Chapter Text
Will doesn’t think he’ll ever adjust to a place like California.
The new house is big. Will supposes he should feel grateful, but after hours of trying to muffle his sobs, huddled next to the car window, all he feels is numbness.
Too much happened at once. The mall imploded. Hopper died.
Unloading the truck is nearly as difficult as packing it. Will lugs boxes through the late-summer heat and into his new room, frosty air conditioning hitting him like a whip each time he steps inside the house. He stacks moving boxes next to his closet. Once they get down to the last few items in the truck, Jonathan helps him carry in his mattress; they drop it over the metal frame, watching it recoil as it settles into place. After, Will dresses it with his sheets.
He sees El pass his door once or twice, carrying boxes of her own.
She looks tired. Her short hair is tied back and frizzed out on the sides, eyes sunken in. Will wonders if he should say something. He had tried to offer some support when they found out about Hopper, but his words almost felt out of place. Odd, coming from him, no matter how genuine.
They don’t talk much. If Will’s honest, they never really have.
Will remembers seeing her in the Upside Down. She had appeared like a ghost, so quickly and so quietly he was sure he had imagined it. Her reassuring voice and her hands around his, “Your mom. She’s coming for you.”
They saw each other again at the Snowball, after she danced with Mike. That one was weird. Will didn’t really know what to say, because, well, what are you supposed to say to someone that’s saved your life twice? She looked a lot different than before. She had dressed up. Her hair was longer.
Mike always talked about her, always talked about her, but Will never got the chance to properly introduce himself. They just started seeing each other around, unofficially. No easing into it. When Mike hung out with them, El was there — like how when Lucas hung out with them, Max was there, too. Sometimes, occasionally, they’d exchange a few words, like the time El had made friendship bracelets for everyone and she made one for Will, too. Or, when he drew a picture of what she’d look like as a mage, and she told him how bitchin’ his sketches were. (Will’s still not sure what she meant, but she said it kindly enough that he doesn’t worry about it.)
Will likes El overall. He feels annoyed at Mike, sometimes, when he talks about her too much, but that isn’t El’s fault. Will thinks she might be the only one that can relate to him — to what he went through in the Upside Down.
But they still don’t talk.
Will isn’t really sure why. After all, they have similar experiences. Similar pains they have to outgrow. They’ve both seen the monsters; both breathed the cold, rotting air inside of the Upside Down, and felt the fear of not being able to get back home. But while all that happened seemed to draw the others closer together, it only drew him further and further away from the group.
Maybe it’s because they could move on.
Will doesn’t really think that’s her fault, either. He’s the one that ruined the summer. Mike ditched them, yeah — but Will was nagging, insistent, even when no one was interested.
He still feels embarrassed about the day he dressed up for that campaign. For being so loud and abrasive. Maybe he thought if he was convincing enough, they would play with him like they used to — that for once, during a summer of change and uncertainty, he’d be able to feel like a kid again.
Will thinks a single game of D&D could restore those lost years.
All those nights of jolting awake, crying silently in his bed because he was convinced that if he wasn’t quiet enough, the monster would find him. All of the times he felt like a slug moved around in his stomach so he forced himself to heave, just in case, just to be sure he wasn’t being eaten alive. All of that, Will likes to think, could be wiped away.
It’s unrealistic and unattainable, but believing there could be an end to the cycle gives him comfort.
They’re able to finish unpacking most of the necessities before sundown. Besides the red glow of his alarm clock, Will’s new room is pitch black. It’s quiet. His ceiling fan whirs and the vent hums alongside the noises outside his window; unfamiliar wildlife, croaks and whispers he never heard in Hawkins.
He tosses and turns, even if he’s sleeping in the same bed he’s always had. His blankets still smell like Indiana cornfields and oak, the breath of home without the comfort.
He thinks he can hear Joyce crying through the thin walls. It’s the same kind of cry he’d hear whenever she and Lonnie had a big fight; the kind she never let him or Jonathan hear intentionally. It sounds like she’s burying her face in a throw pillow to silence herself.
Before the Upside Down, Will can’t remember a single time he had ever seen her cry in person.
The memory is hazy, like the murky water in a bog, but he remembers the first breath he took after his heart stopped. He remembers the ache in his lungs — the pain of two cracked ribs from Hopper’s CPR. Joyce had grabbed onto him, holding him tightly as they put an oxygen mask over his face, giving him his first real breath in what felt like years.
