bria !

masterlist !

college!mike wheeler

such a funny way. . . (part one)

. . . of saying i love you (part two)

oh honey how you kill me! (part three, headcanons)

college!mike wheeler x anxious!reader

head full of poison. . . (part one)

. . . heart full of doubt (part two)

stoner!mike wheeler

those eyes, that mouth (part one)

love's easy tears (part two)

love's easy tears (extended ending)

drabbles

****

For the last four years, your Saturdays have been sacred.

They are the one day of the week that you have no obligations. You don’t have to worry about getting to class on time or clocking in for another monotonous shift at work. You’re free to sleep in as late as you want, lounge around in week-old pajamas, and if you accidentally make it through the entire day without washing your face, you don’t have to feel guilty.

You are someone who thrives on routine. On sameness. These lazy days are, regardless, familiar. Any wrench in your plans of having no plans has a way of unsettling you for the rest of the week - even just having to go to the grocery store on a different day than usual makes you sick to your stomach.

Despite this, that Saturday finds you awake at eight o’clock, pacing slow circles across your apartment and glancing at the clock every thirty seconds, waiting for Mike to call. 

Because he said he would. 

He just didn’t say what time.

And you’d rather die than risk missing his call.

The weather, in typical Indiana fashion, has spent the last week fluctuating wildly between cold and sunny and cold and rainy. Today falls somewhere in between. Yes, there’s sunlight pouring through the windows, bright enough to make the hardwood floors glow, but the chill still seeps through the walls, saturating the tiny place with a crisp frigidity.

Your apartment - an overglorified shoebox, if you’re honest - came with exactly one phone, bolted to the kitchen wall. Since being built sometime in the 70s, none of the several landlords have put in any effort into dragging the place into the 90s. The faux wood paneling lining half the kitchen walls has somehow survived three decades untouched, and the linoleum floor curls slightly at the corners no matter how many times maintenance insists they’ve fixed it. The cabinets don’t quite shut all the way unless you slam them, the faucet drips incessantly if it isn’t turned right, and the drafty windows rattle softly whenever the wind picks up.

The place is also perpetually cold in the winter and perpetually too warm in the summer. The ancient baseboard heater beneath the living room window sputters and clanks whenever it’s feeling particularly ambitious. If your upstairs neighbor decides to pace after midnight, you can follow his footsteps from one end of his apartment to the other without much effort.

All that being said, there isn’t any real reason why you haven’t bought a cordless phone yet - or at least one you could keep beside your bed. Every time you have to take a call (which isn’t often), you can be found sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor or leaning awkwardly against the counter because the cord isn’t nearly long enough to reach the couch.

(You’ve never liked talking on the phone very much. There’s something unnerving about conversations you can’t rehearse beforehand - about having to respond immediately without carefully choosing each word first. Any beat of silence is an opportunity for awkward interruption.)

By eight forty-five, you’ve chewed all of your fingernails down to the quick, and by eight fifty-five, you’re considering starting in on your eyelashes. It is exactly nine o’clock when the phone rings, and relief blooms so suddenly in your chest that it makes you lightheaded. You reach the phone before it can ring again, your hand trembling just enough to notice as you pull the receiver from its cradle.

There are butterflies in your stomach as you bring the phone to your ear. Or maybe it’s something stronger than butterflies. Full-blown birds, perhaps. Or maybe it’s just the peculiar ache from realizing you’d been worried he wouldn’t call at all.

“Hello?”

“Hello, yourself,” crackles Mike’s mellifluous voice through the receiver.

It’s a ridiculous thing to be relieved that he called, considering he promised that he would, but people change their minds all the time, right? Plans get disrupted, things come up out of nowhere, people decide they’d rather not call at all. In fact, it’s probably a statistical miracle that Mike called at all.

(There’s no need to fact-check that, you decide.)

“Er, good morning,” you offer weakly. Your mouth feels suddenly stuffed with cotton, and you squeeze the phone so tightly that you’re fairly certain you can hear the plastic creak beneath your fingertips.

“Good morning,” he chuckles softly. “Are you usually up this early?”

You sink to the floor in your usual phone-call-taking position, back pressed against the wall, closing your eyes as you loop the garish green phone cord around your wrist. The coldness of the hardwood bleeds through your thin sweatpants, making you shiver. It’s easy to picture his face in the darkness behind your eyelids, just based on his voice. He’s smiling - you know he is. It’s there in the warmth of his words. You can imagine his dimpled, lazy smile gracing his lips and wonder if he’s bothered to shave that morning, or if the beginnings of stubble are dusting his jawline again. You’ve even memorized the shape of his saucer-sized brown eyes, right down to the kindness in them.

“Not on Saturdays,” you admit finally. “It’s my day off.”

There’s a brief pause on Mike’s end and your heart rate quickens, suddenly overcome with panic that the call has dropped or Mike has hung up. Sure, you could easily go dig out the note he left you and call him back, but that’s only if the two of you got disconnected. If he hung up on you-

“You should’ve told me that. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t wake me,” you blurt out hurriedly. “I’ve been up since eight.”

The explanation leaves your mouth before you can stop it, and you are punished with another short lull.

“You have? I thought you said-

“Well, yes, I did say that,” you laugh nervously, twisting the phone cord tighter around your wrist. “I usually sleep in on Saturdays, but I just couldn’t today. Insomnia, y’know?”

It’s not technically a lie. It’s not a lie at all, actually. You do have insomnia. . . sometimes. . . and you do usually sleep in on Saturdays. You were just too preoccupied with what time Mike might call to relax for more than an hour at a time. Several times throughout the night, you managed to convince yourself that Mike was calling - as if he’d call at 4 AM.

“Still,” Mike continues softly, “I could’ve called later in the day.”

You shake your head, knowing that Mike can’t see you. Grateful that he can’t see you, actually. The idea of spending another four or five hours waiting beside the phone sounds like torture.

“Are you usually up this early, then?” you ask quickly, redirecting the conversation before he can insist on apologizing.

“Not on Saturdays,” he echoes cheekily. “Not on any day, actually. Except for when I get to see Professor Frost.”

And me, you finish for him. You tip your head back against the wall and stare up at your hideous (yet, somehow, not outdated) popcorn ceilings. “His class isn’t that early.”

“No,” he agrees thoughtfully, “but it’s early for me.”

“What time do you usually wake up?” you ask, fiddling with the drawstring of your sweats, tucking the phone between your ear and your shoulder. It slips a bit, and you barely catch Mike’s answer.

“Depends.”

“On?”

“Whether I went to bed before or after two in the morning.”

You laugh softly. Somehow, that answer doesn’t surprise you in the slightest. “And when do you usually go to bed?” you press, almost teasingly.

“Depends,” he answers sheepishly.

“Again?”

“Yes, again.”

“What does it depend on this time?”

“Whether I was writing or not.”

“So, it sounds like you never go to bed before two.”

“You would know,” Mike chirped back. “Since you’re a writer, too.”

There’s something impossibly easy about talking to him, which is strange, considering you’ve known him for less than a week. Five days, if you wanted to get into semantics. Stranger still, considering you’ve spent the entire time trying not to embarrass yourself in front of him.

People like Mike - charming, intelligent, handsome - are usually the types that you steer away from. You learned long ago that when a charmingintelligenthandsome man (boy) talks to you, it’s usually a trick. Some cruel playground dare with you as the butt of the joke. With Mike, you don’t feel that way. Maybe your 20s have made you optimistic, or maybe you can sense something genuine in Michael Wheeler, even if it’s just. . . friendship.

You can hear Mike breathing faintly through the receiver, alongside the quiet sounds of movement somewhere in the background. Is he the type to live alone, or are there roommates bustling around just out of earshot? Is he sitting on his couch or lying sprawled across his bed, one arm behind his head while the other holds the phone to his cheek?

