Strange as IT Seems

Chapter 31: Dear Mike

Dear Mike,

How's life in Derry?

Stan sits at a picnic table in the park after school. He has one of his notebooks in front of him, a pencil, and a can of Coke that he picked up in the convenience store. He'd been meaning to write to the friend they left behind in Derry but shit obviously happened and everything just all around sucked now. What could he tell his friend from the farm? He shouldn't be jealous that they got to leave town.

Sorry, I haven't been able to write sooner, moving has made things a lot more complicated and I'm still getting used to school here. High school is a big change, but there's still a social hierarchy. Right now, I'm just the new kid, with no place yet. Hope homeschooling is good this year and I want to wish you luck with ninth-grade math... will kick your ass man.

He pauses and wipes a few tears from his eyes. He's still reeling from what he saw in the schoolyard. While he'd gotten out of school as fast as possible to avoid seeing anyone, his bike chain had come loose, and he was forced to stop and fix it near the boundaries of the school.

When he finally fixed it and was starting to peddle away, he saw Ben, Bev, and Bill in the distance, and they were talking with some kids from Hawkins. The loud voice of one of the kids had gotten his attention initially, and even though he tried to ignore it, curiosity got the better of him. However, he would forever curse the human instinct to eavesdrop and be curious because the longer he watched them, the angrier and more hurt he became. It was easy for the three members of the Loser's Club; when you lose friends, you just make new ones. Their fight hadn't even occurred more than two days before and they'd already moved on, becoming better adjusted to life in Hawkins. It stung heavily like someone was stabbing him in the heart with a red-hot knife and it was also insulting. In the end, was their friendship that easy to replace? All the years the four boys; Richie, Eddie, Bill, and himself had been friends, before Beverly, Ben and Mike, and now they'd all been reduced to divided pockets with resentment and hatred.

Life in Hawkins sucks and be glad you didn't come with us. The place is only a little bigger than Derry and the only other big thing of note is the mall, but it's just a big place to buy stuff and holds nothing of worth to any of us. There's a pool and a nice library, but that's pretty much it for this hole of a town. Oh, and the reason it sucks, even more, is the Loser's Club is gone.

So basically, a fight between Eddie and Richie got out of hand, and the assholes wouldn't apologize to each other. They tried to make us choose between them and who we could hand out with. Beverly and Bill tried to help by having them meet and talk it through but of course, that didn't happen. Then Bill wanted to control the situation like he always does, he became an asshole; words were said and now none of us are speaking to each other or hanging out anymore. I guess that's not completely true, Ben, Bev, and Bill still tolerate being together and that's really no surprise considering their feelings for Bev.

Part of me wishes we'd get past this and have things go back to normal, but another part is still so angry. Why does everything have to be so complicated Mike? Why does life have to suck so badly? God, I wish it was different, that I was different, living in a better place

So yeah, what do you think is worse right now? Saw the three B's making new friends, meaning what the seven of us had is worth jack to any of them. Be glad that you're not here man. That you won't have to witness what happens to all childhood friendships eventually they are obliterated, and everyone moves on. It's so damn...

The end of the pencil snaps, leaving an ugly smudge of lead and a hole in the page. Stan stops writing and realizes that his anger had caused him to put so much pressure on the page that it gave way. He also becomes aware of the tears in his eyes again. They sting and his throat burns from all the rage having been built up inside.

With his heart pounding, Stan looks at the letter before ripping it up into a million little pieces. He also crumples them in his fists to express it even further. He then tosses everything off the picnic table and lets his face drop down hard into his now folded arms.

The darkness he's now surrounded himself with is comforting and provides him with the privacy he needs to cry. He lets the tears streak down his cheeks and stain the wood of the picnic table.

He wishes that the world didn't have to be so harsh; that reality wasn't cruel and relentlessly trying to ruin his life. It always seemed to be actively feasting on his misery and just making it worse. First the clown, then the relocation, then the bullying, the fight, and now the end of something so important to him. The thing that gave his life hope and battled the void his life had been in for a very long time... now he's back in that void and it's going to get worse, he feared. He wanted things to be simple and easy; no drama, no hatred, no demonic beings from another dimension... no that didn't happen... that thing was a hallucination...

"Hey, you dropped your stuff..." a voice calls out. It sounded fairly young and female.

Stan refuses to look up, knowing that he'd likely be made fun of or judged for crying.

"Hey, nerd you dropped your stuff!"

"Erica would you please stop..." a male voice moans in annoyance. "Not everyone you meet is going to be a nerd."

"Hasn't happened so far," is the response. "Do you think he's asleep?"

"Why do you care? You hardly seem to care about anything."

"You don't know me at all, and I can do what I want and care about who I want," the female named Erica snaps. "You clearly don't care enough to pick me up on time."

"I had to ride all the way to the mall. Why do you have to get ice cream every single day?"

"Free-Ice-Cream-for-LIFE!" she says, spelling it out for him. Whatever that means.

"You are just a pain in the..."

Stan tries to ignore the argument, basically worsening his mood. He clenches his fists and his back tenses in annoyance, wanting this to stop.

It takes another moment of pointless back and forth before something happens, and it surprises both of the males.

Stan hears footsteps coming toward him and he attempts to play possum, making them think he really was sleeping. The sound of papers being shuffled arises beside him. There's a pause for a moment before the brief sharp plop sound of a stack of papers hitting the wooden table and after a minute the clink of his pencils doing the same. There's an elongated and exaggerated sigh before the footsteps begin to recede.

"Let's go," the female voice says.

"That was..."

"You tell anyone about it, and I will make sure your girlfriend knows what really happened to her skateboard..."

"How the hell do you know about that?"

The bickering finally fades as the two kids who were obviously, siblings from the way they spoke to each other, walk away, giving Stan some relief and he sighs.

After gathering his thoughts, he looks up, letting his eyes adjust from the forced darkness he'd put himself in. He looks in the direction of where the voices came from, but they're both long gone.

Whoever that person was, Erica, if he can remember, she'd stacked his notebook and papers next to him with his pencils beside them. The knot in his stomach loosened a little and the lump in his throat felt less suffocating. He looks at the letter he'd been writing to Mike and notices something.

There's writing below: they are obliterated, and everyone moves on. It's so damn...

Sure, hope that it doesn't happen to me.

Cheer up, life could be a lot worse.

Stan is shocked that this girl had taken the time to write this, and one could assume that in her way she was trying to cheer him up or put things in perspective for him. She'd taken time out of her own life to help him out and make his day a little more bearable.

The Derry kid looks at what he'd written and knows what he has to do.

Tearing out a fresh piece of paper from his notebook and using his other pencil, he writes:

Dear Mike,