Lover | Richie Tozier

Chapter 21.

I care about you.
I care about you.
I care about you.
I care about you.

Richie repeated the four intoxicating words back to himself over and over like a broken record, a repeated cycle of echoes flowing in his head and rippling through his mind. The more that the words would resonate with him, the more support he lacked from his body. His heart could've buckled in on itself if it wasn't his last chance at survival.

"L-Look," Bill gestured to the boy beside him, obviously trying to emphasize his inattentive presence. "Rih-Richie is thinking!"

Stan squinted, shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun. He did as he was told and turned towards Richie, whose expression was so vague but so involved all at once. "That's a first," he suavely joked.

Richie looked up from the concrete sidewalk. The lenses of his glasses flinched with sunshine and threw a glare that nearly blinded him. "What?" He blinked plainly. He sounded so confused that it put a sly grin on Bills lips.

Stan threw his head backwards and let out a small, polished laugh. "Nevermind, Bill. He wasn't thinking, clearly."

"No really," Richie began speed-walking to catch up with the two. They'd gotten so far ahead of him as he was in his trance that he wondered how unimportant he had to be for them to just keep going. "What were you guys talking about?"

"Y-You looked like you were d-deep in thought," Bill clarified through a gentle murmur. His body language caved in on itself, pinched guilt flooding into his chest. "Wh-We were making a joke. S-Sorry," he apologized softly.

Richie almost mistook his quiet voice for dandelions carrying themselves through the breeze — airy, gentle, drifting away. Had they actually been dandelions, he'd wish on every single one that he could relive the moment in the locker room just to hear that sentence again.

He only shook his head, "Don't be sorry, Stutter. I know you didn't mean it."

The answer caught Stan and Bill by surprise, bringing their eyes together so they could exchange staggered looks. Usually, joking about how dumb Richie looked or how dense his thick skull was resulted in him laughing, but not with them. More like for them. He'd laugh the kind of laugh that you use to fill in an awkward space; the kind that Elle had yet to do with him.

Richie's hand gripped the rubber handles of his black Schwinn as he walked it next to him. This was a typical routine of theirs: walking home each day after school even though the three of them all had perfectly good bikes. However, they'd all made the mutual decision that after 8 hours of school it was just too much work. The muscles in their legs would ache just by thinking about how much pressure they would have to apply to whisk themselves uphill. Especially because Richie had been living off of saltines and random items from Bills lunchbox for a straight week now, he just didn't have the energy to ride both there and back.

"I was thinking, actually," he clarified matter-of-factly. He threw his curls to the side with a flip of his head as if it would make him more reliable.

"Yeah? About what?" Stan asked, picking at the edges of a sticker that he had applied on his bike long ago.

Richie stopped moving. The tread of his tires and his weary legs halted all together in synchronization against the concrete. "Remember that girl from the convenience store the other day?" He questioned.

Stan and Bill nodded.

"She's... uh," he trailed the sentence away from himself with caution. "She's pretty cool, actually. I think you guys would really like her," Richie finally informed.