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“Will, wait, hold on.”
Will, who was about three steps up the staircase out of the basement turned around.
“Yeah?” His eyes were still a bit red from Mike’s story, but his voice was clear when he spoke.
“Um, can I talk to you for a minute? Like before we join the others?”
“Yeah, what's wrong?” Will asked concerned, trying to scan his friend's face for any sign that something was up.
With Will’s full attention on him, Mike went completely speechless, forgetting what was so important that he needed to tell his friend.
“Oh nothing,” he said quickly, Will’s face relaxing slightly, “We just haven't talked in a while, you know? The whole ‘graduating’ business… I kind of thought we were above it all.” Mike said with a grin, which was now being returned by Will.
“Yeah, I guess that with all the monster fighting and ‘world saving’ and all of that, the thought of graduating high school seems… odd.”
Mike smiled at him and nodded. The boys stood awkwardly for a few seconds while either of them tried to come up with something to say. Surprisingly it was Will who spoke first.
“What you said about El… Do you really believe that? That she’s somewhere better?”
Usually Mike would just say yes, without giving it too much thought… but this was Will, he couldn’t lie to him. Not even by accident.
Mike was quiet for a few moments before he spoke.
“I don’t know. I hope so,” he trailed off at the end a bit; Will just waited patiently for him to finish his thought, ever so considerate, “I think that after everything we’ve been through, it’s sort of tough for her to find something she can’t overcome—I mean this is El we’re talking about!”
“I suppose. I hope she’s happy, you know? Wherever she is.”
They were quiet again, but the space had lost any sort of awkwardness, now it just felt like it was: two boys who had known each other for forever, simply talking about life; no room for awkwardness with all the care and devotion in the room.
Mike was simply happy to be standing next to Will, after everything that had happened they hadn’t really had much time to talk. It had been 18 months of small talk and focusing on school… children grieving, simply trying to move on.
Once again, it was Will who spoke first.
“I’m sure you really miss her.” He spoke quietly now, like he didn’t want to intrude in something that wasn't any of his business.
“Don’t we all?”
“Of course we do… it’s just, well you know, because of all that happened between you two…”
Mike was silent for a few moments, choosing his words carefully, “You know, I really cared about El. Hell, I think I might have even loved her… but I don’t think we would have lasted, not really.”
“What do you mean?” Will asked, genuinely curious, careful not to pry too much.
“El and I, w- we started dating when we were kids, and with everything that happened I think that our relationship was something as close to ‘normal’ as we could get. I mean, we might have been fighting interdimensional creatures but I still had to worry about getting her flowers on Valentines… you know? They were mundane problems that made us feel a bit more… normal.”
Will listened to all of this attentively, seeing as Mike seemed to be going into a bit of a rant.
“I really cared for her, but now that I’ve grown a bit I think I’ve come to realize that most of my feelings for her come from a purely platonic place. It was fun to fool around, make out, you know, all that stuff… but we were just kids. It’s like that was what I was supposed to want to do, and since I cared about El so much, she was the best option. We grew together, and I consider her one of my best friends. I think we understand each other in a way that’s hard to explain, but I’m not sure that it sprouted from a romantic place. I- I honestly feel like shit sometimes because of it. She had literally just escaped from a fucking lab and like two weeks later we were making out. It feels like I sort of took advantage of her—”
“Woah woah woah, Mike. You were both kids, you didn’t know any better.”
“Maybe… it was still a shitty thing to do though, but anyways, I’m getting off track,” Mike was doing lots of movements with his arms by now, “The thing is, the reason why I’ve come to realize that my feelings for El weren’t romantic was because the feelings I had for another friend were completely different. I think I understand between caring about someone and loving them. Well, no, I loved El, but not like that.”
“Mike… what are you trying to sa—”
“Holly, how do we play this game?”
The voices of the little kids interrupted them, as they clambered down the stairs pushing and shoving each other to get to the basement.
“Jesus, watch out!” Mike shouted after Holly.
“Jeez yourself! You said you'd be done an hour ago!”
The voices of the kids overlapped each other as they ran to the table where the previous game had just finished.
Mike turned to Will who was looking at the kids too, Mike could almost see all the memories resurfacing. Will noticed Mike staring, and mumbled “We should… go upstairs, you know, with the others.” before turning towards the door and climbing the rest of the steps, stopping Mike from talking any further.
Mike turned to look at the kids one last time before sighing and following after Will.
***
Dinner was awkward to say the least, although with the rest of the group chatting no one noticed the strange tension between the boys.
After they finished their lasagna and everyone was saying good-bye, Mike called out to Will, who was about to climb on his bike.
“Will can I just… talk to you for a second?” Mike pleaded, seconds away from dropping to his knees and full on begging for Will to talk to him before he completely lost his wit.
Will sighed, “Mike look, I’m really glad that you found some nice girl, but it’s our graduation day I really don’t need to know this right n—”
“I know El didn’t commission the painting.” Mike cut in, blurting out the first thing he could think of.
Will's face visibly paled under the moonlight.
“W- What?”
“I asked her about it… she had no idea what I was talking about.”
“Well maybe she just forgot or something, I don’t really know Mike—”
“She said in her letter that it was about some girl you liked… after your speech all those months ago, I sort of figured that wasn’t the case. You said you had a… what was it? Lani? Tanny—”
“Tammy…” Will but whispered, looking down at his feet.
“Yeah… that was it. Tammy.”
“Look, Mike… it was just something stupid I said in the heat of the moment. You weren’t really supposed to look into it too much.
“Okay, well, I did. It's just, well I’ve been getting all these signs, a– and Hop and I, we sort of had this whole conversation about El, and what she would have wanted, and moving on and I just thought…”
“What are you trying to say Mike?”
The boys stared at each other. Mike took a few seconds to take in Will, who looked like he was ready to hop on his bike and ride away at any moment… but also looking vulnerable and scared under the moonlight and the shade of the trees. Mike’s eyes softened as he took in his best friend… so much had changed and still they were still the same Will and the same Mike.
“I love you Will.”
Will mistook his meaning for a second and scoffed, scared expression faltering for a moment, “I know that Mike, I love you too.”
“No. Will, I love you.”
Will was rendered speechless, searching in his friend's face for any sign that this was some sort of messed up joke, but only finding tenderness. Truth.
“I– I don't understand. Why are you telling me this now?” Will asked, in a small voice, his brain refusing to believe that this was happening.
“We’ve been through so much… I think I didn’t want to let myself have some sort of happy ending… but I’m starting to believe that I can. Hopefully with you, if you let me.”
Will’s face was filled with feeling, countless emotions passing all over his face in a manner of seconds. The outcome of all of these was a simple nod and a few tears running down his face.
Mike’s heart swelled in a way that it didn’t know it could anymore, and reached forward to hug Will, who was no longer holding onto his bike for dear life.
They pulled back, both of them crying now. Mike raised his hands to cup Will’s face and look him in the eyes, trying to project the years of unspoken feelings and longing glances, eyes dropping to Will’s lips and back to his eyes, only to find him staring at Mike’s lips.
Mike grinned and leaned forward finally kissing those lips that he had been dreaming for what feels like centuries at the moment. After a few more seconds of this they pulled back, with slight heavy breathing.
“I love you.” Will said, after a moment. Mike grinned.
“I love you too.”