Will remembers the warmth she carried more than anything; it felt like a hot shower after getting out of a cold pool, like sitting by a fireplace after falling through ice. She had cried loudly enough to make him afraid of the monster finding him again.
After that, the walls came down. Maybe Joyce was unstable — but so was everyone else, so it was never mentioned. Her eyes had glossed over frequently. Whenever he told Owens about a newly grotesque dream from the night before. Whenever she felt his cold hands. He could always tell what she was thinking about.
Then, Bob died, and everything got worse.
Will didn’t see it. No one really told him, either — he picked it up on his own when Bob no longer visited. He never asked his mother. Never asked Mike. Never asked Hopper or Jonathan. Downtown, RadioShack hung a ‘help wanted’ sign in their window, and that was as close to a proper goodbye he got.
Sometimes, Will wonders if the reason no one told him outright about Bob, the reason why no one talks about it, is because Will was somehow responsible for his death.
Will wasn’t himself during those few days. He wasn’t present or in any kind of control. It’s possible that something happened. Something that Will caused.
Will still hasn’t really coped. He had his reservations, of course, but he liked Bob. He was kind. Even though Will wasn’t ready for another father figure, Bob patiently occupied the space just outside of that, saying a calm and quiet, “I’m here when you’re ready.” He gave him cool comics and showed him how to use a video camera. He tried to help whenever he could.
If Will somehow caused his death, he’d never be able to forgive himself.
So, even if the curiosity eats him alive some days, he doesn’t ask — he doesn’t mention it, moves on like everyone else does, like it never happened. But there are unspoken changes that continue on. It’s rare that they go to RadioShack anymore. They don’t rent certain movies or do certain things, and the meaning behind their avoidance always goes unsaid.
There are things they don’t do because of Hopper now, too.
When a certain song plays, Joyce always flips the sound dial down a little too quickly. When El wears the blue tie he always had around his wrist, no one mentions it.
In a way, Hopper started to feel like a father to Will, too.
Will was never as close to him as El was. He’s not even sure why he thought of him in that light. Maybe it’s because of all those times he followed Will and Joyce into Hawkins Lab. All those times Owens referred to Joyce as “mom” and him as “pops” and Will felt a little too delighted.
He didn’t visit much after El came back. But sometimes, every once in a while, he’d be there when Will woke up. Sometimes, Hop and Joyce would have smoke breaks on the porch, or they’d play a card game around the Byers’ kitchen table, and Will would peak over their shoulders to read their cards.
Will and Jonathan only talked about it once. Jonathan had sat on the edge of his bed and asked, “What do you think of Hopper?” and Will, without hesitation, said, “I like him. He’s cool.”
And it was true at the time.
Then, Hopper started getting angrier.
Will doesn’t know what caused the sudden switch. Maybe everything started to finally catch up to him. Or, maybe he had always been like that and Will was just too young to pick it up. He stopped visiting the house for a while. He’d only see Joyce at work, and Will was never told if it was by her request or not.
He’s still not sure what happened. The way Joyce talks about him, on the rare occasion that she can fit the words out, it sounds like he was nicer during his last few days. Will hopes that he was.
Eventually, Will finds himself accepting his insomnia. He sits up and pulls the string on his lamp, throwing his feet over the side of his bed. Dim light fills the room.
The clock on his nightstand reads 3:27 AM. It’s around the time he’d be waking up in Indiana (which, he’s told, is three hours ahead). Will’s never really understood time zones. Even after Dustin explained them in detail. If he’s honest, he spaced out during most of it, exhausted from the nightmares he had the night before.
Will opens the door as quietly as he can. For a new house, it creaks too loudly, in his opinion. He tries to map out where the floor settles and pops underfoot, keeping his steps light and his pace slow as he wanders through the dark hallway. He has to squint to see, trying to avoid any moving boxes or bubble wrap that might cover the floor. The last thing Joyce needs is to hear a gunshot-like sound in her new house.
Yellow-tinted light seeps onto the bottom steps. Will can hear faint rustling from where he stands, but he keeps moving, tiptoeing as close to the wall as he can. That’s where the house settles first; less creaks.
When he gets to the living room, he’s able to make out the figure with dark, shoulder-length hair in the kitchen. Will feels a little surprised. He assumed it was Jonathan that was awake.
El sits on the countertop, eating an Eggo that looks frozen. She doesn’t seem to notice Will until he’s walking past her to get to the fridge.
