Archive of Our Own

“This one, this one! I’d buy this one!”

“Can’t you sit still, Michael? You’re going to wake Holly up!”

“Yeah, Michael,” Lucas teases him. “Sit still! Besides, who would buy a car in that shade of yellow? It looks like a taxi.”

“It wouldn’t look like a taxi if I put huge wheels on it, like that Hot Wheels car I got for my birthday. Normal ones in the front, really big ones in the back.”

Lucas turns around to Mike in the backseat of his mom’s car, poking him excitedly. “If you put that blue flame sticker on the side, it’d look sick.”

Mike can’t contain his excitement when Lucas remembers exactly which toy he’s talking about.

“Yeah,” Mike says a little too loudly, earning a Shhh from his mom. “And a really loud sound system in the trunk,” he whispers.

Lucas leans a little farther over Mike, studying the cars through the window. None of them catch either of their attention at the moment, but the game they’ve been playing for what feels like forever since they got in the car continues. They take turns pointing out which cars they’d buy if they had the money, if they were old enough to drive, or which ones they swear they’ll remember so they can buy them once they’re famous.

The houses blur past the window, and the landscape looks orange, as if reflecting how hot it is outside. But Mike doesn’t care about that right now. Not with the air conditioning in his mom’s car making him shiver, not with the thought of the soft breeze from the camp’s forest waiting for them once this approximately million-year-long trip finally comes to an end.

“Look at that red house!” Lucas says quickly, but Mike only catches a blur of very red through the window.

“Damn, missed it. It was really red.”

“Language, Michael,” his mom warns him.

“I’d have a red house,” Lucas continues.

“I’ll have a mansion, and I won’t want it to be colorful on the outside, just on the inside,” Mike shoots back.

“Why?”

“Famous people’s mansions are always white,” Mike shrugs.

Lucas makes a confused face, ready to question him, when Holly snores to his left, where she’s sleeping in her car seat. Her blond, almost-white hair covers half of her chubby toddler face, and Mike reaches over Lucas to tuck it behind her little ear.

“Shhh,” he tells Lucas.

“I’m not saying anything!” he whispers, far too loudly, and Mike shoots him a disapproving look.

“Shhh,” he says again.

“You’re the one who got yelled at by your mom!”

“Forget about it!”

“Shut up!”

“You shut up!”

“Boys!” their mom says again, her irritated expression visible in the rearview mirror. “Quiet, or I’m turning this car around and we’re going home! No camp. Summer school instead.”

The two boys huff, leaning back against the seat at the same time. Lucas slumps against Holly’s car seat, looking out the window, while Mike presses his cheek against the window on his right, trying to focus on the cars outside again. White, black, gray, black again.

He knows his mom is exaggerating about going home because he overheard her talking on the phone about how she was going to use this time to sort through some of his old toys and small clothes for donation, and how excited she seemed to get rid of his treasures. He doubts she wants him around when she does it.

“Hey,” Lucas nudges him, pointing at a massive pickup truck through the window on their left, and Mike grins at him.

“Insane,” they both say at the same time, laughing quietly afterward.

“I saw a Hot Wheels one that looked like it at the mall a long, long time ago,” Mike says.

“Last week,” his mom corrects him.

“Whatever. It was white instead of black.”

“Awesome,” Lucas agrees, nodding as he admires the pickup already disappearing into the distance.

Mike settles back again, watching the houses become less frequent. He shifts around in his seat once more, unable to contain his excitement as he spots the trees along the road leading closer to camp getting nearer. It’s true that he hadn’t been very happy the first time his mom brought him there, but the years have passed. He’s a big kid now, only nine months away from turning nine, and summer camp is his favorite event of the year.

After that comes his birthday, then Christmas, the last day of school before summer, and the days his dad takes him out for ice cream with Nance. And somewhere at the very bottom of the list has to be the camp talent show.

But right at the top of the list for Mike is this exact day of the year: the day he goes back to camp and all his best friends get together again.

Years ago, when his mom brought him down this same road and introduced him to camp, Mike was crying. That’s what they told him, anyway. He swears he wasn’t being that dramatic. He was just scared, okay? Like any five-year-old would be in the middle of a whole bunch of trees, with lots and lots of kids running around everywhere and loud voices coming from megaphones.

And besides, Mike swears he saw other kids crying too. He wasn’t the only one, okay?

His crying didn’t last very long, either. Everything at camp was interesting, and the instructors were friendly, the instruments were pretty, and every room had music—and very good fans.

Not to mention that after being there for a while, later that very same day, Mike met his best friend. His best of the best friends, obviously. Mike has four best friends at the moment, but each one is sorted into a different category in his head.

There’s Lucas, who lives on the same street as Mike, goes to the same school as Mike, and spends most of his time at Mike’s house or Mike at his, playing and doing absolutely nothing. It’s almost the same thing Mike does with Nance, which makes Lucas feel more like a brother than a friend. They’re always at each other’s family dinners, and Lucas’s mom has called him her son a few times. It doesn’t feel strange to Mike anymore. 

And there’s Dustin, a best friend Mike met during his second year of camp and one of the most random people he’s ever met. Besides knowing how to do a really funny trick with his shoulders, Dustin is also like a walking trivia book, and having him as one of his best friends came naturally since he fit so well into the group they had already formed during their first year.

The group that—

“Lucas, look at this! It’s that tree!” Mike nudges Lucas, but his friend is asleep with his mouth hanging open, his head resting against Holly’s car seat.

Too bad. He missed the tree they see every year when they’re almost at camp.

Anyway, the group they had already formed consisted of Lucas, Mike obviously, and Will. Mike’s best of the best friends.

They met on the first day of camp, when Mike was already tired of walking through so many cabins with rooms, bedrooms, and bathrooms. His dad was already tired of carrying him around, and his mom was pregnant with Holly, so he couldn’t ask her. Still, the woman who was with them suggested letting Mike play at the camp playground for a while.

The place was packed, filled with kids of all ages, and Mike was far too tired to join in on a game of tag. He remembers walking over to where there were a few swings that were already occupied and getting frustrated about it until he found a pair of swings at the very end of the playground.

Will was already sitting on one of them. Not that Mike knew his name yet, and not that he remembered to ask at the time.

When he saw Will sitting alone on the swings, staring down at his sneakers with a tired, slightly sad rhythm, the first question Mike thought of asking was, Do you wanna be my friend?

Will never said yes. He just nodded and smiled, but that was enough for Mike. He took the remaining swing and started playing.

He remembers his feet swinging through the wind, kicking off from the sand, the trees passing beneath his sneakers; he remembers flying as high as a bird; he remembers challenging Will to do better and laughing together when Will really did, then launched himself off the wooden seat, rolled through the sand, and posed like Spider-Man.

Mike didn’t know how to jump off the swing yet, but Will taught him. They learned all sorts of games from each other that day, but it only occurred to Mike that he hadn’t learned Will’s name when a woman—who Mike now knows was his mom—called for him after hours of playing.

That was the first day of many more years of friendship, of many summers Mike eagerly waits for so the two of them can see each other again, without it being through their moms’ phones on a video call or through Club Penguin chat.

Mike and Will never fight, never disagree about anything. It’s so different from Nance and Lucas that Will just doesn’t fit in. It’s special, like the two of them know what the other is thinking, so different from Dustin’s randomness, whose next words Mike couldn’t guess even if he tried.

Will finishes his sentences for him all the time. And their conversations are always fun and interesting because Will has such creative thoughts; they like the same movies and the same cartoons. Mike could talk about Phineas and Ferb with him all day if his mom didn’t need her phone so much.

Will is always talking about characters he draws, and Mike helps him come up with stories for them. The two of them even wrote a play together last year. Actually, it was mostly Will who came up with the idea for all the characters, but Mike helped with some things, and they wanted to put it on someday.

“Mom?” Mike asks, his voice coming out slower than he expected, which surprises him a little.

“We’re almost there,” his mom answers before he can finish asking.

“That’s not it. Are you sure Will is coming today too?”

“You’ve already asked me that five times. The answer hasn’t changed, Michael.”

Despite refusing to call him by his nickname, his mom’s tone is soft. Mike knows he’s already asked a lot, but there’s no harm in checking again.

“Will will be there on today’s bus, and Dustin’s mom is bringing him today too. I already assured you of that. The plans haven’t changed,” she continues.

But what harm would it do to ask? Mrs. Byers could have sent a message in the meantime. How was Mike supposed to know? Campers have today and tomorrow to come on the camp buses; she could have changed her mind.

“I would tell you if anything changed.”

“Okay,” he gives in, leaning against the window again. Trees now dominate the entire landscape, and there aren’t enough cars on the road for their game from before.

Not that he could keep playing anyway. Lucas has started snoring beside him.

“Mike, wake up,” he feels a hand shake his knee and opens his eyes. “Almost there.”

He feels a little disoriented, his cheek aching where it had been resting against his arm, which also hurts from being bent for so long. Mike swears they were already almost at camp, but it seems like every time they reach that tree, time slows down and he wakes up sore on the road leading into camp.

The Welcome to StageWay Summer Camp 2012 sign they decorated last year is hanging up now, and Mike smiles, trying to spot the drawings they made in the bottom right corner before his mom drives underneath the sign.

He quickly nudges Lucas while unbuckling his seat belt before his mom parks. Lucas wakes up with a start when Mike starts undoing his seat belt for him too.

“We’re here, we’re here!” Mike yells, not needing to whisper because Holly is wide awake and distracted by a sealed package of Pringles in her tiny hands.

“Let me do it!” Lucas protests.

“Okay, okay.” Mike lets go of his seat belt. “Mom, can you see the buses?”

“Look! That’s Dustin’s mom’s car!” his mom answers instead.

“Oh, Dusty-bun is already here!” Lucas says.

The two of them laugh at the nickname they once heard Dustin’s mom use — and they never forgot — when the car finally pulls into the parking lot. Mike doesn’t waste any time opening the door, stepping onto the uneven ground and running, carefully avoiding the holes in the patchy grass of the woods.

He searches for the camp’s yellow buses as far as he can see, but it’s obvious they haven’t arrived yet. Mike considers going over to the instructor shouting information through a megaphone, but changes his mind when he hears his mom calling his name from a distance.

Up close, she looks a little angry.

“Michael! You need to get your luggage, you can’t just run off like that! You didn’t even say goodbye!”

“I didn’t go far,” Mike protests as he nudges Lucas, who laughs at the scolding.

The two of them grab their huge, very heavy duffle bags, and Mike immediately drops his on the ground. He’s going to wait for his mom to get back in the car and drive away before dragging it all the way to his cabin — then she won’t be able to complain about it.

“Holly, come back here!” his mom yells again, and Mike sees his little sister trying to run across the parking lot, only to fall a few steps later.

“I’ll get her, Mrs. Wheeler.” Lucas runs after Holly, holding her hand as they walk back to the car, and Mike walks around the vehicle, ready to say goodbye to the two of them for a few weeks.

“Thank you, Lucas.” His mom takes Holly’s hand, looking at Mike with shining eyes.

Like every year.

“Take care of yourself,” she begins. “Respect the adults, don’t do anything risky without supervision, ask them to call me if you need anything.”

“Okay, Mom.”

“Focus on your classes, but don’t forget to have as much fun as you can. Listen to your teachers, eat your meals.” She looks away from Mike for a second. “That goes for you too, Lucas. I’m sure your mom gave you the same speech before we left home.”

“Of course, Mrs. Wheeler,” Lucas nods.

“Take care of each other, and the other boys too.” His mom seems to have finished.

“I love you,” she says, pulling him into a one-armed hug. “I’m going to miss you.”

“Me too, Mom.”

“You too?”

“I love you too.”

She lets him go, studying his face and brushing Mike’s bangs behind his ear — which he immediately pulls back out — and her eyes fill with tears again.

“You can call me if you want,” Mike says. “I’ll miss you too.”

He feels the knot in his throat, but after so many years, he’s already used to the feeling of missing home during the first few days. It’s normal, and he always gets distracted by everything he can do — besides calling home almost every night.

Mike crouches down to say goodbye to Holly, saying it in a quiet low baby voice reserved for his little sister. Not that he needs to be embarrassed about it in front of Lucas, who has his own version of a baby voice for his own little sister.

When his mom’s sedan finally turns onto the road out of camp, Mike turns to Lucas and the two of them high-five before grabbing the handles of their duffle bags and dragging them across the uneven parking lot.

“Don’t drag those, boys!” a blonde instructor shouts through a megaphone, but there’s no one around to help them carry the heavy bags, and Mike is already carrying the new guitar he got for his birthday on his back. Impossible to do both.

The chaos of kids running around is familiar, almost comforting. The two of them get into the check-in line by themselves, like big kids their age are supposed to. Several younger campers are in line with their parents, but Mike and Lucas don’t need that anymore. They drag their bags along until they’re standing in front of the instructors’ table.

“Name?” the redhead asks Mike. He knows she already knows him, but rolls his eyes and answers anyway.

“Michael Wheeler, same as last year, Patty.”

“Can never be too careful.”

Mike can’t disagree with that, so he waits quietly while she searches for his name on the list — the name he had already spotted before Mica Tomaz even moved out of his way. He points at it, smiling innocently when her eyes move from his finger on the paper to his face, a little offended.

“Cabin sixteen, west. You know your cardinal directions?”

Mike rolls his eyes, annoyed. “Of course I do! How old do you think I am?”

He huffs as he takes the cord with his cabin key and the camp ID card from her hand, then drags his suitcase away from the table, mumbling a thank-you under his breath.

