Find Beauty in a Message

Chapter 10

Will feels like a ghost the next day. Spring break is only about a month away. One month and Mike will be in his house for a whole week.

El had been ecstatic when Joyce told them the news over breakfast, and had immediately rushed to pen Mike a letter. Even now, the torment of school can't get her down, smile etched so firmly on her face that no threat of spitballs and laughter can even begin to erase it.

"You are quiet today," Boris comments at lunch. "Are always quiet, but more today."

"Aren't you excited?" El asks.

"Excited?" from Boris.

"Mike is coming to visit!" She clarifies, with a wide, beauteous smile. "He's my boyfriend. And Will's friend."

Boris's face is unreadable to Will, as well as his voice as he lets out a clipped:

"I've heard."

"I am," Will insists. "I am excited. Just...I dunno...surprised, I guess."

His words don't sound very convincing, but El seems to buy them well enough.

"This Michael, when will he visit?"

"At the end of March, over spring break," Will says.

"I see."

Boris looks like he's thinking hard about something, brows furrowed and lips downturned into a slight frown. Will can't help but study him, but with Mike on his mind, he's back to drawing comparisons between the two of them. Boris kind of looks like if Mike went feral and decided to go live on the streets for a few years. He's rough around the edges, wild and sharp, with incredible wit and a filthy vocabulary. Today he's back to looking tired, hair slightly dirty, and he has this malnourished appearance about him-starved saint-thin and willowy, so pale for California it looks almost unnatural.

But something about him makes Will's heart beat faster and harder. Makes his palms clammy and his stomach swoop like racing on a bike. They've only been friends for a handful of weeks, but he's learning to accept that he adores this boy.

Mike is more Indiana suburban. Fine clothes, neat hair, can-do personality. Always a believer in the power of friendship. Or at least he used to be, before he became what Will would consider a poor friend. Mike has his own dysfunctional family, but they're dysfunctional in a way that works. His parents love him. He gets three meals a day. He's never gone without or wanted for anything. For as long as he can remember, Will has been entranced by Mike. The softness of his eyes, his determination, his casual affection.

But right now, today at this lunch table, he's never felt more torn in his life. His heart yearns for Mike like he's missing a part of himself, but something inside of him wants to reach out for Boris too. He's never liked more than one person before, and it has him so jumbled up, he can barely breathe.

"You should use the phones to call your mother. Ask to spend the night," Boris says, interrupting his musings.

"I don't think I can do that on a school night," Will responds.

"It's Friday," El states, almost cautiously. She's staring at him quizzically, borderline concerned.

"Oh."