The door of Will's room flung open and Dustin, Lucas, Max, Eleven and Steve came bursting in.
"Will! Are you okay?" Max squealed as she ran to Will, brushing right past me as if I wasn't even there. The others weren't far behind her all except Eleven who stood at the door, her eyes on me and not on Will.
Eleven gently flicked her head in the direction on the door, gesturing for me to join her in the hallway. An irrational panic took over me, my mouth went dry and my heart began to beat faster as my brain screamed at me to never leave Will's side in case something happened again. My pulse sounding in my ears and my body still glued to the chair, I looked back at El with concern for Will etched into every facial feature and silently begged her to understand that I couldn't go anywhere. Eleven furrowed her brow and paced over to me. As she grabbed my hand, I flinched at her forceful touch that had once been so endearing and intriguing to me but now felt uninviting and controlling.
My head snapped around to search for Will as my mind told me I needed his permission to leave him and go with El - not that it would have mattered as she was forcefully dragging me to the door and I had no choice, I was powerless to stop her. When my eyes landed on Will, I saw his own flash to me for a second and a hint of sadness glistened within them before he looked away, becoming preoccupied telling Steve for the 73rd time since he'd gotten there that he wasn't in too much pain.
Eleven slammed the door of Will's room and rounded on me, "I need to talk to you."
"Why? What the hell was all that about, Eleven?" I demanded. In response, the curly-haired girl in front of me held out a tissue, soaked with blood for me to see. For a moment, I wondered why she was showing me this and then the gears of my brain whirred into place. "You used your powers? Why, El? We said you wouldn't do that anymore."
"Emergency." She stated, matter of factly.
"What did you do?"
"After I went home last night, I wanted to find Will. Find out what happened to him. It's bad, Mike."
"I know." I whispered, feeling sick to my stomach. "It's terrible, it's horrendous, I couldn't imagine anything worse. He told me everything."
El shook her head.
"He told me everything, Eleven. I swear he did."
El continued to shake her head and I felt my throat tighten, the acid from my empty stomach threatening to escape my body. "Shit, what didn't he tell me?"
Eleven's chocolate-coloured eyes widened like a doe's. "The cut, the one on his forehead. I saw. Alex did it. He had a knife and he dug it into Will's head and pulled it across so it would be long and deep and would scar. Said he wanted to leave his mark on Will forever so everyone would know that not only is he "a dirty queer" but he belongs to Alex and always will. He said no one will ever love him when he looks "ugly" like that, the way he never loved him."
My heart stopped and I started running down the hall, I was in desperate need of a bathroom as I couldn't hold back any longer. Retching, my stomach tried to empty itself of the nothing I'd eaten in the past twelve hours into the toilet and acid seared my throat as it left my system.
For a second, I rested my pounding head against the cool pan as tears slipped from my eyes. Will had lied to me and told me that Alex had only watched when in actual fact, he'd been the one to cause the most damage to him. He'd left Will a parting gift, a memento of their time together that would remain on his face for life and every time Will would look in a mirror, he'd be forced to remember that night all over again. Emotional torture would follow him everywhere, everyday.
Lightheaded and shaking, I rose to my feet and somehow found myself at Will's door with no recollection of making my way there. Silently, I opened it and advanced back inside so I could stand at the back. My head was still spinning and I didn't even feel like I was really in the room with my friends - I felt like I was nowhere, like I didn't even exist anymore.
"Y'okay?" Nancy wondered whilst throwing an arm around my shoulder. I nodded in response and nestled my neck into her shoulder to relieve some of the pressure in my brain and I found myself enjoying her warm embrace once again. Everyone had joined us in Will's room and they were all firing questions at him left, right and centre about how he was feeling yet nobody was pushing him to explain what had happened so I was surprised when he brought it up himself.
"I think it's time I told you all what happened, I've already told Mike everything but you all deserve to know too." My heart clenched with betrayal as I thought about Will's duplicity and how he hadn't told me everything but I didn't say a word, even as a few pairs of eyes flicked over to me in shock. I hadn't spoken to anyone other than Nancy since that conversation with Eleven in the hall and I saw no need to, I felt separated from the group. Separated from Will.
I listened intently along with the rest of my friends and a few doctors as Will finally spoke up. During the story, there were cries of outrage from Jonathan and Max, tears from Joyce, Nancy and Steve, looks of horror from Dustin, Lucas and Hopper and one or two soft moans from Eleven - all the while, I remained mute with my head resting on my sister. Will told them almost everything and Eleven made fleeting eye contact with me as Will deceived everyone around him with his well-practised lie of Alex being uninvolved before looking down at her feet again. Angst wound its way through my bloodstream, causing my heartbeat to pound even harder as I observed Will, once again, silently declare Alex as his first priority. The silent rage that had been building within me threatened to explode as I fought not to snap at Will. I loved him, more than anything in this world and hearing him carelessly throw his own needs away for the worst kind of person imaginable affected me more than I ever believed possible. He was being foolish and it infuriated me.
