Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Aubrey Bell on “Saudade”, 1912:  It is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present. Nor an active discontent or poignant sadness, but an indolent, dreaming wistfulness.

Will’s bike is banged up and dirty but it gets him to school.

He’d found it a while back, rusty and abandoned by the trash. The person that left it was clearly finished with it, so Will figured he might as well use it. He can still remember the excitement he’d felt when he realised - this is it. He can travel on his own.

Now he takes the same route daily, past the new houses, close enough to smell the sea.

He likes cycling, actually. Somebody at school asked him once why his parents don’t drop him off like the rest of the kids in their class, but Will had just laughed at that. He prefers the wind in his hair, going so fast that nobody can catch him, especially compared to sitting in the back of the car and catching glances of his dad’s gaze in the rearview mirror. His dad actually lets him keep it, too, probably relieved he doesn't have to take Will to school any more.

It gives him a sort of freedom, even if he has to be back by five or there will be consequences.  

Every day Will stops by the new houses for a few minutes and watches as people get into their cars, holding their coffees, ready to go about their day. 

The first thing he had noticed as they were being built a few years ago were the houses themselves, but now, the houses are barely worth looking at. Will knows if he looks at them too long his heart will break. They are perfect houses, in his opinion: tall - three floors, in fact, with big Georgian windows and front gardens littered with flowers. They are large and looming and there’s a magic to them, in their mystery and their exclusivity. 

He can’t help but contrast it to his own house, where the front garden is unkempt and the windows dirty, where his own bedroom window was smashed in the corner a while ago and never fixed. So he doesn’t. Instead, he watches the people. 

Sometimes they’re on their phones, gesturing wildly with their hands. Sometimes they’re decked out in sportswear and they set off running along the road, probably towards the harbor. Sometimes Will sees people open their curtains, take a look out of the windows and disappear somewhere into their house. He wonders what they are returning to, or which rooms they are in, and what the parts of their lives are like that he can’t see.

He takes a moment to breathe in heavily through his nose.

Then, Will sets off on his bike again, imagining himself as one of the kids that pile into one of the many four-by-fours and get driven to school. 

He takes up drawing aged eight.

It’s down to an art lesson. He likes the landscapes his teacher shows them, makes an instant connection between the paintings and the skyline he sees as he bikes home daily. Sometimes he looks up at the horizon and sees the colors stretched out before him. He watches them in awe, and feels that maybe somebody put them there just for him. He knows the artists his teacher shows them felt like that too, and wanted to put it somewhere to see it forever, for him to see years later in his classroom. He feels the itch to do the same. 

He asks his teacher if he can take some paper and pencils home one day. She takes one look at him, this kid who barely speaks in any of her lessons, and sees something a little different than before. She gives him a sketchbook and a set of watercolor pencils. The only condition is that, occasionally, he shows her some of his drawings. He agrees, of course. 

So, his journey home extends by an hour or so. He starts sitting by the path next to his bike, staring out at the sea and the sky, and churning out a few landscape drawings.

They look scribbly and - well, they don’t look at all like the landscape he’s drawing from. He sighs, frustrated.

It doesn’t take long before Will’s attention drifts to the new houses. He turns away from the sea and watches the neighborhood as a couple come out of number four. He can hear their faint laughter drift towards him on the wind.

The woman kisses the man on the cheek and takes off jogging down the street, ponytail swinging. The man checks his watch, takes a sip of his coffee and leans heavily on the door frame.

Will’s pencil dances on the page.

He struggles to capture the movement of the lady’s ponytail. It swings in a certain way that he can’t really draw yet, from side to side as she strides away off into the distance, and soon she’s too far away for Will to use her as a reference. 

It’s less of a struggle to illustrate the man on the step. He repeatedly has his lips on the edge of his mug, keeps checking his watch for a brief second. The man watches the woman run away, leaning against the door frame, before she disappears over the horizon.  

There’s a rumble above him. Will can tell from experience when it’s going to rain, but he’s been putting off leaving in favor of finishing his sketchbook page. He looks up at the clouds, though, and sees their dark gray color. The man on the doorstep has the same idea; he squints up at the sky before turning around and heading inside. 

Will shields his sketchbook protectively - he can imagine his landscapes running down the page, watercolor pencils activated and drawings ruined. He places it delicately back into his bag, under his school books, and cycles home.

His mom ushers him inside. “You’re late,” she says in a hurried voice, “again.”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” he says. He’s not.

“Don’t make any noise,” she hisses.

Will does as he’s told and disappears silently into his tiny bedroom. It’s raining properly now; the rain hits the windows and the noise is deafening, but Will’s used to it. He shoves a sock into the corner of his window to catch the water creeping in through the crack. Then he takes his unharmed sketchbook from his bag, runs his fingers softly over the ring-bound edge, and tucks it safely under his mattress.

His dad is nowhere to be seen. 

Soon enough, he decides to start waking up early and drawing before school. 

It means that he can catch more people over more time; more people leaving for work, more people with their Thermos, more yawning adults. It also means he’s safely out of the house way before his dad wakes up.

He likes watching number three. They have four kids, all with golden blonde hair. Their mom is bright and round and fusses over them, their dad tall, with a big mustache. Often he picks the kids up and spins them in circles. 

Will has drawn them before - he thinks they have tennis, or something, a few days a week after school. He’s seen them pile into a big car in bright white clothes, shouting as they drag what he guesses are rackets. 

He watches as they leave for school this morning. One of them - the youngest girl - shrieks with laughter as she trips over the step and into the car.

His banged-up old watch tells him he has a half hour before he needs to be at school. Will would much rather sit here all day, but he can only imagine what would happen if his dad got a call saying he’d been absent. He goes to close his sketchbook before he sees two people come out of number two.

It’s a woman, dressed in a suit, and a girl - a toddler. The woman shouts something over her shoulder and a boy, a young boy, maybe Will’s age, follows them out of the house. 

He’s in a grey blazer and striped tie, lugging a leather satchel. He shields his eyes, looks across the sea for a moment, fusses at the knot in his tie and then gets into the back seat of the car. 

The boy doesn’t see Will sitting on the grass, staring at him. His mom, Will assumes, does; she cocks her head to one side, looking in his direction for a brief moment before getting into the car as well. Will looks away from her quickly, not wanting her to notice him sitting in the grass on his own. 

As they drive away, Will glimpses the boy watching him through the window. 

Embarrassed at being caught, Will scoffs under his breath, slams his sketchbook shut and gets on his bike. 

He returns after school anyway. It’s gray, overcast and drizzling, but he has his sweater. The wool is too thin and it’s scrappy at the elbows but it does its job.

As soon as he sits down the water on the ground soaks through his shorts, but it’s not like it matters. Will doesn’t mind. He likes the cold. 

He opens his sketchbook on his knees like he always does and watches for a few minutes. He surveys the scene before him, the clouds above him, and then he picks up his pencil. 

On overcast days, there’s less to watch. People don’t come out of their houses much, and when they do it’s only for a minute or two, to empty the trash or get to their cars. He understands it, kind of, because with a house as wonderful as theirs, why would you ever want to set foot outside?

He outlines number two in blue pencil. As he’s doing it, he can imagine the suited woman. In his head, she's still in her suit, sitting on the couch with a coffee, her toddler by her side.

The boy is upstairs, poring studiously over his homework. His smart leather satchel sits by his feet.

“What are you doing?”

Will almost jumps out of his skin in surprise. His pencil skids a long blue line across the page, and the satchel he’s drawing doesn’t look anything like a satchel anymore.

He looks up to see who interrupted him. Towering over him is Satchel Boy, his pants rolled up to his knees, striped tie loose around his neck. His shoes and socks look very wet indeed and he’s carelessly brandishing a long stick.

“Is that my house?”

Satchel Boy leans over and pokes at the blue pencil drawing with the stick. It leaves a dirty mark on the page. Will feels a slight annoyance claw up inside his chest but he doesn’t reply.

“That looks like my house,” Satchel Boy says. “Is that me?” He pokes at the scribble that used to be his satchel. 

Will still doesn’t say anything but rubs at the dirty mark. It just gets dirtier, and smears a little, onto the sketch of the lady from number four. He wants to sigh but doesn’t. Sighing is rude, according to his dad - although most things are rude according to Will’s dad.

“It looks a bit like me,” Satchel Boy rambles. He doesn’t sound much like Will thought he would. “My house doesn’t look like that from the inside though. My desk is under the window. Mami says it’s so I can see better when I do my reading.”

Will rubs his nose, not quite sure how to reply to the sudden barrage of conversation thrown his way. “Hmm,” he mumbles in return.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” 

“No,” says Will.

Satchel Boy laughs and swings the stick, somewhat dangerously, over his head. Will’s lack of response must be amusing. “Why are you drawing my house?” he asks. 

Will shrugs. Satchel Boy has an awful lot of questions, and Will has never liked questions much; he’s not very good at answers. “It’s nice.” 

“They are nice, aren’t they?” It’s posed as another question, but it doesn’t seem much like one, and he doesn’t wait for Will to reply. “Do you just draw houses?”

“No,” Will shakes his head. “Not always.”

“What else do you draw, then?” More questions. As he asks them, the boy swings the stick around him in a circle - it nearly hits Will, and he has to dodge out of the way. 

“I like landscapes,” Will replies.

Satchel Boy nudges Will’s sketchbook impatiently with his stick. “Let’s see, then.”

Will has to think for a moment before he decides to turn the page. He’s used to doing what he’s told - it’s the easiest way to get along - but he’s usually not told what to do by other kids. He’s not sure he’s willing to show his drawings to a complete stranger, but he supposes Satchel Boy has already managed to see a few without any disaster. He flicks through the pages, slowly, and Satchel Boy makes an impressed noise.

“That’s quite good,” he says, head cocked to one side, curious. Then he grins and wiggles the stick again. “I like the people pages better though.” 

“I like drawing people too,” says Will. 

The stick lands on the lady with the ponytail, and Will winces preemptively, but it doesn’t leave a mark this time. “That’s Abigail. Isn’t it?”

Will shakes his head. “I don’t know who Abigail is.”

“I think it’s her.” Satchel Boy sounds very matter-of-fact. “She always goes running with her hair up like that. Is that one Justin?”

“Who’s Justin?” Will asks.

“Abigail’s husband. They live in number four.”

“Oh,” Will says. “Yes, then.” 

“Cool. Do you live in one of those houses?” He gestures to the new houses with the stick, the same view Will stares at every day. Will shakes his head. 

“No.” 

“Hmm. Thought so,” Satchel Boy says. He spins the stick around absently in his fingers like he does it all the time. “I’ve never seen you before. What’s your name?”

“Will,” says Will.

“Cool,” Satchel Boy repeats yet again. “I’m Derek.”

Maybe Will was expecting something ridiculous and bookish like Sebastian or Octavius, but the name Derek suits him. He nods. 

Quiet falls on them for a minute: Will’s natural territory. He’d been practically shocked still by Derek’s constant stream of conversation, but at the lack of chatter, Will flips the pages of his sketchbook and shuts it. The noise seems to break Derek from his silence.

“Why are you sitting on the grass?” Derek asks, frowning down at him. “It’s all wet.”

Will shrugs. “I don’t mind.”

Derek eyes him curiously. He looks at Will then, and properly - his gaze runs up and down, lingering on the elbows of Will’s sweater, or lack thereof. “Aren’t you cold?”

“No,” says Will honestly. “I don’t really get cold.”

“Hm.” They stare at one another for a beat. “Are you hungry?” Derek asks.

“Not really.” Will is rarely hungry, either. His teachers often worry about how little he eats at school. He doesn’t know how to tell them that he isn’t around a lot, to eat, so he doesn’t get hungry much.

Derek drags out his next word. “We-ell,” he says, sing-song, “do you want to come in for a cookie?”

“Oh,” Will says, surprised, the temptation of setting foot in one of the new houses almost overwhelming. He can almost see the floor plan in his mind, rearranged now Derek has let slip where his desk lives. Will’s reply is tentative, in case the offer is quickly rescinded. “Yes?” 

“Mami always told me you have to say please if you want something,” Derek says knowledgeably. Will curses himself for his mistake, the stabs of shame encroaching on his chest, but Derek doesn’t look annoyed or anything. His expression seems more like he’s pleased with himself for being aware of such good manners.

“Oh,” Will says again. His dad used to always say the same thing - he rarely forgets nowadays, and he inwardly scolds himself for doing so. “Yes, please. Sorry. That would be nice.”

Derek grins toothily at him. “Awesome,” he says. “Come on, then.”

Will climbs eagerly to his feet, hauling his bike up alongside him. They traipse towards the house, steps falling in sync with each other, and Will can feel his excitement growing. He shivers a little. Once they reach the gate, Derek abandons the stick just outside the front garden, on top of a large pile. It looks as though he’s been working on it for some time. Will leaves his bike there, too, and follows Derek in. 

The inside of the new house is much like Will had imagined it would be. It’s big, airy, light, tastefully decorated. The heavy blue door slams behind them and Will can’t help but compare it to his own house, where the door is so thin and flimsy you have to shove it twice before it shuts, and his father has put his fist straight through it on multiple occasions. 

“Mami!” Derek shouts at the top of his voice as they walk into the kitchen. Will starts, surprised, and immediately feels nervous. He would never dare shout in his house, if at all. 

“No need to shout, honey,” comes the reply, calm and measured, and the suited woman walks through the door. She isn’t wearing her suit this time, instead favoring a pair of harmless-looking sweatpants, but Will recognizes her instantly. She doesn’t seem annoyed at Derek’s volume.

She does, however, stop in her tracks and blink at Will, clearly very surprised to see a stranger in her house. It’s only for a moment, though, because then she smiles, warm and welcoming. Will blinks at her in surprise. She doesn’t even know him. 

“Where are the cookies, Mami?” Derek asks from where he’s rifling through the cupboards.

“Are you not going to introduce me, Derek?” his mother asks, looking pointedly between Will and her son.

“Oh, yeah,” Derek says, gesturing towards Will vaguely, his eyes still fixed on scanning the cupboards. “This is Will.”

“Hello, Will, I’m Amina,” she says, and holds her steady hand out for Will to shake. “It’s nice to meet you.” 

“It’s nice to meet you too,” is Will’s polite and automatic reply. He shakes her hand - her hands are soft and small, perfectly kept. He doesn’t touch his mom’s hands often, but he knows she bites her nails. It’s nerves, his teacher had once said about one of his classmates. A habit that’s hard to break. 

Derek, ignoring them, frowns. “Mami -” 

“Cupboard above the sink, darling,” Amina supplies helpfully. Expression cleared, Derek hops up onto the side and helps himself to the tin. Will watches him as he kneels on the counter, amused but a little confused at Amina’s lack of reaction. If he ever got footprints on the counter at home, he would suffer for it. 

“Which cookie do you want, Will?” Derek asks cheerfully. “Double chocolate or - eugh, gross! Raisin?”

“They’re good for you, Derek,” his mother says, smiling at her son’s disgusted expression. “You’ll forgive me one day.”

“Okay, Mami,” Derek says absently, sounding very much like he doesn’t believe her. He holds out a double chocolate cookie at arm’s length before sitting on the counter.

Will takes it, smiles, and bites into it. It’s been a very long time since he’s had cookies. He’s pretty sure these are home-made, too. 

“Thank you,” he says. 

“You’re welcome!” Derek grins back at him. 

“How do you know Derek, Will?” Amina asks.

“Um,” Will comes up short for an answer.

“He doesn’t really,” Derek answers for him, mouth half-full of his cookie. “I found him outside.”

“Oh?” Amina says. Will expects her to look down at him like he’s some sort of wastrel, to maybe kick him out of the house and onto the grass where he belongs, but instead the corner of her mouth quirks up like she’s amused.

“He was drawing,” Derek says conversationally as he kicks his heels against the cabinets. “He sits outside and draws things.”

When Amina smiles at him again, Will blushes and holds his sketchbook a little tighter. Nobody has ever taken an interest in it before; he doesn’t know how to react.

“He’s drawn our house,” Derek adds. 

Amina’s eyes drop to the sketchbook. Will is clutching it so tightly his knuckles are white. Adults, in Will’s experience, always want to know everything about children, for them to show what they’ve been working on or tell them all about it. Even though this adult seems nice, he knows he doesn’t want to let go. Surprisingly, Amina doesn’t ask him to.

“That’s very interesting,” Amina says instead. “It’s good to have a hobby. Have you tried painting before, Will?”

Will shakes his head. “No. I only have watercolor pencils.”

Amina nods like it all makes sense to her. “Have you tried them with water? That’s not unlike painting.”

“Once,” Will nods. He had been alone at home and finally picked up the courage to paint at the downstairs table. He hasn’t had the urge since. “It was a bit messy,” he adds. 

“Can I try?” Derek asks. 

He eyes Will’s sketchbook eagerly. Will clutches it tighter still, imagining somebody else’s messy lines scrawled all over the precious white pages. The thought makes him feel dizzy. 

Amina clears her throat. “We have plenty of paper, Derek,” she says pointedly. “You can use some of my paint.” 

“You have real paint?” Will asks before he can help himself. Immediately his heart begins to race, thinking of the stripes of color over the horizon in the artist’s paintings at school. They had been so much more vibrant than his pencils, because they had used real paint. 

Amina just smiles at him again - he’s not sure an adult has ever smiled at him this many times in a row. His heart rate slows somewhat. It’s odd to him that anyone at all is bothered about what he has to say, let alone an adult, one that wears suits to work. 

He isn’t sure his dad even owns a suit.

“I like to paint in my spare time. It’s very relaxing,” Amina explains. “I have lots of materials, if you want to play with them.”

Will’s insides are churning with excitement at the thought. Amina can see it on his face, probably, and he’s known for a while to keep his emotions hidden from grown-ups. He’s not sure he can help himself this time.

“Come upstairs, I’ll show you,” she nods her head towards the door. 

The two boys follow her up the stairs, Derek skilfully taking them two at a time, probably the same way he does every day. Will takes it much slower, running his hand up the dark wooden side rail and feeling the polish under his fingers. It’s smooth and cool. 

He can hear his pulse pounding in his ears with excitement. He’s dreamed of these houses, and in his imagination their insides are all different: number three is sunny and yellow, like the kids’ hair, and number four is sleek and contemporary. Justin seems like the type to own a really big television.

Seeing one from the inside in real life is almost surreal.

There are yet more doors upstairs. Will has only ever seen this many doors at school, where there are so many classrooms he isn’t always sure where to go. His bedroom at his house is one of two and he never goes into his parent’s room. Most of the doors in Amina and Derek’s house are ajar, but the landing is bright, painted pale blue and lit by big bay windows. 

In Will’s house, whenever the sun shines through the windows, lots of dust flies up and makes his eyes water. Here, the occasional speck of dust dances up in front of him before disappearing into the shadows. 

Amina pushes open the third door on the left and the inside is big too. There’s a canvas, held up on one of those big wooden stands that artists use, and it’s half-painted on; the beginnings of a hazy green landscape stretches across it. There are three long desks in the room, too. One of them is under the window, like Derek had described his own, littered with materials.  

“I keep all my painting things right here,” Amina pulls out her drawers one by one, and Dex catches glimpses of tubes of paint, pencils, palettes and seemingly every medium under the sun. It seems to go on forever. 

“Wow,” he breathes. 

Amina smiles down at him. “Help yourself,” she says. 

Will laughs out loud before he can stop himself, his fingers darting out to dance over the tubes without restraint, his heartbeat loud in his ears. Acrylic, it says. Some say watercolor, like his pencils. Gouache. Oil, like some of the paintings he learnt about at school.  

He’s being spoiled. It still feels like a dream. 

Amina suggests they pull up another chair to her biggest desk, the one under the window. Derek drags it over and sits down next to him. He spreads a bunch of paper out in front of them both, grinning, and places one sheet neatly in front of Will. 

Will has never used real paint before, and it’s not easy. He adds way too much to begin with, before Amina explains the idea behind pigment and the way she dilutes it when she paints her landscapes. She gives him tips over his shoulder for a while before leaving to check on Derek’s sister. 

“I like painting,” Will says. They’ve been sitting quietly, Derek sticking his tongue out somewhat ridiculously in concentration. It’s the most silent Derek has been since Will met him.

“Hmm,” Derek doesn’t look so convinced. His lines are blocky and big, and his houses don’t look much like houses. At one point he got bored and started to paint blobby patterns in the corner of the page. It’s a stark contrast to Will’s delicate brush strokes and thin, architectural lines. “I don’t know. I like reading better.”

