𝐡𝐚𝐳𝐞𝐥; byler

𝐗𝐈𝐈

or "a visitor"

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It was like buying that one shirt opened this weird gate inside Will.

It was like he had locked out this whole part of himself, the part he thought of as too sensitive or feminine or gay , and one shirt with a glittery butterfly brought it bursting out.

Or maybe it had been out for a while, hiding in his head as Hazel.  Maybe it was just this shirt that allowed him to finally connect her to his day to day life.

The rest of the weekend, Will went back to the thrift store maybe four times. He used every last  piece of that twenty dollars that his mom had given him, plus a few bucks he had saved up over the years, to buy as many clothes as he could. 

Not all of them were from the girl's section- but many were.He just let himself actually look for stuff he liked, for things that made him feel excited to wear- without worrying about which gender "Merv's budget fashion" thought they belonged.

For the first time, he understood why Max and Jane loved shopping so much.

Max and Jane. He had thought about recruiting them for the task, he was sure they could help match outfits and point him away from hideous fashion crimes, but decided against it.

He felt like he needed to find his style on his own. He felt like he needed, for once, to make decisions free of outside influence. Weather it was negative influence from bullies, or positive one from his friends or mom, it didn't matter. He needed to be himself for once. Find himself for once.

10.27 am

So that's probably why, at 10:30 pm Sunday, When he really should be starting to get ready for bed at the very least, Will was sitting at his desk, listening to music, and trying to figure out how to apply the pink eye shadow he had stolen from his mom. 

He had brought the small mirror from the bathroom on the desk, and was trying to not make it look like he had been punched in the eye- because apparently if you were really bad with pink eye shadow, that's the impression you gave off. 

Honestly, all those YouTube beauty gurus made it look so easy, but he had barley figured out how to apply mascara without poking his eye out yesterday. 

It wasn't like he wanted to wear makeup to school. Not yet, at least. That was pretty scary, and he was already sort of terrified with the clothes he had chosen to wear tomorrow. He just wanted to know how to- and after a few hours of practice, he was actually starting to get a pretty good look. 

He inspected his creation in the mirror, and smiled brightly. He didn't remember the last time he saw himself look so happy. His eyes were popping with joy- or maybe his makeup skills were just awesome enough to make his eyes pop. After all, that was what he had tried to do!

Kiss me hard before you go, summertime sadness, the next song started.

Yeah, okay. Will was the kind of guy to listen to the Neigbourhood and Modest Mouse and Vampire Weekend, a "music snob" as he was often teased by Jane and Max (He couldn't help it, his music taste was completely created by his brother and Jonathan was the definition of a music snob)  But he also had that playlist, stuffed full of Abba and spice girls and yes- a whole bunch of Lana Del Rey.