Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Will called his mom. Mike hadn’t talked to him since.

Not that he was really talking to Will before it happened--he wasn’t talking to anyone. He was skipping class and skipping meals and hiding away. In hindsight, it was obvious what this would all come to, but it was so surprising that nobody caught on until it was too late.

But it wasn’t too late. Because Will called his mom.

When he woke up, she was there. He didn’t remember even falling asleep in the hospital room, but he must have. One minute, he was sitting at the quarry and then there were sirens and then he was in an ambulance and getting stitches and somehow he had landed in a hospital bed with his mother sleeping by his side.

He didn’t know that she had slept, though, he didn’t realize that that horrible day had finally passed and it was nearing noon on a Friday. Karen’s hair was all weird and her makeup so smudged from the night before, but she was sitting as still as she ever could and going through her purse, some dull and busying task.

Mike watched her for a moment. It all seemed so futile. The time that it took her to fish out her lipstick from her bottomless bag was the same amount of time it took Mike to make a cut. But he had to stop thinking about it, picturing it.

So he said with his hoarse voice, “Mom?”

Her head whipped over so fast, her eyes instantly softening. “Hi baby,” she cooed, taking his hand like she had when he had fallen asleep. His eyes followed her hand and saw how bandaged his own arms were, how his wrists were handcuffed to the bed. “How’d you sleep? Do you feel okay?”

He shrugged. That was a dumb question and she seemed to realize that as she withdrew her hand to cover her face. She squeezed out, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

“But I am,” she told him. “I should’ve known you were unhappy. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

He didn’t have it in him to tell her why she didn’t need to be sorry. Obviously she didn’t, especially for the fact that this needed to happen. The only person to blame was himself, and not because he made some grave mistake, but because there was something wrong with him. He only did this because he needed to punish himself.

“Can I get you anything?” She pressed, eyes dripping in such a cautious need. “I can get you some breakfast?”

“I’m not really hungry.”

She visibly gulped. “Sorry. I’m sorry, you must be tired.”

Mike shrugged. “I guess.” He was done looking at her for the moment now, his mom was seeing right through him and he didn’t want anyone to acknowledge him.

So much for that because his mom grabbed his hand again, rubbing her thumb over his hand the best she could past the handcuffs and past the thick casted bandages. “You know I love you, Michael,” she said softly, determined to find his eyes.

So he closed his eyes. “I know.”

“I’m not going to make you talk right now, but…when you’re ready, you can talk to me, okay?”

He huffed. “I’m fine.”

“No you’re not.”

“Mom,” his eyes rolled over to face her, red and watery and thoroughly embarrassed.

“I just want to help you, Mike.”

“You don’t need to help me.”

“Yes I do,” her eyes were watering now too, “you don’t talk to anyone, I had no idea there was something wrong. I wouldn’t have known anything if Will didn’t call.”

He was getting caught up in what shit he pulled instantly with that. Obviously an ambulance wasn’t just patrolling the woods and found him, someone called them. “What do you mean if Will didn’t call?” He asked clearly.

“He read the note that you gave him.”

“He called the police?”

“He called me. Or, he tried calling you, but you weren’t at home.”

His panic was instantly setting in. “What did he tell you?”

Karen swallowed. If she said it then it was real. “That he thought you were going to kill yourself, dear.”

“Did he say why?”

She paused for a moment. “Did you tell him why?”

He huffed as he threw his head back. “It wasn’t a suicide note or anything. It was just a page from my notebook. It wasn’t meant for anyone.” He knew subconsciously that this was a lie. That page was written specifically with Will in mind and he knew that he wanted his last words to be true.

“Oh,” she hummed as she pursed her lips together in thought. Will didn’t tell anyone what was written in the note, not even El who begged and begged. But they all could see from his ghostly complexion that it was truly horrific. “Well, you might want to tell him that. He seemed really shaken up by whatever you wrote—he stayed here for a while last night, he wanted to know if you’re okay.”

“He skipped his art show?” Mike asked.

Karen was taken back. “I…I don’t know, dear.”

Still, deciding easily, Mike said, "I don’t want to talk to him.” Not only did Will now know his greatest secrets and his worst ever thoughts, but he had taken away his one and only escape. All that Mike craved was death, he dreamt of pain, and Will had just sentenced him to a lifetime of suffering as his world would continue to crumble around him.

“He’s your best friend.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

"Okay," she said softly. But she was still biting at her lip. "Can you talk to a professional about it?"

"Like a shrink?"

"I think that you should."

Little did she know that he'd be talking to plenty of doctors that came around his room, but it did get him set up with a psychiatrist.

He was just sad. All of the time. He'd forgotten what it felt like to be happy and feel safe, each moment of the day there was an ache in his chest and the only thing he could think about was hurting himself.

Really, that was why he did it. He couldn't stand living inside of himself anymore. His hatred was bubbling up and pouring out the sides.

Still, no one would have ever imagined he’d have the balls to actually end it all. Will couldn’t hack it, he couldn’t get the image of Mike at the quarry out of his mind. He didn’t make it there before the paramedics did, so it only left his imagination.

He waited at the hospital like he was going to go see Mike after it all, a downward spiral in his mind of the worst case scenario. He was nauseous.

“Is he going to be okay?” He heard El quietly ask Hopper. His mom was using all of her dimes on the phone in the hall.

“He’ll be fine,” Hopper told her. His voice wasn’t as gruff as it normally was and Will imagined that he had her tucked under his arm. He wouldn’t know, though, his eyes were squeezed shut with his head in his hands.

El felt the need to clarify, “So he’s not going to die?”

Will couldn’t help himself from immediately getting up from his seat and groaning, “Jesus Christ.”

“Will—,” Hopper warned, like he had any idea where Will was going with this, like Will had any idea where he was going with it. The whole situation was uncharted territory, but even more so for Will himself who felt a different creature coming out him while being riddled with fear in the waiting room.

“We don’t know if he’s gonna die,” he hissed at El, with tear streaks staining her cheeks already. “If it’s not today, it’ll just be some other time because he wants to die.”

“Will,” Hopper said more forcefully, “that’s enough.”

“You’re being mean,” was what El replied with in a shaky voice. “He doesn’t want to die.”

“He tried killing himself, El. That’s what that was. You know that, don’t you? He cut his own wrists open so he would bleed out.”

Maybe she didn’t know that because instantly, she was almost choking on her own breath, drowning in thought. Hopper was sighing, putting a hand on her knee as he tried to comfort her, but she shook her head and said so small, “He jumped off a cliff.”

Everyone paused. “No he didn’t,” Hopper tried to tell her, but she was shaking her head again, saying, “When Will was gone, he jumped off the cliff. There were boys yelling at him.”

“He jumped?” Will clarified, eyes wide. Hopper’s eyes weren’t as wide, but had a hint of unease inside of them.

“I caught him.”

"When was this?" Hopper asked, his voice so soft.

"When Will was in the Upside Down. We were in the woods." Her head tilted to the side in memory. "When I broke that boy's arm."

Hopper nodded along.

“I can’t believe this,” Will almost whispered before going off on a pacing streak.

He really couldn’t. It was just some fucking Thursday and his entire life was being destroyed in front of him. It was even worse for his friends that were getting called by his mom in the very moment, while Dustin was vacuuming his living room and Lucas was painting DnD figures with Erica and Max was eating dinner.

While they were all slotted into their own lives, Mike was running away from his, running away from them. In a way, it hurt.

Hopper and El whispered to each other a little longer while watching Will pace out of the corner of their eyes until Hopper was standing and pulling Will aside, saying to him, “Come talk to me for a second.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Will said as they went with a rushed eye roll.

“There is, I can’t imagine what this is like for you.”

He was being so strangely sincere which further made Will want to cross his arms and huff, “Obviously; you hate Mike.”

With a long sigh, Hopper admitted, “I don’t hate him.”

“You don’t like him.”

“Why does it matter what I think of him?”

“Because it could’ve made him want to die!” Will breathed out like it was the thought that was running through his veins. And it was, because he was the one that had in his back pocket the last words that Mike gave into this world. The very parts of himself that he hated most.

Hopper put his hands on Will’s shoulders steadily. “Look, kid. Him…dealing with all of this, is his own thing. It has nothing to do with me, or with you, or with anyone. It's no one's fault. It's his brain, he's sick."

It was hard to believe that though with the fact that Mike didn’t want to speak with him. When he was the one that told Mike to go. It surely made it all feel like Will's fault.

Hopper made them all go home after Karen told them he had fallen into an exhaustive sleep, promising that they could come back the next day when he woke up—this time, with all of the party in tow.

They all skipped school and went straight to Lucas’ house, sitting around his living room in an awkward silence.

It was strange that they had already lost Mike so long ago,

The Mike Wheeler that they all knew, that they were all friends with in the first place was gone and had been for a while. He was distant, he never wanted to hang out and he would never open up to them; whenever they’d actually get to spend time with him, he was always hiding behind a wall of anger. They thought this was normal, it was them all growing up; they didn’t realize that this wall was holding back hatred and fear.

Now there was nothing shielding them from the truth.

Even if Mike wouldn’t have talked while they all hung out, even if he would’ve just sat in the corner, blending in with the couch, it was still hard to swallow and exist in a room without him.

The second that the phone rang from Hawkins General, they were dashing over. It was so adult inside of the psychiatric ward he was being held in, but they had a pull to a normalcy they knew with Jonathan standing in the waiting room as they rushed in.

He pulled Will into a hug and he gave them all side smiles and he agreed to go give Mike the news that all of his best friends were there to visit.

But he came back looking at them all with a grimace. “He doesn’t want to see anyone,” he said.

That made sense. Not even twelve hours ago he was promising to never see anyone ever again.

Will asked him, though, “Can you tell him to call us when he’s feeling up to it?”

It broke Jonathan’s heart to say, “He doesn’t want to talk to you at all, Will.”

That wasn’t right. Mike trying to die could make somewhat sense, but never him wanting nothing to do with Will. That was unheard of.

But it was true. He was lying in bed utterly miserable, especially now with his mom being so obnoxious and Nancy cooing over him. She drove from college the second that she heard the news and she couldn't stop staring at his arms and she couldn't stop crying.

She sat in his bed and she hugged him and said, "I'm so sorry, I should've been there."

Should've been there for what?

Their mom was quick to tell her, "Nance, don't do that, it's not your fault."

It was Mike's fault, how was she making this about her?

"Still," Nancy pushed into the side of Mike's head, "you know you can talk to me."

It was hard to talk to her, though, with Jonathan awkwardly looming in the doorway.

The two of them didn't even know what happened until Joyce called them from the waiting room of the hospital. Karen was too busy and Ted was making dinner for Holly and the Hopper-Byers were losing their minds as they paced the halls, waiting for any kind of answer.

So, Joyce called their apartment and Jonathan was working, so Nancy was the one that answered the phone and it only made Joyce cry more.

"Oh honey," she sighed, "it's about Mike."

"What about Mike? Is he okay?"

"I don't know...I think he will be."

"He will be? What happened?"

She whispered so quietly into the receiver, "He hurt himself. He...he cut his wrists."

"Like...on purpose?”

Despite how hurt she was, it didn’t make Mike want to talk to her any more.

So, he said through gritted teeth, “I don’t want to talk.”

His mom should’ve known, he had already told her, but it seemed he needed to get used to never getting what he wanted because Jonathan Byers, in the lacking ability to read a room, thought it was a good time to say, “Your friends are all here.”

Tears pricked Mike’s eyes. Karen gushed, “Oh, isn’t that great, honey?”

It wasn’t great to Mike, though. It was terrifying. “I don’t want to see them right now,” he said.

“Sweetheart, they came all this way.”

And if Will was there that had to mean that they all knew.

“I don’t care,” he told her forcefully. “I don’t want to see them.”

“I’m sure they don’t mind waiting,” Jonathan offered.

“No,” Mike snapped at him. “I’m not talking to Will.”

Karen sighed. She already knew this, but Jonathan was stepping further into the room with an intrigue. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to. Can you ask them to leave?”

“Mike,” Nancy tried pushing, but it was no use. He was trying to push her away, being stopped by the handcuffs that clanked loudly as his body squirmed and he said tightly, “No, I don’t want to see anyone.”

Nancy immediately stood like he was fire, but he didn’t stop his squirming as he began to cry, holding his fists together tightly and his feet kicking as his body was overwhelmed in some tantrum. “Honey,” Karen said gently while approaching.

She found her way around Nancy and placed her hands on his shoulders, shushing him. “It’s okay, you’re okay.”

“They need to leave!” He cried.

Nancy looked at Jonathan with a pleading eye.

“I…I can ask them to leave,” Jonathan said in a terrified ghostly voice. But he still didn’t move.

That only stressed Mike out more. He was really crying now with the prospect of how they were right outside of the room with his secrets waiting to bulge in and he sobbed, “Go! Please!”

Quickly, Jonathan was exiting the room and Nancy was trying to get him to take a drink of water.

They weren’t that easy to get rid of, though. Will clammed up, but Lucas jutted his chin forward and said, “Well, he can still talk to the rest of us.”

“Not right now, guys, seriously. He’s, like…having a moment.”

“A moment?” Dustin echoed in confusion.

Max, though, almost shivered. She touched Lucas’ arm and said, “We should go.”

“No, I want to see him,” he still pressed with Jonathan.

“You can’t right now,” Jonathan said.

Max was now pulling on his sleeve to get his attention. “Don’t make it worse.”

Lucas pulled himself away from her, snapping on his way, “Are you saying this is my fault?”

“No!” She shot back with the same force. “I’m saying that if he’s about to dip into another suicidal episode, we should fucking leave.”

The air was sucked out of the room instantly. You didn’t have to tell Will twice before he was turning to leave.

Dustin barely had time to revel in what it was Max was saying before he was turning to follow Will out, jogging after him so he couldn't get too far.

Lucas was rooted in place with only Mike on his mind. “Is he okay?”

Honestly, Jonathan said, “No. I don’t think so. It’s…it’s really bad.” They didn’t have to shy away from it all with the party, they had to know that. They had been through the worst of the worst, they could deal with the truth about their friend.

Lucas shook his head. “I want to stay. Just in case.”

Jonathan was taking a heavy seat in the waiting room and Lucas joined him, Max stalking down the hall to check in with the rest of the party who had left so hastily.

“Hey,” she called out when they reached the hospital lobby, “Lucas and I are gonna stay a bit.”

“Because he’s gonna want to talk to you guys?” Will spat out of pure anger.

“No,” she told him, but she actually completely realized, “I don’t know, he wants to just…be here.”

They didn't get to see him and were sent home when Jonathan and Nancy left to go watch Holly while Ted Wheeler took a minute to check in with his son. They were left up to imagining what was going on.

Until Mike came home from the hospital. Lucas’ mom had seen Mike get escorted inside from out of the living room window and called Lucas down to give him the great news—like it was great news that his best friend was barely able to walk on his own with how much he was falling apart.

She told him that he should go visit and bring some muffins over, but he just knew that Mike wouldn’t want to see him. He wouldn’t even eat the damn muffins.

His mom won the argument, though, so he brought over a muffin tin and knocked on the door.

When he heard the knocking, it made Mike’s heart stop in a jolt of anxiety, but he still stayed under his quilt in bed which is where he was when his mom pushed his bedroom door open (he had to keep it cracked now) with Lucas Sinclair.

“Sweetheart, Lucas is here.”

He could see that. And he could see the worry dripping from Lucas' face. “Hey man,” he said hesitantly.

Mike tried to answer, but when he said, “Hi,” nothing really came out.

Karen came over to kneel in front of him so he’d have no choice but to look into her eyes. “Can you sit up for a little bit?” She asked in the softest voice she had. “He brought over some muffins and I’ll bring you up one, okay?”

He knew he couldn’t fight it, and that fact brought tears to his eyes but he was so so sick of crying. She held his hands to help pull him up because his arms were still bandaged and sore and he was too tired to sit up on his own. Lucas stared into the ground until she left.

It was awkward. Mike sitting in his bed, pajamas on and his skin so pale with Lucas standing by the door. They never hung out in Mike’s bedroom, it was always the basement and it was always with other friends and they were never at a loss of what to talk about.

Still, Lucas, ever the brave one, decided to poke the topic with, “How are you feeling?”

Mike shrugged. “The medication they gave me is weird.”

“What’d they give you medication for?” Lucas might have been smart but boy could he be dense.

As dry as the desert, Mike answered, “Depression.”

“Oh,” Lucas answered as he gulped. “That…yeah, that makes sense.”

They were both staring into the ground now. It'd be too real and heartbreaking if they spoke to each other's eyes.

Lucas said softly, though, "You really fucking scared me, Mike."

"So I've heard." He was sick of people telling him how scary it was and how rash he was being, he didn't care. It wasn't about them. He wasn't trying to scare anyone, he wanted to go quietly.

“I’m sorry,” Lucas said on an impulse upon hearing that tone from Mike. “I didn’t…,” didn’t what? There was so much that had been missing. He landed on, “I didn’t realize you needed help.”

Mike rubbed at his arm before realizing the cast on it wouldn't let him push on his skin. It wasn’t the first time Lucas had ever seen him routinely rub his arm so he could only figure it wasn’t the first time Mike had ever cut himself.

He’d be right.

“I’m sorry,” Lucas said again. “I get if you don’t want to…you know…talk about anything, but whenever you need me, Mike, really, I'm here for you."

He gave a tight smile. “Thanks." It was so forced and was being pulled out of him, but he hoped that some part of it could be appreciated by Lucas in the effort.

They didn’t have to worry about it then, though, because his mom was back and tapping her fingernail against the door before stepping inside.

“These look really great, Lucas,” she said warmly, referring to the muffins she carried on a plate. She also brought a tall glass of water that she was instantly handing to Mike. He drank some before putting it aside, but she still stood in front of him, plate outstretched as she waited for him to take one.

And he didn’t. He stared them down before looking up at her and saying, “I don’t want any.”

“Come on, sweetie,” she cooed, “Lucas brought them.”

“I’m not hungry.”

It wasn’t easy to miss how she eyed Lucas in the corner of the room, like a quick apology for what he was about to see. She knelt down in front of Mike, the plate resting on the bed beside him and she said into his eyes, “You need to eat something. Just have one”

“I already ate.”

“That was a few hours ago.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Your doctor still says you need to eat regularly.”

“I don’t care what the doctor says.”

“I care. They know what they’re talking about.”

Finally, he snapped. It seemed sudden, but for him it was just like he finally boiled over and he groaned in an angsty drown, “Can you just leave me alone?”

With an identical force, she snapped back, “I will if you eat something.”

He wasn’t going to win. He knew that. His mom used to cower and take the easy road but she had stopped doing that since it clearly got him in this danger. He thought maybe with Lucas looming in the back, she’d do her best to diminish risk of a meltdown, but it seemed that for once, she wasn’t worried about her image, least of all her son’s as he started crying softly like a damn broke.

