Lover | Richie Tozier

Chapter 75.

Authors note: Hi everybody. I usually don't impose in the beginning of chapters, but this one is really important to me. This is the one scene that I conjured up in my mind many months ago upon hearing a certain song that ended up spiraling into the whole story. This chapter inspired the plot, the title, and the entire aesthetic of the book. It's why I wrote it, essentially. This is what everything has been leading up to. I hope you enjoy. :)
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"Come on," Elle bit through her bottom lip, hardly able to contain the excitement that fixated around Richie's hand in an iron grip. "You're so slow."

Dandelions sprouted from the soil beneath the pair, carrying themselves in ivory waves that hugged around the cuffs of Richie's jeans with kisses of silver. Looking down on them, the bottoms of his shoes got lost amidst the earth that the soles were intimately digging into.

A small smile tucked into his cheek, looking up at the fabric of Elle's dress forming a pair of angel wings behind her.

The satin material flew into the air as clouds swim into the atmosphere: effortlessly drifting below the defiant sky yet somehow touching it all at once.

Richie quickly glanced down at his own clothing, comparing her flowing textile to his jeans and button-up. "You know, if you had told me we were going on a date before you crept around my house and practically violated the place, I would've made sure to fit the occasion."

She smiled elusively to herself. Despite feeling out of place in contrast to her fairy-like persona, he still couldn't help but stare wistfully at the girl. He shouldn't be the one feeling out of place. She was the one striding through tall grass in a white dress like she had freshly escaped the pages of a fairytale book. Lilac gems crowned around her eyes, a magic potion stirring inside of this beautiful sprite.

He only admired, unable to question why she was venturing into the fields looking so glorious.

Elle continued ambling through the silence while simultaneously keeping a grin held to her face. "We're almost there," she assured, never letting their hands become undone.

As she continued to pull him along, the scenery loading into view began looking more and more familiar. Somewhere he hadn't been since before Winter kissed the clouds. For a moment, a meditative buzz carries by Richie's ear as a bumblebee hovers gracefully into their familiar golden hexagons. He doesn't flinch, doesn't curl away, doesn't even fear being stung, he only admires as it leaves behind a trail of freedom. Another choir of hums is orchestrated as more striped friends follow the lead.

Beautiful is an understatement to describe the world around them, but Elle. The way she looked as she cradled a picnic basket in one hand and his palm in the other. She twinkled like a thousand diamonds drinking in the setting sun. Perfectly polished and cut to perfection, she was a gem worth more than a thousand lifetimes. An enchanted amulet that he will forever wear around his heart.

Richie made the connection, and suddenly, everything moved in slow motion again.

[Richie didn't even have the time to bite back with a remark. Everything moved in slow motion again. Pollen from the flora around them whisked away into the beams of the 5:00 sun and he could see every small particle make their journey. Somewhere in the mix were a few bees and maybe even a dragonfly, but they didn't bother them and only became one with the harmonious nature. Everything was captured in frames -- like the ones they use in the cinema that Richie had learned to love so much. He didn't need the Aladdin to feel love anymore.]

"The meadow," he exhaled carefully. "You brought me to the meadow."

She glanced over at him, running her eyes over how carried away he seemed. In his eyes were the stories written over 8 months -- everything that's ever happened between the first time they were there to now. Poems, scriptures, verses, all in the calligraphy behind his irises. Elle might've been an author, but he was her finest love story.