The thing is, when Will is actually with Jasper, it feels like everything is going right. When they're together, it feels like Will can do anything—even walk away from Jasper and Mike—like he doesn't need the crutch of Jasper's company to get by.
Then Jasper leaves, and it all floods back.
Scholarship notices start to trickle in, enough of them that Will starts to believe that, combined with the work-study program he's been accepted into, he might just be able to attend Illinois. But how's he supposed to survive away from home when his brain is a tangled web of spaghetti and Jasper's company is the only thing that comb through it? When Will graduates, Jasper isn't coming with him. He definitely doesn't know or care about Will enough to move to Urbana with him, and even if he did, he couldn't: he'll only just be starting his junior year of high school in the fall.
But Illinois wants an answer, and Will tells them yes in mid-May, the week before his birthday. Maybe this will be the motivation he needs to get his head on straight. Maybe, if he knows he's going away for school in August, he can kick himself in the pants and stop relying so much on other people.
Trouble is, even if it's not Jasper, who's he going to rely on in college? He can't exactly bring Mom or Jonathan or El into the dorms with him. He's going to need to replace Jasper with somebody, but there's nobody for Will in Urbana, and he's deathly afraid of the idea of finding someone—of what's happening with Mike and Jasper happening with somebody else, too.
He tries not to think about it. Will can barely look himself in the mirror now, let alone if he were to fall in love with three people at once.
Is he in love with Jasper? He's only known him for a month, and that just doesn't seem like enough time—but if you look at Will's behavior, it makes sense. He can't function or sleep without Jasper. The only time he feels stable is in Jasper's company. He thinks about Jasper every minute that he isn't already thinking about Mike (and even a lot of the minutes that he is).
It doesn't help that literally no one else in Will's life knows that Jasper even exists. At least, with Mike, Will has people he knows he can talk to about him if he wants to. But it's like he's buried himself so deep in this thing with Jasper that he doesn't even know where to begin to explain it. I was feeling suicidal, and I met this guy, and he has some kind of power over me that clears my head whenever I'm with him, and now I think I love him and don't know how to get through even one night without him. By the way, I've been sneaking out of the house every night to see him, and he sits in my window and waits for me to fall asleep every time he brings me back. Also, I'm still in love with Mike, too. Yeah. That won't seem out-of-the-blue at all.
So he says yes to Illinois and keeps seeing Jasper and shuts down every time Jonathan or El asks him how he's doing—but something has to give. He considers telling Carlotta: she's never judged him before, not even back when she still thought he was either crazy or lying when it came to all the Upside-Down stuff and where his PTSD came from. But he doesn't want to admit to her how he's failed her, and…
It's a couple days before his birthday the first time Jasper doesn't come straight over when called. Normally Jasper answers the phone on the first ring as if he knew somehow that Will was calling him, but tonight, Will has to wait. It takes him aback; he finds himself doubting himself as he listens to the internal ringing, wondering if this is it—if Jasper is cutting him off and leaving him to miss, not just one person, but two.
Jasper picks up on the fourth ring, right when Will has convinced himself that it's going to go to the answering machine. "Hey, Will."
Will almost asks Jasper how he knows who it is, but thinks better of it. "Hey. Can you come? Is that okay?"
"I…" Normally, Jasper says yes without hesitation, but today, he seems unsure of—something. "Can I let you know in a minute? I just need to go and ask Alice."
This catches Will off guard. "Since when do you need your girlfriend's permission?" he asks before he can help himself.
"It's not like that. It's just… she might be able to tell me if it's… let me just talk to her first. Hold on."
"Jasper—"
But Jasper doesn't answer. Will hears a click as Jasper presumably sets the receiver down on the counter or table or floor or wherever the Cullens keep their telephone. He can hear voices in the background; they drop in volume a little now that Jasper's joined them, but they're still loud enough that Will can make out the conversation.
"So?" he hears Jasper say. "Is he going to do anything dangerous?"
"I can't say for sure," says a female voice. It's been long enough since the one time Will met the rest of Jasper's family that he doesn't recognize the voice, but he assumes it's Alice's. "He hasn't decided yet what he's going to do if you say no, but out of the possibilities—no, I don't think so."
Will feels a stab of indignation at this. How does Alice know Will better than he knows himself—than he can speak for himself? Who the hell is she, anyway, to be the authority on what Will does or doesn't need?
"I'm starting to think we read more into things than we should have," Alice continues. "It was necessary the first time, but I don't… don't you think this has gone on long and often enough?"
