wasn't it obvious? [byler]

part 8. Mike

[2 weeks ago]

I've finally finished writing my letter to Will. Now all I have to do is sen-

"MIKE!!! Did you take my 'Queen' cd??" Nancy days barging into my room

I quickly hide the letter under the first thing I could find, a comic book.

"Jeez... Maybe knock before you come in here?" I say

"Why, it's not like you ever have any girls over." Nancy mocks

Yeah, sure whatever.

"No. I didn't take your stupid cd." I respond, ushering Nancy out of my room

"Okay, fine, I'll leave you alone...if you tell me what you're writing."

I can't wait for her to go to college and leave this goddamn house.

"I'm not writing anything, now leave."

"Yeah sure..." Nancy says as I successfully push her out of my room

I lock my door when she's finally out.

I sit back down at my desk, looking over the letter.

"Shit" I murmur

I wrote "Love Mike" instead of "From Mike"

As I'm earesing out the word "love", I really wonder if I meant to put it. Who knows honestly. Maybe I should chang-

"MIKE!!!"

My god. It's my dad

"I told you not to lock your door!!" He says knocking like a maniac

This is a sign. A sign that I shouldn't send this awful letter.

I fold it up and stuff it in the same comic book, if I through it away Nancy will probably dig through the trash and find it. I need to get out of this house.

[present]

This table has got to be the most memory-filled place for all four of us. Dungeons and dragons, pizza nights, movie nights, the occasional sleepover, and the countless fights that have mainly ended in us laughing over some cartoon. It was also the last place I saw Will before he went missing.

Speaking of Will, he looks kinda on edge now. Maybe it's because Lucas and Dustin are fighting, he's never been great with conflict.

But I don't really think it's that... he seems more out of it than sad or uncomfortable.

"What's wrong?" I ask, placing my hand on Will's shoulder

He jolts as I place my hand.

"I'm... I'm fine." He says, god he's so unconvincing

"No honestly, what's wrong?"

He pauses, looking over at Dustin and Lucas. They're using parts of their costumes to have a sword fight.

"Why is the pillow fort still up?" He asks

I'm taken aback. I know it's there but I didn't think it was such a big deal.

"...I Haven't had the chance to take it down yet." I say

Who's the unconvincing one now.

"Yeah, I'm sure that's true." Will responds in a sarcastic tone

"Why does it even matter?" I ask, it comes out a little harsher than I intend

"I was just wondering... but don't you think that-" Will's interrupted by a loud noise

I look over and Dustin has knocked over some lamp.

"Nice one!" Lucas yells while giving Dustin a high-five

"HEY, Could you guys maybe move this outside?" I yell

I turn back to Will, if another thing interprets me, I'm going to scream.

"Moving on... why does it matter? If you wanted to go in there you could've asked. Or just went in, I don't really care." I say

I do care though. As annoying and weird as El was, she needs to come back to the group.

"I never said I wanted to go in there. Whatever Mike, you say you don't miss her, yet you keep everything from her. And you write about her too? How do you expect me to believe you honestly don't have a crush on her?" Will responds

"Will, I already told you that I stopped writing about her a long time ago. And I have a right to miss her, you didn't know her as well as I did but she was a part of this group," I state, "I do not have a crush on her. And so what if I did."

Will takes a step back, only then do I realize that Dustin and Lucas aren't gone, they're sitting at the table and watching us. I'm not sure that Will has noticed them yet.

"Mike...you weren't down there. You don't know what she's capable of. And if she comes back, that means it is back." Will says, his tone just above a whisper now

I see that it hurts him when I talk about El. I don't even think I don't do it that often. But honestly, he's right. The worst times of his life were happening while I was off with El. I'm not sure I had or have a crush on her... I think finding her and helping her was what I liked about the whole situation.

"Will..." I start to say

The doorbell rings, it's Joyce.

Dustin lets out a sigh and I can hear my mom's footsteps as she walks over.

"Boys? Will's mom is here. Are you ready to go?" Mom says

"Yeah guys it's getting kind of dark, don't want you to be tired for Halloween tomorrow!" Joyce answers while trying to lift the mood.

Will begrudgingly grabs his costume while going up the stairs, I realized that we never even talked about them while he was here.

Lucas and Dustin say bye to Will, I'm still standing in the same place.

"We should probably get going to..." Dustin says, "Don't wanna get sucked into the upside down you know" He laughs

Both Lucas and I turn to him, giving him the stink eye. He's never been great with social cues.