It's been two days since Will cut all contact with Mike, and he feels like—like he can't function. Like he can't survive without Mike there with him to hold his hand and smile at him. Will is aware of how melodramatic he sounds; reason tells him that he made it this far with his friendship with Mike on the rocks ever since the Byerses moved to Sullivan last September, and there's no reason to believe that he can't do more of the same. But he goes through the motions—shows up to class, does his homework, writes his stories and draws his art—feeling like a faker, like he's actively cracking up and he can't do this without Mike, only he doesn't have a choice; it was unbearable, keeping Mike around—but so is this.
So is this.
Jonathan is the only one to approach him and ask what's wrong. "Mike and I aren't friends anymore," Will says shortly.
They're lying in their beds in their night-dark bedroom, Jonathan meeting Will's eyes without even lifting his head up from his pillow, and Jonathan heaves this big old sigh and says, "I'm sorry, buddy. I know he was your best friend for a long time."
"Yeah, well, not anymore," says Will bitterly.
Jonathan sighs again. "Did something happen between you two? I know you had been drifting apart for a long time, but…"
And Will wasn't going to tell him what's really going on, but he's been trying so hard to hold it together for the last two days and feels like he's going to break if he keeps pretending he's all right for one more moment, and the ugly truth spills out: "I love him. I love him, okay? Dad was right about me. I'm a queer; I'm a faggot. And Mike isn't."
Jonathan pauses for a long time, then says, "Don't call yourself those words, Will."
"Why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I? It's true, isn't it?"
"Yes, but the implication that it makes you less of a person, it's—that's not right." Will can't help but smirk to himself a little; Jonathan doesn't know how much he sounds like Steve right now. "Did Mike call you that?"
"Did Mike call me a—no. No, he tried to act like he didn't think I'm a freak, like everything was normal and we could still be friends, but we can't, Jonathan. I hear the way he talks to Eleven, and I just want to…"
"Does El know?"
"No," says Will. "No, she doesn't. At least, she didn't; maybe Mike has told her by now, I don't know."
"Okay," Jonathan says, frowning. "You know I'm here for you, buddy. I'm not going to judge you for—for who you are, or how you feel."
Will hesitates. "I feel like I can't breathe. I feel like I can't do anything at all, like I'm frozen, like the world's ending around me and I'm just—here, trying to breathe, not breathing."
"You'll get through it," says Jonathan. "I know it's hard right now, but it's temporary."
It's temporary—that's what Will keeps telling himself, but it's hard to believe when it's been two weeks since he cut all contact with Mike and he still thinks about Mike all the time, and he means all the time. It feels like even when Will is thinking about other things, Mike is there in the background scenery of Will's mind, reminding Will of what happened (what's happening) just to make sure that Will doesn't get a moment's peace away from it.
He wishes he didn't have to hear El and Mike on their walkies all the damn time in Will's own home. Maybe he would still be stuck on Mike like melted tar if Mike weren't around, but it certainly doesn't help matters that he physically can't escape Mike without finding excuses to get out of the house, sometimes going for two hour-long walks in the hopes that when he comes home, Mike will be gone.
Will can cope with never getting to kiss Mike again, but Will doesn't think he can cope with never getting to touch him again at all. To compensate, he divides up his days into ten-minute blocks, tells himself that he doesn't have to get through an eternity without Mike—he just has to get through the next ten minutes, and then do it again, and then do it again, and again. Time inches by. His grades drop; his anger rises—at Mike, at himself, at all of it.
It's been almost two months since Will cut all contact with Mike, and Mike comes to stay for a few days over the Easter holiday weekend. Will manages to avoid him almost entirely by refusing to emerge from his and Jonathan's room, and at mealtimes, he keeps his eyes trained on his plate and away from Mike. Jonathan keeps asking him whether he's okay whenever the two of them are alone together in their room, and Will keeps saying yes, even though it feels like no, he's not okay, he's never going to be okay ever again. He's not even jealous of El for getting to spend time with Mike instead of him anymore; Will has moved past jealousy and onto a total, bitter anger that screams LEAVE ME ALONE! LEAVE ME ALONE! just like he's back in the Upside Down, shouting at the shadow monster for some peace.
Will gets no peace. Mike knocks on Will's door, and when Will answers and sees who it is, he barely resists the urge to slam the door back in Mike's face. "El and I didn't—I mean, I wanted to see if—I thought that you—and I—we—"
Will patiently stares at Mike's socks and waits for it to be over. When Mike trails off, Will chances a glance up at his face; it just makes him feel worse, much worse, so he looks away again, acutely aware of Jonathan studying their interaction from behind them in the bedroom.
"No," he says, and his voice sounds forceful and angry.
"No?"
"No," Will repeats, and he gives in to the impulse to slam the door.
