"Will Byers, you're an enigma."

I look up from my sketchbook to give Jesse a puzzled look as he plops onto my bed next to me. Today was our last day of school for the year, and my friends and I are planning to ring in the summer by having a party at Mike's house. But the Wheelers need a few hours to get everything ready, so Jesse proposed that the two of us stay at my place in the meantime. It certainly isn't the first time that we've hung out in my bedroom, talking and drawing while our favorite music plays in the background.

"You like Black Sabbath?" Jesse goes on. He gestures to the cassette player I'd inherited from Jonathan as the energizing guitar riffs ripple off the walls. "KISS, Joel, Bowie, The Stones - those, I can believe. But Black Sabbath?"

"What's wrong with Black Sabbath?" I ask innocently.

"Nothing, but..." He hesitates, shaking his head. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you do not give off Black Sabbath vibes."

Amused, I lean back against my headboard. "What vibes do I give off?"

Jesse considers me for a moment. He bites back a mischievous smirk. "The Beach Boys?"

"Oh, my god," I respond, laughing and cringing.

"And there's nothing wrong with The Beach Boys either!" He adds. "But could you imagine them performing Iron Man in concert? Because that's kind of what this feels like." As I chuckle again, he requests, "What about me? If you had to guess who my favorite artist is, purely based on outward appearances, what would you say?"

I ponder that question, trying to recall what I thought of him when we first met. Then a funnier answer occurs to me. "Rick Springfield," I say with mock-seriousness.

"You are so cheesy," Jesse informs me, but the way he's beaming at me makes it feel like a compliment. "Give me a real answer."

I think for a few more seconds. "Probably Queen," I decide.

Jesse pouts and reclines on the headboard next to me. "But you already know they're my favorite."

"Maybe your vibes are just more...extroverted."

"That's not hard, if you're the baseline."

Mirroring his easy smile, I continue working on my drawing, and he tilts his head to watch.

"Is that me?"

I nod as he points at the lightly lined figure on one the side of the page, creeping up behind a more menacing shape at the center. On the opposite side, another faint person is extending an arm and holding a staff. It's the two of us as our D&D characters, battling a dark wizard - one of the many works that he's commissioned from me over the past five months since we met. That relationship isn't one-sided, though; Jesse has some artistic talent as well. While I prefer using pencils to capture details and blend colors, he works with bolder and less forgiving mediums like ink or paint. His drawings take inspiration from the comic books we both love - a style I've never been able to master. But I guess he isn't feeling inspired today, because his bristol paper sketchbook and pens are abandoned on my desk.

"It's kind of crazy," he brings up, watching the cassette player as Children of the Grave fades out. "You know everything there is to know about me, but I'm still learning stuff about you."

I knit my brows as I darken the linework of the evil wizard's robes. "I can't know everything about you."

"You do, though, pretty much." Jesse sighs and laces his fingers behind his head. "Most of the time, I feel the same about you, like I've known you for ages. But sometimes...I don't know...sometimes I feel like I've barely scratched the surface."

Troubled by his wistful tone, I look up from my paper. "You know me better than most people."

His blond eyebrows crawl up his forehead. "Even Mike?"

The question makes me hesitate, but not for the same reason I used to. "I've been friends with Mike since kindergarten," I point out. "That's not a fair comparison."

"I guess not. I bet he knows you like Black Sabbath, though."

The halfhearted smile on Jesse's face isn't enough to disguise the emotion buried in his remark. Trying to decode it makes me feel jittery. He almost seems frustrated with me. "I doubt it," I tell him, carefully cool. "Mike's not into the same music as me, anyway. He'd probably think it's weird."

Jesse shrugs and goes quiet as he observes the drawings and posters on my walls. I try to go back to sketching, but my nerves won't settle. The strange subject change consumes my thoughts. Why was he comparing himself to Mike...?

"Can I look at some of your old sketchbooks again?"

Startled out of my thoughts, I furrow my eyebrows at him. His usual lightheartedness is back, if only a little muted. Not wanting to lose that smile again, I tilt my head toward the shelf. "Take your pick."

Predictably, he goes straight for the black spiral-bound one, which is wedged between a binder containing the Mindflayer's scribbles and a folder full of elementary school doodles. This time, when he sits on the bed next to me, he stretches out his legs so he can rest the book on his lap. When he notices the way I'm staring at him, he defends his choice: "What? This one's the coolest."