They don’t talk now, either. She watches him grab an apple. Stares every second that it takes for him to cut it into pieces and put them into a bowl, and then he’s rinsing the knife off and placing it in the sink.
They don’t talk, but he still offers a slice to her.
She takes it with a soft smile. It’s not an audible thank you, but it means all the same. He feels her eyes as he walks back up the staircase.
He eats his apple slices in his room. Closes his eyes as soon as he’s done.
Sleep comes quickly this time. He doesn’t have any dreams; the time between closing his eyes and opening them again feels like a blink. The next morning rolls around, and he’s out of bed just after nine, sliding his hand down the banister in his gray sweatpants and the old Led Zeppelin shirt Jonathan gave him.
Jonathan is making breakfast in the kitchen. It’s simple, just eggs and toast, but Will’s grateful for it. El sits across from him at the table, eyes tired and skin a lot paler than it should be, while Joyce sits beside her.
Jonathan and Joyce talk about enrolling into school over breakfast. Joyce offers to homeschool El, but El is insistent on going to the high school with him and Jonathan; Joyce seems hesitant about it all, but she agrees to consider it, for El’s sake. Her eyes are puffier this morning. Dark eyebags have added years onto her appearance, and her hair is matted like she hasn’t brushed it in several days. Will has always found that her grieving is quieter than others. She becomes reclusive, slowly falling behind on personal tasks and care until everything piles too high.
Will makes a mental note to help her unpack later.
Girls take too long to get ready.
In theory, Will knew this before El moved in. Joyce has never been one to spend much time on herself, but Will had seen comedies that leaned into the idea that girls are higher maintenance. SNL skits about women being obsessed with their appearances.
Will doesn’t really understand it. El takes anywhere from forty-five minutes to an hour when she uses the bathroom, and even though he can tell she has some makeup on, he can’t see much of a difference — her lips are still the same shape. Her eyes are still the same. Her nose is still the same. Some mascara and lipstick doesn’t change that.
He knows better than to tell her that, though.
It’s not that El is ugly. She has an ideally symmetrical face. She’s very easy to draw. It’s just that Will has only lived with her for a couple of months, and he’s already tired of waiting like this. He sits outside of the bathroom door, hugging a towel and some clean clothes to his chest, trying to keep his patience as they close in on one hour with the door locked.
His head drops against the wall with a soft thud. He cringes at himself when he says, “Um, El, are you almost done? I still have to shower.”
When El finally decides to speak up, it’s a quiet but firm, “No.”
Will closes his eyes and blows out a breath. “Okay.”
He drops his pile of clothing onto the floor and walks into the kitchen; Jonathan reads a newspaper at the breakfast bar, holding a mug of steaming coffee as he skims the page. He looks up when Will enters the room.
“Still no luck?”
“No,” Will says with a sigh. “It’s been an hour.”
Twenty more minutes pass, and the door’s still locked. Will stands outside again, checking the watch on his wrist and looking around the hall.
He knocks. “El?”
He doesn’t get a verbal response, but faintly, through the wooden door, he can hear sniffling. His annoyance quickly dissolves into concern.
He goes still, not really knowing what to do. “Hey, um,” he says awkwardly, “is everything okay?”
It’s quiet.
Then she says, “I need help.”
“Help?” Will repeats, confused. “Help with what?”
The door finally opens. El’s eyes are red and puffy, and there’s a brush stuck in her hair, pieces all wrapped and tangled around each other.
Will stands there. El’s lower lip quivers.
“Hey, wait, it’s okay.” He steps into the bathroom, standing behind her in the mirror. “We can fix this.”
El’s expression reads like she doesn’t believe him. “How.”
He doesn’t know. He crouches down, opening the cupboard to search through some of Joyce’s hair products. As he searches, he asks, “How did you even do that, El?”
Her voice wavers slightly. “I was trying to braid.”
Will finds the detangler tucked behind a bottle of hair gel and a box of tampons. “Here,” he says as he stands. “I’ll try to get the brush out. Maybe, uh, sit down. I can’t really see the top of your head.”
So she does. She sits crisscrossed on the bathroom floor while Will sprays the detangler above her, gently trying to tug the brush free.
“You know Mom could’ve helped you with this, right?”
His words aren’t meant to be demeaning; they’re spoken softly, worried, as he handpicks strands of hair from the brush. He sees her shoulders droop.
“I thought I could do it.”
“Well, yeah, but you have to learn somewhere.” Will accidentally pulls too hard. He quickly withdraws his hand, and they both wince. “Shit, sorry. Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”
El’s face is tense. “It’s okay.”