"Maybe Edward should go with you, Jasper," says another woman—Rosalie or Esme, Will's not sure which. "He could try and get a read on what Will's thinking."
"Alice?" asks Jasper.
There's a short pause. "That might just make it worse. Will doesn't trust any of us besides you."
Yeah, no shit, he doesn't. Will rolls his eyes.
"But Jasper, if you do go," Alice continues, "I want you to be careful. Will isn't the only important person here, and—"
"I can handle it," says Jasper stiffly.
"But you shouldn't have to," adds another man. Just on his first impression when he met them, Will is willing to bet that it's Edward, not Emmett or Carlisle, who's talking. "Do you realize what you sound like every time you come back from taking care of him? Pacifying this kid night after night has been an enormous mental and emotional strain on you, and I don't care about him—I care about you. We all do."
"That's not entirely fair," says another woman. "None of us wants to see an innocent child suffer. If Jasper's helping him, and Jasper says he can handle it—"
"But is he helping Will?" cuts in Edward. "Or is he just enabling Will to keep using him to avoid dealing with his problems himself?"
Will has heard enough. He slams the phone back into its cradle and slides down the wall to collapse on his haunches on the ground. The thing he doesn't want to admit, the thing he loathes, is that Edward has a point: Will is using Jasper, and he knows it isn't good for either of them, and he's doing it anyway.
He's doing it anyway.
It only takes a few seconds for Will to start immensely regretting the decision to hang up the phone. He can't call back, not now: the phone is probably still off the hook. When Jasper goes back there to pick it back up and realizes that Will has dropped the call, will he return the call? Will could probably answer after half a ring, but what if Jasper doesn't call at all? How's Will supposed to call him back knowing what Jasper and his family were just discussing?
It looks like he's in for a night alone for the first time in weeks—but how in the hell is he supposed to get through it? Already, he can feel the worms in his head starting to crawl thicker and thicker, smearing their slick around, and Will's just supposed to live like this? How?
And then he remembers again that he's leaving for college in a few short months. If he can't get through it here, then how's he supposed to get through it in Urbana?
He's climbed up the basement stairs and walked out the front door before he even realizes what he's doing. He doesn't even lock the door behind him. All Will can think is that he has to get out of here, away from the phone, away from the temptation of Jasper.
To his credit, he doesn't go down the highway that leads to Sullivan Beach. Instead, he heads north up Worth Street beyond where it becomes Hamblin Road, crossing Asa Creek, taking it all the way up to where it dead ends at Murphy Road an hour and a half later. It's well past two in the morning by this point, and Will hasn't spotted a single car since leaving the town borders. All the way up here, the roads are gravel, and there's not a building in sight; the roads are lined with cornfields taller than Will himself.
You'd think he'd be exhausted by now, and he is, sort of, but his mind—his mind is buzzing. He's gone too far, he realizes, but maybe that's a good thing. It's going to be four A.M. by the time he gets back home, and maybe that will be late enough that he'll fall right to sleep.
He goes west to the next cross-street and, upon reaching it, follows it farther north.
He can't take what he needs, so instead, Will walks. He walks until the back of his shoe wears away the skin covering his Achilles tendon, and then he sheds his shoes, carrying one in each hand, and walks some more. He walks until he's so tired and sore and miserable that he doesn't think he can take another step without collapsing, and then he walks some more.
Around three in the morning, he finally, finally turns around. He doesn't want to—wants to keep going until he finds the magic ticket to escape his life altogether. But there is no ticket; there's only Will and his brain that won't turn off and his battered dignity—his nonexistent pride.
He's got to get his shit together, he tells himself at ten minutes past four. Will's head is pounding, but he can't stop and sit—if he does, he runs the risk of falling asleep right here in the road, and then what will his family think when they wake up to find him missing in the morning? He should have left a note. He shouldn't have gone so far.
His feet drag, and his headache rages, and his heart races way too fast, considering how sluggish the rest of him feels. At quarter to five, he hobbles off to the side of the road to vomit. The residue tastes sour and bitter at the same time, but there's nowhere to rinse his mouth out or brush his teeth; his only option is to keep going.
He keeps going.
It's a little after five in the morning by the time he reaches the house. Inside, everyone appears to be fast asleep. Will hates himself for a lot of reasons, chief among them right now that he walked so far from home, but he's grateful for it a couple of minutes later when he collapses in bed and feels his thoughts starting to slip away from him and into dreams almost immediately.
He got through the night. He got through a night without Jasper. But at what cost?