Lucas doesn’t take long to join him, and the two of them drag their suitcases west, passing several campers doing the same thing in all sorts of different directions.

“Patty was so mean this year!” Mike grumbles.

Lucas shrugs. “When isn’t she?”

They follow the path in silence. Mike can’t focus on anything, but Lucas is paying attention to the numbers on the doors. Not that they’ll need to. As they approach number twelve, they can already hear Dustin’s excited voice over several other voices.

“Yeah, she paid a seamstress online, said she came all the way from Los Angeles, California! It even lights up, look!”

As they get closer, Mike can recognize Dustin’s messy curls hidden beneath a green camp cap, but his outfit is an awesome Iron Man costume. Mike drops his suitcase on the ground near the cabin, gripping the strap of his guitar case tightly as he runs toward his friend, dodging the curious kids in front of him.

“Whoa, dude! That’s so cool!” Mike yells.

“Insane, how does it light up?” Lucas joins him. “Are there tiny batteries? Is that real iron?”

“Lucas, Mike!” Dustin squeezes both of them into a hug. The costume doesn’t hurt with the impact, so Mike figures that answers Lucas’s question.

Dustin lets them go, spinning around to show off the whole costume. It has details very similar to the action figure sitting on Mike’s shelf, plates made of shiny plastic with realistic paint.

“Like it? It was my Christmas present,” Dustin explains. Mike and Lucas nod, still examining the incredible costume.

“Dude, you have to keep wearing that until Will gets here. He’s gonna love the costume!” Mike says.

Lucas agrees, but turns to Dustin. “Aren’t you dying of heat under that?”

“Of course I am!” he answers with a grin. “At this rate I’m going to lose almost all the water in my body. I’m sweating a lot, so keep an eye out for signs of dehydration. I learned about it at school. It starts with a dry mouth, and then—”

“We’ll keep an eye out,” Mike cuts his speech short.

“I hope Will doesn’t take too long,” Dustin shrugs.

Lucas moves away from them, going back to the abandoned suitcases, and Mike follows him, dragging his for a few feet and then up the steps to the small cabin they’ve shared for the past two summers, ever since they became such good friends. 

Mike finally drags his suitcase one last time to the bed in the right corner, beside the bed Will slept in last year, which is still empty. Finally, he carefully rests his guitar case on the floor.

One look from Mike is enough for Lucas to give up on taking the bed Will is supposed to sleep in and join Dustin in the left corner instead. He flops onto the bed, kicking his sneakers away and waving his socked feet in the air.

“Immediate stinky-feet smell,” Dustin says, covering his nose.

“I think I see another sign of dehydration,” Lucas replies.

“Where?”

Mike laughs, throwing himself onto the rug in the middle of the room, right underneath the ceiling fan. He opens his suitcase, rummaging through all the clothes his mom carefully folded last night. Finally, he gets his hands on the pick case he put in his bag that morning.

“Look what I brought, Dusty-bun!”

Dustin rolls his eyes at Mike but sits up with some difficulty, stretching his legs out. “No damaging the costume,” he clarifies. “When is Will getting here?”

“Soon,” Lucas huffs. “Don’t start, Dustin. He’s not going to stop asking.”

“I only asked a few times. I needed confirmation.” Mike rolls his eyes. He picks up his guitar case and sets it on the floor in front of him, unzipping it and carefully taking the instrument out. “Look!”

It’s a simple guitar his mom bought from a neighbor, nothing too new so he could make mistakes without wasting too much money, she said. There are a few marks on the wood along the side, but it’s all his. For the first time, Mike won’t have to borrow one from the music room, and he’ll be able to bring something new to class this time.

He shifts around on the rug, waiting for Dustin’s reaction. Dustin is staring at the instrument like it’s a treasure. Mike thinks it really is.

“Birthday present!”

“It’s so, so, so cool, dude! Play something for us!”

“Oh, he will,” Lucas says from the bed. “When Will gets here.”

“Why wait? Play one song now and another when he gets here!”

Mike holds back another eye roll when Lucas stifles a laugh. “For now, I only know how to play one whole song.”

“But you’re so good at piano!”

“It’s a completely different instrument, Dustin.” Mike sighs. “Will will be here soon.”

He puts the guitar back into its case and turns toward his suitcase, considering putting his clothes away in the drawers at the corner of the room. Lucas gets up to do it, and Mike gives in, arranging the piles of clothes that had become messy piles inside the drawers he can use.

In the end, there are three and a half drawers left for Will to organize his clothes. The three of them decide to leave the cabin when they hear instructors announcing that there are popsicles in the dining hall, and they run to get theirs.

On the way back, Mike asks a few instructors about the buses and settles for the general answer that they should arrive any minute. The three of them choose a bench to sit on, sharing the extra popsicles Dustin managed to grab from the freezer before the cook came over.

“Strawberry is so much better than bubblegum,” Dustin grumbles. “How can a popsicle taste like bubblegum? Bubblegum doesn’t grow on trees. It’s a completely artificial flavor.”

“What if it’s grape-flavored bubblegum?” Lucas asks.

“It’ll still be an artificial flavor. My mom said they don’t put real fruit in bubblegum,” Dustin answers.

“Good. Imagine eating fruit instead of candy?”

“Can you guys be quiet for a second?” Mike asks. “I think I can hear the bus.”

The large forest packed with cabins is quieter now as late afternoon approaches. Orange light paints the tops of the trees, and several groups like theirs are scattered across the uneven grass. Mike’s leg is collecting little scratches from the gravel scattered across the ground.

Even though some of the groups are singing different songs or talking, a familiar rumble can be heard in the distance, and Lucas and Dustin stand up as soon as they recognize the sound. Mike gets up too, joining them as they run toward the parking lot. They get as far as they can before an instructor whistles in their direction.

“Back up! No campers in the parking lot unless they’re arriving!”

Mike settles for anxiously watching the bus, counting the number of people getting off until Will appears. Forty-eight people get off the bus before Will finally steps down the stairs, accompanied by one of the camp’s theater teachers. He doesn’t look up, even though Mike and Lucas start calling for him the second they spot him.

Mrs. Lilly and Will walk straight past them through the gate, and Will doesn’t even turn around to look at his surroundings. He stares at the ground, his cheeks and nose red as if he has the worst flu in the world. Mike and his two friends look at each other, unsure of what to do for a few seconds.

They follow Will and the teacher with their eyes until they enter the biggest building at camp, where the camp director, Mrs. Hoffman, has her office. Mike doesn’t hesitate before running after them with his two friends at lightning speed.

They turn it into a race, jumping over groups and dodging campers passing by. Lucas gets there first, but Mike catches up right after.

“We got here like the Flash,” Dustin says, hands resting on his knees, as soon as they make it through the door and into the building’s large common room.

“And you’re going to turn right back around just like him,” an older, very tall camper says. He must be around sixteen. “What are you doing here?”

“Our friend, Will, is here,” Mike quickly says.

“Oh, so Will’s been up to something? Mrs. Hoffman will take care of him!” the boy says, crossing his arms. His mean little smile deeply irritates Mike.

He huffs angrily. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! Will wasn’t even here! He didn’t do anything! He can’t be getting in trouble, he just got here on the bus!”

“Then he must’ve done something on the bus.”

The boy doesn’t seem to notice how Mike’s ears start ringing like a train whistle. He feels his face getting hot and Lucas’s hands on his arm, pulling him back.

Mike takes a step forward anyway. “You— You don’t even know him! I want to talk to Mrs. Lilly! I—”

“Mike, let’s wait outside,” Lucas says.

“Listen to your friend, Mike.”

“Mike, come on. We can wait for Will outside,” Dustin insists.

Mike gives the camper one last threatening look. A very bad thought takes over him, and before he can stop himself, he flips the teenager off, immediately earning an offended look in return. He turns around and runs out with Lucas and Dustin before the boy can tell anyone.

After sitting on the steps for what felt like an eternity, the three of them decided to go back to the cabin and wait for Will there. The idea wasn’t much better, but Dustin and Lucas managed to distract themselves enough with the ant terrarium Dustin had brought in his suitcase.

“And did you know that during rain or a flood, ants hold onto each other and form a boat?” Dustin says.

The two of them are lying on the rug, watching the jar filled with ants and dirt, while Mike is on the bed, trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube he’s been working on for several minutes. He watched a YouTube video that taught him how to do it, but he can’t remember the exact number of times he’s supposed to turn the third line.

“Seriously?” Lucas leans closer to the jar.

“Yeah, they take turns so everyone can breathe until they reach dry land. Impressive, right?”

“Could yours do that if we poured a cup of water into this terrarium?”

“First of all, rude. Why do you want to drown my ants?” Dustin suddenly sits up, and Mike turns to look properly at the two of them.

“Are you gonna miss them? There are billions of ants in this forest!”

“These are mine!”

“They’re the same as all the other ones, Dustin.”

“These have names—”

Mike gasps in surprise. “You named them? How did you do that?”

“Well, I call them different names, and then—”

The door opens, and all three of them turn around at the same time. Mike almost rolls off the bed but catches himself at the last second. The Rubik’s Cube falls to the floor, disappearing underneath Will’s bed.

His best of the best friends slowly opens the door, and Mrs. Lilly comes in behind him.

“Hi, boys. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.” She smiles at them, brushing her blond hair away from her face after leaving Will’s duffle bag beside the empty bed. “Will, get settled in, and if you need anything, you can come find me,” she says, addressing only him. “See you later, boys.”

The moment the door closes behind the teacher, the room fills with questions. Mike can hear his own voice among the confusion, but he barely realizes what he’s actually saying. Concern spills over through all three of their voices.

Will waits quietly. His frightened eyes make Mike close his mouth, only to open it again to tell Dustin and Lucas to do the same.

“Quiet! Will wants you guys to shut up.”

“Were you in trouble?” Dustin asks one last time, earning a disapproving look from Mike. “Okay, sorry.”

Will takes a deep breath a few times. Mike counts to three before his mouth opens. “Hi, guys. I—”

“Do you like my costume?” Dustin spins around, and the three of them look at Will expectantly.

“It’s cool, I—”

“Great, I can take it off now!” Dustin starts getting out of the costume, placing the plastic pieces on the bed before shedding the extra layer of clothes underneath.

Mike looks at Will again. “So, Will, how are—”

The dinner bell rings, letting all the campers know they can head to the dining hall. Mike closes his mouth again and notices how Will uses the distraction of the bell to walk over to his suitcase beside the bed.

“I’m starving, let’s go!” Lucas says, his hand on the doorknob.

Mike looks at Dustin and then at Will.

“You guys go ahead. I’ll wait for Will.”

The door closes behind the two of them, and Mike smiles, knowing he also got out of having to find them a table for dinner. He turns to Will, who is rummaging through his bag for something.

“Hey, Will,” Mike says, approaching slowly. “Are you okay?”

Will only nods without turning around. Mike sits on his bed.

“What are you looking for?”

Will answers with a shrug, and Mike smiles, waiting. “Do you need help looking?”

This time, he gets a shake of the head, so he shifts his focus from Will to his open bag, trying to examine its contents and figure out what he might be looking for. It’s normal for Will not to talk much during the first few days of camp. Mike doesn’t know exactly why, but his mom once told him that it might just be shyness. The best thing you can do is make him feel comfortable enough to be himself, his mom answered one time.

Mike lets Will be himself. He lets him search for several minutes and delay their dinner. He doesn’t ask anything else.

When Will finally stands up from his bag, there’s a small silver chain in his hand. He tries to put it over his head, but it’s too small and his head is too big. Mike lets out a little laugh, climbing down from the bed and joining him on the floor.

“Let me do it. Nance taught me once.”

Will nods, handing the chain to Mike. Up close, his face looks even redder, and so do his eyes. Will looks like he’s been crying for hours, and Mike worries immediately. He fumbles with the chain for a few seconds, thinking about what else to ask as he positions himself behind his friend.

“Are you okay?” is the best his big-kid brain can come up with. He tries to remember some conversation he overheard his mom having on the phone, tries to remember how the good guys are comforted in movies. “Do you wanna talk?”

Will nods once to say yes, then shakes his head twice to say no. Mike understands. He’s okay, and he doesn’t want to talk. He just wants to put his necklace on.

That, Mike can help with. He brings the chain around his best friend’s neck, using the thumbnail he hasn’t bitten down yet to open the clasp and hook the ring through. Once it’s closed, he gives it a little tug to make sure it’s secure and stands up, walking around Will on the rug.

“It’s pretty. Does it have a charm?”

Will simply rests the little charm against his thumb, the silver letter J shining in the cabin’s light.

“Pretty. J for Joyce and Jonathan?” Will nods. “That’s cool.”

Will gets up from the rug after closing his suitcase, and the two of them head for the door. In the crowded dining hall, Mike and Will join the line to get their trays with the day’s dinner. The smell of grilled chicken and mac and cheese fills the room, and Mike’s stomach growls, remembering that the last thing he ate was strawberry popsicles.

They join Dustin and Lucas after spotting the two of them waving frantically in their direction. At the table, Mike makes sure to compliment Will’s necklace again just so the other two will compliment it too.

“Yeah, it’s a nice necklace, Will.”

“Really nice. My mom wears a necklace with my initial too,” Dustin says. “But it’s a charm she bought at Disney, so it could also mean she really loves Mickey.”

“Not our Mikey,” Lucas laughs, raising a hand toward Mike’s cheek, which Mike dodges, swatting his hand away weakly.

“This is cute, Dusty-bun,” Mike says, taking it out on Dustin.

The conversation shifts between the school classes they had that year, the instruments they want to play, and the movies they’ve seen recently. Will doesn’t say a word as he pokes at his macaroni without really eating much.