You wonder entirely too many things about Mike Wheeler these days.

“So,” Mike says, clearing his throat, and you realize you never responded to his little quip about being a writer. “What do you usually do on Saturdays?”

“Nothing,” you insist, stretching your legs out in front of you. There is a bug of some sort scuttling underneath your kitchen table, and you hope you don’t have to call the landlord to fumigate the place again. 

“Yeah? More nothing?”

“I mean, I try not to do anything.”

“And what does that entail exactly?”

“Sleeping in. Reading the most kitschy books I can find. Watching The Simpsons.”

“The Simpsons?” Mike repeats eagerly. “You watch it?”

“From time to time, yeah,” you reveal. “Well, no. I watch it every Saturday. It’s a routine, I guess.”

“Are you upset that I interrupted it?” Mike asks softly. “Your routine?”

“No,” you answer immediately.

“No?”

“No,” you repeat, quieter this time. “I couldn’t be upset with you.”

You wince instinctively. Again, there is silence on the other end of the line, and you hope you haven’t ruined things five days in. While Mike is processing your confession (or debating whether to hang up), you press the receiver against your chest and open your mouth in a silent scream. Why the hell had you said that?

“I’m glad,” Mike admits the moment you place the phone back to your ear. “In that case, would you be opposed to doing something today?”

You blink in surprise.

“Depends on what it is.”

“Let me buy you coffee,” Mike blurts out. “We can share our manuscripts, if you’d like.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” you assure. You’re positive that he’s only saying this to be nice. He’s probably hoping that you decline. Maybe, if he does have roommates, he’ll hang up the phone and laugh with them about how you - the awkward, quiet girl from his writing workshop - actually believed that Mike Wheeler wanted to take you to coffee.

“I want to,” Mike whispers. “I want. . . I want to see you.”

Your heart stumbles traitorously against your ribs. “You’ll see me on Tuesday.”

“I know,” he laughs nervously. “But I want to see you outside of class. We don’t have to bring manuscripts if you’d rather not talk about writing. I just thought maybe it’d make you more. . . comfortable if we had something to talk about.”

“I don’t really have anything to share,” you admit.

“No? What about all your earnest work?”

“Burned it.”

“Burned it?”

“Only metaphorically,” you reassure. “I wasn’t. . . happy with it.”

“But it still. . .” he falters. “Exists, right?”

“Yeah, but it’ll probably never see the light of day again.”

“Isn’t that everything you’ve spent the last four years working on?”

“Yeah, but I need a fresh start,” you murmur, suddenly ashamed. It feels juvenile to say all of this. “I need to be a good writer, and to do that, I need everything to be good.”

“I’m sure you are a good writer. Frost wouldn’t accept you if you weren’t-”

“No,” you interrupt. “I want to be great or nothing. What’s the point if I’m not?”

Mike says your name so gently that it’s painful. 

You wish you hadn’t said anything - or at least taken a moment to soften the sentiment. Those words have been living somewhere inside of you for years now, the one thing that you truly know about yourself. That you’re not a natural at anything you’ve ever done, but you want to be. Every accomplishment you’ve ever had has been the product of hours spent rewriting and revising and trying far too hard.

 You haven’t read anything of Mike’s yet, but you just know that he has that flawless sort of lyricism to his writing. The kind that high school English teachers used to fawn over and use as examples of artistry and genius. He speaks with the sort of earnestness people (you) have spent their entire lives trying to imitate on paper.

Perhaps it’s unfair to place him on a pedestal he’s done absolutely nothing to earn, but you’ve always felt you’re better at recognizing brilliance in other people than at finding it in yourself. You don’t know how to create something unless you’re suffering for it first.

“You don’t have to be great all the time, you know,” Mike says quietly.

“If I’m not great, then I’m mediocre.”

“And what’s wrong with mediocre?”

Everything, you almost say. 

Instead, you shrug, even though he still can’t see you. Hasn’t been able to see you this whole time. “I’m sorry,” you mumble. “Er, what time?”

“What t- oh, for coffee?”

“Yeah. Unless you changed your mind.”

“No! Of course not!” Mike exclaims. “Um, what time is it now? Maybe noon? Or eleven?” His voice wavers a bit.

“Eleven works.”

“Okay,” he says, sounding relieved. “There’s a coffee shop downtown we could go to. I’ve only been a few times, but from what I remember, it’s pretty good. There are even smoothies. It’s called. . . Cup of Love? Or something equally corny.”

“Okay. Cup of Love it is.”

“Okay. I’ll see you then?”

“Yeah,” you smile faintly. “I’ll see you then.”

There’s a moment of hesitation before either of you hangs up, as though neither quite wants to be the first to end the conversation.

“Goodbye,” you add.

“Goodbye.”

The line clicks softly and goes dead. You remain seated on the kitchen floor for several moments, staring blankly at the phone still clutched in your hand.

You said yes to his offer so quickly that it feels as though someone else answered for you.

Slowly, you return the phone to its cradle. The apartment is quiet again - oppressively so now that Mike’s voice isn’t filling the space, and you find that you miss it already. The silence feels different from what it had been an hour ago.

Fear bubbles up inside you. Fear that you have ruined everything. Fear that you have messed up by exposing the ugliest parts of yourself. Fear that Mike has realized you’re far stranger than he originally anticipated. Fear that he hung up the phone and immediately buried his face in his hands before announcing to his roommates that the strange girl from workshop is somehow even stranger outside of class.

I mean, Jesus Christ, she’s been waiting by the phone since eight o’clock!

Fear that you will arrive at Cup of Love and discover Mike is nowhere to be seen. Fear that he’ll call right as you leave your apartment because something came up and maybe we can reschedule. Fear that he’ll realize somewhere between now and eleven o’clock that he’d rather spend his Saturday with quite literally anyone else.

The fear tastes like bile and for a moment, you’re afraid you’re going to vomit. With the state your apartment’s in, you wouldn’t be surprised if your stomach acid burns a hole right through the floor. Maybe then your landlord would renovate the place.

It's ridiculous really - the ease with which your mind creates catastrophes where none exist. Mike has given you absolutely no reason to believe he would do any of those things. If anything, he's spent the last week proving the exact opposite. 

You know all of this logically, but logic has never had much sway over you.

You push yourself off the floor with a sigh, glancing instinctively at the clock hanging crookedly above your stove.

It’s 9:26.

If Cup of Love is just downtown, it will only take you about ten minutes to drive there, but you should probably factor in an extra five minutes for traffic. . . and maybe another ten for parking and walking to the café. That means you need to leave by 10:40, at the latest, but you should probably leave at 10:30 instead. Which means you only have an hour to get ready.

(Is an hour enough time to become someone worth having coffee with?)

The way in which you move through your apartment is like a choreographed dance. First, you start the shower, turning the knob as hot as it will go until the ancient pipes groan their familiar protest. Your bathroom is violently pink - that was the thing in the 70s, and growing up, your childhood bathroom had looked the same way, so you leaned into the pink tiles and pink rugs and pink shower curtain and the gaudiness of it all.

The pink makes the place feel softer somehow when the morning sunlight pours through the frosted window and reflects against the tile, casting everything in a rosy glow. It reminds you of lying on the bathmat in front of the shower on school mornings while your mother got ready for work, relishing the warmth spilling from beneath the curtains as she absentmindedly hummed along to whatever song was playing softly on the radio. There was something sacred about those mornings - the steam curling lazily through the air and the smell of lavender body wash lingering long after she’d left for the day.

