Separate Ways - Byler

VI - Here We Stand

Everything around me suddenly became as distant as the stars that would never shine in the daytime.

The music that had been blaring through the building in its attempted conquest over my auditory ability only seconds prior was now nothing more than a muffled humming that buzzed in the back of my mind like an irritated insect. The swarms of people that took up every inch of space may as well have not existed as I paid not a single one of them even an ounce of attention. Well, no one except for the boy who had just taken my breath away as easily as he could have stolen a kiss had we still been together.

Mike Wheeler, the person who'd taught me that love wasn't something to fear nor was it the monster that lurked in the shadows as I'd previously believed, looked as beautiful as I had ever seen him. His hair was longer and endlessly more unruly and it was clear that he had finally yielded to the curls that had always existed but he'd sometimes attempted to tame and brush out. The freckled cheekbones I had grown accustomed to running my knuckle along in a gentle caress during the years that he had been mine were more prominent and his entire facial structure had matured so every part of it was angled and more defined. The boy looked heavenly and I struggled to believe that he was even real because, after all, how could he have been in my home town? I'd almost convinced myself that he was a hallucination and begun to question what the hell Tom had slipped into my drink when the boy who'd captivated my attention entirely since I was five years-old let out a laugh that I would have recognised anywhere.

Mike was leaning with his back against the far wall in a small huddle of people and I wanted nothing more than to be closer to him, even if this was nothing but a glorious dream. As I shuffled towards the boy who had once held my entire heart in his hands and protected it from every hardship that could have befallen it, my mind was bombarded with all of the things I'd dreamed I'd had the chance to say to him over the years: from thanking him for being there in my darkest moments and leading me back out into the light, to informing him that he was the best thing that had ever happened to me and I'd never have it better than him.

Subsequently, it came as quite a shock to myself when I blurted, before I'd even contemplated what in the holy hell I thought that I was doing: "Christ, Wheeler. Don't you ever stop growing?"

The moment that ensued as a result seemed to last for a lifetime. The boy's all-consuming eyes had locked onto my dimly-lit frame within an instant and, even through the gloom, I witnessed the recognition and the agonising nostalgia that exploded upon his facial features all at once. His mouth was hanging open in surprise and my thoughts were flooded with memories of just what those lips felt like against my own, and all over my body, and I longed to lose myself in that sensation once more. Despite the chaos enduring unperturbed as the party raged on, I heard nothing but the beating of my own heart as it hammered harder within my own chest than ever before. It seemed to me as though the organ was attempting to burst right out of my body in order reach the man to whom it had once belonged and I was powerless to stop its mission. Hell, I didn't even want to stop it, even the slightest possibility of any part of me at all lessening the tormenting distance between the two of us seemed downright perfect.

Mike took a single step towards me before faltering and coming to a halt once more. Astonishment was shining clearly from every single pore and it was only as he dropped his hand from around a pair of shoulders that I noticed the dark-haired, pretty looking girl who was pressed so tightly up against him that she could have been trying to sink beneath his skin. A surge of envy struck my system like a bolt of lightning and I wanted nothing more than to remove the girl and get her as far away from my line of sight as possible forever, before remembering she hadn't done a thing wrong. Mike wasn't my boyfriend and she was entitled to him if that's what he wanted.

"Byers?" The dark-haired boy who had haunted my dreams for as long as I could remember spoke, his voice scarcely more than a whisper - as if he was hardly daring to believe the sight before him - and it was music to my ears. "Is that really you?"