Mike's pov:
At twenty-five, Mike Wheeler learns that publishing a book doesn't feel like relief.
It feels like exposure.
The first box arrives on a Tuesday. Brown cardboard. His name printed on the label makes it feel all too real. He drags it inside his apartment and leaves it by the door for an hour before opening it, like it might bite.
He Loved Me.
The title is wrong. Too blunt. Too honest. He argued with his editor about it for weeks, but the truth is he never offered a better one. He didn't want to hide.
He just didn't want to be exposed, seen.
Mike crouches on the floor and pulls out a copy. The cover is simple. Neutral. No one would guess what's inside. No one would guess it's a confession disguised as fiction, or that every sentence was written with one specific person in mind.
North Carolina sunlight spills through the window. It's warm. Quiet. Normal.
Mike hates it. The peace.
He flips past the first page, straight to the dedication. He always does.
Dedicated to my sorcerer.
I wish we had gone crazy together.
You always said I was the heart, but how could that be, when you always had mine?
He swallows.
Will Byers used to look at him like he was something worth seeing. Someone dependable. Like if Mike said the world wasn't ending, then it wasn't. Mike didn't realize how dangerous that kind of trust was until he lost it.
Until they parted ways.
The book didn't start as their story. That's the lie Mike tells himself. It started as a character sketch. Two boys. A town. A friendship stretched thin by time and fear and things neither of them had the courage for yet, or ever.
But Will crept between the lines anyway.
In the way one character noticed the other's silence before anyone else did.
In the way he always came back.
In the way fondness was never loud - just content.
Mike closes the book and presses it to his chest, like that might stop the ache from spreading.
He's tried dating. He really has.
There was a guy from one of his writing workshops. Soft hands. Kind eyes. He kissed Mike like he meant it. Mike kissed him back and felt nothing but the vague, distant pressure of lips. Like he wasn't meant to be there.
There were nights spent proving something to himself. Bars. Bedrooms. Bodies that fit well enough but never right. No matter how close someone got, there was always a gap they couldn't cross.
Because every time someone touched him in a way that was more than friends, Mike thought of Will.
Thought of sharing his walk-man.
Of knees knocking under a table.
Of that look Will used to get when he wanted to say something and didn't know how.
"You're the heart", Will had said once. Like it explained everything.
Mike laughs quietly now, sharp and humorless.
Heart. Yeah. Some heart.
He didn't follow Will to New York.
Didn't stop him from leaving.
Didn't say the words when they mattered.
He said them now, instead. Wrapped them in metaphor. Changed names. Changed places. Pretended that made it safer.
The phone buzzes on the counter.
Nancy.
He doesn't answer right away. He already knows why she's calling. He's known for weeks.
Hawkins.
The wedding.
Jonathan. Nancy.
And Will.
Mike lets the phone ring out.
He stares at the stack of books by the door and feels something tight and nervous settle in his chest. Fear, maybe. Or hope. Or the awful possibility that he's just made a mess he can't take back.
Because somewhere - New York, probably - Will Byers might be holding this book in his hands. But he'd never know.
And if he reads it closely enough, he'll know.
Mike exhales, slow and shaky.
He didn't write the book to get Will back.
That would imply he believed he deserved him.
But some part of him - stupid, stubborn, thirteen forever - still believes in miracles.
And that part of him is very, very afraid.
YOU ARE READING
He Loved Me. (Am I Too Late?)
RomanceThis is a story about a boy I loved and the many ways I failed to tell him. We grew up in the same town. We learned how to be brave together, or at least how to pretend. Everyone thought we were inseparable, and they were right - just not in the way...
