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Mike had almost always wanted what he couldn’t have.
He was six.
He had a few friends, but he had only one best friend.
Will Byers, who would always sit with him and help him with his work and who he taught how to ride a bike and who would sleep over at his house every weekend. He was Mike’s best best friend.
Mike had heard of something called getting married. He knew that, when you were married to someone, you both wore rings and that you would stay together forever and ever.
Well, he and Will were gonna be together forever and ever anyway, so it was only logical that they should get married. It all made perfect sense in Mike’s head.
One day at recess, he pulled Will behind the playground and took out two plastic rings he had been given by a nice lady at the arcade who didn’t want them.
“What are you doing?” The other little boy questioned cluelessly.
“I’m marrying you! You know, like adults do!”
“Like moms and dads?”
“Yeah, and if we’re married it means that we’ll always be together!”
Will nodded. It made perfect sense to him, too. There was no reason they shouldn’t be married.
The rings were a bit too big for their ring fingers, so they both put them on their pointer fingers instead. They also both refused to take them off when the teachers told them too. When do you ever see married people without their rings?
Mike had gotten into his mom’s car that day grinning happily, the plastic ring still on his finger.
“How was your day?” His mom had asked.
“Great! Missus Jenna gave us chocolate!”
“That’s lovely, sweetie,” she had said, though she sounded very far away.
“And I also won the soccer game at second recess and also me and Will got married!”
Mike was jerked up in his seat when the car abruptly hit the brakes.
“…what did you say?”
His mom was looking at him weird and Mike shrunk down into his seat.
“I-I won the soccer game and I got married to Will.”
She looked mad, but also something else. He didn’t know what. She had stared at him long and hard for a moment before she turned back around and silently started the car again.
“M-mom?”
No response.
“Did I do something wrong?”
His lip trembled as the deathly silence held, though he tried his very best not to cry because he was too old for that. He looked at the ring and felt a little bit better.
His dad was mad. Very mad.
He was yelling and Mike was sitting on his bed, hugging his knees to his chest and looking at the cheap ring he still wore.
“-you can’t do that, Michael. Boys can’t marry boys, do you understand me?”
“But why?” He sobbed tearfully. Why couldn’t he and Will be married?
“Because it’s wrong. Boys marry girls and girls marry boys. Do you understand?”
He didn’t understand.
“Do you understand, Mike?”
“…yes, papa.”
He thought that would be the end of it, but then his dad reached out to grab his wrist, pulling his ring off. He had shouted and grabbed for it but was met with his dad shoving him back onto the bed forcefully.
“Boys don’t get married, Mike.” He said grimly, before he walked out and slammed the door behind him.
There was a slight mark on Mike’s finger from where the ring had been. He sat still, looking at that mark, silent. Outside his bedroom door, he heard his parents talking in hushed voices.
“Ted, is this necessary?”
“Yes, it is. If I were that boy’s parents, I’d want to know.”
“But… darling, you know how Lonnie is with his kids. He’ll kill the boy.”
“For once, I’m on Lonnie’s side.”
Their conversation grew quieter as they moved further away. Trembling, Mike laid down and shoved his face in his pillow, crying until he fell asleep.
The next day at school, Will had a lot of strange marks on his face and arms. He said that he had fell while riding his bike. He also wasn’t wearing his ring.
At recess, they agreed to get un-married.
Mike didn’t understand.
Mike wanted to wear his ring, but it was wrong.
Mike wanted to be with Will forever, but he couldn’t.
-
Mike had almost always wanted what he couldn’t have.
He was eight.
He had desperately wanted that shiny, new bike. And it wasn’t for him; his bike was in perfect condition, thank you very much!
Will’s parents would never buy him toys or new things. His mom would always talk about money and stuff that neither of them understood and Will would never talk about his dad or let Mike meet him, so he assumed that he had the same answer as his mom.
Will had been biking to school on the same rusting, second-hand bike for two years, which had no rubber on the handlebars and a torn seat cushion and scratched paint. He and Mike had begged his mom many times for a new one, but she would always just smile really sadly and shake her head.
To Mike’s kid brain, this was unforgivable. His best friend, his Will, had to bike to school on that squeaking, rusty mess, had to get teased for not being able to get a better one? Despicable.
When he saw that bike in the street window, he knew that he was going to get it. He was going to get it and give it to Will. He was getting it.
“Sweetheart, no. Your bike is just fine.”
But it’s not for me, he had cried. Will needs a better bike, needs this bike.
“Will’s parents can buy him a new bike. It’s too expensive.”
Please, he had begged.
No, he was told over and over.
He couldn’t get that bike.
He couldn’t have it.
For weeks after that, he would stand outside the shop’s front window and stare at the miniature yellow model with a face like that of a kicked puppy.
It’s okay, Will had told him. It doesn’t matter.
But it did matter.
Mike wanted that bike so badly, but he couldn’t have it.
-
Mike had almost always wanted what he couldn’t have.
He was nine.
He and Will were in different classes in school.
He went to the principal, of course. He begged and he begged and he begged.
