Will and Mike have time to meet up with the rest of the party for lunch the next day before Jonathan comes to pick him up. Mike's house is still the designated hangout, like old times, and when Dustin, Lucas, and Max each arrive, they each come running at Will for a flying hug and tell him how much they've missed him. He talks to them all semi-regularly—Dustin the most, but Lucas and Max every few weeks, too—but Will supposes that it has been a long time, almost exactly a year and a half, since he's seen anyone besides Mike in person. He hadn't realized how much he missed his friends until they're there with him, grinning at him and telling him all about their adventures at Hawkins High.
They all go out to a local diner to eat, where Will finds himself wedged in between Lucas and Robin, who comes with Steve to meet them there. Like Mike did the last time he came to Sullivan, everybody stops talking and stares when Will pulls out his bottle of antidepressants and pops one, but Will just says, "What, haven't you ever seen pills before?" and then there's a clattering of silverware, uneasy laughter, and resumed conversation.
Everyone seems to be carefully avoiding asking about Will's mental health or asking whether he's doing any better these days, which doesn't surprise him, as everyone also carefully avoids the subject when they're on the phone with Will each week. He doesn't know whether they just feel awkward bringing it up or whether they think they're respecting his privacy or something, but honestly, he finds it a little weird. It's not like they don't all know that he had a breakdown and had to go to the hospital; they were calling him, to no avail, when he was lodged in bed and wouldn't get out for anything.
Everyone avoids it, that is, until lunch is over and they're walking back to the Wheelers' house, when Lucas catches Will alone lagging at the back of the group. "Hey, man," he says in the same measured voice he used all those years ago to apologize for being dismissive of Will's D&D campaign. "You look good. Are you feeling—? I mean, we've all been worried about you, and…"
"It's okay, Lucas," says Will with a small smile. "You can ask."
"How are you?"
"…Better," Will says. "Not great, but better. The medication helps."
"That's good. That's really good. When you had your…" Lucas gesticulates awkwardly into the air. "None of us knew what to think, you know? I almost thought it had to be another Mind Flayer thing, like when it was possessing you and you were staying home from school and didn't tell anyone what was going on until Mike went over there to find out. But then we never heard anything again about the Mind Flayer or anything until Dustin got a hold of you a week later and said you were acting fine, like nothing was wrong. We were all glad you were okay, but you scared us, man."
"I know. I scared me, too."
Lucas claps him on the back. "You know you can talk to any of us about what's going on with you. Anytime. We just want you to be okay."
"I know," says Will, but he also knows that Lucas and the others would think Will pathetic and sick if they knew the root of his unhappiness, and he'd rather keep them in the dark where, even if they're frustrated by his lack of communication, at least they hold him in the same esteem.
Jonathan is at the house waiting for him when Will gets back to the Wheelers'. He says his goodbyes and follows Jonathan into the car, dropping his backpack at his feet. "Everything go okay? I thought you and Mike still weren't talking."
"We're not. It was just a one-time thing. He broke up with El and wanted someone to talk to about it."
"Mike broke up with El? He didn't—?"
"It wasn't like that!" says Will quickly. "He just wanted to vent about it. There's nothing going on between me and Mike, I swear."
"Good," says Jonathan decisively. "He's not good for you, Will, you must know that by now. You get so broken up over him."
"I know. It's not… we're not gonna talk again, I don't think."
But then they get home, and El locks herself in her bedroom until dinnertime, when she eats at top speed and ignores everyone's attempts at conversation so that she can rush back into her room. Will knows he should go in there and clear the air, tell her he's sorry about her and Mike, that there really has never been anything going on between the two of them and that he never meant to interfere, but Will barely even knows this girl, certainly not well enough to feel comfortable inserting himself into her personal problems, even if they involve him, however indirectly.
And he misses Mike. He really, really misses Mike, even though it's been, like, six hours since he last saw him. So he waits until the living room is empty, and then he calls him.