“Not hungry?” Mike asks.

Will shakes his head, an even smaller movement than in the room, and the others don’t even notice. Dustin continues talking about how ants build their anthills, while Lucas focuses on eating everything on his plate.

“You’re not eating that, Will?” Lucas asks when he finishes his own food.

“He’s still eating,” Mike answers for Will, who simply nods.

“You good, man?” Dustin asks Will, finally shutting up about ants.

“He’s okay,” Mike answers again.

Lucas looks between the two of them. “Okaaay,” he says, getting up. “I’m gonna get another serving of mac and cheese.”

Dustin looks at his empty plate, setting his utensils aside. “I’m gonna shower while everyone’s eating.”

“Smart,” Mike says.

“Later, friends.”

Dustin gets up and takes his tray. Mike finishes his dinner in silence alongside Lucas, and Will eats a little more before giving up on his food completely. To avoid wasting it, Lucas eats what’s left on Will’s plate too, and the three of them leave the dining hall together.

Dustin has already showered by the time they return. The three boys head to the camp’s communal bathrooms with their things, and after long minutes spent waiting in line and taking cold showers, Mike puts on his new pajamas and walks back to the cabin alongside Will.

“The night is pretty, isn’t it?” he asks, not really expecting an answer. “I missed the smell of this place. Lots of dirt. I like it.”

Will doesn’t say anything, but he watches the trees around them as they walk together.

“Do you think there’ll be fireflies by the lake tonight? I hope they come again sometime! Last year was pretty, wasn’t it?”

Will silently nods again, and Mike smiles, satisfied. He opens the cabin door and lets Will go in first. When it’s his turn to step through, he hears Lucas yelling his name from a distance.

Something like <em>“Wait for me!”</em> reaches Mike’s ears, and he quickly steps inside and shuts the door.

“Will, Dustin, help me!”

The two of them just look at him. Dustin doesn’t even get up from the bed. Mike calls for help again, and a few seconds later, Lucas turns the doorknob from the other side, trying to open it unsuccessfully. Mike puts all his weight against the thin wooden door, Lucas’s pounding echoing in his ears.

“Let me in!”

Mike laughs. “Help me!” he asks again, and Dustin gets up and joins him at the door, but Will remains standing near his bed.

“Mike! Let me in!” Lucas yells, banging on the door.

“Hmm, what’s the password?” Mike laughs, and Dustin cracks up beside him, his whole weight pressed against the door too.

“The password is Open the door, you idiot! Let me in!”

“Wrong!” Dustin says.

“Dustin? Open the door!”

Mike doubles over, losing his balance from laughing so hard. A ghost of a smile threatens to appear on Will’s face, and Mike realizes he hasn’t seen his best friend smile even once today.

“Quick, Will, what’s the password?”

Will doesn’t say anything. He just points to his bag on the floor. Mike nods. “Perfect. Lucas, what’s the password?”

“Hint?”

Mike chuckles. “I’m looking right at it.”

“Bed?”

“No.”

“Rug?”

“No.”

“Will?”

“What? No!”

“Let me in! Mike, I swear to God, when I catch you—”

“Two more tries,” Mike says between laughs.

“Wall?”

“No.”

“Bags.”

Mike gasps in surprise and nudges Dustin to let go of the door. When Lucas gets inside, he immediately jumps on Mike. 

Lucas’s hand goes straight for Mike’s hair, while Mike grabs the front of Lucas’s pajama shirt, and the two of them roll across the room, bumping into the bed as they trade weak slaps back and forth.

“Enough!” Dustin says between laughs. “Stop, you guys are— you’re gonna get the instructors’ attention.”

That does the trick, and the two let go of each other at the same time. Lucas gives Mike a weak shove to the head, which Mike returns before running back to his bed.

Will is already lying down, his bedside lamp off and no book in his lap. He just stares at the wall beside Mike’s bed.

“Good night, guys,” Mike hears Dustin say, with Lucas answering the same.

The two turn off the lamps on their nightstands, and Mike moves around the room, looking for the ceiling light switch. He turns it off and makes his way back to his bed, guided by the light of the last lamp still on. 

One last look at Will confirms that his eyes are already closed, whether he’s asleep or pretending to be. Mike holds the cord of his bedside lamp for a few seconds, considering it, but eventually turns it off and curls up beneath the thin sheets of his bed.

He can’t sleep, even though he knows he’s tired. Mike also knows something is wrong. Will is too quiet, he wasn’t accompanied by a teacher last year, and he barely smiled today. He hasn’t said more than six words.

Mike can’t let this happen. If Will needs help, he needs to do whatever he can.

Before closing his eyes, Mike decides that if Will is still this quiet tomorrow, he’ll work on something to change that. If his best friend is sad, then he needs to come up with a plan to make him happy.

As soon as possible.

ㅅ ⚓︎ .☘︎ ݁˖ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏⚓︎﹏ ࣪ ˖⋆˚꩜｡𖥔 ݁ ˖𓂃.✮݁ㅅ

“Actually,” Dustin says for the — Mike is counting — sixteenth time this morning. “There’s a type of bee that can build its hive underground, just like ants build anthills! Isn’t that amazing?”

“Awesome, Dustin,” he replies with little enthusiasm, earning a kick to the shin under the table. “Very cool!” he adds with a slightly forced smile.

“Yeah,” Lucas says with more interest. “It’s like they learned from ants, right?”

“Actually—”

And that makes seventeen.

Mike stops listening, turning his attention to the bacon and pancake in front of him. The dining hall is packed again, even though they’re a little late today. Many campers are already heading off to their activities, many others are arriving, and underneath all the noise of conversation, there’s the sound of cars from the parking lot nearby.

Will still hasn’t said a word this morning, not even to answer Dustin and Lucas’s enthusiastic good mornings. Mike can feel a wrinkle forming on his forehead, and it’s not Dustin’s fault that he likes ants so much. It’s just that Mike has bigger things to worry about than bugs. Literally.

Bugs are tiny compared to Will’s lack of response, the absence of a smile on his face, or any interest in anything they’ve talked about all morning. It’s strange, like a missing piece in a puzzle.

Mike still hasn’t decided what he could do to make Will happier, but he remembered to grab an extra pancake and pour some syrup over it before offering it to Will, who almost smiled. Mike isn’t satisfied this time. His mind won’t stop thinking about all the moments he remembers seeing Will smile, trying to make a list in his head.

Right. A list!

He’s totally capable of writing a list of things that can make Will happy. Dustin and Lucas will definitely want to help.

Mike shifts in his seat, smiling as he puts a piece of his pancake into his mouth. Lucas stares at him with a question on his face, but Mike doesn’t say anything. He can wait for the right moment.

Luckily, that moment comes a few minutes after Mike finishes his pancake. Mrs. Lilly approaches their table with a smile and calls for Will, saying his mom is on the phone and would like to speak to him. Will gets up without saying anything and follows the teacher out of the large hall. Mike waits for the door to close behind them before turning to his two friends.

“Okay,” he says, and Dustin and Lucas stop chewing for a moment, paying attention.

Mike lets out a small laugh, but there isn’t a trace of a smile on his face when he continues. “Something happened. Will’s quiet.”

“He’s always quiet,” Lucas says.

“This time it’s different,” Mike insists. “We need to do something.”

“What can we do?” Dustin asks, setting his fork down. He takes a sip from his milk carton. “He’s not going to tell us what’s wrong. How can we help?”

Mike nods. “I thought of something.”

Lucas narrows his eyes, a weird smile on his face. “You did?”

Mike kicks him under the table, but Dustin is the one who yells. “That was my foot!”

“Sorry,” Mike laughs. “I thought of something we can do to make him happy again.”

“And what did you think of, genius?” Lucas asks.

“A list.”

“What kind of list?”

“A list of things Will likes doing that make him happy. Isn’t it obvious?” Mike huffs.

Dustin grins, patting the table. “That’s a good idea. Put going to the Bug Hotel on the list. Will loves going there.”

“The Bug Hotel? We did that when we were little kids, Dustin,” Lucas protests.

“But Will likes—”

“You like—”

“Quiet!” Mike yells. “Dustin, we can put it on the list.”

Lucas rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Write it down, then.”

Mike closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. “I didn’t bring paper and a pencil to breakfast, idiot!”

“Whatever.”

“Can we put the drawing workshop on the list too?” Dustin asks.

“Yes!” Mike says enthusiastically again. “We can think of more things! I was also thinking we could get good seats at the welcome bonfire tonight.”

“Will loves bonfires.” Lucas agrees. “We can let him win the spoon race and hide-and-seek too.”

“Yeah,” Dustin agrees. “He doesn’t like it when he has to spend too long seeking… or hiding.”

Mike smiles, happy that his idea was a success. The three finish breakfast and return to the cabin, still talking about the list, and as soon as they arrive, Mike goes looking for his notebook and pencil case to write it down.

He manages to hide the big list they came up with before Will returns from the director’s office, and Mike decides to put the plan into action as soon as everyone is ready to find activities to do during the day.

Mike stays close to Will the whole time, answering for him whenever people ask questions. He has plenty of his own — especially after learning that Will was on the phone with his mom, meaning he had to use his voice — but he holds himself back. Mike misses his best friend’s voice, but he understands that Will just needs time to adjust.

He isn’t interested in any of the activities that involve running, and Dustin and Lucas leave them behind to join the capture-the-flag. Mike and Will head to the drawing workshop organized by Mr. Oliver, and the two of them draw in silence, occasionally exchanging glances.

Will is finishing his three-headed dragon, and Mike waits, lying with his head on the arm he has resting on the table. Several colored pencils are scattered across the floor, and he plays with one of them, using his foot to roll it back and forth. Will is focused, the tip of his tongue poking out from the corner of his mouth. His grip on the red pencil is firm.

“That’s a nice shade of red,” Mike comments lazily.

“Magenta,” Will corrects him.

Mike stops himself from reacting to the sound of his friend’s voice for the first time in what feels like centuries, holding back his excitement as he keeps his head resting on his arm. His leg, however, won’t stop moving beneath the table, and Will only has to look at him once for Mike to understand the message.

“Sorry,” he says, sitting up in his chair again.

He shifts his attention back to Will’s drawing, thinking about what he could ask or how he could get another response out of his best friend.

“Why does he need three eyes on each head?” Mike laughs.

“To see.”

“Oh, I bet he can see really well. It would be funny if one of the heads needed glasses.”

Will smiles, and Mike almost jumps out of his chair. It feels like his birthday all over again when he watches Will switch from the magenta pencil to the black one and draw glasses with three lenses on the head on the left.

He doesn’t say anything else and keeps drawing without answering Mike’s other comments. At some point, Will simply points at Mike’s drawing, a silent request for him to go back to drawing and stop talking in his ear.

Mike smiles at that, choosing different shades of purple and yellow to color the wizard he has been trying to draw all afternoon. Will is the one who’s good at drawing, and that’s something he hasn’t managed to teach Mike very well over the years.

His wizard is a little crooked and is as tall as the trees around him, but Will accepts it with another small smile when Mike offers it to him as a gift at the end of class, and they trade drawings.

The two wave goodbye to Mr. Oliver and head to the dining hall, finding Dustin and Lucas sweaty in line. They let the two of them cut in front of the many campers behind them.

Mike doesn’t hear any complaints, only Dustin’s heavy breathing and the click of Lucas’s plastic water bottle as he twists it in his hand while telling them about the capture-the-flag.

“We hid our team’s flag near the lake!” He grins. “One of the fourteen-year-old campers was guarding it with some girls! It was awesome.”

“But they grabbed the flag in five minutes,” Dustin says.

“But Megan was faster than them. By the time the other team’s runner reached the field, we were already celebrating. It was so good!”

Mike smiles at the two of them and turns to Will. “Maybe next time, right, Will?”

“Yes,” Will confirms out loud.

Dustin and Lucas don’t even try to contain their reactions like Mike does.

“Will! It’s good to hear your voice!” Dustin says.

“Yeah, man!” Lucas agrees. “But it’s okay if you need more time.”

Will only nods, quiet once again. Mike shoots his friends a threatening look when Will isn’t looking.

They grab their sandwiches and chocolate milk cartons to eat outside. The weather is pleasant in the late afternoon, and the birds singing in the trees are still louder than the scattered conversations across the lawn. The four settle at an empty picnic table in the corner, and Dustin soon fills the conversation with plans to visit the Bug Hotel after they eat.

The Bug Hotel is an old wooden cabinet he and his teammates built during a class a few summers ago, and they all decorated it with the help of several teachers. It’s supposed to be a hotel, and it was placed at the base of a large tree south of the woods. They all put plenty of mud and leaves on the shelves that acted as floors and started visiting every day to watch the insects checking in.

Every day… during that summer when they were six. When they were seven, they started visiting almost every week, slowly losing interest in it. But Will seems a little more excited now, interested in the conversation for the first time.

Mike lets them go ahead, convinced he can talk to Cook Betty before meeting them on the other side of camp.

Many minutes later, Mike stomps his way to the Bug Hotel. His arms only uncross when he finally spots his friends. He takes a deep breath, forcing his face to look less scrunched up with anger before announcing his presence. His mom always says he looks like a little frog when he gets irritated, just like Mrs. Froggy the Frowny from the book he had when he was younger.

“How are our guests this year?” Mike asks, kneeling beside Will in front of the little hotel.

“Good,” Lucas starts.

“Actually,” Dustin interrupts. “We have lots of ants, but no other insects. I’m starting to worry. Do you think we should bring a specific kind of leaf to attract other bugs?”

