded. A little scared. But the lines were gentle. That was the thing Mike could not get past. Every part of him that he hated was still there, but none of it looked hated. His sharp elbows. His tired eyes. His too-big mouth. His terrible posture. All of it there. All of it held carefully.
Mike stared until his vision blurred. “Oh,” he said.
Will’s voice was small. “Is it okay?”
Mike laughed once, but it broke halfway through. “No,” he said.
Will’s face fell.
Mike looked up quickly. “No, I mean—yes. It’s good. It’s really good. It’s just…” He pressed the heel of his hand against one eye. “God, Will.”
Will set the sketchbook aside immediately. “Hey.”
“Sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
“I’m not crying.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“I’m not.”
“Okay.”
Mike dragged both hands over his face, hating himself, hating that he could not even handle someone being kind to him without falling apart like wet cardboard.
When he looked up, Will was still there. Of course he was.
Mike’s voice came out raw. “Why aren’t you embarrassed?”
Will blinked. “What?”
“Looking at me like that. Drawing me like that. Saying things like that.”
Will’s cheeks flushed. “I am embarrassed.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.” A nervous laugh slipped out of him. “Mike, I’m terrified.”
Mike stared at him.
Will looked down at his hands. “I just don’t think being terrified means I should lie.”
Mike’s breath caught. There it was again. Will saying something so simple it made Mike feel like he had been doing life wrong on purpose.
“Oh,” Mike said, uselessly.
Will’s fingers twisted together. Mike watched him and realized, suddenly, that Will was not calm. Not really. His shoulders were tense. His face was flushed. His hands were shaking slightly. Will was scared too. That changed everything. Or maybe it made everything possible.
Mike leaned forward before he could talk himself out of it. “Will.”
Will looked up. Mike’s courage nearly failed. He grabbed for it with both hands.
“I don’t know how to be looked at like that,” he said.
Will’s eyes softened. “Okay.”
“But I want you to keep doing it.”
Will went still.
Mike swallowed. “If you want to.”
The corner of Will’s mouth lifted, shaky and disbelieving. “I want to,” he said.
Mike nodded. “Okay.”
For a moment, they just looked at each other.
Then Will laughed under his breath. “You say 'okay' a lot when you’re panicking.”
“I’m not panicking.”
Will raised his eyebrows.
“I’m panicking a normal amount.”
“There’s a normal amount?”
“For me? Yes.”
Will smiled. Mike smiled back, helpless. The space between them had gotten very small.
He did not know when it happened. Maybe when Will moved onto the floor. Maybe when Mike leaned forward. Maybe it had been shrinking for years, quietly, every time they chose each other without saying what they were choosing.
Will’s gaze dipped to Mike’s mouth. Mike stopped breathing.
Will looked away immediately. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
Will’s eyes snapped back to his. Mike’s heart was so loud it felt embarrassing. He should say something. Something clear. Something brave. Something that would not leave room for misinterpretation.
Unfortunately, he was still Mike Wheeler.
So what came out was, “I’m not good at this.”
Will’s mouth twitched. “At what?”
Mike gave him a look. “Don’t make me say it.”
“I think you should.”
“That’s cruel.”
“I’m trying this new thing where I don’t guess what you mean and then torture myself about it later.”
Mike huffed a laugh. “Sounds fake.”
“It’s worth trying.”
Mike looked down at the small space between their knees.
“I’m not good at wanting things,” he said.
Will’s expression softened.
Mike kept going, because if he stopped, he would never start again. “I mean, I’m good at wanting stupid things. Like snacks from broken vending machines. Or Dustin to stop explaining radio theory when we already know. Or my dad to develop a personality.” He took a shaky breath. “But important things, I just… I talk myself out of them before I can be disappointed.”
Will did not move.
Mike looked up. “I don’t want to talk myself out of you,” he said.
Will’s lips parted.
Mike’s chest clenched. “And that sounded way smoother in my head.”
“No,” Will said quickly. “No, it was…”
“Bad?”
“Mike.”
“I’m kidding.”
“You’re deflecting again.”
“I am extremely aware.”
Will laughed softly, and then he was close enough that Mike could see the tiny charcoal smudge near his jaw.
Mike reached up without thinking, then stopped.
Will’s eyes flicked to his hand.
“Can I?” Mike asked.
Will nodded.
Mike brushed the smudge away with his thumb. It was barely a touch. It did not feel barely like anything.
Will’s eyes fluttered shut for half a second.