“Nothing can be done,” The principal had said.
He’d complained to his parents too.
“I’m sorry, Mike, but you’ll have to live with it. We’re not going to make a fuss.”
He didn’t want to live with it.
He only saw Will after school and during recess, which wasn’t nearly enough. There was nobody to pass notes to in class, or to exchange candy from their packed lunches.
It was boring.
Mike wanted to be with Will, but he couldn’t.
-
Mike had almost always wanted what he couldn’t have.
He was thirteen.
Will was hurting. He was screaming.
Mike wanted to go to him, to hold him, to help him, to tell him everything would be okay. He struggled against the nurses that were holding him back, but he wasn’t strong enough.
“It’s okay,” One of them was saying. “It’s just another seizure. It’ll pass.”
Ms. Byers was crying. From behind the closed door that they refused to let him pass through, Will was still screaming, and every time the door opened when doctors and nurses rushed in and out, he saw a glimpse of the boy thrashing on the hospital bed.
Let me go, he had yelled. Let me go to him.
He had kicked and hit and writhed, desperate to run to his friend. But he just couldn’t break free.
“Give him anaesthetic,” a doctor said. “Knock him out while we run tests.”
Let me go, let me go, I want to see him, let me go, Mike cried.
The screaming from behind the door quietened, and there was silence. Ms. Byers was allowed to go into the room. The nurses had pulled Mike away, back into the hospital staff room where they made him hot chocolate and toast to calm him down.
He didn’t touch his food. He didn’t want to eat.
He wanted Will.
Mike wanted to help, but he couldn’t.
-
Mike had almost always wanted what he couldn’t have.
He was fourteen.
So much had happened. Far too much.
The Byers needed a new life, a fresh start.
Mike was horrified.
He had begged Ms. Byers over and over.
“You know it’s better for us, Mike. I’m sorry.”
He had begged Jonathan over and over.
“Will and El need this. I’m sorry, but the decision is final.”
He had begged his parents over and over.
“No, you can’t go with them, are you insane? You have school!”
He had begged El over and over.
“I’ll miss you. But I want to start over. Be happy. I’ll write, okay?”
He had begged Will over and over.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t want to go, I begged her to let us stay. You’re gonna come visit, right? You have to.”
Nothing worked.
Ms. Byers had given him a tearful hug, had told him to take care.
Jonathan had patted him on the back.
El had hugged and kissed him.
Will had held him, making promises.
He watched as they drove away.
He biked back home.
His mom was waiting. He let himself be pulled into an embrace. Nancy hugged him too, her eyes red from crying. She was also losing someone.
It wasn’t fair.
Mike wanted to stay with Will, but he couldn’t.
-
Mike had almost always wanted what he couldn’t have.
He was sixteen.
He had been through hell and back.
He had seen the world ending and had seen how it was saved.
He had seen death and he had known fear.
He had seen new life flourishing and he had known love.
He was walking through the forest, reminiscing. Will was by his side, of course, as he always had been.
They talked, they laughed, they teased. Mike had never felt so warm.
They stopped in a clearing, where sunlight pooled from a gap in the leaves above. Will was bathed in sunlight.
He had grown.
He was taller, his shoulders broader and his limbs no longer thin or lanky. His jaw was more defined, his voice deeper, his hair cut neat and short. His eyes, however, were the same swirling hazel they had always been, ever changing in hue. Sometimes they spoke of a lush meadow or maybe autumn leaves, a mug of hot cocoa or perhaps a forest glade and sometimes a shallow lake on a clear summer’s day. Right now, they remind Mike of springtime rain, a mix of flecked grey and green.
There were other small things about him that had also never changed. Small birthmarks or moles or scars, the things that made him Will, that Mike sought out every time he was around him.
And his smile. The soft twitch of his lips, the way his eyes would shine. Nothing had changed there. It was the same as it had always been.
He was looking up at the line of trees now, adorned with that gentle smile, eyes fluttering shut as he revelled in the warmth of the sunlight.
Mike could only stare, simply admiring his best friend of ten years, his soft beauty.
Mike wanted to kiss him. He wanted to more than anything.
Mike took a careful step closer, ever so slowly reaching to cup his friend’s face. His skin is soft and warm. A shuddering inhalation of breath was the only reaction given and Will made no movement, his eyes still lightly pressed shut. He willed himself to move ever nearer until there was just inches between them and once again, an uneven breath was all he was met with.
Mike wanted Will. He really did.
But he would never take what wasn’t his to take. He had to be sure.
“Can I?”
His own voice was low, unsteady, barely a whisper, and the hushed reply only just reached Mike’s ears.
“…please.”
And he does.
Nothing has ever been so perfect, so right. Nothing will compare to feeling the smile he loved so dearly against his own lips, to how time itself had paused to let that moment truly be theirs.
That bittersweet ten-year long chapter of their story ended with them finding each other anew, bathed in the light of the sun as it spilled from the gaps in the canopy of leaves, a tender kiss marking the turning of a new page.
Mike had almost always wanted what he couldn’t have.
It’s the ‘almost’ that matters.