Karen put a hand on his knee, rubbing her thumb along it. “Honey,” she started to sigh, but it was met with Mike flopping himself back down on the bed, crying now into the sheets, utterly embarrassed and disappointed at the fact that he couldn't eat a stupid muffin and he was making his mother upset.

When she met his eyes, Lucas saw the pain that was pouring out of her. It made him feel an identical type of pain, until it settled in his chest when he was out of the Wheeler house that it wasn’t a pain that he felt, it was a fear. It was a fear of the person that his friend had become, a fear of what would happen next, a fear of what Mike Wheeler was capable of.

Which turned out to not be forgetting about the whole ordeal which also rang true with Will. Will couldn’t forget about it. Even though Mike wanted to, even though he wanted to, he couldn’t. And it was Mike’s fault really because he gave Will his suicide note. And then couldn’t be bothered to see him after Will saved his life.

After Lucas visited, he was required to call a meeting of the party to rehash what it was that he learned—even though it wasn’t much in his short time.

It was so weird that they were so close to Mike, sitting next door in Lucas’ house, but they were still so far.

“Is it bad?” Dustin was the first to ask.

Lucas shrugged. “Did you think it’d be good?”

Max felt sick. “Was it, like…his whole arm?”

“It was both of his arms. Up to his elbows.”

“Oh my God.”

“And he’s refusing to eat. I brought muffins and his mom wanted him to have one and he cried about it.”

Dustin shook his head while Max was the one that voiced, “So, he’s anorexic?”

El asked, "What's that?"

"It's an eating disorder; it's when people basically starve themselves."

“I don’t know,” Lucas told them earnestly. He didn’t know anything. “But he looks sick.”

“Physically or mentally?” Dustin asked.

“Both?” Lucas offered. “I mean, he’s really thin. And pale and just tired. He did say he’s on medication for depression. So…that’s something.”

“Yeah,” Max nodded. “That’s good.”

“Did he tell you why?” Dustin asked.

“Why what?” Will asked nervously.

“Why he wanted to kill himself.”

Lucas sighed. “He didn’t want to talk about it. I mean, obviously, I don’t really like talking about it, it’s awful.”

Will frowned. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Lucas reassured, even though his worried face would say otherwise. “It’s not your fault he’s messed up and refusing to talk.”

Dustin almost rolled his eyes. “But if he talked to anyone, it’d definitely be you, Will. He likes you best.”

Will gulped.

Lucas nodded solemnly. “Yeah, he’d tell you if…he was talking to you.”

That just had Will’s frown deepening as his shoulders slumped. Through a sigh, he said, “He did tell me. Kind of.”

Dustin’s jaw dropped. “He talked to you? When?”

Will knew from the moment that he read the note that it was something he’d have to take to his grave, so there was absolutely no reason to be bringing it up now. But still, in the suffering of one friend there was also parallel suffering of the friends he was still staring at.

“He gave me this, like, page from his notebook on Thursday before he left school,” Will tried to explain, “and it wasn’t a suicide note, but it was…it was kind of a suicide note.”

“You’re kidding,” Dustin nearly groaned, resting his head back on the couch.

Lucas, though, was somehow enraged, snapping immediately, “What the hell, Will?”

Max rubbed his arm as Will cowered in response. “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t tell us?”

“What did it say?” Dustin pried.

“I can’t share.”

“Come on.”

“I can’t.”

“Will,” Lucas sighed, “we just want to help him.”

“But still, it was so personal.”

“Of course,” Lucas scoffed. “You can’t be his favorite all of the goddamn time, you know.”

It hurt more than Lucas could understand, but Will could still groan, “Stop.”

“No, I don’t get why you’re the one he wants to write a fucking suicide note to, but also why he’s refusing to talk to you.”

“Lucas,” Max hissed, now pulling on his arm to get him to shut up off of Will’s eyes tearing up.

“It wasn’t a note to me,” Will snapped, “he just gave it to me. He doesn’t want to talk to me because of what he said in it.”

At least, that was what Will figured. Because in the note, Mike admitted that he was gay.

It was a strange thing to find out about even without everything that came after it. It was just a Thursday in February, there was nothing too extreme happening. Midterms were long over and it wasn’t too cold outside any more. Valentine’s Day had come and gone and even if Mike was extremely pissy, no one had any reason to believe that this would happen.

Definitely not Will. He completely forgot about the note Mike had forced into his hand until he was digging around in his pocket to find some change.

“Do you need something?” Will had asked with a voice so full of disgust as Mike followed him like a shadow around the school halls.

Mike only shrugged. He needed too much.

And that only seemed to piss Will off even more. If there was one thing that Mike hated more than anything in the world, it was making Will upset. Will was pushing at him, nearly yelling in the empty hall, “What the hell is going on with you?”

Mike rolled his eyes. Everyone in the school was gone which was oddly comforting to Mike. Being alone in the world, no one to see him, it’s all that he wanted.

But Will was here too. Will, who Mike had always wanted to see him, but only at his best, not when he was crumbling down like this. So, he answered harshly, “There’s nothing going on with me.”

“Bull.”

Of course Will could see right through him.

The entire bus ride, Will was absolutely furious. He should’ve seen it coming, it was all his fault really. No wonder Mike was mad and distant, Will had brought it on himself and instantly agreed to being an emotional punching bag.

In hindsight, that was absolutely insane to think. To think that he was the one that was being hurt when he was the one sitting in the waiting room and not in a hospital room.

Mike was in the hospital room. Mike had cut his wrists by the quarry.

“Look,” Mike sighed, “I’m just…tired.”

“Everyone’s tired Mike. That doesn’t mean you get to just avoid all of us.”

“I’m not avoiding you.”

“Yes you are!”

“No, I’m not avoiding you, Will.” He could never avoid Will for as long as he lived.

“It feels like you are. You never talk to me anymore.”

“I don’t have anything to talk about.”

“Then why the fuck are you following me around?”

Because he was drowning. He needed help, he needed someone to reach out.

He shrugged again—he couldn’t seem to actually verbalize what he needed, he just had to get the attention off of him. “Do you want to, like…hang out or something?” Or something. He needed it to be something. If he didn't have someone watching him, he was going to do something bad.

“I have an art show,” Will scowled, pointing out to the front of the school with a bus waiting.

Mike wanted to crumble. “I’m sorry,” he recoiled, “I didn’t know.” He was holding Will back, he was wasting his time. This is why he never asked to hang out, he didn’t need to get in the way of what everyone else wanted to do, he couldn’t embarrass himself like that.

Will couldn’t see that, though. He could see plainly that Mike was pulling at straws. “No shit. I’ve been working on this project for weeks, but you haven’t really been around.”

Mike had been skipping school, sitting with his head down at the lunch table, so far away from them all.

Again, his heart bleeding out, Mike gushed, “I’m sorry.”

“If you really wanted to hang out with me, then you would’ve come over last weekend.”

For Valentine’s Day. Mike refused to have them over at his house so Will invited them to his for watching movies and eating cookies El baked. And Mike didn’t show up.

“I know,” he muttered.

“So I’m not dropping everything for you right now.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“Then just leave me alone! Go!” There was so much anger radiating out of Will in this moment that Mike hadn’t seen in so long that it scared him. “You don’t get to act like this after you’ve been such a shitty friend to me, Mike. You’re, like, the most selfish person I know.”

Mike had nothing to say. He absorbed it all.

But Will wanted a reaction, Will wanted to see that Mike was hurt just as much as he was.

He would never in his life wish to take something back as much as that.

Even when he first touched the note in his pocket, he didn’t read it. He looked at it in his hand and rolled his eyes before trying once again to find change at the payphone outside of the Indianapolis library. His mom was still anxious about him going off on his own and wanted him to call her when they arrived.

It wasn’t until he was dropping dimes on the ground that the note went tumbling down as well, fluttering open and Will was suddenly zeroed in on the messy and loopy and frantic handwriting scrawled about.

And his heart sank. That wasn't Mike's handwriting, it couldn't have been, it was nonsensical. At least, it was until you opened it.

I can’t stop thinking about dying. I need a break I can’t take it. My grades suck and my dad hates me and Will will never like me back because I’m too weird and shitty and I’ve ruined it with him. But I love him so much. Obviously I don’t know if he’s gay and he doesn’t know that I am but I do know that I’m not good enough for him so there’s no point in even trying. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve ruined everything for myself and I need to give up before I make everything worse. It’s hard to imagine a time I’ll ever be happy again. I need to stop hurting people and I need to stop disappointing people but I’ll never be able to change. I'm going to kill myself. I just need someone to tell me to go.

“Shit,” he breathed like the fear was speaking out of his body. “Oh shit.”

No one was around him as his world collapsed. He’d been on the bus for thirty minutes, Mike could be dead by now.

He quickly scooped the dimes from off the ground, his fingers trembling as they kept slipping through his fingers, but the muscle memory was helping him fight through tears to dial the Wheeler house, the second phone number he had ever memorized.

He was holding his breath as it rang until the voice of Karen Wheeler was singing her greeting. “I need Mike,” he said immediately, completely ignoring how cringey and desperate it sounded because it was so true.

“Um,” Karen hummed, “he’s not home yet.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t…,” Will could almost feel her heart drop. “I don’t know. Is everything okay?”

Will thought he could throw up. “Something’s wrong with him.”

She must’ve been able to hear the terror in his voice, and she feverishly asked, “With Mike? What do you mean?”

“I think he’s gonna kill himself.”

“What, you have nothing to say now?”

He didn’t. Mike opened his mouth but nothing came out.

“Shocker,” Will scoffed. “You can’t even own up to your own shit. I swear to God, Mike I’ll never do another thing for you as long as I live.”

“Good!” Mike wasn’t afraid of yelling in the hall it seemed. There was no one around, just the bus of art kids outside waiting for their show. He had nothing awaiting him. It was a relief, the only person he had been worried about leaving was Will Byers, but clearly he didn’t care.

Will shook his head, stepping backwards away from this stranger. “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

Suddenly, Mike was throwing his backpack on the floor and pulling out a notebook, the black composition notebook that he guarded like gold. There was a pen inside of it and when he opened it to the place, he tore the page out, messy and angry. The pen fell to the floor. “Here,” he said, jutting his hand out.

Will rolled his eyes. It was obvious he wouldn’t take it and Mike needed it out of his hands now, he needed it accepted into existence. He walked to Will and put it inside of his hand in a folded, crumpled mess. “Read that later.”

“Seriously? That’s all you have?”

“What else do you want?”

“I just thought after eleven years of friendship, you’d have more to show for it.”

Mike shrugged. “Then don’t read it.”

“I won’t.” And he shoved it in his pocket and left Mike alone in the hallway as he went out to the school bus.

He could faintly hear Mike’s final plea of “Goodbye.”

Karen was going to call the police because she had no idea where Mike was supposed to be. She was the one that hung up the phone. Will kept holding onto the receiver and staring at nothing, frozen, the note a crumpled mess in his hands. It was the last part of Mike that he had.

He didn’t end up going to the show. He called his mom like he was supposed to, but instead of telling her she had nothing to worry about, he was begging for her to pick him up and bring him to Mike.

He sat on the cold library steps with tears running down his face until he saw his mom’s car, running and collapsing in her arms the moment that she came out.

Hopper said they found Mike by the quarry, wrists slit but not having jumped, so they made their way to Hawkins General Hospital and met him and El there.

Karen Wheeler was pacing the waiting room, frantic and nervous with her hair a wreck and sleeves pushed up. Ted wasn’t there but Holly wasn’t there so that made sense.

Joyce held her son close, so grateful that even after all of the years of pain, it wasn’t him, but for Will, she was holding him together completely.

Mike was exhausted. His eyes were open long enough for his mom to hold his hand and try not to cry.

And now Will was holding his breath as he willed his biggest secrets to not spill out.

It was funny how Will called him selfish because, really, the most selfish act Mike could’ve done is dump all of his issues onto Will and then walk away.

“I don’t care if he’s mad at you,” Lucas snapped. “You have to tell us what he said.”

“No I don’t! It’s private.”

“Lucas,” Max sighed, her voice tired. “He’s right, if it’s private then he shouldn’t tell us.”

But Lucas wasn’t listening to her. His eyes were still zeroed onto Will as he pushed, “What if he had died? You would’ve kept all of his secrets?”

“Yes!”

“We’re his friends too.”

Will’s shoulders were so tight and as he breathed he thought they’d snap in half. Dustin took a softer approach, saying, “We just want to help him.”

“You can’t help him with this, though,” Will said sadly. “He thinks that everyone hates him. And he hates himself. He thinks he needs to punish himself for being the way that he is.”

“Well that’s not true,” Lucas said on impulse.

“It’s still how he feels.” With sad eyes, Will reminded him, “He has a problem, Lucas. He’s sick.”

No one else could talk about it so bluntly, though. Mike had to wear short sleeves with his casts which absolutely pained him because it was so obvious to the world what he did. That first day home he spent laying in his bed. His mom tried to get him to eat dinner and he couldn’t do it with her watching. He could hear Nancy crying from her bedroom that night.

His mom was using Nancy as a bribe to get him out of his room on Sunday—Nancy has to drive back to college; She came all this way. She sat outside his bedroom door, begging him to come out. They all accepted a late breakfast that day, waiting for him to tip toe down the stairs with his eyes on the ground.

No one spoke. No one knew what to talk about, especially with how no one’s eyes could leave Mike’s wrapped arms.

Holly so brightly asked, “What happened to your arms?”

His eyes went wide as the room panicked. Karen Wheeler was jolting upright in her seat, telling her in a burst, “Holly, he just got a little hurt, he’s fine.”

But he wasn’t fine and they couldn’t ignore that. He lost his appetite, they all did.

The second breakfast was over, Nancy tried to ask him to play board games together or watch movies, like that would help at all. She asked, “What do you want to do today?” and then he’d have to bite his tongue because all that he wanted to do was die. Disappear.

The closest he could get to that, though, was laying down on the couch as he watched everyone else hang out together.

Nancy played with Holly on the ground and it actually looked like fun and Mike wished that he could have fun, too. Instead he got Jonathan Byers awkwardly sitting next to him. Normally, he’d ask about music or a campaign; under these circumstances, though, he asked, “So…you holding up okay?” And wouldn’t even look Mike in the eye.

So Mike didn’t reply. He didn’t want to talk. Eventually, he fell asleep.

But Jonathan found out exactly what was going on by going through his mole: his own brother.

Instead of another awkward meal at the Wheelers, he opted to an early dinner at his parents' house before hitting the road, much to Mike's delight, and he saw Will an anxious and terrified mess. He knew it was because of Mike, his emotions were always tied directly to Mike, but this was so real.

"How are you doing?" He asked Will gently as they set the table. Joyce was teaching El how to make macaroni and cheese in the kitchen and Hopper was watching some show in the living room so Jonathan really hoped Will could be honest.

Instead, all he got was a shrug.

"You know...Mike's doing okay."

That had Will perk up. His head snapped over quick, suddenly entranced by every word he was anticipating.

Jonathan realized he had been a bit too optimistic. He had lied completely. He shook it off as he clarified, "I mean, he's rough of course. Since he's been home he's kind of just been in bed."

"So nothing's really changed," Will mumbled.

That had Jonathan asking, "Did you know he was going to do this?"

"No," Will answered easily, but he knew that wasn't fair. "Like...it makes sense and I can see now that he was having a hard time. But in the moment, I didn't know that…it was this bad.”

Softly, Jonathan said, "Mrs. Wheeler said he gave you his suicide note.”

She had cried through dinner the night before after trying to coax Mike out of his room. She said that she went through his backpack and saw his notebook full of hateful words towards himself, so she couldn’t imagine what he told Will.

Will still insisted, "It wasn't a suicide note."

"Then how'd you know he was committing suicide?"

Will rolled his eyes as he accepted how stuck he was in this. "Because of what he wrote. It was just a page from his notebook that he gave me, it was him writing about how much he hates himself and how he wants to die."

"Wow, he gave that to you?" Jonathan exhaled long and hard, catching up to the stress Will was radiating with. "No wonder he doesn't want to talk to you, I bet that's scary."

"That's not why," Will said on impulse. He just couldn't stand lying. "He told me, like...other stuff. That I guess he wanted to keep secret.”

What was crazy was that he was still wrong even without knowing.

“Well, if he wanted to keep it a secret, he shouldn’t have told you,” Jonathan nearly huffed.

“It’s not like that. He thought he was dying, he needed to...I don't know, have someone know what he was going through. To understand him."

“What’d he say?”

"I can't tell you."

"Come on."

"No, he trusted me with it. He doesn't want anyone to know."

"But it's hurting you," Jonathan pressed. "I get that you want to protect him, but you need to help yourself too. Talking about it could help."

Will stilled. He had finished setting the table long ago and was just picking at the paint on one of their plates in thought, but now he stopped. Debating the option.

"You can't tell anyone," he said quietly into the table.

"I won't."

"No," Will repeated, looking him now dangerously in the eye, "I mean it. Like don't tell Nancy or anyone."

Jonathan was now straightening as he swallowed the seriousness, telling him, "I won't."

With a deep breath, Will admitted, "He said he's gay."

Jonathan's eyebrows rose high. "Mike?" He nearly hissed in utter shock.

Will just nodded phantomly.

"Wow," Jonathan breathed. “Really?”

“It’s what he said.”

“I had no idea.”

“Yeah, he said he was upset because…,” he sighed heavily, “he said that I would never like him back. That he wasn’t good enough for me or something.”

"You?" Jonathan barked far too loudly.

"Shh!" Will rushed to his side in a random explosion. "You can't tell anyone."

"I won't, I just...I just wasn't expecting that."

Will hadn't either. Sure, he dreamt of it in his happiest dreams, Mike liking him back and them dating, but he had also seen in his nightmares the worst rejection imaginable. Besides the one he almost got which was losing Mike entirely.

Jonathan knew. Will had never told him, but he knew.

"That's not true though," Jonathan said quietly into the table.

"Of course it's true."

"I mean about you never liking him back." His eyes were soft as he looked down at Will, like he was awaiting being wrong but also knew that he was right.

He was.

Will hung his head and sighed. "No, yeah. It's not true."

Jonathan didn't need to say anything. He just wrapped his arms around his little brother while he cried.

"He doesn't deserve me," Will sobbed. "I didn't even realize he was doing so bad."

"Don't blame yourself."

"Then who do I blame?"

"No one. It's not your fault."

"I made him think I don't care about him."

"No you didn't, that's how depression works, Will. It makes you think everything is hopeless." Jonathan pulled away so he could really look him in the eye. It wasn't a secret how badly Jonathan was doing his senior year of high school and it was only the past few months that he was able to get over his addiction issues—the rapid decline of his life through using weed and alcohol to find a way to relax. "He's just really sensitive right now. And it's hard for him to trust people, you know?"

"But how do I fix that? I need him to be okay."

"I know. But you can’t just fix it all by yourself. He needs, like, medication and a psychiatrist. You need to give him time. And just be there for him when he’s ready.”

"He never wants to see me again."

Jonathan gave him a sad smile. "He might not feel that way if he knew he had a chance with you. If he didn't feel so alone.”

