Chapter Text
June 1991
Mike Wheeler doesn’t know if it is relief he feels, exactly, when he spots his mom’s bleached perm from across Indianapolis International Airport. He thinks it might be something wobblier than that, like airplane turbulence. Or, like, not having eaten since 11p.m. yesterday. Yeah. Maybe that.
His mom’s arms are outstretched as he approaches, suitcase rattling behind him across the vinyl. She pulls him into a hug as they meet. Mike lets go of the suitcase to return the embrace, resting his chin on the top of her head.
‘Michael,’ his mom says, accusatory, as she pulls away, ‘Did you get taller?’
‘Mom, it’s been like, three months,’ Mike rolls his eyes.
His mom studies him for a moment, before inhaling sharply and fixing another smile onto her face. ‘Have you eaten? We still have some time before we need to be on the road. Your dad is picking up Holly from school.’
Luckily for Mike, who is ravenous, within fifteen minutes they are at a diner near the airport and he is choking down a chicken sandwich just quickly enough that he can’t answer any of his mom’s questions. Not that that keeps her from trying, with such riveting openers as, ‘How were your final few assignments?’ and then, when he gives no response for a few beats, ‘Mike?’
‘Great,’ says Mike, and reaches for the glass of Coke to his left.
His mom’s eyes warily flicker between his and what he can only assume is his Adam’s apple as he sculls back the room temperature soda. Fizz fills his sinuses and his eyes water, blurring his mom’s face as she follows up with, ‘Has it been more challenging than last semester?’
‘Not really,’ says Mike.
A particularly long pause follows this. Like, long enough that even Mike starts to feel awkward, even though it’s entirely his fault. He shoves fries into his mouth two at a time, feeling watched and trying to pretend he is not feeling watched. Holy shit, is he really so fascinating?
‘Do you not eat when you’re in Iowa?’ his mom finally breaks the silence, obviously frustrated.
Mike swallows down another lump of chicken and thick white bread, finally looking up at her and pausing to say ‘I’m just hungry, mom. You have an entire hour to interrogate me in the car, okay?’
His mom rolls her eyes and picks up one of his fries to dip in ketchup. Mike imagines her maybe saying something like, it’s just that I missed you, Mike, my only and beloved son. Or even just, holy shit, would you slow down and chew properly, you’re going to give yourself indigestion. But instead she just turns to stare out the window, flicking salt off her fingertips.
‘How is Jane?’ she asks.
Mike’s heartbeat quickens. ‘Fine.’
‘Fine?’
His mouth is full again of sandwich, dry and too warm. He swallows as soon as he can, punctuating with an eye roll. ‘I don’t know, mom, she’s good. She’s great.’
Taking another of his fries, his mom smiles at him with humor, ‘Are you sure? She’s been stuck living with you for a year now, Mike. I know you still don’t know how to do your own laundry.’
Okay, well. His mom is actually right about that, sort of, but he isn’t about to give her the satisfaction. And like, El would rather do their laundry anyway, because he guesses whenever he tries, he manages to do something catastrophically wrong. And he usually has more important things to do anyway, like, not reading Sense and Sensibility. So.
‘And whose fault is that?’ says Mike finally, feeling childish.
The humor slips slightly from his mom’s face. ‘You know we tried, Michael,’ she laughs, but sort of bitterly, and he quickly returns to his fries. He feels kind of lame all of a sudden, and tries to drum up that modicum of relief he’d felt at the airport.
The truth is that, yes, Mike is relieved to be here, in a diner in Indianapolis and on summer vacation, instead of on the fifteen-minute bus to the University of Iowa campus for a lecture he will have entirely forgotten by the time he hops back on to ride back. And sue him if he doesn’t always love coming home to El’s stupid friends hanging out in the common areas, probably like, giggling about how bad he is at doing laundry or whatever. Mike severely misjudges the size of the last bite of sandwich, almost choking when he grumpily shoves it into his mouth.
He looks up finally to catch his mom regarding him warily.
‘Done,’ Mike avoids her gaze, holding up his hands as though in surrender, ‘We can head out now.’
A whole week ago, Mike and El had a fight. Mike manages to avoid bringing this up to his mom the entire car ride back to Hawkins. It isn’t too hard, because after a few pointed brush-offs of her needling she finally gets the message and the trip passes largely in silence.
The fight had been because after dinner that night, as Mike had been washing up, El had said, ‘Mike, I have something to tell you. I want you to call me Jane, from now on.’