It takes a while, but Will starts to make progress. He sees more of the brush now than he has all day. When he’s able to free the rest of it up, he frowns at the matted, damp hair that surrounds her head like a nest.
He sprays more of the detangler, just like he had seen Joyce do to her own hair after a three week long depression, when it was all oily and knotted. Will is careful when he brushes, starting at the bottom and working up.
“I thought I’d have to have to cut it,” El says flatly.
Will still picks up on the emotion. “Oh,” he says. “Don’t worry about that. I think I’ve gotten most of it.”
Then, it’s quiet again. The same heavy, awkward silence that always seems to linger between them when they’re together for too long.
Will focuses on trying to run a brush through her hair. He smooths out knots with bristles, watching as it reforms itself into its usual waves.
El seems to notice the improvement. Her demeanor slowly shifts into something a little less bleak. Will is almost worried she’ll let the silence continue, but she doesn’t — instead, she shifts and asks, “Do you like painting?”
Will doesn’t expect that. His brushing stops for a split second before resuming. “Uh,” he says. “Yeah. I do.”
She nods to herself. Quietly, “Did you paint back home? In Hawkins?”
“Sometimes. I sketched, mostly.” He shrugs even if she can’t see it. “Mike used to hang them up when we were younger, so you’ve probably seen some in his basement.”
She nods again. “Probably.”
The next time they talk, she’s looking in the mirror, brushing her fingers through her hair with a distant expression. Will crouches to put the detangler back in the cupboard.
“Thank you,” El says above him.
“You don’t have to thank me,” he replies easily, dismissively. “I’d have to be a total douche to not help.”
When he stands, he sees her trying to braid her hair again.
He frowns. “El.”
“I’ll get it,” she insists.
His lips purse into a line. He thinks about a solution. “Maybe I could try?”
El looks at him. There’s a fleeting glint of curiosity behind her eyes. She stares for a beat, then nods, turning around so he can reach the back of her hair.
The first attempt is a failure. So is the second. The third, while promising, isn’t tight enough; it falls apart before he can tie it.
Will thinks of the shape of braids. The way they intertwine. He’s drawn them before. It’s just a crisscross. One strand over the other. He has to try nearly four more times before it clicks. He reaches for three strands instead of two, folding them over each other — his hands are clumsy and it’s not as secure as he wants it to be, but he’s able to use the hair tie like he would a rubber band, and it holds together when he lets it go.
“There,” he says. “Got it.”
El lifts a hand to coast over the back of her head. “Better?”
Will nods. “Better. For now, at least. I’ll see if Mom can teach us both the way she does them when she gets home.”
El looks in the mirror, a soft smile on her face.
Will watches later, when Joyce braids El’s hair so quickly that blinking would’ve caused you to miss it. She slows down the next time, teaching El how to do it herself, then Will.
Will probably shouldn’t care as much as he does, but to him, it’s almost like a puzzle — like in fourth grade when he got a rubix cube and couldn’t put it back down until he learned how to solve it. El lets Will use her hair as practice. He offers his slightly overgrown bangs to her, too, when she wants to practice on someone else.
There’s less distance between them after that. They’re not exactly close, but when they see each other in the kitchen, late at night, they exchange a few words instead of none.
The more time he spends around El, the more things he notices about her — like how sometimes she stares at an item very intensely before standing up to grab it. Sometimes she wipes the top of her lip, even though there’s no blood to swipe at. Sometimes, when she is too tired to conceal it, she still limps from her leg injury.
The first two seem involuntary. Like she’s relying on muscle memory. The last, not so much.
There are other things he notices, too. She’s extremely sensitive to loud noises or smells — anything that’s too much. The smell of burnt popcorn gives her headaches. The sound of thunder makes her tremble. Will accidentally messed up once and made her deal with both at the same time; he had tried to make her feel better with a movie, but it backfired when the popcorn nearly exploded on the stovetop.
The next movie night isn’t quite as bad. Rain doesn’t slam against the rooftop and thunder doesn’t clap outside, and Will is able to pop the popcorn without burning it. Each time he glances over at El, there’s a new expression on her face. She emotes strongly with the characters on-screen, eyes sparkling in a mesmerized kind of wonder. Her brows raise when theirs do. She frowns when they do.
They talk about the movie once it’s over. Jonathan and Will lightly argue over the resolve while El sits on the other side of the couch, listening.