Will wrinkles his nose. “Reading is boring. We have to read at school.”

“Well, we do too, but I like school,” says Derek with a shrug. “I like to learn things. It’s interesting.”

“That’s weird,” says Will.

Derek laughs very loudly, eyes twinkling, and slowly paints a thick blue line down Will’s freckled arm. The paint is cold and sticky. “You’re weird,” he says.

Will just smiles, unable to find it in him to be annoyed. 

“Now you do me,” Derek says, holding out his arm. Will laughs and paints a line of his own, thinner and green, and curls it at the end. 

Amina calls them down for some food after they’ve been painting for a while, and that means Will is really late. He knows he’ll probably pay for it, but he thinks he might be able to risk it, just this once.

“It’s cool that Will doesn't live near me,” Derek says absently with his mouth full of dinner. “I don’t have any friends that live far away.”

“Oh, really?” Amina says conversationally. “Where do you live, Will?”

Will doesn’t really know, but he does know it’s along the harbor and it’s a lot smaller than this house. He nudges his food with his fork and shrugs. 

“I don’t know. I have to cycle to school,” he says, hoping that’s better than nothing.

Amina nods thoughtfully. She doesn’t seem to mind that he doesn’t answer her question. “Can nobody drive you?” she asks.

“I prefer to bike,” he says quickly, like he always does when anybody asks him that.

“That’s healthy,” Amina says, one eyebrow raised. 

“All my friends have to be super fit if they want to play with me outside,” Derek grins. It’s a very sloppy grin, and his mouth is still half full. He makes running motions with his arms, not seeming to care that he’s also waving his fork around. “I’m too fast.”

“Will will definitely be able to keep up with you if he cycles to school, honey,” Amina jokes.

Derek shoves another whole potato in his mouth and narrows his eyes at Will, eyes glinting, almost like a challenge. “He can try.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Derek,” Amina admonishes. 

Something in Will’s head is whirring, repeating over and over as Derek flashes him another smile - a friend, a friend. Will has a friend.  

His mom is sitting on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette when he gets back from Derek’s. Will makes his way over, pushing his bike. The chain clicks softly but she doesn’t hear him, distracted by her own thoughts as she watches the cigarette smoke drift upwards and into the air. 

Will’s worried - he normally gets told off when he’s late back, and today is later than usual. The sun is setting, sending those colorful strokes Will loves so much across the sky. They can’t see the sea from where they live, not like Derek, but if Will concentrates enough he can smell the salt on the breeze. 

Once he gets close he watches his mom for a second. She looks so peaceful out here, eyes vague and mind elsewhere. He doesn’t want to spoil her peace, but today he opens his mouth regardless. 

“I’ve made a friend, Mom,” he says.

His mom looks up at him, surprised. It looks weird on her, that unguarded expression, like something from a long time ago. She’s seen too much to be surprised these days.

“Oh,” she says, softly. “That’s nice, Will.”

“Um,” Will swallows. “I might be back late tomorrow.” 

He doesn’t bring up how late he is today, in case she hasn’t noticed yet. He looks up at the skyline; it’s red and orange and yellow and black now, like the end of her cigarette.  

“Okay,” she says. Her eyes follow his to the horizon. Maybe she’s thinking about the colors too.

“Can you tell Dad it’s a school thing?” he asks nervously. Sometimes his mom is on his side. It’s difficult to say when.

This time, she nods, just a little. She doesn’t even look at him. “Sure I can,” she says, and stubs her cigarette out on the sidewalk. 

“Thank you,” says Will, and he leaves her to it.

Later on, when he closes his eyes and tries to stop his brain whirling that night, all he can think of is Derek. He’s never known how to make friends, but somehow, he’s managed to tumble his way into this friendship without even noticing.

Will doesn’t have any friends at school. He’s never been good at it.

He knows that you have to talk to people to get them to talk back, and he doesn’t like talking to people. They think he’s weird most of the time, and whenever he’s opened his mouth before, they haven’t liked what comes out. He knows they’re weirded out by his awkward way of interacting and how he flinches violently when any of them get too boisterous. Now, he tends not to bother.

It’s not like he can say anything to his parents about who Derek is. He doesn’t know what the rules are about kids with different skin tones, darker ones, but he knows from seeing his dad watch TV that it’s not good. His dad also doesn’t like people with expensive cars or big houses or lots of money. 

Will’s dad doesn’t even like Will. Why the hell would he like any other kids? 

He can guess what the consequences would be if he brought Derek over: Will would have his bike taken from him, and he definitely wouldn’t be allowed to see Derek again. His freedom would be gone. 

Will thinks about the bright, open hallways of number two, Amina’s constant smile, Derek’s lopsided grin, his sister’s endless babbling. He feels his chest ache with longing. 

He glances around his room and takes it all in. It has always felt so small, like the walls are closing in on him, even when he himself was small. The window has been cracked in the bottom corner for three years. He tries to keep it as clean as he can, but there’s always a spider web of some sort on the ceiling that he can’t reach. 

The smell of paint comes back to him so fast he feels sick. His eyes water. He shuts them tightly, so nothing can squeeze out, and wills himself asleep.

Will returns the next morning, as always.  

He sits opposite the new houses and tries to capture the way the trees cover Derek’s front garden in the shade. He knows he’s not good at landscapes - Derek was right when he complimented Will’s much more accurate portraits - so he has to get the practise in.

His pencil moves slowly this morning. Most of his attention isn’t on the page at all; it’s on number two. Will can pretend to concentrate on the trees all he likes, but he knows he is waiting for Derek and Amina to come out of their house and face the day. 

True to their routine, Derek bursts out of the front door and hops down the steps, before tripping over the last one and awkwardly recovering himself. He looks up, briefly scans around him, and straightens his blazer. He doesn’t see Will watching him. 

Amina follows him, daughter on one hip, waving her car keys vaguely as she locks the door behind her. 

Will watches them get in the car and drive off before he gets on his bike and leaves. He’s barely sketched anything, even when Abigail from number four took off on her run or the blonde family from number three tumbled out of the house and off to school. 

He thinks about them, briefly, as he cycles. The wind whips at his cheeks and he can’t help smiling. He wonders if it looks lopsided, like Derek’s, or perfectly straight, like Amina’s. 

Maybe it looks like his mother’s, but he doesn’t really know what that looks like either. He’s not sure he’s ever seen his mom smile properly. 

Derek is standing in Will’s normal drawing spot when Will cycles up to it that afternoon.

“I got out of school early today,” says Derek, even though Will wasn’t about to ask.

He’d noticed, obviously; he knows exactly when Derek gets back from school normally. He knows the routine of every house visible from across the road. Derek usually gets back an hour or so from now, and Will always sits and draws them making their way back into the house.

“Oh?” says Will. 

“I had the dentist,” Derek says, tapping his chest. Will hadn’t meant to pose it as a question - he knows better than to ask too many, although he doesn’t think Derek would mind - but he likes getting an answer. There’s a bright blue sticker on the lapel of Derek’s blazer, with a toothy bunch of grapes grinning widely. Grape Job!, it says. 

Will’s not sure he’s ever been to the dentist. Maybe once. “Cool.”

Derek smiles at him brightly, like he’s showing off his freshly inspected teeth. “Do you want to come in again?” 

“Yes, please,” Will says, remembering his manners this time and trying not to let show the immediate surge of excitement he feels. He clumsily climbs off his bike and gets it ready to push. 

“Awesome!” Derek says. “Can I get on the back of your bike?” 

Will frowns, looking down and quickly examining it. “I don’t think so. I don’t have those peg things.”

Derek sighs dramatically, shoving his shoulders down and jutting out his bottom lip. “Sucks. I guess I’ll walk then.”

“I’ll walk too,” Will says, and proceeds to push his bike alongside Derek on the incredibly short walk over to his house. The upstairs windows are all wide open, despite the brisk day. The bike chain clicks softly. Will likes that noise. 

“Mami made cheesy cake,” Derek chats idly as they go. “She said you can have some after dinner.”

Will ignores the roar of emotion that rears its head somewhere in his chest. The assumption that Will can just stay so easily for dinner, after only one evening of quietly painting together, makes him weak at the knees. He’s never had a friend before. He’s not sure if this is how it goes. 

“What’s cheesy cake?” Will asks instead.

The look Derek sends his way is shocked and appalled. “What?!”

Will shrugs. “I’ve never had it.”

“What cake do you eat, then?” Derek asks as he shoves open the door, expression still shocked like not eating cake is the biggest mystery in the world. 

“We don’t really eat cake,” Will says. “I had a chocolate cake for my birthday.”

He can remember it well - it’s a good memory. His mother had seemed genuinely happy. They hadn’t celebrated it on his actual birthday, but at the weekend, when his dad was away on one of his trips. He’d been allowed to eat as much as he liked. 

Amina greets them warmly, wrapped in a scarf and sweater, her perfect smile immediate. “Hello, William!” she says, full of cheer as she climbs down from the counter with a feather duster. “I hope Derek has invited you to dinner!”

“Yes, Mami,” Derek says, proud. “I told him about the cheesy cake.”

Amina laughs. “It’s called cheesecake,” she corrects him. 

“Oh,” says Derek. His eyes drop to the floor, crestfallen and slightly embarrassed.

“I like cheesy cake better,” Will jumps in, eager to wipe that expression from Derek’s face. 

Derek breaks out into an immediate, wonky grin, directed his way. Will likes it a lot. It has only taken Will two visits to get used to it - plus, he’s drawn it enough times, and he doesn’t ever want it to drop from Derek’s cheeks.

“Me too,” Derek agrees. 

“Well then, cheesy cake it is,” Amina smiles at them. “Not until after dinner, though.” 

“Can I show Will the library?” Derek asks eagerly.  

“Of course you can,” Amina says, “but I want to show him my canvas first. Then you can have all the time you like in there.”

Will perks up with interest, and Amina sees it straight away. She laughs, once, loud and happy, before spinning on her heel.

“Follow me, Will,” she says. “Derek, will you please go and check on your sister? She was picking out a book.”

She leads Will up the staircase as Derek shoots off to some unknown corner of the house to find Zarah. Will can make his way to Amina’s art room on his own, seeing as all he’d done since he got home yesterday was repeat the evening’s events in his head, learning the floor plan by heart. 

“I’m painting using oil paint today,” Amina says. “That’s why the windows are open.” 

It’s frosty in the art room, but Will barely notices. Amina has clearly been hard at work since yesterday as the canvas - displayed proudly on that big, wooden stand - boasts a finished landscape. 

Will doesn’t recognise the hills, but they are painted with beautifully blended greens, and the clouds in the sky look almost real. The foreground boasts intricate greenery, clearly painted with meticulous detail.

It looks like one of the paintings his teacher had plastered on her whiteboard, neatly labelled underneath with the name and some old, established, very famous artist from a gallery in Europe. 

“It’s amazing,” Will breathes. 

“Thank you, Will,” Amina says from behind him. “That’s very sweet.”

He barely hears her. He reaches out, lets his fingers ghost over the paint just a hair’s breadth from the canvas. He can almost feel the textures of the oils that way. 

“You can touch it,” Amina says. “It’s almost dry. Only the details are wet.”

“Oh,” breathes Will, looking away from the painting for a moment to see what her expression is like. Sometimes adults say things they don’t really mean. He knows their faces tell more of a truth than their words, but Amina’s is the same as always. “I don’t want to ruin it.” 

“You won’t, don’t worry,” she says. 

“Are you sure?” Will clarifies.  

Amina cocks her head to the side, then, her eyes bright and curious. She looks a little like Derek, then. She studies Will and nods slowly. “Of course,” she says, and then reaches over to show him. Her fingers brush over the painting and nothing awful happens. “See? It feels nice. Go on.”

Will does what he’s told. He reaches out again, lets his fingers rest on the canvas, and drags them along the bottom. The feeling of the bumpy paint sends a thrill down his spine; goosebumps erupt on his arms as he traces the little ferns in the foreground. A lot of the canvas is smooth, blended to perfection, but the bottom, where Amina has painted the undergrowth, is full of texture. 

“Wow,” Will says.

Amina laughs. “I’m glad you like it. I must say, I’m feeling very flattered.”

“It looks like - “ Will drops his hand, “I think you should put it in a museum.”

“Really?” Amina blinks at him. When Will nods, she laughs in disbelief. “Wow. Well, if you like it so much, you can have it,” she says.  

Disbelief hits Will in a wave. He’s never been given anything before, just because. His eyes burn around the edges like he’s going to cry, only he knows he won’t. He wants so badly to take this painting and place it in his room, in a secret corner where only he can see it, and stare at it forever and ever. 

“I can’t,” he says resignedly, thinking of the crack in his window, or what his dad would say if he came home with a giant painting and wanted to display it on the wall. He’d be laughed out of the house, at least. “You - could you please keep it here?”

Amina’s smile droops a bit. “We can put it in the car and drop it off at your house, if you like.”

Will shakes his head. “No. That’s not it.”

“Oh,” says Amina, and she must know something, somehow, because she reaches out tentatively and puts a hand on Will’s shoulder. She squeezes it a little. Not too tight. “That’s fine, Will. We can keep it in here and you can come and see it every time you visit.”

“Thank you,” Will says.

His voice wobbles slightly, but Amina doesn’t mention it. She just squeezes once more and drops her hand. 

“Derek is probably bursting to show you the library,” she says softly. “It’s more of an office, really, but it’s got plenty of books in it. He’ll be downstairs.”

Will knows a dismissal when he hears one, and even if this one’s more subtle and a lot nicer than his dad’s, it’s a dismissal all the same. He nods and spins on his heel. Derek said yesterday he likes books, and Will is excited to see Derek around so many. 

“Oh, and Will?” says Amina as he’s leaving. 

He stops and looks up at her. 

“You’re always welcome here, you know that, right?” she says. 

Will hadn’t known, but he nods all the same. He doesn’t reply, though, because if he opens his mouth even for a second, he’ll probably start to cry. Being welcome in this house, with these people, is almost too good to be true. 

“There you are!” Derek’s head appears around the door frame, his smile lopsided. “I’ve been looking for you for ages.”

“I’ve been here the whole time,” Will says. 

“Well, I was still looking,” Derek says. “Come on. I’m showing you the library.”

Their library isn’t as big as the one at Will’s school, but it’s much nicer. The shelves are all wood, dark and shiny like something out of an old fashioned story, and there are steps for Derek to get to the higher ones. A couple of the upper shelves are lined with old, bound books with muted covers, but the rest explode with colour.

Will picks up a heavy book at random from the shelf on his eye level. The Chronicles of Narnia, it says. 

“I read those ages ago,” Derek says from somewhere behind him. “Have you read them?”

“No,” says Will. 

“They’re very good,” Derek says. “They’re stories about a magical land. One time they found it in a wardrobe.”

“Oh,” Will says. “That sounds fun.”

“It is. You can borrow it, if you like,” Derek offers, “and take it home.”

“Maybe,” says Will. He probably won’t. He doesn’t want to take anything out of this perfect house and subject it to his own. 

“How about Harry Potter?” says Derek, throwing himself haphazardly onto one of the green armchairs and opening a book he’s clearly been making his way through. “I’m reading the third one at the minute. Mami says the latest ones are more for older kids but I like reading so I think I’ll be alright.”

“I’ve never read those, either,” Will shrugs. He perches himself on the chair opposite.  

“You should start the first one!” Derek cries, and scrambles from his chair and to a shelf. He pulls out a book, one with a train on the front, and shoves it at Will. “The Sorcerer’s Stone,” he says eagerly. “It’s really good.”

“Okay,” Will says tentatively. “I’ll try.”

He flips it over in his hands; it’s dog-eared and clearly well loved. 

Will’s never been great at reading. He can read, of course, but it’s not like he does it in his spare time. His teacher had shown them all how to check books out of the library but Will never does. Often he sits in there at lunch and scans books about ancient Egypt, or space, or dinosaurs. He rarely reads proper books and he’s never dared to bring one home. 

But Derek’s brimming with joy at the mere suggestion, and how can Will say no to that?

Will finishes his first sketchbook two weeks later. 

He’d spent every day of the last two weeks after school at Derek’s house, alternating between the library and Amina’s study, painting and reading his afternoons away. He can read half a chapter in the time Derek reads three, but he enjoys their time, sharing in a comfortable silence as Will learns more and more about Harry Potter and his magical world.

They do other stuff, too.

Sometimes they leave the house and trek around the neighborhood, adding to Derek’s ever-growing pile of sticks on the front lawn and sitting down for hours at a time so Will can draw the view. Occasionally Derek poses in weird ways for Will to sketch. They laugh themselves silly as Derek stands on one leg or sticks out his tongue, and Will draws every single variation.   

His dad comes back to their house halfway through the second week and asks where Will is. In a gesture he doesn’t expect, his mom covers for him. Will tells his teacher that his mom is okay but if he phones, can she please tell his dad he was at school. His teacher gives him a too-bright smile and says yes, of course she can, and is Will alright? The question gets the same well-practiced answer as always.

His finished sketchbook is mostly full of the people living in Derek’s neighborhood. Having a full view of the back gardens through some of Derek’s upstairs windows opens entirely new doors. They watch the neighbours sit outside, eat dinner on their outdoor tables, jump on trampolines, flip things on barbecues, kick balls around, clink their glasses together before taking elegant sips.

Will draws it all.

Amina and Derek sit with him at the kitchen table after Will announces his achievement to pore over his sketchbook, and it’s the first time anyone but him has seen it in full.

“There’s us!” Amina laughs, pointing at the many repeats of herself and her children in blue. “Oh, Will, you’re so talented. Zarah! Look!”

Will has never been called talented before, not at anything. He feels almost hot with pleasure.

Derek carefully turns the page and is greeted by yellow, this time. The spread is crammed with drawings of the blonde family in varying tennis outfits and school uniforms. He frowns gently. 

“These ones don’t have names next to them,” he says, brushing his fingers lightly over the drawings. 

“Um. I don’t know their names,” Will says. He wishes he knew everyone in the neighborhood on a first name basis, but it isn’t the case, so he can only go on the many, many things Derek lets slip.

“They live in number three next door,” Derek informs Will. “There’s loads of them.”

“Do you know what their names are?” Will asks, scrambling for his yellow pencil.

“They go to my school,” Derek says.

Will rests his chin on his fist and waits for his question to be answered. It always will be, in the end, with Derek. He enjoys listening to Derek talk endlessly and make his explanations so long-winded that Will has to pick out the useful bits. He shuffles a little closer.

“Grace’s in my year, but she’s at the girl’s school,” Derek tells him, and points at the shortest of the blonde children in Will’s sketchbook. She’s got pigtails and she’s in her tennis whites, even though they’re yellow on the page.

Will writes Grace in his block handwriting, just as he had written Abigail and Justin by their drawings. 

“Her older sister is called Hazel,” Derek moves his finger along the page and Will follows with his pencil. “She’s a few years above. That’s Phineas and that’s Henry. They're the brothers. They’re identical twins - that means they look exactly the same. They were at my school but they’re at middle school now.”

Something Will has noticed is that Derek has barely any interest in drawing and sketchbooks, but he likes to look at Will’s. Will has never had anyone show this much interest in him before, and it would be slightly unnerving, if he didn’t enjoy it so much.

“Is that everyone’s names?” Amina asks, and Will nods. They’ve managed to name mostly everyone in the sketchbook, Amina filling in the gaps that Derek doesn’t know - mostly adults - and the ones they aren’t acquainted with remain a mystery.

Will finds he doesn’t really care. 

“It’s like an neighborhood scrapbook,” Amina says. 

“It’s cool, right?” Derek grins. He picks it up, like he knows Will doesn’t mind, which of course is true. For some reason, it comforts Will to know Derek is comfortable enough to do so. Will would never dare do that with someone else’s possessions, out of fear of being rude, but Derek has this air about him that makes you think he could never be rude at all.

“Me now,” says Zarah. She makes grabby hands at the sketchbook.

Will lets Zarah fuss with the corners which, he feels, shows an incredible amount of self restraint. She is only three, and spends a lot of time asleep. When she isn’t asleep, she is practically buzzing off the walls - excitable and bouncy. Will, as an only child, quite enjoys it.  

“Now what?” Derek says. “Do you have another one?”

Will’s face drops. Wrapped up in the excitement of finishing this one, he hadn’t considered what happens next. The thought of not having another sketchbook, any more empty pages to fill, makes him feel at a loss. 