I watch with a weary smile as Jesse flips through the many drawings that I made the year after I'd gotten stuck in the Upside-Down. I'd had a lot of recurring nightmares during that time (that is, before the Mindflayer came after me), and I'd discovered that drawing the disturbing images helped me to compartmentalize them. It was a form of therapy that the doctors encouraged, despite my mom's distaste for it. My thoughts wander as Jesse pages to a charcoal drawing of a vine-covered forest. It's the only one from this book that I ever showed to my mom, because it inspired a rant that I wasn't supposed to hear:

"Those doctors don't know what they're talking about. I mean, how could they? He was in an alternate dimension for a week! Nobody knows anything about this!"

"They said he has PTSD," Jonathan reminds her gently. "That's not unheard of."

The anxiety in Mom's hushed voice is tangible. "I know that, but is this really the best way to treat it? His art used to be so neat and bright and colorful, and now it's...it's dark and creepy, like that place. I didn't even know we had charcoal!"

"We didn't. He asked me to get him some yesterday," Jonathan admits.

Mom sighs, and I picture her pinching the bridge of her nose. "I just don't see how it's healthy for him to be lingering on all those memories. For god's sake, he's only eleven..."

"I don't think he's trying to linger on them, Mom," Jonathan points out. "I think he's trying to get them out."

"I love this one."

I blink as Jesse's voice pulls me back to the present. He throws a grin at me and then returns his attention to a vivid depiction of a Demogorgon's mouth. "It's like a flower with teeth," he enthuses, splaying his fingers and producing a very nonthreatening growl. I smile at his childishness, but he must be able to sense my reservation, because he sobers up after that. He touches the page like he's about to flip it, but his thumb lingers at the corner, and he stares for a little longer. Then he asks, "What was your inspiration?"

Goosebumps spring up on my arms. I pretend to go back to sketching so I can avoid his hopeful gaze. "I told you, that book is just a bunch of random sci-fi stuff. It's nothing specific."

Jesse drops the subject, but his disappointment weighs heavily in the air as he flips to the next page. I try to ignore the knots in my gut and focus on my work, but my pencil hovers aimlessly over the paper. Jesse does know me well - and he clearly knows that I'm lying. But I'm not sure how much I could tell him about this without risking our friendship. If I dump the whole unfiltered truth on him, like Lucas did to Max, he'd probably think I'm insane. At least Lucas had proof. All I have is a bunch of sinister artwork.

But when I see the defeat in those kind brown eyes, I feel like I have to try.

"You know, I've never let anyone else look at that book."

Jesse stares at me like I've handed him a delicate gift. "Really?"

"Jonathan's seen a few of them, and my mom's seen one," I admit, "but you're the only one who's seen them all."

The smile he gives me after that is smaller and more meaningful than any of the others. "Cool," he murmurs, unable to mask the thrill in his voice. He returns his attention to another Upside-Down landscape, and he stays on that page for a while, frowning like he's lost in thought. Then he blurts, "Sorry for being stupid."

"You're not stupid," I start to say, but he shakes his head.

"No, you were right. Nobody knows everything about anyone, so why should I have to know everything about you? I mean, I want to know more about you, obviously, because you're my best friend - but I don't want to pressure you into telling me things if you don't want to. Just because I rant to you about all my shit doesn't mean you have to do the same. Besides, everyone has things that they don't like to talk about."

"Even you?" I interject knowingly.

Jesse reflects my tentative smile. "Yeah, even me," he concedes, nudging his shoulder against mine.

The gesture makes something flutter inside me. Jesse has never been shy about showing affection through physical contact. It isn't the first time I've thought about that personality trait...or wondered if those gestures meant something more for me.

I try to dismiss the troublesome thought. After the situation with Mike, I'm not eager to get my hopes up and have my heart broken again, but I can't help but think that this time might be different. As Jesse pauses to appreciate a drawing of a Demogorgon prowling in the shadows, I watch him intently, wishing I could read his mind. Then something occurs to me, and it slips out before I can stop it:

"Is that why you never told me about your girlfriend?"

Jesse blinks at me, and irony pulls at his lips. "Did you really spend the past ten seconds trying to come up with something I never talk about?"

Embarrassed, I rub my face with my hand and stammer, "No. I was just...I didn't mean...I don't know. It just popped into my head, I guess." As he raises his eyebrows, I go on, "I know you had a girlfriend once, but that's all you've ever said about it. Sorry. I have no idea why I brought that up." I grimace and clam up, silently cursing my own awkwardness.

"Oh, my god," Jesse breathes in realization, and I freeze. Then his grin gets even bigger, and he says impishly, "I'm rubbing off on you."

When I realize what he means, the fear leaves me, and I pull a face and make a disgruntled noise. As Jesse laughs like he's proud of himself, I argue, "I'm still not as bad as you!"