Mike doesn’t know what it was. Maybe it was his hands, irritated and pink from the water, or his hair, in dire need of cutting, dangling into his eyes. Maybe it was the big essay he had coming up, or the fact that this was the third night in a row they had eaten spaghetti and he felt a little bit like he was going to puke. Whatever it was, something about El’s words in the moment struck him right through the top of his skull and landed coldly in his stomach.
‘What?’ he had said, letting the plate he had been holding slide out of his grasp into the murky water. His heart was hammering. ‘Why? What do you mean?’
‘I think,’ El said, slowly, because she always chose her words so carefully. It scared Mike, sometimes, because he knew how precise a blow they could strike. Sometimes it scared him a lot, like right then, when (like an insane person) his terror would not let him turn around and face his own girlfriend (a normal person) when she was trying to speak to him. He stood still, like maybe nothing bad would happen if he made no sudden movements.
‘I think I want to use the name my mom gave to me,’ finished El.
‘But you’re El,’ said Mike dumbly.
El took a sharp breath. Mike’s heartrate picked up. Finally, he forced himself to turn around and face her, wet hands dripping onto the hardwood floor.
‘I am El, Mike,’ said El, looking at him intensely, ‘But I am only El because that is what Papa named me.’
‘Brenner didn’t name you El,’ said Mike, ‘I did.’
Mike stares out the window of his mom’s 1987 Mercury Colony Park and remembers El’s mouth becoming a thin line. He feels lightheaded. He counts trees as they pass them and tries not to think about how El had brought up her counselor, how Mike’s panic had already turned into a kind of absurd anger, because he is an insane person, he guesses.
‘Look, can’t we just discuss this later? I’m honestly super not in the mood,’ he’d said.
‘What is there to discuss?’ asked El, her voice chilling, ‘Everyone calls me Jane, Mike. I am just asking you to do the same. There is no discussion.’
‘But you’re El to me!’ snapped Mike, ‘You’re El to everyone who matters. You want – you want me to call you something that all the nobodies call you? All the people who don’t even know you?’
Even now the remnants of resentment echo in Mike’s head. Why is she allowed to… why does she get to… but every ending to the thought just feels like bile rising in his throat. Mike rolls down the window a little and lets his head rest against the juddering glass.
‘Will is back for vacation too, did you know that?’ asks Mike’s mom.
‘Yes,’ says Mike, ‘Of course I know that. How do you know that?’
‘I talk to Joyce,’ his mom says, throwing him a sideways glance. ‘She’s my friend.’
‘Yeah, and Will is my friend, so,’ says Mike, as in ergo, of course he knows Will’s summer break plans. He’d called Will just the night before to confirm them specially. His palms are getting sweaty, and he winds down the window a little further to dangle one outside.
His mom hums. ‘We haven’t seen Will in such a long time. You should invite him over for dinner this week.’
Mike lets out a sigh. ‘Yeah, I don’t know mom. Maybe.’
They lapse into silence again. His mom sighs too, and then asks, ‘How is Will finding San José State?’
Despite his general reluctance to talk, Mike has never been able to help himself when given the opportunity to talk about Will, even if his mom is the one asking. ‘Good, yeah,’ he shifts in place, resettling his hand against the warm metal of the car’s exterior, ‘He’s busy, but he’s doing well in his classes, I think.’
Will likes his job at the movie theatre snack bar well enough. He calls Mike on Friday evenings after his 3p.m. to 6p.m. shift to complain about his dorm mates and ask Mike if he’s seen the new releases. Mike asks Will about his nightmares and Will asks Mike about El, and they are both honest with each other. When he finally hangs up the phone, Mike feels like he is probably the loneliest nineteen-year-old in his postcode, if not the entire state of Iowa.
‘Has he been making friends?’ Mike’s mom asks, and Mike feels his chest clench.
‘Yeah, of course,’ says Mike, because it’s Will, the coolest person he knows. Will has friends in the SJSU dormitories and in his illustration classes and at work, stories about whom he has told Mike in their hundreds over weeks upon weeks of phone calls.
Mike laughs down the line and takes the ache in his chest to bed to keep him company while he stares at the ceiling.