“Not to worry, Will,” Amina says. “You can have one of mine.”

And Will knows he doesn’t deserve it, not really - what has he done to receive such open welcome? - but instead of shaking his head, he lets himself have something, just once.

“If that’s okay with you,” he says, “I would love one.”

Amina beams.

Will wakes up early on Saturday morning to sunshine blazing through his wispy curtains, and doesn’t want to go downstairs. 

His parents had argued late into the night; he’d been sent upstairs and sat with his head buried in his new sketchbook, trying to copy the view from his window. He’d got bored quickly. The view isn’t nearly as exciting as Derek’s.

After he plucks up the courage he makes his way down the stairs slowly, one step at a time. He stops on each one to listen, but the house is silent. 

The kitchen is empty when he gets to it, so he helps himself to cereal and juice. He picks a spoon out of the washing-up bowl, cleans it, and sits at the table. He likes his house a lot more when it’s like this.

Will doesn’t enjoy weekends. He knows he’s meant to - people at school always rejoice on Fridays at the prospect of two full days to themselves. The problem is that Will can’t fill them. 

He wonders what Derek, Zarah and Amina do on weekends. 

Even as he finishes his breakfast, nobody appears downstairs. He washes his bowl and spoon carefully in the sink and sets them aside to drain, the sound of the tap running the only noise in the house. He assumes his mom is still upstairs, and as for his dad, sometimes he disappears for two days, three days, up to a week. Will never complains. 

Surely enough, his mom meets him on the stairs as he’s on his way up to change out of his pyjamas. She looks as though she hasn’t slept at all.

“Go outside today, Will,” she says. “Get out of this stupid house for a change.”

Will doesn’t know what she means by for a change , because Will hates the house, and he spends as little time as he can in it. His mom clearly pays little attention to his movements. 

“Okay, Mom,” he says.

He wants to ask what she expects him to do, because he has no idea himself. He has 75 cents to his name and a sketchbook, so his opportunities are not endless.

The relief on his mother’s face, however, halts the words before they’re even formed. She ruffles his hair awkwardly and carries on down the stairs.

It’s okay, though, Will thinks to himself. He’s glad his mom doesn’t keep watch on his every move. If that were the case, he wouldn’t be able to cycle around aimlessly after school.

It only occurs to Will as he’s on his way to Derek’s that maybe his mother had been talking about herself. 

He arrives at number two and alone, the huge blue door looks much more intimidating. Derek had just flung it open and shut like it was easy. It looks much heavier today. Will slowly makes his way up the path and takes a deep breath before ringing the bell.

It’s Amina that wrenches the door open, looking slightly harassed with her hair standing practically on end.

“Oh! Will!” she says, and even though she looks busy her face spreads into a smile. 

“Hello, ma’am,” he says. “I was wondering if Derek was home.”

“Aw, sweetie, he’s at his violin lesson,” Amina says with a sympathetic look. She must see the hope drop from Will’s face - what is he going to do all day now? - because she opens the door wider and beckons him in. “Please, come in and wait. I was just vacuuming. You can come and pick him up with me in twenty minutes, if you like.”

Will looks up at her, unsure. These social situations are unusual for him, and he’s often unsure where to tread. “I don’t want to be a pain.”

“Nonsense,” Amina says. “I’ll pour you some juice.”

She ushers him indoors and sits him down at the kitchen table. 

“Have you got any plans for today?” she asks him as she busies herself getting him a glass. 

Will shakes his head.

“What about your parents?” Amina asks again. “What are they doing?”

Will shrugs. “Mom just woke up. I don’t think my dad is around.”

Amina’s hand stalls over the juice, her smile falling from her face. It’s only for a moment - she instantly realises her slip and smiles at him again - but Will already feels as though he’s said too much.  

“Where is he?” Amina asks coolly. 

“I don’t know,” says Will.

She hands him his glass of juice. 

“Thank you,” he says politely. She cocks her head to one side and her eyebrows slope upwards. Will knows that look; teachers often look at him like that, on the rare occasion he speaks up in class.

“Of course,” she says softly and sits down across from him, cleaning forgotten. 

They make small talk. Amina asks questions about Will’s schoolwork and his hobbies and he answers truthfully. He avoids mentioning his parents. Not once does Amina’s attention waver, even though he distracted her from vacuuming, and in the warm, sunny kitchen, Will feels more comfortable than ever. 

Twenty minutes later, Amina glances at her watch, then the clock on the wall, then Zarah, who is playing at the table next to him.

“Looks like it’s time to go,” she says. “Zarah, honey, let’s get your coat.”

Amina asks him to fetch Zarah’s shoes, and Will feels useful for what may be the first time in his life. 

Then all of a sudden Will is in their car, and to say he doesn't want to touch anything is an understatement. His dad’s car is strewn with trash: food wrappers, empty soda cans and drink bottles in the footwells, abandoned coffee mugs in the cup holders and receipts shoved down the sides of the seats. Amina’s has nothing of the sort - in fact, the seats are clean, dark and shiny, and Will’s legs stick to them. It’s the weirdest feeling ever.

It takes about twenty-five minutes to drive to Derek’s violin lesson. It’s at his school, Amina tells Will as they pull into the parking lot, and almost immediately Will feels very small. 

Derek’s school is big. It’s one of those old buildings, red and white brick with big glass windows. Amina obviously does this all the time, as she unclips Zarah from her car seat and, after beckoning to Will, takes off across the parking lot towards what must be the entrance. Will follows without hesitation.

She waves to somebody at the reception desk and they smile back. When the receptionist flashes him a grin as well, Will offers her a nervous smile. Amina leads him through a few corridors, long and winding with high ceilings, and they come to a halt at a big wooden door. Will feels smaller and smaller by the minute. 

Amina looks down at him and smiles. “We’re here,” she says. Then she knocks, twice, and then goes in. Will follows, hot on her heels.

“Will!” comes a shout, “Hey!”

Derek pauses mid-task to throw his arms around Will, beaming, abandoning his violin and its case haphazardly on the floor. Something warm stirs up in Will’s chest as he squeezes back tightly and then lets go. 

“How was your lesson today, honey?” Amina asks.

“We made some great progress today, didn’t we, Derek?” the man who must be Derek’s violin teacher says.

Will looks up at him and stumbles back so fast he almost falls over.

Panic grips him from the inside. Derek goes to grab Will but he regains his balance without help, stumbling over as adrenaline races through him. He uses Derek’s outstretched arm as an excuse, taking hold of it anyway, and backs away from Derek’s teacher immediately.

The man is tall and large, and slightly balding, and the shirt he’s wearing looks like one his dad wears when he’s trying to impress people, like for a job interview, or a wedding. Not that he’s been to many of either.

Amina looks over at him, concerned. “This is Mr Lyons, Will,” she introduces in a soft voice.

Will nods vehemently but doesn’t say anything. He can feel his cheeks warm with embarrassment at his overreaction - this guy looks nothing like his dad. The shirt isn’t even the same pattern. 

“He’s my violin teacher,” Derek explains loudly, breaking the room’s awkward spell. 

Will nods. 

“Let’s get going, Derek,” Amina says. Her voice is bright, now, but too bright. “Say thank you.”

Mr Lyons smiles warmly as Derek finishes packing away his violin.

“Thank you! See you next week, Mr Lyons,” Derek says.

“Goodbye, Derek,” says Mr Lyons, “and goodbye, Zarah!”

Zarah laughs. “Bye!” she says, and waves.

“I’m gonna show you what I learned today when we get home,” Derek says to Will in the car. 

Once they pile through the door and throw off their shoes, Will, Zarah and Amina are shoved into the lounge for a concert, of sorts. Derek bounds in after them with his violin case; he’s certainly not short of enthusiasm. 

“This is what we learned today,” he says, before launching into a very long tune. 

Occasionally Derek will be able to hit the right note, but more often than not, Amina and Will are left hiding their winces - badly - as Derek focuses on his playing. 

All the same, they burst into a simultaneous round of applause at the end. Zarah joins in enthusiastically, and even though the sound is weak in such a big room, Derek beams like he’s had a standing ovation at one of the biggest venues in the world.

“Thank you, thank you,” he says as he executes several dramatic bows.  

Will thinks it’s amazing how Derek can exude such confidence. 

His drawings are his own, his special thing, but even if they weren’t he would never have the confidence to show them to anyone. He’d only showed Derek entirely by accident. Derek isn’t even very good at playing the violin yet, but he doesn’t care - he’s proud of himself, of what he’s achieved and how hard he’s worked. Will wishes he could be like that too.

After that, Will’s weekends are spent with the Nurses as well.

His dad has clearly gotten used to Will being absent, because he doesn’t ever call his school to check where he is and his mom makes no effort to have Will in the house more. 

Will finds himself looking forward to weekends, like the other kids do. He arrives just before the Nurses return from Derek’s violin lesson and sits on their doorstep to draw, waiting for them to pull into the driveway. Often Derek has stuff to do, like homework and reading or extra math, and sometimes Will sits with him and does his own. Mostly he brings his new sketchbook and gets closer and closer to finishing it.

One day, however, Amina sets down a large bag in front of them both, foiled on the inside, and four towels. “We’re going to the beach,” she says. 

Derek leaps up in excitement and Will watches him dance with amused trepidation. Will’s always been kind of scared of the sea; he loves the way it moves, the way it reflects the light, but he’s never been close enough to touch it. It’s dumb - he lives by the sea, and all his classmates spend lots of time there, but he has never set foot near it. 

“I can’t swim,” he says quietly. 

Amina smiles at him gently. “Neither can Zarah. Don’t worry about it.”

So they pack a couple of bags, climb into the car, and go. Derek lends Will some of his swim trunks - blue ones with small red lobsters on them - seeing as Will doesn’t own any. 

The strip of beach they drive to clearly isn’t popular. There are no buildings anywhere near it, not like the coastline around the harbor, where there are little houses or stores beckoning to visitors. There are some houses along the road they drive down, and one woman is unlocking her door as they pass. Derek waves at her but she doesn't see him. The only thing on the beach that even indicates visitors are welcome is the small, concrete parking lot, where Amina stops the car.

Derek can clearly swim. He leaps from the car as soon as they arrive and runs towards the sea, Amina shouting after him to slow down and wait for her before he gets in the water. Zarah follows Derek, albeit much slower, aiming towards the sea but getting distracted by some debris washed up at the edge of the parking lot. Will stays by the car to take a bag from Amina and the two of them walk together. 

“Does Derek have swimming lessons?” Will asks her.

“On Wednesdays,” she says. Will knows the days Derek gets home later, but isn’t always sure why. “Have you ever had swimming lessons, Will?”

He shakes his head. “No. Mom said they’re too expensive. We did it at school once but I had to borrow shorts and stand in the shallow end with floats.”

Amina nods thoughtfully. “You know, I couldn’t swim for years. It’s never too late to learn.”

Will looks up at her. “Were you not scared?”

She shrugs a little. “To begin with, sure. That’s why it’s easier to learn as a kid - you kids aren’t scared of anything.”

Will looks away. That isn’t true at all, he thinks.

Amina seems to read his mind, because she ruffles his hair a little with her free hand. “There’s nothing wrong with being scared, Will, but - just think of what you can do if you overcome those fears. Swimming in the sea will be the least of your problems.”

“You really think so?” Will asks her.

Like always, her eyes soften with warmth. “Of course, Will. You’ll be amazing.”

Will smiles. He feels warm too, in his chest. Maybe he will be amazing.

“Hey!” Derek yells from the shore, breaking the spell. “Hurry up!”

They watch as Derek kicks the water and it flies high up into the air. He throws his arms wide, spinning in circles as the spray showers back down on him. Zarah shrieks in delight and Will, captivated, laughs too.

“You go join his Lordship,” Amina says to Will, nodding her head at Derek. “I’ll take the bags.”

Will does as he’s told and kicks off his shoes to join Derek, tentatively. He feels his anxiety simmering at the surface, apprehension clouding any excitement, but he doesn’t want to let his friend down. 

“We won’t go all the way in yet,” Derek says reassuringly, as if he can read Will’s mind. He grabs Will’s hand and tugs him softly towards the sea. “We can just put our feet in for now.”

The water surrounds Will’s feet for a brief moment before pulling away. It’s cold, but not uncomfortably so. His toes sink a little into the sand. “It feels nice,” he says. 

“It tastes funny when you get it in your mouth,” Derek informs him, “because it has salt in it.”

“Ew,” says Will. He screws up his nose in disgust. “What for?”

Derek shrugs. “Just does. That’s why you can’t drink the water if you get lost at sea.”

“I didn’t know that,” says Will. “What should you drink, then?”

“Um,” Derek thinks for a second. “Maybe juice, but you’d have to take it with you.”

Will nods. Makes sense. 

“Let’s go in a bit further,” says Derek, tugging his hand again.

Will winces as they move forward and the water climbs further and further up. The temperature seems to drop as it reaches his knees, then the water grips his shorts and doesn’t let go. “It’s so cold!” he exclaims, and Derek laughs, seemingly unbothered. 

They walk in until the water reaches Will’s waist, Derek still holding his hand tight. Will likes it. His mom used to hold his hand to cross the street, years ago, but nobody ever does it any more. Some of the girls do it with one another in the schoolyard, and Zarah holds Amina’s hand all the time. Will understands why, now: it’s nice, so warm and comforting. 

Suddenly, a big wave surges up and reaches Will’s chest and it’s instantly too deep. He screws his eyes shut and gasps, reaching out and flailing with his spare hand to grab onto something, anything, but there’s nothing in reach. Derek grabs it instead, and squeezes that hand as well. He crowds in close.

“Do you want to go back?” Derek asks him. 

“Please,” breathes Will. 

“Come on, then,” Derek says, still not letting go of Will’s hands, “let’s go get a sandwich.”

They stay at the beach for hours, mostly on the sand, building a very elaborate sandcastle and exploring the debris on the shoreline, scanning for any sticks to add to the pile in Derek’s front garden. 

Amina calls them over at one point, and she’s holding a camera. “I’m going to take a photo!” she says. “Huddle together!”

They do as they’re told, kneeling in the shallows where the sea meets the sand. Zarah stands next to Will in her armbands, and Derek kneels on the other side of him. Will can feel the seawater washing up around his legs. 

Derek throws his arm around Will carelessly, and pulls him tightly to his side. Will can feel the warmth radiating from him.

“Okay, smile!” Amina calls. 

Will smiles. It’s one of the easiest things he’s ever done. 

Amina presses the button and flashes them a thumbs up. She presses it again, for good measure. Derek laughs. 

“Are you done, Mami?” he asks. 

“Yes, honey, we’re done,” Amina says. “What a great photo! We’ll have to put it in a frame.”

Will doesn’t have any photos in frames in his house. He won’t have this one either, not really, but it’s nice to think he’ll be in one somewhere. 

He stands up. Zarah stays, paddling in the shallows with Amina and squealing with pleasure at the water as it splashes up around her. Will and Derek join later, and soon all four of them are sitting by the shore, lemonade in hand, letting the waves wash over their legs before they recede back into the sea. 

“So how’s the beach, Will?” asks Amina. 

“Really great,” says Will. 

Derek pokes Will’s knee. “Give it a score out of ten.”

Will laughs. “Twenty.”

“Ah,” Amina smiles, and clinks her bottle of water to Will’s cup of lemonade, “a ringing endorsement.”

Will doesn’t know what that means, but it sounds good, and good is how he feels. 

Summer is almost upon them, and they embrace the lighter mornings and longer days with full force. They stretch out Sunday mornings on the beachfront and burn things in the fire pit until late in the evening. 

Will stays out until sunset most days; as long as he’s back before dark, he’s in the clear. 

Amina prefers them to stay in the garden later in the day, but this suits both boys just fine. Derek’s garden is pretty big, and it turns out Amina has managed to make the view out of the back windows just as beautiful as the front.

There are flowers planted all around the edges and trees towering up next to the fences. She has strung warm outdoor lights from one tree to the other, zigzagging over their heads like stars. They have a bird feeder - Derek insists it was his idea - and Will helps fill it before they sit in Zarah’s bedroom and watch the birds come and go. They tally them in his sketchbook next to a quick sketch of a little blue one. Derek insists on using the color of each bird for their line in the tally, but the flurry of garden birds means the data ends up being mostly brown instead of a bright rainbow. 

Will has enjoyed the solace of his bedroom all his life, how once the door is shut he feels safer, but there is something volatile and fragile about that safety. His walls are so thin that when his dad is home, every loud movement the man makes is amplified.

Evenings with the Nurses are different. That safety feels a lot less delicate here, and the only noises that can be heard in the house are Zarah’s happy shouts, or the soft clink of cutlery. Will loves the scratch, scratch, scratch sound of his pencils against his sketchbook paper, and how it sounds kind of similar to when Derek turns the page in his book. When they open the windows Will can hear the breeze, and the distant crashing of the waves on the beach.

It feels like they’re alone in the world, aside from the occasional car in a driveway or excited shout from next door, where Grace and Hazel make full use of their trampoline. 

They sit at the bottom of the garden most evenings, close enough to the house that they could hear Amina if she called for them but far enough away that they feel like they’re alone. Most of Derek’s secrets are spilled here, and tonight is no exception. 

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?” Derek asks him. 

Will blinks, so surprised by the random topic of conversation that it takes him a moment to process the question and reply. He looks up at Derek, who is holding a small stick in one hand, as usual, and swallows thickly.

“No,” he says.

“Hmm,” Derek looks thoughtful, unbothered by Will’s reply. “Neither have I, but one of the boys at school today said he kissed a girl over Easter break.”

Will doesn’t know how to reply, so he doesn’t. 

“I just wondered what it was like. So I thought I’d ask you,” Derek continues, undeterred by the lack of response, “but if you haven’t either then I won’t know for ages.”

“You could try it,” Will suggests. 

Derek laughs and draws a line in the soil with the stick, curling it round and round. “Who with?”

“I don’t know,” Will admits. He’s not sure how Derek isn’t embarrassed by the conversation topic; Will can feel his ears getting pinker by the second. 

“I can’t think of anyone,” Derek says. 

“Grace?” Will suggests the first name he can think of. He can’t really see the appeal, personally, but then he can’t see the appeal in kissing girls over vacation and then talking about it at school, either. Maybe it’s just another one of those things he doesn’t understand. 

“Oh,” Derek considers the suggestion. “I guess.”

“Do you see her at the girl’s school?” 

Derek shakes his head. “Not really. It’s quite far from ours when you walk. I’d have to ask her when we get back home.”

Will nods. He can’t think why the image of Grace kissing Derek in this very garden sits so uneasily with him, but like with most things, he doesn’t voice his concerns. 

“Can boys kiss other boys?” 

Derek says it so casually that Will almost doesn’t register the words, and to be honest, he can’t think of an answer. He knows it’s on the list of things his dad disapproves of, but that list is so extensive and he’s already betrayed it so many times that he’s starting to think it might all be wrong anyway. 

“I don’t see why not,” Derek continues, staring at the sky. “If girls can do it boys can too, right?”

Will still doesn’t answer. He may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but he can make the connection between this topic of conversation and the two of them, sitting in the evening twilight at the end of Derek’s garden, knees touching. 

“Mami has a friend with a girlfriend, and she’s a girl, so if girls can have girlfriends then surely boys can have boyfriends. Right?” Derek asks again. 

He pokes Will with the stick in his hand, looking at him expectantly, which means he wants a response this time. 

Will clears his throat before answering. “Um, sure.”

Derek laughs. “You don’t sound sure.”

“I’m not,” Will says honestly, avoiding Derek’s gaze. “I don’t think my dad likes it,” he admits.

“Likes what? Boys kissing?”

Will shakes his head. 

“Why not?” Derek says, his eyebrows furrowed, confused. 

“My dad doesn’t like most things,” Will says.

“Oh,” says Derek. “That’s sad.”

“Yeah. It’s not a big deal.”

Derek nudges Will again, this time not for an answer, but for assurance. “Maybe a kiss would help?”

Will can’t help it - he bursts out laughing. His laughter is so loud it echoes through the trees around them, and Derek joins in. 

“Is that a no?” Derek says after they hiccup into silence.

Will just looks at him.

It’s not a no - he doesn’t want to say no, because that means Derek won’t ask again. He doesn’t know what to say, and he’s not sure why he wants Derek to ask again, either.