“Dustin—”

“I can get some different mud, maybe—” He leans over to look at the shelves underneath. “Oh! Never mind, I can see a spiderweb here, and even though—”

“Spiders aren’t insects,” Will and Mike finish at the same time.

“Jinx!” Mike says, grinning widely. Four words is a good sign.

“The spiders— Ah, you know what? Whatever.” Dustin throws his dirt-covered hands into the air, grinning too. “I don’t see any spiders here, but it’s some spider’s home. Mission complete.”

“Let’s go,” Lucas says, getting up. “We don’t want to be here when it comes back.”

“Don’t be silly. It probably wouldn’t hurt anyone.” Dustin pushes him with his dirty hand, earning a slap from Lucas.

“What are the chances?” Mike asks.

“Ouch!” Dustin complains. “Seventy percent?”

“You already learned percentages in school?” Lucas asks.

“No, but I heard some guy talking like that on TV, so I guess it makes sense.” Dustin shrugs.

Mike gets up and offers his hand to help Will stand, and Mike squeezes his best friend’s hand two times in silent acknowledgment. Will has already said a few words today, and the Bug Hotel seems to have helped too. He already seems more attentive.

“What are we gonna do now?” Lucas asks as they head back toward the cabin.

“We still have half an hour until the bonfire.” Dustin checks his watch. “I think I’m gonna take a shower.”

“I think I’ll go with you. Do you think the line is still really long?” Lucas asks.

“Definitely. The girls always want to get ready for the bonfire.” Mike rolls his eyes.

He opens the cabin door and lets his friends go in first, flopping onto the floor rug as soon as he closes it. Dustin and Lucas step around him as they leave the room, and they agree to meet near the bonfire — in the best spot, none of them says out loud, but they exchange knowing smiles.

The cabin falls silent with only Will and Mike inside, but he doesn’t mind. He closes his eyes, enjoying the cool breeze from the fan while Will moves around the room, his footsteps stopping near his bed. Mike doesn’t open his eyes, but he lets out a loud sigh. His mind is working on ways to make Will more comfortable.

Suddenly, an idea comes to him.

“Will! You still haven’t seen my birthday present in person!” Mike gets up quickly, pulling the guitar out of its case much faster than he should. “Look!”

Will looks amazed at Mike’s guitar. He gets up and comes closer to take a better look, his shy fingers brushing against the strings and making an out-of-tune sound echo through the room. Mike laughs, copying the gesture.

“Mom bought it from a neighbor. It’s not exactly new, but it’s new to me!” Will looks at him with curious eyes. “No, I still don’t know how to play much, actually. I’ve only learned one whole song so far.”

He laughs, remembering the rehearsals and how excited Nance got the first time he played the song for her. Will’s eyebrows form a familiar curve.

“It’s kind of silly, actually. I haven’t shown Dustin and Lucas yet because we were waiting for you to arrive yesterday, but I can show you now!” Mike suggests.

Will rolls his eyes.

“I can play it for them again later!” he insists.

“Wait them,” Will murmurs.

“Okay,” Mike sits on the bed. “But it’s pretty cool, huh? My first instrument, bought just for me! Not like the old piano Mom got from Nana.”

Will gives him a small smile, running his fingers over the marks along the side of the guitar. He doesn’t seem to judge it, though. His eyes shine the way Mike saw his own shining in the picture his mom took when he received the present.

“I really want to show you the song, but we can wait.”

Will doesn’t say anything. He takes the drawing Mike gave him earlier out of his pocket, and Mike does the same with his. He rummages through his pencil case for some tape and silently hands it to Will.

Mike watches Will struggle with the tape for a few minutes before his attention shifts to the guitar, which he quickly puts away again while Will tapes their drawings to the wall between their beds. His watch glows with the numbers 7:07, and the bonfire must be going by now.

“We need to go!” he says loudly, making Will jump. “Sorry,” Mike says, smacking his own forehead.

His antics make Will smile, so he counts it as a victory.

“The bonfire must be starting. I miss laughing at Dustin’s burnt marshmallows. Let’s go!”

Mike hurries, pulling Will by the wrist the whole way. Still from a distance, his trained eyes search for good spots at a comfortable distance from the fire, but all the logs seem to be occupied.

He gets frustrated, pulling Will from one side to another. His best friend doesn’t complain, though, following him until they spot Lucas and Dustin playing with their marshmallow sticks like swords.

“Mike, Will! Look at the spots I got!” Dustin says excitedly.

They’re at the perfect distance, exactly where Mike would have wanted to find a place for Will, who smiles at Dustin now. Mike feels a strange sensation in his stomach. He swears he should be happy that they get to sit somewhere so good, but he wanted to be the one who found it, not Dustin. Mike is the one who has gotten the most smiles out of Will since he arrived. He’s his best of the best friends.

Mike huffs and sits down, trying not to look too grumpy, but Lucas offers him a stick with a curious look on his face.

“What is it now?” Mike hears him ask, but his attention is on the bonfire a good fifteen steps away. He doesn’t answer.

Some instructors hand out small bags of marshmallows, and Mike accepts his with a soft thank-you, just to test his voice. He doesn’t think the knot in his throat shows, so he decides to join the conversation.

Dustin talks excitedly about school, and Lucas and Will listen attentively, but Mike isn’t very interested. He busies himself putting marshmallows onto the stick, and when he’s done, he takes the stick from Will’s hand without saying anything, repeating the process and filling it with his marshmallows.

The bonfire isn’t as tall this year. Mike waits his turn with both sticks in his hands, letting the older camper who was ahead of him in line help him get them perfectly golden. Mike returns to the log with a smile on his face, proud that the treat is cooked just right.

“Hey, Will. Josh, an older camper, helped me with these!”

Mike gets another smile out of him. This time, he even catches a glimpse of Will’s little bunny teeth. He sits beside him again while Dustin and Lucas tackle the line together.

“It looks pretty good, right?” Mike asks, and Will nods. “He told me to ask for help if we want more, but I think I can do it myself this time! He taught me. I learn fast.”

Will smiles again and tries to take a bite, but stops at the last second.

“Is it too hot?” Mike asks. Will nods. “Want me to blow on it?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, blowing a little too hard on the marshmallow. A tiny bit of his spit flies out with the air, and Mike freezes like a statue, his eyes widening.

“Sorry, Will!”

Will just laughs, and Mike can’t help laughing with him. They both lean closer, their heads almost bumping together. Mike looks at the untouched marshmallow on the stick in his hand.

“Wanna trade?” Mike offers.

“Yes,” Will says.

They trade sticks. Will blows on his own treat before taking a bite, and Mike copies him, almost burning his tongue. They’re both quietly laughing at the face Mike makes when his two friends join them again.

“I’m just curious. It’s a reasonable question.”

“Why would anyone want to do that? Mike, tell him!”

“What?” Mike asks Lucas.

Dustin rolls his eyes. “I just asked a simple question. If we put a sip of every soda flavor available on the market into one cup, what flavor would it taste like?”

Mike laughs, but Will makes a disgusted face, so Mike realizes it really would be gross. Too many flavors mixed together.

“Ew,” Mike pretends to gag.

Dustin isn’t offended. “Which flavor would prevail, though?”

“I think Coke’s,” Lucas says.

“Me too,” Mike agrees, and Will nods, a quiet smile on his face.

Mrs. Sam appears with a megaphone in one hand and a guitar in the other, drawing the attention of the rows of logs arranged in circles around the bonfire.

“Anyone have a suggestion? Songs?” Several hands go up. “No one? I’ll pick if you don’t want to make a guess!”

Mike quietly laughs with Will as the teacher walks right past them, ignoring Dustin’s raised hand.

“No one wants to suggest anything? What a weak bunch of classes this year! I guess I’ll have to decide, then!”

She walks past the row closest to the fire, and one camper stands up, both arms raised. Mrs. Sam gives him a high-five on each hand with the hand not holding the megaphone. Mike can’t contain his loud laugh.

“Well, if nobody wants to take a chance, I guess I’ll sing Wonderwall!”

A low chorus of oh no can be heard beneath a few cheers. Mike smiles, not minding hearing his favorite teacher sing her favorite song one more time. She starts the song and other campers join in with their own instruments.

Mike considers learning the song sometime this summer.

He quietly counts along with her. “Three, two, one— Today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you. By now, you should’ve somehow realised what you gotta do. I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now.”

Almost everyone joins in and Mrs. Sam’s voice blends with everyone else’s. Mike nudges Will during the chorus, pointing toward Lucas and Dustin, who are swaying from side to side with their arms in the air.

The two laugh together and enjoy the other songs as well. Will joins him the second time they go to the fire to roast their marshmallows, and Mike nearly burns one to a crisp, but it earns him a few more giggles from Will. Victory for him.

After a while, the four sit on the ground, leaning their backs against the log and stretching out their legs and resting while they listen to the stories Mrs. Lilly tells with the help of Mrs. Sam’s sound effects.

Mike gets lost in the fantasy, decorated with gnomes who have an important mission in the land of humans. Will rests his head on his shoulder, and after a while, he realizes he wasn’t breathing, too afraid his best friend might move away. Mike starts breathing slowly, focusing on the air going in and out so he doesn’t move too much.

Will watches the teachers, unbothered. Mike tried to focus on the story again, but after some time his eyes became too heavy.

He wakes up to soft pats on his shoulder and sits up quickly, finding himself face-to-face with his three friends. Dustin and Lucas laugh, but Will has a soft smile on his lips.

The bonfire is even smaller when the four of them head back to the cabin, and Mike almost lies back down, but Will drops his shower bag onto his lap, and Mike gets the message.

Several minutes later, Mike is thinking about the taste of his bubblegum-flavored toothpaste when he falls asleep.

It feels like days have passed, but the night sky is still completely dark when Mike wakes up. Loud knocking echoes against the window on Dustin and Lucas’s side of the room before moving to the glass beside his.

“Wake up! Fireflies at the lake, let’s go!” a thin, high-pitched female voice calls.

“Huh?” Mike hears Dustin ask.

“Fireflies at the lake,” Mike mumbles, his eyes feeling as heavy as the bags on the first day.

He sits up slowly, still trying to process it until excitement takes over.

“Fireflies at the lake!” Mike says louder.

“Shut up!” Lucas grumbles.

“Wake up! Fireflies at the lake!” Dustin says, getting up. 

Mike goes to Will’s bed, but his best friend is already awake. He slowly gets out from under the sheets and slips on his slippers. Mike looks down at his own bare feet and hurries to put on the shoes he left by the door.

“Lucas, come on!” Dustin tries again, but Lucas swats his hand away.

“You guys go!” he replies.

The three leave Lucas behind in the room and follow the procession of campers toward the lake. Mike holds onto Dustin’s wrist and Will’s hand so he won’t lose them in the crowd. When they reach the area where the trees grow farther apart, Mike pulls his two friends toward a spot with only a few people.

They fall silent, stepping around the plants to get closer to the water, where several fireflies are flying overhead.

It’s like watching magic happen right in front of his eyes, except Mike knows they’re real insects. Dustin gave a whole lecture about them last year and the year before that too. He doesn’t remember much about them, except that they make Will’s eyes light up.

Mike should have added this to the list too.

It would be another line to cross off, considering how happy Will looks now. His best friend looks enchanted, and Mike feels enchanted too. The view is beautiful, enough to make his stomach flutter.

The fireflies fly everywhere, their glow reflecting on the surface of the lake and looking like a sky sprinkled with stars in the darkness of the night.

Only a few flashlights are used by campers to find their way along the shore, quickly being turned off afterward. Mike guided them mostly from memory, having made this walk almost every year. It never stops surprising him how unreal it looks, though.

Dustin clears his throat. “Did you know that—”

“Shhh!” Will asks for silence, and Mike laughs quietly. Will’s eyes never leave the glowing fireflies.

Hours could have passed. Mike isn’t wearing his watch because he only recently woke up. He startles at heavy footsteps approaching and turns around, only to find Lucas with one finger over his lips, asking for silence.

Mike huffs. “I wasn’t saying anything!” he whispers loudly.

“Shhh!” Will says again.

“Sorry,” Mike says.

Lucas settles beside Dustin on the rock he chose to sit on, and Mike stays quiet, admiring the fireflies and only turning around every now and then to see if Will has started smiling again.

He manages to catch two more shy smiles, and the lakeshore slowly empties as time passes. The number of fireflies seems to grow, and the view only gets prettier. At some point, Mike watches Will’s eyes fill with tears as he runs his fingers over the J pendant hanging around his neck.

“Are you okay?” Mike dares to ask.

Will doesn’t nod this time. He shakes his head, sniffling softly before looking at Dustin and Lucas with wide eyes.

Mike stands up, offering his hand to help Will up too.

“Let’s go back to the cabin,” he announces to his friends.

“But I just got here!” Lucas protests.

“Dusty-bun will keep you company,” Mike says, pulling Will along without waiting for an answer.

The two walk quickly and silently back to the cabin, but when they get there, Mike sits on Will’s bed with him.

“I think we have a few minutes before they come back,” he begins. “What happened?”

Will sniffs again, though there are still no tears falling. Mike studies his face, waiting for an answer for as long as it takes.

“My mom,” Will says. He takes two deep breaths, caressing the J pendant. “I’m… worried.”

“You’re worried about her?” Will nods. “Is Jonathan there?”

Will nods again. Mike knows a little about Will’s home and his father. He knows the man is evil, but not like Heinz Doofenshmirtz or Gru, who are good fathers.

More like Darth Vader or Cronos if they liked alcoholic drinks a little too much.

