Will et Will

There are two rules for getting through life with a minimum of damage: 1. Don't care too much. 2. Shut up. For Will Grayson, these rules are a fortress. They protect him from the emotional shrapnel constantly being thrown by his best and only friend, Tiny Cooper - a boy who may be the world's largest person who is really, really gay, and also the world's gayest person who is really, really large. Tiny is a human supernova of feeling who falls in love hourly and announces it in precalculus, drawing the kind of attention that makes Will's skin crawl. Will would never have chosen Tiny as a friend, but friendship, like most things, is not a choice. It is simply a fact, one that drags Will into fiascos like a secret Neutral Milk Hotel reunion show that turns out to be a lie, a disaster that ends with Tiny getting dumped via Facebook status and Will having to pick snot from his best friend's nose to keep him from choking on his own drunken tears.

*i am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me.* For the other Will Grayson, who lives in a different suburb and a different kind of quiet desperation, life is a state of clinical depression managed by medication, sarcasm, and a profound lack of fucks to give. His world is small and gray: a well-meaning but clueless mother, a gloomy friend named Maura who wants to be more, and the crushing monotony of high school. His only escape, the only thing that feels real, is Isaac. Isaac, who he met online. Isaac, who understands his particular brand of doom. Isaac, who lives in Ohio but whose words feel closer than anyone in the same room. Their conversations are a lifeline in a sea of static, a promise that the world doesn't have to suck so much. After a year of sharing everything, they finally make a plan to meet, a single point of light on a bleak horizon.

The first Will Grayson's rules begin to buckle under the weight of Jane Turner. She is smart and has good taste in music and a smile that is entirely different from her photographed smile. After Tiny orchestrates a meeting at the Gay-Straight Alliance, Will finds himself on an adventure with her to procure a fake ID from a tattooed stoner named Paulie. The ID is a ticket to a concert, but more than that, it's a ticket to a world where he might just care, where he might just speak. But when he tries to kiss her, he flinches, retreating to the safety of his rules. The part he enjoys most is not the doing, but the noticing - and to act is to risk the pain he knows is inevitable. He wants the pleasure of her existence at a safe distance, a closed box where the possibility is both alive and dead.

The other Will Grayson's meeting with Isaac is set for a Friday night in Chicago. He bribes Maura fifty dollars to take his place at a Mathletes competition, a necessary sacrifice for what feels like the start of his actual life. He takes the train into the city, his mind a jumble of nerves and hope, every song on his iPod suddenly about Isaac. He replays their conversations, memorizes his pictures, and walks toward the designated meeting spot on a cold city street. It's a place called Frenchy's. He expects a coffee shop, or maybe a diner. He does not expect a porn store, lit with the harsh fluorescence of a 7-Eleven, its shelves lined with DVDs titled *The Sound and the Furry* and *As I Get Laid Dying*.

The two worlds collide under the buzzing lights of Frenchy's. The first Will Grayson, abandoned by Tiny and Jane after his new fake ID proves to be useless, wanders into the porn shop on a whim, looking for a memento to prove he had a better night than them. The other Will Grayson walks in looking for the boy he loves. A flash of a debit card, the utterance of a name - “William Grayson” - and the universe cracks open. They stand on the sidewalk in the cold, two boys with the same name and impossibly different lives, trying to make sense of the coincidence. Then, a phone call. The other Will Grayson's world is annihilated when Maura confesses on the other end: *i am isaac, will.* There is no Isaac. There never was. It was all a lie, a cruel, elaborate joke. As his world shatters, the first Will Grayson makes a call of his own. “Man, Tiny,” he says into the phone, “have I got a guy for you.”

In the aftermath, Tiny Cooper arrives like a storm front of compassion, scooping up the broken pieces of the other Will Grayson and beginning a whirlwind romance. Tiny, who has been searching for a love to match his own immensity, finds a boy whose need feels just as vast. Meanwhile, the first Will Grayson, spurred by a new creed of “radical honesty,” finally opens the box with Jane. They begin a tentative, tender relationship built on telling the truth, even when it's awkward and messy. For a brief moment, it seems the universe is expanding for both of them, two boys named Will Grayson finding a foothold in a world that suddenly feels a little less lonely.

But friendship is its own fragile ecosystem. The first Will feels eclipsed by Tiny's all-consuming new love, relegated to the role of a background character in the ongoing musical of Tiny's life. The friendship fractures during a rehearsal for Tiny's autobiographical play, *Hold Me Closer*, when Will overhears Tiny describing his character as a terrified, annoying sidekick. For the other Will Grayson, the intensity of Tiny's affection becomes a crushing weight. On a swing set in a quiet park, he ends it, unable to be the epic love story Tiny needs him to be, retreating back into the familiar quiet of his own self-loathing.

The fortress of rules is a lonely place to live. After a tearful, silent afternoon in a Little League dugout, the first Will Grayson realizes something profound: his love for his best friend matters more than his pride. He finds Tiny, and in a torrent of words, confesses everything - his jealousy, his frustration, and his deep, unwavering love. “We've been friends too long to pick,” he tells him, “but if we could pick, I'd pick you.” They fall back into their old rhythm, the floor beneath them solid once more.

On the opening night of *Hold Me Closer*, the theater is packed. The play is a vibrant, hilarious, and surprisingly moving chronicle of Tiny's life, with his friendship with Will Grayson at its heart. Backstage, the first Will watches, his hand intertwined with Jane's. Out in the audience, the other Will Grayson sits with his new friend, Gideon, having been convinced to come. As the show reaches its emotional climax, with Tiny singing about the pain and beauty of falling in love, the other Will Grayson stands up. “My name is Will Grayson,” he shouts, his voice shaking. “And I appreciate you, Tiny Cooper!”

Then, a miracle. Another man stands. “My name is also Will Grayson… and I also appreciate you, Tiny Cooper.” And another, and another - a collection of Will Graysons from all over Chicago, summoned by the second Will in a grand, impossible gesture of forgiveness and friendship. The audience joins in, a chorus of appreciation washing over the stage. Tiny stands in the spotlight, weeping with joy. The point, he realizes, isn't the falling; it's the knowledge that you'll be caught. He may be heavy, but in that moment, surrounded by a universe of love, he floats.