Will & Indie

19.

How does life manage to be so beautifully tragic,

So excitingly monotonous,

So perfectly imperfect?

Will felt as if he were going in a downward spiral. He hadn't written anything for his own enjoyment since before "Starstruck." It felt as though all the motivation had been drained from his body, like his inspiration had been siphoned and dispersed into the empty void of outer space.

School was vanilla and bland, like it usually was; except now, Will didn't even have his stupid friends to make him forget about unimportant assignments, nor did he have little texts to send to or receive from Indie to break up the slow monotony of each day. His current situation with Indie quickly made one simple week feel like a lifetime.

At lunch, Will managed to find a table in the corner that he could sit at by himself. Sure, the nerds set up and tore down DnD just one table over every single day without fail—sometimes they rolled their twenty-sided die into Will's food, which wasn't exactly ideal—but that was better than being completely alone, Will decided. He was also quite thankful that the jocks didn't frequent that particular corner.

"Hey, Will," Tyrone, one of the DnD-ers acknowledged him as he silently debated whether or not he should eat his chicken wrap. "You wanna join us? You can create your character!"

Tyrone's table all turned toward Will expectantly. Will gave them all a half-smile.

"No thanks, Tyrone." Will replied. "But I'll watch."

"Alright, your loss," Patience, the girl with the glasses and ginger afro, shrugged. "Let's just get started, I'm ready!"

"Ok, ok, we can," Tyrone said.

Will tuned them out as they started talking in terms he didn't understand. He picked at his mandarin oranges as a form of distraction from his own thoughts, which were very loud now that he had practically nothing to take his mind off of everything.

To Will's surprise, someone set their tray down in front of him and sat down. He was slightly relieved to see Edward's face before him, but he was still nervous to converse with him after everything that had happened between their friend group.

Eddie adjusted his square glasses, glancing down at Will's practically untouched food. "Are you fasting?"

Will stiffened his back. That was not how he expected their conversation would start.

"Um... no. Just depressed."

Eddie pursed his lips. "Do you... wanna talk about anything?"

Will sighed, hiding his head in his hands. "I do, Eddie, but I don't know..."

Eddie held up a hand. "Speak, young Padawan."

Will took a pity bite of his wrap for Eddie's sake. To his surprise, it wasn't half bad. He swallowed as he tried to get his disconnected thoughts in order.

"Well, first off... Did you read my notebook, or was it just the other guys?" Will questioned, searching for answers in Eddie's hazel eyes.

Eddie pressed his lips into a thin line. "James saw it on the seat and grabbed it... I think he said something along the lines of, 'look, guys, it's Will's book!'" He paused for a moment. "Then he and Forrest laughed. I told James he shouldn't look in it, but he shrugged. 'It's no big deal. I wanna know what juicy secrets are in here.'"

Will listened attentively. He could imagine it all so clearly: James and Forrest huddled together, laughing like the idiotic teenage boys they were at Will's entire life written down on paper. His heartbeat quickened in pace.