Mike blinks a few times, unsure what to say next. There are so many things he wants to ask, but it’s a delicate subject, something Will has chosen not to talk about with anyone else.

“Did your… Did he do something to her?”

Will looks at the floor. “No, I didn’t see anything. I just heard screaming this time. A <em>lot</em> of screaming.”

Mike’s heart beats faster, and a strong wave of nausea takes over his senses. Will is talking more, which is good. But everything he’s saying is so bad, and Mike feels sad immediately.

“I heard glass breaking and Jonathan turned up the radio in my room, but I know why they were arguing. It’s me. My dad… he doesn’t like me coming to camp.”

Will pauses, and Mike tries to think of the reasons. It could be money, maybe the distance, maybe the annoyance of having to pack Will’s things. It wouldn’t be because he misses him.

“He says it’s a place for fairies, but I already told him I’ve never seen any fairies visiting the little houses we made that summer. Remember?”

Will’s gaze is curious, shining with unshed tears. Mike swallows the lump in his throat before answering.

“I remember. I’ve never seen fairies here either, unless he was talking about the older campers’ play at last year’s Talent Show. Remember?”

Will gives a weak smile, seeming to think of the play for a moment.

“They had blue wigs and pointy ears!” Mike adds.

Will smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He sighs, and Mike copies him, taking a deep breath.

“I think he’s scared some fairy will transform me. That’s what I think I heard him say. It was a weird conversation, but my mom was yelling back at him, calling him names. Bad names.”

“Does your dad deserve those bad names?”

Will looks at the pillow, running one hand over the pillowcase to smooth it out before lying down. He pulls Mike’s right arm, and Mike lies down on the same pillow, using one arm as support against the pillowcase.

“Yeah, I think so,” Will answers. “But it was a weird conversation. And my mom said on the phone that—”

“It’s good that she called you. It must’ve been nice talking to her.”

“It was nice—it was. I felt good hearing her voice, but she said that…” Will takes a deep breath. “She said she’s leaving him, but I don’t know where she’s going—”

This time, heavy tears spill freely from Will’s eyes, and Mike doesn’t think twice before hugging him, running a hand through Will’s hair the way his mother does when he gets hurt.

“It’s okay, you’re okay, Will,” Mike whispers. “Your mom’s okay too, I’m sure.”

“Do you think so?” Will asks through his tears.

“I’m sure. She’s a full-grown-up! They know how to take care of themselves and others. She takes care of you and Jonathan, she knows what she’s doing!”

Will keeps crying, and Mike feels his pajamas getting wet, but he doesn’t care. He lets his best friend cry for as long as he needs to, whispering that everything is going to be okay.

“Sorry,” Will says after a while. “I soaked your shirt.”

“That’s okay, Will. Are you feeling better?”

They look at each other for a while. Will’s eyes are red, and there’s a little bit of mucus running from his left nostril, but Mike doesn’t say anything, using the sheet to wipe away his tears first and then the mess under his nose.

Will’s face twists in disgust, and he helps Mike turn the sheet upside down.

“I’m a little better. Thanks, Mike.”

“I’m here for you, Will. If you need to cry, to talk, or to not talk at all.”

“Thanks,” Will says with a smile.

Mike stares at the ceiling fan for a while until he hears footsteps approaching outside the cabin.

“Do you want me to go back to my bed?” he asks.

“No,” Will answers. “Stay, please.”

ㅅ ⚓︎ .☘︎ ݁˖ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏⚓︎﹏ ࣪ ˖⋆˚꩜｡𖥔 ݁ ˖𓂃.✮݁ㅅ

Next morning, Will thanks Mike for the extra pancake out loud. He wears a nice yellow shirt and a small smile during all breakfast, he even says some interesting things to help the conversation like cool, Dustin and that’s nice, Lucas and thanks again, Mike. 

Mike has an identical smile on his face, that is, until it grows even wider when Will offers to help tie his shoelace while Mike carries his guitar to the first music class of the summer.

Dustin and Lucas didn’t wait for them, but Will doesn’t take long to tie the laces, quietly reciting something about bunnies going through tunnels to himself.

“Thanks again,” Mike says, holding the door open for Will.

“It’s nothing,” Will answers again. “For the third time,” he adds.

Mike laughs, letting the door close behind him. They follow the hallway to the loudest room, where Mrs. Sam is leaning against the front of a green chalkboard, an excited smile on her face and a guitar in her hands.

“Pick your instruments!” she yells over all the noise. “Don’t take too long, come in and pick one!”

Mike separates from Will to show his new instrument to the teacher, who smiles at him when he approaches.

“Mrs. Sam! Look! I got this for my birthday this year!”

“Wow, Mike! That’s a beautiful guitar. Have you given it a name yet?”

Mike thinks for a second. “No! Should I?”

“Ah, you can, if you want. This one” Mrs. Sam taps her fingers against the strings of the black guitar hanging from her torso “is called Lizzy.”

“Why?”

“Hmm, there was this Disney show that— Oh, what is it?”

Mike hadn’t noticed that some other campers had come over, asking for the teacher’s attention. He smiles at Mrs. Sam before stepping away to look for his friends.

His guitar hangs firmly around his body. It isn’t heavy, even though it’s a little big for him. Lucas is sitting behind one of the keyboards in the corner of the room, while Dustin shakes two colorful rattles decorated with beads in his hands. Will is sitting near them, holding a small drum in his lap.

Mike smiles at his choice. Will isn’t very talented with instruments, despite Mike’s attempts to teach him. He loves Mrs. Sam’s music classes just as much as Mike does, though.

All the campers love her classes. That’s why she can get the whole group to quiet down without much effort.

“Good morning, class!” she says cheerfully. “Welcome to the summer of 2012!”

All the kids play their instruments at once, and even Mike joins in after seeing Will drumming with a smile on his face.

“Now, you all know the first-day rule! When I give you the signal, everyone plays at the same time. You have five minutes on the clock to come up with a song! Everyone ready?”

An excited chorus of yeses is followed by expectant silence. The teacher counts to three with her fingers and lowers her hand toward her own guitar, signaling for everyone to begin.

It’s always the same chaos during the first two minutes, when nobody can understand each other and everyone wants to play the song they chose. Mike doesn’t even bother joining in, busy listening and looking for someone who might be playing the same song he plans to start.

After all, One Direction is a very famous band, and Mike is sure someone in this room must be a fan of theirs, just like his older sister.

His mom took Nance to their concert when the tour came close enough to home, and he remembers the tear-swollen face he only saw once on his sister. He worried that she hadn’t had fun, but the videos she showed him afterward proved that she’d had so much fun she had even embarrassed herself.

Mike still doesn’t understand what post depression concert — or whatever Nance called it — is, but Nance, after she stopped crying, said that Mike helped cure hers when he learned to play What Makes You Beautiful on the guitar. It wasn’t that hard; YouTube was full of tutorials.

The final push Mike needed was Will mentioning the song during one of their video calls last month.

Mike decides to start playing, repeating the same chords from the beginning of the song until someone else hears him. After a while, he closes his eyes, feeling the pick brushing against the strings and the sound carrying just enough through the still-noisy room.

Lucas is the first to notice. It takes him a while, but he manages to get the notes right, playing along with Mike.

“That’s it!” a girl says, and Mike startles at how close her voice is, opening his eyes. “That’s it, Mike and Lucas!”

He recognizes Bianca from last year and nods at her, continuing to play. More campers slowly join in, and the timer reaches its final minute when the entire room finally gets the rhythm of the song, with some girls beginning to sing the first verses.

Will smiles and joins the chorus, and despite all the noise, Mike feels like he can hear him.

Everyone struggles a little with the rhythm and the words, but when they reach the chorus, the volume of their voices is deafening.

“Baby you light up my world like nobody else, the way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed. But when you smile at the ground, it ain’t hard to tell, you don’t know, oh, oh, you don’t know you’re beautiful!”

The four friends have to dodge a water balloon war on their way back to the cabin. Mike runs like never before, terrified for his precious guitar — Bob D? Phinyerb? <em>Oh, no! That sounds like a ship name and not the boat kind</em> — but manages to make it to the cabin safe and sound.

Unfortunately — or fortunately — Dustin can’t say the same.

“It’s hot anyway,” he says, closing the cabin door. “I just didn’t want it to be so close to where it makes me look like a little kid who wets his pants!”

“It’ll dry quickly!” Lucas tries to comfort him, but Mike can see the smile he’s hiding. “It’ll be dry by lunchtime.”

Will is the only one who’s a good enough actor to hide his laughter. Not even Mike catches the curve of a smile on his face.

His thoughts soon return to the conversation they had before going to sleep. His shirt was already dry in the morning, but time hadn’t taken Will’s words out of his head.

Where would his mom be going if she was leaving his dad? Would she go to Nana’s? She’d take baby Holls and Nance with her, wouldn’t she?

That makes Mike feel a little more confident in the speech he gave Will last night. If Mrs. Byers is going somewhere, she’ll take Jonathan, and he’s almost thirteen already. Mike knows Jonathan takes good care of Will. He’ll take care of their mom too.

Even so, Mike can feel the weight of everything Will is carrying right now. If he didn’t know where his mom was going, he wouldn’t feel like doing anything or talking to anyone either. It makes Mike feel even more special for being the person Will chose to talk to.

Did he even ask where his mom was going? Mike needs to remember to ask. He also needs to remember to wait until Will leaves with Dustin and Lucas for lunch so he can grab the list from its hiding place.

He does just that, packing his backpack for theater class with last year’s old notebook, a pencil case, and the folded list. Mike doesn’t take long to find them in the big hall that smells like hamburgers, and his tray is full of potato chips to share with Wil l— or whoever else wanted some — when he joins them at the table in the corner.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, taking his seat beside Will. “Potato chips!” Mike points.

Lucas grabs a handful, then Will grabs another, and Dustin takes whatever is left. Mike rolls his eyes, smiling. He pours a generous amount of ketchup onto his hamburger before taking a bite.

“What are you guys doing after lunch?” Dustin asks with his mouth full.

“Chew with your mouth closed!” Lucas scolds.

Mike laughs with his mouth full. “I’m doing something by myself before theater class.”

“Close your mouth!” Will says.

Mike swallows. “Sorry.”

He grabs a handful of potato chips from Lucas’s tray, opens his hamburger, and dumps them on top of the patty before closing the bun again. Mike takes a sip of his boxed orange juice before taking a bite. Only then does he notice three pairs of eyes staring at him.

“Genius,” Lucas says.

The three of them do the same thing, and Mike adds a little more ketchup before finishing his hamburger and juice. Lunch is filled with conversations about music class, but Mike is replaying his plan in his head.

Will doesn’t question Mike about where he’s going after lunch, even though he looks twice at the path Mike decides to take. He doesn’t give any explanations this time, but for a good cause.

The three go play hide-and-seek with the group of older kids, and Mike walks quickly toward Mrs. Lilly’s huge classroom, hoping the teacher will be there.

He’s lucky. He can see her on the phone through the crack in the door. Mike waits, bouncing lightly on his feet, the words running through his head.

Mrs. Lilly, good afternoon! I’d like to ask for your help with—

“Mike? What are you doing here? Our class doesn’t start for,” the teacher checks the time on her phone. “Thirty minutes!”

Neither of them comments on how he jumps in surprise at her sudden voice, and Mike smiles at her with the most angelic face he can manage — the one he usually uses at the mall.

“I—I’d like to,” he takes a deep breath. “I’d like to ask for your help,” he says all at once.

“Oh,” the teacher smiles. “Come in, then!”

Mike settles into the chair in front of the small table Mrs. Lilly has in the corner. Most of the room is a large empty space with circles drawn on the floor. There are several shelves and clothing racks against the wooden walls, and the costumes shimmer slightly in the sunlight coming through the large windows.

“And what can I help you with, Mike?”

Mrs. Lilly is wearing a long yellow skirt with white flowers embroidered into it and beads, and Mike makes a mental note to tell Will to notice how pretty the skirt is. He gets distracted for a moment, but remembers the list and the notebook inside his backpack and quickly pulls them out.

“It’s just that—” Mike places everything on her desk, and the teacher looks at it curiously. “I had an idea. Actually, Will had an idea, and I had an idea on top of his idea, and then we completed our ideas, you know, because we’re best friends,” Mike says as if it’s obvious.

The teacher watches him attentively from behind her reading glasses. Mike takes it as a sign to continue.

“I’ve been… worried about Will, and I thought it would make him happy if we staged the play that he and I—more him than me—wrote last year,” he looks at the teacher. “For that exercise we did.”

“I remember that, but not all the details of the story. I imagine it’s on that paper? Or in the notebook?” She points.

“Yes, in the notebook. I wrote some things during the year, before summer, you know.”

“Can I see it?” She holds out her hand.

“Of course, of course.”

Mike tries to stay still while the teacher reads the pages he marked. There aren’t many, three to be exact. But they’re written on both sides, in Will’s neat handwriting and Mike’s messy one.

Despite his mother’s efforts, writing neatly is still difficult, even in special handwriting notebooks. His wrist aches a little, and his thumb is always calloused during the school months.

Mrs. Lilly doesn’t comment on any of that. She doesn’t say anything for several minutes as she reads carefully. Mike shifts his attention to the list on the desk, using one of the teacher’s colorful pens to cross off some of the items he’s already managed to accomplish.

Will was happy at the Bug Hotel. He was happy at the bonfire with the good seats Dustin managed to get. Mike gets a little lost remembering how happy all his friends were in music class when he showed everyone the song he’d learned. Will smiled with all his teeth. He was singing!