"You will be soon, if you keep hanging out with me," he teases.

"Okay, well, in that case - get out."

Jesse snickers at my deadpan tone. "Oh, come on, Will! Is a little honesty really so bad? I think it looks good on you!" The statement makes my heart skip a beat, but he goes on before I can think too hard about it. "Anyway, there's not much to tell about my ex - if you can even call her that. We were only twelve, and we dated for like two weeks." He grimaces and adds, "It's a stupid story."

His phrasing peaks my curiosity. "So there is a story...?"

He meets my sly smile with a sigh of resignation. "Do you really want to know?"

I shrug. "Only if you want to tell me."

Jesse furrows his brows at the Demogorgon in his lap like he's measuring how much to say. I'm not used to seeing him look so indecisive, especially because of me. The thought makes something twist inside me, and I wonder if this is how he felt when I lied to him. Then I remember that he's currently holding a piece of my mind that I've never shown to anyone else. In that moment, I decide to give him as much of the truth as I can. Trust is a two-way street, after all - and how bad could a little honesty be?

"They're nightmares, by the way."

He blinks at me like I derailed his train of thought. "What?"

"The drawings in that book. They're inspired by nightmares I've had."

I can see the gears working behind his eyes as he stares at me. "Oh. Oh..." When he frowns down at the Demogorgon again, concern is etched in the lines between his brows. "Have you had any recently?"

"None that I can remember. It was a lot worse when I was younger."

"How much younger?"

I try not to wince as he directs his worried gaze at me again. "I was in middle school - around eleven or twelve."

Those warm brown eyes are a little too perceptive. "That's the same time you went missing," he observes softly.

"Yeah," I confirm. By now, Jesse's been at school long enough to hear all about the week I was supposedly lost in the woods. (In a small town like Hawkins, stories like that stick around for decades.) "I'm fine now," I add, grimacing at the way he's staring at me. It's the same expression all my friends and family gave me back then: like I was a house of cards, and they were afraid to breathe in my direction.

Jesse seems to sense my discomfort, because he nods and says swiftly, "Yeah, of course." Clearly disturbed, he glowers at the Demogorgon with new appreciation. "So, you actually saw all these things...?"

"Yep."

"That's...wow." He gives me a chagrined look. "Is this a 'you show me yours, I'll show you mine' situation? Because mine seems extra stupid now."

"That's not what I was getting at," I tell him honestly. "I just wanted you to know."

Letting out a slow breath, Jesse closes the black sketchbook and rests his head against the headboard. "Alright, you win. I'll tell you mine. But don't judge me too hard, okay? I was only twelve."

A mix of relief and curiosity washes over me. "Okay," I agree. I'm mostly just glad he overcame his indecision.

He launches into the story with a preface: "You know how my dad's kind of an asshole, right?"

I smirk at his cavalier tone. "Right."

"Well, he used to tell me all time that I would never get a girlfriend."

I scowl as I remember the derogatory remarks my dad used to throw at me. A problematic father figure is something the two of us have in common.

Jesse's expression matches mine as he explains, "That was, like, his default response whenever I was doing something that he thought was weird, like reading comics, or drawing, or listening to my music, or not wanting to join the football team. I guess he thought I wasn't cool enough, because I didn't like any of the things he liked growing up. Well, eventually I got tired of hearing it...so I decided to prove him wrong."

"Wait. Are you saying you only got a girlfriend out of spite?" I interject, shocked.

"Yeah, pretty much," he says dryly. "I thought you said you weren't going to judge me?"

I raise my hands in surrender. "Right, sorry."

"Anyway...her name was Jenny," he continues grudgingly. "My friends used to joke that the two of us were meant for each other; I guess it didn't help that our names are so similar. She was kind of nerdy and bubbly, and she seemed to really like all the pictures I drew in my notebooks. I was pretty sure she had a crush on me." He grimaces. "So, obviously, she was the first person I thought of when I came up with my brilliant plan. The only problem was that I didn't like her back; I didn't really feel like that about anyone at the time. But I thought it wasn't that big of deal."

"I don't think she saw it that way, though, because when I asked her out, she was over the moon. She told everyone. It felt like the whole school knew about it by the afternoon, and my friends teased me nonstop. I didn't mind all the attention, though; she was nice enough and fun to be around. I bet we could've been good friends if I hadn't been such an idiot."

"So, we went to the movies, and I got a picture with her at the photobooth in the mall, so I could show my dad. Of course, he thought I was bluffing, and he tried to call me out on it. He said something like, 'Oh, so I guess you're taking her to the school dance, then?' I was gonna go to that dance anyway, because all my friends were going, and you didn't technically need a date. But since my dad twisted my arm, I asked Jenny to go with me."

