BYLER | I Dare You to Break a Heart

Ch. 13: Deja Vu

The following days after Mike's breakdown, he decided to simply pretend Will didn't exist and avoided any contact between his other two friends. He noticed Will trying to be touchy as they usually were but every time he felt his hand brush against his, Mike whipped it away and turned in the opposite direction of Will. He continued this for a day and a half until Thursday afternoon in which Will stopped trying.

Mike tried not to notice but it was impossible to avoid the obvious fact that Will's whole aura had dulled completely. Without Mike's comfort, it was like he went from a ball of joy and light to a grey cloud drifting meaninglessly through the sky. It hurt Mike's heart to see Will like this but he had to ignore it. He wanted nothing more but to hug his best friend until the day they died. But if he did this, he would only grow even more attached.

Before he knew it, the dreaded day arrived... Friday. The gang (minus Jane because she was still mad at him) was meeting up at Lucas's house an hour before they told Will to be there so they could plan everything out and have the situation go as smooth as humanly possible (even though it was inevitably going to end with Will storming his way home).

Mike felt miserable and lagged his every movement. When getting his coat on, he fussed with the zipper longer than necessary. When packing his things he contemplated what to bring for way too long and overpacked. Eventually though, time caught up to him and it was time to go. Mike sighed, his hand hoovering above the doorknob. He didn't even want to leave. He felt sick to his stomach. Taking a deep breath in, he finally found the courage to twist the door handle and swing it open. As he was about to step out into the rain when he heard a voice shout from behind him.

"Mike!"

The boy turned around to reveal his sister standing at the bottom of the stairs holding a small package wrapped with plain, brown wrapping paper. She walked towards Mike and stuffed it into his backpack.

"What is that?" The boy asked.

Nancy just shook her head, "doesn't matter. Just give it to him. Might make things easier... good luck Mike..."

FRIDAY NIGHT, 5:00 pm, 1 HOUR AWAY FROM WHEN SHIT BLOWS UP

"Okay so here's what we're gonna do," spoke Lucas, "Everything will be set up for D&D. We'll all be sitting on the carpet, laughing and shit- MAKE SURE YOU'RE HAPPY. If we're all fucking depressed Will's gonna know something funky is in the air. Mike..." Lucas shifted his gaze to the boy and immediately regretted it.

Mike's eyes had massive bags under them. As if he hadn't been sleeping for days. Lucas softened his tone.

"...I'm sorry dude..."

"It's fine." Mike stated with a tone as cold as ice "Nothing we can do about it now so just tell me what I need to do and let's get it over with."

Dustin shook his head, "I'm getting major deja vu right now you guys... we're planning another stunt on Will without him here... this feels wrong."

"Well luckily for you, you're not the one he'll be pissed at for the rest of his God damn life. So suck it up, baby."

The room was silent with shame, guilt and dread looming in the air for far longer then what was comfortable. Slowly, Lucas continued explaining.

"Mike, you're gonna privately tap him on the shoulder and bring him to talk in my parent's bedroom. They're gone on a vacation so they're not in there. Then you need to let him down really... really... REALLY lightly. This is probably gonna be really tough for him to hear so you need to steer everything perfectly or this whole thing is gonna blow up even bigger than generally assumed... you got it?"

Mike sighed and continued to stare at the ground "yeah."

"Alright then. Maybe we should lighten up the mood so we have a good setting when he arrives. It reeks of guilt in here."

"Wait." Mike inturrupted, making the party shift their attention back to him. He shuffled through his bag and trapped the package Nancy had given him earlier, still neatly wrapped with dainty handwriting on the front: 'To: Will Byers, From: Nancy"

'Weird... she signed it from herself instead of me... and "coincidentally" forgot to add "Wheeler." Ha. Nice. Funny.'

"Nancy gave this to me before I head out the door. I don't know what it is and it's not from me to Will it's from her; and I doubt Will's gonna accept any kind of peace offering I personally give him tonight so it's probably best if one of you slip it into his backpack while I'm talking with him in the room."

Mike openly held out the box to the group suggesting anyone take it and eventually Max grabbed the box and promised she'd get the job done.

For the rest of the 30 minutes that were remaining the group tried their best to break up the atmosphere but it was next to impossible. No one could take any of the weight off their shoulders. It felt like trying to enjoy the last few minutes of your life with the bomb ticking in the background. It was awful. One could only pray that everyone was well enough of an actor to convince Will they didn't know a thing about what was about to happen. Eventually though, the group was able to converse at at least a level that wasn't 100% depressing. A few laughs were shared here and there, jokes were told... people mostly conversed because they knew they had to. Mike didn't though.
All he did was sit there sharing glances between the clock and the door, dreading the moment the bell chimed with each passing second. Tick... tock... tick... tock... tick... to-

*ding dong*

...

The party went silent.

...

Lucas stood up and sighed.

...

The party continued their conversations the best they could.

...

Mike's butterflies turned into bees...

...

...Here we go again...

//AN\\

So... hi. It's been quite awhile and idek if anyone still reads this story anymore but I am definitely thankful for anyone that does 💜💜. I'm not sure if you're here from my Instagram but if you are not, I've addressed what my plans are with this book and I'll just repeat it on here so you all know. Byler honestly isn't my biggest fandom priority anymore - don't get me wrong, I LOVE it with my whole HEART ugh 💜. But it just isn't one of my biggest interests, which I think is kind of understandable considering the huge content drought within the Stranger Things fandom. I've joined other fandoms now and Stranger Things just isn't my top priority (it's my second -3-). HOWEVER, I WILL finish the story :). A lot of people have been nagging on me to update he story after I continuously left you guys on torturous cliffhangers and for that, I'm sorry. I'm really happy with how far this book has come. I mean, c'mon, 4K reads!?!? That's insane!!! I'm also pretty proud of the originality of the plot and I would very much rather not put it to waste. I don't know how often I will update. I'm going to write when I have time and when I feel like it. I do not want this to begin to feel like a job as I let some things do sometimes with my constant obsession over perfect schedules and starting over if I mess something up. My editing account became like that and I don't want the same thing to happen with this book. Everything will be written with care whenever creativity just so happens to wave through me. Sometimes you'll get 3 chapters in a week. Maybe you won't get one in a month. And you know what? That's okay. Because I've learned that my mental health is more important than anything else and personally, writing is a way of treating my mental health. It allows a lot of my creativity to escape. And I know that if I stamp a schedule and stress about due dates with this it will have an opposite effect (plus, my writing will be bad, heh). So just- bare with me, this story will continue. Thank you for the support and thanks for reading 💜.