“This is great, Mike! It barely needs any adjustments, impressive! I can see how much your writing has improved over the months you’ve worked on this.”

Mike feels his cheeks grow warm at the compliment. The whole idea had been Will’s, but Mike had worked hard on the dialogue and even asked his school teacher for help filling in some gaps in the story. It really had taken months.

“Thank you, Mrs. Lilly.”

“Thank you for asking for my help! Can I keep these pages for a few days?”

“Why?”

“So I can make some adjustments at my own pace and plan the progression of the play! I’d use your text to come up with new ideas, and I can share them with you and Will throughout the process. What do you think?”

Mike feels like he’s just won the lottery!

After the failure with Cook Betty, who refused to change the camp menu, Mike figured he would have to beg a little. He thought he would have to use his puppy-dog eyes—as Nance liked to call them.

“Seriously?”

“Of course!” The teacher smiles, taking off her glasses and resting them on top of her hair. “Why wouldn’t it be? It’s a great idea. We’ll have to work hard on those costumes, though.”

“I can’t wait!”

“But, Mike, why did you come alone if Will is involved in this?”

Mike feels like he’s been caught in a lie, even though it isn’t really one. He swallows hard, but decides that he trusts Will’s favorite teacher.

“I wanted to make it a surprise,” he begins. “I wanted to make Will happy, and this would make him happy. This year… he’s been quieter than usual, and we— We had a group conversation and made a list of things that could make him happier.”

Mike hands the list to the teacher without hesitation and waits for her to read it with her glasses back on.

“It’s a great list. All of this would make me very happy!” she says. “I see you’ve already crossed some things off?”

“Yes!”

“And how is Will?”

Mike thinks for a moment. The way Will smiled, the number of words he’s said today.

“Better, I think!”

“I’m glad to hear that, Mike,” Mrs. Lilly smiles. “I’m glad Will has such loyal friends who care so much! You’ve all done a great job.”

It feels like the room has gotten even warmer while the teacher talks, and Mike feels his cheeks about to burst into flames. Fortunately, the bell announcing the beginning of the afternoon classes makes the air circulate better inside the room.

Mike smiles at the teacher one last time, thanking her before putting the list inside his backpack and heading outside, looking for Will, Dustin, and Lucas among the crowd of camp kids moving around.

Some minutes after and back inside, the four settle into the big circle with the other students before class starts, and Will is all red and a little sweaty during the first few minutes. He joins the conversation about their hiding spot during the game.

“We stayed really close to the parking lot, underneath a picnic table that was covered!” Dustin says.

Will smiles. “That’s right!”

“Vicky said our feet were sticking out the whole time, but nobody found us!” Lucas adds.

“Very cool!” Will says.

“So you guys won the game?” Mike asks Will.

He opens his mouth to answer, and Mike’s eyes widen expectantly. “Yes! But the bell rang.”

Mike can’t stop himself from smiling. Theater class is Will’s favorite, and he’s already talking! Depending on what activity Mrs. Lilly gives them, Will might have to say all sorts of things!

Hmm, actually, maybe this is a bad idea. Mike doesn’t want Will to feel like he <em>has</em> to talk in front of everyone. He’s about to get up to talk to Mrs. Lilly when she asks all the campers for their attention.

“Welcome to the first theater class of the summer, class of 2012!” She smiles at everyone, walking into the center of the circle. “I see lots of familiar faces here, but also lots of new ones! We’ll go around and introduce ourselves later.”

Mike stretches his legs toward the center of the circle, using his hands behind his body for support, and Will copies his position. Mike smiles at him, his gaze dropping to where Will’s hand is resting. He slides his pinky a little farther until it touches Will’s pinky.

“In this class, we’re going to do some mime and mirroring exercises! Who here has played any of these games before?”

Mike and Will join the kids raising their hands, but Mike is careful not to move the hand touching Will’s. He isn’t surprised when his best friend does the same.

“Pick your partners! I recommend pairing up with people you don’t know. It’ll be more fun when you don’t know what to expect!”

Mike doesn’t need to think twice before folding his legs and turning toward Will, who does the same. The two smile, waiting for more instructions from the teacher, but Mike already knows how the game works.

He makes a face, closing one eye and sticking out his tongue, then waits for Will to copy him.

Like a mirror, Mike watches Will imitate his expression, and the two laugh together.

“You’re my mirror! You have to blink your right eye when I blink my left!” They hear Lucas shout at Dustin.

“That was a first-time mistake!” Dustin shouts back.

Mike and Will lean toward each other, laughing together. Mike pats his leg as he laughs and realizes after a few seconds that Will is copying him again.

They straighten up, and this time Will makes a face. His eyes are wide and his mouth is opened as wide as it can go, his tongue sticking out as if he were screaming on a very fast roller coaster. Mike laughs before copying the same expression.

Without needing to say anything, Mike changes his expression. He puts his hands on his cheeks, pulling them down and opening his mouth in a silent but dramatic scream. Will copies him, but breaks into laughter a second later. A loud, long laugh.

Mike fumbles with his own expression, letting his hands fall into his lap as he watches Will laugh. He doesn’t think before making his next expression, squishing his own face the way he’d like to squish Will’s red cheeks, making his mouth form a fish pout. Mike widens his eyes to complete the look, moving his lips like a fish searching for food in an aquarium.

Will doesn’t take long to imitate him, squishing his own face. It’s harder when he can’t seem to stop laughing at Mike. His face gets redder and redder, and he can only hold the fish pout for a few seconds before bursting into laughter again.

This time, Mike joins him.

After dinner, everyone is exhausted. Theater class was followed by a huge treasure hunt organized by the camp, with real prizes at stake. 

Mike was focused and managed to find a card that was worth a teddy bear wearing the camp instructors’ uniform. It even has a cap.

“The name has to be Stacey,” Lucas insists. “Like Stage Way, Stace-ey.”

“I don’t know,” Mike says, staring at the prize so intensely that he almost trips over a branch on the way back to the cabin.

“Why not?” Dustin asks. “It’s a pretty girl’s name.”

Mike’s face twists in confusion. “Pretty girl? It’s a bear, Dustin!”

“I was talking about the name!”

“What do you know about pretty girls, Dusty-bun?” Lucas teases, patting Dustin on the shoulder.

“Nothing,” he answers honestly.

Will laughs quietly, but Mike can hear him because they’re so close. The two climb the stairs together, and Mike holds the door for Will to pass through, momentarily forgetting about Dustin and Lucas coming behind them, but he catches the door again in time.

“I’m so tired!” Lucas throws himself onto his bed.

“Poor sheets, having to touch all the dirt on your clothes right now,” Dustin says.

“First of all, I’m the one who sleeps in this bed—”

“But I have to see!”

Mike rolls his eyes, turning toward Will. He puts the bear under the sheets, its head resting on the pillow of his bed, before walking over to Will’s.

“Hey, Will. How about waiting in a huge line at the bathroom with hot water tonight?”

Will just nods, and the two of them leave their friends to their argument and take the longer path to the bathroom with the hot showers that always have ridiculously long lines.

The stars shine brightly in the sky, countless points of light that seem so close here in the middle of the woods. Despite the camp lights, the stars are just as visible here as they are on Mike’s dad’s laptop screensaver.

“Today was a good day, wasn’t it?”

Will nods. Mike isn’t disappointed by the lack of a spoken answer. Honestly, if he could stop so many words from coming out of his mouth before he even thought about them, he’d probably stay quiet too.

“You know, I love being here at camp,” he adds. “I love being here with you.”

Will smiles, his eyes shining, and Mike watches him, feeling a warm wave in his stomach. He sighs, looking at the tall trees along the path.

“Me too,” Will says.

ㅅ ⚓︎ .☘︎ ݁˖ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏⚓︎﹏ ࣪ ˖⋆˚꩜｡𖥔 ݁ ˖𓂃.✮݁ㅅ

“Mike, could you come with me, please?”

He turns around to Mrs. Sam, who is wearing a black band T-shirt and a smile on her face.

“Where to?” he asks.

“Oh, your mom is on the phone. The call is in the director’s office. Come with me?”

“Oh, sure,” Mike says. “I’ll see you guys at the lake later! Bye, Will.”

Mike waves and follows the teacher to the big, but not very intimidating, office of the camp director, Mrs. Hoffman. Inside her excessively brown-and-green office, the director sits behind her desk, her perfectly neat bun contrasting with the worn-out beekeeper uniform she’s wearing. It must have been white once.

Now, the yellow of the uniform is almost the same shade as the many envelopes scattered across her desk.

“Mike, sweetheart! Welcome. Your mom is on the line, don’t keep her waiting!”

Mike awkwardly walks in, sitting on the edge of the chair facing her desk. He puts the old red phone to his ear and fiddles with the funny cord as he listens to bits and pieces of conversation coming from the other end of the line.

Mike only recognizes the tone of his mom’s voice and Holly’s babbling. He smiles, clearing his throat.

“Mom?”

“One minute, honey. Mike? Finally!”

“Sorry I took so long, I was having breakfast,” he tries to reassure her.

It doesn’t work. “Did I interrupt your breakfast?” she asks loudly, and Mike pulls the phone away from his ear.

“No, Mom. I was finishing.”

“Sorry anyway, it’s just that—well, I haven’t heard from you in days. Last year you called every day during the first week!”

Mike’s stomach drops at that. It’s the absolute truth. He’s been so worried about everything at camp and, well, about Will, that he forgot to call his mom. He feels a lump forming in his throat and takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry. I was distracted,” he says quietly.

“Oh, don’t worry, honey. I’m glad you’re having so much fun that you even forgot to call. Are you having fun?”

Mike swallows at the question. Yes, he’s having fun, but he’s also been so worried lately. He doesn’t know how to answer without making her worry too.

“It’s been fun, but—”

“Just a minute, honey,” his mom interrupts him. “Of course, Joyce. You can use the upstairs bathroom for that.”

“Joyce? Mom? Is that Will’s mom?”

“Just a minute, Mike.”

He waits patiently, tapping his feet against the shiny wooden floor of the director’s office. Several pictures decorate the walls, but Mike can’t focus on any of them.

At his house! Will’s mom left his dad and went to Mike’s house. She’s okay after all.

“Michael?”

“Yeah. Is that Will’s mom at our house?”

“Yes, honey. Joyce and Jonathan are staying here for a few days. Actually, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yeah?”

“Joyce is going to call Will later, but I wanted to know, how is he?”

Mike feels the words pour out all at once. “He was sad, but… he didn’t know where his mom was going, and now he’s going to be okay! I’m going to tell him she’s at our house and he’ll be happy again and start smiling and talking again, and we’ll be able to do all the things I planned with Dustin and Lucas to make him happy because on the first day he—”

“Mike. Please,” he hears his mom laugh, and his heart beats faster. “I can’t process that much information all at once. Slow down.”

Mike smiles at the phone as if his mom could see him. He takes two deep breaths before continuing to tell her about all the items on the list and how he made sure to complete the ones he crossed off.

Later, he finds Will, Dustin, and Lucas by the edge of the lake. The three of them are staring at the line of campers waiting to put on their life jackets.

“You took forever!” Lucas complains.

“My mom wanted to talk.”

“Yesterday I spent a long time on the phone with my mom. She even put Mews on the line so she could talk to me!” Dustin exclaims.

Mike rolls his eyes affectionately, remembering pictures of Dustin’s fluffy cat. “What did she tell you?”

“Meow.”

Lucas smacks his own forehead, but Will smiles. Mike remembers the good news and can’t contain himself.

“Hey, Will—”

“Let’s get in this line already,” Lucas says. “There won’t be any canoes left.”

The four of them stare at the huge pile of canoes by the lake, each one carrying at least five campers.

“I think we’ll be fine,” Mike says. “Can I talk to you, Will?”

“Save the talk for later,” Dustin says. “Come on.”

Saving the conversation for later really was the best choice. The line was noisy, with all the campers talking at once, and the life jacket was so tight it was barely possible to breathe, let alone talk. Mike also didn’t want to compete with the sound of the water and the effort of using oars to cross the lake.

He focused on having fun instead, jumping into the water as soon as the instructor said they could. Several other campers were nearby, tossing colorful balls back and forth.

Dustin managed to get one for them, and everyone was fighting for their breath the whole time — or at least Mike was. The water fights made him swallow more lake water than he’d drunk actual drinking water in days.

By lunchtime, Mike could barely eat his spaghetti with the lingering taste of lake water in his stomach. He decided to go back to the cabin and sleep until piano class later that afternoon.

Nobody came with him, and Mike hugged his teddy bear so he wouldn’t feel too lonely in the empty room.

When he woke up, though, he was far from alone. Will was sitting at the edge of his bed. Lucas and Dustin were sprawled across the carpet, putting together a space-themed puzzle.

“Pass me that piece of Venus,” Dustin says. “That’s Jupiter, Lucas, but they really are kind of the same color here.”

“Oh, pass me that piece over there. I think it’s Neptune, finally,” Lucas says.

Mike sits up in bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Will looks at him with a small smile on his face. His hair is messy at a strange angle that makes Mike smile.

“You slept for a while,” Dustin comments.

“I think the lake water is a sleeping potion,” Mike replies.

“That would be hard to make a potion in that quantity,” Lucas says.

“It was made when the Earth was inhabited by giants,” Will answers.

Mike smiles. “That’s true. They needed a huge amount to fall asleep after taking ten steps and crossing the entire planet,” he adds.

“Yeah,” Lucas says, without much enthusiasm. “That makes sense.”