The wait is long as Mr. Wheeler goes and gets Mike, and then he's there, saying hello breathlessly into the phone. "How are you?" asks Mike. "How's El?"
Will's stomach sinks a little, but he tells himself it's only natural that Mike is worried about El, that of course he still loves her even if they're not together anymore. "El is… I don't know, honestly. She's hiding out in her room more than usual. I haven't talked to her about—anything, yet."
"I hope she's okay," says Mike fervently, but then he adds, "And you?"
Will pauses. "I'm okay. I just wanted to talk to you."
"That's cool. I like talking to you, too."
Will was expecting them not to have much to say to each other, having just seen each other, but that's not the case: they haven't really spoken in months and months, and Mike and Will both wind up with plenty to say about their respective high school cultures. When they get off the phone an hour later, Will feels like he's just had his first real conversation—that's not empty, but that's not full of drama, either—with Mike in… a long-ass time. Since moving to Sullivan, probably.
He goes back in his room to find Jonathan sitting up in bed with a textbook from one of his community college classes, frowning at him. "Was that Mike you were talking to?"
"Yeah," says Will a little defensively.
"Thought you said you weren't going to talk to him again."
"Nothing happened. He was just telling me about how his sophomore year went and stuff."
Jonathan pauses and then says, "I want you to be careful, okay, Will? Mike is dangerous for you. You know this."
And Will does know this, but the second time he calls Mike, he still tells himself it's just a two-time thing, that it doesn't mean anything, that he can still give Mike up and go back to the way things were, to protect himself. Still, it feels good to hear Mike's breathing at the other end of the line, to hear his voice, his laugh.
He tries to give it up, after that. Really, he does. It hurts, the next night, not to dial Mike's number and tell him about his day, but he doesn't, and he doesn't the next night, either, or the next. Will makes it a whole week thinking he's getting back on track—that it's going to hurt more, now, but that it's for the best, and that he's doing a good job of things, kicking the habit—until Mike calls him.
Jonathan answers the phone and passes the receiver to Will with a frown. Will shoos him out of the room before speaking. "Hey, Mike."
"Hey."
"You shouldn't—you shouldn't call me here. We've been over this."
"What, so you're allowed to call me whenever you want to, but I'm not allowed to call you?"
Will cringes. "Okay, I know that sounds bad, but—I shouldn't have called you last week. And if I do it again, you shouldn't agree to talk to me. I could end up in the hospital again over this. Do you understand that?"
Mike pauses. "You make it sound like you're an addict or something."
"I am, Mike. I am."
Mike releases his breath in a whoosh. "I just don't understand. I thought you said that things didn't start to get screwed up until after I started dating Eleven. I'm not with her anymore, so I thought that—that maybe we could be friends again, you know, like before."
Will considers it. He does. He thinks about what it would mean to him to have Mike back in his life in a real, meaningful way, to have more than just scattered phone calls and incidental meetings every few months to disrupt what feels like a long parade of Failing to Get Over Mike—and then he thinks about how devastating it would be to lose that, how he's too fragile, how it's not worth the risk.
"I wish we could. I really, really wish we could," he says to Mike now. "But what happens when you and El get back together? Or when you get a new girlfriend? It's like you said all those years ago; we're not little kids spending all our time playing D&D in your basement anymore. Things are changing."
"When El and I get back together, or I get a new girlfriend, I keep talking to you, too. We'll do a better job of it this time; I know we will. I'm still gonna care about you."
"But not the way I care about you," Will says. "You're never gonna care about me the way I care about you."
Mike blows air into the phone and doesn't respond for a few moments. Finally, he tells Will, "I wish we could feel the same way about each other. I really do."
"Yeah, me, too," Will mutters. He doesn't really wish the unhealthy dependency he has on Mike on anybody, even on Mike, but it would be nice for Mike to love him back, or even—even just for Will to love Mike only in the way that Mike already loves him.
