heaven- byler 🤍

9.

washing machine heart- mitski

the three boys jogged all the way to the park to see richie arguing with three boys around his age, and eddie standing sheepishly behind him with his inhaler in hand. will and stan looked fearfully at the scene, bill noticing their scared expressions and saying: "come o-on, g-guys, r-r-r.."

bill's cheeks turned red and he inhaled sharply. "he needs our he-help."

bill walked forward, followed by an awkward will and an awkward stan. whilst walking, will looked at the three boys richie was arguing with. two of them were easily recognisable: troy walsh and james dante. of course they'd be picking on richie and eddie; they were perfect victims! anybody that made troy and james feel powerful was worth picking on in their eyes.

the third boy was somebody that will couldn't quite recognise. he was wearing a plain, grey hoodie with the hood up, so his hair (if he had any) couldn't be seen. will saw that he was tall and slender and had pale skin with freckles dotted around his cheeks.

will was staring at him intensely: he knew he recognised him from somewhere.

the boy pulled his hood down and looked towards will.

and that's when will realised.

the boy was none other than mike wheeler.

will looked at the boy with a mix of emotions. this isn't the mike i know. the mike i chose to be friends with. he thought. this isn't who mike is.

looking into mike's chocolate brown eyes, will didn't see a different person. obviously, the outfit was never something mike would wear, and the fact that he was hanging out with troy and james meant that something had changed.

but the person behind those guilty eyes was still mike.

even though he looked and acted like a complete stranger, it was still mike.

MIKE'S POV

a strange feeling washed over me as i saw will staring at me. a feeling of guilt. that's weird: i never really feel guilty.

i guess it's because i know i've been an asshole to will.

him ignoring me was completely valid so i don't know why i acted like it was the end of the world. it only really upset me because will never ignores me.

it upset me so much that i talked to my dad.

well, to be fair, i was gonna talk to my mum but she was out of town with nancy and holly.

so i kind of had to talk to my dad.

i told him about the argument and he told me that it served me right for hanging out with him. my dad can't stand will. will didn't do anything to him so i'm not sure why.

well, i am. but i don't want to admit it.

my dad hates will because he's gay.

i ran away from home that night because my dad was being really homophobic towards me. not that i did anything wrong.

my dad's a dick.

i went to stay at lucas's, which lucas and his family were okay with, but they kicked me out after finding out what i did to will by the quarry.

which is fair enough.

but then i realised that i didn't have anybody else to go to. i hardly knew anybody else at school.

the only people i could go to were troy and james.

i figured that if i had already been picked on by them, they wouldn't pick on me again. also, they weren't really that bad to me anymore. the only thing they did was give me a dirty look or two in the hallway.

so yeah, the only people i could go to were troy and james.

and if they wanted to go and bully random people, than so be it.

i just don't know why i felt guilty about seeing will and not being homophobic to the other boys.

i ripped my eyes off of will when i realised i'd been staring at him and i looked at the two small boys in front of me. one wore glasses, one had an inhaler.

"hey, troy, james! let's go home." i shouted.

"why? you scared, wheeler?" troy scoffed.

i searched for something to say that wouldn't make me a laughing stock. i wasn't scared, but i couldn't tell them that i wanted to go home because i felt bad. they'd never let me stay with them if i said that! i had to say something to impress them, even if it meant i was betraying myself.

"i'm bored of arguing with a bunch of fairies, that's all."

oh my god. i just said that.

there was silence for several seconds.

i was scared shitless.

then troy and james started laughing and walked off, putting their arms over my shoulders and taking me with them. they shot rude looks to the boys as they passed them, and i turned aswell.

only not to give a rude look to the boy with glasses and the boy with the inhaler.

to look at will.

he looked shocked, betrayed, angry, upset and fearful all at the same time. a sharp pain went through my chest as i realised what i had said.

i had called them fairies.

i was just as bad as james.

i was just as bad as troy.

i was a horrible person.

why the hell did i say that?

i searched my brain for a reason as to why i said what i said.

what had made me say it other than the fact that i wanted troy and james to like me.

a look of horror washed over my face as i realised that i was turning into my dad.

oh god, i'm turning into my dad.

that did sound like something my dad would say..

it's true.

no matter how much i deny it, it's true.

i'm my fathers son.

i might go into more detail about why mike's acting like he is but idk 👍

1005 words