As the water heats up, you tidily set out all your skincare and makeup in the order that you will use them. Moisturizer beside cleaner. Concealer beside mascara. Lip balm tucked beside your favorite perfume. You hang up clean towels alongside your plush robe before fitting a shower cap over your head, stripping off your ratty pajamas, and stepping into the glowing pink atmosphere of your shower.

(You don’t have nearly enough time to wash and style your hair, but thankfully, with a few butterfly clips, it should look just fine.)

The water is delightfully hot - just enough to have you swaying drowsily as you let it sluice down your body - and for a moment, you almost forget the events of that morning and why you’re in such a rush in the first place.

It’s only when you reach for your body wash that your thoughts betray you once more.

Mike Wheeler wants to see you outside of class.

There are cartons of milk in your refrigerator older than your relationship with Mike Wheeler, and somehow, you’ve spent the entirety of this morning reorganizing your sacred Saturday around a cup of coffee with him. It would be almost funny if it weren’t almost. . . embarrassing.

No one has ever treated you with the same kindness that Mike does. Not ever. And perhaps that’s why, beneath all the anxiousness swirling through your mind, there is another feeling blossoming quietly beneath it. 

Excitement. It settles low in your stomach whenever you think about his dimpled smile. It makes your heart flutter whenever you remember him saying, I want to see you.

Simple. Concise. But was it honest?

You lather up your body wash between your fingers. You’ve spent your entire life believing that people merely tolerate your presence, that you’re not entirely sure what to do with the idea that someone might actively seek it out. There has always been a purpose attached to the people in your life - professors and classmates and coworkers and friends of convenience. People you’ve sat beside rather than people who’ve chosen to sit beside you.

Is it possible that Mike is. . . different?

You squeeze your eyes shut and dip your face beneath the water, almost in punishment. You were 22 years old, not 15. You were too old to believe that kindness equaled interest and interest equaled romance. You’ve known Mike for less than a week. It’s far too early to start crushing on him. 

Even if he is the prettiest boy you’ve ever met. . . and his laugh makes your knees weak. . . and he noticed your bleeding, blistered heels on the first day you met. . . 

Mike is kind. You know that much already. He’d probably invite anyone to coffee if he thought they needed a friend. You are not special.

But you want him to call next Saturday, too. And perhaps the Saturday after that.

You want him to remember how you take your coffee and ask you questions about the stories you metaphorically burned. You want him to continue smiling at you during Professor Frost’s lectures and to keep sitting next to you every day.

It is a painful realization. One that has you shutting off the water quickly and just standing there, breathing heavily, looking like a fool in just your bright pink shower cap.

****

The beginnings of a headache are throbbing in your temples, and you’re torn between whether the cause is dehydration or the miasma of perfume and incense hanging over your head. Even from a distance, sitting in your car with your absurdly oversized sunglasses obscuring your face, you can tell that Cup of Love is bustling with college students.

The café is tucked between a secondhand bookstore and an equally crowded record shop, all mismatched furniture and handwritten chalkboard signs proclaiming LOVE IS BREWING in looping pink script. There are hanging flower baskets framing the front entrance and enough ivy creeping up the brick exterior to make the place look as obnoxiously charming as possible. It is the kind of place only a college town would have.

People spill out onto the sidewalk clutching oversized mugs and dog-eared paperbacks. There’s someone who, after a bit too much staring, you decided wasn’t Mike sitting cross-legged on the curb smoking a cigarette and annotating a copy of Sylvia Plath. You can hear the soft music filtering out whenever the door opens, accompanied by the sound of laughter and clinking ceramic mugs.

It’s 10:54, and since parking, you’ve become suddenly incapable of moving. You are frozen in the driver’s seat, staring at your reflection in the mirror and scrutinizing the damage you did to your left eyebrow on the way here. The little hairs you ripped out with one hand are scattered across your lap, and you can’t even force yourself to brush them away.

Perhaps coming here was a mistake.

(You aren’t sure there’s a word in the English language that can describe the way you are feeling right now - the particular combination of excitement and terror that accompanies being known by another person.)

You’ve never been very good at firsts. Shockingly. First dates and first friendships and first impressions have always left you feeling as though you’ve somehow missed out on an instruction manual everyone else had been given at birth. 

Are there rules to these sorts of things? Are you supposed to let him pay for your coffee? But what if he’s already paid for himself? It would be unfair to make him get his wallet back out. Should he insist upon paying? How many times are you supposed to say “Oh, no, that’s okay,” before accepting his offer? Once? Twice? Three times?

Would it be strange if you hugged him? Would shaking his hand be worse?

You imagine greeting him with a firm handshake, and immediately your headache worsens. “It’s lovely to see you again, Michael.”

Yeah, no handshake.

Maybe you’ll simply wave at him from across the café. If you can get your arms to work again, that is.

You glance again at the entrance. Is he already here?

The clock on your dashboard changes from 10:54 to 10:55. You still haven’t moved, and at this rate, Mike is going to have to tap at your driver’s side window and ask whether or not you died in the parking lot. Which would be mortifying, certainly, but at least it would spare you from having to decide whether or not you’re supposed to hug him hello.

Finally, your limbs do as your brain asks, and you reach for your purse.

The bell hanging above Cup of Love’s door jingles merrily every few seconds as students pass in and out. You pause briefly outside the large front window, more interested in delaying the inevitable than actually looking inside, but you see him instantly.

Mike is sitting alone at a small table tucked into the corner of the café, fingers tapping rapidly against the ceramic mug in front of him. He’s dressed simply today - a faded black sweater with the sleeves pushed haphazardly up his forearms and a pair of worn jeans - and his curls look no more tame than they ever do in workshop. Did he spend the last hour attempting to smooth them down only to ultimately surrender to their unruliness? Or did he even care to style them at all?

Mike Wheeler - all gentle smiles and easy conversation - is nervous.

He glances down at his watch before reaching absentmindedly for the sugar packets scattered across the table and arranging them into a neat little pile, disrupting it moments later. One of his legs bounces anxiously beneath the table as he glances toward the door every few seconds before quickly looking away again.

There is a small bouquet of flowers placed beside his coffee mug, and your first thought is that they couldn’t possibly be for you.

Maybe he stopped at the florist on his way here. Maybe they’re for his mother or a friend or some beautiful girl waiting elsewhere in town. A girl who doesn’t change her outfit four times before leaving and spends twenty minutes debating whether or not she’s supposed to hug people hello.

They couldn’t possibly-

Mike looks toward the window this time, and his eyes widen with recognition. You watch his entire face soften as soon as he notices you standing there.

He smiles.

He lifts his hand in an awkward little wave.

Something unfurls itself within your chest, and it gives you the much-needed push to step inside. You don’t realize how hard you’re smiling until you reach Mike, your cheeks aching from the wideness of your grin. He rushes to stand from his seat, scraping the legs of the chair back and knocking his hip into the table in his haste to greet you.

In the time you spent wondering if Mike was looking forward to seeing you, you didn’t notice how much you’d been looking forward to seeing him.

“Hello,” he says, clearing his throat. “Um, here. Let me get that.”

Mike lunges forward and pulls out the chair opposite himself, nearly sending it toppling backward in his enthusiasm before catching it at the last second. You have to bite down on your bottom lip to stop yourself from laughing at the horrified expression that momentarily flashes across his face.

“Thank you,” you murmur softly as you slide into your seat.

He waits until you’re comfortably seated before lowering himself back into his own chair. The silence that settles between the two of you is not uncomfortable as much as it is bashful. It’s different than the silence over the phone, somehow. Inexplicably. Now, sitting across from you, sunlight spilling through the café window behind him, you’ve forgotten every coherent thought you’ve ever had.

He looks pretty today. Prettier than usual, if that’s even possible.