Mike checks the watch on his wrist and realizes he has a few minutes until piano class. He gets out of bed, checking his hair in a small mirror at the end of the room. It’s an unsalvageable mess, but his mom isn’t here to complain about it.

He goes back to the bed, sitting down beside Will, who immediately turns his attention to Mike’s hair.

“I should probably wet it, or—”

Mike is interrupted by Will’s arms moving, his fingers running through the curls on Mike’s head like combs. It feels nice and Mike almost melts into the touch. He starts missing his mom terribly and decides to blink rapidly, bringing his attention back to the room.

“Better,” Will says.

Mike feels his cheeks grow warm. “Thanks.”

Lucas suddenly stands up, making Mike jump off the bed.

“It’s time, Mikey,” he says. “Piano lessons.”

Mike gets up, looking at Will and then at Dustin, still sprawled out on the floor.

“See you guys later?”

“Sure,” Dustin says without turning around.

Mike looks at Will. “What are you guys going to do for the rest of the afternoon?”

Will just shrugs, but Dustin finally turns around, rolling over the pieces scattered across the floor. “I have an idea.”

“What?” Mike insists.

“Does it matter? We’re going to be late!” Lucas complains.

Mike narrows his eyes, pressing Dustin for answers, but his friend only smiles, a few missing teeth showing.

“Come on,” Lucas insists.

“Fine,” Mike gives in. “See you guys later.”

He only waves at Will before leaving.

Piano class is one of Mike’s favorites, even though it’s just him and Lucas.

Actually, during these lessons, it feels like it’s just him and the piano. Mr. Silva, the teacher, manages to capture his attention sometimes, but most of the time, Mike feels like he dives inside the instrument.

He learned how to play very young. In fact, every summer at camp started because of his curiosity about the old piano his mom only used as decoration in the living room.

Mike’s hands were much smaller back then, but they were quick. He couldn’t even read words, let alone complicated sheet music — he still struggles with it. But he was curious and had plenty of free time.

His mom didn’t mind listening to the out-of-tune keys being smashed for a few hours, but Mike kept getting better as the weeks went by, and she couldn’t stop him from playing whenever his dad was home.

His dad complained… a lot. They decided to call a professional to tune the instrument and even tried to hire lessons for Mike, but his four-year-old curiosity didn’t last long enough to make the investment worthwhile.

Even so, he kept getting better as he taught himself, and, magically, camp became a reality for his summers.

Of course, Mike knows there was some whole arrangement his mom had to make or whatever it is adults do in the principal’s office, but he prefers to believe it was luck and magic.

It’s much more fun to think that he magically became really good at piano over the years and that, magically, he’s going to have a successful career someday.

Maybe as a pianist, alongside Lucas, who has also improved a lot over the year, practicing with Mike.

Maybe as an actor, or as someone who writes plays, and Mike has forgotten what they’re called now. That important job that decides all the details.

Maybe as a singer.

But for now, he demonstrates to his teacher how much he has improved his movements while playing Bohemian Rhapsody and feels embarrassed when yet another adult showers him with praise.

“You’ve improved so much over time, Mike!” Mr. Silva says.

It makes Mike remember what Mrs. Lilly said the day before and how all of them keep talking about the passing of time.

Time is still a confusing thing for Mike. Sometimes he thinks something happened last week, but it happened a month ago; sometimes he mixes up events from one summer with another; sometimes he confuses Tuesday with Thursday — even if he remembers Friday well enough.

But all the adults talk about the passing of time with a certainty Mike hopes to have someday.

They say how he has improved with time and how he’ll get even better; they say how time will help heal a wound, because time will pass and the skin will create a shield if he takes care of it; they talk about how, as the years go by, Mike will make decisions and learn certain things that don’t fit inside his child’s head yet.

Even though he already considers himself a big kid.

Lucas and Mike get to the dining hall first and take the same table as the day before. He waits for Will and Dustin to appear through the doors before actually starting to eat, and as soon as Will sits beside him, Mike wipes the sauce from the roasted chicken off with the hem of his shirt before turning to him.

“What were you guys doing?” he asks.

Will smiles and looks at Dustin across the table. “A surprise at the cabin,” he says.

“What surprise?” Mike asks.

“It’s supposed to be a surprise!” Dustin yells.

Will laughs quietly, sharing a knowing look with Dustin. “Yes,” is all he says for the rest of dinner.

Mike doesn’t ask anything else, but he is the first to clean his tray and return it to the kitchen counter. He sits down to wait while everyone else seems to take their time on purpose.

It doesn’t help that Dustin gives up on putting food in his mouth every time he lifts his fork so he can talk.

“And these spiders can build an air bubble underwater. They spend most of their lives submerged, only coming up to breathe.”

Lucas is actually interested this time. “Really?” he asks.

“Yeah, they have a compartment inside them that stores a lot of oxygen, and then they can stay in their homes underwater,” Dustin drags out the conversation, resting his fork once again.

“But do they eat on land?” Will asks.

Mike shifts in his seat, resting his elbows on the table.

“They take their food into their homes underwater. That’s what I saw in this book from the school library,” Dustin finally puts the food in his mouth.

“Pretty cool,” Mike says, just so he isn’t left out.

“Hey,” Dustin calls for his attention. “How was piano class?”

Mike smiles at the memory. “It was good.” He looks at Will. “Mr. Silva said I’ve improved a lot over time!”

“That’s cool,” Will says, smiling.

“He also said I’ve improved a lot,” Lucas says.

“It’s true,” Mike confirms. “Lucas played <em>Baby</em> by Justin Bieber and Mr. Silva loved it!”

Will and Dustin laugh, and Mike gets more excited, temporarily forgetting about the surprise he still hasn’t figured out.

Lucas and Mike take turns telling them a little more about the lesson, and Dustin comments on how he would like to play instruments too, but his fingers only seem to be good for taking apart and putting together his Legos.

Mike and his friends are laughing at the farting sound Dustin can make with his armpit when he realizes they’re already at the cabin door. His heart starts beating quickly again with anticipation for the surprise, and his stomach feels cold.

The lights are off when Dustin opens the cabin door. He quickly steps inside and closes it, asking Will to hold it. A few seconds and some noises later, Dustin opens the door.

“Surprise!” he says, letting Mike, Will, and Lucas inside.

Their little cabin is a bit dark and their beds are empty. Instead, all four mattresses have been arranged on the floor, underneath a large structure made of sheets precariously tied to the tall wooden bed frames. Like a cabin inside a cabin.

The bedside lamps glow beneath the sheets, offering little visibility around the room, but it’s still the most incredible blanket fort Mike has ever seen.

“Oh my God,” he says. “You guys did this by yourselves?”

“Yes!” Dustin exclaims.

“We had help,” Will says quietly.

Mike steps farther into the room, making sure to take off his sneakers before stepping onto the place where they’ll sleep later. All their pillows and a few extras are scattered across the sheets, and some comic books are positioned in the corners.

He can’t get to his suitcase, but his friends were thoughtful enough to leave his pajamas and shower bag somewhere he can reach.

The conversation about building the fort makes the bathroom line go by faster, and a few minutes later, all four of them are back in the room.

The smell of soap and the ink from the comic books makes Mike feel sleepy as he lies beside Will. His best friend is focused, his eyes moving across the pages of the Spider-Man story that Mike was also reading a few minutes ago.

Now, all he can think about is how quickly the day went by and how he didn’t get to talk to Will about the phone call with his mom.

If he had, maybe Will would be even happier now. 

He seems happy enough for Mike, calm as he lazily turns the page. He didn’t even complain when Lucas let out two of the stinkiest farts Mike has ever smelled in his life. His eyes even watered, but Will just laughed.

He seems so much better than he was on the first day, but Mike can make him even happier.

Waiting for Lucas and Dustin to fall asleep is the best choice, but Mike is afraid Will will fall asleep too. Besides feeling his eyes getting heavier with every minute, he tries to focus on the details of the drawings on the page, but the letters are already starting to blur together.

Finally, he hears Dustin’s soft snoring and moves to confirm that both of them are asleep. Mike looks at Will, the comic book dangling from his hand, almost falling. He quickly catches it and closes it, but not before marking the page Will was reading.

Mike tosses the comic book to his right, where the sheets meet his back, and turns toward Will. His eyes are almost closing too, but Mike nudges him.

“Will,” he whispers. “I wanted to tell you about the conversation with my mom on the phone.”

Will’s eyes open wide, completely attentive to Mike. He continues:

“I was telling her about all the things we’ve already done, but, Will, I swear to God, out of nowhere my mom said your mom’s name!”

Will shifts, almost sitting up in bed. Lucas grumbles beside him, so he lies back down. His eyebrows curve with curiosity.

“And then my mom told me your mom is at our house with Jonathan!” Mike whispers loudly. “I found out where she went, Will!”

The hug he receives catches him by surprise, but Mike soon melts into Will too. He makes excited noises into Mike’s ear and they hug for a while.

“At your house?” Will asks when they pull apart.

Mike holds his hand, squeezing twice.

“Yeah, at my house. Your mom and your brother! I knew that if your mom left your dad, she would take Jonathan with her. She wouldn’t leave him behind. Then Jonathan would take care of her, and he probably suggested they go to my house because he and Nance are friends too, remember?”

Will nods.

“Mike,” he says. Mike smiles widely, squeezing Will’s hand twice more. “That’s so good, I—”

“I’m so happy about this!”

“Shhh,” someone whispers.

“Sorry,” Will turns and whispers back. He looks at Mike again and squeezes his hand twice. “I’m so happy, I could run all the way to the lake.”

Mike laughs quietly, and Will laughs too. They can’t stop laughing at each other’s laughter and get another “shhh,” this time clearly from Lucas.

“We can’t go to the lake now,” Mike says seriously. “The instructors would get mad at us if we got caught.”

“If we got caught…” Will says.

Mike gasps in surprise. And then he pokes Will in the stomach, earning a poke back. A tickle war is almost about to start when Lucas suddenly sits up in bed.

“Can you two stop?” he says with his eyes closed, his face pointing anywhere but toward Will and Mike as they quietly laugh.

Lucas lies back down and whispers one last “Shhh” before starting to snore like he never got up in the first place.

Mike watches Will as his breathing returns to normal. He feels so excited that he almost considers going to the lake, but he knows he should respect some of the camp rules.

It’s not because it can be a little scary at night when there’s no one outside, of course not. He’s a big kid now.

“Will,” Mike whispers. “You’re not actually thinking about going to—”

Will rolls his eyes, smiling. “Of course not, Mike.”

He squeezes Mike’s hand twice, as confirmation. His eyes are as alert as Mike’s.

“Do you think my mom is going to live at your house?” he whispers the question.

“I don’t think so. My mom said she was staying for a few days, but I know she can stay as long as she wants.”

“Do you think I’m going to have a new house?”

“Would you like that?”

Will thinks for a few seconds. “I like my house.”

“I don’t know, Will.” Mike pauses and decides to turn off his bedside lamp. “Maybe you could have a house closer to mine?”

He can see Will’s smile in the indirect light from the camp lights outside, and he mirrors it, excited by the possibility.

“That would be nice,” Will says, his voice slow and sleepy.

“Yeah, cool,” Mike says in the same tone.

“Yeah.”

He squeezes Will’s hand once more. “Sweet dreams, Will.”

“Sweet dreams, Mike.”

ㅅ ⚓︎ .☘︎ ݁˖ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏⚓︎﹏ ࣪ ˖⋆˚꩜｡𖥔 ݁ ˖𓂃.✮݁ㅅ

Sleeping in a blanket fort is much easier than putting everything away the next day.

And Mike knows it would have helped if he hadn’t started a pillow fight after Dustin called his bear Stacey again even when Mike asked him to stop.

“It’s not a girl!” Mike exclaimed.

“It might not be a boy either!” Dustin shot back.

But it was Will who ended the argument when he shouted, “It’s just a bear!”

The bear was named Bear, and they were able to get on with their morning in peace.

In the dining hall, Mike got a wink from Cook Betty when it was his turn to pick up his tray. The cotton candy-flavored pancakes were red and decorated with pink whipped cream. He smiled widely at the cook, taking two plates of the special pancakes to offer Will later.

He thought the cause had been lost when the cook stared at him as if he had insulted her Nana when he asked for actual cotton candy at breakfast. But special-flavored pancakes for Will are enough, even better than Mike expected — if Mike could be honest, cotton candy isn’t his favorite kind of candy.

“Mike!” Lucas whispers loudly in his ear as they walk toward the table. “I thought Cook Betty hadn’t agreed!”

“I thought so too!” Mike replies.

“Agreed to what?” Mike almost jumps at the sound of Will’s voice so close to him.

He just laughs it off, sitting at the same table they’ve been sitting at for days and hurriedly cutting into his pancake.

It tastes sweet and vaguely like strawberries, but maybe it’s just the color tricking Mike’s taste buds. The whipped cream is delicious and cold in his mouth.

“Wow, this is the best breakfast so far!” Dustin exclaims.

“My favorite,” Will says.

Mike shifts in his seat, unable to contain his excitement. He takes a sip from his juice carton and coughs, making the liquid spray onto his nose.

His friends laugh, and Will even bends over the table, slapping a hand against the tray in front of him. Mike laughs too, licking his lips to clean most of it off and accepting the napkin Dustin offers him between laughs.

“I wonder who managed to change her mind,” Lucas says.

“What do you mean?” Will asks.

Lucas and Dustin look at Mike as if he were the one who started the conversation, but he doesn’t even know what to say. He doesn’t know if this is the right time to tell Will about the list.

“It’s just that,” he begins, not knowing how he is going to finish. “This doesn’t look like a regular item on the camp menu, does it?”