I managed to keep my anger at bay for the next few hours and everyone was so engrossed with Will that no one other than my sister had noticed how I'd become silent as death and absent as light during a new moon. It wouldn't have surprised me if they had all forgotten I existed, the way I seemed to have.
Gradually, the group parted as people petered out to leave for their homes as the sun began to set. El and Hopper left together, Steve drove Lucas, Dustin and Max home, leaving only me, Nancy, Jonathan and Joyce with Will like it had been only mere hours ago. Nancy gave me a swift kiss on the forehead and departed to the reception call our mom to pick us up as Will painfully sat himself a little straighter. "Mom, Jonathan? Can I have a moment alone with Mike, please?" Will's family looked at each other as though they were exasperated but left us alone nonetheless.
My eyes were well trained on the floor and I remained leaning against the back wall, as far from Will as possible. I could feel Will staring at me but neither of us made a sound for a few seconds and the tension between us began to thicken.
"So, they said I'll get out of here in two weeks!" Will said, as cheerily as he could given the circumstances. I could tell he was trying to break the mood but my voice was nowhere to be found.
So I nodded.
"At least that means no school for a couple of weeks." Will gave a feeble chuckle but I still didn't trust myself to open my mouth without getting angry.
So I nodded.
"Cut the crap, Mike." Will snapped, cutting it himself. "What's up? You've been acting really weird all day. I'm worried about you." His voice became softer but it only infuriated me.
My head flung upwards and I finally met his gentle eyes which, any other day, would have fascinated me by the way flecks of gold appeared in them and glittered in the stark, artificial light of the hospital room. "You're worried about me?" I spat at him and watched as he recoiled in shock at the venom in my voice. A poison I'd never used against him in all the years I'd known him.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Will demanded, he was trying to keep his voice steady but I could hear it rising as he struggled to remain calm.
"You lied to me, Byers." I whispered, my voice breaking in agony.
"Wh-what are you talking about?" Heat was creeping onto Will's cheeks and his eyes widened, he knew exactly what I was talking about.
"I know what Alex did to you." I said, a much gentler tone overpowering the heat in my speech. Sadness washed over me like a great tidal wave as I saw tears slide down Will's cheeks.
I was half a heartbeat away from taking the steps to Will's bed to pull him into my arms and tell him I was sorry and everything was okay until Will wiped away the tears and looked at me sternly, I froze mid-step. "You didn't need to know that." He declared. "I didn't have to tell you anything, I chose to tell you what you needed to know but nobody needed to know about that. How did you find out?"
"Eleven." I said simply as the heat welled in my chest again.
"Of course." Will muttered, looking down at his knees. I knew his tough act with me was over, he could never keep it up for long. He was always too pure and good to be angry at anyone, especially me but I was never as moral as him.
"Why are you still protecting him?" I commanded. "Will, he gave you up, he hurt you, he's a terrible person!"
"Take that back!"
"No, I won't! I hate seeing you like this. You're the strongest person I know and you're letting him walk all over you even now. He's dangerous and he needs locking up. You're worth so much more than him, than this."
"No I'm not." Will's voice was so low, I would never have heard him if I hadn't started walking towards him, closing off some of the distance between us.
"Yes, oh my god, Will, yes you are! I don't know why you can't see that. He's an asshole and you're the embodiment of everything that's good in this life. You deserve to be loved. Truly loved. There's someone out there who, when they see you, their whole world stops spinning and everything else becomes meaningless to them because you're the only thing that counts. Someone who wakes up everyday and you're the first thing on their mind, and the last before they go to sleep at night. I know that's true. I know." I bit my lip to stop myself from spilling any more, I'd already said too much.
Will was quiet for a while, pondering over what I'd said before he opened his mouth once more and said in a rough whisper, "Don't call Him that."
"What?" I asked, dumbfounded. That's all he'd picked up on?
"An "asshole". I said "don't call Him that.""
"What the fuck, Will? Is that all you have to say to me? All you want is for me to stop calling him an asshole? Because I can't help it if that's what he is!"
"Get out."
"Will..."
"Get out and don't come visit me again, Mike. I'm serious. I don't want to see you."
The earth splintered and shattered all around me as I watched the love of my life turn away from me. The heart in my chest was no longer beating, it belonged to Will and he'd destroyed it. I turned on my heel and stormed past Joyce and Jonathan and through the corridors until I met up with Nancy who'd just got off the phone.
Nancy's mouth fell open in horror as she set eyes on my tear-stained face, heartbreak plastered all over it. My sister ran to me and drew me into her one of her hugs I was quickly becoming used to, "What happened?" She begged.
"He hates me, Nance." I howled into her chest. "Will hates me."
*
Oh 😮😮😮
Angst.
So Mike kind of blurted out to Will how he feels. Kind of. And Will didn't care. Or did he not? Was that the issue or was it something else???
This was long, the next will be much much shorter.
I apologise again, this book will be a hard read. It's not a happy time.
- Niamh.