Yesterday’s phone call with Will hadn’t been one of their planned sessions. Will’s voice had sounded surprised to hear Mike’s down the line. As Mike rolls his suitcase up his driveway – his parent’s driveway – he thinks about the nausea he’d felt when he’d asked Will, again, what day exactly he would get in for break. How he’d wanted to cry when Will had laughed and said I’ll be in Hawkins tomorrow, you dumbass, did you already forget?
‘Michael,’ says Mike’s dad in greeting, reclining on the La-Z-Boy as they enter. Mike’s mom disappears into the kitchen to start on dinner.
‘Yeah, hi, dad,’ Mike rolls his eyes, listening to the sound of small footsteps hurtling down the stairs and bracing himself for Holly’s hug. As she wraps her arms around him something in him stings, kind of wishing Nancy was here. It isn’t as though he wants her company particularly – they had never gotten along and still don’t – but when there were five of them at home the house just felt fuller.
‘Hey, Hol,’ Mike says, and then feels something crinkle against his shirt, ‘What’s that?’
Holly pulls back and holds out the piece of paper to him, ‘A welcome home card,’ she says.
‘Oh. Wow,’ Mike says awkwardly, opening it. On the inside is a drawing of their family holding hands, which makes him want to snort. It’s a pretty good drawing for an eleven-year-old, but Mike finds himself cringing at her earnestness. Like, there was no way he’d have been caught dead doing this shit for Nancy. ‘Thank you.’
‘I’ve been doing loads of art,’ says Holly, drawing out the ‘o’ in ‘loads’, ‘D’ya wanna see?’
‘Uh, not now, Hol,’ says Mike, looking for an escape route.
‘Come on, Michael,’ his dad leans over in his recliner, choosing this moment totally at random to do some parenting, ‘She’s been waiting for her big brother all day.’
Mike scowls at him. ‘I’ve got to take this upstairs,’ he snaps, rattling his suitcase, ‘Just give me a second, okay?’
But Mike lays on his bed and stays there until he is called down for dinner forty minutes later. He is trying really hard not to think about Will saying, Mike, what happened, are you okay, and how Mike had been unable to say anything in response for a full minute for fear his voice would break. Instead, he stares at the marks left by tape on his ceiling, thinks about how his bedroom feels so much smaller than he remembers, how it feels like he is being swallowed whole by its painted blue walls.
Dinner is meatloaf, thankfully, not spaghetti, but Mike spends much of the meal just pushing peas around his plate. He isn’t hungry, the sandwich from earlier still sitting heavy in his stomach. His sullen silence is picked up on by his parents, who mostly leave him be for the first ten minutes of the meal. But it can’t last.
‘So, how is Jane enjoying,’ Mike’s mom pauses, ‘she’s still on the paper run?’
Mike shrugs, ‘Yeah.’
His mom pauses again to take a sip of wine. Mike keeps his head down, putting a forkful of mashed potatoes in his mouth to avoid having to look at her. After a few beats she follows up with, ‘And school? Her final year has gone well?’
Mike shrugs, still moving mashed potatoes around in his mouth.
After a few beats of silence, his mom sighs, frustrated. ‘Are you really not going to give me any updates about your girlfriend’s life, Mike?’
‘What do you want me to say, mom?’ Mike snaps, putting his fork down.
‘Well, I just thought that maybe your father and I might at least hear about her, that's all!' Mike’s mom gestures with her knife in the air, 'If we can’t see her. Given you haven't managed to bring her back.’
‘Okay,’ Mike grits out, ‘Here’s some news. E- Jane and I broke up. We’re not together. So stop – fucking – asking about her. Okay?’
‘Language, Michael,’ says his dad, at the same time that his mom gestures pointedly towards Holly and says, ‘Mike!’
‘Holy shit,’ says Mike, standing, his chair clattering loudly. And then, ‘Can I be excused?’
‘No,’ says Mike’s mom at the same time that Mike’s dad says, ‘Please.’
‘Holy shit,’ says Mike again, his face feeling hot. And then he turns on his heel and walks out.
Of course I’ll be there, Will had repeated himself, softly this time, once he had heard. Just sit tight, Mike – of course I’ll be there.
Mike wakes to his mom’s voice, softly saying his name, her hand firm on his shoulder. When he opens his eyes, his room is still blurry with dark. The only light is creeping from under his curtains and in a bright strip that is the ajar door.
‘Lucas is here,’ his mom says, perched on the edge of his bed. And after a few beats, ‘Do you want me to tell him to come back later?’