But for now, Mike was alone. His mom gave him a journal, a second journal because his black composition notebook was full of dark ramblings off all the different ways he wanted to torture himself. This notebook was blue and so obviously a diary that he couldn’t taint with his vicious thoughts. She couldn’t have picked a worse time to give it to him than right before dinner because once again he completely lost his appetite.

Even before, Mike wasn’t eating. He couldn’t. He’d skip breakfast and pick at his school lunch and have his dinner at the end of the day, but he still started to look sick. His mom saw that his clothes were hanging off of him and started packing his lunches for him and offering him breakfast, but he still refused. In his mind, he didn’t need to eat. He didn’t deserve to.

And that rang especially true now with how much of a failure he was.

Which is why it was so weird when Nancy randomly blurted out at dinner, “I’m so proud of you, Mike.” She was proud that he tried to kill himself? That he was a failure and didn't succeed? If it was up to him, he would’ve died; he only didn't because he was a disgusting queer that has to hold onto a snitch like Will Byers so closely. And since he didn’t, he should’ve swallowed all the pills the hospital gave him, but his mom kept them in a locked box like a good parent should.

“I’m glad you’re eating with us,” was what his mom said with a smile, a hand reaching over to rest on his bandaged wrist.

It was the little steps. This was the first one and then he was thrown into the deep end Monday afternoon to see a psychiatrist. It was the first time his mom asked him to take a shower since he'd been home and she picked out the first outfit he'd change into besides the pajamas she'd brought to the hospital.

He took the shower in the dark. The dark was comforting, it helped soften him and the world around him and the water trickling down his back calmed him.

Until he heard his mother calling his name through the house.

He was supposed to keep all doors cracked open but they were all closed and the light was off in the bathroom and she had no idea where he was and if he was breathing until she finally threw the bathroom door open and flipped on the light.

"Michael?" She nearly shrieked.

He didn't want to answer, couldn't get the words out with that harsh change in atmosphere, but he didn't have a choice. "What?" He croaked.

"I told you to keep the door open," she pressed before softening in confusion and asking, "Why is the light off? Are you okay?”

He let the water dance around for a moment before answering, watching it swirl around the plastic wrap his mom covered his arms in. Now that he was looking, his arms were so skinny and legs so pale and the images of hurt flashed through his mind.

That was the real reason the lights were off. If he couldn't see his body, he couldn't think of hurting his body.

So he said quietly and so numb, "I just didn't want to see anything."

Karen's heart ached, God, it wasn't normal.

She knew her son wasn’t normal. He was weird, but he had friends that were weird and made him feel like he belonged. But now he was too different from them.

It wasn’t normal that he took a shower with the lights off and it wasn’t normal that she combed his hair for him and it wasn’t normal that she had to offer to shave his face for him because she had locked up everything sharp in the house.

She needed him to be okay, she needed it more than anything. For him to play games in the basement and talk on the phone and ask for money to go on trips with his friends.

In the car, he just sat catatonic—staring out the window with a droop of his eyes, sitting on his hands so he didn’t feel any urge to touch his wrists even though he wanted to tear through the casts and rip his stitches open.

His mom asked, “How are you feeling”

Mike shrugged. “I don’t know”

“You don’t know?”

He didn’t. He was angry, sad, disappointed, embarrassed and it all vibrated through him, draining all of his energy—now he was just empty and numb. He was feeling everything and nothing.

“I’m not really feeling anything,” he told her.

She was so powerless sitting in the waiting room at the psychiatrist’s office, just praying that he was being honest. Surely, he couldn’t honestly downplay the whole situation with the state he was in.

Even though Mike really tried. He really tried to tell this stranger that he was okay: his low grades were manageable and he was tired but knew his medication was going to help and he was just being dramatic but recognizes his mistake. Sure, he can’t remember the last time he felt happy as his baseline and sure, he’s always imagined himself dying and sure, he thought that the world would be better off if he was gone.

But that didn’t mean there was something wrong with him.

Of course the psychiatrist wasn’t buying it. According to him, Mike was definitely depressed, but there could be something deeper with an official diagnosis of a mental condition.

The only person that could possibly buy his “Everything is fine and this was just a fluke” act would be his father, who was convinced that Mike was just a dumb and angsty teenager going for shock value. They went to the grocery store on the way home because it was recommended for Mike to have some say in the food they had at home to help encourage him to eat more and it was a battle on its own with Mike wearing his mother’s jacket to cover his bandages and his eyes red under the bangs hanging in his face—but Ted caught them while they walked through the door, Karen with all the bags in her arms talking about how she’d make Mike’s favorite dinner and they could eat it in the living room while watching a movie that he got to pick.

He was exhausted from the two hours he was out of the house and went upstairs to lay down, but could hear his father’s words from the kitchen.

You can’t keep coddling like this, Karen.

I’m not coddling him.

You are, how do you expect him to get over this if he doesn’t toughen up?

He’s not going to get better just because you say so! He’s sick, he needs time and support to get better.

He’s not sick.

He’s not? You don’t think there’s something wrong with him? Normal boys don’t try to kill themselves.

Normal boys don’t do plenty of the things that Mike does.

He was right in that regard. It petrified Mike back into the reality of how deep in shit he would be if his parents knew the truth. His dad was already embarrassed by him, ashamed of and disappointed in him, and it would make it so much worse if they cracked him open to find out all that he was hiding.

Really, it would make it worse for everyone.

The Party all figured Will was gay even if they had never actually talked about it; they had been prepared for it since the fourth grade. With Mike, though, it was different. He knew it would look like he was just begging for attention. They’d think he was an asshole for either lying about something that was true to Will’s life or lying about being in love with the girlfriend that he attached himself onto.

They were all always so intentionally kind towards Will and even if Mike craved for kindness for himself, it wouldn’t be fair to get it in that way: through tricking everyone into believing he required it because he was a queer in an already unkind world.

Although, he already had tricked them all. How could they dare say another mean thing to his face when he had stood on the edge of a cliff and one more insult could’ve made him jump?

It was making Lucas really weird around him. He was the only party member to really get through to Mike since he lived next door and no one else even dared to call the house; Karen was the one that invited him over to watch E.T. and have dinner, not Mike himself even if he was pleasantly surprised. He wouldn’t be able to ask for something like that, have a want that needed service from others, so a part of him was glad his mom did it.

Even if it meant that Lucas was quiet and rocked a bit too much in his spot and didn’t know exactly what to do.

But just having him there and having the lights off in the living room and having a movie to occupy his brain helped him eat his dinner and he scurried off into he kitchen to take care of his plate before anyone could see the fact that he actually ate it all even if it took him most of the movie to get through.

So Karen Wheeler invited Lucas over for dinner the next night with the hopes that he could get Mike to eat again.

Especially because he got his cast off and bandages changed and just the few minutes that he saw his bare arm made the ache in his wrists return; his arms were perfectly mutilated in lazy and extensive and angry stretches and stitches covering his skin.

But Lucas helped him stay distracted.

At the table, he gushed, "God, we're watching this dumb history video this week, you're lucky you're not there."

Mike sure didn't feel lucky.

Karen was quick to swoop in and say, "Well he'll be back in school soon."

Mike avoided eye contact. He knew he had to, it had almost been a whole week since the accident and he’d missed his third school day in a row, but the thought of going back sent his body in shivers. Especially with the fact that he couldn’t even make it through a whole day at home without having to lay down before lunch and refuse to talk for hours.

His silence at the topic left Lucas with an opening to say, "Well, I got math homework for you."

"We're not in the same class," Mike muttered.

"I know," Lucas answered before grimacing, "I got it from Will."

The air was instantly sucked out of the room. Appetite ruined. Mike put his fork down.

Lucas realized the automatic tension, scrambling to offer, "Well, we did this stuff in my class a couple weeks ago so I know what's going on."

"That'd be nice," Karen answered for him.

It wasn't nice, though. They had to use Will's textbook because Mike left his at school.

Mike rolled his eyes about it and refused to turn the pages and it had Lucas sitting up on his knees in his bedroom, finally, boldly, asking, "Why are you so mad at him?"

"Because," Mike mumbled back.

"Because why?"

He didn't want to have to spell it out completely. There were so many layers to it; of course at the surface level it was embarrassing that he had spilled all of his secrets to him, especially the fact that he was in love with the guy.

But the one that stuck out the most was what he told Lucas with a quiet grimace: “He called my mom.”

Lucas’ eyebrows hitched together. “What?”

Without even trying, tears appeared in Mike’s eyes as he felt choked up with the only thing he thought to say. “I was so close. I was going to jump when I was done with my arms but I couldn’t finish because he called my mom. And she called the police and an ambulance came. But I could’ve died, I wouldn't of he didn't do that. And I really wanted to.”

“He saved your life.”

“I didn’t ask him to.”

"You gave him a suicide note."

"It wasn't a suicide note."

"Then how'd he know you were trying to kill yourself?"

"It was just a page from my notebook. I just," he huffed, staring at the ceiling, praying to swallow the tears. "I just wanted him to know why. Like...after."

Lucas's heart dropped. Will refused to tell them the true reason why Mike wanted to die, but it was somehow something that Mike wanted Will to know. And now he wanted to know too. But still, it was something Mike wanted Will to know. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why does Will get to know?” Mike was quiet, moving his lips around. “That’s not fair,” Lucas continued, “I’m your friend too.”

“He’s not my friend anymore.”

"What did you say?"

"It doesn't matter, Lucas."

"No, it does matter because now you don't want to be around him."

"Because he ruined everything, he called my fucking mom.”

“Like you wouldn’t have done the same thing for him!”

Mike gulped, swallowing down his argument.

It gave Lucas the space to huff, “Just…it doesn’t make sense that you’re avoiding him because of that, you can’t be mad at him for saving your life.”

“Yes I can, he trapped me here!" Mike’s feet kicked in a sudden rage that was trembling through his entire body. “You have no fucking idea what it's like to be me and now I have to just keep living like a freak.”

"You're not a freak.”

He kept on his rant with the budding angry energy inside of him. “I’m not?” He spat as he pulled his sleeves up to show Lucas the bandages taped all around him.

Lucas felt sick. “Mike.”

Now Mike was digging his nails under the bandages, pulling at them to tear them off as he cried, “I failed and it’s his fault. He should’ve just let me fucking die, it’s not fair. I wanted to do it and I tried and he ruined it.”

Lucas had to look away, suddenly nauseous at the sight of his best friend’s skinny arms all cut up. Shielding his eyes, he begged, “Stop, Mike, please.”

Mike’s feet kicked again, they kicked the textbook and they kicked the dresser in front of them, startling Lucas as he jumped back.

Only for a second, though, because Mike was getting sloppy as he pulled off the bandages and Lucas was jumping forward now to take his hands before he could do anything worse.

“Get off of me!” Mike yelled in such a loud fury, but Lucas didn’t listen. He was much stronger than Mike Wheeler and could hold his grip as Mike squirmed under him.

“Just calm down,” Lucas told him.

“Go away!”

Karen was sliding into his room hearing the yells, asking with wild eyes, "Are you okay?”

Mike finally kicked again, kicking Lucas in his side to get him off as he yelled at his mom, "I'm fine! Leave me alone!"

Lucas had tumbled to the floor by Karen’s feet and she was reaching for his shoulder, worriedly telling him, ”Lucas, you should go home now."

She didn't have to tell him twice. Mike was hitting his fists against the floor and then started to hit his thigh and Lucas scrambled away from this stranger in front of him with a white terror, the textbook and his notes and pencil still on the floor.

The second he was in the hall, Mike was curling into the floor in thick cries--Lucas pretended he didn't hear as he kept going in his fearful trance. His mom came around to hold him from behind, holding his hands so he couldn't do anything and whispering in his ear until he calmed down.

He needed it, sure he needed it, but it drove him insane that he had turned into this fragile being who needed his mom to hold him together on the floor of his bedroom.

It was just a reminder that nothing would ever get better. It was another reminder that he should’ve just died.

That Will had ruined his life.

Will had decidedly made him a freak because it was Will’s fault that Mike was in love with him, and now it was Will’s fault he was alive because he couldn’t have just let Mike go.

He never would, though, as he promised the party the next day at school.

Lucas’ eyes were still glazed over in his scared state as he walked over to them all, prompting Will to ask the never-ending question: “How’s Mike?”

“Awful,” Lucas answered without even thinking.

Dustin sighed, guilt twisting in him. He only tried calling the house once in the past week and Mike had been asleep at a crisp 3pm, but he hadn’t tried since. He didn’t know when he would be sleeping and Lucas told him that dinnertime was hard so he couldn’t call around that time or after that time so he just simply couldn’t call. “Shit, should we go visit him?”

“He’s not going to want to see us. He freaked out last night.”

“About what?” Max asked, wrapping a comforting arm around him.

“About…everything? That he wishes he died.” He didn’t want to elaborate too much, it made him sick to his stomach to think about how much Mike hated himself and hated his life, but it still rang alive in their minds as they knew what he was trying to say.

Goosebumps were clear on Dustin’s arm. “So he’s still suicidal,” he said rather than asked.

“It was really scary,” he told them honestly. “I’ve never seen him like that, I’ve never seen anyone like that and I have no idea how to help him.”

“Maybe he just needs space,” Will told him, so small. They all needed to listen to him because they knew he knew Mike best, he knew how to fix it all.  “Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want to talk to me, he just needs…time.”

But Lucas eyed him, saying, “The reason he doesn’t want to talk to you if because you called his mom. Because you stopped him from dying.”

Now Will was nauseous.

“Not because…?” He started to ask before stopping himself. “I thought it was because of what he said in his note.”

“I did too,” Lucas admitted. “But he said that he just wanted you to know, you know…why he did it.”

Will's stomach flip flopped until he suddenly bursted into tears when Dustin now asked, "Do you think he's going to attempt again?"

El was quick to hug him, letting him nuzzle his face into her shoulder as they all built a small protective circle around him—they were still standing outside of their school.

“Come on, man,” Max groaned, “what did he say in the note?”

“I can’t tell you guys,” Will said in between his sobs that were muffled by El’s shirt. “Really.”

“Well Mike is never going to tell us!” Dustin huffed. “He's going to try again, you know that. I mean, if it were up to him, we wouldn’t know shit and he’d be dead already.”

“Really,” Lucas added in a certain bitterness, “I don’t get why he wanted you to know. He hasn't been talking to literally any of us."

“But Will’s his favorite,” Dustin almost spat. “It’s not fair.”

Will was sputtering, pulling his face out of El’s shoulder, “How is it not fair?”

“Because we’re his friends too! We care about him too! But he didn’t trust us with whatever it was he wanted his last words to be? He was just going to leave us with nothing.”

“I wish I could tell you,” Will sobbed, “I really do, but it’s not right.”

“Then how are we supposed to make sure it doesn’t happen again?” Lucas asked with wild eyes. “He obviously still wishes he were dead, he’d try again if his mom wasn’t watching him every second. You should’ve seen him last night, he was tearing the bandages on his arms off and I thought he was going to try to pry open his stitches too, I had to hold him down to stop him.”

“I’ll try talking to him,” Will offered, like that would make anything better.

“You better,” Lucas said with a shake of his head. “He still has your stupid math book.”

That might not the motivation Will needed to actually puppy himself together and face Mike, but the conversation was the motivation Dustin needed.

Mike had spent the day laying on the couch with his head in his mother’s lap as she ran her fingers through his hair and they rewatched movies he had seen before to give his mind something easy to focus on. When his eyes would flutter shut, his mom would pause the VHS and pick up her book.

When the phone rang just passed two and his mom left him to answer it, Mike found his mind static for the moments he was alone, unsure what he should do with himself. The TV kept playing but he wasn't laying on his mom's lap anymore.

But then she called him to the phone to take over. It was Dustin, so obviously bright at finally getting the chance to talk to him. “Hey man,” he said softly. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Awkwardly, Mike shifted his feet--not that Dustin would see--and sent his mom a look so she’d give him an ounce of privacy. She went away and paused the movie. “Hey.”

“I just…I don’t know, I wanted to check in.” He didn’t know if he should add it, but subtlety had never been a Dustin Henderson strong suit, so he did. “Lucas said you weren’t doing too good.”

“Yeah,” Mike scoffed wetly. He caught himself, though, and corrected to say, “No, I’m fine though.”

“It’s okay if you’re not,” Dustin said so easily. He sighed, fiddling with the receiver in his hands—it was the payphone outside of the school and it was freezing. “I mean…I’ve known you for forever, I know that you’ve had, you know…issues.”

Mike stilled, frozen.

“Like,” Dustin continued, “depression? You’ve always been moody and stuff, but, like…after Will went missing it just got worse.”

Mike needed to hang up, but Dustin kept fucking rambling, “I just…I know that it’s not my business but it feels like my business because it feels like you hate all of us, but also you care so much about Will and not the rest of us. Which is fine, he’s your best friend and he’s had so much shit going on, but everything is fine with him now so I just don’t get what happened. Or why you’re acting like you don’t care about him all of a sudden even though I know that you do. And he cares about you too, you know he was just trying to help you, we’re all just trying to help you. We all care about you and, I know we might not understand fully what you're going through, but we still want to try and be there for you.”

“It’s…complicated.”

Dustin perked up. “It…why you did it?”

“I mean,” Mike huffed, “why I’ve been all…weird recently.”

“There might not be a reason for it. That’s, like, what depression is.”

But there was a reason. “I don’t know,” Mike sighed. What he didn’t know, though, is if he was about to confess to Dustin. “I think I’ve just been…afraid.”

“Afraid? Afraid of what?”

So quietly that Dustin could’ve been convinced it didn’t come through the phone pressed against his ear at all, Mike whispered, “I don’t want to lose you guys.”

“You won’t lose us,” Dustin told him softly, wishing so badly that they were together so he could know it was true. “No matter what happens, we’re always here.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, I promise. There’s nothing that could happen that would pull us away.”

“I just feel like there’s something wrong with me,” Mike nearly cried. He was so close, the secrets bubbling in his chest that he wanted to pop, but he just needed to know his mom wasn’t sneaking around anywhere first. She couldn't know yet.

“I know it might feel like that,” Dustin knew there was no use in telling him he was wrong, and who was he to say it wasn’t even true? So he settled with pushing, “but none of us think there’s anything wrong with you.”

“Even if…,” it came out so quickly that Mike had to swallow it back down.

Dustin waited to see if he would finish the thought, and when it didn’t come, he asked, “Even if what?”

He couldn’t. Not now. It would be easy over the phone, he could just hang up immediately and would be safe in his house from any hatred, but he also didn’t know if Dustin was alone or if his mom was hearing on the line. So, losing his bravery, he conceded. “Nothing.”

Dustin’s mind wrapped around what he thought it could’ve been. “Look, I know that what…what you did was a lot. But that doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with you. It's not your fault. We don’t think any different of you.”

Of course, Mike wasn’t even considering that. Good point, Mike had thought there was something wrong with him because he dreamt of kissing boys and he made his friends feel like shit, but they all thought that what was wrong with him was that he had permanent scars on his arms from trying to kill himself even before he got his drivers' license.