Up close, you can almost convince yourself that he did put in more of an effort. His curls aren’t nearly as unruly as they had been during Thursday’s workshop - though one particularly stubborn piece still falls across his browline - and he’s shaved since you’d last seen him. There’s also a faint flush coloring the tips of his ears.

“These are for you,” Mike blurts out, sliding the bouquet across the table with pink cheeks. “I know flowers are sort of cliché, but you said Saturdays are sacred, and I was feeling guilty about stealing yours away, so I thought I’d bring you something pretty in exchange.”

You’re afraid that if you open your mouth too quickly, you might begin crying in the middle of Cup of Love at eleven o’clock on a Saturday morning.

“Oh,” is all you’re capable of saying for several moments. “Mike, you didn’t have to do that.”

“I know,” he smiles sheepishly. “I wanted to.”

I want to see you.

I wanted to.

“Well, thank you. Really. They’re beautiful,” you say, clutching the flowers between your hands and inhaling deeply. They are sweet in a way that isn’t too overpowering. “I hope they weren’t too expensive.”

“Not at all!” Mike exclaims. “Even if they were. . . it would be worth it. For you.”

Oh, Mike Wheeler, you’re going to be the death of me.

“Did you want to, um, anything to drink?” he asks suddenly, as though he only just remembered why the two of you are here in the first place. “I already got a coffee, but if you tell me what you want, I can order it for us. They have smoothies, like I said, and hot chocolate - I think that’s what I’m going to get this time - but if there was something else-”

“You don’t have to buy my drink,” you interrupt.

“Oh.” His cheeks grow pinker somehow. “No, I know I don’t have to. I just wanted to.”

“I feel bad making you pay.”

“I invited you here, so I should probably buy your drink. Um, I mean, I can. Not that I should.” He clears his throat again. “You know what I mean.”

“Okay,” you relent. Twice. You gave in after he insisted twice. “Just a latte is fine, then.”

Mike nods. “Okay. I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

“I won’t,” you promise with another small smile.

It’s not long before Mike is carrying your latte back over, holding it carefully with both hands as if he’s afraid of dropping it. He looks oddly out of place, even though Cup of Love seems like it attracts the tortured poet type. He’s beautiful in that unfair sort of way artists always seem to be, yes, but he doesn’t have that dark, gloomy disposition that so many of them cultivate. There is nothing brooding about Mike Wheeler - not in the way he laughs too loudly at his own jokes or buys flowers simply because he felt guilty about asking for two hours of your time.

Looking at him, you can tell that, if tragedy ever touched him, it has done so gently.

Mike is soft edges hidden beneath the sharp ones. He’s perpetually ink-stained fingertips and dimples and nervous laughter. Even the scar across his face softens him. It’s as though he never learned the cynicism is somehow considered more sophisticated than kindness.

And watching him now, carefully weaving through the crowd with your latte, it’s difficult to imagine Mike has been anything other than happy and unabashedly kind.

He smiles as he reaches the table, setting your drink carefully in front of you before immediately apologizing for the foam sloshing slightly against the rim, even though not a single drop has spilled.

“I wasn’t sure if they did latte art or not,” he admits, “but there’s a heart on yours.”

(For someone who writes almost exclusively about monsters, Mike seems far too soft to have ever met one.)

Your eyes flicker down only to discover that there is, in fact, a slightly lopsided heart floating atop your coffee.

“I thought you’d like it,” he adds.

“It’s great,” you say sincerely. “Thank you. You didn’t get yourself anything?”

“What? Oh, no. I changed my mind,” Mike waves off. “Unless they can put espresso in my hot chocolate, I don’t want it.”

“I’m sure they would if you asked.”

“Maybe,” Mike hums. “But that’s too much work.”

You hold your mug between your hands, giving them something to do other than sweat profusely or tremble against your thighs. Gently, you blow on the steaming liquid.

“You didn’t bring any manuscripts or anything, did you?”

You freeze, mug halfway to your lips. “No,” you say. “Was I. . . Did you want. . .?”

“No, I was hoping you didn’t,” says Mike. “No offense to Professor Frost, but I’m a bit sick of talking about writing and characterization and all that nonsense. I’d rather talk about things that matter.”

“Things that matter?” you repeat, finally taking a small sip of your latte. It’s good.

“Y’know. Politics. Economics. The inevitability of climate change,” Mike lists, counting each item on his fingers. You stare at him for a moment, and the expression on your face must be extraordinarily amusing, because Mike bursts into laughter. He is, again, the Mike that you met on that first day. “I’m kidding, obviously. I want to know about you.”

“I’m not a very interesting person,” you say, practically echoing the sentiment you told him on Thursday. “I’m quite boring, actually. I told you - I watch The Simpsons every Saturday.”

“And you think I don’t?” Mike frowns. “Here, how’s this? We can make it a game. You ask me five questions, and then I get to ask five in return.”

“Okay,” you agree quietly. There’s nothing you hate more than answering questions about yourself. Well, no, there’s plenty of things you hate more than that - but right now, talking about yourself is taking the cake. “I can ask anything?”

“Anything,” Mike confirms. “Just don’t get too philosophical on me.”

“Okay. Well, what’s your favorite color?”

“Come on. Don’t go easy on me,” Mike groans dramatically. “It’s blue.”

“Um. . . favorite author?”

“Kerouac. No more asking my favorites.”

“When’s your birthday, then?”

“April 7th.”

“April 7th?” you repeat. “What? That’s soon. That’s like. . . on Thursday!”

Mike nods. “Yeah. It’s not a big deal. There’s not really anything to celebrate about turning 22.”

“But it’s your birthday.”

He shrugs, fiddling with the collar of his sweatshirt. “Birthdays just. . . they remind me of home. And I don’t really like to think about home.”

“And where is home?”

“Is that one of your questions?”

“Yeah, sure. Yes, it is.”

“Hawkins,” Mike reveals. “Hawkins, Indiana.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” you say.

“It’s a small town,” Mike says with another dismissive shrug. “Lived there my whole life until I moved here. I don’t go back, if I can help it.”

You nibble on your bottom lip, debating whether it would be better to use your last question on why he doesn’t go back, or if you should just leave it alone.

“I don’t go home much either,” you settle on. “I didn’t have a great time there. . . mostly in high school. Which, I know I’m not special for having a shitty high school experience, but it still was just. . .” you trail off, shaking your head, ridding yourself of the memories. “My point is, I get it. I try to forget about where I came from, too.”

Mike smiles gratefully at you. “One more question,” he reminds you.

You chug down the rest of your latte, trying to decide what to ask him. You could ask him about his scar, but that might be too personal, especially since asking about his hometown seemed to dredge up bad memories. And as much as you want to know what those bad memories are. . .

“Do you have a favorite band?”

“The Cure, probably.”

“Interesting.”

“Interesting?” Mike repeats. “What does that mean? Who did you think I listen to?”

“I don’t know. Metallica?”

Mike bristles a bit. “I’m not really a metal fan,” he mumbles. “More into rock, I guess.”

You frown, overcome again by the feeling that is slowly becoming familiar. The feeling that you have, somehow, fucked things up.

Mike suddenly brightens. “Okay, my turn. Do you have a favorite band?”

“Fleetwood Mac, maybe,” you decide, feeling like you’ve suddenly suffered from whiplash with how quickly Mike’s mood changed. “Or Mazzy Star. They just released an album in October, and it’s really good.”

“Yeah? I’ll have to give them a listen. What’s it called?”

“So Tonight That I May See,” you recite. “The first track, Fade Into You, it’s practically perfect. She Hangs Brightly is probably still my favorite album, though. I have it on vinyl if you wanted to borrow it. You don’t have to, though.”

“I would like to,” Mike responds immediately.

You blink. “Really?”

“Yeah, why not? If you like them, I’ll give ‘em a listen.”