Mike forgot every self-hating thing he had ever thought. Forgot his elbows and his mouth and his stupid face and the college applications hidden in his desk drawer back home. Forgot his father’s disinterested voice and his mother’s careful one and the cracked mirror in his basement. Forgot the carefully constructed belief that wanting too much was how you lost things.
Will opened his eyes.
Mike whispered, “Can I kiss you?”
Will’s answer was immediate. “Yes.”
Mike leaned in.
The kiss was soft. So soft it almost hurt.
Will’s mouth was warm and still for one suspended second, and then he kissed back, careful and sweet and trembling. Mike made a small sound before he could stop himself. Embarrassing, probably, but Will’s hand came up and curled lightly around his wrist like he wanted to keep it. So maybe not.
Mike had imagined kissing Will before. This was worse. Better? Different.
He had imagined fireworks, maybe, because he was dramatic and had watched too many movies with Nancy when they were kids. He had imagined terror. He had imagined immediately doing it wrong and ruining everything. But this was quieter than that. It felt like finally setting something heavy down.
When they pulled apart, Will stayed close.
Mike’s eyes remained shut for a second longer because he did not trust the world to still be there when he opened them. But it was. Will was.
Will, with flushed cheeks and bright eyes and a sketchbook beside his knee full of Mike’s face.
Mike let out a shaky breath. “Okay.”
Will laughed, forehead dipping forward until it nearly touched Mike’s. “There it is.”
“I’m versatile.”
“You are not.”
“Wow. First kiss and already bullying me.”
Will’s smile widened, and Mike felt ridiculous with relief.
Then Will’s expression grew serious. “Mike?”
“Yeah?”
“I like looking at you.”
Mike’s instinct was to make a joke. He felt it rise in his throat, automatic and sharp. He swallowed it.
Will watched him, maybe knowing.
Mike breathed in. The words hurt on the way out, but not badly. Not like a wound. More like a muscle he had never used. “I like when you do,” he said.
Will’s face went soft again.
Mike could get used to being looked at that way, he thought. Maybe not quickly. Maybe not without flinching. Maybe not without days when the mirror won and he had to start all over. But maybe.
The phone rang. Both of them jumped.
Will laughed first, nervous and breathless. Mike pressed a hand to his chest like an old man having a coronary.
“Jesus,” Mike muttered.
Will stood and grabbed the receiver from the wall. “Hello?”
Mike watched his face shift.
“Hi, Mrs. Wheeler.”
Mike closed his eyes. Of course. Of course his mother would call the dorm room. Of course she would have Will’s number memorized. Of course she would somehow have perfect timing. Will looked at Mike, trying very hard not to smile.
“Yeah, he’s here,” Will said. “He was just about to leave.”
Mike made a face. Will’s smile grew.
“No, he’s fine,” Will continued. “I’ll tell him.”
He listened for another moment, then held the receiver out. “Your mom says pot roast is almost ready.”
Mike took the phone with as much dignity as a person could have after kissing his best friend on the floor and immediately being summoned home for meat.
“Hi, Mom.”
Will sat back down on the floor, biting his lip.
Mike turned away slightly. “Yeah, I know. I’m leaving soon.” A pause. “No, I didn’t forget.” Another pause. “Yes, I have gas.”
Will covered his mouth. Mike glared at him.
“No, I don’t need money for the toll road.”
Will lost the battle and laughed silently into his hand. Mike felt warmth spread through his chest. This kind did not hurt.
“Okay,” Mike said. “Yeah. I’ll be home later.”
He hesitated. Then, for once, he did not say soon. He said, “I’m going to stay a little longer.”
Will’s laughter faded. Mike looked at him. His mom said something on the other end.
Mike barely heard it. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be careful. Bye.” He hung up.
The room was quiet again.
Will looked at him. “You’re staying?”
Mike rubbed the back of his neck. “A little longer.”
“What about dinner?”
“Pot roast will survive.”
Will smiled.
Mike’s heart did something stupid.
Will picked up the sketchbook and pencil.
Mike blinked. “What are you doing?”
“Finishing it.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“After that?”
Will’s cheeks flushed, but he lifted his chin. “Especially after that.”
Mike groaned and leaned back against the bed frame. “This is going to make me look insane.”
“No,” Will said, pencil already moving. “It’s going to make you look happy.”
Mike opened his mouth to argue. Then stopped. Because he was happy. Strange. Terrifying. Exposed in the worst and best way. But happy.
So he sat on Will’s floor in the early evening light of 1991, knees touching Will’s, heart still racing from the kiss, and let himself be drawn.
For once, he tried to believe the page.