But a boy could have more than one flaw.

So, tightly, he just said, “Thanks.”

“Are you gonna come back to school soon?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Dustin nodded awkwardly. “Well, we can hang out sometime if you want. Just…let me know. I don’t want to push you or anything, but...I miss you.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course. I love you, man. Okay? No matter what.”

“Okay.”

When he hung up the phone, he was immediately lonely again, staring at the receiver on the wall.

His mom must’ve been able to hear the conversation because after a few seconds of silence, she was tiptoeing into the kitchen.

“How’s Dustin doing?” She asked gently into his back while she gave him space. She knew she was poking at the bear, but he was too exhausted to fight back.

Mike shrugged. “Fine, I guess,” he mumbled.

“You know, if you wanted to invite your friends over, I think that’d be nice. They haven’t been around in a while.”

Because Mike had been avoiding all of his friends. The last time he hung out with them all was New Years; he knew they would still hang out after school, mainly because he was invited to those trips to the movies or arcade, he just never went.

He laid his forehead against the wall, prompting his mom to come to his side and rub his back.

“I think it’d be good for you to see them,” she said.

He knew she was right, when was his mother not right, but he still couldn’t bring himself to admit it. Instead, he was resigned to taking a deep breath before asking, “Could you all tell?”

She hesitated. “Tell what?”

“That I was gonna, like…do this?”

She frowned deeply. “I didn’t think you would do this, dear. But I mean, I did notice that something’s been off.”

“Dustin did too.”

“That’s just because we know you so well.”

“No you don’t,” he nearly groaned as he picked his head back up. He didn’t look at her, though, it was still the phone on the wall. Quiet and so afraid, he said, “There’s something wrong with me.”

That had her jumping into rubbing his back more furiously, grounding him with her other hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t say that honey,” she cooed, but he cut her off with an overwhelmed pour out of him: “It’s true Mom, you can’t tell me it’s not true.”

“Everyone goes through rough patches, that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.”

As if that’s all this was: a rough patch.

She wasn’t listening. He shrugged her off and stormed to his room. She weakly called, “Mike,” but he still slammed the door. And she didn’t tell him to open it.

She let him be. She didn’t check on him for hours, just confirming in his mind that if he disappeared, it wouldn’t matter. He sat by the door, staring at it and waiting for his mom to care and for her to see if he was okay and she didn’t.

He was thinking about it again. And he wanted to stop but he couldn’t.

His wrist ached and he was craving the pain. He unwrapped the gauze he had on his arms and stared at the spaces that weren’t already messed up—the ones without stitches or that were slowly healing or that were crispy and white. Scratching wasn’t enough. Hitting his arm on the dresser knobs wasn’t enough. But his mom had taken away everything sharp—he had no idea where the kitchen knives were, there weren’t any scissors in his room, the staples were even taken out of his stapler. She was so thorough it almost made him sick of what she saw.

Will’s math textbook had a paperclip in it. That was sharp enough.

It didn’t draw blood, but that would be best because his mom had been putting some cream on his arms everyday and he wouldn’t put it past her to have counted his scars, old and new.

In the crook of his elbow, his breathing slowed and he concentrated. He had no idea what time it was, he only knew that it was dark and he could hear one of Holly’s shows playing downstairs.

Still, when his eyes were finally pricking with tears, he stopped. He didn’t even remember what pages the paperclip had been holding, he had just shoved a pencil in one of the openings, but it didn’t matter because the clip was bent out of shape and had pieces of skin stuck on the end.

Really, he sat, his arms exposed and eyes red, and waited. He waited for his mom to come upstairs, for Lucas to knock on the front door, for Will to call because he’d actually answer. Otherwise, he could just climb out of his window and finish what he started at the quarry.

He was hungry for the first time in weeks and knew that was a problem. Hunger had turned into permanent numbness that almost comforted him, but now  his mom was feeding him like clockwork.

Him being hungry meant he missed a meal. She missed a meal. She was the whole reason he was alive right now and had disappeared. Even if he knew she was just downstairs.

Will was also the reason he was alive right now, but he was gone, too—on Mike’s own accord.

He was completely alone.

When he had resigned to his day being over and just going to sleep, there was a soft knock at the door.

The door was opened with his dad and Holly stepping in and flipping a light on; his dad with a plate and his sister holding a cup.

“We brought you dinner!” Holly said brightly as she nearly skipped inside.

“Your mom thought you wouldn’t want to eat at the table with us,” his dad added, placing the plate on his desk. He didn’t really look at Mike, but he never did.

Holly was going straight to him though, with the cup held out in front of her. She wanted him to grab it, obviously not realizing how hard it would be for him to just sit up in bed. His mind wasn’t working that fast to figure out how to move and he needed to keep his arms concealed under the covers where his gauze was still off. When he had froze for a moment, thinking through the motions of getting up to take it, his dad came swooping in, taking the cup from her and saying, “Let’s just leave all of this over here for him.”

That didn’t fully satisfy Holly, so she was reaching out again to say, “We’re having ice cream, too.”

From the corner of the room, Ted added, “Make sure you eat all of your dinner. We can bring you ice cream if you want.”

“Or you can come with us!” Holly suggested.

“I think it’ll just be you and me, Holls,” their dad told her with a ruffle of her hair.

Holly had always been Ted’s favorite, probably because she was still young and didn’t have free will. Nancy was Karen’s, which Mike assumed was because she was the oldest and the first girl so they were best friends. Mike was the odd one out. But maybe he wanted his dad to ruffle his hair too and he wanted his mom back so he could hold her hand.

The first time he spoke in so long, Mike asked, “Where’s Mom?”

“She’s sick,” Holly answered easily.

Ted revised with, “She’s not feeling well so she’s laying down.”

God, and it was Mike’s fault. With guilt busting out of his chest, he said, “I’m sorry.”

Ted nodded tightly. “I know you are, son. It’s okay.”

It’s okay.

He turned off the light ate some of his dinner in the dark and went back to bed.

And at some point, he was stirring awake when his bed dipped. The lamp was on in his room and his mom was reaching under the covers to pull his arm out when he opened his eyes.

“Sorry,” she whispered without really looking at him, still trying to keep herself small to avoid a blowup from him, “we need to put on your cream.”

“It’s okay,” he said through a tired, raspy voice.

He watched her for a moment, saw her freeze as she stared at his blank arm, knowing she was wondering and worrying where the gauze had gone. She didn't say anything, though--it wouldn't have been the most productive. She instead just wordlessly rubbed the cream on his arm, before Mike was bursting with saying, “I’m sorry.”

Her shoulders slumped, meeting his eyes. “No, I’m sorry. I wasn’t…I should have listened to you.”

“I was kind of being a jerk.”

“I know,” she said with a sad smile. “But I’m not upset with you, sweetheart. You were trying to tell me something, weren’t you?”

Maybe it was because he was tired, maybe it was because it was so hard to be away from her for that long, maybe he wanted Will back that badly, but he was saying phantomly, “I think I’m gay.”

His mom froze. Her grip on his arm loosening almost in shock as she stared back at him. She was tired too, and so maybe she thought she heard him wrong and asked, “What?”

He instantly wished he didn’t say anything, shying away from her almost immediately. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” she pressed, grabbing his other arm with her sticky ointment covered hands—it didn’t matter if it got in the hair on his arms or on the comforter as the tube toppled over in her haste, what mattered was having her son safe in her arms. “Don’t be sorry, I just…I just wasn’t sure if I heard you right.”

Much more quietly this time around, he whispered, “I’m gay.”

Obviously she couldn’t have heard it wrong.

Just like she didn’t hear it wrong when Mike was in the fourth grade and Ted suggested it over the laundry they were folding.

Will was over for a sleepover and the boys were in a video game battle against Nancy and Lucas who had come over because they needed an extra player. When Will won whatever game they’d been playing, Mike had hugged him so tightly and topped it off with a kiss on the cheek.

As Karen told her husband the story that she thought had been adorable, he frowned. “You know, Lonnie was saying that he might be a queer,” he huffed.

Karen froze for a moment as she considered it, but then she realized what he meant. “Will? He’s nine.”

“Still. I think he’s rubbing off on Mike a little too much.”

“Don’t say that,” she replied with an eye roll.

“I’m being serious, Karen. Mike’s too attached to that boy, he might be a queer too.”

All of the images of Mike and Will were flashing through her mind with this new romantic implication. When they’d hold hands, sleep in the same bed, the times they whispered in each other’s ears or the fact that Lucas had gone home and it was just the two of them in Mike's bed down the hall.

But Ted was right.

As she stared into her son’s eyes, though, full of fear with a tremble of his lips, she had to push Ted out of it. This wasn’t about him being right, this was about Mike.

Him asking that afternoon Could you all tell? was chanting in her head.

She needed to say something, but she opened her mouth and realized she had no idea what to say. When Joyce would rant about what Will was bullied for in school, she would say, “That’s terrible,” but it wasn’t terrible, it was…it was different.

“I love you,” was all she could think of saying.

And that was good enough. “I love you too,” he answered as he began to cry.

His mom grabbed his head to pull him into her chest in a hug, kissing the top of his hair. By the time they pulled apart, she was crying too.

Seeing her tears had him guilty all over again and he was repeating, “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry,” she told him, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I’m just happy you told me.”

“I was really scared to,” he admitted.

“Sweetheart,” she sighed, cupping his face in her hand as she looked into him. “You know you can tell me anything.”

He pulled himself up in bed as he explained, “I know that you say that, but this is really scary.”

Lonnie Byers was once again popping into her mind. Sadly, she said, “I know, I’m so sorry, honey. But me and your dad, we just want you to be happy and safe. We’ll love you no matter what.”

His throat was so dry all of a sudden and he swallowed that with a tight nod.

She then asked, “Does…do any of your friends know?”

“It was in the…thing that I gave Will.”

Her heart nearly stopped. To think that that was all this was about, his last words were admitting a love that he had—that was chilling. He wasn’t avoiding his friends because he was a moody teenager he was avoiding them so they didn’t know the truth.

He left so they didn’t leave him.

“I don’t think he’s gonna want to be my friend anymore.”

“Don’t say that, of course he will.”

“No,” he huffed in that temperamental attitude that kept slipping out, “I said that I…like him. Like…like that.”

There it was. There was the son that she knew. She couldn’t imagine a single other person being so important to Mike.

He continued, "That's why I gave it to him, it wasn't a suicide note but I wrote it because I was frustrated he wouldn't like me back because of...everything, but I wanted him to know how I felt. And that I was sorry for everything."

And just like Will being the most importantly person to Mike, there was a person that was the most important to Will. 

She grabbed the ointment tube, screwing the cap back on. “I didn’t get to have ice cream tonight,” she announced, standing from the bed. “Would you like some here or downstairs?”

“What?”

“Nancy and I would do this with her crushes all the time when the was younger,” before Steve Harrington was what she meant, “so I thought we could do it too. Ice cream, talk about boys?”

Mike couldn’t help but smile.

“What about the basement?”

Of course. That was so Mike.

When they were all settled on the couch with blankets since the heating in the basement was awful this time of year, Karen was diving straight into, “Have you and Will talked at all since you gave him the letter?”

He shook his head, and, mouth full of ice cream, said, “I don’t want to talk.”

“You’re not even giving him a chance?"

“A chance to do what? Reject me? He wasn’t supposed to know.”

Karen rolled her eyes. “He wouldn’t reject you.”

Mike’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?” He nearly snapped.

“I just…I think you should be open minded.”

“What, do you think he’s gay?”

She huffed as she looked up, “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

Mike’s eyes grew wide, asking feverishly, “Did you think I was?”

“It’s not that I thought you were, or I think Will is, I just…it makes sense.”

“Okay…?”

“And even if he’s not,” she rushed, “you know that he’d be your friend no matter what. All of your friends, they’re good. You just need to talk to them.”

“I don’t have anything to talk about,” he completely deflated, now just stirring the ice cream around in his bowl.

“Try. I'm sure they all just want to know if you’re okay.”

“I’m okay.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line, her breath catching. Mike’s lied to her countless times before, but this was a lie that she had to squash. “It’s okay if you’re not.”

There’s something wrong with me was climbing up her spine. As he continued to look down in complete dejection, she sighed and told him, “There’s nothing wrong with you; you know that, right?”

He just looked at her with such distrust.

“I mean it Mike. Even with…,” she didn’t know if she was allowed to say it, what he was, but settled on, “the stuff with Will, the stuff in your head, too, like, that’s not something that’s wrong with you.”

“You said to Dad that ‘normal boys don’t try to kill themselves.’”

Karen sighed, rubbing her temples. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think you heard that.”

“Obviously.”

“I think that a bad thing is just happening to you, Michael. Depression…it’s something that I’ve dealt with before.” That explained her laying down instead of eating dinner with the family, and Mike perked up almost to hear more. “After Nancy was born, I had a lot of postpartum depression, which is something that just happens after pregnancy sometimes. But, it’s kind of always stuck, you know? Some days are just really hard.”

He nodded gently. “They’re hard for me too.”

She took his hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice.”

“I didn’t really want you to.”

“Still. I’m your mom, I should know these things.”

He admitted in his pool of melted melancholy, “I wanted you to check on me when I went upstairs.”

His mom’s face instantly broke out in sorrow. “Baby,” she gushed, squeezing his hand tighter, but he cut her off with, “You don’t have to be sorry, I didn’t tell you.”

“I was just trying to give you some space. I know I’ve been hovering a lot.”

“I think I need it,” he told her honestly. He knew it wasn’t fair to keep his mom in the dark and he knew deep down he had to get it off of his chest, so he told her exactly what had been going through his mind. “I just…I think about killing myself a lot. And it’s not just because of being sad and stuff, but…I don’t know, I just picture it a lot.”

Karen knew she had to be cautious, the most gentle she’d been with Mike since he was a newborn. A single misstep and she could lose him. For good. “What do you picture?”

He was shaking, each breath racking his chest so clearly. In his pause, his mom brought the blanket up to his shoulders and told him, “It’s okay to tell me, I promise.”

“Just…hurting myself, I guess. Like if we're in the car, all I see is getting into an accident or if I'm looking at...you know, something sharp, then I see myself cutting my arm. Sometimes it's all I can think about, even if I don't want to do it."

It was clear on his arms that it wasn’t the first time he had cut himself, so she knew it was fair to ask, “How long have you been doing it?”

And it was clear on his face how bad the answer would be. “Seventh grade.”

When he had gotten so angry and distant. Three years. How did she not realize how bad it’s been? How did she not come up with anything to say to him?

Her heart broke as she asked, “Do you…want to hurt yourself?”

The answer seemed like it should be so obvious, but he still answered, “Sometimes. I think I just deserve it sometimes.” Before she could refute, he told her, “I’m just so annoying and piss people off all the time.”

“That doesn’t mean you deserve any of this.” He didn’t look too convinced. “I mean it, I,” she sighed, “I know that I get annoyed with you sometimes but I think you realizing that you can be…you know…a bit temperamental, just shows that you’re good. And you don’t deserve this, you just need someone to help you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to,” she reassured him.

And everyone would have to continue reassuring him.

His mom let him sleep late because she kept him up late, even if she had to get up early to get Holly to school. While he was in bed, though, she called Joyce Byers.

In a rush, Joyce breathed, “Hello?”

“Hi Joyce, it’s Karen.”

Immediately, Joyce was calming, freezing. “Karen!” She gushed. “How are you, how’s Mike doing?”

“We’re good, he’s getting better.”

“That’s good.”

“I was just calling because…I think Will could help.”

Karen could feel Joyce’s frown. “I thought he didn’t want to talk to Will,” she nearly snapped—the Mama Bear was strong in her.

“I know, but really…he’s just been scared. I don’t know if Will told you that…he…”

“That Mike gave him his suicide note?” Joyce Byers: Ever Blunt.

“There was just stuff in there that Mike was nervous about Will knowing. He’s been afraid of Will not wanting to be his friend anymore.”

Joyce tsked her tongue. “So what do you want me to do?”

“Can you get Will to call? Or come over?”

“If Mike wants to talk to him, he can call himself.”

“You know Mike,” she sighed, “he’s too stubborn to admit he needs help.” To maybe sweeten the deal, she guilted her with, “I mean, that’s how he got himself into this situation, isn’t it?”

Joyce gulped. “I guess, yeah. I can talk to him.”

“Thank you so much.”

She didn’t tell Mike what she had plotted as they spent the day like they had the one before. This time, though, she had gotten him out of the house to go to Family Video to pick out a new movie to watch because she’d been sick of Star Wars since he was in third grade.

Mike looked at himself in the mirror for far too long as he picked apart his outfit with his eyes. The outfit was his choice this time but he did leave the door cracked while he took a shower with the hall light on and bathroom light off and he did let his mom shave his face.

He picked out the tape they listened to in the car and it helped him not to overthink the entire trip as they drove to the store—it was a mixtape that he had taken from Will’s room years ago--but then they walked in to Family Video and Steve “The Hair” Harrington was working the counter.

He started to greet Mike until he saw Karen Wheeler following behind him and froze. Maybe he was scared of her and maybe she liked it that way because she had never really liked Steve. Not that Mike had really liked him either, but he had to admit that he had really warmed up to him since he became friends with Robin.

Robin who came barreling out of the back room while Steve was frozen in fear, tapes in hand that she raised to call, “Hey little Wheeler!”

Mike forced a smile and grabbed his arm protectively. Like they could see through his shirt sleeves.

“Hey guys,” he said weakly, stepping towards the counter so he wasn’t taking up room in front of the door. He could feel his mom following him, but when he turned to meet her eyes, he was silently pleading in the contact to leave him alone while he talked to the cool older kids. She took the hint with a nod and one last glare to Steve before heading off to the romance section.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” Steve asked immediately.

Mike resisted the urge to groan. “Yeah, I’m…not feeling good.”

Robin snorted. “You look fine.”

“Well, I’m not,” he snapped. They were both straightening immediately at that hostility which had Mike feeling bad about. “Sorry,” he said as he almost cowered. “I just…I’ve just been having a hard time.”

Now they softened—it was strange how in sync they were. “Oh,” Steve said gently. “Is everything okay?”

“Dustin didn’t tell you?”

“Didn’t tell me what?”

He would be too embarrassed if his mom was still listening, so he threw a head over his shoulder, but she was deeply interested in reading the back of every single VHS tape. It clearly pained him to tell them, but he also knew he shouldn’t dump it on Dustin, especially when a part of him felt an element of respect in the fact that he didn’t tell them.

Through a suffocating throat, he admitted, “I…last week I kind of…,” he didn’t want to say what it was (that he had tried to kill himself), so he told the story. “I went to the quarry and wanted to…jump.”

Their eyes widened in a way that could be comical if it hadn’t been such a serious situation. “You…what?” Steve sputtered. There were goosebumps on his skin, visions of an eleven year old Mike Wheeler flashing through his mind.

“I didn’t. But…I cut myself and had to go to the hospital.”

Robin’s eyes shot down to the arm that Mike was habitually rubbing. “Oh my God,” she breathed.