You nod, face heating up. “Right. Um, okay. Next question?”

Things continue like this for a while, Mike asking his next four questions (which are entirely about your favorite things, by the way), with brief interludes in between questions for him to grill you on your answers. He seems genuinely interested in learning more about you, something you’re not used to, evidently.

And he seems genuinely interested in your answers, too. Your favorite authors and books and foods and more trivial things that you can barely even remember about yourself. The small details of your life that have never felt important enough to say aloud.

He asks follow-up questions. He remembers things. He laughs at your overly passionate explanations, and for once, you don’t feel ashamed at your enthusiasm.

You don’t even realize how much time has passed until you glance toward the window and notice the sunlight has shifted. The café is quieter now.

The students who had filled every table earlier have slowly disappeared, leaving behind abandoned coffee cups and plates. The music playing softly overhead feels louder without the constant chatter, and it leaves you and Mike swathed in an echoing ambience.

“I thought you said you wanted to talk about things that matter,” you say after a second round of asking questions.

“These are things that matter,” Mike defends.

“My favorite color is not something that matters.”

“I think it does. Now I know to buy you pink flowers next time.”

“Next time?” you repeat, heart fluttering.

His eyes widen slightly. “I mean. . . if you wanted to see me again. Well, you’ll have to see me again, unfortunately, for Frost’s class. But outside of that. I’d like to see you again, if that’s okay.”

You nod so frantically your headache returns. “I’d like that.”

Mike lets out a tiny breath. “Okay. Yeah. Cool.”

Even though the two of you haven’t run out of things to talk about, there seems to be a mutual understanding that the day has ended. That you have to save some fun facts for next time. Because there will be a next time.

You and Mike clean up your table, gather your things, and together, make your way toward the door.

The temperature has risen ever so slightly, now that the sun is overhead, but as you brush Mike’s shoulder walking through the door (the door he holds open for you), you can’t help but shiver.

“Okay, well, I’m parked over there,” Mike says, pointing down the street. He keeps tugging down his sleeves before rolling them up again.

“I’m over there,” you say, nodding your head toward the parking lot across the street. The bouquet he brought for you is clutched tightly to your chest.

“I can walk you to your car?” Mike offers.

“No, that’s okay. It’s not too far,” you assure.

Mike nods. “Right. Well, um, I’ll see you on Tuesday?”

You look down at your feet and toe at a pebble on the sidewalk. “Yeah, I’ll see you on Tuesday,” you echo. After a pause, you add, “Thank you for today, Mike.”

He flushes again. “Yeah, no problem. I really like talking to you.”

“I like talking to you, too.”

Mike smiles like you just told him he won the lottery.

You take a few steps backward toward your parked car. “Okay. Goodbye.”

“Yeah, goodbye,” he says, raising his hand in a wave, similar to the one he greeted you with.

Before the departure can become any more stilted, you turn on your heel and begin the short walk to your car. You’ve only just crossed the street when Mike calls your name.

You turn, entirely unprepared to see him striding toward you.

“I can’t watch you leave without kissing you,” Mike declares. “Can I? Can I kiss you?”

“Yes,” you say breathlessly without a second thought.

And he does. And he tastes like coffee and the promise of a future.

****

It is a cold, sunny day in March, and the blisters on your heels are bleeding cherry red through your socks when you step into the air-conditioned classroom.

You’d known the shoes were a bad idea the moment you put them on that morning, the leather rubbing raw against your skin before you’d even limped halfway across campus. But you wanted more than anything to make a good impression, knowing damn well that, in a week, you’d be waking up 30 minutes before you had to leave and throwing on whatever clothes were scattered across your floor.

You are five minutes late, fashionably, and every head turns to look at you as you make your belated arrival. The attention leaves you feeling dizzy and acutely aware of everything all at once: the backpack strap digging into your shoulder, the barely-buttered piece of toast sitting uneasily in your stomach, the throbbing pain in your feet, and the beads of sweat collecting beneath your arms, despite the aggressive air-conditioning.

The expressions on people’s faces differ to an alarming degree. You catalogue them to the best of your ability, taking in the inquisitive stares and disinterested glances; the faces of those you recognize from prior classes, from campus, or not at all. What are they thinking? Did they see the artificiality behind your outfit? The wincing way in which you shift your weight, trying not to think about how you’d definitely have to throw these socks away when you get home (which was a shame, they were your favorites, blue with little lace ruffles). Had they noticed something you hadn’t? Toothpaste at the corner of your mouth? Mascara smeared beneath your eyes? A run in your tights? Were you in the wrong room? Had you gotten the time wrong?

“Ah, looks like our missing students have finally arrived.”

The professor is a middle-aged man with graying hair and eyes that are perpetually squinting beneath his glasses. His name is Professor Frost, known both locally and nationwide for his bestselling debut novel. In the decade or two since his success, he has returned to his alma mater to teach a coveted spring workshop for seniors. It is well known that he only selects the best.

Supposedly.

“Sorry, sir,” says a voice behind you. You jump, completely unaware that someone had appeared at your shoulder in the first place. “I would blame traffic, but I walked here.”

He is tall, the boy, with one hand still on the classroom door as it swings shut. Dark curls spill across his forehead and into his eyes. There is a worn messenger bag hanging from one shoulder, weighed down by far too many books to the point that the strap is splitting at the seam. Wire-framed glasses are hooked in the collar of a faded black T-shirt (on it is a grainy version of the poster for Eraserhead). There is a casualness to his demeanor - slouched shoulders, Walkman headphones around his neck (still faintly leaking music), and a slowness to his words that makes you wonder if he even cares about being late at all. 

(Meanwhile, you are actively enduring your worst nightmare. A humiliation ritual, if you will. You want nothing more than to just sit down and be out of the spotlight).

“Mr. Wheeler, is it?” asks Professor Frost, glancing down at the attendance roster on his desk. You can picture it vividly - all the names marked as present except yours and his. “You have quite the reputation amongst the English department.”

The boy - Wheeler - grins innocently. “Do I really?” he asks, feigning surprise. “All good things, I hope.”

A few students chuckle to themselves. You feel left out of whatever inside joke accompanies his reputation. If your memory serves you correctly, you’d never had a class with this mysterious, smart-mouthed boy. What exactly had he done to earn a reputation? Be late too many times? Get in fights? You just hoped he wasn’t dangerous, considering you were standing just half a step in front of him. He could easily grab you and snap your neck before anyone could react.

(Not that he’d actually want to. Still).

Professor Frost sighs heavily through his nose, adjusting his glasses. “Take your seats. Both of you.”

Wheeler gives a mock salute. “Yes, sir.”

You knew, going in, that the workshop was small, but you’re still surprised by just how few people are in the room. Maybe fifteen students, including you and Wheeler. Two long tables have been pushed together in the center of the room, manuscripts and notebooks scattered across the surface alongside coffee cups and pencil cases that suggest everyone else has already settled in.

Luckily for you, most of the chairs are occupied except for two that just so happen to be right next to each other. Of course.

You keep your eyes fixed on the floor as you make your way over, trying to ignore the hot embarrassment creeping up your neck and the sharp stinging in your heels. Don’t limp. Don’t limp. Don’t limp. It is appalling that you have to place so much focus on walking.

Wheeler reaches the chairs first, sliding into the one closest to the door before noticing you’re hesitating beside him.

“Oh.” He stands halfway back up. “Sorry.”

He steps into the aisle, giving you room to pass, as you begin to apologize, assuring him that it’s okay. An awkward silence follows as you duck into the chair beside him, swinging your backpack off your shoulder. . . and promptly smack him in the knee with it.

“I’m so sorry,” you whisper, briefly wondering if you’d have been better off just not getting out of bed at all that morning.

