Hopeless (byler)

Ch 5: Will

Will watched Mike bike down his driveway and vanish in the window. For a second, Will sat there, looking at nothing in particular. Quickly, he snapped out of it. He walked over to his easel while listening to his Walkman. Will felt inspired and wanted to paint something, but he was coming up blank. He listened to his music, closed his eyes, and suddenly he knew exactly what to paint.

Will let the brush make decisions about where the paint should go where, and eventually, he was almost done when Jonathan bursted into his room telling him that dinner was ready. Will put down his paint brush and took out his headphones. He walked to the kitchen and sat down at the table and began to eat his dinner.

He wasn't very hungry that night, so while everyone else was eating at the table including El, who left Mikes earlier and went to the mall with Max on her bike, Will was poking and picking at his mashed potatoes. "Will honey, is there something wrong with your food?" Joyce asked, Will was startled and said "oh um, yeah I-I'm just not that hungry, I guess." he said in return. Joyce looked a little confused, then went back to eating her dinner.

"So El, do you have anything happening this weekend?" Joyce asked El. Will turned to her, waiting for an answer, El said "Me and Max were thinking about all of us heading to the pool,", Will was actually excited at the thought of this, thinking it would be fun. "Oh that sounds nice," Joyce exclaimed.

The room fell silent until Will said "can I be excused? I have to... uh, fix my Walkman, it's been acting up." The thing was acting fine, Will just wanted to get away from the table to continue his painting. Joyce nodded, and Will got up to leave, and soon after he left, El got up as well and headed to Wills room.

Will was set up at his easel, ready to finish the painting after he already had spent a few good hours working on it. As he was painting, zoned out, El came into his room. "Hey, are you ok?" She asked him. Will looked up at her and saw how soft and kind her face looked in that moment, "Uh yeah. Sorry I just wanted to get to this," will gestured to the painting.

El walked around to it to see it and when she did, she was amazed. "Wow, Will this is really good! What made you do this?" El asked him. Will reflected back to that day on how excited Mike was about his art work, and how happy he was when seeing it, but then replied with "oh, nothing in particular, just felt like painting.", El grabbed Wills arm as she continued to look at it, then gave him a hug goodnight and walked out of the room.

As he finished the painting, Will changed out of the shorts and polo shirt he had been wearing that day, and into a tee shirt and sweatpants, and went to brush his teeth. As Will made his way to the sink, on his face he could see a small spot from the mini food fight he and Mike had earlier that day. After brushing his teeth, Will got into his bed and read a book until he drifted asleep.