Steve had a different reaction, he rounded the counter and was pulling Mike into a comforting hug.

Which was weird. To both of them, extremely weird. But a certain level of it was needed.

When they pulled apart, Steve kept his hands on Mike’s shoulders, looking him directly in the eye—which was terrifying and had Mike darting his eyes around—and asked so earnestly, “Are you okay?”

“I’m…feeling better.”

That allowed Steve to step back, calmly breathing and saying, “Okay, that’s good. Great.”

Mike nodded awkwardly and Robin nodded somehow even more awkwardly.

“You know,” Steve said, “if you need anything…we’re always here for you.”

“Yeah,” Robin scrambled, “like, if you wanted a free rental.”

Steve threw his head back and groaned. “Rob, you can’t just give those out.”

“He’s…upset!”

“He’s Mike Wheeler.”

Steve seemed to realize exactly what he was implying and turned back to Mike with frozen eyes. “Oh my God, I didn’t—I meant just ‘cause you’re Nancy’s brother.”

“You would give Nancy a discount,” Robin scoffed.

“Okay, well, a discount is totally different than giving shit out for free, you can have a discount if you want.”

“I don’t need a discount,” Mike replied, realizing that his chest was full of laughter for the first time in forever.

His mom came by to save the day, nearly storming to face Robin at the counter as she asked with a judging glare, “Does this store have any movies about queers?”

Jaws were dropped around the room, but Mike was turning red as he hissed, “Mom!”

“This store needs to be more inclusive, Michael.”

Thank God she asked Robin and not Steve, who was hiding his laughter in his arm as Robin scrambled to answer, “Uh, yes, we have some titles.”

“Where are they?”

“I’ll, uh, I’ll show you!”

As she scampered off with Karen following, Steve observed, “That’s different.” But then he turned to Mike with a devilish tint in his eyes, poking fun with, “Unless she’s just into watching two guys.”

Mike’s stomach churned. “That’s disgusting.”

A bit too abruptly, Steve pushed his shoulder, snapping, “Don’t be a prick.”

“I’m not!” Mike whined, touching at the spot on his shoulder.

Again, Steve’s face flooded with guilt, telling him, “Sorry, I didn’t—.”

Mike saved him with a raised hand, “It’s fine, I’m not gonna kill myself because of you.” The joke didn’t land super well, but it was alright as he switched gears to ask, “Since when do you care about queers?”

With a sneer, Steve said, “I have gay friends.”

“Friends plural?”

“I have a gay friend.”

Mike squinted at him. Steve had no friends. Other than Robin and Dustin, but Robin was too cool to actually be his friend and Dustin wasn’t, Dustin wasn’t?

“Who?” He pressed.

“None of your business.”

Because Steve didn’t have friends. Suspiciously, Mike eyed him. “It’s not…you’re not the friend are you?”

“What?” He forgot Steve Harrington was an idiot.

“Are you…?”

“No!” He blurted, eyes wide. “No, no, I’m not, are you?”

Great comeback.

Mike froze. He kept this secret for the past few years and yet was just spilling it everywhere apparently. “I…,” he should just lie, “I mean…”

Steve went through his about eightieth heart attack since Mike walked through the door as he said, “Shit, you’re…wait, what?”

“Don’t,” Mike said with a grimace.

“Yeah,” Steve accepted with a nod. “Yeah, okay, I won’t.” He just walked back to the counter.

Mike stayed rooted in his place, craning his neck around to look for his mom and when his eyes scanned across the counter, Steve was staring at him. He was waiting to catch his eye to say, “That’s cool, man.”

“Because you have a gay friend?” Mike snorted.

Before Steve could stumble around too long to come up with an interesting answer, Karen Wheeler was racing over to Mike with a few tapes. “I thought they’d all be sad, but some of these are supposed to be funny.”

If Mike looked, Steve would now be watching him with a sort of proud eye.

She still let him get some nerdy movie, but they both knew her pick would be first.

And Steve did give them a discount for no explained reason.

The movies didn’t really end up being the important part, it was more so the opportunity to sit together honestly. With a newfound understanding.

Hiding the lie under Karen’s tongue until there was a knock on the door.

Mike heard it at the door, just a simple, “Hey, Mrs. Wheeler,” but it was in Will Byers’ voice.

He stood from the couch in a mix of shock and fear, making eye contact with his mom with her hand still on the doorknob. “Honey,” Karen was stammering with a false enthusiasm, “Will’s here to see you.”

“I don’t want to see him,” he said sharply.

“Come on, he came all this way.”

“No, I told him I don’t want to talk to him.”

“You didn’t tell me,” Will so unhelpfully pointed out.

“Well I don’t want to talk to you!” Mike yelled, an explosion that had his mom quite literally clutching her chest, probably because she was the one that saw Will’s terrified expression. “Michael!” She snapped, but he was off up the stairs. She tried to throw her hand out to grab his arm, but utterly missed.

Will, though, pushed his way past her and inside, standing at the bottom of the stairs and just yelling back, “Mike!”

He froze on the stairs, actually froze with a hand on the banister to catch his balance with how quickly he stopped.

“Please,” Will said. “Talk to me.”

In Mike’s pause, he thought about it. For just a moment thought about what he would turn around and say. But then he just continued up the stairs while Will called after him, “You still have my math book.”

With a sigh and a groan and a cursing of his life, Mike tore open his bedroom door to grab the book, still with a pencil shoved in the middle from where he took the paperclip out, but in a wave of selfishness, he decided that Will Byers didn’t deserve to have his pencil. He opened the book to take it out when he noticed something at the bottom of the page.

By the page number, in the margins of equations and terms, was a recognizable doodle done by the incomparable Will Byers. He’d been working on shading which showed very clearly in the drawing on the paper. In the black hair and the face it had fallen into—a face completed with freckles and clear cheek bones and a smirking smile.

Which was weird because this was a drawing of Mike Wheeler himself and he hardly ever smiled anymore.

Still, his breath was taken away, it always was when he saw Will’s art. Though, his heart was pounding as he ran his finger over the picture.

Then, out of curiosity, he flipped the page. Another one, another doodle of himself—doodle wasn’t the right word, it was a full blown pencil portrait—this time it was his lanky figure standing by a tree.

He turned the page and it was another one with stars instead of freckles on his cheeks.

For a long stretch, it was each page, at least ten in a row. His own name was written in loopy writing, drawn much more carefully than Will ever scrawled like he was trying to make it clear who he was drawing despite the fact that he’d drawn him so accurately it made Mike feel like he was looking in a mirror.

He realized as he reached the end and then flipped through them all again that it must’ve been what Will had been holding together with the paperclip. And in an impulse, he ripped the corner off of that first page he saw and shoved it in his pocket.

He charged down the stairs with his eyes on the ground, holding the book out weakly in front of him, waiting for Will to take it out of his hands.

He could see from the shadow on the ground that the second he took the book, Will was turning on his heel and storming away from the Wheeler house.

Will walked all the way home before he realized his paperclip was missing.

Karen completely slammed the door shut when Will turned away, facing her son to say, “That was rude, Michael.”

He rolled his eyes, shoulders tense and his mom continued with, “You agreed last night that you needed to talk to him.”

“Yeah, I know I need to talk to him, but I’m not ready yet. He had no right to just bombarde me like that.”

“I asked Joyce to talk to him.”

Mike’s head started spinning. “You what?”

“You need to hang out with your friends.”

“So I can talk to Dustin or something, not Will!”

“Then let’s call Dustin,” she decided, clapping her hands together as she moved towards the phone.

“No, Mom,” he groaned, following. “We don’t need to call Dustin.”

“You need to talk to someone, Mike.” She was seeming stern now and it startled him. Seeing him practically jump at her words had his mom take a step back, both mentally and physically. “I just…I think you need to go back to school. But I know that you need, I don’t know, some kind of transition into it.”

She was right, he knew she was right. So far he had only handled trips to the grocery store and Family Video, but those were one hour excursions out of the house that were easy enough. School was six hours around some of his least favorite people on the planet.

Mike just stared at her because he didn’t want to admit she was right.

“Just for dinner,” she pleaded. “We can invite him and his mom.”

He huffed, crossing his arms. “I’m not calling him.”

“I can call,” she happily suggested. She turned to the phone but then turned back to face him and ask, “What do you want me to make? Anything you want.”

“For dinner? I don’t care.”

All he could care about now, focus on, was this stupid dinner. How stupid was it that he was stressing out over seeing one of his best friends. And, of course, his best friend's ever overenthusiastic mother.

“Karen, you have got to give me this recipe,” Claudia Henderson gushed as she cut into the hodge podge of a casserole Mike’s mom made.

Really, she was just throwing things together. That was the recipe. Still, she pretended as she said, “You know a casserole is always such a good thing to make for hosting.”

And it was full of food she knew Mike would eat. She saw his lackluster dinner plate from the night before and knew pushing him like she was would have a similar if not worse response.

“It’s great Mrs. Wheeler,” Dustin said with a certain charm, “thank you.”

“Of course,” Karen gushed, “you know, you’re welcome any time.”

Their two guests shared an identical glance to Mike before holding their breath and taking another bite. It wasn’t lost on them what this invitation was all about as they talked out what topics to avoid in the car ride.

“So Dustin, how’s…,” Karen didn’t know what she was asking yet, she was just trying to keep the conversation going, “how’s sophomore year treating you?”

Better than Mike.

“It’s good,” he answered without skipping a beat. “I’m working on this science project and testing lichen from off of trees which has been a little difficult in winter.”

Whenever Karen or Ted thought their son was a nerd, he was always overshadowed by Dustin Henderson.

“That,” she stammered, “that sounds cool.”

Mike snorted.

That only drew Dustin’s attention to him. “You know, Will’s been busting his ass on your guys’ project.”

“Language,” Ted muttered.

“Sorry. He’s…he’s been working hard.”

“What’s your project?” Mike’s mom asked, leaning across the table.

Mike sighed. “It’s a, uh, decomposition thing. Seeing how temperature effects how fast worms, like, turn old food into soil.”

“Okay,” she nodded with an almost grimace on her face, placing down her fork.

“That’s so interesting,” Claudia Henderson now leaned in to ask, completely desensitized to the grossness. “What kind of food are you putting in there?”

“Just, uh…,” Mike avoided his mother’s eyes. “Sandwich…meat and bread. And apples and stuff.” What his mom had packed him for lunch that day.

“Fascinating,” his dad stated blankly.

“You know,” Claudia was now saying to Karen, “we are so lucky to have such smart boys. With their brains, their creativity, they have so much ahead of them.”

It was like stabs to Mike’s chest. She might as well have just come right out and said “It’s a shame your son tried to kill himself.”

Then Holly started telling some story from school which Claudia was pouring attention into as she cooed over her. Mike only played around with the food on his plate, tossing it back and forth.

He didn’t like this random casserole she made—it was dense and wet and he had to chew it so much. He was so conscious of the fact that he was eating, having to work the pasta and meat in his mouth before gulping it all down and it made him feel like he needed to cry.

As they dipped into all the names Holly would give a cat, Mike eyed his mom painfully, a plead of I need to leave this table now.

Dustin noticed it too. While Karen tried to find something to say, he was leaping in to offer, “Hey, Mike, I brought some notes from bio if you want them,” completely interrupting Holly.

“Can we go?” Mike asked.

It felt like eyes around the table all looked at his full plate, but still Karen nodded sadly.

She held it together until they were up the stairs with the door clicked shut before she started to cry.

Mike didn’t hear it, though, he was awkwardly staring at his feet in his bedroom.

Dustin was being just as awkward, though. It was the same experience that Lucas had, it’d been years since they were in Mike’s bedroom and it was almost shocking.

It was a mess, clothes everywhere and his desktop piled with books and journals and loose papers. Dustin cleared his throat like he was gearing up to say something but he actually had nothing.

Mike was pressed against the door, arms crossed. “You didn’t bring anything,” he said roughly.

Dustin’s head snapped up to look at him. “What?”

“Bio notes?”

“Oh,” Dustin offered him a weak smile, “I don’t have any notes, I just said that so we could leave. I could tell you kind of wanted to get out of there.”

Mike wordlessly nodded.

“Sorry if my mom was kind of being a lot.”

“It’s fine.”

“Well, no, you didn’t finish eating.”

Mike huffed, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. “That’s not ‘cause of your mom.”

“Then why?”

“I’m just…not in the mood to eat.”

Dustin almost snorted. “Are you ever?”

It was so embarrassing how obvious he was in hindsight. Mike just shrugged and mumbled, “I don’t know.”

Dustin nodded slowly as he sat in Mike’s desk chair, eyes flitting back down to the carpet. “Lucas said he came over for dinner sometimes.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you pissed at him now too?”

Characteristically, Mike rolled his eyes once again. “The Will thing is totally different.”

“Okay, well what the hell happened with Lucas then?”

“He was just being too much.”

“He’s trying to help you, man.”

“Well, I didn’t ask for his help!” Mike hissed lowly, not trying to start a scene that his mom had to interfere with again.

But he would’ve wished he did with how Dustin shot back, “You obviously need help, Mike.”

To avoid looking at him, Mike stormed over to slump down on his bed, muttering, “Don’t,” as he swiftly walked by.

Dustin, ever persistent, stood up to follow him, sighing, “No, you’re not taking this seriously.”

“Taking what seriously?” He nearly scoffed.

“Uh, the fact that you tried to kill yourself?”

Hearing it so plainly from Dustin’s mouth had Mike’s heart dropping to his stomach oddly. He rolled his head up to look at him, eyes wide. “I am taking it seriously.”

Dustin sat down next to him, a different tone to the conversation now with how he said softly, “I don’t think you are. You don’t realize how fucking scary that was.”

“It has nothing to do with you guys.”

“Yes it does, we’re the ones that have to deal with you everyday. We’re, like, watching you fall apart and turn into someone you’re not.”

“You don’t have to be my friends anymore,” Mike muttered so quietly because he was worried if Dustin heard it then it’d be true—they wouldn’t be his friends anymore.

Instead, it made Dustin roll his shoulders back and say with a sigh, “We want to be your friend. But we can’t watch you hurt yourself like this.”

“Then it sounds like you don’t want to be my friend.”

“Because we want the best for you?” Dustin asked so plainly, nearly flabbergasted. “That sounds like we do want to be your friends.”

“No!” Mike nearly exploded, shifting in bed to fully face him. “You just want to be friends with who you think I am.”

A heartbreak almost flashed in Dustin’s eyes. “Mike,” he said so small, “you can be whoever you are with us. I know you’re going through shit right now, but we’re here with you through all of it. No matter what happens.”

Subconsciously, Mike cowered away from him. “I don’t believe you.”

Dustin’s jaw could’ve dropped if his world wasn’t falling apart in such a saddening way. “How…why? What did I do?”

“You didn’t do anything,” Mike said through bubbling tears. “It’s my fault.”

“Mike,” Dustin leaned forward to put a hand on his knee, “I swear, there is nothing that you could do that would make me not care about you anymore.”

But Mike still shook his head. He didn’t dare say a single word.

“Come on, what is it? You can tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. It won’t change anything.”

“It changes everything.”

With his shoulders falling in desperation, Dustin pleaded, “Please.”

Mike couldn’t look at him, he pulled his knee back so Dustin wasn’t touching him. If this went sideways, he needed as smooth of a transition as possible. With his eyes squeezed shut and a ghostly voice coming out of him, he said, “I’m a queer.”

The thick air between them was suffocating. Mike was half expecting that when he opened his eyes, Dustin would be gone, but instead, he was still sitting there with his eyebrows raised. “That’s it?” He blurted out.

And it was so far from what he was expecting that Mike just said with an equal confusion, “What?”

“You wanted to kill yourself because you’re gay?”

With a sting, Mike was running a hand over his face. “Not just that,” he groaned.

Dustin still was pushing with, “But you thought we wouldn’t want to be friends with you anymore because of it?”

“Well yeah! I mean, I lied to El, to all of you, this whole time.”

“What do you mean? When did you realize?”

Mike shrugged, nodding his head around as he answered, “Sometime last year.”

Dustin scoffed. “Well, if you didn’t know then you weren’t lying to us, it doesn’t work like that.”

He was realizing he needed to pull out the other reasons they should all hate with and so he threw out, “Still, it’s just another way for me to try and get everyone’s attention.”

“Mike, we all know you hate attention. That’s why you’ve been suffering in silence for so long.”

Finally—he couldn’t stand not being hated it seemed—he landed on saying, “But I like Will.”

Now Dustin’s jaw was dropping for amusement. “No way.”

“That’s what I told him in the letter.”

“That little bastard,” Dustin gaped before switching his focus to ask, “So, wait, is that why you’re avoiding him?”

“It’s one of the reasons.”

With a devilish tint, Dustin said slyly, “You know, I bet Will would be more than okay with you being into him.”

“Don’t be gross.”

“I’m not being gross! I’m just saying that…you know what people say about him and I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true. And definitely not surprised if he liked you back.”

“He doesn’t.”

More thoughtfully, Dustin said, “He saved your life.”

Gritting his teeth, Mike felt the need to remind him, “I didn’t want him to.”

“I know. It was selfish, sure, but he did it because he loves you. And he wants you to be alive.”

Mike hated that he was right, especially with the evidence he had in the pocket of his jeans. But he also hated that Dustin didn’t see his side of it.

No one saw his side of it.

It’s not that Mike wanted to die, he just wanted to disappear. He wanted to be gone and done and never have to worry about anything again, never have to worry anyone again. And what he got was the exact opposite, he had his mom constantly on his case and his friends telling him how much he scared them and permanent reminders sketched into his skin of what a failure he was at fifteen years old.

And, frankly, it was Will’s fault.

His mom might have thought it was her own fault, though, with how hard she was taking this loss with each and every back step Mike seemed to take in his recovery. When he went up the stairs with Dustin, she put her head in her hands and sighed deeply as she began to cry.

Claudia swung her legs around in her chair to rub her back and tell her, “Oh it’s alright, sweetie, let it out.”

“Holly,” Ted prompted, rising from the table, “let’s go play in your room, okay?”

She nodded even with an eye on her mom crying in her place before going off.

When her bedroom door clicked shut, Karen raised her head. “I just don’t know what to do, it’s so hard.”

“I cannot imagine what it’s been like for you all.”

“You know,” Karen said with an ugly sniffle, “I’m the one that had to clean out his backpack. And see his journal with everything that he wrote inside about how much he wanted to die. But I also have to pretend like everything’s okay.”

“You don’t have to pretend,” Claudia told her, “it’s okay if it isn’t okay right now, that’s completely understandable.”

“You don’t get Mike. He’s not like Dustin, he gets so angry and he shuts everyone out. If I mention that he didn’t eat his dinner, then he’ll lock himself in his room and won’t eat just to spite me.”

“Some teenagers are just like that.”

Nancy was like that a little. If Karen wouldn’t give her a later curfew when requested, she’d come home even later. But she grew out of it, she got a grip and she found her passion and she got good grades because she wanted to and she found a boyfriend that worshipped her.

