Find Beauty in a Message

Chapter 6

Will has a hard time sleeping after his movie night with Boris. Their kiss is all he can think about, day and night, in class and out of it. It's difficult talking to his new friend too, his eyes always drawn straight to fullness of his lower lip as he launches into a story about this or that. He seems to know it too, eyes always full of something cunning and sly and mischievous.

Boris is dangerous, Will decides. Dangerous, and addictive, because Will would give anything to kiss him again. His head is so far in the clouds that everyone in his family takes notice. El has been staring at him with a furrowed brow so reminiscent of his mother that it's genuinely terrifying. Jonathan pats him on that back and checks in far more often then normal. Joyce gives him extra helpings of food and unleashes of full-blown inquisition about school every single evening.

He appreciates the concern, but nothing is actually wrong here.

Well, nothing physically wrong at least. If he can think hard enough to get past kissing Boris, his mind is full of heavier thoughts.

That night seems to have simultaneously lifted the fog from his mind only to drop a heavier one in its place.

The fog that was lifted revolves around Mike. Beautiful Mike, with his soft eyes and kind smiles and forever presence. Mike has...been a jerk lately. Longer than lately. Mike has been a jerk for more than a year. And all Will has done is pine for him, relentlessly, as if he's somehow going to come around and say, "It's okay, I like boys too!"

It hurts. Like something has been carved out of his chest, it hurts endlessly. Mike has been in his life for almost as long as he can remember, always soothing, always loving, always fiercely protective. Somewhere along the way though, that got lost. In puberty and girls, or maybe it was the Upside Down, that all fell away.

Mike is never going to love him, and he's coping with it.

The fog that's dropped over his brain one hundred percent has to do with Boris. Boris, who looks kind of like Mike, but acts nothing like him. Boris, who is the most alive person Will has ever met, who is full of lifetimes of stories despite only being fifteen. His mouth shoots languages like second nature, and he can talk about philosophy with an eloquence that would put college graduates to shame.

It staggers Will to realize how deeply he wants to know Boris. How much more he wants to learn. He wants to be able to trace the constellations of his freckles, to have them memorized the same way Mike's are permanently embedded in his memory. And as he lays awake at night, he's scared of how easy it would be to love him.

It takes him three days to work up the courage to invite Boris over to his house, and that courage comes in an envelope addressed from Hawkins, Indiana.

"Sorry, sweetie," his mom says. "It came yesterday. I meant to give it to you."

Will barely hears her as he scurries to his room, tearing the letter open as he goes, not even bothering to close his door behind him.

Will,

How are you?

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply.

Hellfire (the D&D club) is going really well! I think you would really like Eddie. We all get our own shirts and we wear them on days when we meet after school.

Lucas joined the basketball team. I think he's trying to make it into the popular crowd, but right now he's just on the bench.

We miss you.

From,

Mike

It's the shortest, shittiest letter that Will's ever gotten in his entire life. He halfheartedly flips the paper over, searching for more but finds none. His letter to Mike had gone out over a month and a half ago and had been pages long. He wants to pull at his hair. He wants to scream and cry.

Instead, he tucks the letter back into its envelope and places it on his desk.

Just as quickly as he had gotten upset, he now feels flat; despondent.

He mindlessly closes his door and changes into his school clothes, wondering vaguely if Mike ever thinks of him at all. Maybe he only sends letters because he feels obligated, or because El reminds him to. Maybe none of his friends think of him, as a matter of fact.

Dustin, Lucas, Max.

Will misses them all so much, but that doesn't mean that they miss him.

A stray tear finds its way out, tracing a path down his cheek. He doesn't bother to wipe it away.

And then, at the front of his mind, a loud explosion of a laugh, an invitation, a kiss.

He can think of one person that doesn't seem to think of him as an obligation.

"Hey mom?!" Will shouts down the hallway. "Can I invite Boris over for dinner?"

Will walks into school that morning with a determination he hasn't felt since they were fighting interdimensional creatures from the Upside Down. He sees Boris by his locker, facing away from him, but still unmistakable even from the front doors.

He doesn't even bother stopping by his own locker first, just continues his resolute march up to him, ready to give the invite of a lifetime.

"Hey," is what he says instead, and then his breath catches in his throat. When Boris turns, there is a wine-colored bruise around his right eye, vivid and violent against the porcelain color of his skin. "Oh my God, what happened?"

Will's fortitude is replaced with concern so quickly it makes him feel sick. It must show on his face, because Boris's smile is placating. Just a soothing, flit of a thing.

"This?" He gestures to his eye. "Nothing to worry about. Already told Whittaker, got hit with football."

Will can tell he's lying. He doesn't know how, because maybe Boris does play football in his free time, he wouldn't know, but it just seems wrong in some way. It's written in the way that he's holding himself-defensive and guarded-like he's protecting himself from outsiders. Will knows that look, has probably given off that look a thousand times.

"Boris, did someone hit you?" he asks quietly, almost too quietly to hear.

And still Boris makes the sign for him to hush.

"Nyet, William. Don't worry about me. Is all fine."

Will wishes more than anything that he could take Boris's hand in his, and reassure him that he's safe, that Will is safe, but in the open air of school, it's just not possible.

"Do you...do you wanna come over to my house tonight?"

That immediately makes Boris light up like a star on Christmas night.