“I knew you wouldn’t do it,” Derek sighs, and draws another line in the soil. “Oh, well. It’s okay. You definitely don’t have to if you don’t want to. I guess I’ll ask Grace.”

Will isn’t sure why he does it, but the next thing he knows he’s taken Derek’s chin in his hand. “I’ll do it,” he says, like a challenge, and Derek grins at him before pushing himself up onto his knees and leaning forward to meet his mouth. 

It’s over as soon as it starts, but Will’s lips tingle even afterwards. Derek only pulls back a bit, far enough to meet Will’s eyes but close enough that Will can feel Derek’s breath ghost across his cupid’s bow. 

“Huh,” says Derek. “I can see what Samuel means. It is kind of nice.”

“Who’s Samuel?” Will asks, and he’s got no reason to feel this breathless. 

Derek rolls his eyes and sits back down properly. Will’s fingers slip from under his chin and hover in the air.

“The boy at school who kissed a girl over the Easter break, remember?” Derek muses. “Although I don’t know why he had to wait until vacation. He could have kissed someone at the boy’s school and it still would’ve been nice. Don’t you think it was nice, Will?”

Will tucks his hands back down by his sides. 

“Yeah,” he whispers. “It was.”

Derek passes his finals with flying colors - although math is his worst grade, and Will makes a deal to help him with it next year if Derek helps Will with his reading and writing - and suddenly they’re on summer vacation. 

They spend their summer break much like they spend every weekend. Amina works from home a lot more, and on the days when she has to go to work in person, a woman comes to look after Zarah and feed them - Will included, of course. Her name is Renée and she attempts to fuss around them, but he and Derek are so wrapped up in each other and their activities that they rarely even notice she’s there. 

Will expands his knowledge of painting and spends more time on gouache than watercolours, after much coaching from Amina. He finishes his second sketchbook, too. The last quarter of the pages are full of drawings and paintings of the sea, which they visit more and more.

He starts and finishes a small canvas as Derek reads The Order of the Phoenix in the corner of the room. He begins reading it aloud, but Will decides he doesn’t want any spoilers now that he has finished The Sorcerer’s Stone, and so now Derek reads to himself. He doesn’t hesitate, however, to gasp loudly and emote over the contents at length.

Amina hangs Will’s canvas up in the art room, next to the painting she gifted him. She makes him sign the bottom like a famous painter, and he and Derek check on it and dust it every day.

Also like their weekends, they sit at the end of the garden and talk about anything and everything. Well - almost everything. Will’s not sure whether Derek has forgotten about the confused and experimental kiss they shared there, but he doesn’t bring it up again, so Will doesn’t either. 

Derek lets Will try his violin, which is harder than it looks. Derek doesn’t ask to draw in Will’s sketchbook in return, but if he’d asked, Will thinks he might have let him.

Will finishes The Chamber of Secrets and they raid the stick pile in the front garden, searching for one to use as their wand in their wizard’s duel, and Derek introduces Will to Grace, Hazel, Phineas and Henry.

It happens by accident - the family are returning from a bike ride as Derek and Will choose sticks from the pile. The others push their bikes to the back garden, and Grace stops to wave at Derek over the short stone wall that separates them.

“Hey, Grace!” Derek grins back at her. 

“Hello!” she says cheerily. “Who’s your friend?”

“Oh,” Derek turns to Will and plants a hand on his shoulder, smiling broadly. “This is Will.”

“Hi, Will,” Grace smiles, and Will smiles nervously back. “Is he from your school?” she asks Derek. 

“No, he’s just from around,” Derek answers, and he waves his stick vaguely as if attempting to gesture where Will is from. “Do you guys want to join our wizard’s duel?”

Grace laughs. “What’s a wizard’s duel?”

“Like from Harry Potter,” Derek says. “Ask the others too, if you like.”

Will busies himself with finding the best stick he can as Grace ventures inside to track down her siblings. 

“We can have a proper battle now, like with the Death Eaters versus the Order of the Phoenix,” Derek says.

“Don’t spoil it,” Will says quickly.

“Whoops,” Derek winces. “Sorry!”

There’s a shout as two of their neighbors race out of the door at top speed; one of the twins, and the oldest girl, who must be Hazel. Hazel shouts in victory as she reaches the bottom step first. 

“Hey Hazel, hey Phineas,” Derek says. “Do you want to choose a wand?”

The twin laughs and vaults over the wall. “I’m not Phineas. Phineas is just coming. Awesome, can I choose from the pile?”

Henry, unbothered about being mistaken for his brother, begins to search for the perfect stick himself. Will imagines he’s probably used to the comparison. 

“I want one, too,” says Hazel. She doesn’t jump over the wall, but comes round through the front gate, leaving it open behind her. “I’m going to be a good witch, like Hermione Granger.”

“Hermione and Hazel are kind of similar names,” Derek says. 

“We’re basically the same. I like reading too,” Hazel says, and brandishes a short stick in her brother’s direction. “Expelliarmus!”

“Oh!” Derek exclaims, holding his hands up as if to stop them in their tracks. “Will hasn’t finished reading them yet so you can’t spoil.”

“Is this Will?” Hazel asks, turning the stick on Will. 

Will gulps, nervous, both at the interaction and at having a splintered stick very close to his face. “Yes. Hello.”

“Hey,” she grins and lowers the wand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Will says, mainly out of politeness, but he finds it actually is quite nice to meet her. 

Derek and Will wait a few minutes for Grace and Phineas, who join them soon enough. Hazel and Henry do no such thing, sprinting off across the road and onto the grass, shooting imaginary spells in each other’s faces. Phineas ignores the pile of sticks and the general excitement in favour of grinning at Will first. 

“Hey there,” he says. “I’m Phineas.”

He holds his hand out to shake like a businessman. Will obliges, shaking it lightly and smiling back, “Hi,” he says. 

“Do I have to choose a wand, or can you choose for me?” Phineas asks him. 

“Oh,” Will says in surprise. He scans the pile briefly and his gaze lands on a short stick, slightly twisted at the end but mostly straight. He picks it up. “How about this one?”

“Perfect!” Phineas takes it and waves it with a flourish. “Awesome. Thanks!”

He leaves Will and Derek behind and strides out of the front gate, waving his new wand above his head. 

“I’m a Death Eater! Watch out!” his twin shouts at him, and Phineas laughs before joining in. 

“Do you want to be the bad guy or shall I?” Derek asks Will from over his shoulder, making him jump. 

“I don’t mind,” says Will. 

Derek rolls his eyes, smiling. “You never mind.”

Will smiles at him. “I really don’t, though.”

He doesn’t, either. He finds himself so lucky to ever be included in these games that he never minds what role he plays, as long as he gets to take part somehow. 

“Okay,” Derek says. “I was the good guy last time, so you can be the good guy this time.”

Will nods, but before he can lift his stick wand up, Derek is yelling “Avada Kedavra!” and sprinting off onto the grass. 

“Hey! That’s not fair!” Will laughs, and follows suit. 

It takes Will almost all summer to learn how to tell Phineas and Henry apart. Even by the end he sometimes still gets it wrong, but not half as much as Derek does. They don’t seem to mind, but they do join in on some of Will and Derek’s adventures, and all four siblings turn out to be very imaginative indeed.

Phineas is the nicest, Will finds, as he always asks Will’s opinion and often teaches him something. Will learns how to build a stick shelter from Phineas and he even lets Will borrow his pen knife to whittle, and by the end of the vacation both boys have carved their Harry Potter wands into essentially the real thing.

Hazel and Henry are clearly good friends as well as siblings, and they spend a lot of their time racing and climbing and shouting, mostly with and at each other. Will has never understood being so fiercely competitive, but he enjoys watching them compete all the same.

Grace, being the same age as Derek and Will, gets on very well with them both. She and Derek talk about people they know from one another's schools and Will finds himself increasingly thankful for the fact their schools are separated. He can’t help thinking that maybe if they went to the same one, Derek would have no reservations about kissing her in the playground instead of kissing him in the back garden. 

It occurs to Will on one outing that this is a group of friends. 

They may have been Derek’s friends to begin with, met through the ease of living next door, but through all the games and racing and make-believe wizard fights, they’ve become Will’s friends, too.

The thought stops Will in his tracks, and he looks over at his little group of friends in delight.

Derek pulls up next to Will on his own bike. “What’s up?” he asks.

Will watches as Grace hugs Phineas’ waist, sitting on the back of his bike as he races down the street. Hazel chases them on her scooter, and Henry pulls up alongside Will and Derek, waiting for them to start cycling again. 

“Nothing,” Will says. 

“Race you,” Henry says, and speeds off before he even finishes his sentence. 

Derek shouts in indignation. Will laughs, and they both take off after him together, at top speed.

Even with a new group of friends, Will and Derek still spend most of their time alone, just the two of them. They eat picnic after picnic, day after day, and talk until Amina reminds Will it’s getting late and it’s probably time he goes home, because his mom will be worried.

Will doubts his mom is ever worried, but he doesn’t want Amina to, and he definitely doesn’t want to overstay his welcome. Will loves the evenings the most, though, and can’t help but wonder what the Nurses do as their evenings stretch into nights. 

He doesn’t have to wonder for long, though, because eventually Derek invites Will to a sleepover.

It’s planned for a Friday evening - not that it matters, because Will barely remembers the days of the week any more. His mom still has to work, though, and so does Amina, and she’s guaranteed to be home on a Saturday, so it makes sense. 

“Mom?” Will asks nervously on Friday morning, as his mom comes into the kitchen where he sits eating his cereal.

“Yeah?” is his mom’s response.

“I’ve been invited for a sleepover,” he says, and doesn’t ask the question.

His mom looks up at him, surprised. He wonders briefly if she’s even noticed he’s barely been in the house lately, but dismisses it. Of course she has. She’s his mom. She’s probably happier about it than in previous summers, when he was at home shut up in his room all day, every day.

“That’s nice, Will,” she says, her fingers wrapped around her coffee. “For tonight?”

Will nods.

“You don’t have to take anything with you, do you?” she asks. “No money, or stuff like that?”

Will shakes his head. “Well… my pyjamas,” he says. “And my toothbrush, I guess.”

“Hmm,” says his mom.

“Can I go?” he asks softly. 

Derek asks his mom questions all the time, and Will has realized asking Amina questions always gets him an answer. Even if the answer is no - which it rarely is - the no is said reasonably and calmly and alongside a very valid explanation as to why.

Will has learned to navigate questions with the Nurses, but questions in Will’s house have always been a dangerous game. 

“Sure,” his mom nods thoughtfully. “I don’t see why not.”

Will lights up from the inside out and launches himself at his mother, who is so shocked that she takes a while to respond. But Will holds on for long enough that her arms snake around his torso, and she squeezes him tightly.

“Thanks, Mom,” he says into her hair.

Hugging is another thing Will is getting better at. 

Will’s mom is delicate. Will has always thought her strength comes from somewhere inside, because she has never felt that strong on the outside. Will has to be careful to hug her lightly, to place his arms around her neck and be gentle, but she doesn’t hug him that way in return. In fact, when she hugs him, sometimes she squeezes so tight it feels like she’ll never let him go.

He likes it, but it’s rare, and she always does let go.

“I have to go to work,” she says this time, taking her arms away. “Have fun. I guess I’ll see you when I see you.”

Will hears that a lot. He’s never questioned it, but he’s only ever heard it from passing adults. From grown men and women with busy lives, dismissing one another to get back to better, more interesting things. He’s never heard it directed at young children or from parents to their kids.

Amina has never said I’ll see you when I see you.

Will nods anyway. “Okay.”

Then she stands up, dumps the rest of her coffee and leaves the mug in the sink. Will washes it up for her when he washes out his cereal, and scrambles back to his room to pack his pyjamas.

Derek opens the door as Will is parking his bike in the front garden, which means he’d been waiting for Will and watching out of the window for him to arrive. 

“Mami says to put your bike in the back garden for tonight,” he says.

Will nods and Derek disappears into the house, shutting the front door behind him. Will always locks his bike up at home. He imagines nobody around Derek’s estate will want to steal it - they probably already have a better bike than Will does, but it’s his, and he doesn’t want to lose it.

He wheels the bike through the back gate, and Derek meets him in the garden. 

“I hope you’re ready for the sleepover!” he gushes. “Mami says we can sleep in the tent!”

He gestures wildly at the small blue two-person tent erected at the bottom of the garden. Will feels a shock of excitement.

“I’ve never slept in a tent before,” he says.

“I haven’t either,” Derek says, wide-eyed. “I’m super psyched. Are you psyched?”

Will laughs. “Yeah. I’m psyched too.”

Derek looks beside himself with joy. “Also, Mami bought us marshmallows, so we can roast them in the fire pit and have s’mores!”

“I’ve never had a s’more,” Will says.

“What!” cries Derek, affronted. “You have to try one later. They’re the best.”

“Better than cheesy cake?” asks Will.

Derek considers this for a moment. “Maybe. They’re more of a snack.”

“I’ll have to try it and then we can compare.”

“Good idea,” Derek says, and he sounds dead serious. “We can rank them. I have some other candy too.”

Will’s had candy before - sometimes kids at school bring it in on their birthdays - but he’s still excited about it. It’s not a regular thing.

“Put your stuff in the tent and we can go eat dinner,” Derek instructs. “Mami’s made tacos.”

Will does as he’s told and follows Derek into the warm kitchen. The doors and windows are open and Amina has some music on, almost like a soft jazz CD. The kitchen looks warm and inviting in the way that Will’s kitchen never is. Amina looks up from where she’s plating the meal and her face lights up. 

“Will, hi!” she gushes. “Good evening.”

“Good evening, ma’am,” Will says, and Amina rolls her eyes at him good-naturedly, not even bothering to correct him. She’s given up on getting him to use her real name.

“Sit down, sit down, we’re almost ready to eat,” she says. “Do you want a soda?”

“No, thank you,” Will says. His dad drinks a lot of soda, and Will hates the smell - even the noise of the soda can opening sets him on edge. “Just water, please.”

“You know where the glasses are,” Amina says. “Help yourself!”

Will does just that, and always, he takes a moment to reflect on how lucky he is - that he’s allowed to just waltz into this house and help himself to a glass of water. It’s almost like he’s not even a guest any more.

“Do you not like soda?” Derek asks him. He’s pretty sure they’ve talked about this before, but luckily for his forgetful friend, Will never minds answering the same question twice.

He shakes his head. “I don’t like how it smells.”

“Oh,” says Derek, looking down at the can of Diet Coke in his hands. “Okay,” he says, and turns to put it back in the fridge. “I’ll have water too, then!”

Will feels a rush of emotions, mostly guilt. “You don’t have to do that,” he says.

“No, I want to,” Derek says, flashing him a smile. “If I have one then you’ll be able to smell it, because you sit across from me. So I’ll have water instead.”

Will smiles back and watches as Derek fills up his own glass at the faucet, and the guilty feeling morphs into something warm and tingly. 

“Thanks,” he says.

Derek reaches out and squeezes his hand, real tight, holding on. “No problemo.”

“Are you ready to come and eat?” Amina calls from the table, and the two look over. Zarah is eating her tacos, the vast majority of which have already ended up on her face.

“Yes, mami,” Derek says, and the two of them wash their hands and go to sit down.

Derek, as always, sits across from Will, and shoots him a wink. Will sticks his tongue out in response, and begins to eat.

After dinner, Derek drags Will excitedly by the elbow to show him their camping setup. Inside the tent is a double blow-up mattress, and Derek has clearly thrown in all the blankets he owns because there are about four of them, alongside several cushions and pillows. It looks so comfortable that Will is sure he’ll fall straight asleep without doing any of the exciting sleepover things Derek keeps talking about. 

Amina lights the fire pit and hands them all marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers. Derek demonstrates how to make a s’more in the same instructional manner he does everything, like he’s the one who invented them, Will hanging on his every word. Amina roasts Zarah’s marshmallows for her and, just like with dinner, she manages to get a lot of her s’more round her mouth instead of in it. 

“So?” Derek asks as Will takes a bite, eyes wide, expectant. 

“He hasn’t even swallowed it yet!” Amina laughs. 

Will swallows, and nods enthusiastically. “It’s great.”

“Better than cheesy cake?” Derek asks. 

“I see what you mean,” says Will. “They’re very different. I don’t think I can choose.”

“Hmm,” Derek nods like they are having a serious academic discussion and not just talking about dessert. “Yeah. That’s what I thought, too.”

Amina only lets them have about five s’mores each, and Derek whines about it like he whines about lots of things, but five is more than enough for Will. They brush their teeth in the downstairs sink, say their goodnights to Zarah and Amina, and make their way into the tent. 

“How many pillows do you want?” Derek asks. “I have two in my bed usually.”

Will shrugs. He has a single pillow on his bed, thin and white, unlike Derek’s, which are covered in a bright dinosaur pattern. “I just have one,” he says. 

“You can have two,” says Derek. He puts them where Will’s head will go and plumps them up for him energetically. “It’s much more comfortable.”

“Thank you,” says Will. 

“You can have two blankets, too,” Derek says. “It might be cold.”

“It’s summer,” says Will. 

“Yeah, but it’s night time, and we live near the sea,” Derek says reasonably. 

“Okay,” says Will. 

They both lie down, Will under a dinosaur blanket and Derek under one littered with stars, and they stare at the bright blue ceiling of the tent. Derek giggles, clearly excited, and Will laughs too. 

“I’ve never been camping before,” Derek says. “Do you think this counts?”

“Sure,” Will says. “We’re in a tent, right?”

“That’s what I thought.” Derek rolls over so he’s on his side, facing towards Will, who moves his head to stare back. Derek flashes him a wide grin, and as usual, Will can’t tamper down his own in response. 

“I’ve never been either,” Will says, and it comes out really quietly, almost like a whisper. “I’ve never been on vacation, even.”

Derek’s eyes go wide. “Never?” he asks. 

Will shrugs. “Nope.”

“We go on vacation sometimes,” Derek says. “Mami says we couldn’t this year because she has a lot going on at work.”

“Grown-ups like saying they have lots going on at work,” Will says. His dad says it all the time, but Will is never sure what his dad has going on. From what he can tell, it’s not a lot. 

Derek nods in agreement. “Yeah, they do,” he says. 

“Where do you go on vacation?” Will asks. 

“It depends,” Derek says. “Sometimes we go skiing at Christmas. Mami likes Europe. Sometimes we go to France, and she makes me order my food so I can practice my French.”

“Wow,” says Will. “I don’t know any French.”

“Don’t you do it at school?” Derek asks. 

Will shakes his head. “Sometimes we do Spanish.”

“Ah, sí,” says Derek, grinning. “Eres bueno en español? ”

“I have no idea what you just said,” Will says, a blush turning his cheeks red almost immediately. He’s never been good at languages.

“I asked if you were any good,” Derek laughs.

“Obviously not,” says Will.

“It’s cool,” says Derek. “I only know it because of my lessons.”

“You have Spanish lessons?”

“Sometimes we do Spanish,” Derek explains. He’s still facing Will. “Or French, or Mandarin. Sometimes we do Arabic because my mami is from Morocco.”

“Wow,” breathes Will. “Cool.”

“Yeah,” Derek says.

Will never asks about Derek’s dad, because dads are a touchy subject for him at the best of times, but he’s noticed Derek doesn’t seem to have one. Well - obviously he does, somewhere out there, but Will has never seen him, and neither Amina or Derek have ever mentioned him. It’s Derek, though, that brings him up.

“Have you ever been to Morocco?” is Will’s question. 

“I used to live there,” says Derek. “When I was young. It was ages ago. Mami moved here when she was pregnant with Zarah, so I was only five.”

“Was it good?” Will asks.

“I think so,” Derek says. “I don’t really remember it much.”

“Oh,” says Will.

“My dad is from Chicago,” says Derek. “He travels the world. He stopped travelling when he met my mami, but not for very long.”

Will doesn’t respond, because he doesn’t really know how to. He doesn’t know if that’s a good thing, or just an okay thing, or if Derek remembers his dad either. Will knows Derek well enough now to know that if he wants to talk about something, he will. It doesn’t matter what he’s asked. 

“He came to visit us here a few years ago. He was nice,” Derek adds, “but he was just my dad.” 

“Yeah,” says Will.

“He was just a man that’s my dad,” Derek rephrases, and then laughs at his phrasing. “Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” says Will again.

“I’ve only seen him once. He sends me birthday cards, though.”

“That’s nice of him,” Will says. He sees his dad all the time, but he doesn’t think his dad gets him birthday cards. 

