Lover | Richie Tozier

Chapter 12.

The Tozier residence was dark and cold when Richie entered it that night, throwing his house keys on the mantle of the fireplace and peeling off his classic Hawaiian-print overlay. His stomach grumbled again, pawing at him to feed himself something that was nutritionally abundant and fufilling. He walked over to the fridge, pulled it open, and took a look inside.

"Sauces," he scoffed. "So many fucking sauces and not a decent fucking meal." He slammed the fridge shut, causing the jars inside to bump and rattle together. He settled for a box of crackers, shoving the dull Saltines down his throat one by one and washing them down with the last bit of milk he had left.

He wished his parents would come home. He thinks right now that he'd rather have food in his stomach and a slap across his face than an empty stomach and a vacant house. 

Despite how much he heavily resented coming home each evening , he loved his room. It was his favorite space (apart from anywhere he was with the Losers, of course), filled with posters and mixtapes he'd handcrafted himself. His room held all the love the rest of his home lacked.

If walls could talk, they'd have a fuckton to say about Richie; how he used to cry every time his father came close to him but eventually became numb to it like novacaine over the years, how he'd focus so carefully on the flow of the music he compiled to drown out the sound of his parents fighting on the other side of the door , how he'd smile slightly every time he reminisced on good times with his three best friends. Richie was himself in purest room inside of these four walls. Every guard he had up came down once that door was shut. After all, nobody was ever there to see him do so.

He thought about today. The entirety of today. How it started off with a bike ride to school like it always did and how it ended with talking to two new people, like it never did. He thought about Elle -- how she so carelessly grabbed all he could hold and payed for it without complaining once. He can't help but think that if she had been there tonight at Keene's pharmacy, she would've done it again. She seemed nice. Real nice. Too nice to be acquainted with Richie. His glassy eyes perplexed across the plain ceiling as the thought of her filled his mind and all of his senses.

And then there was Eddie Kaspbrak, who he wasn't unfamiliar with but not familiar enough to avoid being surprised that he had saved his ass tonight. He was far too careful to want to be friends with Richie, he supposed.

Richie wasn't reckless. He'd actually taken pride in the fact that he was more careful than his parents ever had been, but he balanced on that eroding edge of being composed and impulsive. But that didn't matter. Eddie didn't want someone as vulgar as him and Elle didn't want someone as lawless as him. He read it on her face when she ripped open his cardigan and saw everything he was stealing. He was a lost cause at this point, trying everything he could to not lose the friends he already had.

"Fuckin' bullshit," he shook his head, trying to snap himself out of his thoughts. "Thinking about people who aren't even thinking about you. Like always. Give me a break." His body, that had gradually been rising in warmth at the idea of new friends, stiffened suddenly as his blood ran cold. The reminder hit him like a bag of bricks, so enveloped in this idea that maybe for once, somebody (plural; that excited him even more) wasn't freaked out by him. Somebody helped him today.

He went to bed that night thinking of Elle-Lively's careful brown eyes seeping right through him as she saw years of trauma building up on his surface with one look. He also thought about Eddie Kaspbrak's gentle body crouching down as he worked thoroughly on Stan's forehead. But his mind especially favored the way Elle's hand felt against his own as she passed over the bag of convenance store snacks into his bundled, cut-up fists.