"And what did you tell Mike when you called him back from the basement?" asks Carlotta.
Honestly, she's not sure what she's expecting Will to say. From everything he's told her during today's session, the way he's been talking about his relationship with Mike, it seems like Will's come to the conclusion that Mike can't be in his life—but if he was this devastated when he first made that realization, then why does Will seem so stable here in Carlotta's office today? He's been sitting here for the last nearly twenty minutes walking her through every Mike-related step he's taken in the last week, and he hasn't broken eye contact or cried once, not even when he paraphrased the concerns Mike raised in the car that apparently originally sent Will reeling for days.
Either Will has managed some pretty incredible growth in the last few days, or he's burying his problems in codependency. She's a little afraid to hear what he has to say about it.
Will doesn't answer at first, at least not directly. "Well, I didn't tell him goodbye. I've tried that how many times already?—and it never sticks. I didn't want to go through all the emotion of doing that again just to resurface in his life in a few months or years, which, really, given my track record, I probably will."
Carlotta works overtime to keep her facial expression neutral. "So you're still dating? Or staying friends?"
"I didn't commit to that, either," says Will. Carlotta narrows her eyes. "I just—I think part of my problem is that I feel like I need to have everything figured out, like I'm not settled until whatever is going on between him and me is settled, too. But relationships aren't permanent. Right? I mean, I can be okay without knowing the ultimate fate of my relationship with Mike or what kind of terms we're going to be on with each other when we die. I just sort of decided I need to—stop framing it like I have to keep resetting the boundaries until I find ones that will last forever. For now, I need him to go away, but that's all I need to decide right now."
She relaxes a little—that's a lot healthier an answer than she was expecting. Maybe Will has learned something these last few months in therapy—has figured out at least some of the answers. "That's very true. You don't need to know for sure at this exact moment what the rest of your relationship with Mike will look like. You know what this reminds me of?"
"What?"
"Do you remember what you were saying a few weeks ago when you were worried that you and Mike didn't have a future together because you would never have normal boundaries?"
"Of course," says Will, stiffening a little.
"Remember what we were talking about—about living in the moment a little more and not being so preoccupied with whether your circumstances right now are going to permanently dictate the future of what happened between you two?"
"Well, that I still don't get," Will admits. "It still seems—I don't know—irresponsible to date somebody you can only handle being around once a month, especially now that—I mean, clearly, I can't even handle that much. Why get serious with somebody where there are that many warning signs?"
Carlotta smiles. "I'm not saying I think you and Mike would work. I'm not even saying I think you should give it another shot. I just mean—for next time—you can't assume what things are until you find out for yourself whether anything's changed. Who knows? Maybe with the next person you like—"
"Don't even talk like that," scoffs Will. "I can't even imagine going through an ordeal like this with anybody else ever again. It doesn't seem worth it, not even with Mike and definitely not with a stranger."
Carlotta's not convinced that the solution to Will's codependency problems is for him to close himself off from all romantic love, but she doesn't think it's the right time to suggest anything so risky as moderation to Will right now. For the moment, she just makes a note and then says, "So you didn't say goodbye to him, but you said—goodbye for now?"
"Pretty much," says Will, nodding. "I just—told him to stop calling me. It was actually very low-drama. Nobody cried—I'd already cried myself out right before from talking to my family, I think. I didn't freeze up or go nonfunctional. The whole conversation only lasted about five minutes."
"And how do you feel now?"
He shrugs. "I don't know. It's hard to even… I felt numb at first, but after I talked to him on the phone, it's almost like I've been feeling—empowered, weirdly? Like—I don't have to just sit back and take whatever I feel for him anymore. I can make decisions about it. And—even though it's humiliating, it kind of helps that Mom and Hopper know now everything that's been going on with me."
"If it helps, then why is it humiliating?"
Will looks away. "Hopper is… Hopper. And with Mom, it's like, she raised me better than this. It was hard to admit to them how bad I screwed up. I should have known better than to let myself fall into any of this."
"Will, nothing you've done has been…" She pauses, makes a note, and then continues, "You can't blame yourself for not knowing better during a time that your judgment was clouded."
"But I should have learned," Will argues. "As soon as I knew I was addicted to him—as soon as I knew how risky it was to talk to him and did all of that work to improve my boundaries—I should have known better than to let myself fail again."