“Yeah,” says Derek. “Mami says we don’t need him, so I forget about him most of the time.”

Will nods. “That makes sense too.”

“It does, right?” asks Derek. “We’re doing fine!”

Will laughs. They’re doing great. Will can’t imagine the Nurse’s house with a dad in it, slamming doors and making Amina cry, Derek and Zarah hiding away in their rooms in case they do something to make him angry. 

“Maybe I’ll see him again on vacation sometime,” says Derek. “I don’t know. He could be anywhere.”

“That’s cool,” Will says. His father could be anywhere, too, but he highly doubts it’s anywhere as interesting as Morocco or Chicago.

“Morocco is cool,” Derek says. “Maybe you can come!”

Will shakes his head. He doesn’t even entertain the thought of going to Morocco with Derek, sitting in the thick heat beside him. Amina would slather sunblock on them like she does at the beach. He would draw anything and everything. “I don’t know,” he says. “Morocco’s pretty far away.”

“True,” says Derek, nodding in agreement. “It’s cool. We can stay in the garden. For now.”

“Yeah,” says Will. “This is a vacation for me.”

“Well, it can be your first one,” Derek says. He points at himself, then at Will. “My first camping, your first vacation.”

“Sounds good,” Will says. 

“Just the two of us, though.”

Will smiles. “I like it that way.”

Derek grins back. “Me too.”

Of course, it does get cold, because even though it’s the summer, it’s late at night, and they live by the sea. It really is a good job Derek has so many blankets, because for some reason, he gets a chill in his bones.

“I’m freezing,” he whispers to Will after ten minutes or so of silence. 

Neither of them have fallen asleep yet, even if they thought the other might have drifted off. 

“How?” asks Will. “You have two blankets!”

“I can’t help it,” Derek whines. “I’m cold.”

Will laughs a little, and Derek hits him lightly in the chest. 

“Ow!” Will laughs louder. 

“That didn’t hurt,” says Derek.

“It might have,” teases Will.

“But it didn’t,” says Derek. “I’m cold!”

“You can have my other blanket, if you want,” Will offers. “I’m kinda warm.”

Derek frowns at him and sticks his hand under Will’s blanket, pressing it flat against Will’s arm. “You’re boiling!” he says. 

“I am not boiling,” says Will. “I’m just warm.”

“You’re boiling,” Derek repeats. “I’m coming under your blanket.”

Will doesn’t protest, and Derek piles his own blankets on top of Will’s before sliding under it. 

Contrary to his complaints, Derek is actually quite warm to the touch. He lets out a contented sigh and presses his arm against Will’s, moving so close that they’re touching almost all the way from ankle to shoulder. 

“I’m warm now,” says Derek.

“Well, now I’m boiling,” Will says. 

“Hmm,” mumbles Derek, and Will rolls his eyes. He doesn’t dare move. 

This time, in the silence that follows, both of them fall asleep.

When Will wakes up in the morning to the light filtering through the bright blue roof of the tent, Derek has turned over onto his side. His head rests on Will’s shoulder, and his arm is neatly crossed over Will’s chest, his hand resting on Will’s hip. It’s a bit like a hug.

Will’s learning to hug, so he hugs back, and drifts off again for a few hours.

After that night, he asks his mom over and over again if he can stay over at Derek’s. She says yes to so many sleepovers that eventually, he stops asking. 

His dad disappears for weeks on end. It’s the best summer of Will’s life. 

“I love having friends,” he says to Derek, in one of the rare moments of honesty that Will keeps allowing himself nowadays. They’re sitting at the entrance of the tent, secretly eating Jolly Ranchers and comparing the colour of their tongues. Amina wouldn’t be pleased if she knew - they brushed their teeth hours ago. 

Derek grins at him, the inside of his mouth electric blue. “It’s amazing, huh?”

Will takes another Jolly Rancher out of the bag, but it’s a yellow one. They don’t really affect the colour of your tongue, so he puts it back.

“I love having you as a friend,” he clarifies. 

Derek grabs Will’s hand, squeezes it tight and kisses his knuckles with a loud smack. 

“I don’t blame you,” he says, “that’s probably pretty amazing too.”

Then he laughs so hard he has to let go. Will laughs too, after rolling his eyes, and they end the summer vacation that way: giggling themselves silly in the opening of the tent, under the stars.

Will has such a great summer that he isn’t nearly as glad to go back to school as he was the same time last year. He likes his new teacher, so that’s a bonus - she’s smiley and welcoming, like Amina. He heaves a huge sigh of relief when she introduces herself as his new teacher instead of the man in the other class. He’s very tall and very strict, and Will avoids him in the hallways. 

Derek’s new teacher is a friendly woman too, apparently, and Derek likes her. He doesn't give many details but she praises him when he gets things right, and Will knows Derek well enough to know that if he gets praise, he’s enamored.

Derek’s new school year brings with it a multitude of new opportunities. He has extracurriculars coming out of his ears. Will does nothing of the sort, having plenty of time but no money, but Derek’s schedule is packed full.

He has Tuesday afternoons with his language tutor, doing his French, Mandarin, Spanish or Arabic. He does karate on Wednesday evenings. His swimming lessons have moved to a Friday after school as he’s moved up a stage - from a blue badge to a green badge, as Will finds out when he’s shown Derek’s swimming towel. Amina has embroidered a numbered rainbow of cloth patches down the side.

As always, of course, Derek’s infamous violin lessons remain on Saturdays. 

Amina invites Will sometimes, but even she can tell Will wants nothing less than to sit in close quarters with a stranger giving him instructions, or watch Derek swim back and forth and do his front-crawl breathing wrong.

So, most of the time, he sits in the library at school for a while, before cycling along past the docks and waiting for Amina to pull into the driveway. He waits until she waves at him, to where he sits on the grass, and then he pushes his bike slowly to the front door. Amina invites him in and they sit, either upstairs in her studio, with nibbles in the kitchen, or on the carpet in the lounge.

Sometimes he plays with Zarah as she tells him nonsensical stories, watching young children’s television and drawing pictures for her to colour in. Then he gets in the car with the two of them and goes to pick up Derek, every single week.

Derek tries to persuade Will to join him at times, but he knows as much as his mother how uninterested Will is. 

Until, one day, Derek opens the door to Will and announces his new activity.

“Do you wanna come to ice hockey club with me?” he asks.

Will blinks twice. “Huh?”

Derek drags him inside. “Have you not heard of ice hockey?”

“I have,” Will defends, letting himself be pulled by the hand towards the library. “I just didn’t know you played it.”

“I don’t, not yet,” Derek says.

Will sits down on the armchair and watches over Derek’s shoulder as he types slowly on the computer. He brings up an ice hockey video on YouTube and lets it play. 

“Mami says there’s an ice hockey team for kids I can join and they teach us how to play it,” Derek explains. “It’s on Sundays, so you can come. I don’t want to go on my own.”

“Oh,” says Will.

“So, Mami says if you want to come then you can, and she can take us and everything. If your mom says it’s okay.”

Will says nothing, because he knows when he asks her, the first thing his mom will say is something about money. He wants to go - really, he does - but this might be a step outside what she’s willing to let him do, how far she’s willing to let him go. 

“Please?” Derek says, flashing his big puppy-dog eyes. He doesn't use them much but when he does, Will is powerless. Will loves Derek’s eyes. It’s easy to get lost in them.

“Won’t it be expensive?” Will asks in a very small voice.

Derek’s puppy-dog eyes are gone. He almost falls off his chair in haste and kneels in front of Will in the armchair, between his legs. 

“Mami says don’t worry about it,” he says.

Will snorts. “I do,” he says.

“I know,” Derek smiles. He grabs Will’s hand and laces his fingers through his own. “I know you do. Maybe… chill out a bit.”

This time Will laughs, but he doesn’t want to let go of Derek’s hand. “It’s not that easy,” he says.

“I know that too,” Derek sighs. Will’s not so sure that he does, because with his five extra-curricular classes a week and his private school, it’s clear Derek has never had an issue when it comes to money, and he’s certainly never had to worry about it like Will and his family. It crops up often, especially in Will’s mind, but he rarely voices his concerns. He doesn't want to seem like a broken record.

He doesn't want it to stop, either; being dragged along to all of Derek’s clubs and societies. He enjoys it too much, even if it is a bit torturous.

“Okay,” Will says. “I’ll come to ice hockey.”

Then Derek does let go of Will’s hand, but he does it to jump up and celebrate with a huge smile on his face, so Will thinks he can probably let it slide.

Ice hockey is daunting enough in Will’s thoughts, but it’s even more so when Amina leads Will and Derek into the ice rink on Sunday morning and there’s already a gaggle of young children lined up on the benches. A woman and a tall, young boy, maybe late teens, stand on the ice in big, clunky looking skates, waving at various kids they clearly already know.

“Mami says they have skates we can borrow,” Derek explains. “We just have to go and try them on so we can get the right size.”

Will nods in response, too nervous to really speak. He simply follows Derek wherever he goes, this time to the skate rental booth.

Will and Derek are the same shoe size, and the guy behind the desk picks some skates out for them and shows them both how to put them on. They’re big, not like figure skates that Will has seen in pictures, but they look kind of like the ones from Derek’s YouTube video.

Will stretches his legs out in front of him and looks at them. He can feel a weird feeling rising up in his throat. 

He’s excited.

“I’m psyched!” Derek says loudly, and the skate rental guy laughs at him.

“You better go join the others,” he says.

So they do, slowly, in their big skates. They agree that next time they should take them to the stands before they put them on, so they don’t have to walk as far.

The crowd of kids has migrated to the rink’s entrance, and a few of them are making their way onto the ice. The woman on the ice is by the gate, clearly welcoming kids she knows well, and Will steels himself at the back of the group. 

The kids are all in hockey gear: bright helmets and big baggy shirts with padded shoulders, and they’re carrying hockey sticks. As Will watches, one of them waves their hockey stick in the air. The teenage boy catches it by the end and pushes it down gently to the ice, shaking his head.

Will nudges Derek in the side. “We don’t have any of that stuff,” he says.

Derek nods. “Mami says the lady has things we can borrow.”

“Oh,” says Will. 

The woman on the ice catches Will’s eye for a second and smiles brightly at them. It’s kind of like an Amina smile, but it’s way bigger and much more enthusiastic, the kind of smile you get from a life of working with kids. She waves them over.

“Hey, guys, you must be Will and Derek!” she says. She has a very big voice, probably well practiced in the art of shouting across an entire ice rink. 

Derek nods. “I’m Derek,” he introduces himself. “This is Will.”

“Great, it’s so good to see you both,” she says. “I’m Annelise, that’s Miles.” She gestures to the tall teenager behind her herding children on the ice. “Your mom said you’re gonna borrow some gear today?” she asks. 

“Yeah,” Derek nods enthusiastically. “This is our first day.”

“It sure is!” Annelise claps her hands together. “Follow me, I’ve got some stuff for you…”

There’s a pile of bags just off the ice and she rummages through them, holding a couple of pieces of gear up to the pair of boys and squinting, like she’s imagining them on. “This should fit you,” she says. “I bet you’re both the same size.”

“We are,” says Derek confidently. “We share sweaters sometimes.”

“That’s great then!” Annelise smiles her big smile again. “Right, so this goes over your head, like that -“ she puts the big padded jersey over Derek’s head, who laughs, “- and then you put your helmet on. Make sure it doesn’t wobble.”

Will puts his own helmet on, and it wobbles a bit. 

“Mine’s loose,” he says quietly to Derek.

“Oh, I can do it,” Derek says, and leans in close to tighten the chin strap. Will can feel Derek’s breath ghosting on his chin, and he watches as Derek sticks out his tongue in concentration. 

“There!” Derek says and slaps the top of Will’s helmet with an open palm. To Derek’s credit, it doesn’t wobble.

Will shoots him a look, but thanks him anyway. Derek just grins at him from behind the metal on the helmet. 

“Looking good, boys,” says Annelise.

The other kids are already skating around in big, sweeping circles, supervised by Miles. Will sees a few of them stumble - one even falls over, sprawled out on their chest, laughing - and feels a bit better about himself. Maybe he won’t be the worst one here. 

“Have you skated before?” Annelise asks them. 

“I have! A couple times, but not in these big skates,” says Derek, and he waves his foot around to demonstrate the aforementioned big skates. “Will hasn’t, though,” he adds.

Annelise looks at Will, like he’s going to confirm or deny Derek’s statement, but he doesn’t say anything. She nods. “Okay, cool. Well, Derek, skating in figure skates is similar, but not exactly the same. You’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly. It’s not too hard to learn either, Will.”

Will nods. 

“Okay, well, let’s get you both on the ice,” she beams. “You can both have a stick - look, here - they help you balance, so it’s best to give you one from the beginning.”

“Cool,” says Derek, and swings it so it hits Will behind the knees. “Whoops.”

“Hey!” Will exclaims.

“Careful!” Annelise laughs, “that thing hurts if you hit someone with it. Try and keep it below the knees.”

“Okay,” says Derek, narrowly avoids hitting Will behind his calves instead. 

Annelise leads them onto the ice, where the kids are still skating in big circles. Miles waves at them and smiles. He looks nice, Will thinks.

As soon as they set foot on the rink, he feels Derek stumble and  grab his shoulder heavily. “It’s slippery,” Derek hisses at him.

“It’s ice,” Will says, grinning.

“Right, let's skate over,” Annelise says, like it’s easy. “We go like this with our feet, look - one two, one two, one two.” She demonstrates with her own skates, leading with her left foot and then pushing forward with her right. 

Will watches and does as he’s shown. It’s harder than she makes it look, but it’s not too bad. Will slowly but surely makes it to the big circle, Derek at his shoulder. 

“That’s it!” Annelise beams. “You’re doing great!”

Will smiles back at her, and he’s not sure she can see it because of the metal across his face, but she keeps grinning down at him anyway. 

“Okay, boys, can I leave you to do a couple laps by yourselves whilst I get set up?” she asks. 

“Sure!” Derek says, “thanks!”

She leaves them to it and skates back to centre ice effortlessly, where she starts placing small, bright orange cones. 

“This is fun,” says Derek.

“It is fun,” agrees Will. A few of the kids are zooming past them at top speed but neither of them seem to mind. Derek stumbles and goes to grab Will, who stumbles too, and both of them start laughing.

“Don’t grab me!” laughs Will. “I’ll fall over!” 

“Well I don’t want to fall over, either,” Derek giggles.

“Okay, guys!” Annelise calls from center ice. “Gather round for me!”

It takes a while for the kids to congregate around her, all being at various points in the big skating circle, but they eventually do. Will stands next to Derek and a boy who grins toothily at him through his helmet. 

“That was some good skating, guys!” Annelise says. As she speaks, she ties her hair back. “So we’re gonna get started on some drills. You’re gonna start at one end and make your way around the cones - no puck, to start with. We’ll give you one later. Just practise getting around the cones for now.”

She has a helmet by her waist, ready to put on over her curls, presumably for when kids start hitting pucks around. 

Derek grins at Will, and they line up behind their cones.

Ice hockey progresses from there. They go to their lessons every Sunday at 10am, and Amina buys them helmets of their own to take. They write their names inside using a permanent marker, and Will thinks it might be the most precious thing he’s ever owned. His sketchbook is precious to him because of what he’s created inside it, but his new helmet is precious just because it is.

Unsurprisingly, like everything else, Derek takes to hockey like a duck to water. Will, though, having fully expected to be awful at hockey for a long time, is surprised to find that he takes to it too. 

He loves it. He’s never been that great at sports - he’s in good shape, obviously, because he rides his bike to and from school daily and he can force a decent distance run, but he’s never been one for team sports at school. He never gets picked and he never has fun.

Hockey is different. Maybe it’s Derek that drags him along at first, but sooner or later they’re both so excited for every practice that Annelise sets them harder and harder drills and they get better.

A lot better, too.

Soon enough Annelise is using Will and Derek as examples during their drills, and soon after that they’re moved up a group. It only takes a couple of months before Annelise mentions that, hey - there’s a competitive hockey club on Sunday mornings, too, and maybe they should think about joining?

So they do.

Will hears the word gay uttered in the locker rooms at school. 

It’s not a new word for him. His dad has used it before, and has always spat it out in the same disgusted way he says everything. Will’s never dared to ask him what it means, but he’s always assumed it was a bad thing. He’d never considered it something to identify with.

There’s a boy in the locker rooms whose socks are dyed pink, on his account by accident, from his mom’s sub-par laundry skills. Will hadn't even noticed, but when the boy pulls his socks on, there’s a corner of the room that erupts into laughter. 

“Why do you have pink socks?” 

“Ricky’s wearing girl’s socks!” 

“Those are so gay!”

Will doesn’t really have a reaction, as always. He sits in his own corner and pulls on his own socks, listening to the uproar that’s still going on around him. 

“I’m not gay, dude,” Ricky shouts over the buzz, his face just as pink as his socks. “Shut up.”

Nobody shuts up and nobody stops teasing, but Will laces his shoes up and thinks about it for the rest of the day. 

He buzzes with curiosity about the word and its definition, but he doesn’t ask anyone at school. He doesn’t particularly talk to any of the kids at school, especially not about this. He briefly entertains the idea of asking his teacher, but he doesn’t really want to do that either. As he sits staring at his math workbook he has a brief vision of the kitchen at Derek’s house, having the conversation with Amina over dinner, and immediately decides that’s exactly what he’ll do.

His mind buzzes all afternoon, even as he cycles back and sits on the grass outside Derek’s house. He doesn’t even get his sketchbook out. He just waits.

Amina’s car pulls into the driveway about ten minutes later. Derek leaps out with his usual high energy, and he immediately spots Will watching them. He waves very enthusiastically, and Will does his usual bashful wave back before gently pushing his bike towards the house.

“Hey, Will,” Amina greets warmly, hiking Zarah up her hip just a little.

“Hello, ma’am,” Will responds.

Amina huffs a laugh and rolls her eyes. “I wish you’d stop calling me that, honey.”

“No can do, ma’am,” Will says cheekily.

Derek laughs loudly and Amina joins in. Will is really not used to cheek being responded to with a laugh, or anything other than rage. He’s learning, though, how people respond to things, people that aren’t his dad. Or occasionally his mom.

The pair of boys follow Amina into the kitchen, where she sets Zarah down on the floor. Derek drops down next to her to help take her shoes off, and Zarah giggles as he tickles her feet on purpose.

“Will, do you want to help with dinner today or are you painting?” Amina asks.

“I just finished a painting,” Will says, sliding onto one of the stools at the island. “Of the sea.”

“Oh, yes,” Amina said. “I remember.”

Another thing Will’s learning about adults: many of them remember what you’re up to, and plenty of them like to ask questions about it. Most adults like getting kids to talk about themselves, even if Will actively avoids it.

“I’ll help with dinner,” Will volunteers.

“Perfect,” Amina says. “Derek? Are you helping with dinner?”

“No, mami, I’m almost finished with the Order of the Phoenix,” Derek says.

“That one’s taken you a while,” Amina says.

Derek frowns. “Well… it’s very long.”

“We’ve been very busy,” Will adds quickly, coming to his defense. “Derek can’t read it when I stay over because then I’ll get spoiled.”

“Oh, of course,” Amina nods in understanding.

She opens the fridge and collects the dinner’s ingredients into her arms. Will jumps up to help her without hesitation.

“Thank you, Will,” she says, passing him some of them. 

She takes the step down from the top of the cupboards and Will hops up onto it obediently, immediately at the right height to use the counter. It’s essentially routine by now.

“Can I cut the carrots?” Will asks eagerly.

Amina laughs. “Of course,” she says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so excited about carrots.”

“I like chopping,” Will says.

“At least somebody likes it,” Amina says. She washes the carrots and sets them down in front of Will.

He picks up the rather sharp knife and carefully begins chopping them. Derek takes the Order of the Phoenix out of his satchel and disappears into the library to read. Zarah follows him, and Will listens as their cheerful chatter fades into the depths of the house.

Will methodically chops his way through half of his carrot pile before the day’s events come back to him. He pauses for long enough that Amina looks over, pausing in her own task.

“Are you okay, honey?” she asks.

Will jumps and sets the knife down. “Yeah,” he says.

Amina seems happy with the response, so she turns back to whatever she’s doing over the stove. Will doesn’t keep chopping, though.

“Amina?” he asks.

“Yes, honey?”

“What does gay mean?”

