Find Beauty in a Message

Chapter 17

Will wakes up the next morning exhausted from his late night trek. He and Boris didn’t get in until the early hours of the morning, and then they stayed up even later, curled up around each other whispering stories in the dark. Will thinks it will forever be one of his favorite memories.

He’s almost entirely forgotten whatever sly thing Boris has been plotting regarding Mike until he starts to see signs of it at breakfast. His mom is working in her usual little nook, and they’re all eating El’s favorite, except El’s not there, and Mike looks miserable.

“It feels like trouble in paradise, yes?”

Mike throws Boris a scathing look at the same time Will chooses to scold him with a heated: “Boris!”

“What? Am just saying. Jane is missing, and your Mike here, his face is so long.”

Mike takes a prolonged drink from his glass while Will gives Boris an urgent look to drop the topic of conversation.

“Did you know that she was lying?” Mike asks Will. “You know, about school and stuff?”

“Not until you got here,” Will answers honestly.

Like the flip of a switch, Mike explodes.

“Then why didn’t you say something?!” he exclaims. “This whole time I’ve been thinking she’s been happy when she’s actually been miserable! And I could have done something! Or said something!”

“Mike, I didn’t even know until yesterday, what was I supposed to do?”

“Be a good friend and tell me!”

“That’s not fair, Mike,” Will declares seriously.

In a soothing gesture, Boris reaches out to rub careful circles on the inside of Will’s wrist with his thumb. It works, an immediate sense of calm filling him, replacing the anxiety and hurt.

“Why are you so angry at William? School is filled with insufferable twats. None are nice to Jane. She did not want you to know. Is not his fault. Sounds like it is between you two,” Boris says.

Mike’s eyes are pinned to Boris’s hand on Will’s wrist, unmoving. And all at once, all the fight seems to go out of him.

“She broke up with me,” Mike admits.

“Over that?!” Will asks.

“No. No, it’s…it’s a long story.”

“Are you…okay?”

Mike scrubs a hand over his face, looking tired and years older than he really is.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just gonna go…do stuff.”

Then he jerks his seat back from the table unsteadily and wanders away, leaving Boris and Will staring after him.

“That did not go like I planned,” Boris comments after a beat.

“What?”

Will whirls his head around to stare at his boyfriend, who looks sheepish.