pretend; reddie

t w e n t y n i n e

"but what if i'm not pretending anymore?"

richie's words keep playing through eddie's head on repeat. it's been three days, and the soundtrack hasn't stopped.

the main tracks?

"but what if i'm not pretending anymore", and "that's when i knew that i loved you", and "you deserve way fucking better than this piece of shit tozier".

eddie cannot get the speech out of his fucking head; each of richie's words, all of his sentences, were someone all memorized, and they've been keeping eddie up at night, fucking with his mind.

richie hadn't been to school since the prom. he hadn't been in any of his classes, at the lunch table, and he hadn't answered any of eddie's 23 texts and 16 calls. and, to be one hundred percent honest, it worries the shit out of eddie, not knowing where rich is, what he's doing, if he's safe. but eddie'd even called his house, and when he did, his mother informed him that her son wasn't home.

eddie isn't quite sure what to do. he hadn't really had time to react to richie's confession; richie had stormed out of there pretty fast, leaving eddie in a stunned silence, the pounding music from the dance so close but so far away from his ears as richie's words had taken over control of his brain.

and so eddie never did react. he never got angry, or happy, or sad, or relieved, or anything. all he got was confused, confused, and even more confused.

how was he supposed to deal with a love confession from his fake boyfriend.

eddie unplugs his phone from where it charges on the night table. when he clicks it on, a picture of him on richie's back pops up. richie had set it a few weeks back to annoy him, or to make the couple thing seem more realistic, but eddie had never changed it, and he isn't sure why.

they both look so happy; they're smiling like they have no care in the world, and richie is laughing at something, staring toward the camera, and eddie is looking down at richie, and the only word to describe the look in his eyes is fondness.

it then crosses his mind that he'd never given much thought to how he felt about richie.

or maybe, he did.

but only at three in the morning, laying awake in bed worried about what those possible feelings might mean for him, or richie, or both of them.

or only when the two of them were hanging out, and richie was so lost in his own world, talking about the football game, or one of his video games, animatedly motioning with his hands and eddie couldn't help the feeling of pride he felt with each word richie said.

and when he sat by his windowsill, overanalyzing close to everything that richie says in case, just maybe, it meant that he felt something, too,

so yes, maybe eddie had thought about it. but that isn't something he had ever been willing to admit.

until now.

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next chapter is the last chapter lmao