Maybe that was the issue, though, Mike hadn’t found his happiness. He didn’t have a Byers boyfriend yet, he didn’t have a fulfilling passion that he was able to pursue—there weren’t internships and school clubs that he could join that would value the creative writing he had scribbled in his journal.

She didn’t throw it away; she kept it in her nightstand in case he needed the stories tucked inside his spiraling rambles.

In a hollow voice, she told Claudia how different he was. “Mike’s been cutting his wrists open since he was in the seventh grade.”

Claudia wasn’t really a friend of hers yet here she was spilling all of her secrets. Except they weren’t her’s, they were her son’s and Dustin wasn’t even her favorite of Mike’s friends. Claudia shook with that news, asking, “The poor thing, what’s wrong with him?”

Maybe that’s why Karen wasn’t overly fond of the Hendersons. They weren’t so good at subtlety.

“There’s nothing wrong with him,” Karen answered, sitting up straighter, her tears suddenly dry. “He has depression. But he’s on medication and he’s seeing a psychiatrist.”

“That’s good, I’m glad you’re getting him help.”

“I would do anything for him.”

And even though she didn’t like her too much, when Claudia smiled and said, “You’re a good mother, Karen,” it actually meant something to her.

She had to remind herself that she was a good mother when Mike was crying in the passenger seat of the car as they drove to school. Whenever she asked on the ride if he needed to go back home, he said “No,” but it made him cry harder so she stopped asking and just turned up the music and rubbed her fingers along his hand.

When they pulled up at the front entrance, they both stopped to breathe. “If you need anything,” Karen said, “if you want to come home, you just go down to the office and call, okay? And I’ll be right there.”

He nodded, but he wasn’t really listening. Dustin, Lucas, and Max were standing outside of the school in that usual spot that they all met up. He was sure Dustin spilled the beans to them all that he’d be coming back to school (or attempting to).

And he wasn’t mad. He told himself he wasn’t mad, even if Lucas was there because at least Will wasn’t there.

Dustin had called Will the moment he got home from the Wheeler house, diving straight into, “You know how Mike gave you the note?”

“I’m not telling you what’s in it,” Will groaned.

“I know what’s in it,” Dustin assured him, “he told me tonight.”

“He…wait, really?”

“Really. He said that he likes you and I know that he thinks you don’t like him back.”

Will felt frozen for a moment, almost like if Dustin knew then it wasn’t all some twisted prank or bad dream. It was real life, Mike really wrote that for him.

Dustin continued with, “You like him back, though, right?”

Will sighed, “Dustin,” not wanting at all to get into it with homework waiting for him and sleep catching his eyes, but Dustin was still pushing, “Please, you know I won’t think any different of you. Me and Mike are still tight.”

“I don’t…it’s complicated.”

“Come on.”

“He’s changed a lot.”

“You know who he is,” Dustin pressed.

But Will as sighing heavily and saying, “I don’t know. How long has it been since we’ve really hung out?”

“We did New Year’s.”

“Yeah and he sat in the corner of the couch the entire time just watching us.”

“You know he’s going through shit right now.”

“Well it’s made him change,” Will easily shot back. “So…I don’t know if I do anymore.”

Dustin just dug the receiver into his ear hoping he heard it wrong.

He didn’t; instead Will was pivoting to add, “I don’t want to be the reason he’s like this. Or the only thing that can help.”

“You’re not.”

“It feels like I am. And he doesn’t want any help, he doesn’t want me at all, so why would I even bother?”

Will was beginning to think that it was Lucas that had flipped through the pages of his math book with where this conversation was going. If Mike had seen and Mike had known then he would know how achingly in love Will was with him—or at least who he had been.

Instead, he was giving up without even trying.

Although, Will was too.

“So that’s it?” Dustin asked plainly. “You’re just done with him?”

“He’s done with me.”

“He was done with all of us!” He was being a bit too forceful and angry now, but he didn’t care. He didn’t think his friend group could fall apart more, but here he was. “He could’ve died, Will. Because he was afraid what we’d do if we knew the truth about him—about him being gay or insecure or whatever it is. He hates himself that much.”

“I know that. I was the last fucking person he talked to, Dustin, I know exactly what was going through his head in that moment, you don’t think that’s hard to live with? He was asking me to hang out and I said no, if I had said yes then everything would be fine right now. I can’t deal with that guilt and I can’t love someone that can be gone any second if I say the wrong thing, I can’t do it.”

He had pushed too far, the whole situation was so delicate that it was impossible not to. “Will, I didn’t mean it like that.”

But Will hung up the phone.

Will and El not being outside of the school wasn’t a highly planned thing, it just seemed that Will was truly over trying.

Despite the fact that they had seen each other the night before, Dustin still wrapped Mike in a hug when he walked up to the group. Maybe he felt that he needed to after his conversation with Will, he had to show him that he would be there for any version of him.

This wasn’t the Mike that they knew, that they had all fallen in love with to form a lifelong friendship, it was the hollowed out version of him.

Mike rested his head onto Dustin’s shoulder and closed his eyes tight so he could remember the moment. Dustin was rubbing his back and saying softly in his ear, “Hey, man.”

Mike couldn’t help but pull away with teary eyes which was something they’d have to get used to in this new, messed up version of himself, but it was still embarrassing when he had to turn to face Max. She’d looked at him with pity before, but this was complete sympathy.

“Hey Wheeler,” she said with a sad smile. And she stepped forward to hug him. It was much quicker than Dustin’s, mainly because Mike was just standing still and unsure of what to do, but when they pulled apart, Max was telling him, “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Mike shrugged. “Thanks.”

“For the record,” Lucas pointed, “I’m also glad you’re okay.”

“I know you are,” Mike nearly muttered with a classic eye roll, but it was all light. It was supposed to be light, so he made it known when was pulling Lucas into a quick side hug and saying, “I’m glad you’re okay too.”

“Just stop giving me heart attacks,” Lucas joked.

And that was still light, that was still okay.

Karen Wheeler was in the office and they all avoided her as they went inside, trying to maintain some sense of normalcy with all things considered. They all escorted Mike to his locker, refusing to leave him alone for even a second.

“I can walk to you English,” Max said with a shrug. “I’m already going that way.”

Mike looked at her with his nose turned up. “No you’re not, don’t you have Civics first?”

“Well yeah,” she stammered, “but, I mean, I can be late.”

“I don’t need you to walk me to class.”

Max eyed the boys before saying earnestly, “Well, I want to.”

It gave Dustin the opportunity to catch Lucas up on what he’d missed in the dramatics of the night before. “Mike and Will are like done, by the way,” was the best that he could do as they started off to their first class.

“What do you mean?” Lucas asked, strangely intrigued.

“Will’s pissed too. He said Mike’s changed too much; that it’s too hard to…care about him.”

Lucas closed his eyes as he sighed. “Jesus.” They continued walking in a weirdly placed silence while it all built up inside of Lucas. Dustin had nothing really to say, he had secrets bubbling under his tongue and it was all too delicate to offer his own opinions, but Lucas had an entirely different view. “You know,” he ranted, “it’s really kind of stupid. Like Mike is pissed at Will but also Will’s the only person he wanted to give a suicide note to; like his last words were supposed to be for Will, so you’d think he’d want to still be around him. And, I’m sorry, but with how damn close they’ve been, you’d think Will would want to see him after he almost died. But he didn’t even try.”

“He did try.”

“He didn’t really. I mean, he went to the hospital once?”

“And what about when Mike freaked at you, did you keep trying?”

“I’m trying right now man! But you don’t see Will here anywhere.”

“Because this is a hard day for Mike, why would he want to fuck it up more?”

Now Lucas stopped walking, sticking a hand out to stop Dustin as well and say, “Wait, you just said that Will’s pissed too. You seriously think he’s ignoring Mike because he wants to give him an easy time coming back to school? No, it’s because he’s giving up. Because it’s too hard to deal with him or something.”

“Don’t be mad at Will.”

“I’m gonna be mad at Will. I was the one that had to deal with Mike this past week.”

But behind Lucas, Dustin was the one that also tried to be there for Mike. In a rush of frustration, he snapped, “Are you saying he’s a problem?”

“Obviously not!” Lucas groaned completely. “But you know that this is all hard.”

“Yeah I do,” Dustin nearly snapped. “It’s hard for Will too.”

And Lucas would figure out exactly why it was hard for Will when they got to the lunch room.

Mike was nowhere to be found at first. Max came into the cafeteria shrugging. “He was out of study hall by the time I got there.” They were insistent on escorting him to and from each class in a seamless manner, but it seemed he had gotten away from them during the study hall that he had all alone.

Really, Mike had had English class and then was supposed to have gym with Will but he had a doctor’s note saying he couldn’t participate because of his stitches, so spent all of gym in the library after being escorted over by Dustin and did his makeup work from English, then Lucas picked him up for their shared history class before he brought him to study hall.

Where it seemed he must’ve called his mom.

Lucas himself shrugged. “Maybe he went home. He was looking really tired by third period.”

It was heartbreaking. Mike couldn’t even make it until noon, couldn’t be alive and present for four hours. They knew they had to stop mourning the person they lost and just work on who they had, but that was still so hard when Mike used to be full of so much light.

And it was hard to break the news when El was coming to the table with wide eyes. She’d been off to sit wherever the hell Will was going, but upon looking over to their usual spot and not seeing Mike, she got nervous.

Will was on her heels as she skidded over and asked Max, “I thought you said Mike was coming back today?”

“Guess he went home early,” Max told her with a shrug.

“Damn,” she sighed, shaking her head. “Well, maybe we can all get together or something this weekend.”

No one dared to look at Will behind her as they awkwardly nodded.

“I can try to swing by after school,” Lucas suggested, which only Dustin really saw as overcompensating.

Will was too busy vibrating with stress and he bursted as he said to Lucas, “I need to talk to you.”

Lucas raised an eyebrow, referring to the rest of the table. “Alright?”

“No,” Will snapped, “alone.”

He turned to start walking out of the cafeteria, Lucas scrambling to follow.

Once they made it inside the bathroom, Will was turning the lock on the door and asking him sharply, “Did you take the paperclip out of my math book?”

With the urgency of the situation, that was certainly not what Lucas had been expecting. He stared back at Will for a moment before asking, “What?”

Will turned his bag around from his back and pulled the book out, showing Lucas the crimped top. “I used to have a paperclip holding these pages together and now it’s gone.”

“Will,” Lucas started to almost laugh, “I can get you another paperclip.”

“No,” Will groaned, throwing his head back, before refining his question to, “Did you look at the pages?”

“No, I didn’t touch your paperclip.”

“Well someone did.”

“It was probably just Mike when he was doing the homework,” Lucas told him, “it’s not a big deal.”

“Yes it is,” Will pressed, “I had those pages together for a reason.”

Lucas squinted. Maybe he was dreaming. “What reason?”

Solemnly, Will’s face shifted. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“What?”

“If I tell you what was in the book, you can’t tell anyone.”

“Okay,” Lucas shrugged, even if he didn’t really know what he was getting himself into.

As Will opened to the first page, he also added the term, “You’re not allowed to laugh.”

Which was a necessary one because when the book was being turned around and he was faced with a drawing of Mike Wheeler with flowers in his hair, he wanted to laugh.

Will handed him the book before he went off to pace in the bathroom. It was a nice drawing, Lucas wasn’t really sure what Will was so afraid of, until he turned the next page.

For some reason, he assumed there’d be a drawing of each of them or something, or of a Star Wars character, but instead, page after page was Mike.

Oh.

When Lucas looked up to meet Will’s wet eyes, he understood instantly.

“Will,” he said so softly.

But Will was shaking his head, he didn’t need this right now with the mystery at hand. “Look at the last page.”

Lucas was hoping he wasn’t about to turn to something pornographic—really, that was the only thing that he could think of that could make this all worse.

Well, he clearly wasn’t being imaginative enough because clearly what could make it all worse was the drawing being ripped out.

Before Lucas had even looked up from the missing picture, Will was asking, “Do you think Mike has it? That he saw all of it?”

Lucas sighed. He wished he could lie to preserve Will’s feelings, but instead he told him honestly, “There’s no way it would’ve ripped out naturally like that.”

Will plunged his head into his hands, prompting Lucas to take one step forward and put a hand on his shoulder. He was quiet for a second, brewing almost, before he sighed and said, “So that’s why you’re pissed.”

“What? I’m not pissed.”

“Dustin said you were. That it’s too hard to care about Mike with how much he’s changed.”

Will leaned against the wall, forgetting how disgusting it must be in this dreamlike stance. “It’s not that. I’ll always care about him, it’s just…it’s hard to be in love with him and imagine a life with him when it’s unpredictable if he’ll even be around. You know, physically but also mentally.”

“Yeah I get that. You think it’s not hard for us? I mean…I’ve known Mike as long as you have, I’ve never seen him like this. It’s terrifying.”

“I know people grow apart when they get older, but…I didn’t think it would happen like this.”

Lucas seemed to only sigh in response as they both stared into the tiled floor. With their gazes seeped out their pain and let them drown in it.

Will said softly, so softly and so small—just like how he sounded when he was in kindergarten, “I think I’m just really scared. I don’t want to see him hurt.”

“He’s gonna have scars for the rest of his life,” Lucas pondered. But, pondering further, he also added, “Honestly, I don’t think I’ve seen him in, like, a t-shirt in years.”

Which was unfortunately very true. They hadn’t really seen his arms since a few summers ago, not even at sleepovers or at the pool. Now they knew why. They knew why he looked so tired and why he was so thin, even if they didn’t fully understand it.

“I don’t want to be the reason that he’s doing this to himself,” Will said quietly.

“You’re not.”

But Lucas didn’t know what was written in that note. Mike was upset that he didn’t have Will’s love—Will had really thought that he couldn’t be more obvious with Mike, that he showed him more than enough love. But it wasn’t enough, he had fucked it all up.

“If he doesn’t want to talk to me, I can’t push it. I can’t make it worse for him, I just can’t.” In an explosion, Will started to cry. He’d only really reserved that for when he was in his room alone at night with darkness harnessing his thoughts and fighting off sleep. Lucas didn’t bat an eye, though, he just surged forward to wrap him in a hug to protect him from the racing heart in his chest.

Mike was trying not to cry as he sat in the office and waited for his mom. His lunch box was so heavy in his hands and he had half the mind to just throw it away, but his mom had to know when his lunchtime was, or at the very least could figure it out.

It seemed the school would feed her any information she needed with how they jumped to dismiss Mike the second he walked in. They didn’t notice him at first, he hadn’t been one to frequent the school office, but when he gave the secretary his name, her eyes widened. “Oh, of course dear,” she gushed, “have a seat against the wall, I’ll give her a call for you.”

As he sat, the school counselor poked her head inside of the room. He tried not to look at first, but she was definitely worlds smarter than him.

Ms. Kelly nearly tiptoed over to him she was so cautious, but she still asked, “Do you mind if I sit here?”

He just shrugged. He had hoped that maybe she wasn’t sitting beside him for the reason he knew had to be true—maybe she had no idea who he was and she’s just doing routine check-ins, the kind that he had never received before. But no, the office must have grabbed her the second they laid eyes on him because she was saying in a teasingly soft voice, “Michael, I’m Ms. Kelly, I’m the guidance counselor here.”

“I know,” he mumbled.

“I just wanted to welcome you back to school. How was your first day?”

He shrugged, eyes on the ground, hands sweaty on the handle of his lunch box. “Fine.”

“I know it’s a hard transition.” Her voice was so smooth and so gentle but he didn’t trust it somehow. He just wanted his mom. “But I’m so proud of you for coming today.”

Mike wasn’t sure if he was supposed to answer that. It wasn’t a question, he didn’t really care if this stranger was proud of him or not. School’s main goal is to get kids there so of course she was happy.

She accepted his silence, though, and told him, “I’d like to see you for a little bit on Monday, okay? Maybe I can come grab you from gym class?”

That was a fair deal. He was getting his stitches out in a few hours if everything looked okay, but still wouldn’t be caught dead in gym class with Will Byers. So, he shrugged and said, “Yeah.”

“Great!” She put a soft hand on his shoulder which had the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. “I hope you have a good weekend, Michael.”

He nodded curtly, hoping that the faster he did it the faster she’d leave.

He was right. She just needed the proof of consciousness and then she was off down the hall. And Mike was alone again.

Until his mom came splattering into the office. One would think that she had spent her morning just sitting in the driveway at home, waiting to pick him up with how fast she was plowing in.

She walked right over to hold him under his arm as he stood. Despite the secretaries watching on and some kids outside of the principal’s office peeking, he melted into her touch as she rubbed his hair and said into him, “Hi, sweetheart; are you feeling okay?”

“Just tired.”

So she let him lay down, not even asking about the lunch.

She had to choose her battles carefully with the fact that they were taking bandages off of his arms at the hospital.

The cuts were healing fine and the stitches were good to come out, but that just made Mike’s stomach flip flop. He suspected that his mom had the same worry with the curl of her eyebrow as she watched on—that they were presenting him with a clean and free canvas.

He looked up at the ceiling with his eyes screwed shut at they took out the stitches.

She had picked her battles wisely it seemed because, when they had finished at the doctors, she was dragging him to get a late lunch at the diner they used to stop at after church, back when it wasn’t a pain to get everyone out of the house. Before Holly could talk, before Nancy wanted to pick out her own clothes and before Mike hated the world almost as much as he hated himself.

The seats were warm and the tables sticky and the menus smelled wet which made Mike not want to touch it.

“Whatever you want,” his mom said softly.

He grimaced at her.

She ordered a coffee, he got water.

She busied herself with the menu while she asked, “So how was school today?”

“It was okay.”

“Just okay?”

He knew she was asking to distract him from the food decisions right in front of him—he could get his mind off the menu while he talked but was also comforted knowing that she wasn’t thinking about his food while she listened and read—God, she was smart. It didn’t work too well, though, because his stomach was then just swirling with worry about the school day.

“I don’t know, it was just…weird.”

His mom hesitated, looking at him carefully. “Weird? Who was being weird?”

“No one was being weird. Well, Ms. Kelly was.”

“Ms. Kelly?”

“The guidance counselor. She tried talking to me.”

“You wouldn’t talk to her?”

“No,” he huffed. “I was just waiting for you, so it wasn’t a good time I guess. I have a meeting with her on Monday.”

That calmed her and she nodded while looking back at her menu. “That’s good.”

“I got a lot of makeup work for English and History.”

“So we’ll need to work on that when we get home.”

“I guess.”

“And maybe this weekend, your friends could come over?”

Mike shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Did you…did you get to talk to Will?”

It was great she wasn’t looking at him because his eyes were immediately filled with fear.

“I didn’t see him,” he said emptily.

“You don’t have any classes together?”

“No we do,” he said awkwardly, shifting around in his seat. “But I can’t do gym and I left before Bio. He didn’t hang out with us in the morning either.”

She hummed and nodded. “Would you want to invite him over?”