"But you did fall into it again, didn't you?" says Carlotta. "You were in it with him when you made those choices. Just because you've been in therapy and have learned some skills doesn't mean that you can will away your BPD and never have a relapse."
She can tell he doesn't believe her, but he doesn't push it, and neither does she. It's not ideal, but she feels that she and Will have something of an understanding: they keep their focus on the areas of overlap where they can be productive, and they stay away from the disparities where they won't change each other's minds or accomplish much of anything. It doesn't mean she won't keep trying to get through to him, but for now, she makes a note that he's not ready—that she'll have to revisit this topic another time.
She's pretty sure Will feels the same way about her—that he knows on some level that she doesn't believe in the Upside Down and just doesn't think it would be useful to belabor the point. It's the exact opposite of how Carlotta feels: she knows Will won't accept that there is no Upside Down, no Mind Flayer, no Vecna, and feels their time could be better spent elsewhere.
Will is her last appointment of the day. She takes a few minutes after he leaves her office to log a few more notes on their session and double-check her schedule for tomorrow (it's an early day, sadly; her first appointment is at eight A.M.). When she heads out, Will is still in the waiting room, stuffing a textbook and notebook into his backpack. Hovering in the doorway that leads to the parking lot is a teenage girl Carlotta doesn't recognize, but as she's talking to Will, Carlotta assumes that this must be his sister, Jane.
Will glances up as he stands and slings his backpack over his shoulders. "Oh, hey, Carlotta. I don't think you've met my sister?"
Carlotta smiles, steps forward, and extends a hand. "Hi, Jane. I'm Carlotta Taylor."
Jane looks dubiously at Carlotta's hand before sticking her own forward. She doesn't seem to know how to shake hands properly, just holds a limp grip for a second before snatching her hand back. "It's El. Hi."
Carlotta raises her eyebrows. She knows that's what Will calls Jane—that it's tied up with his fantasy that his sister was numbered Eleven in a laboratory where scientists hid her for most of her life—but why would the girl identify herself that way to Carlotta, too? "El?" Carlotta asks as politely as she can manage.
"Yes. Short for…"
Jane casts a look at Will, who nods. "It's okay, Eleven. She knows. I don't think she believes me, but she knows."
It concerns her more than a lot of the things Will has come out with. Will's mother and stepfather haven't been—been brainwashing these children in some way, have they? Carlotta has seen a lot of gaslighting over the years, but something of this nature would be a first. It sticks in her mind the whole drive home, as she's heating up leftover grilled cheese and carrying it onto the couch, where she absently flicks on the TV and starts to eat.
It's still on Nick at Nite, which she watched around three o'clock this morning when she woke up inexplicably in the middle of the night, and she flips back to the first news station she can find. She watches a few seconds of a story about a local assault, shakes her head disgustedly, and changes the channel again.
"—Reports coming out of the small town of Hawkins, Indiana, which some residents are saying must be cursed. In the last few years, Hawkins has seen a full-blown government cover-up of pollutants leaking from the Hawkins National Laboratory, a mall fire that claimed the lives of Police Chief Jim Hopper and others, a baffling earthquake as recently as last June that tore apart the fabric of the town, and, as of last night, some truly bizarre weather patterns. Tyson Dixon headed up this evening to check it out—Tyson?"
The screen shifts. Carlotta's heart, for no good reason, is beating all the way up in her throat. Tyson Dixon is on the screen saying he's never seen anything quite like what he's seeing here in Hawkins today, and Carlotta can see why. It looks almost like it's snowing or like tree pollen is drifting around him, but what's falling from the sky is too slow and gray and slimy to be flakes of snow or pollen. As the reporter speaks, the camera pans over dead grass and rotting flowers that Tyson claims were healthy and thriving just hours ago, and Carlotta—
—can't get Will Byers's words out of her head. He called it a wasteland, the Upside Down, where nothing grows and the air is thick and slimy, and—
There's got to be a logical explanation. There's got to be some reason that Hawkins appears to have been plunged into the Upside Down—that Will could have described its appearance exactly to Carlotta before it happened.
Hasn't there?
xx
END OF PART THREE
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A/N: That's it for now, though I'll likely revise the post-season 4 chapters and then continue once season 5 is released. Thank you if you've read this far!