Heartbreak Story - Byler

VII - He Gave You Up

The door of Will's room flung open and Dustin, Lucas, Max, Eleven and Steve came bursting in.

"Will! Are you okay?" Max squealed as she ran to Will, brushing right past me as if I wasn't even there. The others weren't far behind her all except Eleven who stood at the door, her eyes on me and not on Will.

Eleven gently flicked her head in the direction on the door, gesturing for me to join her in the hallway. An irrational panic took over me, my mouth went dry and my heart began to beat faster as my brain screamed at me to never leave Will's side in case something happened again. My pulse sounding in my ears and my body still glued to the chair, I looked back at El with concern for Will etched into every facial feature and silently begged her to understand that I couldn't go anywhere. Eleven furrowed her brow and paced over to me. As she grabbed my hand, I flinched at her forceful touch that had once been so endearing and intriguing to me but now felt uninviting and controlling.

My head snapped around to search for Will as my mind told me I needed his permission to leave him and go with El - not that it would have mattered as she was forcefully dragging me to the door and I had no choice, I was powerless to stop her. When my eyes landed on Will, I saw his own flash to me for a second and a hint of sadness glistened within them before he looked away, becoming preoccupied telling Steve for the 73rd time since he'd gotten there that he wasn't in too much pain.

Eleven slammed the door of Will's room and rounded on me, "I need to talk to you."

"Why? What the hell was all that about, Eleven?" I demanded. In response, the curly-haired girl in front of me held out a tissue, soaked with blood for me to see. For a moment, I wondered why she was showing me this and then the gears of my brain whirred into place. "You used your powers? Why, El? We said you wouldn't do that anymore."

"Emergency." She stated, matter of factly.

"What did you do?"

"After I went home last night, I wanted to find Will. Find out what happened to him. It's bad, Mike."

"I know." I whispered, feeling sick to my stomach. "It's terrible, it's horrendous, I couldn't imagine anything worse. He told me everything."

El shook her head.

"He told me everything, Eleven. I swear he did."

El continued to shake her head and I felt my throat tighten, the acid from my empty stomach threatening to escape my body. "Shit, what didn't he tell me?"

Eleven's chocolate-coloured eyes widened like a doe's. "The cut, the one on his forehead. I saw. Alex did it. He had a knife and he dug it into Will's head and pulled it across so it would be long and deep and would scar. Said he wanted to leave his mark on Will forever so everyone would know that not only is he "a dirty queer" but he belongs to Alex and always will. He said no one will ever love him when he looks "ugly" like that, the way he never loved him."

My heart stopped and I started running down the hall, I was in desperate need of a bathroom as I couldn't hold back any longer. Retching, my stomach tried to empty itself of the nothing I'd eaten in the past twelve hours into the toilet and acid seared my throat as it left my system.

For a second, I rested my pounding head against the cool pan as tears slipped from my eyes. Will had lied to me and told me that Alex had only watched when in actual fact, he'd been the one to cause the most damage to him. He'd left Will a parting gift, a memento of their time together that would remain on his face for life and every time Will would look in a mirror, he'd be forced to remember that night all over again. Emotional torture would follow him everywhere, everyday.

Lightheaded and shaking, I rose to my feet and somehow found myself at Will's door with no recollection of making my way there. Silently, I opened it and advanced back inside so I could stand at the back. My head was still spinning and I didn't even feel like I was really in the room with my friends - I felt like I was nowhere, like I didn't even exist anymore.