“Not really,” he huffed. He was back and forth in his mind about Will—there was the anger for him screwing up his chances at escape and the embarrassment that he felt now that he knew his deepest thoughts, but at the same time, there was an intrigue in the fact that Will might like him back with how he doodled pictures of him in their shared math class. Maybe he had a chance.

So she swallowed down with a nod. When it came time to order food, he just got what she got.

Thinking about it, he did want to talk to Will. He needed to know why he had littered his entire trigonometry textbook with drawings of Mike.

But he also didn’t want to go about it the wrong way. The thought of looking at Will in the eye right now had his throat closing up so he knew he was just bound to screw everything up.

He needed to think about it, to think about everything, but when him and his mom pulled into their driveway, Lucas Sinclair was sitting on their porch.

He stood up the second he saw the car, switching his weight between his feet while he waited for Mike to approach. “Hey, I didn’t know where you guys were so…,” he awkwardly said.

Karen took to responding, rubbing his arm and saying, “What a nice surprise, why don’t you come on in?”

Lucas looked to Mike before accepting that offer, agreeing only after he nodded.

“Can I get you anything?” Mike’s mom asked as they all came inside, but Lucas just shook his head and answered, “I think, uh, we’re just gonna talk.”

Her eyes softened as she looked to her son. “Okay, well let me know if you two need anything.”

Mike asked his mom hopefully, “Can I close the door?”

Karen hoped that through her glance to Lucas that he understood what she was asking him to do for her: keep an eye on her son.

But he had bigger worries. The second the door was closed, he asked, “Can we talk about Will?”

Mike rolled his eyes. “What about Will?”

Despite the fact that Lucas had so long to sit on the porch and think through his moves, maybe make it all a bit more sensitive, he was diving right in with, “He said you ripped a page out of his math book.”

Awkwardly, Mike scratched his neck, hoping that Lucas couldn’t see through the pocket of his jeans were the drawing had been living. “Uh…maybe?”

“Did you?”

“Why? What’s the big deal? It was just a corner."

Lucas knew he couldn’t spill. It wasn’t like Will had asked him to confront Mike or gave him permission to tell Mike what this was all about. So, he lied through his teeth as he shrugged and said, “He’s just…he’ll have to pay a damage fee for the book.”

“I’ll give him the money.”

“Still. You should talk to him about it.”

“Is he seriously being pissy about a corner page in his stupid text book?”

Lucas threw his arms up in the air. “I mean, can you blame him? You’re mad at him, he’s mad at you, you guys need to talk to each other.”

“If he wanted to talk to me, he would.”

“He’s tried.”

“Not really! After the hospital, he came by one time and that was because my mom told him to.”

Mike had to know deep down that the drawings were just delusional. If Will really cared about him, then he would’ve tried.

But Lucas wasn’t seeing that because Lucas actually knew the truth about the picture.

“Look,” he said carefully, “this is hard for him.”

“Oh my God,” Mike groaned, “I don’t care how hard it is for everyone! You think it isn’t hard for me?”

“No, I know it is,” Lucas sighed, “that’s not what I’m trying to say.”

“Then what are you trying to say?”

“That he thinks it’s his fault or something!” Mike immediately cowered, eyes wide, and Lucas was trying to take a mental step back. “Mike, I don’t know what was going through your head when…you did it. But I do know that Will thinks he’s part of it. And he doesn’t want to reach out because he doesn’t want to make it worse.”

"He can't make this all about him," was what Mike muttered.

"You made it about him. Jesus, he’s the last person you talked to, you gave him your suicide note."

"It wasn't a suicide note!" Mike yelled for the thousandth time, except, this time, he kept going with pouring everything out to Lucas as he said, "I only gave that to him because I wanted him to know that I loved him because I’ve never told him that and I didn’t want to die without him knowing because he’s too important to me.”

Lucas’ shoulders fell. “I’m sure he already knew you loved him.”

“Not like that,” Mike hissed.

Lucas took a literal step back, hitting the door. "What?" Dropped plain out of his mouth.

Mike didn't answer, he just slumped down onto the bed.

Lucas immediately shook out of whatever shock had riddled him and rushed to Mike's side, kneeling in front of him. "Are you serious right now?" He asked gently.

"Yes I'm serious," he sighed in return, "who the hell would joke about being a queer?"

"Sorry, I just...I just didn't expect that."

Into the ground, Mike asked, "So Will really didn't tell you guys?"

"No, he refused to tell us what you said."

Mike nodded. So maybe he did care. Maybe. Just maybe.

Lucas shifted. “So, you’re…like…?”

“A queer?” Mike supplied. “Yeah.”

This was a whirlwind of a day for Lucas, but he still surged forward and hugged Mike tightly. Hoping it would help his stressful cries. He hushed, “That’s okay, man. Really.”

“Are you sure?” Mike asked all muffled into Lucas’ shoulder.

“Yeah I’m sure. We’re cool.” When Lucas pulled away, he tried to ignore Mike wiping at his eyes while he asked, “Does anyone else know?”

“I told Dustin and my mom.” Lucas tried not to be upset that he was this far down on his list of people to know—he really thought if they ranked all of the friends in closeness to Mike, he’d surely be above Dustin. He especially thought that when Mike cringed and said, “And I think I accidentally told Steve.”

“Steve Harrington?” Lucas’ eyes bulged out. “Why’d you tell Steve?”

“I didn’t mean to! I don’t know, it’s been a weird week.”

“You’re telling me.”

Lucas might have thought it was a joke, this weirdness of the week, but it was sitting heavily on Mike’s shoulders. Of course it was. So, Lucas hauled himself up to the bed to sit next to him and say, “I’ve really missed you.”

“Sorry I freaked out.”

“I don’t mean that,” Lucas shook his head. “I know you’ve been struggling for a really long time. And you've been different. It’s not just the last few days, I’ve missed you a lot. For years, it feels like.”

Still, Mike said, “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. I just want to help.”

“There’s no way to help,” Mike was resigned with.

Lucas didn’t buy that. There had to be a way to help, there was always a way to help—the party should know that better out of anyone.

So he suggested, “How about we hang out tonight? Dustin can come over too and we just watch movies, play Nintendo, whatever you want.”

Mike looked at him warily. “Are you sure?”

“Am I sure what?”

“That you want to hang out with me?”

Lucas didn’t know how important this was to him, he didn’t know that it was the last thing that Mike asked for before he tried to take his own life, it was the one thing that he thought could save him and he was denied.

So Lucas smirked. “I wanted to hang out with you when you were moody and dying in the hospital, of course I’m sure.” Maybe the downplaying of the situation helped because Mike laughed.

Karen could’ve cried tears of joy while she watched the three boys run down to the basement together. The only thing missing was Will Byers, but there were so many things that were right that she couldn’t be too bothered. Her son was smiling.

And Dustin and Lucas tried as hard as they possibly could to keep that smile on his face, ramping up the jokes and not letting there be a single dull moment where Mike’s mind could wander.

But he also looked exhausted not too long into the night.

“Is he asleep?” Dustin was whispering, although not well, barely at eight o’clock.

Lucas threw his head back to the couch and sure enough, Mike’s face was pressed against the armrest, his eyes closed, his mouth slightly open—breathing heavily.

“I guess,” Lucas snorted. He turned back to the coffee table and said, “So…guess we get his dinner.”

Dustin took in the scene: the snacks that Karen brought down and the plate that she made for Mike with chips and pizza that was picked at.

Ever bluntly, he asked, “You think he’s anorexic?”

Lucas exhaled deeply. “I don’t know, man. I think he’s a lot of things.” Going off of that, he rolled his head over and said, “He told me he’s gay today.”

Dustin shifted so he could have an eye on Mike as he said, “Yeah, he told me last night.”

It was like he needed to be looking at Mike to make it true. It had hit him so heavily, this new fact about Mike, that he needed to ground it in something tangible. Mike wasn’t different with this, he was sleeping just like he did when he was eight years old.

“How do you…I don’t know, what do you think of that?”

“Of Mike being gay?” Dustin clarified. “I don’t really think anything of it. I don’t know.”

“I just wouldn’t have expected it I guess. But it makes sense that he’s in love with Will.”

Now Dustin looked back at him with eyes wide. “He told you that?”

“He told Will that.” Everything was on the table now with Lucas picking the chips off of Mike’s plate.

“Shut the fuck up,” Dustin nearly gasped, cozying himself in for a full gossip session. “When?”

“In the suicide note. Or, not suicide note, the regular note.”

“Wow. Those were his last words? Admitting he’s in love with Will?”

“I guess.”

“So that’s why he didn’t want to tell us what he said,” Dustin pondered for a second longer, his eyes glazing over, but he nearly exploded as he said, “Then why the hell is Will so mad at him?”

“Because it’s hard for him to see Mike hurt.”

“But still, he knows that Mike’s into him, you’d think that—,” but he cut himself off when he realized what he was starting to say.

Lucas’ eyes grew. “That what?”

Scrambling, Dustin said, “I don’t know, that he’d be more, like, sensitive.”

Lucas also didn’t want to get too close to the truth he knew, but he couldn’t help but say, “Yeah, I mean…if he knows Mike was in love with him, you’d think he’d…you know.”

“Date him?” Dustin dared.

Lucas shrugged. “If he…wanted to.”

“Well would you want to?” Dustin tried to laugh. “Will’s not responsible for keeping Mike alive.”

“I know that…but if it’s Will,” Lucas’ voice trailed off.

Dustin frowned. “And Will’s in love with him too.”

Trying to be coy and secretive was out the window as Lucas’ eyebrows rose. “Did he tell you that?”

“Did he tell you anything?” Dustin clarified.

“I mean…we talked about…stuff.”

“So what do you know?”

“What do you know?”

Dustin grimaced. “We both know, right?”

“Both know what?”

“That Mike and Will are in love with each other?”

That was good enough for Lucas to read between the lines and he said, “Well I know that he has drawings of Mike in his math book.”

Dustin popped up from behind his hands, nearly laughing. “No way.”

“And Mike saw it.”

“How the fuck do you know that?”

“Because Mike ripped one of the drawings out of the book and Will was asking if I did it.”

“And Will still thinks Mike’s done with him? Even though he knows Mike’s in love with him and he knows that Mike knows that he’s in love with him?”

“And Mike thinks Will’s done with him.”

Dustin shook his head, leaning back. “Goddamn, they’re stupid.”

“Is that news to you?” Lucas could’ve laughed. “Mike hates himself, he doesn’t even eat, man, you think that he’d ever try to get with Will?”

That laid a somber mood over it all, Dustin warily looking at Mike before asking, “Are you worried about him?”

“About Mike?” Dustin nodded. “Of course I am.”

They could understand that this wasn’t normal. They had known Mike for forever, they knew who he really was. That is, until, he started closing up years ago and now all they knew was the outer shell of who they once loved.

They still loved him, they’d always love him, but it was so hard to look at him the same. Without fearing him.

Karen Wheeler came downstairs as their movie was ending, frowning when she saw the state of her son. “Has he been out for a while?”

“Just like an hour,” Lucas answered.

She inspected his plate from earlier, though, and smiled. They didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was empty because they split his leftovers.

She sat down on the edge of the couch with the tube of the ointment she had to put on his arm still and new gauze in her hands. They tried to act like they weren’t watching her unwrap his arms, but were doing a terrible job at it.

So Karen smiled at them and said, “Thank you. For being here for him.”

The realism in the room swirled around. Dustin smiled at her. “Of course.”

“Really,” she insisted, though, “I know that it’s hard for everyone to go through this, but he really needs your patience and your love.”

Lucas shrugged. “We need his too.”

And they watched as she peeled off the bandages he got from the hospital, knowing that if they were going to help him, they needed to know all of him.

Even though it was so hard.

Lucas was right, they hadn’t seen Mike’s forearms in years; it was startling to see the skinny and pale sticks attached to him, but even more heartbreaking because the skin was torn up. Nothing looked healed, he was just covered in angry red lines, covered.

But they had to pretend they weren’t watching when Mike woke up.

When he realized what was going on, he sat up in a quick fear. “Sorry, honey,” Karen cooed, “I’m almost done with this.”

But he was glaring daggers at Lucas and Dustin to have them look away.

“Mom,” he hissed, “it’s fine.”

“If you’re going to keep putting the gauze on, we need to keep putting cream on.”

“You could’ve just woken me up,” he groaned in response.

She finished quickly and hid from the argument, telling them, “Don’t stay up too late, okay?”

Which was funny because Mike had clearly retired to turning in early. Not anymore, now he was almost committed to being wide awake all night just because she told him not to.

Once she had went back upstairs, he hauled himself up on the couch, pulling his sleeves down and said simply, “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Dustin reassured. “The movie’s over, but we can do something else.”

Mike wasn’t listening, they noticed that immediately. When he pulled down his sleeves, his attention stayed on his arms, rubbing at them and holding the sleeve above his hand.

“Hey,” Lucas said gently, “you good?”

“Sorry,” Mike replied, snapping straight out of it and trying to focus back in on them.

But they all knew what was in the back of his mind.

“You got your stitches out,” Lucas observed.

Mike ducked his head down in embarrassment. “Yeah,” he mumbled, “I did after school.”

“Well, that’s great, right?” Dustin said all cheery. “Everything’s healing well.”

“Physically, I guess.”

It was weird to hear this hushed topic be talked about so bluntly. When Lucas’ mom told him what happened, it was with such a timid nature and they hadn’t talked about it in depth since. They’d ask how Mike was doing at the dinner table and if he was in school but never speculated further and thought about the truth in his head.

So, hearing that, Lucas completely deflated. “Are you still feeling like you want to…you know?”

“‘You know’ what?”

“Die.”

Dustin held his breath, maybe him and Lucas both did as they awaited his answer.

Which was Mike sighing. “I don’t know. Yeah? I just…want to be done.”

“Done with what?” Dustin asked.

“Feeling miserable.”

With a solemn smile, Lucas tried to say, “It’ll get better.”

“It hasn’t. It’s been like this forever.”

With his stomach falling, Dustin breathed, “Did you want to die when you jumped off the cliff?”

Lucas eyed them strangely but it wasn’t the main focus with how Mike’s shoulders sagged so low. “I don’t know,” he whispered through a cracking voice. “Maybe.”

“I thought you didn’t jump,” Lucas said.

“In middle school,” Dustin supplied. “When Will went missing, Troy and James, like, chased us to the quarry and held a knife on me. They said they’d cut out my teeth unless Mike jumped.”

Lucas looked over at Mike. “You jumped?”

Like his head weighed a thousand pounds, Mike nodded. “El caught him,” Dustin said.

Lucas’ eyes grew. “Mike,” he said so gently, so soft; reaching over to grab his hand, do something to ground him and know that Mike was still here and he was okay. "You would've died."

“I couldn’t do it,” Mike tried to say, but there was like a bubble of sobs blocking his voice. “Will was gone and you were mad at me and I thought…they’d leave Dustin alone if I jumped and…I don’t know, maybe I’d get to see Will again. And Dustin would be safe and…everything would be fine.”

Dustin rose to sit on the couch beside him. “Is that when this all started? You said you first cut yourself in seventh grade."

“I don’t know. I’ve never forgotten that feeling. I think I remember…in the back of my head that I need to punish myself. Like, maybe Troy and James had a point and maybe I could’ve prevented all of this if I wasn’t the way I was.”

“You couldn’t have prevented this,” Lucas sighed, “none of this is your fault. The Upside Down, that is completely out of your control.”

“I didn’t help.”

“Yes you did. If it wasn’t for you, we would’ve given up looking for Will. We wouldn’t have found El. We wouldn’t have had half of the bravery that you gave us.”

Dustin shook his head and said, “You’ve been through a lot, man. You need to be easier on yourself.”

“You’re all fine, though.”

“We just deal with it differently, everyone deals with it differently.”

“And you have other things going on,” Lucas added. “It’s okay if this is all hitting you really hard. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“You don’t get it,” Mike said. He was still crying and it made their skin crawl.

“Then help us understand,” Lucas pleaded. “We want to be able to understand you. I can’t see you hurt yourself anymore.”

Mike rolled his eyes so obviously. “You’ve never seen me hurt myself.”

“What are you doing right now? Did you eat dinner?”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Lucas took his hand off as he stood in front of Mike. “I’m being serious, do you not realize what you’re doing?”

"Stop it."

"I'm not gonna stop it, we need to have a real conversation about what is going on with you."

“It’s none of your business.”

“Of course it is, we’re your friends.”

“Why?”

Lucas’s jaw dropped. “Why? Like, why are we your friends?”

“Yeah.” He was still crying, that was apparent, but he still stuck his chin out and snapped, “Why are you?”

Lucas’ hands splayed out in front of himself for a moment—not because he couldn’t think of something to say, but because he didn’t know what to start with. “Because you’re fun to be around. And you're funny and creative and you care so much about the people around you.”

“You were the only person that was nice to me when I moved here,” Dustin added. “I mean, it’s not like Lucas and Will didn’t bully me, but you really cared about making me feel included.”

Mike ducked his head down, but Lucas kneeled back on the floor to catch his gaze. “You’re smart, so smart—not just academically but also socially. Even though you’re awkward and you like weird things, you know how the world works and you know how to make things happen.”

“And you listen. To every dumb story that we tell and all of the problems that we have.”

There was a lull as they hoped that would rattle around and stick in Mike’s head.

Instead, he was raising his eyes, the eyes so full of pain, and he said, “But Will doesn’t think that.”

“Of course he does,” Dustin said warmly.

It didn’t matter what Dustin said, Mike’s mind would warp his words into whatever it wanted.

“How could you think that? I’ve been so shitty to him.”

“Don’t do that,” Lucas sighed heavily, a hand rubbing Mike’s shoulder.

“I have though. That’s what he told me, he said I’m the most selfish person he’s ever met, he was right.”

“He was just hurt.”

“But he’s right; no one could ever like me that way.”

“That’s not true, Mike,” Dustin said deeply. “You’re a great guy, really.”

“You don’t have to lie to me,” Mike replied with a shake of his head. “I know I’m annoying and rude and antisocial and whatever.”

“So what?" Lucas groaned. "You’ve been in a bad place, that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.”

“But he doesn’t like me, Lucas.” His eyes were full of so much pain that it was making Lucas understand everything inside of him. “I’ve messed up too much, I ruined it with him.”

“You didn’t ruin it.”

“The most selfish thing I could’ve done is try to kill myself. He was right. I’m screwing everything up.” He buried his head into his hands and cried hard.

The other two accepted that broken silence, Lucas sitting on the couch as they both wrapped their arms around him to protect him from this world.

And he just cried, his chest shaking under their grasps. No one spoke, they just listened to Mike’s struggling breaths through his drowning sorrow.

He hadn’t broken down like this in front of them, but they had to know that this was a regular occurrence for him. At least they knew now why he was so exhausted all the time.

When his breathing had slowed and he finally calmed after an eternity passed, they were still hugging him and Lucas asked, “Do you want anything to eat?”

Mike shook his head.

“You need to eat,” Dustin murmured.

“I can’t.”

“Can you try?” Lucas begged. “Please.”