Mike swallows thickly, his throat tense and sore. ‘No,’ he says, embarrassed to find his voice croaky from disuse, ‘Just tell him I’ll be a couple minutes.’
But instead of moving to do that, his mom stays put. Mike closes his eyes, trying to gather the strength to sit up. He feels his mom’s hand, soft and warm, against his head, and stays still as she drags her thumb in slow and gentle circles around his temple. Mike leans into the touch and swallows again.
‘Oh Mike,’ his mom says. Mike stays very still and does not open his eyes until he feels the bed shift as she stands up to leave.
Mike manages to pull on a tee shirt and a pair of jeans, and to run his hand through his hair a couple of times to tidy it slightly. By the time he gets downstairs Lucas is sat at the dining room table, feet propped up on the opposite chair and with a glass of orange juice. His mom is nowhere to be seen.
‘Hey dude,’ says Lucas, and Mike knows instantly that he knows. His voice is too careful and even. ‘Loving the ’do. Very, uh, Johnny Depp.’
Mike reaches up to run his hands through his hair a couple more times, and says, unappreciative of the Tim Burton reference, ‘Shut the fuck up Lucas.’
Lucas’ laughter trails off quickly, and there is silence for a few beats while Mike prepares himself a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Despite his feeling like shit, Lucas’ familiar presence in Mike’s dining room makes his insides feel warm. He and Max, like Will, are studying in California, but unlike Will are 350 miles south at Riverside. Mike is endlessly jealous – he is at least 1,500 miles away from any of them.
‘Look,’ say Lucas finally, ‘Will told me… what happened.’
Mike inhales, pauses, and then opens the fridge to put the milk away. ‘How much did he tell you?’
‘Just that you guys… called it quits,’ says Lucas.
‘Right. Yeah,’ says Mike, and sinks into the dining chair opposite Lucas’ with his cereal.
There is a pause. ‘I’m sorry, dude,’ says Lucas, ‘It’s not like… you know?’
Mike knows what Lucas is asking – is this like the summer of 1985, when El dumped him at the mall. He remembers squirrelling away with Lucas and Will in the basement, trying to scheme a way to get her back. Everything had felt so inconsequential, like somehow they all knew it wouldn’t stick.
‘No, it’s different,’ says Mike around a mouthful of wet, sugary wheat. He taps his spoon against the inside of the bowl, ‘It’s… for real. This time.’
Lucas exhales. ‘Shit, dude,’ he says.
There is a lump in Mike’s throat, which he tries to swallow down with his next mouthful of cereal, but it sticks. Hearing it in Lucas’ voice makes him feel like he is going into shock all over again, like every object in the room has come into such intense focus but at the same time is infinitely too far away for him to touch.
Lucas is drumming his fingers on the glass. ‘Was she… who… was it mutual?’
‘Sort of,’ says Mike, lightly, pretending Lucas isn’t giving him a look that very openly conveys that he knows this response is Mike licking a wound but that for once he isn’t about to call him out on it.
‘Sort of?’ Lucas prompts gently.
‘Well,’ says Mike, scrubbing his eyes with one free and irritated hand, ‘Okay, no. Not really. I guess.’
He is mortified when his already soggy Cinnamon Toast Crunch begins to swim and blur under his gaze. Mike stares at his bowl until it comes back into focus, which might take anywhere between ten seconds and an hour. When he finally manages to look up again, Lucas is smiling sympathetically at him. ‘Yeah?’ he says.
Mike curses as Lucas’ stupid, kind face starts to blur just like a bowl of cereal. ‘Yeah,’ he manages, looking away. He wonders where his mom has got to.
‘We don’t have to – ’ Lucas starts, but then, ‘Do you want to like, go to the arcade? Or we could rent a movie, or something?’
Mike shrugs, feeling like maybe the last thing he has ever wanted to do in his life is go outside. ‘Maybe.’
Lucas pauses to take a sip of juice, ‘Or,’ he says, ‘Your Super Nintendo is set up in the basement, yeah?’
‘It’s upstairs in my suitcase,’ says Mike. It is a less daunting prospect, but he is still scrabbling around for enthusiasm in a chest which feels like it has been scooped out, squishy, with a cereal spoon. He lowers his head to spoon sugary milk into his mouth.
Mike has been tucked away in his bedroom playing Super Mario World for months now, so focused he has not really had a chance to try out the copy of Final Fantasy II Dustin had sent him for his birthday back in April. He thinks about the box, art rendered bright red with gold lettering and wrapped up carefully in several hoodies with the console and his other games in his suitcase. ‘I could get it out,’ he says, tentatively, finally looking back up at Lucas.
