the yellow box

spring break

For spring break in April, Mike goes to California all by himself to visit Will and El. Mike reassures Holly that it'll only be for a week, jokingly reminding her not to forget who he is before he comes back. Holly tearfully waves goodbye to him at the airport before returning home with Mom and Dad.

That week must have been the loneliest of her life, Holly thinks. The spring break prevents her from distracting herself with school and friends. Holly spends the afternoons in her own silent room or running errands with Mom instead of playing Pac-Man or laughing when Mike's friend Robin gets mad at Steve for doing something stupid. She finds it hard to breathe in the evenings when the yelling begins. She finds it impossible to sleep knowing that her brother isn't in the room next door.

On the fifth night, after tossing and turning for a good few hours, she quietly slips into Mike's cold, empty room. She flips the light on and the familiar tornado of a bedroom brings her immediate comfort. Not tired in the slightest, she begins looking through his music.

She finds albums from bands she's never heard of. She finds mixtapes with Mike's friend's names as titles. She finds more than one mixtape with Will's name.

Holly grows bored of the cassette tapes and sighs. A spot of yellow peeking out from under the bed catches her eye. She walks toward it and pulls it out. It's the small yellow box from Christmas. The one that had disappeared before it had been gifted to anybody.

Curiosity overtaking common sense, she gingerly opens it.

Inside, she finds papers. Photographs. There's one of Mike, Will, and his other loud friends. They're dressed in beige Halloween costumes, holding black tubes like weapons. She notices that it had been ripped down the middle and taped back together again. It's sort of wrinkled, as if it had gotten wet.

There's a few more wrinkled papers. A photo of Mike, Will, and his loud friends holding a trophy and smiling widely. A drawing of a man in a purple hat and purple robe, the words Will the Wise slightly fading. Holly finds little knick knacks like a spiky red Jacks piece, toy cars, batteries, and little glass jars of paint. Underneath it all, there's a folded piece of lined paper. Hesitantly, she takes it out of the box and unfolds it. She finds a note written in Mike's chicken scratch handwriting.

Dear Will,

Merry Christmas. Don't read this letter out loud.

I'm really, really sorry about last summer. It was so wrong of me to ignore you, and I wish I could have shown you how important you are to me. I'm sorry about not playing D&D with you, I'm sorry about El, I'm sorry about Castle Byers. I miss you so much, I can't even put it into words. Every day hurts without you here, and I feel like it's my fault that we don't even call anymore.

You're my person, Will. I feel like I'm going crazy without you. I miss the sleepovers, I miss passing notes in History class, I miss going to the arcade with you. I miss watching movies with you, I miss stealing popcorn from you, I miss calling you on the radio in the middle of the night. Every time I remember the reason why we don't have that anymore - every time I remember what I said to you - I feel like it's too late. But it's not. I know it.

Please, can't we just go back to the way things were? Maybe we can't make things exactly the same, but when I call you, can you stay on the line for longer than five seconds? It's hard to talk to El when I know that I could - that I should - be talking to you.

I love really miss you.

- Mike

Holly feels incredibly uncomfortable, like she just stepped into Mike's mind and stole all of his deepest, darkest secrets. There were many words that she didn't understand, but the words sorry and my person and going crazy and miss you register in her head well enough for her to get the gist.