Wheeler blinks down at where your bag hit him, then flickers his gaze to where you have unceremoniously dropped it at your feet. He nods solemnly and then, in a gravely serious tone, says, “I think I’ll pull through.”

It catches you off guard, so for a second, you can’t do more than stare at him. Then, despite yourself, you laugh. It’s barely a laugh, honestly. Just a small little smile and a little sound of amusement that you couldn’t swallow down. But Wheeler notices, and the corner of his mouth lifts sweetly.

“Well, it seems we can finally get started,” Professor Frost says, beginning to pass out colorless folders with each student’s name already written in the upper-right corner. 

As the man meanders his way around the room, Wheeler has begun to empty the contents of his messenger bag in an unceremonious heap in front of him. Out spill ragged notebooks, their spines barely holding beneath layers of tape and dog-eared pages. They’re all swollen with loose papers and colorful Post-It notes that stick out at impossible angles, filled with cramped handwriting and rough sketches that you can’t make out without making it obvious that you’re looking.

You accept your folder from Professor Frost with slightly trembling hands, slightly mortified that he knows your name, not because of your standout stories or willingness to participate in class (as if), but because of the ungratefulness you showcased in showing up late to the first day of class. Inside the folder is a syllabus, an intimidating five-page document listing assignments, schedules, required materials, and other class policies. Immediately, your eyes snag on phrases like mandatory peer critiques, weekly manuscript presentations, and individual conferences.

You suddenly feel mildly nauseous. Maybe more than mildly. The only way this day can get worse is if your toast decides to make a reappearance, and then you might just have to-

“As you look over the syllabus, I advise each of you to look ahead to the final page, and you will see that you have all been assigned a workshop partner for the next ten weeks,” Professor Frost says, ambling back to the front of the room. “I’m only experimenting with this model - as some of you may be aware, I usually aim for an all-encompassing peer review with rotating sets of eyes on your work - but I received feedback that it may be beneficial to have a more focused set of eyes. This person will be responsible for reading every draft you produce this quarter. They will annotate your work and provide developmental feedback throughout, which means I expect you to be meeting with your partners outside of class. After reading your submissions, I attempted to pair you with someone whose work differs most in genre or form. I hope that this new model will be helpful, but if you find yourself unhappy with your partner after this first week, please feel free to speak to me during office hours, and we can arrange an alternative pairing.”

The room is drowned in the sound of pages turning, everyone eagerly seeking out the list of names. You follow, flipping to the back of the syllabus, unable to delay the inevitable for too long.

You find your name easily, and almost immediately, your heart stutters.

Next to your name, printed in black ink: Wheeler, Michael.

A strange sense of dread settles somewhere between your ribs. The likelihood that there’s a second Wheeler in the class is. . . very low (even though the boy next to you looks like his name should be something more sophisticated like Alexander or Theodore), and it’s not that being paired with him specifically is the problem. It’s the fact that someone is going to read your work. 

As far as you know, Michael Wheeler is a self-assured, cocky twenty-something who likely writes heartbreaking, ineffable epics about heroes and redemption and likely hates heavy-handed metaphors and overt descriptions of vases. He’s probably never second-guessed his talent or whether he belongs in a room. He has a reputation in the English department. You wouldn’t be surprised if he’d won awards from lit magazines before he graduated high school. You wouldn’t be surprised if he read your messy, unfinished drafts and told Professor Frost that you definitely didn’t belong in such a highly regarded writing workshop.

Around you, people have already begun introducing themselves to their partners, snippets of conversation slipping through the ringing in your ears. Next to you, it seems that Michael Wheeler is putting the pieces together. He untangles his lanky limbs from where he’s draped them lazily across the chair and peers at the identical names printed on the syllabus and the one on your folder. He leans slightly closer, just enough so you can hear him over the din of the classroom.

“I think we’re partners,” he says, pointing at his name on your syllabus. His voice is warm, no trace of the cockiness he spoke to Professor Frost with, and it sends a sudden shiver down your spine. “That’s me. I mean, I’m Michael. Mike.”

You whip your head around to face him, regretting it almost instantly as you find yourself face to face with him. Unfortunately, literally. The two of you are now so close that your noses are almost touching, so close that you can smell the toothpaste on his breath.

Fuck. He’s handsome. Not even just handsome. He’s pretty.

His strikingly dark curls that fall across his browline are slightly flattened on one side like he’d rolled out of bed moments before arriving. His bone structure is also impressively sharp. Like, carved out of stone sharp. His chiseled jawline is softened only slightly by the beginnings of stubble, and his defined cheekbones are dusted with freckles that seem out of place against the severity of his features. His eyes are big, brown, and seemingly endless, framed by long lashes.

 But what strikes you the most is the thin scar that runs from the prominent bridge of his nose, down beneath his left eye, and disappears into the shadow cast by his cheekbones. It’s clearly a few years old, healed enough but still tinged a faint red, and it cuts jaggedly across his face. You ache to know the story behind it - was it some sort of accident? - but know that you’ll never bring yourself to ask. It would be rude to, anyway.

Mike’s eyes widen.

“Oh. Sorry.”

He immediately leans back, knocking his elbow against the edge of the table.

“Fuck. I didn’t mean to, uh, like, invade your personal space,” he says, gesturing vaguely between the two of you.

“It’s fine,” you assure. “I’m the one who was in your space, really.”

“It suits you,” he blurts out. “Your name, I mean. It fits.”

“Thanks.”

The conversation dies there. How magnificent, you can’t even manage to hold a decent discussion with the person you’ll be baring your soul to for the next ten weeks (yes, it’s that serious). Briefly, you reconsider returning the compliment - “Your name suits you, too!” - but it would be an outright lie. You didn’t think his name suited him. Mike was too mundane for a face like his. So, instead, you begin to look around the room, hoping to kill time until Professor Frost brings the room back together. It seems that everyone is getting along with their assigned partner - some have already started passing manuscripts back and forth, others are deep in conversation about shared interests. Professor Frost is staring out at the room with parental pride. You doubt he’s going to cut this short any time soon.

“So, what do you write?” Mike asks, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

“What? Oh, nothing really,” you stammer, caught off guard by his question.

Mike arches an eyebrow. “Nothing? You’re not a writer?”

“No, I am. That’s not what I meant. I write about nothing,” you explain evasively, already preparing yourself for the shift in Mike’s demeanor when he discovers you prefer literary fiction above all else. It’s definitely not as highly regarded as fantasy or mystery. Even romance would be better. You want to put that discovery off until necessary. “What about you? What do you like to write about?”

“Monsters, mostly,” Mike replies, leaning back in his chair, the front two legs coming up off the floor. “Fantasy. Sci-Fi. Horror. Whatever you want to call it.”

“Like. . . real monsters?”

Mike considers this question for a moment, teetering precariously. “Well, kind of,” he decides. “They’re from. . . well, have you ever heard of Dungeons and Dragons?”

You shake your head.

“Okay. Basically it’s this tabletop roleplaying game. Everybody makes their own characters, and then one person - the Dungeon Master - kind of builds the world. They tell the story, throw monsters at everybody, come up with puzzles and quests and stuff, and the players decide what they want to do, and you sort of. . . react to it.” Mike pauses. “It’s a lot more fun than I’m making it sound, I swear.”

“And you write about the game?”

Mike grins crookedly, cocking his head to the side. He sets the legs of his chair down with a thunk. “Not really. I take a lot of ideas from the campaigns I created growing up. I was always the Dungeon Master.”

You nod. “I guess I was just wondering if these monsters. . . if they’re like ghosts or zombies or. . . or people.”

Mike looks at his battered notebook for a moment, still closed on the table. “Sometimes they’re people. Or were people.” When he looks back at you, his expression is thoughtful. “Or did you mean serial killers? Because I definitely don’t write about them.”