‘Yeah?’ says Lucas, grinning, ‘Cool. ’Cause you know that’s why I’m really here. Just for the O.J. and all the new release home consoles Ted Wheeler’s paycheck can buy.’
Mike actually laughs at that. ‘Obviously,’ he says, finally letting his spoon clatter into his mostly empty bowl and pushing his chair back.
The call comes just as they have finished setting up. Mike’s heart clenches in a way that is both achy and warm when he picks up the basement phone and hears Will’s voice on the line.
‘Hi, Mike?’ Will says.
‘Yeah, it’s me,’ says Mike, glancing over. Lucas is regarding him from where he has been sat on the floor inspecting the Final Fantasy II box.
‘Cool,’ Will breathes, ‘Sorry, I – my flight got in last night, I only just woke up. I – uh.’ And then, in a voice much softer, ‘Do you want me to come over?’
‘Yeah,’ Mike exhales, and then more firmly, ‘Yeah. Uh, Lucas and I have just set up the Super Nintendo in the basement. If you wanna come round and play?’
There is a pause on the other end. Mike watches Lucas slot the game cartridge into the top of the console, the plastic of the phone pressed snugly against his cheek to listen to the static.
‘Okay,’ Will says carefully, finally, ‘Sure thing, Mike. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
‘Cool. Cool,’ says Mike, ‘See you soon.’
‘See you soon,’ Will repeats, and after a couple of beats the line goes dead.
Mike’s palms feel sweaty. The game has started up, the T.V. emanating an inviting jingle and lit up with the words 1991 SQUARE SOFT. LICENSED BY NINTENDO. ‘Will,’ Mike says to Lucas, by way of explanation, ‘He said he’s coming round soon.’
‘Cool,’ Lucas nods, and holds out one of the controllers to Mike.
Mike tries his best to get immersed in the gameplay. Lucas certainly seems to be, making excited comments about the music and battle mechanics, nudging Mike when their timing is off and reading the NPC’s lines aloud.
But Mike is mostly thinking about the grounding feeling of Lucas’ upper arm against his or their elbows knocking as they sit, leaned against the sofa on the floor. He still feels sweaty and his heart is pounding, but when their arms press warmly together during the cutscenes it slows, and he can breathe a little easier. He knows he can’t, but he almost wants to ask Lucas to switch off the T.V. so they can sit in silence, shoulder to shoulder, while Mike just breathes.
They have probably been playing for an hour and a half before they hear the basement door opening. ‘Hello?’ Will’s voice floats down, and Mike drops his controller, leaving Lucas to squawk and fumble to pause the game.
When Mike sees Will’s gentle, smiling face, his chest leaps despite being painfully tight. ‘Will!’ he says, and stands.
Will grins wider and holds his arms out and Mike tries to act like he isn’t hurrying to fall into them, dodging the sofa and crossing the old worn rug. Up close, Will smells good like he’s just shampooed his hair, which is getting long, licking around his ears and the nape of his neck. Mike hooks his chin over Will’s shoulder and inhales, feeling Will’s warm arms wrap firmly around his.
For a moment, just a second, it feels good, but then the lump forms in Mike’s throat once again. Oh god oh god oh no he thinks, but just in time Will releases him. ‘Hi,’ he says, smiling, but Mike can see him anxiously scanning Mike’s face, ‘What are you guys playing?’
‘Final Fantasy,’ says Lucas, thankfully, because the lump is still deeply embedded in Mike’s throat. He gives Will a one-armed hug, ‘How’re you going, dude?’
‘Great, yeah,’ Will says, gaze still sliding over to Mike. ‘You?’
‘I’m gonna go get some drinks,’ says Mike suddenly, shooting them both a smile before darting to head upstairs.
All the soda they have is Dr. Pepper, but that is okay. Mike wraps his hands around the cool, wet cans, and then presses them to his achy chest so they leave damp patches on his tee shirt. ‘Okay,’ he says to himself, alone in the quiet of his family’s kitchen. The freezer hums. Then again, ‘Okay.’ He rolls one of the cans over his sternum, but the ache only feels more intense. Cool. Okay.