"That's when things started to get weird. It was all she could talk about after that - what we would wear, what songs we would dance to - and she kept dropping hints that something special was gonna happen. Then it finally hit me that she liked me way more than I liked her. I felt like a total dick - but by the time I realized it, I was in too deep. I knew I had to tell her the truth, but I decided to wait under after we went to the dance, since she already bought a dress and everything."

"One very awkward week later, the night of dance rolled around...and she tried to kiss me." He pauses, rubbing his face and avoiding my eyes. "Being the idiot that I was, I just went along with it." He heaves a sigh and gives me an uneasy look. "You know how people say you're supposed to feel when you kiss someone? Warm and fuzzy, fireworks, and all that shit? There was none of that. It was super uncomfortable - for me, at least. That was the icing on the cake for my conscience. After that, I sort of panicked...and I bailed on her."

"You left without saying anything?" I infer quietly.

"Not quite. I, uh...I said some things," Jesse mutters miserably. He looks at my ceiling like he wishes he could float up there and disappear right through it. "I basically blurted out that I never felt that way about her. This was about ten seconds after she kissed me."

I can't help but pull a face. "I'm guessing she didn't take that well."

He cringes too. "She started crying and ran off to hide in the bathroom. I didn't know what else to do after that, because I couldn't exactly waltz into the girl's bathroom - and even if I did, what was I supposed to say? 'Sorry for being a dick and leading you on for my own validation'? No. That would've made it worse. So I just walked out."

Jesse attempts to smile through his discomfort. "Karma bit me in the ass, though. It was a winter dance, so it was twenty degrees and snowing outside. And I didn't want to call my dad to pick me up early, because then I'd have to explain what happened. See, I wasn't just an idiot; I was a stubborn idiot. I walked ten miles in my slacks and dress shoes. They were completely ruined by the time I got home. I lied and told my dad that my friends and I decided to ditch the dance and play in the snow, and that one of their parents dropped me off. He was so mad that he grounded me for a week - took away my sketchbooks, my cassette player, my Atari...pretty much everything."

"My dad wasn't the only one who was pissed, though. After word got around about what I did, half of the kids at school wouldn't even give me the time of day. My friends didn't hold it over my head, thankfully, but I don't think Jenny ever forgot about it. I apologized to her later, and things were pretty civil between us once everything blew over. But after that disaster, I decided to call it quits on dating until I found someone who I was absolutely crazy about."

When he's finished, Jesse surveys my expression with nervous eyes. I watch as a hint of color rushes to his face, and he scowls at the closed sketchbook to avoid my eyes. "That's why I didn't tell you before," he confesses. "It's not that I didn't trust you or anything. I just didn't want you to think any less of me."

His demure look sends a shiver down my spine. "I don't think any less of you," I assure him, ignoring the butterflies in my gut. "Everybody's done things they regret. Also, you were twelve. I did plenty of stupid things when I was twelve."

My sentiment seems to ease his fears, but his relieved smile is just as captivating as his shyness. "You know, I earned myself a nickname too, back at my old school," he mentions ironically. "They called me 'Houdini'."

A guilty laugh escapes me. "That makes 'Zombie Boy' sound alright."

"Well, I can't say they weren't creative."

Either he's content that I've accepted his story or he's drained from telling it, because at that point, he lies down on my bed, with his back on the covers and his head cradled in his hands. My heart rate quickens as I dwell on his interesting conclusion. A stubborn voice in my brain nags me: Just say it! What have you got to lose?

Throwing caution to the wind, I muster my most nonchalant tone, and I ask him, "Did you ever find someone?"

My blond friend lifts his head to give me a bewildered look. "Hmm?"

"You said that you decided not to date anyone else until you found someone you were 'absolutely crazy about'," I quote him, too committed to turn back now. "Did you ever find someone like that?"

Jesse stares at me for two seconds too long. My heart starts hammering against my ribs, and it's all I can do to maintain eye contact. I resist the urge to tap my fingers against my sketchbook. At last, he smiles and reclines again so he's facing the ceiling. There's a certain airiness to his voice as he tells me, "I'm still looking for them."

As I return my eyes to my paper, the drum in my chest performs a celebratory march. I start drawing again, but I can barely keep my pencil steady. When I picture the way Jesse was staring at me, tingles ripple across my skin, and I have to quell a giddy grin. His words play on loop in my mind, and one rings louder than the rest.

It wasn't the answer I really wanted, but it gave me hope - because he didn't say her.