“No,” you say quickly. “I was just curious.”

Mike rubs his thumb almost absentmindedly over his scar. “Is that what you write about? People who are monsters?”

“I don’t write about serial killers, either, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Good, I’d be a bit worried if you did. Probably wonder how you got such in-depth information.”

“Well, I’d do my research,” you mumble. “But no, I write about ordinary people. I don’t think they’re monsters. They’re just doing nothing. Living their lives. And maybe they’re a monster to other people. Maybe they’ve hurt someone, or disappointed someone, or they’re selfish sometimes, but not. . . not necessarily. . .” You wince. “Sorry, I’m not making much sense. I don’t really think it comes across how I want in my writing, either. Sometimes it’s too contrived.”

“Contrived how?” asks Mike, furrowing his eyebrows.

“I don’t know. Maybe I just try too hard,” you say before you can stop yourself. You don’t know how Mike’s managed to do it, but you’re spilling your guts to him in a way you’ve never done with anyone else. “I just want to come off as earnest, but I don’t know if I am,” you finish.

“You want to be earnest, or you want to be a good writer?”

Your stomach drops and something on your face must give it away, because Mike’s eyes go wide almost immediately. “No, shit, I didn’t mean it like that,” he insists, shaking his head. “That wasn’t supposed to be an insult.”

“Okay. It’s fine.”

It’s not fine. You wish you could rewind time and take back the last three minutes. This is what you get for telling someone you just met (okay, yeah, he’s your workshop partner) about your deep-rooted writing insecurity.

“I wasn’t trying to say that you’re not a good writer,” he says, turning his body to face you. Mike props his elbows up on his knees and stares at you intently. “I just meant that, in my experience, people mix them up a lot. Like. . . everyone kind of wants to sound like they know what they’re doing, especially when they don’t. And I don’t think sounding earnest is the same as. . . I don’t know, having good prose. I guess my point is that I would rather be a considerate person who understands my characters than a writer whose greatest strength is stringing a sentence together.”

Your lips part, but you can’t seem to get any words to pass through them. Mike’s manner is so genuinely sincere, so sincerely genuine, that it has your heart pounding in your ribcage. Your left arm starts to go numb, too. Are you having a heart attack? No one has ever said anything like that to you. Maybe you misunderstood - maybe Mike meant you weren’t considerate in your writing. Except, no, that wouldn’t make sense; he’d never read anything of yours. Right? Unless he had. Unless he really did know you and was playing a prank on you. Maybe Professor Frost thought your submission was so utterly laughable that he got everyone else in on it. Any second now, Mike was going to burst into laughter - she thinks she’s a real, bona fide writer, just because she’s getting a degree for it!

Mike snaps his fingers in front of your face. “Hey, look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”

Discreetly, you press the back of your palm against your cheek, making sure you’re not overheating. This whole situation was turning into a disaster. You’d known Mike for all of ten minutes, and already you’d started prattling on about being earnest. The only way you could make this worse is if you started crying - and that wasn’t even out of the question, actually.

“Um, are you going to pass out? Do you want me to get you some water?”

“No! Oh God. I’m fine.” You shrink down into your chair, laughing weakly. “I’m sorry. This is. . . I shouldn’t have. . .”

You smile. Or at least you think you do. For all you know, you could just be baring your teeth. Your heart is beating so hard you’re surprised that Mike can’t hear it over the conversations happening around the room. You are painfully aware of everything all over again: your damp palms pressed against your thighs, your left foot bouncing beneath the table (only furthering the pain of your blisters), the warmth spreading up the back of your neck.

Why are you acting like this? Why are you panicking? It’s just a class. Mike is just a person. Why didn’t you just say something normal? I write literary fiction. I like character studies. Now, you’ve come off as the kind of writer who talked in circles about authenticity because they didn’t have anything else to say.

Mike is still staring at you, waiting for you to say something, but your tongue feels too big for your mouth. You hear someone laugh and you’re certain that they’re laughing at you - they’ve noticed the way your conversation has ground to a halt.

You are miraculously saved by Professor Frost clapping his hands from the front of the room. Any longer and you probably would’ve just outright told Mike that you didn’t think you belonged in this class.

The rest of the hour is hazy. You spend the remaining time replaying your conversation with Mike, wincing over everything you said. The scraping of chairs and the zipping of bags is what alerts you that everyone has started to pack up. You just hope that everything Professor Fros said while you were zoned out is covered in the syllabus.

As you’re gathering your things, Mike wordlessly slides a folded piece of notebook paper over to you. He’s already put his headphones on and is slipping out the door before you even had time to react. Quickly, you stuff your own notebook and new folder into your bag and grab the paper, clutching it tightly between your fingers as you follow the stream of students out the door. The friction against the back of your heels worsens the moment you get to your feet.

It’s only when you’re safely out of view of anyone you can see you crouch down (an effort to take the pressure off your feet) that you unfold the note. It takes you a moment to make sense of the scrawling, messy handwriting.

Mike Wheeler

(underlined once, slightly uneven with a lopsided smiley face doodled beside it).

Below is what you presume to be his phone number. Under that:

Hope I didn’t interrogate you too hard. I’m glad that we’re partners. Can’t wait to read your stuff. P.S. Those shoes looked painful, so I thought you might need these.

Two Band-Aids tumble out into the palm of your hand.

****

The only thing that gets you out of bed on Thursday is the promise that you will stop and get yourself a smoothie before class. It’s raining by the time you drag yourself across campus, the condensation from your smoothie sweating into your hand and your heels still tender. You opted for more practical shoes this time - a more practical outfit, too.

You’re alarmingly early today, not wanting to cement yourself as someone who’s always late to class. You slip into the same seat you were in previously, not wanting to take someone’s unofficial assigned seat and risk a confrontation. Artfully, you begin to arrange your notebook and pens into little rows. One by one, your classmates trickle in, bringing in the smell of spring rain and steaming cups of coffee. The room fills slowly, you patiently sipping at your smoothie all the while, until someone drops into the chair beside you with a groan.

“Jesus,” Mike mutters, running a hand through his rain-soaked curls. “It’s gross out there.”

You glance over at him. His sweater is damp around the shoulders, his bag darker where the rain has soaked through the canvas. Like last time, he’s slung his headphones around his neck, the music still playing quietly through them. A lone raindrop drips from his curls and down the side of his face, and you track its journey carefully.

“What’d you get?” Mike asks casually, nodding toward your smoothie and interrupting your ogling. He begins to pull out his own slightly waterlogged notebook.

“Oh. A smoothie.”

“Yeah? What kind?”

“It’s strawberry peach, I think.”

“Cool. I didn’t take you for a smoothie person.”

You purse your lips, unsure of what to make of that. You weren’t exactly a smoothie person, but sometimes you skipped breakfast to make it to class on time, and a smoothie was better than nothing. Was it because smoothies were considered healthy? Did he think you looked like someone who drank soda all the time?

Oh, God. Was Mike calling you fat?

“I just figured you’d be a coffee drinker. Isn’t that, like, the writer stereotype?” Mike adds with a shrug. “In high school, I always drank black coffee - no cream or sugar or anything - because I thought I looked cool. How stupid is that?”

“What do you drink now?”

“I’m a milkshake man, myself. Hot chocolate if it’s too cold. But there’s this place in Seattle called Starbucks - I visited some friends there last year - and they can mix coffee into the hot chocolate. I can’t believe I’d never thought of that before. They’ll even add whipped cream if you ask and-”

Mike cuts himself off abruptly.

“Hey! Why didn’t you call?”

“Call?” you repeat incredulously. There’s about a minute left before class is due to start, meaning Professor Frost is bound to walk in at any moment.

