He Who Controls the Flame (001 fanfic)

Chapter Four- Mentors, Doctors, and Orderlys

-Three years before the events of season 1-

"What do you mean she just didn't show up?" Joyce asked, her knuckles white around the wheel. She kept jerking her gaze from the street to her son, Will, behind her, who was looking down at his lap, at the drawing he had made for Juliette.

"I don't know, Mom, she just didn't come," Will said. Will Byers looked out the window, watching the scenery of Hawkins Indiana roll past. He could stare out at the scenery for hours, wanting to paint all the different greens and blues and grays that stood out so vividly to his eyes. He talked about that once with Juliette. His art teacher. Well...more like an art mentor. On Wednesdays, Juliette and a couple of other members of the Hawkings high school art club would mentor children from Hawkins Elementary. Will loved it. He tried getting his gang, mostly Mike, to come and do it too but they kept telling him they had "better things to do than ogle Will's high school crush." Their loss though. Will was going to rub it in their noses when he became the next Van Gogh.

"That's awful," Joyce muttered, pulling into their driveway. "We pay for those classes. I'm going to call her parents and ask for our money back."

"No!" Will cried. "Don't do that, Mom."

"But honey you spent all month working on that piece for her," Joyce said, her eyes going soft.

"I know, but that doesn't mean you should call her parents. I mean, maybe she's sick or something."

"But wasn't today the last day you were going to be able to see her?"

Will sighed, unbuckling his seatbelt. "I mean, I don't know, maybe?" That one hurt to think about. Will was happy that Juliette had gotten into her dream college. He couldn't even remember all the times that Juliette groaned about Hawkins. But a little part of him wished that she would go to college locally. His favorite parts of the week were going to the high school to take part in her art classes. And he had gotten really good too, she had taught him how to shade properly and how to work with lighting and shadows.

He had stayed up till midnight on countless nights working on his final project. They could draw or paint or really do anything they wanted, as long as it followed the things they learned in class over the months. Will had decided to do a portrait of Juliette, just as a little parting gift before she went off to college. He imagined that she'd hang it up in her dorm, showing all her cool California college friends his work, saying how much she missed her fourth grade prodigy. Not that he thought of himself as a prodigy...okay maybe just a little bit. But his portrait was really good! And Juliette hadn't even been there to see it.

"I'm sorry, honey," Joyce said, looking at her son in the rearview mirror, her brows drawn in, worry written all over his expression. Will hated how much his mother worried about him. He saw how his friends interacted with their mothers. Will, Dustin, and Lucas's moms didn't pester them nearly as much as Joyce did with him.

"It's okay," Will said, shrugging. He slid out of the car and closed the door. He folded his drawing into tiny squares, the last thing he saw being Juliette's kind smile. He had taken extra care to ensure it was exactly how he saw it in class. Juliette was always smiling, always poking him and joking when she should've been instructing him on texture. He didn't mind though, it made class all the better.
He felt tears sting at his eyes and he swallowed hard, shoving the paper into his pocket before jogging up to the door, forcing all memories of his beloved mentor from his mind.

It wasn't like she wouldn't be back during holidays or maybe even every couple months. He didn't know what her family life was like, but she probably wanted to come home every now and then to see her parents, right? He kept reassuring himself that whenever he felt doubt. Juliette had to come back eventually. It was just rational thinking...so why did something deep inside him keep telling him he was wrong?