“Oh,” she says, and she doesn’t look mortified but she does look a little surprised. “Why do you ask?”

Will shrugs. “I heard it at school today and my dad says it sometimes, but I don't know what it means, so…”

Amina blinks at him. “Your dad’s never explained it to you?”

Will shakes his head.

“Well, how does your dad use it?” Amina asks him.

“Um,” Will thinks for a moment, “I think he uses it for girl things. Like if I did something for girls.”

Amina’s hand stops dead in its task. “What kind of girl things?” she asks, a little frostily. Will doesn’t think she’s annoyed at him, but he does fidget a bit in concern.

“I guess if he ever found me painting he would say it’s gay,” he says quietly. “Sometimes he says it if I hurt my leg and cry. He’d call me a sissy, or say I was gay. So I always thought it was bad.”

“It’s not bad, Will,” Amina says automatically, but she doesn’t carry on with an explanation. She does go back to frying the onions.

“Some boys said it in the locker room today about Ricky’s pink socks,” he adds.

“Hmm,” she nods. “I see.”

“But Ricky wasn’t very happy about it.”

“Well, a lot of people wouldn’t be,” she says. “Not that that’s right.”

Will nods slowly. He doesn’t really understand, but he chops another carrot in half instead of asking what that means.

“So…” he says, and when Amina doesn’t say anything he asks again. “What does it mean?”

“Oh!” she laughs, and it’s not her normal tinkly laugh but it’s not that far off. “Sorry, Will, honey, I never even answered your question.”

“It’s okay,” he says.

“Well, gay is a definition,” Amina explains. “It’s used to describe men who are attracted to men or women who are attracted to women.”

Will puts the knife down, and flashes of memory come back to him. For a moment he’s sat on the grass outside, under the fairy lights, face hovering close to Derek’s. He can almost feel Derek’s breath ghosting over his lips, the feeling of his eyelashes fluttering by his cheek. “Oh,” he says.

“That’s all,” says Amina.

“Why’s that bad?” Will asks. 

“It’s not,” she replies. “It’s not bad at all.”

Will frowns. “So why did Ricky go all red? And why did the other boys tease him about it? And my dad…”

“Well,” Amina says, “some people have it in their head that boys can’t marry other boys or girls can’t marry other girls.”

“Why?” Will asks. He knows his dad is one of these people, but his dad has never bothered to explain why. It doesn’t matter why. His dad is always right, no questions asked.

“Well, some people say it’s in the Bible that a man and woman should be together, so it’s wrong for men to be with men or for women to be with women,” she says, “but there’s all kinds of things in the Bible that people don’t stick to, so I think that's a bit of an excuse.”

“Oh,” says Will, confused. That can’t be it. His dad has never read anything, least of all the Bible. 

“Lots of people say it’s because only boys and girls can make babies together, so that should be what everybody does,” Amina carries on. “Mostly it’s just because some very stupid but influential people a very long time ago decided it was bad, so people still stick by that and call it tradition. There’s a big history behind it all. Some people are even killed because of it.”

Will looks up at her in alarm, panic jolting through him like he missed a step on the staircase. 

“Not here,” she says hurriedly, catching his worry straight away, “and mainly in the past.”

“Oh,” Will says. 

Amina adds something else to the saucepan and Will resumes chopping, slowly.

“Why do people do it, then, if they can be killed for it?” Will asks after a moment.

“Well, it’s not a choice,” Amina explains. “People are just born like that. There are lots of different sexual orientations that people are born with. So, a boy can be born just liking girls, or only other boys, or maybe they like boys and girls. Maybe they don’t care. Or maybe they don't like anyone!” 

“So they can’t choose at all?” Will frowns. “I thought people chose who to marry.”

“Well, you can choose who to marry, but you can’t choose who you’re attracted to,” Amina says. “If you’re born gay, you’re born gay. That doesn’t change. You might not know at the start, and you can always learn more about yourself as you get older, but if you’re born gay, you’re always gay. Even if people try to change you.”

Will nods in understanding.

“Is that all?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says, and nods. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Any time, honey,” she says. “And Will?”

“Yeah?”

“If anyone ever makes fun of you like they did with Ricky, in the locker room? You let me know,” she says.

Will is so surprised he stops chopping. She looks down at him, so sure, so defiant. Will believes her. “Okay,” he says.

He doesn't include his dad in that anyone, but he entertains the thought for a second.

Every time Will sees Derek for the next few weeks, he finds himself thinking an awful lot about the brief kiss they shared in the garden. He never brings it up, and neither does Derek. He wonders if Derek ever thinks about it, too, or if he even remembers it. Sometimes he wants to ask, but he doesn't.

Alongside the kiss, the locker room taunts replay too. He can’t help but think of them simultaneously, now he knows what they mean. What would the boys in the locker room say to him if they knew he’d kissed Derek at the bottom of the garden, under the fairy lights? What would they say if they knew he’d liked it? 

He’s not sure if he wants Derek to remember it. He wonders if the boys at Derek’s school would do the same as the boys from his own, if one of them wore pink socks to gym class. He wonders all the time if Derek liked that silly little kiss as much as he did.

Will’s mind is wrapped up in the whole thing, over and over again, for weeks on end. Despite that, life goes on. 

“I liked it,” he tells himself once on the bike ride home. “Derek kissed me, and I liked it.”

It makes it feel a bit more real, but nobody’s there to hear it. Even if they were, they wouldn’t know what he’d been talking about. All the same, it’s been said, and for whatever reason, Will feels better for it.

He certainly won’t be repeating it in the locker room, that’s for sure. 

After ice hockey practice one weekend, sitting across the table from one another reading their books, Derek announces his new project. 

“I’m going to write a book,” he says. 

He slams shut the Order of the Phoenix, which makes a loud noise. It’s a pretty hefty book. The noise makes Will jump. 

“Oh?” says Will. 

“Yes,” confirms Derek. 

“A book like Harry Potter?” Will asks. 

“I don’t know yet,” says Derek. 

Will nods and turns the page of his own book. “What about?” he asks. 

Derek props his chin up on his hand in a thoughtful pose. “Hmm,” he says, eyebrows furrowed, “I don’t know about that yet, either.”

“Will it be long?” Will asks, and points at the Order of the Phoenix. “Like that one?”

“I think so,” Derek nods definitively. “I’m sure I can write that many words. How hard can it be?”

“I don’t know,” Will says honestly. “I’m not very good at writing.”

“It’s easy,” Derek says. “Maybe… maybe I could write about…”

He trails off, and then laughs. Will laughs, too. 

“Well,” Derek shrugs, and makes a flippant gesture with his hand. “I’ll think of something.” 

“Okay,” Will nods. “Well, I’m sure it will be great.”

“Thanks,” Derek smiles. 

Will smiles back. He doesn’t have the first idea how to go about writing a book, but he admires Derek for knowing what he wants, and going for it. Will never has the courage to do that. 

“If I do write a book, will you do the pictures?” Derek asks him after a moment. 

Will blinks at him, surprised. “Huh?”

“I can write it and you can do the pictures,” Derek says, and he holds out his hardback Harry Potter book for Will to see, tracing the illustration on the front.

As they stare at one another, Derek reaches out with his foot and nudges Will’s. He does it often, whenever they sit at the table, and it makes Will blush every single time.  

“Okay,” Will says. “That would be cool.”

Derek grins at him and nudges his foot again. “Yay!” he cheers. 

“When are you going to write it?” Will asks. 

“I’m not sure yet,” Derek says. “Maybe soon.”

Will nods. Derek picks his book back up and opens it once more, skimming through to where his bookmark rests on his page. As he settles back down in his reading position, Will reaches out with his own foot under the table, and nudges Derek’s in return. 

Derek doesn’t look up, but as Will watches him carry on reading, a small smile stretches across his features. 

When Derek opens the door to Will on the first Saturday in November, his lopsided grin is nowhere to be seen. 

Will’s smile fades instantly, panic rising in his chest. “What’s wrong?” 

His thoughts go wild. He runs through hundreds of possible scenarios: ones where something happened to Amina, to Derek, to Zarah. Ones where Amina’s studio burnt down along with all their beautiful paintings or ones where Amina was up all night in the hospital. He tries to push them away as he waits for a reply.

“Mami got a promotion,” Derek says.

The made-up terrors in Will’s brain disappear. He feels flushed with relief, but he doesn’t say anything, because he’s trying to process why Derek’s words don’t match the expression on his face. He searches Derek’s eyes, trying to come up with an explanation, but he comes up short. 

“Okay,” he says, uncertain. 

Derek sniffs, and it’s only because Will’s curious that he doesn’t run forward and hug him. 

“Mami says it’s a really good job and it means Zarah and I can go to better schools,” Derek continues, “and we can see lots of new things and join lots of new clubs.” 

“But those things all sound good,” Will says.

“They are,” Derek sniffs again, and rubs at his eye with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. It’s already dark with tears.

Will can’t remember where Amina keeps the tissues - maybe somewhere in the kitchen. He resists the urge to go look for them. “So what’s wrong?” 

“Well...” Derek looks at him with tears in his eyes, “it’s in New York City.”

The world drops out from under Will.

He gapes at Derek, still and unmoving. He’s so shocked that he has no idea what to do.

Derek is crying fully now, like he’s said the words out loud and so they’re suddenly a bit more true. Will feels like he should be crying too, but he’s never been very good at crying, even though by other people’s standards he’s had plenty to cry over.

This might be the closest he’s ever been. 

“I begged Mami to let us stay,” Derek sobs, “or to bring you with us, but she says we can’t. I said I don’t want to go anywhere that you’re not. She says that it’s not fair but it’s what’s best for us, she says she can’t stay where she is but she wouldn’t tell me why!”

Will drops his bike and throws his arms around Derek.

It sets Derek off more and Will can feel his tears seeping through the fabric of his shirt, but he doesn’t care. They sink to the ground in each other’s arms, drop onto the front step as it catches them. Will has never held anyone this tight. He’s never met anyone that he cares enough to literally hold together, to keep his arms around because if he lets go it might hurt too much. 

“Do you really have to go?” Will whispers, so quietly that Derek wouldn’t have heard if they weren’t pressed together in the doorstep. 

Will feels Derek nod into his shoulder. “Yes.”

Will’s eyes burn. “I don’t want you to.”

“I don’t want to either,” Derek says. He’s hugging Will so fiercely that his fingers dig into Will’s side. It hurts, or maybe it should, but nothing could hurt more than this. 

Finally, Will chokes on a sob.

He’s got used to wanting things. He’s become accustomed to asking nicely and getting things, to being offered them unconditionally and accepting them freely, to owning things and experiencing them like any other kid should.

Will’s life had never been this way before Derek, Amina and Zarah, and he knows exactly what it will be like after. 

Lonely days of sitting by the shore, pencil pressed to paper stretch out in front of him. He can’t help but hate Amina a little in that moment, but he knows it won’t stick. He tries not to think about the airy rooms of Derek’s home and the earthy wilderness of his garden, lit up every night by a thousand tiny lights. He focuses on the tears soaking his shoulder.

Will’s always known he’s not like any other kid, but this house and these people made him think that maybe he could be. 

“I’m going to miss you so much,” whispers Derek.

Will’s throat hurts too much to form words. 

He presses a firm, teary kiss to Derek’s temple, and hopes it speaks for him.

Sometimes, you catch the sun in the corner of your eye.

You look away, because looking at the sun is bad for your eyes. But for hours, every time you close them, you see the sun again. 

Will would agree that the sun is a good way to describe Derek, because in every single moment, Will sees him.

When he closes his eyes, when they’re open, when he has nothing to do or plenty to do. Everything Will does reminds him of the Nurses: of the days spent in number two, at the beach, playing on the grass, sitting in the library, in Amina’s studio. 

Over the week that followed Derek’s announcement, Will had helped him pack his things. He’d sat numbly as Derek sniffed and cried, putting his life into boxes and leaving Will behind. Will shed a few tears, but nothing like those Derek cried.

When the removal vans had left and Amina had strapped Zarah into the car, she’d turned and taken Will into her arms.

“We love you, Will,” she’d said. “Please keep in touch.”

Will had just nodded, numb still, unfeeling. She had given Will a present, something wrapped in tissue paper, but Will shoved it deep in his bag and didn't look at it again. It was only once they’d left - driven off down the road and disappeared over the hill - that Will remembered all the things he wanted to say to Amina, everything he wanted to thank her for. 

She’d changed his life, and now she was gone. 

Derek’s goodbye had been the hardest. He’d held Will so tightly he couldn’t breathe, but Will hadn’t cared. Life without Derek was like life without breathing. It made no difference either way.

Will’s route to school still goes past Derek’s neighborhood, but nowadays, he doesn’t stop. Sometimes he still sees Grace, Hazel, Phineas and Henry get into their car and drive off to school, but he never approaches them and never speaks to them. He thinks they would probably still play with him if he offered, but somehow now it’s different, and Will doesn’t want to play with them if Derek can't be there too.

Despite the summer of clinging to it so tightly, Will can’t even bear to open his sketchbook. He knows the pages are full of memories, scenes and landscapes from his time with Derek. He drew portraits of Zarah laughing and exploring, poses Amina struck so Will could practise drawing people with their legs crossed or leaning on their hands. Even thinking about it makes him feel sick, so his sketchbook stays closed and under his mattress, safe and sound.

Amina had given Will her number, too, scrawled on a piece of paper in her neat adult handwriting. Will knows they have a landline at home, but he’s never used it. Not yet. 

Desperate, Will had even given Derek his address. He’s never told anyone else where he lives, not anyone at school nor hockey. In reality, he’s ashamed of it, and always has been, but Derek asks for it, and how can he say no?

The obvious choice would be to call Amina. All he has to do is punch in the number and brave whatever happens next, but that scares Will. He isn't sure how he fits in anymore, whether or not their big new life in the city has a place for his attempts to get in touch.

The long and the short of it is that Derek, Amina and Zarah have moved on.

Will had spent every moment with Derek knowing his friend was destined for great things. He’s smart, capable, talented, and takes easily to everything - except maybe violin, or watercolors. Will knows Derek will thrive in New York City. He’ll never be lonely, he’ll try everything he can, and he’ll be amazing at everything he tries. One day, however far in the future, he’ll be rich enough to buy a nice house by the sea like his mother, and - just like her - he’ll be wonderful enough to fill it with love. 

So Will keeps those thoughts in mind, because they comfort him, even if he misses Derek so much it hurts.

Will sucks it up and calls, once.

A woman picks up the phone. It’s not Amina, and for a second Will thinks he’s got the wrong number, but she says “you’ve reached the Nurses” so he asks for Derek. She obliges immediately and Will waits in anticipation, biting his nails.

“Hello?” Derek says when he comes to the phone, and he sounds cheery enough. Will isn’t sure whether he was hoping Derek would be sad, and he isn’t sure if he’s disappointed. He doesn’t bother working it out. 

“Hello,” he croaks instead. 

“Who is this?” Derek asks.

Will clears his throat. “It’s Will,” he says.

“Will!” Derek shouts. “Hey! Wow! Hi!”

“Hi,” says Will.

“How are you doing?” Derek asks. 

“I’m good,” Will says, which is a bit of a lie, but Derek isn’t going to know that. At least not through the phone. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m good too!” Derek says, and he actually sounds like it. “The city is amazing. The buildings are so tall!”

Will has an immediate picture of Derek standing in the top floor of a sky-high glass building and smiles, despite himself. “Really?” he asks. 

“Yeah!” Derek laughs. Will can see his grin so clearly in his mind; always lopsided, always so genuine. “I keep getting lost. Mami says I’ll learn it all eventually.”

“You will,” Will assures him. “Is your new school good?”

“It’s huge,” Derek says. “All the boys and girls go to school together. The classes are pretty hard. My old ones were hard too, though, so it’s not that bad. It’s still all new. I’m getting used to it.”

“Cool,” says Will. “Are you still doing violin lessons?”

“Yep,” says Derek. “On Mondays now.”

“Cool,” Will repeats.

“I’m gonna write your number in our address book,” Derek tells him. 

“Oh,” Will says. “Okay.”

“I’m gonna put some stickers round it…” he trails off, presumably finding stickers for the address book. There’s a shuffling noise, permeating the silence on the other end. “Do you want a Power Rangers sticker?” he asks.

Will shakes his head. “I don’t know what that is.”

“That’s okay,” Derek says. “I’ve given you the blue one, he’s the coolest. I put a Barbie one in too. She has pink sunglasses on… they’re cool, as well.”

“Thank you,” says Will. He can picture it so vividly: Derek sticking his tongue out in concentration as he neatly presses the sticker beside the name. 

“No problem!” says Derek, and there’s another scuffle on the other end, presumably as Derek puts the address book away. “How is your school?”

“It’s fine,” Will says, because that’s the best way to describe it. It’s just fine. It’s always been fine. Will isn't the one that moved schools. Moved states. 

“How’s hockey?” Derek asks brightly.

Will blinks in surprise for a moment before remembering Derek can't see him and he needs to actually speak. “Um, I haven’t been going to hockey.”

“Really?” Derek asks, surprised.

“No,” Will says. 

“Why not?” Derek asks.

Will shrugs, before realising that doesn't translate so well over the phone either. “It’s too far to cycle,” he explains. Plus, it’s too expensive, he thinks, but Derek sometimes finds it hard to wrap his head around that, so he doesn’t mention it. 

“Oh,” says Derek. “Yeah, I forgot about that. Can’t you ask your mom to take you?”

“No,” says Will. “She has to work.”

Derek obviously forgot about that, too. “Oh, right,” he says, sounding put out. “Sure.”

There’s more noise on Derek’s end.

“Hold on,” Derek says, and then he clearly has a conversation with someone on his end, raised voices shouting in the background.

Will stays silent.

“I have to go,” Derek says, sounding pained. “I have history homework to do, and I have to get it done before we go to swimming.”

“Oh, sure,” says Will, trying to sound like he didn’t just feel something heavy drop in his chest. 

“I’ll call you soon, I promise,” says Derek, and that makes Will smile. He never trusts anyone’s promises, but Derek has proven an exception to that rule. 

“Okay,” he says softly.

“I miss you,” says Derek. “I promise I’ll call.”

“I miss you, too,” replies Will.

They say their goodbyes and hang up, Derek off to finish his homework before setting off to his new swimming lessons. Will just sits by the phone for a minute, unmoving, staring down at it like he’s expecting it to ring again straight away. It doesn’t. 

Derek’s life is already too busy for him. He’d been expecting it, but it doesn’t sting any less.

Derek does eventually call back, but it’s a week later, and he only gets ten minutes on the phone before his violin lesson.

“Will?” Mrs Rodriguez catches his attention as the bell rings, a couple of weeks after Will and Derek’s first call on the landline. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”

It isn’t really a question so Will doesn’t bother answering, but he stays in his chair as his classmates filter out around him, his stare fixed on the wall. 

Derek’s been gone for one month. Will has spoken to him just twice: both times over the phone, both times for under twenty minutes.

He knows he’s more dejected now than he was this time a month ago, when he was spending hours with Derek at a time. Days, even. He’s not sure whether his teacher can tell, but sometimes adults can be perceptive. He wouldn’t put it past her. 

Mrs Rodriguez is friendly to Will, and he can tell she spends more time watching him than most of the other kids in his class. He’s used to this, from teachers more than anyone, but he doesn’t usually respond to it. He just lets it happen, now more than ever.

This time, Mrs Rodriguez comes and sits down across from him. 

“I got a phone call this afternoon from a woman called Amina Nurse,” she says. “Do you know Amina?”

Will nods. 

He thinks about Amina a lot. She had been at work both times Will had called, so his twenty minute calls hadn’t even reached her.

It strikes him as a little odd at first, how much he misses his friend’s mom, but then sometimes he finds his mind drifting back to her airy studio, Amina leaning over his shoulder as she follows his progress in his sketchbook. Sometimes he remembers how she’d let him into the house on Saturday mornings without a second thought and offer him breakfast.

Mrs Rodriguez doesn’t bother waiting for a verbal response. “Well, she told me that she used to take you to ice hockey practise on Sundays, is that true?”

Will nods again. He’s not sure why Mrs Rodriguez bothers asking so many questions, seeing as she so rarely gets an answer from him. 

“She’s moved to New York City, so I've been told,” Mrs Rodriguez continues, “and she won’t be able to take you any more.”

This time Will shakes his head, but still stays silent. As if he needs reminding. 

