adjectives | reddie

twenty&six - soft

my thumb pushed down on a pen to expose the ink covered tip, and i began writing into my notebook. ever since i was little, i had a notebook. the counselor my mother took me to when she thought i had schizophrenia told me to use it whenever. i barely knew any words, so i would just draw random pictures and scribbles, but as i grew older i would write in it more. i wrote when i was bored or when i was in serious need of venting. sometimes, it would be an essay about some random thing i learned; other times, it would be about my feelings. luckily, my mother never went searching for personal information. the counselor never brought up the fact that i had one.

i always wonder how my counselor is doing.

i always has extra precautions when writing in the notebook in case my mother did find it. whenever i talked about richie or bill in a crush kind of way throughout the years, i never used binary pronouns. the pronouns were always 'they' or 'them'. i gave no indication that beverly was beverly in fear that my mother would never let me speak to her again. bringing up any clue that i broke any kind of rule of my mother's was the most important rule. however, i still brought up my adjectives; it was probably because my mom thinking i was schizophrenic was better than my mom knowing i was gay or going against her rules.

as i spent more and more time with richie, the notebook made appearances in front of him. it wouldn't scare me if richie opened up the book to any of the most recent pages (except for the fact that i talk about the adjectives). i trusted him enough to write around him. whenever we were just relaxing in the comforting silence of my room, i would be using the nicest pen i could find to write about different topics. there was no reason to hide it from him anyways (besides the adjectives). even before he knew i liked him, i acted like a middle school girl and always used code names for everyone. the code names never made sense, however; they had no meaning. for example, beverly was 'mariposa', the spanish word for butterfly.

richie was 'xyz', simple enough.

after about five minutes of writing, my pen was stopped. richie's fingers has pinched the utensil and lifted it off the page. it caused me to look up at him with a quizzical face. "i'm bored," he complained, "and you're not helping."

"oh i am so sorry that i'm not entertaining you constantly," i shot back with a small glare. my fingers traced along richie's shoulder slowly, "why don't you read a book or something. you need to for the end of january report."

"our english teacher treats us like fucking middle schoolers," richie mumbled. his neck dropped the weight of his head as it rested on my shoulder. i put my head on top of his fondly.

"be nice," i smiled, "she's trying her best with the limited resources she has is that shitty school."

it was true. out of all of the departments, english was somehow below many others, except for any kind of music or foreign language. history was somehow more important than learning how to write or properly speak your first language. much of the money went to science classes such as chemistry and biology in order to get proper supplies for experiments. however, no one in our school has a passion for science.

richie's eyes looked away towards the window. the street was empty. the february winter was weaker than previous years. punxsutawney phil, the groundhog, predicted that it would be a long winter, but the sunshine coming through stronger than usual had a different story. richie's eyes came back to mine. "let's go out," he suggested with a smile, "back to diner."

"like a date?" i laughed lightly.

"whatever you want, eds," he shrugged.

"it's a date."

—

"rich!" i whispered aggressively, "stop dipping your finger into the sauce!"

richie licked off the barbecue sauce that was on his fingers. the chicken tenders that he was supposed to be eating sat in between us, halfway eaten. "no can do eddie spaghetti," he shook his head, "this shit's too good!"

"i need to eat it too, idiot!" i laughed, throwing a piece of chicken at him. his whole body jumped as he struggled to not let the piece fall to the floor. once he picked it up, he threw it right back at me, hitting me in the head. his smile grew more wide than before. he snorted through silent laughs.

giddy

"you're a loser," i shook my head with a smile. it started to laugh along harder and harder from his snorts. my hand slapped my thigh harshly, sending pain through it. i made a face of slight pain through laughs, making us begin to wheeze. once we started to settle down, we each took another chicken tender (i ignored the barbecue sauce) and bit into them in cinque. smiles were exchanged one final time before i looked out the window onto the street. the sun was setting, so the small amount of color in derry came through into the sky. it was as if a large filter was on top of the sky.

from the few times i had left the town, coming back formed a pit in my heart. it was as if everything began to decay around you. living in derry scared me. as richie and i walked out of the diner (after paying, of course), the colors of the sky seemed even more sad, like the shield was taken away. "richie," i whispered, "when we graduate, we're leaving this town."

"well, obviously, eds," he laughed, "where do you think we were gonna go, derry university?"

"no, 'chee," i shook my head, "forever."

he smiled fondly as his pinky wrapped around mine gently. the sound of snow crunching beneath our feet could be heard with no one around to see. i felt his lips land on my forehead softly for a moment; my heart seemed to beat faster than before as my jaw dropped slightly. a feeling of security surrounded me suddenly; no one was around to watch. even the restaurant employees were not in the dining area to witness the scene. when i looked up at him afterwards, he spoke up. "of course," he nodded, "i fucking hate it here."

soft

"let's go and live in california and watch small town america burn to the fucking ground," i leaned my head into his chest. once i lifted my head, we walked to the back of the restaurant which faced a fence and then unkempt trees. richie slid the the ground before i followed suit. my head rested on richie's shoulder sleepily, allowing all of the cold to fall away from me.

"california doesn't sound that bad," richie brought up the subject again, "except for all of the fucking expenses to just breathe."

i shrugged before letting out a long sigh, "you're a fucking smart ass, richie tozier."

"your smart ass," he remarked.

"you corny bitch."