The next day, Joyce brings a pile in from their mailbox and sets it on the counter. Jonathan and El get letters, return addresses based in Hawkins, but Will gets nothing. He watches from the dining room, sees their eyes light up as they open the envelopes.
He tries to swallow down his jealousy.
Will tries to call Mike sometimes. With Joyce’s new job, it’s hard for him to use the phone without interfering with her work, so he only tries at night.
Will calls. Mike never answers. So patiently, he waits for a letter instead.
Will writes a letter of his own. It’s inked down in his small, tight handwriting, and he tells himself that he’ll send it out once Mike sends him one — just so that it’s not weird. It sits in the top drawer of his desk, unstamped. Some time passes, and Will nearly forgets what he wrote in it, so he writes another. Then another. Will has never been good with words, not like Mike is, but time and wonderment is invested in each small letter.
He hopes Mike appreciates it.
The stack grows as they near the first day of school. Joyce takes the three of them shopping the night before; they walk through the clearance aisle, grabbing pencils and notebooks and binders, fitting them all into a small basket that Jonathan carries. The sales are good enough to get each of them what they need.
Along with the new house, Owens had given them some starter money; Joyce doesn’t dip into the fund often, but Will sees the envelope she uses to pay for their basket, the one with Owens’ chicken-scratch writing on the front. On the drive home, he feels the anticipation start to build. He wakes up earlier than normal the next day. Sunlight beams through his thin, drawn curtains as his alarm clock blares to his left.
The cold air hits once he peels his blanket away. He picks his favorite flannel from his closet — a yellow and gray-toned button up — and changes in the bathroom. He splashes his face with water, debating, for just a moment, on slicking his hair back. He has the length to make it like Glen’s from A Nightmare on Elm Street. Maybe something more subtle. Their cuts aren’t exactly the same, but with some shaping, he’s sure it could look similar.
The novelty of a new school makes him consider a new look entirely. He imagines being able to wear cooler, darker clothes. Denim jackets. Bracelets and metal rings, and high tops.
He doesn’t have the money for it, let alone the nerve, but it’s a nice thought. No one in Lenora knows him. No one at school will know who Zombie Boy is — they won’t know what happened to him, or how unpopular he was in Hawkins. There’s a fresh air of anonymity. A sense of rediscovery. If no one knows him, there are no expectations. He could be the type of person he’s always admired: someone confident and outspoken. Someone that doesn’t care what other people say. Someone that doesn’t have years of suffering in their ledger.
But Will isn’t that person, so he leaves his hair the same way it’s always been.
On his way to the kitchen, he passes Jonathan, hair tousled and eyes swollen from sleep. El sits at the breakfast table with a plate of Eggos. They’re submerged in a sea of syrup.
“Morning, baby,” Joyce says as she slips past him. There’s a cup of coffee in her left hand, a telephone in the other. She speaks into the receiver, “No, no, I understand. Yes, this is supposed to be their first day.” She pauses for a moment. “Uh yes, two freshmen and one senior. Just, like I said, Jane is — yes, I understand. That’s what I’m trying to say.”
Will grabs a bowl and the box of Lucky Charms that sits inside their cabinet. As he retrieves the milk from the fridge, Joyce continues to talk; Will assumes the person on the other line is on the school board. He sits across from El with his breakfast, and she looks up at his presence, hair tied back into two braids. She’s wearing a soft blue sweater that looks like Joyce.
“All right, yes,” Joyce says into the phone. “Well, I’ll definitely consider that, but could you — she’s done amazing with her workbooks over the summer, and she’s a very fast learner.” She’s nodding her head the way she does when she’s ready for a conversation to be over. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. All righty, thank you. I’m sure we’ll talk again soon. Buh-bye.”
“What’s that about?” Jonathan asks on his way into the kitchen.
Joyce rubs her forehead, setting the telephone onto the counter. “Just trying to get things sorted out for El today. They’re having trouble with the transcripts I sent them.”
El looks up from the table. Her eyes hold a suppressed kind of sadness.
“Will I still be able to go?”
Joyce turns her head and smiles. “Oh, honey, it’s okay. I will — I will work this out. You don’t have anything to worry about.” She leans a hip against the counter. “You are going to go and have an amazing first day. I will handle everything else. Okay?”
El stares for a moment. Then, she nods. “Okay.”
It’s chaotic, but all first days are chaotic.
