Kicked Out || Reddie

It's Important

- Warning: self harm -

Richies POV
For about a week, my dads been completely ignoring me and, even though I thought we made up, my mom seems to not enjoy my presence in the house very much. Although I could be making the part about my mom up, I can feel my dads annoyance through the walls that separate our bedrooms. The tension in our house is so thick you could cut it with a knife.
I hear something shatter downstairs, and it brings me back to reality. My dad probably just got home.
"Why can't we just get rid of him? Neither of us want him here!" My dad says, to who I'm assuming is my mom. I'm expecting my mom to come to my defense, since she even told me she still loves me.
"You know why." Is all my mom responds with. What? You know why? Not, "because he's our son," not, "because I love him," not anything even remotely close to coming to my defense? Just, "you know why?" Maybe I'm overthinking this. Maybe the "you know why" was finished with a "because I love him" in my moms head. Not impossible. But I don't know. Suddenly I feel tears rushing to my eyes. Oooh no. No, no, no. You are not about to start crying AGAIN.

Breathe. Just breathe.

But I can't help it. The tears start dripping down my cheeks. I've had a hard couple of weeks. I got kicked out for telling my parents who I was, I bothered my favorite person in the world and probably weirded him out and he now probably thinks I'm a crazy person. And now I'm allowed back at home, ignored and hated, maybe even by both of my parents. Before I even know what I'm doing, my hands are going through the bag I brought to Eddies house from when I stayed there for a little bit when I was first kicked out. When I finally find the blade, I place it on my wrist. I take a deep breath and I drag it across. Blood drips down my wrist.

I drop the blade as I realize what I've done. Shoot. I run to the bathroom down the hall and grab a hand towel. I hold it there. I go back to my room, grab the blade and put it on my dresser. Not like anyone will come into my room and tell my to get rid of it. I doubt anyone will even notice it's there. I wipe my tears and sit down on my bed, still holding the towel to my wrist.

- A couple hours later -

I didn't cut deep, so there wasn't much to clean up. I've just been staring at the blade. It hasn't moved since I dropped it on my dresser a couple hours ago. I want to throw it out. I want to banish it deep into a trash where it can never to be seen again, say I stopped cutting and say I was the one strong enough to throw it out. But no. It's just been sitting on my dresser. I don't know, I can't throw it out. I. Can't. Suddenly, I can't stand being in my house anymore. The sight of my bedroom makes me wanna throw a knife at someone and the sight of anything in the prison that is my house makes me wanna burn down a building. I burst out of my room, not bothering to hide the bloody towel or move the blade. I run down the street and go to the woods. Hopefully I can get some peace and quiet there, maybe clear my head.

Eddies POV

I'm eating dinner with my mom when I get a text from Bev. We need to talk now.

About what?, I respond.

She responds with one word. Richie.

Right now?

Yeah, can you come over?, she sends back almost immediately.

Now?

Yes, please? It's really important.

"Hey, uh, mom?" I tap my fingers against the table. Hopefully she says yes. Even through her texts, Bev sounded worried about something.
"What Eddie?"
"Can I go over to my friends house? It's really important." My mom sighs. "Right now." I add.
"Eddie, we're having dinner right now. Tell your friend you can tomorrow."
"Mom, it's really important that I go over tonight." She ignores me and keeps eating her dinner. "Please."
She sighs, again. She looks at my pleasing face. "Fine, but only because I'm in a good mood."
I practically jump out of my seat. "Thank you so much Mom! I love you! Bye!"
"Be safe!" She calls out from behind me. I burst out the front door and run all the way to Bevs house. I don't want to keep her waiting, especially because she seemed nervous and stressed over text.
I knock on her door and she opens it immediately. "What's wrong?" She doesn't look great. She looks tired, worried, stressed, and a little... scared?
"I went to Richies house earlier because I wanted to talk to him about something that happened-"
"What happened?" I interrupt her.
She frowns. "Uh... nothing. Nothing really. I just thought we needed to chat. Anyway, his mom sent me up to his room and told me he was there."
"What else happened?" What I really want to ask is: "what happened between you and Richie?"
"He wasn't there but... I saw some worrying stuff and I didn't want to bring you into this but you're closer to him then Bill or Stan so I figured it was smartest to bother you and this REALLY isn't the type of conversation you should text or call about so yeah." I wait for her to finish rambling.
"Don't worry about it. If somethings going on with Richie and you need help, it's fine that you texted me."
"Okay, thanks." She takes a deep breath. "So when I walked into his room, I saw a really bloody blade on the middle of his dresser, and right next to it was a towel with blood all over it. And, you may think this is a giant leap of logic just from seeing some blood on a towel, but I know Richies been self harming."
"I know." I say, ashamed that I knew and didn't even try and put a stop to it. "I know."
Bev looks at me. "What? How?"
"I've seen him do it before. I don't know, I was hoping he'd just... stopped." Wow, I'm a bad friend. "Bad plan, now that I hear it out loud."
"Eddie, we need to help him. This is serious."
"I know, I know, you're right. Should we try talking to him?" I don't know why this wasn't top of mind for me. I was well aware Rich self harmed but still didn't do anything about it.

Wow. I'm a terrible friend.

Hey everyone! I would like everyone reading this to know I was nervous about posting this chapter (just like I was nervous posting the last chapter I had Richie self harm in). I'm not entirely sure what depression and self harm are like so there's really no way for me to portray it completely correctly, so please, PLEASE, tell me if I've portrayed it in a really bad way or in an offensive way so I can fix it, because an offensive portrayal of something is the last thing I want.
Also, I would like to report that the word count of this chapter (excluding what I'm writing right now) went over 1,000 words. That may not sound like a lot, but I haven't been able to get a single chapter that long in a looong time.
Anyways, thanks for reading💕