Lover | Richie Tozier

Chapter 13.

Monday rolled around quickly, as if the weekend was some sort of fever-dream that faded out the second you woke up from your slumber. You'd try your hardest to bask in it, remembering what you could, but were quickly pushed back into the real world against your own will and made to forget about whatever happened in the hazy slideshow of your mind.

Richie stretched his lanky figure, wincing as he pressed on a fresh bruise — the one that Henry Bowers gave to him that past Friday — and slid his glasses onto his tired eyes. He proceeded into the kitchen and checked the fridge again as if an outside source would magically come and drop food off while he was sleeping. To his lack of surprise, it was still as empty as it had been the night before. "One more day, just get through one more day," he muttered lethargically to himself, slowly feeling whatever energy that had been given to him by sleep run low with a shrug of his shoulders.

Warm air crawled up Richie's papery spine and kissed his neck as the August breeze brushed against him while he peddled quickly into the school zone. Waiting by the bike rack, like always, were Stan and Bill. Stan narrowed his line of vision and used his pale hand as a visor from the sun, watching the boy whisk into view.

"How's your head feeling, Stan the Man?" Richie asked, sliding the front wheel of his Schwinn into a free slot between the metal.

"Got excused from P.E., so for that," Stan bowed over, "I thank you, Sir. I hate that class with my whole fucking soul. Do I look like a runner? Because I'm not."

Richies laugh seemed to part seas and open the clouds above seeing as how his attitude had slightly rubbed off on his stoic friend. If I can't be like you, maybe you can at least be like me.

"Heh-Here," Bill wrapped his hand around the base of a blueberry muffin, waving it in front of Richie's face and capturing his attention with the smell of freshly toasted sugar. "You need to e-eat suh-something."

He did. He's surprised that bike ride didn't knock him the hell out. He took it gratefully, sinking his teeth into the sweet pastry without doing any more of his signature mouthing. Stan watched as the boy was eager to consume as many calories as he could and raised a feathered eyebrow. "Tell those parents of yours to get some groceries in the house."

I would, Richie thought painfully, if they would come the fuck home.

He turned his feelings numb again and only agreed so that Stan wouldn't grow suspicious of any objection. "Yeah, I know. But hey, I've gotta get to... fuck," Richie froze in the center of the walkway, the heel of his shoe denting the ground and disrupting the balance of the universe.

Bill's heart seemed to stutter now, too, tripping over each beat with fear. He leveraged himself up using his tip-toes, trying to get a look at whatever caused the boy in front of him to halt so suddenly. "What is ih-it? Wuh-What do you see?"

"I just remembered I can't go in with you guys today. I need to make a trip to the runner's track and drop something off."

This was entirely true. Richie meant it when he said he wasn't dumb. Even the teachers had known this. The Phys. Ed teacher, in particular, even went as far as occasionally giving his students' mile-run times to Richie so he could calculate data. He'd always thought that this was the blandest thing he'd ever been given and found that the answers came with effortless ease. Easy for Richie, at least, but he knew well enough that it bought him a good 35 minutes out of history, so he obliged.

Bills constricting chest let up in weightless relief. "Fff-Fuck. Thank God. I thought you saw Buh-B-"

"Bowers?" Richie finished, carelessness exposed in his voice. "Yeah, fuck Bowers. Don't be scared of him, Big Bill," his flat palm met with the stutterers shoulder. "It only gives him the power he craves."