At least, that’s what Will tries to tell himself. He and El aren’t the only new kids this year, there are a few lone others, but the pool is thin enough that they find themselves alienated. The clicks are already well established. Like Hawkins Middle, there are popular kids and there are unpopular ones. Rich kids and poor kids. Cheerleaders, team captains, valedictorians, and their opposites — the kids that don’t talk, the ones sitting in the back of the room, unnoticed.
Will talks to a girl in his first period class. He probably wouldn’t have initiated the conversation if he wasn’t so bored. The girl has curly auburn hair and eyeshadow that sparkles in the light, voice smoothly falling in the middle of high and low. She looks like she’d be easy to draw.
Will doesn’t tell her that, though. Instead he says something about how stupid math is as the first class of the day, and she laughs along to his attempt at small talk.
When the bell rings again and chairs scratch against the floor, Will debates on whether or not he should say goodbye; before he commits to a decision, she’s already lost in the sea of unfamiliar faces. He gathers his things and squeezes through the doorway.
The halls look similar to Hawkins High. At least, in what Will remembers from the few times he’s seen them. Rows and rows of lockers line the walls, barely visible behind the crowd of bodies filtering through. Everyone is looking down at their schedules and amateurly wandering to their correct spaces. He shares his next class with El. The seats surrounding her are already taken, but he settles on the nearest desk, giving her a reassuring smile when they make eye contact. They’re able to communicate silently. With a raise of his brows, he asks, “Everything okay?” and with a small nod, she replies, “Better than expected.”
The class itself is boring. It’s mainly just reviewing what he learned last year, but he doesn’t mind. He and El walk together to the next classroom, both of their schedules aligning as well as Joyce could manage.
As the day progresses, Will tries to talk to whoever looks approachable. His words are often fumbled; he’s not well versed at making new connections, but he gets by. He tries his best to remember each of their names, associating some of them with certain items or colors to help them click in his mind.
Overall, he finds himself talking to more girls than guys. Girls are less intimidating to talk to. They’re more willing to carry the bulk of the conversation. They seem nicer to his face, even if they’ll gossip to friends about it later. But that’s not the only reason he talks to the girls.
The guys in Lenora are a lot different than he’s used to. Most of them, especially the seniors, look like they spent the summer snorting protein powder and lifting weights in their dad’s garage. They walk the halls like titans. Gym buffs, maybe, but it’s not just their ungodly fat to muscle ratio that shocks him. It’s the fact that some of them are so tall that Will has to crane his neck to meet their eyes.
But maybe that’s just how high school works. He’s been put in a building that homes both fourteen and eighteen year olds, and everything in between. It makes sense that he’s intimidated. It makes sense that he looks at something unusual. Foreign. In his mind.
There are some normally-proportioned people, too. Some lanky guys with legs that are still finding their place after a growth spurt. Some shorter guys that barely reach the chins of some of the girls. There are people with darker color palettes, dressing in all black with smudged eyeliner and spiked bracelets; there are ones with a garish kind of style, wearing clothes and accessories that scream for attention. There are kids that don’t wear anything of note. If Will has any credit to give Lenora, it’s the variety.
Lunchtime comes around before he knows it. He carries a tray of food and a single juice box through the crowded cafeteria, eyes flickering around in search of El. It takes a minute, but he finds her blue sweater in the mix of people. She’s standing across the room. Her shoulders sag with relief once they make eye contact.
It’s too loud for them to hear what the other is saying until they stand side by side. Will asks, “Where do you want to sit?”
El has to yell to be heard over the noise. “My new friends want me to sit with them,” she says. “They said you can come, too.”
Will feels surprised. “Really?”
El nods, and he blinks a few times before nodding back. “All right, then. Lead the way, I guess.”
She smiles as she beckons him to a table in the middle of the room. Sitting at the table is a group of teens — two guys and two girls. One of the girls has sunbleached golden hair tied with a pink scrunchie that matches her jacket. The other has dark skin with rich, coily curls that surround her head like a crown. The two guys are smiling and wrestling each other on the bench.
“Oh, Jane,” the blonde calls out, dragging her voice as she waves. “Over here.”
El’s eyes brighten at the mention of her name. She shuffles through the crowd, glancing back a few times to be sure Will is following before sitting at the table. Awkwardly, Will does the same. He finds himself on the side with the other guys — El sits beside the blonde, placing her tray in front of her.
When Will looks up, the blonde is staring at him.
“Who’s this?”
El’s response is quick. “This is Will. I told you about him.”
