Little League (Byler)

XVl [end of section l]

(AKA,
"Feelings. Jesus. The truth is, for so
long I'd forgotten what those even
were. I've been stuck in one place. In a
cave, you might say. A deep, dark
cave. And then I left some Eggos out in
the woods and you came into my life.
For the first time in a long time, I
started to feel things again. I started to
feel happy. But lately, I guess I've been
feeling distant from you. Like you're
pulling away from me or something. I
miss playing board games every night,
making triple-Decker Eggo
extravaganzas at sunrise, watching
Westerns together before we doze off.
But I know you're getting older, growing,
changing. And, I guess, if I'm being really
honest, that's what scares me. I don't want
things to change. So I think maybe that's
why I came in here, to try and stop that
change. To turn back the clock. To make
things go back to how they were. But I know
that's naive. It's just not how life works. It's moving, always moving, whether you like it
or not. And yeah, sometimes it's painful.
Sometimes it's sad. And sometimes, it's
surprising. Happy. So you know what? Keep on growing up kid.
Don't let me stop you. Make mistakes, learn
from 'em. And When life hurts you, because
it will, remember the hurt. The hurt is good.
It means you're out of that cave. But,
please, if you don't mind, for the sake of your poor old dad, keep the door open three
Inches." -Hoppers Letter.)

Mike had apologized.
Mike had said 'sorry.'
So.. he should've forgiven him by now.
But for some reason Will just couldn't get himself to let go of that nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach. That nagging feeling that clutched onto his new grudge, reminding him of all of those months of loneliness and neglect. All of those months where Jonathan took the form of his best friend. Where Mike had just left the picture so he could go suck face with some girl he met after a week of which Will was busy being thrown into an alternate dimension alone and only twelve years old. And after all of those months, could he really forgive Mike with one stupid apology?

And now it was just five hours before Will would be moving away. Five hours before driving to the land of hippies and unbearable sunlight. Where peace signs and 'brochachos' were just common communication.

Where there would be no Mike Wheeler.
No arcade trips on the weekends or seven hour long D&D campaigns. And Will would have to start new and force himself off of that swing on the playground by himself. Because he knew sure as hell, that in highschool people don't exactly just approach you and ask to become friends. You don't just meet a Michael every day.
And Mike had been trying to hang out a lot more since he heard the news. Every chance he'd get, Mike would call the Byers house or come knocking at the door begging to see Will. In fact, Mike had even shown up at his window at midnight, once, carrying a box of pizza in one hand. Will just pretended to be asleep.
He was scared of any kind of Wheeler interaction, still tart about the whole situation that occurred just months before. And he didn't like that Mike was only doing this now, after all of those months where he could've just said 'hello' or stopped by.

So when Mike ran up to him during school, or flagged him across the street, Will made a b-line to the nearest building or corner and just pretended like he didn't see him. And no, Byers didn't want to be mean- it just wasn't the same anymore. It wasn't his best friend trying to communicate with him, it was that one friend from elementary school, that you barely hung out with outside of school, trying to contact you seven years later.

Will had felt the cool metal of the zipper under his fingertips, the worn cloth of his school backpack on his skin, the papery texture of cardboard boxes being loaded into the car. And now Will was busy stacking his worn D&D books in a pile. Now he was busy trying to swallow the knot in his throat that bashed around reminding him that those books were his childhood. That throwing them into the donation pile was wasteful of all the good memories, that this meant The Party had official torn apart. But Will begged himself not the think of it that way and rather just- just... growing up.
He wasn't a kid anymore, like Mike had said.
He needed to start acting like it.
Maturity wasn't his specialty but fingers crossed to him being a quick learner.