“Yeah, I left you my number, didn’t I?”

“I didn’t know that you wanted me to.”

“It was implied.” He frowns, and for a moment, he looks like a sad little puppy. “We’re partners, aren’t we? Figured you’d call and we could-”

The door flies open violently, slamming against the wall hard enough to rattle the frame. Mike jumps in his seat, head whipping in the direction of the door, arms bracing against the table as if in preparation to lurch to his feet. There’s a sense that he’s about to bolt, if a situation arises.

“Sorry, folks!” Professor Frost’s cheery voice says as he saunters into the room, briefcase in hand. “Guess I don’t realize my old strength. Apologies for my late arrival, but it appears that. . . ah, yes, everyone seems to be here.”

You look down at your hands, worrying a hangnail just to avoid making eye contact with Mike. Your cuticle starts to bleed as you peel the skin away. You figure that it’s less embarrassing for him - his reaction to the door slamming - if you pretend you didn’t notice.

Mike lets out a slow breath, muttering something to himself, before finally relaxing back into his seat as if nothing happened.

At the front of the room, Professor Frost is writing out the day’s lesson plan on the chalkboard. A 10-minute free-write followed by a lecture on syntax and idiolect, rounded out by a brief workshop with your partner.

“For the first ten minutes, I’d like each of you to describe a character based on the way they talk rather than the way they look,” says Professor Frost, dusting the chalk off his hands. “As writers, we have the unfortunate burden of getting around the lack of speaking out loud, but we gain the advantage of sentence structure and word choices. This character can be a real person - perhaps one of your closest friends - or it can be a character you’ve worked with before. If you want to be especially daring, I urge you to create someone new. Give them an overly specific way of speaking. Perhaps they use words incorrectly. Perhaps they tend to pause between words - how would you convey that? You may begin.”

The blankness of your notebook is daunting. You didn’t come equipped to do such in-depth writing. You expected a quick five minutes spent describing all the things in the room in overbearing detail or maybe writing something based on your favorite song, things you’d done in other classes. This was too much for your brain, this early in the morning, and it sows another seed of doubt in your mind.

If you can’t even keep up with this simple free-write, who’s to say you’re cut out for the class at all?

Mike is already scribbling away, hunched low over his paper and pen clutched in his hand. He’s oddly holding his pen, you notice. He’s writing at a rapid speed, which explains his sloppy handwriting.

You take a sip of your smoothie and look at the clock. It’s already been a minute. You know that the golden rule of writing is to just write words, even if they don’t make sense, and soon your ideas will start to flow, but you’re paralyzed by inadequacy. How did Mike come up with something so fast? Maybe he’s using a character he already worked with before, or maybe a real person. You rack your brain for a character that has enough unique quirks to translate into her way of speaking, but nothing comes to mind.

Your strength was not in character work. If Professor Frost tasked you with describing the rain against the window or the way a room was laid out, then you’d be set. All your characters were. . . shells. They were nobody. It was exactly like you told Mike - you wrote about nothing. Your characters were nothing, and your ideas were nothing. You didn’t know anyone interesting enough, either. . .

Immediately, you shake the thought away. You can’t write about the person sitting six inches away from you. That would be way too weird.

You don’t know Mike enough to ascertain the way he speaks, especially not enough to put it on the page. You’ve had, what, two conversations? One about monsters and one about smoothies. Hardly enough to build a whole voice around.

How did he talk anyway? Sometimes it seemed like someone whose mouth couldn’t quite keep up with his thoughts, but how do you show that in writing? He had a habit of starting a sentence before deciding how it was going to end, interrupting himself constantly - how did he even get from whipped cream to phone calls, anyway? - and he was always talking with his hands, punctuating every other sentence with a shrug or an open palm, his pen waving through the air whenever he happened to be holding it. Every so often, he’d rake a hand through his curls. He never seemed able to sit still, either, but those weren’t things you can put into writing.

That was the problem.

“Time’s up!”

Mike slams his pen down like it’s hot to the touch, flexing his lithe fingers. You continue looking at your blank piece of paper. You didn’t even manage to write the date on it.

“We’ll return to those later,” Professor Frost reiterates, picking up the piece of chalk again. On the chalkboard, in big letters, he writes SYNTAX and IDIOLECT. “Can anyone give me a definition of either of these terms?”

Someone near the middle of the room raises their hand. “Syntax is grammar. Idiolect is personality,” they say matter-of-factly.

Professor Frost nods, content. Underneath the words, he writes GRAMMAR and PERSONALITY. “Correct. If I were to ask everyone in this room to say ‘sorry,’ all of you would say it differently. The issue is determining how to make that clear in writing. Do we change the dialogue tag? The punctuation? Your job as writers isn’t to tell me who your characters are, but rather to let them betray themselves through speech.”

By the time Professor Frost dismisses everyone into their pairs, your notebook contains exactly three pages of notes and one completely untouched free-write. You’ve been given fifteen minutes to trade notebooks with your partners.

Mike reaches for his notebook, then hesitates. “Um. . . you wanna go first?”

You look down at your own notebook and wordlessly turn it toward him. “I didn’t write anything,” you admit. “I just couldn’t think of anyone.”

“That’s okay,” Mike assures. “It was just a free-write. I doubt Professor Frost actually cares how much you wrote.”

You huff a laugh. “Easy for you to say.”

He glances at the paragraphs he managed to scribble down before the time ran out. The corner of his mouth twitches. “Okay, fair. But we can just make something up for you, yeah? A few sentences. Just so you have something to turn in.”

“Who did you write about?” you ask, curiosity getting the better of you.

Mike drums his fingers once against the edge of his notebook, subtly nudging it closer to himself. “Oh, just a character from one of my novels. He’s, uh. . . like, a sorcerer.”

“That’s cool. Will I ever get to read it? The novel, I mean.”

Mike scratches at the back of his neck. “It’s still kind of a mess.” Then, he quickly adds. “I mean, all first drafts are; that’s the point.”

You frown. “Okay. What are you going to submit for class?”

“Short stories, probably. They’re easier for me. The novel has been in the works for years,” Mike says, chuckling to himself a little. “It’s a shit show, honestly. I don’t really know if you’d like it.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Mike looks genuinely caught off guard by the question. “I don’t know, actually. Maybe I will let you read it one day.”

“That would be nice. I’d like that.”

“Hey, about earlier,” he says, quickly changing the subject. “I’m sorry about the phone thing. I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad.”

“You didn’t.”

“I could tell I did.”

“No, really, I was mostly confused.”

“Confused?” he repeats.

“Well, yeah.” You look down at the desk before speaking again. “Like I said, I didn’t know you actually wanted me to.”

Mike blinks. “Why else would I give you my number?”

“I thought you were just being polite.”

Mike smiles. “I’m not polite enough to hand out my phone number for no reason.” The sentence is so matter-of-fact that you laugh. “Seriously. We’re partners! I figured we’d meet up a few times a week, go over our stories, get coffee, get to know each other.”

“I don’t think being friends with your workshop partner is in the syllabus,” you say. “I’m not a very interesting person, if I’m honest.”

“Bullshit,” Mike scoffs. “I’ve never met anyone who’d rather stare at a blank page for ten minutes instead of pretending to write something just because everyone else was.”

“And that’s interesting? You must not know a lot of people.”

“I know enough people.”

You shake your head in disbelief, heat creeping up your neck. You can’t decide whether to laugh or argue with him. Across the room, Professor Frost is pacing between tables as students murmur over each other’s drafts.

“I’ll call you on Saturday,” Mike decides. He pauses before adding, “If that’s okay with you.”

“Yeah, um, that’s okay,” you say. Saturday is your one day off - usually the day you sleep in until late afternoon and slink around your apartment.