The blonde’s flash with an emotion that Will can’t quite place. “Right,” she smiles. “It is so nice to meet you, Will. I’m Angela.”
She leans forward to extend a hand over the table. Will blinks a couple of times before shaking it.
“Oh, uh. Likewise.”
Angela gives a close-lipped grin as she sits back down. The two sitting beside Will are laughing and nudging each other, and Will feels an instant, skin-crawling itch at their presence.
“We were just talking about the winter play,” Angela says. “For the theater program. Auditions are soon, and I’ve heard that Mr. Davis is directing this year.”
“The perv?” Brown hair asks.
The blond boy snickers. “Looks like you’re getting the lead again, Ange.”
Angela rolls her eyes. “Those allegations were false. The police said so themselves.” She turns to El, staring at her for a moment before her voice changes. “Oh my god, you should totally audition. You would make the most adorable ensemble member.”
Something about her comment feels off. Back-handed, almost. She maintains the same Cheshire grin the entire time she speaks, but El looks flustered all the same.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she smiles softly. “I’ve never been in a show before.”
“Don’t worry about that. The theater program here is very accepting of new members.” Condescending. That’s the tone, Will places. “You’d fit right in,” Angela continues, “and you’re so pretty. It’d seriously make the whole show if you were there.”
El is blushing now, bright red in the face. “Oh,” she says. “You are very pretty, too.”
The others in her group snicker amongst themselves, and it sets off the first set of panic alarms in Will’s mind when he finally realizes they’re sitting at the popular table.
There’s the catch. El had just tripped a wire they set in place.
Angela’s smile drops into something sneering, and her eyes widen the slightest amount, surveying El like a mocking kind of interest. Her voice lowers when she asks, “But not in like, a dyke way, right?”
The world stops.
Will’s stomach drops to the floor. His hand tightens on his fork as he glances around the table; everyone is staring at El with the same predatory glint in their eyes.
El looks confused. “In a what?”
Angela’s eyes are wide with fraudulent concern. “Well, I thought I’d ask just to be safe,” she says. “You know, with all the rumors going around. You can never be too sure.”
Innocently, El echoes, “Rumors?”
Will’s fingers twitch on the table. He should say something. She doesn’t know what’s happening and he does and he knows he should stick up for her, but fear keeps him locked in place.
“That you’re a dyke,” she replies as easily as she would relay the weather. Then, her lips curl into a small pout. “Oh, you didn’t know? Everyone’s been talking about it since you transferred here.”
El still doesn’t seem to understand.
“I guess not,” Angela hums. “Well, I would never want to spread false information, so if they’re just rumors, you can tell me. We’re friends now.” Her hair falls into her face as she looks El up and down like she’s fresh meat. “And since we're on the topic, I might as well ask: are you one or not?”
The table is silent.
El’s eyes flicker around like she’s been cornered. “Um,” she says. “I — I don’t know.”
Will cringes. Poor choice of words.
Angela’s eyes widen with an overly exaggerated disbelief. “You don’t know?”
“Holy shit,” The brunette boy barks. “She totally is.”
El looks at Will pleadingly, the corners of her eyes watery and her face flushed with embarrassment.
Will needs to speak up. He needs to do something, anything, but it feels like there are razors in his throat; like his lips are stitched together and the only way to speak again is by slicing them open.
It’s only now that he notices his own tears forming, heart pounding in his throat.
Angela sneers, “Well, aren’t you going to say anything?”
El holds a glint of betrayal in her eyes. She doesn’t seem to understand what Angela and her friends are implying, but she feels the effect of it.
He should be braver than this, he thinks. He survived the Upside Down for a week. He survived being possessed. He should be able to say something — but memories pull him back to all the times he had been shoved into a locker in the halls, all the times he had been thrown to the ground and laughed at, and made into a joke, and it feels impossible to do anything but watch.
El deserves his help.
But there’s a resistance that keeps him in place. It’s like there are weights attached to his shoulders, anchoring him down to his seat.
El looks around the table again, breathing heavily to keep the tears from falling. She stands up and grabs her backpack, turning heel to run in the other direction.
Will finds her in the girl’s bathroom.
Fourth period has already started. The halls are empty, with the exception of a few kids loitering along the lockers. He stands at the door, debating himself.
Eventually, he calls out, “Is anyone else in here?”
There’s no response. He takes it as a sign. The door swings open with a hiss, and he walks into the bathroom, trying to think of the consequences as he scans the stalls.
The final stall is closed. Someone sits on the floor, hugging their knees to their chest.