So far, he’s missed a month of hockey practise, and he misses it almost as much as he misses Derek. Hockey was something he’d been good at; something measurable, something that requires real talent and real hard work with a coach who cares about his progress. 

Annelise has no way to get in touch with him. Maybe she thinks he’ll never go back. Maybe he never will.

“Ms Nurse has asked me to take you instead,” Mrs Rodriguez says, and Will is so startled that he stares right at her, his mouth dropped open. 

“...What?” he says, and Mrs Rodriguez beams back at him. 

“If your parents sign off on it I can pick you up on Sundays and take you to practice, and then bring you home afterwards,” she explains.

There’s a ringing in Will’s ears, and he’s not sure whether this is real or he’s being pranked. A sort of hazy image stretches out in front of him, one where he can return to the ice rink and be good at something again. One where Annelise can use him as an example in drills once more, where he can skate backwards and wave at Mrs Rodriguez in the stands, of all people. 

“Why?” is his only response. 

Mrs Rodriguez blinks at him, that age-old expression of pity mixed with mild surprise that Will is very used to by now. “Well, this kind of thing is important for kids, Will. It’s great that you’ve found something that you enjoy and Ms Nurse and I don’t want you to lose that, simply because you can’t get a ride to your practise.”

Will simply can’t believe it. He shakes his head again.

“It’s too expensive,” he says, trying to be reasonable. It’s the first thing his mom will say when approached with the letter. “The gear and the equipment. The games, too. I can’t….” he trails off. “It’s too much money.”

“Not to worry, Will,” Mrs Rodriguez says, and the only reason her face doesn’t morph into more pity is because it’s already pretty much all the way there. She taps him lightly on the shoulder, not quite holding him there, like she doesn’t want to scare him away. “Ms Nurse has taken care of it all for you. All you have to do is get the letter signed.”

“Oh,” says Will. 

It sounds pretty simple, in theory, but getting his mom to sign the letter might be difficult. This time a year ago he wouldn’t even have bothered - considered it a pointless exercise - but today he slides the letter from the table, folds it into quarters and sticks it deep in his pocket.

“Thank you,” he says, “I will.”

Mrs Rodriguez blinks at him again. A smile teases the corner of her mouth, all pity replaced by a pleased, amused expression. “Of course,” she says. “Let me know when you do.”

Then she taps his hand again, once, and stands up.

Will takes the letter to his mom, who reads it, blinks down at him, and sighs. 

“It’s too expensive, Will,” she says. She throws herself into one of the dining chairs and runs a hand over her face, like adults do when they’re stressed. “God, you must know that,” she adds, which is useless, because of course Will knows that.

“It’s okay, Mom,” he says. “It’s all taken care of.”

She frowns at him. Will understands her apprehension, the same as his own when faced with the letter at first. This kind of thing doesn’t get just taken care of, not for them. It’s never as easy as that. 

“Please?” he asks. “Just trust me?”

His voice comes out quiet, a more pleading tone than he was going for, and it cracks midway through. 

Will barely ever asks for things - this might’ve been the first thing he’d asked for in years. His mom looks up at him from her chair and studies his face for a moment. 

She must see something there, because she steels herself and nods. Her amber eyes go hard and determined and she holds her palm out, flat and steady. Maybe she does trust him.

“Okay,” she says. “Go get me a pen.”

A week later Annelise welcomes Will back with open arms, excited to see him and asking no questions about his absence. 

Some of the other kids have come and gone, simply replaced by new ones. Will doesn't talk to any of them - Derek was the chatty one, the kid who could talk in the middle of any task and still do it flawlessly. Will just stays silent, gets his head down, and gets better.

He gets his first job aged eleven.

Technically it's not really legal to have an eleven-year-old kid helping in a garage, but he passes it every day on the way to his new high school, and one time his bike chain comes off. When he stops to fix it, rejecting offers of help from the owner and his employees, they are so impressed he is offered a job on the spot.

It’s not much, and it doesn’t pay much either, but it’s something. 

He learns everything he can from the owner, Reg, and the other two, much older guys who work there too. Soon enough he’s helping fix cars and motorbikes and whatever comes in, and Reg adjusts his pay accordingly.

“Someone’s gotta learn this shit,” Reg tells him, time and time again.

Will’s only ever heard his dad swear, aside from the kids who do it at school to sound cool and grown-up. Swearing’s always been a bit of a warning sign to Will - if his dad swears, it usually means he’s mad, and that’s bad news.

Reg, though, peppers it into random sentences. Sometimes he does it when he’s mad too, but sometimes it’s when he’s impressed: “Well, shit, Will!” or when he’s happy: “Fuckin’ A!”. It’s all very confusing and soon enough they’re just words, and Will doesn’t have to associate them with anything. 

Swearing is his dad’s way of being angry. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the same for everyone.

Reg teaches Will patiently and thoroughly. Will’s always liked doing things with his hands rather than his brain, and when he’s fixing cars, he can zone out and just help. Will’s never been able to help like that before. 

By his twelfth birthday, he has quite a sizable amount saved up, in an old hockey kit bag stuffed under his bed. It’s deep in the corner behind a stack of old magazines, where his dad will never look.

As a treat, he buys himself a new set of watercolor pencils. His old ones are basically stubs by now.

It’s a cold Saturday morning in November when Will’s mom wakes him up early and tells him to pack a bag, to put everything he can fit in a hold-all and leave as little as possible left behind. 

The previous night had been loud and explosive; the kind of night that Will locks himself in his room for and sits with his hands over his ears. His mom is in such a hurry this morning that he barely sees her as she bustles out of his bedroom and onto the landing.

“Where are we going?” he asks after her.

“We’re leaving,” says his mom, which doesn’t really answer the question. 

Will has a hundred others to ask her - like why, like where, and how, and why now? What about school? What about hockey? 

He wants answers, but his mom is packing things into bags with a burning singular focus, so he bottles up his questions and does as he’s told.

Will doesn’t own much, so packing it up doesn’t take long. 

He pulls a bag from the top shelf and it clatters down on him. He frowns, having thought it empty, and digs through it to find the culprit of its weight. He finds a small, rectangular package and pulls it out.

It’s wrapped in light blue tissue paper and, on the front, it says Dear Will, go nuts. Love, Amina. He feels a scratchy feeling in the back of his throat as he carefully unwraps it, preserving the message on the front as best he can.

Into his hands falls a sketchbook, leather bound and well made, and the initials W.J.P. are stamped onto the front. Will clutches it to his chest, takes a deep breath, and buries it deep in his bag.

Soon enough, he stands up and looks around. His bedroom is empty and despite living in it for twelve years, everything he owns fits in one hold-all. There are a few old things in the bottom of his wardrobe: shirts and socks and clothes that haven’t fit in forever. He feels no regrets about leaving them behind.

He stows away his sketchbooks and his pencils in his school bag, along with a few books and other things he doesn’t really need to take but doesn’t want to leave here. He values them more than that. 

He digs out his old hockey kit bag from deep under his bed and examines the contents. It contains all the money he’s ever earned, and it’s heavy besides. He zips it up and shoves it deep into his hold-all. 

There’s no going back now, he thinks, and he’s not surprised to find it doesn’t really bother him. He shoulders his school bag, grabs his hockey kit and, without a second thought, turns his back on his bedroom. 

When he steps out of his room and shuts the door behind him, his mom is already at the top of the stairs clutching three hold-alls and a suitcase. There’s a dark bruise on her chin that wasn’t there yesterday, and a look of determination that Will has never seen on her face before. 

For possibly the last time ever, Will asks, “where’s Dad?”

His mom, to Will’s surprise, actually laughs. 

“God knows,” she says. 

From time to time, Will remembers being on the beach.

Their new apartment is a few hours from the sea and, despite discussing it a couple of times, they never make the trip. His mom can’t swim, and God knows he’s not good enough to make it worthwhile. Plus, it’s not like they’re that type of family: the day-trip, taking-a-picnic-to-the-seaside, swimming-in-the-ocean kind. 

Despite that, though, Will still thinks about it. Occasionally he thinks he catches a whiff of a phantom sea breeze, salty and strong, but it never lasts. 

He thinks about the sea more than he thinks about his dad. Leaving his dad behind remains the biggest thing he and his mom have ever done. It was monumental – a huge deal, the stuff you see in movies, really – but they never really treat it that way. Most of the time they never really talk about it. In a lot of ways, Will’s life is very much the same as it always was. 

He still spends most of his time alone. Middle school turns to high school, but Will goes through it all by himself. He isn’t sure if he was expecting it to change once they moved – whether he was expecting to gain legions of new friends at his new school – but it doesn’t. Sometimes he thinks back to his little group of friends: Phineas, Henry, Hazel and Grace, joining him and Derek in their little kingdom on the seashore. He thinks about what they’re up to these days, if they’d still want to be friends with him alone, but he knows they wouldn’t. They have followed the same path as Derek, and moved on to bigger and better things than Will.

Throughout his life, Will has gotten used to not seeing his mom much. At their new apartment things are no different, and he spends very little time in it. It’s not that the apartment is unbearable to be in – the opposite, in fact –  it’s pretty bland, unassuming. His mom never goes into his bedroom and his dad isn’t around to make it volatile and uneasy. Will is just busy, so goddamn busy, all the time. 

However, this time around, his mom spends very little time at home too. Her new waitressing job is tireless and unrewarding, and she’s at the diner just about every waking moment, but she tells Will once that she likes it.

Will gets it. It sucks, sure, but it’s hers. She does it by herself, for herself and for her son. He understands that better than anyone. 

Unsurprisingly, Will’s time with Reg continues to serve him well, even in this new town with all these new people. When he hits fourteen, Will goes to the closest garage in town and offers his services. They’re not quite as forthcoming as his previous employer had been, and they are wary of his age, but he has plenty of smarts and experience so they give him a job. That’s all he really needs.

Slowly but surely, he starts adding to the old kit bag full of wages once again, and this time it feels even better. This time, it feels like it’s building to something big. 

After three months of saving, Will tracks down his closest ice rink and joins their competitive hockey team.

He pays all his own fees, and he has to buy his own boots and a new helmet, because a few years of not playing hockey and a growth spurt will do that. It hurts him deeply to spend all that money at once, but all he needs to do is step out onto the ice again to feel reassured. 

The team isn't exactly the most welcoming group of guys. He doesn’t really fit in and he doesn’t know quite how to speak to them, but they’re politely nice to him in the way teammates seem like they might be. They shorten his surname into an easy hockey nickname just like the rest of them. 

It helps that Will is good. Really good, in fact.

“You could really make it big, Poindexter,” their coach says to him once in a rare moment of generous kindness. “I’m keeping my eye on you.”

Will doesn't really like the sound of that, but he supposes it can only be a good thing.

During Will’s last year of high school, the idea of applying to college is drilled into him, time and time again.

At first the idea doesn’t seem remotely possible.

All his life, the only thing he’s known about college is that it’s expensive. Not even just regularly expensive, but the type of expensive that needs countless bank loans and leaves you in debt for life. He’s never even considered it within the realms of possibility. 

Soon enough there’s talk of financial support. Will’s never told any of his teachers a thing about his home life, but somehow they’ve gotten hold of nuggets of information. One way or another, they know more than he’s ever told them. Maybe they can just tell.

Normally, Will would hate that. He hates that people can tell he’s poor, or that he’s a bit screwed up. In his head he’s never needed help or assistance or, like, therapy, but some of his teachers clearly think he does.

It sucks, and he hates that maybe he just looks like that, from the outside. To everyone that happens to look for long enough.

One day, though, his college application advisor sits him down and talks him through scholarships. He mentions “hey, you play hockey, right?” and that’s it – Will’s caught up in a whirlwind of college talk, full of presentations and seminars and scholarship negotiations.

The worst thing is that he’s enraptured by it all. 

That annoys him, a little. He doesn’t want to get too attached, because what if it doesn’t happen? What if he’s not good enough for a scholarship? What if he can’t go, and he has to stay at the garage forever?

He can’t stop asking those questions, but sometimes Will closes his eyes and imagines himself walking through a college campus. There are old buildings surrounding him and students everywhere. If he concentrates hard enough, he can almost hear them shouting in delight around him. He’s alone and self-sufficient, but he’s happy. 

He’s learning, and he’s playing hockey, and maybe he’s got friends or maybe he’s not, but finally he’s expanding his horizons, and he’s not in fucking Maine. 

So Will applies to college.

He doesn’t know why he’s so stressed out about it. He’s been talked through everything, and of course he’s prepared for every outcome. He has spreadsheets and prospectuses, and he’s peppered bookmarks all over just about every college website on the Internet. He’s fully prepared. He’s got this.

But Will’s used to being worked up about things. He’s always had things to be anxious and worried about, and over the years he’s gotten good at repressing the hell out of it all.

It just creeps him out a bit, that this is what’s breaking him. 

Something about the whole thing calms him a little: he knows other people get stressed out about applying to college as well. His social media feeds and the chatter around him at school are full of people stressed about applying to college. It seems like a sort of rite of passage, and it strikes Will after a few weeks of quiet anxiety that this is the first thing Will is dealing with that everyone else is dealing with too. It’s a collective stress for the whole year group. Just part of the process.

So maybe it’s not that big a deal, in the grand scheme of things. Maybe he’s allowed to be stressed about this.

Ironically, the thought of that calms him down. 

He applies to a few and tries not to think about the application fees. It takes a couple of weeks for the emails to start flooding his inbox, but flood they do. 

They’re advertising new buildings, new programs, new clubs. They’re showing off all their best features in every possible way, and every email is plastered with the smiling faces of every student they can get their cameras pointed at. It’s cringey as hell, and Will finds himself so easily caught up in it all.

His mom is out when he goes through his inbox on Friday night. He sits with his dinner and water at the kitchen table as he scrolls through countless emails. Most of them have subject lines like Join the Community! or Meet our Societies! and Will skims them before deleting the vast majority.

One of the last unread emails is from Samwell University. The subject line reads One in Four, Maybe More! and it’s such an intriguingly vague phrase that Will clicks on it before he realizes what he’s doing. 

The email header is plastered with a bright, colorful rainbow banner, and the One in Four slogan from the subject is repeated across it in white block letters. It’s the last thing he’d been expecting. He blinks at it a couple of times before scrolling. 

He reads the entire email, from cringey greeting to equally cringey sign-off. They use the phrase LGBTQ+ twice in the first paragraph, and at the end of the third is a link. After he finishes the whole thing, Will clicks it.

Of course, Will’s done his research. He’d spent hours ranking the universities he applied to by results, expenses, campus, location, success at hockey – every statistic he could get his hands on had gone into a spreadsheet. He’d considered everything, but he hadn’t paid much attention to plenty of the advertising material, not on each of the different websites. 

The link takes Will to a section on the website also titled One in Four, Maybe More! He reads the entire page, engrossed in the article. The university has used this section to spell out plainly their history with the LGBTQ+ community, and there’s plenty of interviews from various students on their experiences at Samwell. There are pictures of them, all smiling, and several of them are wearing little pins, with a rainbow of different coloured flags. One is wearing an overly large knitted rainbow scarf. They offer up quotes and statistics and stories.

Will spends an half an hour reading it in detail, and then another re-reading it, and then he sits staring at the wall for a further fifteen minutes. 

Then he books onto a Samwell University campus tour.

It’s no news to Will that he likes boys.

How could it be? After ten years, his dumb little kiss with Derek still comes to mind from time to time, and he can’t help but think of it fondly.

There were others too, obviously.

Will’s not particularly good at it, and he’s never placed a focus on getting laid like some of the guys at school always did. Inevitably, though, he picks up experiences.

The first few were with girls. He thought once that he should probably try girls, but he was never particularly successful. Will has never been sure if they can tell he’s not interested, but maybe they just like that he doesn’t talk much and listens more than anything else. He never lets it get very far, though, and besides a few confused and embarrassing scrambles, he finds himself with very little experience to speak of. It’s enough to know he doesn’t want any more. 

Boys are a different matter.

It’s harder to find boys that are interested, both in him and his gender as a whole. Will isn’t sure if he gives off a vibe, or whatever. However stupid that thought may be to him, though, sometimes he secretly wishes he did. Maybe that would make things easier.

His only experience with boys fizzles down to a couple of fast, frenzied, secret moments, hidden away in the men’s restroom at hockey practice.

“Nice one, Poindexter,” the other guy had said breathlessly afterwards as he buttoned up his trousers. Will often finds himself thinking about how that’s the closest he’s been to a real romance. 

That other guy, who had only been on Will’s team for a couple months, left eventually. Will’s never been sure if he was glad about that. 

There’s also that kiss with Derek, so brief yet so impactful, always embarrassingly present at the forefront of Will’s mind. 

So, does Will bump Samwell up a few places on his spreadsheet after reading the enthusiastic One in Four! section on their website? Does he start envisioning himself there, not quite living loud enough to be on the Samwell University webpage with a rainbow pin badge on his chest, but just enough that some people notice? It’s possible. 

The thought is kind of enchanting to him. Occasionally, he entertains the idea of being out and proud on his college campus, picking up guys and dating them for a bit until it inevitably doesn’t work out, like he’s always seen guys and girls do at school.

Plenty of the students that Will reads about on the website seem to have pleasant, happy, normal experiences there. They live their lives as they want to, on their own terms. Like adults.

Will wants that.

It would be like he’s hidden away, in a corner of the world where nobody cares, where he can be who he is without judgment.

It’s a bit of a silly thought. That kind of thing never works in theory; he had a place like that once, ten years ago, but it didn’t last. 

All the same, Will can’t help but think about it. 

February brings a cold snap to Maine, and it also brings the Samwell University campus tour. Will has kind of forgotten about it, but he gets a couple of email reminders in the week leading up to it that set him on edge. 

As it gets closer, Will can’t tell whether he regrets booking it or not. He’s been on a single campus tour: one at a Maine university not too far away. He simply can’t justify to himself the price of gas for a long drive, all to see a campus he’s seen countless pictures of online. 

He still goes.

He sets off to Massachusetts very early, and watches the sun rise on the journey. He feels sick with nerves the entire way there.

The woman on the radio is preppy and far too awake for the early hour. Will tolerates her cheery tone and generic music taste, at least until the station goes out of range and her voice goes fuzzy and unintelligible. After that, he just sits in silence.

Before long, he’s pulling into the main Samwell University parking lot.

There are signs everywhere. Some are pointing Will in the direction of obviously important buildings. Some are held by students, greeting cars and prospective applicants with enthusiastic waves as they file through the gates. One reads Campus Tours This Way! with a very unnecessary exclamation point, and Will strides in the direction it points him without looking back. 

“Hey!” 

There’s a few people behind the desk, and the one that smiles at him first is clearly a student. She’s wearing a deep red Samwell University sweatshirt and an enthusiastic grin. Her name tag reads Freya. 

“Hello,” Will greets her with little to no enthusiasm, but her smile doesn’t falter. Maybe she’s used to it.

“Are you booked on a tour already?” Freya asks him. 

Will nods. “Yeah. 9:30.”

“Oh, great!” she says. “That means you’re with Colin. He’s cool, you’ll like him.”

Will can’t imagine himself having much of an opinion on Colin, but he takes the pamphlets she hands him all the same. “Thanks,” he says.

“Anytime,” Freya says. “See you around!”

Colin is the furthest thing from cool that Will can possibly imagine, and Will hangs at the back of their tour group with his pamphlets in hand.

He hadn’t considered everyone else coming to the tours today, instead wrapped up in his own application and his own reasons for coming. He’d forgotten that for plenty of students, applying to college seems to be something everyone else in the family takes part in.

He’s surrounded by them. There are families everywhere.

There’s a girl in his tour group that’s brought both of her parents and her little brother. Will’s not sure why – maybe it’s a childcare thing – because her little brother clearly has very little interest in the whole thing, and keeps going to wander off. Will finds himself keeping a close eye on him, just out of concern.

One of the guys just has his mom with him, a small Chinese woman who asks quite a lot of questions. Will tries not to watch as they quietly discuss the buildings around them, comparing them to the pictures in their pamphlets and listening to Colin’s endless tirade of useless campus facts with obvious interest. 

He tries not to think about his own mom, standing behind the counter at the diner back home. He wonders if she’s thinking about him on his campus tour. He also wonders briefly if she wishes she could be here with him.

Probably not, Will thinks. There are better things to do. 

“Does anyone have any questions?” Colin asks the group. 

When nobody answers, he points directly at Will, who finds the action rather unnecessary. “How about you?” he asks. “Any questions?”

