mixtape (reddie)

Chapter 30

"What are you going to do?" Bev asks, her voice gentle and cautious.

Richie resembles a wounded animal. Prey tend to have a two track thought process when they're wounded; fight or flight. Richie might as well be an injured gazelle facing this question; what is he going to do?

Fight or flight?

"Enough about me, what about you?" Richie asks her, his hands shaking as he lights his fourth cigarette. "Has she called him yet?"

"No. He doesn't know," Bev shakes her head, strands of her honeysilk hair curling around her spotted cheeks. Freckles have a new meaning to Richie now that he's learned to love them. Though, the stars patterned on Bev's cheeks aren't nearly as beautiful as the constellations etched into Eddie's skin. "If he does, he's hiding it."

Richie bites the inside of his cheek and then takes a long drag of his cigarette. The two sit under the streetlight, their bikes collapsed on the sidewalk behind them, their favorite gas station taunting them from across the street. The note from Richie's mother lays on the wet asphalt in front of them, the snow melting through the paper and making the inked words bleed with truth.

Bev had called Richie's house and asked him to meet her there. They haven't been to the laundromat in weeks, not since Richie went and made things weird between them. But she needed to see him, they needed to talk. The note that Ben gave her this morning has been haunting her all day. She needs to share these ghosts with the only other person threatened by the danger she's being put in.

"He'll ground me," Bev says quietly. "I'll be home all the time."

"I'm sorry," Richie says. He shakes his head, his fist crumbling the cigarette. "I'm so fucking sorry. This is all my fault."

"Are you seriously trying to blame yourself for having shitty parents?" She scoffs, then asks "What, is it my fault too that my dad is such a creep? Should I cover myself up more?"

Richie winces and looks away, shaking his head. "No, that's not your fault. This is mine. They don't- They- I don't know, Bev. Maybe if I was normal, they would understand me better. I think... I think that's what the issue is. They just don't understand me, so they don't even try to," he mumbles in a low, tired voice.

When Bev and Rich first became friends, he had a shrill, piercing tone, a mouth that would not stop running, and a brain that couldn't keep up. She called him "Roadrunner" for the first half of their friendship, and that's where beep beep had stemmed from. Now, she can't remember the last time she had to use it more than once a month. Richie sure has changed throughout the course of a year, he's now weighed down by the neglect and constant shunning from everyone. Not just his parents, but the teachers in Derry who will ignore his questions during lectures because they've cast him as the class clown and assume everything he's got to say is just one big joke.

Bev reaches over to hold Richie's hand, tightly squeezing the fingers that were once so familiar to her. They're different now, they've touched so many people since the last time she held them. His fingertips have redesigned the prints to be an entirely new person, but she won't give up. Her Richie is in there somewhere, she knows it. If she has to learn the ups and downs of this new Richie as well, she will. She'll do anything it takes.

"I'm sorry," Bev says, followed by "I don't think I do, either. And don't give me that bullshit, Richie. I mean it. I don't think I understand you either."

"But you try," he tightens his grip on her hand like he's lost sight of the one person in his life to truly give a shit. "You try over and over again. I'm thankful."

"I'm not the only one," she shakes her head. "The others want to try as well. You're not alone, Richie. Not anymore."

"The others?" Richie lifts his head up to look at her. The light illuminates his face for a moment, showing her his cherry red nose freezing over in the winter cold. "Eddie?"