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chapter two the five stages of grief
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When Jill was a child, she broke one of the bones in her ribcage. She'd been dangling off the fire escape rails because her father, David, had previously scolded her for doing it the week before and god forbid if Jill ever listened to the man. She supposed she should have, because one minute she was laughing with her head tilted back then the next she was falling two stories to the ground. The whole recovery was a blur but she distinctly remembered Beverly staying home from school to watch Looney Toons with her so she wouldn't have to be alone.
Since the bone had broken through her flesh, the skin tissue had healed over into a gnarly scar just diagonal of her sternum. Beverly had told her so many times the scar occurred because her heart was too big for her body in an attempt to make her less insecure over the large blemish. Jill would have almost believed her, too, if she didn't remember the pain and the sudden flashes of her life right before she smacked the ground.
While the two were soaring down Maple Street on their bikes that late afternoon, Jill was certain she was on her way to knocking on death's door for the second time in her life. Her life flashed right before her very eyes like it had when she was just a child. The streets blended together in her peripheral as she peddled closer to home, the wind brushing past her as the sun's rays shined atop her brown hair. Beverly Marsh rode a little way in front of her, her copper hair whipping behind her as she glanced back at Jill and laughed a laugh which sounded like a melody the brunette could listen to all day. There was no other explanation other than Jill had died and gone to paradise because surely Beverly Marsh was some type of angel too ethereal to exist in a place like boring, old Derry.
The two picked up their pace when the view of their apartment building stood before them in all its old and grimy glory. It wasn't as glamorous as the houses the other kids lived in, but not everyone was as fortunate as those spoiled little assholes, especially Jill and Bev. That was one of the reasons they'd become such great friends—they just understood everything the other was going through, whether that was financially or not. Jill just got Bev, and Bev just got Jill.