He opens the door to the basement and makes his way down the stairs, noticing pretty quickly that it is already stuffy with June heat and smells like sweat, but that Will hadn’t said anything about it when he’d arrived, which is sort of embarrassing. Will and Lucas are sat in front of the T.V., Will with Mike’s controller and Lucas explaining what he’d missed of the game’s storyline.
‘Thanks,’ Lucas says when Mike hands him his Dr. Pepper, and then makes to swap it for the controller. Mike hesitates but takes it. The plastic is warm from Lucas’ hands, particularly after the cold aluminum.
Will picks up on the mechanics quickly, which is a good thing, because very soon he is carrying the team. Something about the sugary soda has curdled in Mike’s stomach, and the longer the gameplay continues the more distracted he feels. Lucas is sitting on the couch, so Mike can no longer bump elbows with him, which for some insane reason has put him in a kind of sour mood.
The third time they are defeated by the same boss, Mike finally twists around to Lucas, controller aloft. ‘D’ya want a turn?’
Lucas blinks, a wariness shooting for a split second across his features. ‘It’s okay Mike, you can keep playing.’
‘Lucas,’ Mike says, his voice coming out snappish and impatient. His stomach roils with instant regret, but Lucas just blinks again and takes the controller gently. Mike can feel Will’s eyes on him.
He shuffles forward to put his mostly full can of Dr. Pepper on the T.V. cabinet, and then settles on the opposite side of Will to watch them play. He sits close enough that during some dialogue, when Will’s arm relaxes, it touches Mike’s just like Lucas’ had earlier. But when Will pulls away at the start of the next battle, Mike chases the warmth, shifting just slightly closer so that their shoulders press together.
Will glances at him, expression kind and unreadable, but doesn’t move away. Mike feels relief wash over him. It feels like the only way to stay moored, to keep himself on the floor and his eyes glued to the game. He focuses on the sensation of Will’s body against his and on his own breathing, heavy and rattling through his mouth. He feels unhinged and obvious, but there is nothing else for it.
He can’t help but think about the summer before freshman year, nearly six years ago. Sitting with Lucas and Will in the very same too-warm basement, fucking around, arguing about which one of them was going to call the girls.
It isn’t a happy memory – not even at a stretch – but as he watches the three of them now, almost from a bird’s eye view, he thinks, holy shit. Mike feels at once like he is one hundred years old and like he has never aged a day past thirteen. He feels like there is a weight crushing him from above. He feels like Will is about to pull his arm away, every second like it is an imminent threat to his life, and every thump of his stupid, broken heart is a pathetic mantra of please, please, please, please.
Will doesn’t move. But Lucas, groaning as their small, colorful characters lose yet another active time battle, puts his controller on the ground. ‘Okay,’ he says, ‘That may be enough of me getting my arse kicked for one day.’
Will laughs, taking a swig of soda. ‘I’m sure it’s my fault. I got in late, not sure I’ve really mastered the mechanics yet.’
Mike lets his head tilt back against sofa, feeling his own pulse throb in his throat. Lucas stands, crushing his can with both hands. ‘Nah dude, you picked it up really quick. The timing on this one is just really tricky.’
He turns to look at Mike, ‘I’m gonna head out now, my mom wanted me home. But call me, okay? Dustin gets in in a couple days – maybe we could do something the four of us?’
‘Totally,’ says Mike, forcing a smile.
‘Cool,’ says Lucas, holding out his hand to give Will some kind of weird, jock-influenced bro handshake that would have looked totally hilarious initiated by any other Party member. ‘See you guys later.’
Mike listens to Lucas’ footsteps, up the stairs and across the landing until they fade out of earshot. His breath is still coming out ragged. Will’s arm is still flush against his, steady, for a few beats after they hear the front door shut. Then he pulls away, leaving Mike’s arm cool and exposed for just a few seconds while he switches off the SNES. The game music stops.
The new silence is fragile, Mike’s every breath obvious. Will settles back, mercifully, against him.
‘So,’ he says quietly, finally. ‘How are you feeling?’
Mike feels tired. He lets his head loll to the side to look at Will, inhaling deeply through his nose and out again, and forces another smile. ‘Great.’
Will snorts. ‘Yeah?’
Mike presses the pads of his fingers into both eyes, hard. He takes a deep breath. ‘I feel like I’m going to throw up.’ It feels like a relief to say it, for a second, before the shame starts to bubble up from somewhere inside him.
‘Oh,’ Will’s voice is full of concern, ‘The bathroom is right there, uh, if you need?’