"So I guess you want us to stop talking now," Mike says, sounding dejected.
"I'm sorry. I wish it were different."
"Yeah, I know. Just—if you call back over here, do you really want me to turn you away?"
"…No. I guess I don't. But I'm going to try really, really hard not to call."
And he does try really, really hard, for two whole weeks of hell. It's summer vacation, so there's not much to do to distract himself except practice driving on his new learner's permit with Jonathan, and write, and draw. He's making a new Zombie Boy comic where Zombie Boy's crush doesn't like him back, and also there are monsters out to get him. Story of Will's life.
He wishes he were back in Hawkins, where summertime means friendship and no homework and going downtown every day with your best friends in the world. He tries calling Dustin and Lucas and Max more often, and it helps, sort of, but also makes Will feel sad that he's not there with them for their adventures. Dustin keeps inviting him to stay with him, too, which makes things—harder. Here in Sullivan, Will has friends from school but not really any friends to hang out with in the summer months, except Daniel sometimes, and he doesn't feel that close to Daniel to begin with. There's too much that's gone on in Will's life that Daniel doesn't know about for them to really be good friends.
And then, one night, he's just hung up with Lucas when he hears sniffling coming from El's room. Will is tempted to ignore it, but it seems too cruel to just walk right by without acknowledging her, and so he braces himself and knocks on her door. There's a pause as El gives a huge sniff, and then she says in a shaky voice, "Come in."
Will comes in, and El's face just falls. Good to see you, too, Will thinks, but he committed to doing this thing for her and he's going to see it through. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asks carefully.
"No. Yes. I don't know," says El, sighing. She blows her nose into a tissue and throws it at a small pile of them forming on the floor.
"Is it about Mike?" asks Will, already knowing the answer.
El hesitates, then nods.
Will closes the door behind him and slumps down the door to sit on the floor, propping his elbows up on his knees. "I'm sorry you broke up. I know you both love each other a lot."
"No, he doesn't," says El.
"Yes, he does. You should know that he will never love me like the way he loves you. You mean the world to him."
El doesn't seem to notice how hard it is to get the words out. "If he loved me, he wouldn't leave," she says.
"It doesn't always work that way. I love him, and I left him."
El glances down at Will with a frown. "You must not love him very much, then."
Will shakes his head. "It doesn't work that way, Eleven. It's not just about love. Sometimes you leave because there are bigger problems."
"He says I'm possessive. That I try to control him. I don't think he understands—I don't have anyone else."
"Yes, you do. You've got Max, haven't you? And my mom really likes you. Even Jonathan and—and me."
El glares at him. "You don't like me."
"It's not that. It's just—for a long time, I thought you took Mike away from me. I know now that he just… didn't know how to be what I wanted him to be. I don't blame you for that. I don't even blame him for that anymore, really."
"Took him from you? You kissed my boyfriend."
Will winces. "I know. And I'm sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen until it just—happened. But if you're going to blame someone for that, blame me. Don't blame Mike. It meant nothing to Mike," he concludes with a grim smile.
She watches him suspiciously for a moment, then gives a great hiccough and blows her nose again. It's weird not to see red in the tissue when she pulls it away from her face. "Strange—the way you think," she tells him solemnly.
"Finally, something we can both agree on," says Will with a small smile. "Look, I used to think it was a competition, between me and you, but it's not, okay? It's really not. And anyway, if it were, you would win."
"No, I wouldn't. He still wants to be in your life."
"He wants to be in yours, too. He just… can't be right now, while he's getting over you."
"Getting over me?"
"You know, moving on past his feelings. That's what happens when people break up: they take some space away from each other until it doesn't hurt anymore, and then sometimes they can come back and stay friends."
"Friends," says El dubiously.
"I know you don't want to be just his friend right now, but it won't hurt as much, in time."
"Does it hurt less for you, in time?"
Will's smile feels phony as it stretches across his face. "I hope it will. I hope it will."