ghosts & skeletons

mysterious people on your doorstep.

[EDDIE]

october 12, 1991

"I'm back!" was all that richie said, showing up mysteriously on his doorstep, clothes soaking wet.

eddie was confused. see, he had woken up just to realize that richie had left him all alone already and that it was saturday, which meant chores. the house was already clean but that wasn't enough, nothing was ever enough for sonia kaspbrak, everything had to be spotless and those were the house rules.

"only four more years and then I'm free" eddie would remind himself, thinking that if he repeated them continuously, maybe someday they'll be true.

but they weren't going to be, and deep down, eddie knew it. there was absolutely no way. sure, he would graduate in four years but what will he do then? eddie had no idea what the future had in store for him but he had a feeling that it would involve him still living with his mother.

he really wanted to leave, he felt like he lived in a bubble. morning pills, school, lunch pills, more school, afternoon pills, chores, night pills and finally sleep. it was a monotonous routine and eddie wasn't sure why he hadn't died yet, he took way too many pills for it to be healthy. they didn't help at all, he didn't even know what they were for. he should be fine, just like other kids, playing, running, doing whatever it was except being cooped up in his house all day long. he was a teenager now but he didn't feel like it, his mother still treated him like if he was a delicate three-year-old. she would sometimes baby-talk to him and he loathed it, it proved that sonia didn't see him as the teen he was, but a baby.

the only place where eddie could escape from all of that was whenever he was with his friends. he really appreciated them all so much, they made him feel normal, not broken like his mother believed he was. the losers were absolutely everything to eddie but he didn't believe that he mattered to them as much.

the baby blue walls made him feel trapped, if it was up to eddie, he would paint them multiple colours, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, every colour of the rainbow he possibly could. his father's old record player would definitely stay, along with his entire elvis vinyl collection. he would keep his tie collection, he liked them a lot and he had no idea why. maybe it was the colours.

he decided that everything else could go, like his old textbooks and notebooks that his mother had saved and begun accumulating over the years. then, of course, the giant binder filled with pages and pages where eddie would practice his immaculate handwriting would definitely go to the trashcan, why would he want to keep something that reminded him of the idiotic things his mother made him do just to seem perfect?

he would keep his newer books, his favourites and just throw out all of the older ones. they used to have meaning, those were the ones eddie's father had read to him when he was just a baby. eddie couldn't remember it but his mother had told him that, before reading them to him. but it was different, like she had tainted them. her foul existence penetrated through the sunny memories, making everything bitter and start to decay. eddie just wanted to stay away from her, she only destroyed things and she could never fix anything, not even herself.

it was at this point when eddie had been disrupted from his room decorating ideas and destructive thoughts by a few sharp knocks on the front door that he recognized immediately. it took him a few moments to recollect himself after that incredibly exhausting thought process but he rushed downstairs and opened the door to see richie just standing there.

he was probably going to catch hypothermia, his clothes were wet and it was getting cold outside. the nice summer days had ended and autumn had officially begun. warm brown leaves fell off tree branches and on to richie's head while eddie was busy staring and trying to figure out what had happened.

"I'm back!" was all richie said and eddie rolled his eyes in fake annoyance. he was glad that he was back since hadn't had the chance to say goodbye to richie in the morning,

"I can tell. now get inside quickly before you catch something, you idiot, walking around the streets all wet with how cold it is outside, I swear you will be the death of me, you probably don't even know what illnesses you can catch right now"

eddie led him upstairs and searched for clothes that richie could wear which was surprisigly hard. richie had grown a lot recently and was way taller than eddie (a tragedy really, it made him add 'height' to the list of things he could tease eddie for) which meant none of his clothes would fit.

richie sat patiently on eddie's bed while he waited and took his shirt and pants off to leave them to dry. he began tapping his foot and humming a metallica song because richie tozier is absolutely unable to stay still for more than ten seconds.

"hey, wait, why are you wet in the first place?" eddie asked him while he dug deeper into his clothes pile.

"stanley was being an absolute bitch a few days ago so I kind of lined my bedroom with salt. when I got out of it this afternoon, he decided to put a bucket of water over the doorway. you can see how that turned out"

eddie turned around, having finally found some sweatpants that were too big on him. he quickly had to look away, face flushed, as richie was sitting on his bed in nothing but his star wars boxers. he threw him at richie without looking and heard a yell in response.

when it had been long enough, eddie turned around to see richie lying down on his bed, buried into a sweater, nearly asleep. he shrugged and lay down next to him, forgetting about everything he had thought that day. richie had that effect on him, he made eddie happy.

hey, it's alex the author here and i have three things to say:

1. I am going on a little hiatus (for only a month but depending on how school goes it might be more although I don't think I can go over a month without posting)

2. when I finish this book I'll rewrite it because it's been nearly half a year and I don't really like the first chapters.

3. what do you want to happen to eddie, what would make his life more interesting? i dug myself into a hole making every other chapter for the other character so I have too many ideas for richie and none for eddie so help me out please—