cliché || reddie ✔️

twenty eight

The weekend officially comes to rescue everyone in Derry from the first week back to school. It was already hard enough with having to fall back into step with schoolwork, but the fact that Stanley and Bill and Eddie have distant themselves made everything much, much harder.

Richie wasted his Saturday morning trying to figure out the mystery as to why Eddie and Bill disappeared sometimes the week before. He tracked back to the conversation Stanley hid from him, he tracked back to Bill's party, he also went all the way and replayed everything from New Years. Hours later he came back from the depths of his head with nothing.

Now, as he shoves his gloved hands farther into his pockets as he balances on the cold rails of the train tracks, he can't help but to think of.. nothing, really. His head has been so filled these past few days, it feels like his brain has shut off momentarily.

He left Beverly's house a little earlier than he usually does and went home, not like he could even stay there for much long either. Without either parents home, the hallways looked more devoid of life than ever. The walls closed in on Richie, screaming silent reminders that no matter how hard he tries, it will never work. He'll forever be in a one-person family.

He went to the train tracks instead. Perhaps there he can find what Beverly was talking about, a reason to stay. He's not sure how long he's been walking, but he surely passed Beverly's neighborhood forever ago.

Looking over his shoulder, the footprints pressed in snow that drift on and off the rails stretch out a long ways behind him, tracking a path of a lonely soul. Up ahead there's a local train yard. He doesn't remember the last time that place has been used. Maybe conductors go there when trains make a pit stop, who knows.

Since he's so close he might as well visit there, give him something to explore. As he gets closer, the dirt-speckled snow starts to ease out into thin piles until the only thing Richie sinks his shoes into is damp dirt and dead, yellowing grass.

A chain-linked fence surrounds the train yard, yet there's holes where homeless, drunks, and animals pulled at. Richie slowly eases himself down a sloped hill, having to bend and ghost a hand over the grass so he doesn't slip and fall.

He ducks down under one of the bigger holes in the fence and comes out the other side unscathed. He glides his eyes over the scenery, taking the whole place in. Now he understands why regular people avoid here, broken glass, no green growing in sight besides a few sunflowers tangled in with the fence, abandoned cars and other junk people couldn't care for anymore.

Richie hums to himself and returns his hands to his pockets, taking a step farther into the train yard until his feet are carrying him around a pile of dirt and large rocks that barely passes above his head. There can't be much to explore, he figures, but it's a change of things to look at other than rusted rails and dead trees.

Across the way, a car catches Richie's eyes. Yet, it isn't the car itself that makes his heart skip a beat, but instead what looks like a figure sitting in the passenger seat.

A dead body? He thinks. Homeless person? God, if I get jumped by a fucking hobo...

His feet have stopped hard in their tracks, the fear of being seen looms over his thoughts. Richie hasn't been in many fights, he doesn't know the first step to fighting besides defend yourself and hurt the other person. Maybe he can act insane, batshit crazy, and it'll scare the homeless off.

Or walking away could work too.

As he slowly puts one foot behind the other, his eyes catch on a backpack slumped on the ground by one of the front tries. Richie stares at it, then lifts his eyes to the figure in the front seat. Something tells him he's seen that backpack before, the deep navy blue that almost looks black striking his memory.