Mike nods. He is focusing on the sensation of the pulse of the blood in his eyelids against the pressure of his fingers. He doesn’t think he is actually going to be sick, not imminently anyway, but even so nausea presses against the walls of his stomach.
Will’s careful voice floats from his left. ‘Would it help to talk about it?’
The insistent lump rises in his throat again. Mike bites his lip and starts counting down from twenty. When he gets to one, he says, ‘Maybe. But uh,’ he swallows, ‘I don’t know if I have anything, uh, interesting to say about it. I’m mostly just like, really fucking bummed out.’
‘That’s okay,’ says Will.
Mike swallows again. ‘Did you like… talk to El at all?’
Will pauses. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I did talk to Jane. But not about anything really specific.’
That’s right, Mike thinks, his face heating up. Jane. He wonders if things might have been different if he’d only managed to swallow whatever bizarre meltdown he’d had when she’d asked him to call her that. He doesn’t know what the fuck is wrong with him. It hadn’t been an unreasonable request – a shock, maybe, but nothing that warranted his reaction.
There is a fantasy he has, one where instead of yelling he had said something like, of course I can call you Jane, and given her a hug. Or even just a calm, I’m going to need a moment to think about this, but we can talk later tonight maybe? But even as he pictures it in his mind’s eye, he knows there is no universe in which Mike had done anything in that situation but throw a stupid tantrum, because even now on the floor of his basement the cocktail of anger, panic, and something else is dredging up in his stomach, sloshing into his throat.
Brenner didn’t name you El. I did.
‘What did she say?’ asks Mike, not sure he even wants to know.
Will takes a deep breath, ‘Just that she was still planning to come back home for summer. But that she wanted to give you some space first.’
Mike bites down on his lip. Wow. He hadn’t expected hearing that to be so humiliating, but there is something about being the person that El chatted to about all her school assignments, curled up with him in her bed, something about going from that to so suddenly being this pathetic, wounded animal. An object of her pity.
He thinks about El thinking, Mike will need some space. If she’d orchestrated the timing for that reason, how long had she been planning to dump him? For a month? Since the start of the semester? Why hadn’t she just talked to him?
That was what he’d asked, when it happened. Can’t we talk about this? Talk to me, El. Jane. We can talk about it.
‘Mike,’ El had said tiredly, ‘We talk. We always talk.’
‘Mike,’ says Will, in his basement, both hands circling a mostly empty can of Dr. Pepper. ‘We don’t have to… if you don’t want…’
‘No, I mean, I,’ says Mike. He wants to talk. He just isn’t sure what he wants to say.
‘It’s just,’ says Will, setting the can down beside him and wringing his hands together in his lap, ‘I think we’re all pretty… surprised. Like, I think we all thought… well. That you and Jane were it, for each other.’
Mike’s stomach feels particularly weird at that. ‘You knew there were problems,’ he says, glancing at Will, ‘I was telling you about them.’
‘Yeah, but, I don’t know,’ says Will, then blows air out of his cheeks. And then, ‘I kind of thought it was just, being in a new city together. A new state. That can be complicated even for a really strong relationship. Plus, I don’t know, you’ve been…’ He stops.
‘A massive fuckup,’ says Mike.
‘Mike,’ says Will. And then, more softly, ‘I think you’ve been having a bad year.’
Mike’s gaze once again blooms with blurriness. Okay. Yeah. With feigned concentration, he traces the denim stretched over his left knee in circles, around and around. Distantly, the front door closes, Mike’s mom obviously home from wherever she’s been the last few hours. Mike wonders if she’ll look for him, knock on his bedroom door.
‘Nothing in particular happened,’ says Mike finally, ‘With… me and, Jane. Like there was no big fight or anything. She just decided it wasn’t working, for her.’
‘Yeah?’ says Will.
‘Yeah,’ says Mike. He takes a deep breath, ‘You know how I was bad at doing laundry?’
Will lets out a surprised laugh. ‘Yes?’
‘There were all these dumb things that made me freak out and think she was about to start hating me,’ says Mike, ‘Like that. But it turned out that all along there were actually a bunch of secret, other things that were making her hate me that I had no idea about. And now I can’t work out if I’m just stupid, or if the game was just rigged. You know?’
Will smiles at him. ‘You got dumped like, two days ago Mike,’ he says gently, nudging where their arms are still pressed shoulder to elbow, ‘I think you’re just heartbroken.’