“El?” he asks.
Sniffling, she shifts and unlocks the door, recoiling in on herself as soon as it’s open. Will grabs the top of the panel and swings it to the side.
His heart sinks. He crouches across from her, not quite willing to sit on the floor. “Hey.”
El looks up at him with teary eyes. “What did they mean?”
Cold abruptly fills Will’s chest.
“What?”
“Dyke,” she repeats the word from earlier. “What does it mean?” Her voice wavers a bit when she asks, “Why did they laugh?”
Will frowns. His first instinct is to avoid, avoid, avoid. “El, maybe we shouldn’t talk about this right now,” he tries. “You’re… emotional. We should get you cleaned up for our next class.”
El decidedly won’t drop it. “Is it bad?”
Will isn’t sure how to respond. “No,” he mutters, then cringes. “Maybe? I don’t know. It depends on who you ask.”
“Depends,” she echoes. “Why?”
“It’s — “ He cuts himself off forcibly. “I don’t know, El, it’s taboo. People don’t like talking about it.”
El looks a little uneasy at his wording. Her knees lower from where they’re hiding her chest, crossing at the ankles. “Do you not like to talk about it?”
Will feels conflicted. He lets his head thump back against the neighboring wall, mulling over his thoughts.
Deep in his mind, a small, rebellious voice urges him to test the waters.
El has no idea about certain concepts. She hasn’t heard people like Lonnie trail off on why homosexuals are just sick and confused, or heard the president rant about the so-called gay virus plaguing the land. Two same-gendered people being in a relationship would be novel to her. Fresh. There are no biases built into the foundations of her thoughts. No preconceived notions that force her to hate it.
Will really should be careful.
But curiosity gets the better of him, and he says, “I guess not.”
El sees the olive branch; Will thinks he sees a muted sense of curiosity behind her eyes, too. She wipes her face with her sweater as she waits for him to speak again.
Will’s heart pounds. He realizes with abrupt, technicolor clarity that he’s never talked about this kind of thing with anyone. Not with the Party. Not with Jonathan. The topic has just always felt so untouchable — forbidden, almost, always just out of his reach.
But he’s about to talk about it with El, the only one that relates to what he went through in the Upside Down. Similar experiences. Similar pains to outgrow. It gives him the slightest bit of comfort.
So, with a long, deep breath, he wipes his clammy hands on his jeans and looks up at her.
“It means, uh.” He pauses to brace for impact. “You know. Girls that like girls.”
The penny is in the air. Will counts the seconds before El’s face morphs into a disgusted frown — she’ll say, “that’s gross,” and he’ll force a laugh, and they’ll never talk about this again.
That isn’t what happens, though. She only tilts her head, confusion drawing her brows together in the middle as she tries to read him.
“Why is that bad?” she asks slowly. “I like girls. Like Max.”
“Not like that,” Will says with a slight wince. “It’s a word for girls that want to… kiss other girls. Be in a relationship with them. You know, more than friends.”
The silence drags by.
Then, the penny drops. El’s eyes soften and a relieved smile grows on her face, like the universe suddenly makes sense. With a fondness, she says, “Girlfriends.”
Will feels a little startled at her reaction. Still, he manages a nod. “Yeah. Girlfriends.”
She seems to chew on this idea. Weighs it over in her mind. Then, her brows raise, like a thought has suddenly leaped to the forefront and she can’t keep herself from blurting it out.
“Is there a word for boyfriends?”
Will knows there is, but it’s nothing he’d call himself in a positive light. It’s bitter on his tongue. Makes his insides feel like they’re twisting. So he says, “Not that I know of.”
She seems a little dissatisfied. Will finds it the right timing to add, “And you probably shouldn’t say that word. The one that they called you.”
There’s an offended streak to her voice. “Why not?”
“Because it’s — ” He struggles to find the words — “not usually seen as a good thing,” is what he decides on. “At least, not now. You probably shouldn’t talk about it with other people.”
El frowns. “No?”
Will shakes his head, legs starting to feel numb from crouching this whole time. She seems to understand the seriousness of the situation.
“Well,” she says, a little more hopeful, “can I talk about it with you?”
Will’s eyes snap up to hers. There’s no mirth behind her gaze. There’s intrigue, like she’s stumbled upon something she shouldn’t have and now she can’t look away.
With a small shrug, feigning nonchalance, he says, “I guess.”
It’s odd. For the first time in a long time, Will feels like, maybe, he has a friend.