Will agrees, and Dustin and Lucas stare at Mike in confusion, but he ignores them.

“There must be some special reason,” he continues. “But I don’t know what it is.”

No one presses the subject, and they finish breakfast talking about the day’s classes. Mike feels so excited, even more so because he gets to see Will joining in on the conversation, talking more and more.

The first class of the day is arts and crafts, and the teacher, Mrs. Lena, hands out blocks of clay collected from the woods, cups of water, and paint so they can make — or at least try to make — new pots for Mr. Oliver’s colored pencils.

Mike loves the idea of having dirt underneath his fingernails for hours until lunchtime arrives, but he doesn’t take the class very seriously. His body can’t stay still, and he and Lucas end up sabotaging Dustin’s entire project, making him lose focus too.

Will doesn’t join the little clay war they start when the teacher isn’t looking, but he ends up suffering collateral damage.

On the way to the dining hall, they all stop by the bathroom to wash their hands once again, and Mike spends a few minutes getting clay out of Will’s hair.

“I can’t believe you guys,” he says grumpily.

Mike laughs. “There are only a few little pieces left.”

Which is only half true. He focuses on getting as much of it out as possible.

“Mrs. Lena got mad.”

“She wasn’t really mad,” Mike reassures him.

“She scolded you,” Will argues.

“It was almost a scold, Will,” Lucas says. “She was just doing what adults need to do.”

Will’s eyes widen. “Fight?”

“No!” Mike rushes to say. “She just needed to say that we can’t get the classroom and our classmates’ hair dirty with clay. It wasn’t a fight. Here, there’s not much left.”

“Oh,” Will sighs. “I thought she was mad.”

Dustin puts a hand on Will’s shoulder, throwing him off balance. Mike gives him a look, and Dustin removes his arm.

He swallows. “Okay, Will. We won’t play with clay anymore… in her class. Lucas,” Dustin turns to him.

“Me?” Lucas shuts off the faucet, and Mike gives up on removing the pieces one by one.

He runs his fingers through Will’s straight hair, making the remaining pieces fall onto his shoulders and the floor.

“Did you manage to get it?” Dustin asks.

Lucas puts his hands into the pockets of his shorts, pulling out a few pieces of clay. He smiles at his friends.

“For later.”

With their stomachs full, Mike and his friends decide to rest on the grass near the theater classroom during the remaining minutes of break. They watch the sky together, and Mike pretends to see every shape Dustin points out in the clouds just so he can disagree with Lucas.

Will has his eyes closed beside him, his head sharing the space on Mike’s backpack with Mike’s, and he has already complained twice about Mike’s curls tickling his face, but he has stopped now.

“There, that’s a tractor harvesting wheat from the field,” Dustin points out.

“You have to be kidding me,” Lucas scoffs. “It’s a Formula One car, look!”

“I think it looks like a tractor,” Mike says.

Lucas slaps his stomach over Dustin, who suffers the consequences too.

“Ouch,” Mike says. “No need for that, there’s clearly a wheat field there,” he laughs.

“You guys are annoying,” Lucas says.

The clouds pass by, and there aren’t that many left in the sky to keep the game going. Mike suddenly feels sleepy, but the ants crawling on his leg keep him from falling asleep.

“Is Will sleeping?” Lucas asks.

“I don’t know,” Mike quickly answers. “Will?” he whispers.

No answer comes, so he shrugs.

“I think he’s fine,” Lucas says.

“He’s talking today,” Dustin points out.

Mike says nothing, still watching Will’s closed eyes and the curve of his nose.

“Are you going to tell him?” Lucas asks in an even quieter voice.

“Yeah,” Mike whispers back. “Later.”

“Okay,” Dustin says. “There.” He points to a cloud to the north. “It looks like a bunny.”

“Look at him, Miley,” Mike hears a girl’s voice say. “I swear he moved.”

“Don’t be a snitch, Suzie!” Lucas exclaims.

“Ha, you moved now! You’re out!” Miley says.

“That’s not fair!” Lucas screams, but Mike hears his footsteps approaching the wall where the eliminated players are sitting.

The game has already lasted almost the entire class. Mrs. Lilly picked one camper to be the detective, while everyone else has to stand still like statues. They are only allowed to move when the detective isn’t looking.

Mike is standing in a corner with Will, and from his position, he can only see the wall and the teacher’s little table. His notebook is there; he managed to see it before turning into a museum statue.

Miley has her back turned to them, and Mike laughs, thinking about moving. Will seems to be thinking the same thing, and the two look at each other. Mike offers his hand and Will takes it, and he hides their joined hands behind his back. The detective will never notice.

But for that, he also needs to stop laughing, so Mike takes short, careful breaths, making sure not to move too much.

Will is a perfect statue behind him, a talent that few campers in the class seem to have. They watch everyone get eliminated one by one, until it becomes impossible for Miley not to pay attention to them.

“Hmm, look at you two,” she says. “Haven’t moved this whole time?”

Mike hears Will holding back his laughter, a sound so quiet that he thinks Miley wouldn’t be able to hear it.

She turns her attention back to the other campers, and Mike sighs. Two more are eliminated, until only Will, Mike, and Ashley are left and good thing Ashley has been standing on one foot since Miley turned toward Mike.

She eventually falls and can’t hold back her laughter, making the entire class react the same way. Mike can’t hold back either, and Miley catches him laughing, making Will the winner of the game.

His smile is brighter than the fireflies at the lake. Mike celebrates by hugging him, and Dustin and Lucas crush them in a hug seconds later.

“Congratulations, Will,” Mrs. Lilly says. “You’ve proven yourself to be quite the statue. Can we put him in The Louvre?”

The class cheers in agreement, and Will laughs beside Mike, but he doesn’t smile much. Will’s place isn’t in a museum, not even if it’s the Louvre. Besides, if Ashley hadn’t fallen, Mike could have won the game alongside Will.

If they were together, maybe he would agree that they should be put in The Louvre, but only then.

“Now, I’d like to talk to you about the Talent Show at the end of the summer! Does everyone know how it works?”

Most of the class shouts yes, but Mike knows Mrs. Lilly explains it every year.

“The Talent Show is for campers of all ages. You can choose to perform alone or in a group! Here in theater class, we plan a play every year and invite anyone who wants to join us to be part of it!”

Mike smiles, his stomach aching with nerves because he knows what the teacher is about to tell everyone.

“This year, one of you,” she points toward the campers scattered across the floor. “brought me an idea! And I fell in love with it, and if they allow me—” Mrs. Lilly focuses on Mike, who simply nods.

“Mike brought me this idea,” she continues with a smile. “A story that we started building during one of our games here in class, but last year. He told me that, actually” she uses a finger to emphasize the word. “It was Will who came up with the idea, and the two of them worked on it together.”

Will nudges Mike in the ribs, and he turns to his friend, smiling. Will mirrors the same smile. He doesn’t need to say anything.

“It was nothing,” Mike says. “Your idea was really good.”

The teacher continues. “So we’re going to need everyone’s help. And the story begins with a group of four friends who visited a village in need of help. There, they had to defeat a three-headed dragon!” The class erupts in excitement.

“Mike!” Will says, catching his attention again. “I can’t believe it!”

He smiles at Will, squeezing his hand twice.

“And this group had a brave paladin, a wise wizard, a very clever bard, and a strong ranger…”

At the end of class, the sky has a beautiful pink hue, melting into orange. Dustin and Lucas run back to the cabin for different reasons: to call his mom and to organize the bandanas for tonight’s night-time capture the flag game.

Mike and Will simply wander around the camp, carrying their heavy backpacks with their full water bottles. He doesn’t know where they’re going, but he knows they’re far from the lake.

The trees are closer together in this part of the grounds, and the sunlight from the sunset filtering through the leaves paints the ground as if it were a starry sky, even in the afternoon.

Mike has been kicking a rock for a few steps, tossing it toward Will a few times, and Will kicks it back. On one of them, the rock flies a little too far, and Mike watches it hit a fence.

Now, he recognizes the place perfectly.

It’s been a while, a few years, since he’s come near the playground for the younger kids. But the pair of swings in front of him is unmistakable.

“Will!” he shouts, even though Will is right beside him. “This is where we became friends!”

Will smiles at Mike and rolls his eyes. “I know!”

It really is obvious to Mike, but maybe it wouldn’t have been to Will. It’s been years since they’ve come anywhere near here. The two walk along the side of the fence. The playground is empty, with only the sound of children shouting in the distance, somewhere in a class, maybe.

Will turns toward Mike, a crooked smile on his face.

“Race me?”

He doesn’t wait for Mike to answer and takes off toward the entrance of the playground, shrugging off his backpack as he gets closer to the swings.

Mike doesn’t take his own backpack off and runs toward the swing with its weight on his back. Will gets there first, but he’s not far behind.

He watches Will sit on the swing, catching his breath without pushing off with his feet yet, and drops his backpack beside the swing’s metal frame. Mike then sits on the remaining swing, breathing slowly.

“We switched places,” Will realizes.

“We did. Let’s switch.”

He sits on the right swing this time and gives himself a small push with his feet.

“It used to be higher,” he says.

Will pushes himself too, nodding, and Mike gets the feeling that he’s seen this scene before, but he forgot the name for when theses things happens. He laughs softly.

“Will?”

“Mike?”

“Do you wanna be best friends forever?”

Will laughs, swinging higher. His legs kick through the air, and Mike pushes himself harder to match him. His swing trembles a little when he kicks his feet up, and he laughs at the feeling.

Will’s answer comes mixed with the wind. “You’re going to be my best friend forever!”

They’re swinging in opposite directions, and Mike turns his head to smile at Will.

“You promise?”

“I promise!”

Mike is satisfied with the oath, smiling to himself and at the trees surrounding the playground. He slows down when he notices a bird on one of the branches and stays still while he waits for Will to get tired of swinging.

“Can you grab my backpack, please?” Mike asks.

Will stretches without needing to get up from the swing and tries to hand Mike his backpack, but he shakes his head.

“Can you get a piece of paper that’s inside?”

Will nods, unzipping it and taking out Mike’s almost organized and almost entirely crossed-out list. He hadn’t had time to update it after breakfast.

He watches his best of the best friends forever unfold the slightly damp piece of paper he took out of the backpack. Will puts it back down on the ground as he reads, his smile growing wider and wider.

“Mike,” he says. “You planned all of this?”

Mike feels his cheeks warming up. “Dustin and Lucas helped too, but I’m the one who wrote it.”

“And who came up with the idea?”

“Well, I did, but Dustin suggested that—”

Will gets up from the swing, wrapping his arms tightly around Mike’s neck before sitting back down. His smile shows all his teeth and the gap from one that must have fallen out recently underneath, and Mike is surprised he hadn’t noticed it yet.

He points at it. “Did the tooth fairy visit you?”

Will looks confused for a few seconds before understanding.

“Yes!” he exclaims. “She came in the middle of the night and gave me ten dollars, can you believe it?”

Mike smiles. “Lucky! Mine only gave me five dollars and my mom put it in my piggy bank the next morning! I wanted to buy candy, but—”

“My mom said I could spend it on whatever I wanted, so I bought colorful glitter pens. They made the wizard’s magic in my comics look really cool, but I ended up forgetting them at home.”

“Wow, the tooth fairy really gave you a nice gift!”

“Yeah,” Will smiles. “I was happy she stopped by our house even though my dad doesn’t like fairies.”

Mike stops smiling instantly, but he doesn’t feel as scared of the subject anymore.

“Well, now that your mom left him, you won’t have to worry about him anymore. Fairies will be welcome in your new house, Will.”

“Even if I don’t move?” Will’s eyebrows draw together.

“Even then,” Mike says confidently. He takes Will’s hand and squeezes it twice. “Your mom will make sure the fairies know it’s a safe place without him.”

“Yeah,” Will squeezes back. “I think so.”

They start swinging again with their hands still clasped together. A few campers walk past the playground fence, but they don’t give Mike and Will a second glance. It’s difficult to swing like this, and the two of them laugh loudly.

“So, did you like the things on the list?” Mike asks between laughs.

Will gives him a wide smile. “I loved every single thing on the list! You guys thought of everything.”

“Will,” Mike says seriously. “I worry about you. I knew something was wrong and—”

“Thank you, Mike,” Will interrupts him. “Everything was… strange, but you reminded me why I love this place, I feel happy now.”

Mike nods enthusiastically. “I love this camp. I love that I met you here!”

Will smiles.

“And Dustin too, of course,” Mike adds.

“Dustin, Lucas, and you. You’re my best friends, forever!”

“Yeah, but, Will,” Mike pauses, stopping his swing. “I don’t mean to say that I’m not best friends with Lucas and Dustin, but—”

“I know,” Will says.

“You do?”

“You’re my best of the best friends.”

“You swear?” Mike can still be surprised by how Will seems to read his mind.

“I swear.”

Mike smiles, satisfied, and Will smiles back. He pushes off harder with his foot, letting go of Will’s hand to grab the chains of the swing.

“Think my best of the best friends can swing higher than me?”

Will laughs, kicking the ground so hard that sand flies around his feet.

“You bet I can?”

“Bet? You’re so competitive, Will Byers!”

Their laughter fills the playground, joined by the sound of even younger children laughing somewhere in the background, probably in some random class. The birds sing loudly, and Mike feels like the two of them are flying higher than they are when he watches their pairs of feet in the wind. 

He’s afraid the swings might go all the way around, leaving them upside down, so Mike counts down from three, knowing Will will understand exactly what he’s thinking.

When the countdown reaches the end, they both jump off the swings together.