Lover | Richie Tozier

Chapter 4.

When Edward Kaspbrak was 4 years old, in 1976 when there was barely a cure for someone so young, he had developed a severe case of bronchitis from one of his classmates in daycare.

Heaving, coughing, and running fevers of temperatures extending farther than the highest peak on a mountain had become the regime for Eddie, every cell in his body screaming in unison against the illness. He'd cry at school, wanting nothing more than to go home and wilt rather than color pictures with waxy crayons like the rest of his classmates.

His teachers frantically spooned glasses of water and tablets of baby aspirin into his mouth to get his aching joints moving properly again, yet would get nothing in return but a mix of blood and saliva from his tight throat.

Sonia Kaspbrak was furious.

"How dare they refuse to call home when her son had requested to be picked up," she raged, screaming emphatically into the faces of the childcare providers. Because of them, her 3 ½ foot tall son lay helpless in a hospital bed far too large for his small figure. Eddie had always been little, since the day he was born. Always been fragile, Sonia claimed.

When the bronchitis had subsided, Sonia didn't bring him back to school for the remaining year. Too much risk of an infection, she thought. She couldn't come close to losing him like that again. Instead, Eddie would play with toys and learn the alphabet from coloring books in the comfort of his own home, where it was safe. It was so safe. Nothing could reach him there. Nothing. And that just might've been the problem.

However, by the time Kindergarten rolled around, Sonia had no other choice but to reluctantly enroll her son back into the public school program. She had to, it was the law and she had a full-time job she needed to attend to. But to think he'd go without protection was to think stupidly. She had been conditioning him since the day he left his daycare- teaching him routinely cleanly habits, educating him on all the deadly germs that wait around every corner, lying to him about the large risks in the simple pleasures in life, like playing soccer, but Eddie didn't know that. He trusted his mom. His mom wanted him safe.

Eddie wasn't aloud to play sports, either. Instead, at recess, while all the other kids enjoyed their time swinging on the monkey bars and sending themselves down plastic slides, he perched atop a bench (one he wiped down beforehand) and observed.

Don't you go down one of those slides, Eddie! You'll break a bone! His mother's voice rang loudly in his memory. So he didn't.

Little Eddie also had a recurring habit of getting himself into quite a few disagreements in his early elementary years. He refused to share his Crayolas with the other children , fearing the afflicting bacteria they carried around on their mucky hands, who'd later tell on him for being so egocentric. When this happened enough times for the head teacher to call home with the intention of describing Eddie's selfish behavior, she was met with a very incandescent Mrs. Kaspbrak yelling on the other line.

"Those are my sons crayons, and my sons crayons only!" She roared through the broken line of the telephone. "Don't you know he has a condition?" The word tasted bitter on her tongue, reminding her of the days he'd soak up IV's in his hospital bed.

"I did not know that, Mrs. Kaspbrak, I apo-"

"Eddie can absolutely not share his crayons with anybody else. He'll get sick! You know that? His immune system will eat him alive!"

Sonia picked Eddie up from school early that day.

When middle school came around and Eddie was at the tender age of 12, he was asked by his Physical Education teacher to run a lap around the gym. All the other children participated freely, but Eddie hesitated.

"I can't sir, I have asthma, I can't run," he tried explaining. He was interrupted by the large arms of the gym teacher crossing over the chest in front of him. "I don't wanna hear it, kid. Excuses, excuses. Been doing this for 15 years, heard 'em all before. Get to running."

Eddies heart rate picked up to painful rates. "Call my mom."

The man looked down on him. "What?"

His young lungs felt dizzy, snapping around him like ankle weights. "I frickin' said call my mom! She'll tell you the truth. I- I cant. I can't run."

The gym teacher eventually fell victim to Eddie's rambling persistence and came in contact with the same raging Sonia Kaspbrak that pushed the elementary school teacher to near insanity.

Sonia picked Eddie up from school that day, too, and took him to the doctors office to force a diagnosis and an aspirator on him.

Now, at 16 years old, Eddie wipes down the lunch table in front of him after finishing his meal. He thinks he misses a spot, so he adjusts his eyesight and rubs a little harder. His reusable tupaware was tucked away neatly in his lunchbox (reusable so he wouldn't have to go near the trash, his mother said), and he threw the wipe into a plastic bag to throw away in his trash at home. Less germs than the public trash cans.

Nobody sat with him at lunch today. Nobody ever did. But Eddie, in part, liked it that way. Nobody to sneeze or cough on him, or make fun of his hand sanitizers and frequent use of his inhaler (though they did, anyways, just behind his back). However, he couldn't help but wonder after all these years of staying put away from other people what it would be like to sit with a friend at lunch. Eddie had friends. Well, Eddie had acquaintances; people who would say Hi to him every now and then and not give him funny looks when he took a shot of the medicinal-tasting air inside his inhaler.

Eddie zips up his lunchbox and pumps a pile of hand sanitizer on his hands, lathering it through his fingers and up his arms. As he's getting ready to go, he thinks he sees a boy staring at him from across the room. People always stared, that wasn't unusual, but this was a look of wonder, not disgust. It was recognizably Richie Tozier, known for calling through the halls with the infamous mouth that had given him his nickname. Eddie knew that. They had been in school together for quite some time. Richie notices that his gaze has been returned and quickly pivots on his tattered Converse, fast-walking out of the lunchroom to follow after his friends.

Eddie shakes his head and picks up his lunchbox, getting out of his seat. He stares at the floor as he walks, counting his steps [Don't walk too far, Eddie! Your lungs will give out!] and intentionally tries to get one foot into the tiles on the floor at a time. It's not until his bag is met with the floor that he realizes someone has bumped into his shoulder.