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These days, it seemed like Will was always finding himself in the same increasingly familiar situation. His eyes traced the circulating ceiling fan above his bed, watching specs of dust fly off it into the corners of the room.
It was ridiculous really, his pathetic pining. All day, he had spent following at the heels of a certain Mike Wheeler, begging for scraps of affection like a touch-starved puppy. He cringed at the image in his head, groaning in frustration and flipping over in the covers to lightly bang his head against the wall so as not to wake Jonathan.
He wanted to tear his hair out. Or better yet, take a pair of scissors and rip through all his newly sketched portraits, entailing a specific dark-haired, freckled face. But he didn’t. He never did. What he would do instead was promise to himself to stop, to get a grip, and leave this useless obsession behind. He would stand up, smooth out his hair, and collect all his artwork and set it in a drawer– the bottom one in his closet– and tie the handle shut with a shoelace from his sneakers. Not destroyed, but out of sight. Ready for a new him, one with life outside of being a pathetic, lovesick idiot.
But as it was, the drawer was almost overflowing, and the original promises he made were now months old. Will grabbed handfuls of his covers and screamed into them.
What if he ran away? Took a couple bags and stole away into the night, never to be seen again? That would save him the embarrassment of acting like such a goddamn fool.
He could hear the clock ticking away in the background of his repetitive, racing thoughts. What time was it now? 2 am? 3? What an absolute fool he was.
He slumped upwards against the pillows and gave into the itch for a pencil and paper. He told himself it was just to collect his thoughts but it never was. The filled pages mocked him through their beautiful smiles.
Oh, the tears he had shed over this beautiful boy. But it didn’t seem to matter. No matter how much affection Mike gave him, he always wanted more. Craved the attention he was given. Mike had to know, had to see the yearning in Will’s eyes when Mike wrapped an arm around him, or allowed Will’s head to lean on his shoulder. Will was almost convinced he was doing it on purpose. But he would rather die than ask and confess how deeply he was influenced by the other boy’s casual actions.
It had also been getting worse. Over the last few months, Mike had become increasingly touchy. It was just friendly brushes of the fingers, or absent-minded playing of the hair, but Will had taken this new information and flown to the moon with it.
Brushes of the arm had become Will grabbing onto Mike like a leech, and sitting next to each other on the couch was suddenly an opportunity for Will to drape himself all into Mike’s personal space.
Was it insanely obvious? Yes. Did Will lie awake at night, going over every example of moments like these? One hundred percent. And he wanted to die. He could feel his face flushing just at the thought. Was it too late to reconsider running away?
It wasn’t even that Mike showed signs of discomfort. Will almost wished he did so he could stop out of moral obligation. Instead, he acted like he wanted it, leaning into Will on the couch and allowing his fingers to be interlocked with Will’s when it was initiated.
But then came the overthinking. It seemed to him that since Will started being affectionate and offering physical affection, Mike had stopped. Maybe it was just his own mind playing tricks on him but over the months it had dwindled from constant casual touches to almost none. Will, as a result, now exposed to the possibility of holding hands, was now persistently reaching over to grab Mike’s hand and fill the empty space he was now unused to holding.
When he was alone, he would run the memories in his head over and over like replays of the evening news. Why had he stopped? Did he want Will to stop? Did he mean to turn Will into this stupid, insecure person who questioned every interaction they had? It drove him crazy. But he couldn’t stop. It was like a drug he couldn’t wean off. Every night he promised, and every morning he biked to the Wheeler’s before school to meet Mike and bring him a new comic to read.
What a goddamn idiot. He needed to stop, but it was addictive. He craved the moments when Mike initiated the touch, and he grasped onto those seconds like a lifeline, same with the times Mike would smile at him across the room. Will would often find himself glancing the boy's way just to catch his eye and trick him into thinking they looked at the same time. They’re on the same wavelength, he would say. But they’re not, Will just doesn’t want to leave their eye contact to chance. Every opportunity he strangles with a rope of uncertain love and hope.
2:30 the clock read. Will sighed and closed his eyes.
Behind the darkness was the promise of dreams, where Mike would be the one to stare at him, and Mike would be the wistful dreamer. It was unrealistic. It would never happen. But sleep came easily when that delusion was what he thought about. He would never leave, he knew that, never forsake these feelings he had grown a dependency on, taken a comfort in. Despite the pain they brought him. His heart was forever tainted by the dream of Mike Wheeler.