It's been three months since Will cut all contact with Mike, and his entire life feels like a sick, twisted case of déjà vu, tracking the time since Mike, because god forbid Will have a life outside of Mike. He blames Mike. He does. He blames him for not valuing Will enough as a friend to stay in his life for the months that he disappeared after Will moved to Sullivan; he blames him for not loving Will, not enough and certainly not in the way that Will wants, and Will doesn't care if that can't be helped because Mike made a decision to treat him how he did and what he decided caused Will pain.
And then one day, four months after Will cut all contact with Mike, Will just—snaps. He doesn't know what frequency to use to best reach Mike anymore on the walkie, so he calls his house, makes a bit of small talk Mrs. Wheeler when she picks up, feels like he's going to boil over as he waits for Mike to answer—and then he tells him exactly what he thinks, exactly how much this is Mike's fault and how much Will is never going to forgive him.
Mike—is unimpressed, to say the least. Rages out about how communication goes both ways and how Will should have tried harder if he'd really wanted a meaningful relationship after he moved away, about how Mike was nothing but gracious after finding out that Will was gay and had feelings for him, about how none of this is Mike's fault and all of it is Will's for making unreasonable demands. When Will finally slams the phone back in its cradle, his whole body is tingling, itching, and he pads slowly back to his room and flops down into bed and stays there in silence, ignoring Jonathan's anxious line of questioning, ignoring his alarm the next morning, even ignoring his mom's attempts to get him out of bed and ready for school.
He does not get out of bed. He does not go to school. He doesn't even eat, for a whole week. Will flails his limbs in Mom's direction whenever she tries to bodily pull him from the bed; he gets up as infrequently as possible to piss in the toilet and drink from cupped hands collecting water from the bathroom sink. Time crawls by, and he can hear Mom on the phone every day with god knows who, describing his behavior and seeking advice, like there's something wrong with him, like there's something really, medically wrong with him, and maybe there is. Maybe healthy people don't react like this when they lose a loved one. Maybe if Will had his sanity he wouldn't feel like he was dying, but he does. He does, and he can't stand it.
Stories and art hold no interest for him anymore; he passes the time staring at his watch and stretching, waiting for ten-minute increments to crawl along. At least this is the worst it's going to get, he tells himself from his perch on the bed, passing another ten minutes. At least he's warm in bed and it can't get any worse than this.
Mom tries to drag him out of bed again, and he kicks at her until she cries, fat tears rolling down her face as she begs, "Will, please, you have to get up, I need you to come with me, okay, baby? Please, it's no good for you to stay like this, I need you to come with me so I can get you some help. I just want to get you some help. Please, Will. Please come with me."
And it scares him to see her begging like she begged when the Mind Flayer was pouring itself inside of him, so he gets out of bed and gets in the car and follows her to a doctor who writes him a prescription and tells him to start seeing a therapist. Mom, distrustful ever since the doctors at Hawkins Lab told Will that his episodes were flashbacks and all in his head, says that he doesn't have to go, but she also says that he has to take the pill, so he takes the pill. He takes the pill again and again until he's able to climb out of bed and read books to pass the time again, Mike still on his mind, Mike always on his mind.
He manages to make it back to school before finals, which he passes, barely, completing his freshman year of high school with all B's and C's. Mom still insists on hanging up his report card on the refrigerator door, saying he's had a hard year and should be proud that he got through it at all. She still doesn't know what's been going on with him, and Will knows that that upsets her, but it's all he can do to even be in a room with Jonathan knowing that he knows and could devastate Will with Mike Talk anytime—he doesn't want to do that to his relationship with his mom, too.
El goes back to Hawkins to stay for a week during summer vacation, when it's been five months since Will cut all contact with Mike, and Will, miraculously, doesn't care. He's actually pretty glad for it, because it means he gets a break from having to hear Mike's voice on her walkie every night.
It's been seven months since Will cut all contact with Mike, and the pills are working, and he finds that he doesn't blame Mike anymore—not really. It's not Mike's fault that he loves who he loves, and it's not even really Mike's fault that he's flawed—that he doesn't know how to prioritize his friends around his girlfriend. Will wants desperately to tell Mike this, but he doesn't: he knows that talking to Mike isn't good for him, and after what happened last time, he's pretty sure that Mike would just be offended by Will telling him that he forgives him.
He still thinks about Mike entirely too often, but he finds that he can go for an hour or two sometimes, now, without really focusing on Mike, and that at least is an improvement. He tries not to think about the fact that he and Mike can never, ever be friends again. At any rate, Will knows that it's too soon to even think about trying to be Mike's friend, and that it'll be too soon for as long as he wants to be Mike's friend—that it's only safe to be around him if he no longer cares, which is why it won't happen, ever. He's not there yet, and he knows he has to get there someday, but he doesn't know how.
The books about grief Will picked up from the library say that it takes about a year to pass through all the stages, but it's been eleven months since Will cut all contact with Mike, and he still feels like he's stuck in the same place he's been in for months now. Soon, he tells himself bleakly, it'll be in the past.
Soon, maybe.