Will does have one, actually, which is the only thing stopping him from giving Colin an indignant look. He clears his throat and steels himself before asking it.

“Where’s the ice rink?” he asks.

Colin’s face lights up, presumably not because he plays hockey but just because he’s got an opportunity to talk a bit more. 

“Ah! Faber!” he grins. “Follow me!”

So they do. Will worries the entire way there that nobody in the rest of the group wants to see the ice rink, and maybe he’s annoying them all by dragging them along. In his defense, none of them had any questions. 

He scans the group in front of him. Not many of them look like hockey players. 

All of the colleges Will’s applied to have hockey programs – his advisor is insistent that hockey scholarships are the way forward for him. He agrees, honestly, and he’s always dreamed of playing hockey on a college team. The fact he could get his tuition from it is astounding. 

Suddenly, the guy in front of him with his mom looks over his shoulder and beams at Will. 

Will, surprised enough that he’s ripped from his thoughts, blinks back at him.

It’s over as soon as it happens, and Will racks his brain to try and remember if he’s ever seen this guy before, but he comes up short. He doesn’t recognise him at all. 

They turn a corner and there it is. All thoughts of anything else vanish from Will’s mind. 

“Faber Memorial Rink!” Colin claps his hands together and turns to face them. “This beauty was built in 1953, but it was renovated again in 2003. It’s an LEED gold certified rink – we actually happen to have the greenest ice rink in America!”

Will doesn’t need to be told. He knows all the fast facts about Faber, because he’s spent a long time on its Wikipedia page. The Samwell University website also spends a fair few paragraphs waxing rhapsodic about the heat regulating properties of the fiberglass windows. So he ignores Colin, instead shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun and looking up at the rink’s exterior.

His eyes flutter shut for a second and he imagines himself standing right here, at 5am practice, with all his kit.

“The hockey team is actually coming by in about ten minutes to do their own tour,” Colin says, and this captures Will’s attention. He’d planned on finding the hockey team and seeing what they had to say, but he isn’t actually sure how to go about it. 

“It’s called the Taddy Tour, or something equally as ridiculous,” says Colin. “Hockey players, am I right?”

A couple of people in the group laugh politely.

“Well, if you’re interested, you can go and wait for the team inside,” Colin tells them, staring unwaveringly at Will. “They’ll be by shortly, and you can ask them all your questions.”

Will doesn’t nod or even acknowledge he’s heard Colin, but the tour moves on and he doesn’t.

Neither does the guy from before – the one that smiled at him over his shoulder. His mom goes along with the rest of the group, shouting a promise to meet up later and a reminder for him to check his phone periodically.

“Hey,” he says after he turns back to Will.

This time, Will manages to avoid simply blinking at him like an idiot. “Hi,” he replies instead.

“I’m Chris Chow,” says Chris, and he holds out his hand for Will to shake. “My team back home called me Chowder. You can call me that if you want.”

Will shakes it. “Will,” he says. “Or, Dex. I guess.”

“Do you play hockey?” the guy asks.

“Yeah,” says Will. It should be pretty obvious, seeing as he’d asked after the ice rink and offered up a hockey team nickname of his own, but maybe Chowder thinks Will looks like a figure skater or something. 

“Me too!” Chowder beams at him. “Are you thinking of joining the hockey team?”

Will nods. “Yeah,” he says again.

“Cool,” Chowder nods. “They seem pretty great. I’ve read all about them on Facebook. Did you know Jack Zimmermann plays for Samwell?”

Will does know, because who doesn’t? Everyone with even a vague or passing interest in hockey knows all about Jack Zimmermann. They probably also know about his dad, his mom, his friendship with Kent Parson, his brief stint in rehab and his re-emergence into collegiate hockey through Samwell, of all places. Will nods yet again.

“I saw,” he says. “That’s pretty cool.”

“Right?” Chowder says, clearly excited that Will has decided to say more than one word this time. “I can’t believe if we get on the team we’ll be playing alongside him. I bet it’s really amazing.”

Realistically, Will hasn’t considered it, caught up in his own little world of college applications. “It would be exciting,” he admits. He’s not lying. It would. 

They wander inside, scanning the posters on the walls and following the clearly homemade signs that say Taddy Tour!!! and boast a number of childish drawings of hockey players. Will wonders if he’s going to know immediately who made the posters, or whether the culprit will take a while to work out. 

The signs take them to somewhere in the stands and they both take a seat, looking out over the ice. The huge windows to their left cast light over the rink and Will breathes in heavily through his nose for a second. 

He can see himself here. 

“Ooh, look, there’s a few more people,” Chowder says, and points towards the doors.

Chowder is right, and another campus tour has clearly dropped some more people off at the rink, because four or five prospective students and their parents filter through. They’re following the signs too, and Chris gives them a wave to show they’re going in the right direction. 

“This is so exciting,” Chowder says to Will. 

Will smiles at him a little. It is exciting.

He scans the people walking in. Some of them look like they’d be good hockey players, but he knows that’s not really how it works. There’s a tall guy with his short dad, and a guy about Chowder’s height with his mom and younger sister. Then there’s –

Will squints.

Then his heart drops.

“Holy fuck,” he breathes.

“What?” asks Chowder, clearly slightly concerned.

Will just shakes his head, his gaze unmoving, because walking towards them, following the signs, is Derek Nurse.

It must be.

It could not be – pretty easily, actually – it has been ten years, after all, and it’s entirely possible that this guy just looks a bit like Derek. Will’s mental image of Derek could be way off by now; it’s been far too long for him to remember it accurately, and he has no idea what Derek could have grown to look like.

The guy lets one of the moms from his tour go in front of him, holding his arm out for her to get up the first step. She thanks him and moves on, and he nods her head at her.

It looks so much like him, though. He’s got the same hair: a mop of curls on top of his head, short on the sides. His eyes, from what Will can see from far away, are the same dusty green-gray he remembers. They crinkle gently at the corners as he smiles. 

It’s the smile that gives it away.

Derek’s smile crops up in Will’s mind from time to time, and it’s been doing so for ten years now. It’s always a bit lopsided, higher on the right side than on the left. It lights up his whole face, makes his whole entire being look happier straight away. 

He looks happy, and, well. He looks hot. 

“Dex?” Chowder asks him.

Will clears his throat loudly, tearing his eyes away from maybe-Derek to look back at his new acquaintance. “Yeah?”

Chowder looks at him oddly. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Will nods. “Of course.”

“O-kay,” says Chowder, but he doesn’t look sure. Will doesn’t really blame him.

Derek, if it is him, takes a seat a few rows above Chowder and Will. He’s always talked loudly, always been confident in his words, and even as Will listens he realizes New York has been good for Derek.

If it’s possible, he talks even more confidently. He uses his hands to punctuate his sentences like he always used to. Will watches out of the corner of his eye as Derek engages the woman he’d helped up deep in conversation. If this guy isn’t Derek, he’s doing a damn good impersonation. 

“Hey, guys,” somebody says. The voice comes from above them, and they all turn to see who it belongs to. Will stops his analysis of maybe-Derek to do the same. 

A woman, very, very short and with hair cut close to her head, waves at them lazily with her clipboard. 

“I’m Larissa,” she says. “I go by Lardo. I’m the hockey team manager. So, I’ll be in charge of you all if you decide to join us. It’s a risky job, but somebody’s gotta do it.”

A laugh ripples through the small crowd that gathers around her. 

Derek turns, a smile leftover on his face from where he’s clearly been laughing along with the crowd at their new tour guide.

He locks eyes with Will, and his smile dies there.

Will tries to look away and focus on Lardo, who’s launched into an introduction speech, but he can’t. He feels trapped by Derek’s stare. 

It’s definitely him. No other guy would have this reaction, after all. Derek blinks at him, over and over again, and the moment seems to go on forever. 

“Are you coming on the tour?” 

Will is ripped from his thoughts and looks over at Chowder, who is now standing up and looking down at him. 

“Yeah,” he says. It comes out hoarse. “Um. Yeah,” he says again, but it’s still barely audible.

“Great!” Chowder says. “I’m psyched. This place looks so cool!”

Will would agree with him, because he’s right, but he can’t really form thoughts right now, let alone words. He’s distinctly aware that Derek has seen him, and he can’t help but think that he didn’t quite recognise Will. Instead of answering, he just nods.

That could be the case. Will has grown up, too, and he has no idea if he looks like he did when he was eight. He would guess probably not, but maybe he looks enough like eight-year-old Will that Derek recognises him too. Maybe Derek saw Will’s shock of red hair and knew immediately. 

He stands up alongside Chowder. 

“Fuck,” he breathes, and rubs his hand across his face.

Chowder blinks at him but doesn’t ask, and Will is distracted for the entire tour. 

It only lasts about forty minutes, but Dex has never found it harder to concentrate. 

Whenever Lardo begins a sentence, he finds his attention drifting to Derek. What does he think of the locker rooms? Is the kit room of great interest to him? 

What did the rink look like where he played in New York without him?

“Right, boys,” Larissa says loudly, startling both Will and Chowder out of their thoughts. “That was the tour of the Faber Memorial Rink.”

She has her arms crossed and her clipboard is still in her hand. 

Will looks around the rink. He’s seen a fair few rinks in this time, but for some reason, this one seems really fucking special. 

Chowder clearly thinks the same, because he walks over to the Plexiglass and presses his nose up against it. 

“Again, my name’s Lardo,” she clarifies. “If you have any questions, I can answer them, but if you call me Larissa, I won’t.”

Nobody says anything. Clearly they don’t have any questions, so Will just watches over Chowder’s shoulder as his breath fogs up the glass.   

“Otherwise, we have a campus tour coming up,” Lardo continues, then lowers her voice like she’s talking to herself, “if our tour guide decides to show up.”

Chowder sighs in contentment, clearly not listening any more. The sigh fogs up the glass yet again. “It’s so much cooler than I imagined,” he says to Will, over his shoulder, before looking back out onto the ice. “Can’t you imagine it? Being at center ice face off, with the big windows in the back?” 

Will steps forward to be beside him. “Yeah,” he says. He’s been imagining it non-stop since he got here. It’s much cooler than he’d imagined, too.  

“Well,” Chowder says, “one of you would be center ice. I’d be in the net.”

Will huffs a laugh. He hadn’t pegged Chowder as a goalie. 

“Gooood morning, my lovely little tadpoles!”

The voice comes booming from somewhere above them, and it takes Will a second to register the words. When he does, he feels himself resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Chowder laughs out loud next to him.

When Will turns to look, he sees a small guy walking down the steps, flanked by another guy carrying what looks like gift bags. He waves at them with an enthusiastic smile. He’s short, blonde, and looks like the opposite of every hockey player Will’s ever seen. 

”First off, I’m sorry we’re late,” the guy says. “Especially when we’ve got so much packed in for the rest of the day!”

Will tries not to think about the rest of the day, and how Derek will be present for the entire thing. 

“My name is Eric Bittle,” the small guy introduces himself, “and I’m the official Samwell Hockey hospitality representative and unofficial Samwell tour guide… and I bought y’all goodie bags!”

Eric Bittle is small and Southern, and Will is so surprised by him that he finds himself hooked on Eric’s every word. He’s the last person Will expects in a hockey team, let alone with a front of house-style, representative role. Samwell University keeps surprising him.

Whilst Eric runs through the contents of his goodie bags, Will finds his attention drifting. He wonders where Samwell ranks on Derek’s list of colleges, then he wonders why Derek is even here. Samwell’s not a safety college, but it’s not prestigious or world-renowned or anything. 

He bets that Derek’s private school is pushing everyone to apply to Ivy Leagues. That’s if Derek still goes to private school, but Will would bet even more money that he definitely still does. 

Derek doesn’t look at him again during the tour, not even when they visit the hockey team’s group accommodation, affectionately named the ‘Haus’. When they are all led back to Faber and end the tour there, Derek still hasn’t looked at Will. Will isn’t sure he wants him to. 

He even watches as Derek affectionately fist-bumps one of the current Samwell players, a slightly shorter guy with very impressive hair nicknamed Shitty , which is about as strange as hockey nicknames go. From what Will can overhear, they both went to Andover, and it’s the first time Will has ever heard the name of the school that Derek moved on to after living in Maine. It feels like a kick in the gut, for some reason. 

Andover. Will wonders what it looks like, or how the halls could ever be bigger than the school Derek went to in Maine. He remembers them; he remembers being intimidated and out of place, but he knew even then that those halls suited Derek just fine.

Bitty seems to be full of endless information, but he stops talking eventually. As soon as he stops for longer than just drawing breath, Chowder pipes up, waving his phone in the air.

“Okay!“ he shouts excitedly, “I did it! I just enrolled! I’m Samwell 2018!”

Will huffs a laugh, and so do the people around him as an echo of laughter spreads out across the bleachers. He might not go that far himself just yet – a college application is something he needs to sit down and spend a lot of time mulling over. He gets it, though, and he’s kind of glad he hasn’t been on many campus tours. Being here, surrounded by Faber and his possible future college hockey team, is really something. He can feel Samwell persuading him to apply more and more every second. 

People begin to filter out once the tour is over. Will is acutely aware they’ve been wandering the campus for hours, and the sunlight beaming through the windows at Faber is turning orange as the sun sets.

“Bye, Dex!” Chowder tells him, beaming. “I need to go meet my mom. We’re going to dinner. Hopefully I’ll see you in August!”

Dex smiles back. “Maybe you will,” he says, because he’s not sure he’s ever had anyone excited to see him months in advance. “Bye, Chowder.”

He watches as Christopher Chow sends him one last wave and a grin over his shoulder, before walking off towards Faber's exit. Will thinks he would probably be friends with him, despite the intense energy and positive attitude. He likes hockey and he wants to talk to Will. That’s about as good as it gets.

“Hey, Will.”

He jumps about a foot in the air at the mention of his name, quite close behind him. He turns around sharply, and Derek is standing there, clasping his hands together and smiling awkwardly.

“Hey,” Will says breathlessly, barely even audible. He tries again. “Hi, Derek,” he says louder.

“Shit,” Derek laughs instead of a greeting. It sums up Will’s thoughts pretty well, but it sounds awkward too, something to say instead of everything else they could say. 

Will tries to smile. He can’t quite do it. “Yeah.”

“How are you?” Derek says politely.

Will shrugs. “I’m okay,” he says. He doesn’t mention the insane roar of emotion he’s feeling, how if he thinks about this too much then he feels his eyes burn. “How are you?”

Derek smiles again, less awkward this time. “Pretty good!” he says. “The tour was really great, I’m really interested in coming here in the fall.”

“Oh?” says Will. He is, too, but he’s not sure Derek wants to know that.

“Sure, man,” Derek says, then he shrugs slightly. “Nursey of Samwell Hockey has a bit of a ring to it, don’t you think?”

Will nods. “Sure,” he says, then, tentatively, “Nursey?”

Derek laughs. “Folks call me Nursey, now,” he says, and laughs loudly like that doesn’t mess with Will’s mind. “After all the hockey, over the years, I guess it’s kind of stuck.”

“Oh,” Will says. “I guess I’m Dex, then. If we’re doing nicknames.”

“Dex,” Nursey repeats. It sounds like he’s testing it out, then he laughs again. It sounds good coming from his mouth, with this deep voice that Will’s hearing for the first time ever. “It’s so weird to call you that.”

“Yeah,” Will nods. ”I bet.” 

Will wonders if Derek remembers that he’s a man of few words. He wonders if Derek remembers much about him at all. Maybe he has an extensive mental list of habits, traits, likes and dislikes, like Will does, or perhaps he doesn’t remember a single thing. 

“Are you thinking of applying?” Derek – Nursey – asks him. “It sounds like that other guy’s already filled out his application!”

He laughs, yet again. Will, numb with shock and nostalgia, can’t quite match his level of merriment. 

“That’s Chowder,” Will supplies the name. “I’m – yeah. It’s high up on the list.”

Nursey smiles at him, all dreamy eyes and bright white teeth. “You’ve got a list?”

“Yeah,” Will shrugs one shoulder. “On Excel. It’s… it’s more of a spreadsheet.”

“A spreadsheet!” Nursey claps his hands together. “Perfect.”

Will smiles back at him. It’s not quite the grin he gets in response, but it’s something. 

“What about you?” Will asks. “Do you have a spreadsheet?”

“Nah,” Nursey says. “Spreadsheets aren’t really my thing. I’ve been traveling to visit a bunch of colleges, really. I got an email about Samwell’s One in Four thing, and that’s right up my alley, so…”

He trails off, makes a vague hand gesture, and Will allows himself roughly five seconds to think about what that means before answering. He comes up with nothing. “Oh,” he says. “Sure.”

Nursey stares back at him. “Mmm,” he hums.

Will isn’t sure what’s going on, if he’s made it awkward, so he shrugs again and tries to restart the conversation. “I haven’t decided where I’m applying yet, but… yeah. We’ll see.”

“Awesome,” Nursey grins again. “Or – I should probably say ‘swawesome. Y’know, if I’m gonna start blending in here.”

“Probably,” Will smiles back. 

“Well, then,” Nursey says. “I guess I’ll hope to see you in August.”

“Oh,” Will says. “...Yeah. I guess so.”

Nursey flashes Will another winning smile, claps him on the shoulder and gives him a wave. Then he’s off, stalking away towards Faber’s exit, and that’s it. 

Even ten years later, after five small minutes of conversation, Nursey leaves Will smiling and happy. It’s like he’s been lit up from the inside.

But not all the way. There’s something inside him that feels at a loss, like he deserves more than a five minute conversation. He doesn’t want an apology, necessarily, but something. 

So Will’s feelings about Derek are complicated.

He has always looked back on his time alongside the Nurses with fondness. They’re special to him; they were then and they are now. So many of his first times and his favorite memories are tied up in the Nurses, and he finds it hard to be mad about that – but sometimes, he is mad about it. 

He knows he can’t be, really. Whenever he comes out of his small cloud of rage, he knows it’s unreasonable to expect an established family of three to prioritize some kid they found on their street. He knows that Amina had her reasons to move away. Even if she didn’t, Will wasn’t a part of their family, however much he might have felt like it at the time. She didn't owe him anything. He knows all that, but occasionally, he finds that he’s angry. 

Will gets so angry, and so upset, that they left him behind. He fumes silently that their lives moved on without him, to inevitable greatness and richness and happiness in New York City, all while he was stuck in Maine with his sucky life. 

It never lasts long, and he always comes around to a more reasonable way of thinking. However mad he is, he can’t stay that way, not at Derek and his family. Even ten years on, they still mean so much to him, and he hopes that despite their packed schedules and busy lives, they still think well of him too.

Despite that, seeing Derek again at the Taddy Tour still messes Will up a bit. 

“I guess I’ll see you in August,” Derek had said. He’d seemed happy enough about it. For some reason, Will has since developed a nagging worry that Derek is mad at him, for accidentally making his way back into his new life. Maybe he’s even been scared off from Samwell, annoyed that one of his top choice colleges is now tainted with something he left behind. 

Will assumes this isn’t the case, but he spends quite a bit of time thinking about it all the same. 

Or maybe they will see one another in August. He thinks about that a lot, too. He thinks back to the imaginary college in his head, where he’s happy and out of the closet and has great friends, and finds that Derek is there now as well. 

Will’s feelings about Derek have been complicated for ten years, and now there’s even more to be conflicted over. It’s different now somehow, though. It’s like in the movies, where teenagers obsess over their relationships in the vein of “what did he mean when he said…”, and Will isn’t sure if that’s an improvement. 

But he could be seeing Derek – Nursey – again in August, so he supposes he can probably find out then. 

Will applies to Samwell University.

He applies to the college closest to their apartment in Maine, too, just in case his financial aid doesn’t work out, but Samwell’s scholarship is good to him. He knows he can keep his grades up if he works hard enough, and he knows he loves hockey enough to work even harder at that, too. 

So he graduates high school, and Samwell accepts him. He feels everything he knows he should – excited, nervous, slightly sick – but there’s an added feeling to it, one of great apprehension, maybe just to see Derek again.

He doesn’t know for sure whether Derek has applied to Samwell, and he has no way of figuring it out. Will’s not even sure if he wants Derek to be there when he arrives, and he’s not sure why he feels that way. He can’t put his finger on how he feels about any of it. It’s all so confusing. 

Will hates how that’s what it’s like now. Ten years ago, Derek was the least confusing thing about his life. 

Except maybe that kiss. That was plenty confusing.