“It’s too hard.”

They tried to listen to that. It was too hard for him to change his clothes before he went back to sleep on the couch. Dustin and Lucas still changed and cleaned up and brushed their teeth and laid out blankets and pillows on the floor.

But then they didn’t lay down. They both sat on their makeshift beds in front of the couch, staring at Mike asleep ahead of them.

“I don’t want to sleep,” Dustin admitted. “I feel like we’re gonna wake up and he’ll be gone.”

“He probably will.”

"I wonder how his mom’s able to sleep.”

“Maybe she drugs him.”

“I think antidepressants are supposed to make you more energetic.”

“Well then his suck.”

They eventually did fall asleep and Mike was still there when they all woke up close to noon. And so was Nancy Wheeler upstairs.

She clapped and she wrapped her arms around him and gushed so hastily, “How are you doing?”

When he wasn’t smothered much longer, he answered hoarsely, “I’m fine,” as an utter lie.

He felt sad. And had no reason to.

And she saw right through it—his sunken face and his friends’ worried eyes. With her hands on her hips, she asked more pointedly, “What happened?”

“Nothing happened, Nance. It’s just…how it is.”

Maybe she thought that she could cure this bout by coming up for the weekend. She offered to bring them to the arcade, to the movies, to bake them cookies and build them a fort like when they were kids. It was too bad he wanted nothing. Nothing but to wither away.

Jonathan skipped out and went to visit his family first which was definitely the best decision. They didn’t have to worry about him lurking around during the late breakfast, but Mike did have to worry about his eventual return. Dinner.

Lucas and Dustin left and Mike changed his clothes and laid on his floor until Nancy came to the door.

It was open as it was supposed to be and she barely pushed on it before stepping inside, her heart dropping to her stomach.

She rushed over to him, kneeling on the ground and screaming, “Mike!”

He sat up and stared at her strangely, but that first sight of movement was what she needed to see to make the promise that he was alive.

“Oh my God,” she breathed, pulling him in for a hug.

But he wasn’t hearing her, he was hearing his mom’s voice as she charged up the stairs calling, “Nancy? Is he okay?”

He wasn’t okay, not anymore. He pushed Nancy off of him as his mom came in the room, eyes wide and suddenly out of breath. “Christ, Nance,” she sighed, rubbing her head.

“He was just lying on the ground!” Nancy yelled back.

“I’m fine,” Mike snapped, anger and a strange embarrassment filling him.

“You’re not acting like you’re fine,” Nancy snapped right back though. “You’ve been shut inside of your room, like, all day.”

“Nancy,” Karen warned, “that’s enough.”

Nancy rolled her eyes, pulling herself up off the ground. “Well, Jesus, sorry for worrying then.”

She shoved her way past their mom to get out, meeting up with Jonathan, who was, of course, lurking in the hall. Mike still sat on the ground though, glaring up at his mom like she was to blame for the anger inside of him. She could feel it and said, “Sweetheart, we’re all, just…a little on edge.”

Forcefully, he nodded from his little spot on the floor. Logically, his mom knew it was best to just leave it. Leave him alone and don’t push it. So, she said, “Dinner’s ready.”

Like that would make anything better. They had to all know it’d be worse which might have been why they were all silent at the dining table. Just sneaking glances at Mike with his messy hair and tear streaked face.

But that didn’t help at all--the silence. It had Mike’s skin crawling until he slammed his silverware down on the table and nearly yelled, “What? What’s the problem?”

“There isn’t a problem,” his mom said, completely hollow. Not even looking at him.

“Obviously there is.”

“I told you, we’re all a little on edge.”

“Because of me,” he supplied.

She screwed her mouth shut, not wanting to admit it to him and point her fingers at him.

But his dad had no issue saying, “You did something kind of bold, Michael; you can’t blame your mother for being worried.”

Nancy was the one that echoed in a questioning tone, “‘Kind of bold'? Dad, seriously?”

“What do you want me to say? Holly’s right here.” That was true, she was looking around the tale, eyes wide.

“I want you to not try to dismiss this as just some small little glitch. It’s serious.”

“Nancy,” their mother warned once again, “not right now.”

“Then when?” Nancy asked exasperatedly, also throwing her silverware down. “You guys haven’t told me shit about what’s actually going on.”

“Yes I have.”

“You haven’t, you said he was doing better.”

“And some days are worse than others.”

Mike’s ears started ringing. But not too much that he didn’t hear Nancy huff, “So he’s just gonna be in an awful mood whenever I’m here. It’s my fault?”

Before the sentence could even drop in the room, Mike was flaring up, reaming into her from across the way, “It’s not about you! Do you think I want to be like this? Have you ever thought about what it’s like for me? To live like this every single fucking day?”

“Michael,” Karen sighed with an almost eye roll.

“No,” he snapped back, “you guys don’t get to act like you care about me all of a sudden and you don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“No one’s telling you what to do,” Nancy argued.

“You are, you’re complaining that I’m not in a good enough mood? Sorry I'm not perfect like you, Nance. Next time I'll try a little harder to off myself."

Nancy went white. "Don't."

"Don't what? Kill myself?" He started to pull himself up from the table as he said in hysterics, "Clearly I should! That'd make everything better!"

"It wouldn't."

He turned to walk away from the table, but his mom was immediately on her feet, running after and grabbing his forearm, saying, “Mike, stop it.”

All that he felt though was a pain at the contact and tears in his eyes and he peeled out, “Ow, get off!” His knees buckled underneath him and he started trying to wriggle her off on his way to the floor, but then Jonathan was there also holding him back from whatever his plan had been.

What was his plan? Where was he going? Back to the quarry to finish what he started? He had no plan.

All that he had was the ability to try and kick his feet and scream loud enough to get them to let go, but they didn’t. The restrained him as he cried and wailed on the floor, his own hands tense as he punched himself, Jonathan might’ve gotten kicked in his jaw and his mom might’ve gotten her hair pulled but they didn’t let him go until he was dry heaving on the floor.

As they sat on the floor with him, his mom ran her fingers through his hair, asking gently, “Do you want to lay down on the couch?” He shook his head. “Your room?” No. “The basement?” No.

So they left him there and sat in the living room where they could keep an eye on him. When they were sure he fell asleep, Nancy started to cry. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered to her mom, “I shouldn’t have said anything.” Jonathan had shifted from hugging Mike on the ground to now hugging Nancy on the couch.

“No, honey,” Karen cooed, “it’s not you. He’s just…not the same right now. He’s sensitive.”

“I’m sorry,” she still spat out again. She was starting to get hysterical like Mike had been, shaken to her core. “I should’ve been here.”

“There’s nothing you could’ve done.”

“But you guys didn’t even notice?” Nancy snapped fiercely. “You didn’t even notice he wanted to die?”

“Of course I noticed.”

“But you didn’t do anything.”

“What was I supposed to do?” It seemed like Karen was really seriously asking her daughter to answer the question. “He’s been unraveling for years, Nance. I can’t make him talk to me, I can’t make him eat or hang out with his friends. He’s been really struggling. And all that he does is just shut everyone out. I knew there was something wrong, but I didn’t know he was going to slit his wrists, I didn’t realize I had to keep such a close eye on him.” Tears were streaming down her face to match her daughter. “You don’t think I’ve been eating myself up inside about not getting him help?” She asked hysterically. “I almost lost my son.”

Nancy softened. “It’s not your fault.”

“Then whose fault is it?”

“It’s no one’s fault. It doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault, there’s,” Nancy looked over to Mike, still asleep in a heap on the floor, before whispering, “there’s something wrong with him.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true isn’t it? What does he have?”

Nursing her head in her hands, Karen told her, “The shrink said he has depression, but probably other stuff too. Needs to get to know him more.”

Jonathan now decided to give his two cents with how Nancy gripped his arm a little tighter. “Have you thought about him staying somewhere? Like a hospital?”

Nanny’s eyes bulged out of her head. “Like Pennhurst? He’s not crazy, Jonathan.”

“I know that, I’m not saying he is. I just know that this is a lot and they would take care of him in a hospital. You know, keep an eye on him and help him get better.”

Karen’s head was still in her hands, utterly overwhelmed. Nancy couldn’t take her eyes off of Mike. He looked so lifeless, and even if he was breathing, he was still so lifeless.

So she admitted hollowly, “He needs help, Mom.”

And their mom was committed on getting him help. Sunday was a slow day—Mike stayed in bed the whole day and no one bothered to do anything about it. The only thing done was that his parents spoke about getting him into a hospital while he was none the wiser. First thing Monday morning, Karen called the psychiatrist’s office to get any and all information on psychiatric hospitals in the area that would take a fifteen year old boy. She spoke with some of them on the floor, writing notes on the back of envelopes to find the place with a bed that they could bring him to the next morning. Or, rather, drop him off.

It was a secret gripping her tongue throughout the day. He had his psychiatrist appointment and they scooted around the topic of his mother’s plan and instead focused on how he was feeling which was impossible because he wasn’t feeling anything.

Not even when Lucas was once again waiting on his doorstep with a smile on his face when they got back.

“Hey, man,” he greeted him with alongside a hug which felt necessary given the circumstances. “Didn’t see you at school today.”

Mike awkwardly nodded his head around. He hadn’t talked much since his disaster at the dinner table and his throat was all raspy. “I didn’t go.”

“Is everything okay?”

He shrugged and nodded, contradictory responses that had his mom ticking her tongue in the background like it would give Lucas a more clear answer.

Which it didn’t. Mike was fine two days ago, or as fine as he could be—getting better, but now it was back to the drawing board. He was pale and his eyes dark and he was so sunken in on himself that it pained Lucas to look at him.

Still. Lucas swallowed his concern down. If Mike didn’t know, if Mike didn’t care, it wasn’t worth it. “There was a fight at lunch,” he offered.

Mike nodded once again.

“And we had a meeting for Hellfire.”

“Why don’t we come inside so you can talk about it?” Karen lit up. “I’ll grab some snacks.”

“I’m not hungry,” Mike found himself saying before he even thought about it. He was hungry, but it was just a reflex and he couldn’t take it back now—maybe it was right and true.

“Michael,” she replied lowly, her eyes drilling him into giving in.

It worked. He rolled his eyes and kept walking to the door.

She set them up in the dining room, bringing out some vegetables and crackers that Lucas tentatively picked at as he unpacked the recent updates—how they’ll meet in the summer and when character sheets were due for their next campaign. But then, Karen Wheeler sat down with them.

Lucas immediately clammed up, Mike staring her down in a worry.

Which he had the right to.

“I don’t want to…interrupt, but I need to talk to you about something, Michael,” she said with a tense voice.

Lucas awkwardly said, “Oh, I can, like, leave then.”

“No," she told him, placing a gentle hand on his arm as he sat across from her, “I think it’d be good for him, for you, Mike,” she looked over at him, “to have a friend here. If you’re okay with that.” As she met Lucas’ eyes, she tried to calm the fear that she saw, but she was afraid too.

“What?” Mike was now asking, utterly alert. He was wishing he hadn’t eaten anything, he was suddenly so nauseous.

It looked like it pained her to say, but she still began with, “Your father and I were talking last night about getting you more help.”

His eyes fell, shoulders drawing in.

“I’ve been calling around and found a hospital that you can stay at.” She hoped it’d be best to just blurt it out, but Mike’s head snapping up and eyes full of fear wasn’t what she had expected.

“What?” He snapped. “Like a mental hospital?”

With a sigh, she answered, “Like a psychiatric facility, yes.”

“Because I’m crazy,” he supplied.

“Because you’re sick.”

“I’m not.”

“Mike,” Lucas pleaded. They forgot he was even there, but he had tears in his eyes begging for this to be as painless as possible.

And Mike’s way of doing that was telling his mom, “I’m not going.”

“We’re bringing you in the morning.”

“I’m not going,” he snapped entirely, standing from the table in a hurried frenzy. “This is ridiculous.”

“Sit down.”

“No!” He turned and walked completely in the opposite direction, towards the front door, which automatically had Lucas’ alarm bells ringing as he bounded up to chase after him.

“Mike!” He nearly screeched as he scrambled into the hall.

Mike willingly stopped and turned, mainly to hiss, “I’m not going, she can’t make me go.”

“She’s your mom.”

“So? She’s the reason I’m like this!”

Karen was looming around the corner, tears streaming down her face as she fought weakly, “That’s not true.”

“Yes it is, you’ve never liked me!”

“No, Michael, I love you so much, that’s why I want to do this for you, to help you get better.”

“Do you not want to get better?” Lucas asked wildly.

“No, I want to die!”

His mom sobbed, “Don’t say that.”

He didn’t answer though, he just turned again to get to the door, no plan in mind. Maybe he’d walk a mile to the quarry to finish what he started, he didn’t know.

And he didn’t have to know because Lucas was surging forward to pull him back. “Stop!” Mike cried. “Lucas!”

But Lucas wrapped his arms around Mike in a hug or a restraint, ignoring how hurt he sounded as he pleaded to his oldest friend, “No, you’re not going anywhere.”

Now Mike was just crying, crumbling in Lucas’ arms. “I don’t want to go to a hospital.” They lowered themselves to the floor, even Karen who was sitting with her back against the wall—silence fallen over them.

At least until Mike stopped hyperventilating on the floor, mumbling to himself and crying.

From her corner, Karen whispered, “We’re going to go in the morning. And we’ll get to walk around and see how it is. If you decide you really don’t want to stay, then you don’t have to.”

Mike turned from nowhere he was folded on the ground so he could see her and ask, “Really?”

“You still need to pack a bag. In case you stay. And I need you to take it seriously. Be open minded.”

“I’m not staying.”

She had been staring into the floor, but now looked over to the two boys, eyes worn and frustrated and she said more sharply, “You need to agree with me on this. Don’t decide before you get there.”

Lucas offered to help him pack, which was really Mike sitting on his bed while Lucas held up different things to bring with him. Hypothetically bring with him.

He scanned Mike’s bookshelves, asking, “Do you want to bring a book?”

Mike shrugged. “I don’t really read any.”

Lucas looked over at him strangely. “You used to read. All the time.”

“Maybe in fourth grade.”

“Do you…want to bring anything to do?”

“I’m not staying.”

Lucas’ shoulders fell with a sigh. It was conflicting. It was exhausting. Which broke his heart, he needed his best friend to be okay and he didn’t know how to make that happen. He didn’t know how to help him.

“What if you wanted to stay?”

“I’m not going to be locked up in a hospital like Eleven.”

“She wasn’t in a hospital, she was in a lab.”

“Is there a difference between that and the psych ward? They’re just gonna give me a ton of meds and tie me down to a bed.”

Lucas put his hands on his hips, suddenly stern. “You might need it. You shouldn’t want to die all the time, don’t you want that to stop? Because I know I do, I can’t stand watching you slowly kill yourself anymore.”

“I never asked you to come over,” Mike just spat back.

“But I know you, Mike. I know that you need people that care about you, that love you, and I do. I want the best for you, I want to help you, but we can’t do this all alone; you need to try new ways to get help. Why don’t you want any help?”

Mike shrank instantly. He was trying to put up a front, pushing it all away harshly so that he would be allowed to keep on his current path, the path that he knew sooner or later would end in death.

And that was hard to admit.

But Lucas was right. He knew Mike. He straightened himself, a chill shivering down him as he realized the answer to his own question. “Do you…,” he asked far too calmly than his mind was screaming, “do you have some sort of plan? To do it again?”

Mike only chewed his lip. So Lucas kept talking, “Do you know how scared I was when you didn’t show up at school? And didn’t answer the door when I knocked? I thought that you actually did it. I think about it all the time, I worry all the time.”

“I want to do it all the time,” Mike answered quietly. But, then he thought about it for a moment and clarified, “Well, I think about it all the time. I don’t know if I actually want it, but I can’t stop thinking about it. Picturing it.”

Lucas crossed the room to sit with Mike on the bed, on top of the clothes they had laid out. “What do you mean?”

“Whenever I see my wrists, all I can see is cutting them. Like it’s played out in front of me like a dream. And then my wrists just start to…ache. And I have to do it.”

Lucas nodded, a comfort to Mike that he wasn’t being questioned immediately about it all, Lucas was listening. And it had Mike spewing more, “And in the car, I picture getting in an accident. I can look at the corner of a table and think about hitting my head off of it. My mom took away a lot of stuff, but I could take too much aspirin and I could drink bleach or something.”

“Have you told this to your psychiatrist?”

“They’re just going to question me about it.”

“That’s their job.”

Mike huffed, “It’s just my life, Lucas, I have to deal with it.”

“You know it’s not normal, right? I’ve never had a thought like that, there could be something, I don’t know, up with your brain. Like something missing. That’s what they can help with at a hospital. That’s what medication can help with. It’s worth a shot.”

Finally, Mike admitted the problem: “It’s scary.”

Lucas grabbed his hand and promised, “I can go with you.”

And he did. He held Mike’s suitcase as they walked through the halls and saw the cafeteria, the recreational room, the outdoor space, the bedrooms, the therapy spaces. They talked with staff and read the schedules and the rules and Mike’s shoulders felt heavier and heavier as he was just realizing how screwed he was. How much he had to do it.

So he stayed. Lucas had packed him The Hobbit.

Mike was in the hospital for a week before anyone could come visit. It was nice to rest and to hide away from everyone, but he was also aching to see his friends and to hug his mom.

Although, he was also utterly embarrassed with the lack of progress he’d made. He was tired all the time and was still crying too many times. He didn’t like talking in group therapy and was hiding things from his therapist. He kept getting in trouble for not finishing his meals and for not taking anything seriously.

And it was surprisingly Max Mayfield that snapped him into being place. The three members of the party he was speaking to came to visit him, sitting in the visitor room with the other mentally ill patients with dead eyes and a stupid card game.

“You look…better,” she tried to offer.

“I don’t really feel better,” he muttered back.

“Still. You’re not as pale.”

One thing he was doing was digging the heel of his hand into his wrist as he was falling into a bout of anxiety. Lucas noticed and whispered, “Stop.”

“It’s fine,” Mike almost groaned, rubbing at his eyes.

“Is it all healed?”

“Yeah. Everything’s better now.”

The words were sucked out of all of them. This was so adult and it was so sensitive and they were just dumb teenagers.

Max crumbled, putting her cards down and resting her head in her hands as she blurted, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say anything like that.”

Lucas put a hand on her back, telling her, “It’s okay, we know that,” but she still brought her head up to tell Mike, “Nothing has to be better already. You’ve been struggling for years, no one’s expecting you to be completely fine after a week.”

Mike was so stuck in his head at all times that he was never able to think optimistically, he never thought that anyone could look at him in such a patient and kind light, he didn’t deserve it.

“Yes they are,” he mumbled, trying to get her to admit that he was right, that it was all hopeless.

But she wouldn’t back down. “We aren’t,” she told him. “I’ll play Spades with you every week for three years in this stupid hospital if I have to.”

“Yeah,” Dustin agreed, “you can take your time to get better, Mike. We’ll wait for you. We’ll be there for you.”

“You just need to try,” Lucas added.