𝙿𝚕𝚊𝚢 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚎 😈𝙿𝚊𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚌𝚔 𝙷𝚘𝚌𝚔𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛 😈

😈ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 13😈

She can hear the sound of flowing water, the Barrens, the river is very shallow and muddy. Her heart is pounding, she knows she's not alone, and she probably guess who the visitor is, but she pretends everything is ok. She takes the book out from her backpack, every time she looks at the cover she can't help but trembling, thinking about Bowers, many years later, Angie will still relate Tales of Terror by Edgar Allan Poe to Henry, Patrick, Derry and all the rest, the novel that probably more than others left a mark on her teenagehood.

"Words have no power to impress the mind, without the exquisite horror of their reality" she reads, the quote impresses her, she still hears someone walking behind the trees, and she breathes deeply, but this time it's not fear, more like adrenaline, inside her brain, deep down, she knows exactly that she wanted to meet him, even if she pretends it's just a coincidence, she went there exactly because she knew she would have met him.

"You really have something for the weirdest, lonely places, am I right?"

Angie puts her book down, her heart is racing now.

"I actually come here often to read" She lies.

None of them speaks as she hears Patrick coming closer to her, he sits down next to the girl, for a while, they stay silent, watching the water of the Barrens flowing. Angie feels her skin burning under his eyes, the way he looks at her without blinking makes her feel uncomfortable, generally, staring at people is a normal habit for him, with his gray-green eyes, and he doesn't seem to feel the need to blink like normal people. Eyes that pierce her soul.

His gaze moves to her book.

"It's for English literature" she explains. She closes the book to show him the cover, and he picks it up and observes it for an extremely long and uncomfortable period of time.

Just as Angie starts to think that maybe that wasn't a great idea, Patrick starts smirking.

"What?" The girl says.

He's looking at the chapter Angie was reading, he opened the book where she had left her bookmark. "Words have no power to impress the mind, without the exquisite horror of their reality"

"How can you even define reality?" He asks.

"It's when we... When we physically occupy a specific place, we are real because we exist here and now..." Angie mumbles, she doesn't even know why she started this conversation, she feels stupid.

"We're just names. You define someone by his name, but he's not really real until he becames part of your life"

"I had never thought about it" Angie starts thinking about his words, it may be a bit extreme, but he's telling the truth. Some weeks ago, Patrick Hockstetter was just a name, but as he slowly became part of her life, he started to be more real, he was not the tall weirdo who hangs out with Bowers anymore, she started to see the real Patrick Hockstetter, even if she was not sure he attracted or scared her.

"Do you think it's real?"

Patrick looks at her.

"Who?"

"Derry's maniac, all those kids missing..."

Patrick smirks "In any case, I don't care"

"Aren't you scared?"

Angie is surprised, for many nights, she had thought over and over about little Richie, and she knew very well her mother's pale and frightened expression when he came home even a minute later than usual, and Georgie, Bill's little brother, who went missing last year, he just disappeared, and every single day Angie could not stop thinking about Georgie at least once a day, little Georgie and his little yellow raincoat.

His green eyes are still on her, the sun slowly begins to disappear behind the hills, a light breeze is now blowing.

"No" he answers.

"What scares you, then?" she would like to ask him, but she can't, she already knows she doesn't have that audacity, and the question is too personal.
He interrupts her thoughts "I know why you're here, anyway. I saw you following me from the bridge, you are not very good as a chaser"

She blushes "I was not following you, I told you, I come here to read, sometimes"

"Yes, as you like" he holds a smirk, and turns to look into the horizon, they stay silent for a while, Angie knows it's probably late, she can already hears her mom's worried voice asking Richie why her sister is not at home yet. But she can't go home right now, she feels she has to stay there, Patrick's presence, for the first time, does not frighten her, she is more curious than uncomfortable, she's trying to understand, but her questions are too much, and her lack of audacity doesn't help her, what did he come to do at the Barrens, for example? And what did he mean when he talked about the fact that she had her favour to repay? Her hand plays with the grass, and she remembers Patrick's touch, while she was sharing her pen with him, his cold, long fingers on her hand. She's looking at his hands right now, and she notices some burns and cuts on then, and she finds herself looking at them with curiosity. Some burns looked old, a bit more purple, others, more recent, were more red, an interesting contrast with his pale skin. She finds them fascinating, and she must control herself not to touch them with her fingers, she states at his tiny little veins visible under his skin, while he's still reading her book.

"How is it?" Angie asks.

"Interesting overall" he raises his head. "But too vague"

The sun is slowly disappearing, it will be dark soon.

"I have to go, I think" She says. Her curiosity is taking over, but she's still a mature girl, she doesn't want her mum to be worried, she needs to go.

"Come back tomorrow, I'll show you something"

He stretches his fingers out, to touch her hand, and she feels the touch of his cold fingers on her skin one more time. Some hours later, in the middle of night, Angie thinks about that feeling again, in her bed with rose sheets, she could still feel his cold fingers touching her skin over and over.

Soon, meeting Patrick at the Barrena become a sort of habit, or rather, Angie didn't want to call it like that, she just pretended it was a coincidence, she walked a bit around the school, and then, she went to the Barrens, with the excuse that she wanted to read there, or that she was looking for her brother, except that she stayed there for hours, sometimes she didn't notice that it was very late, and he had to run back home to respect the curfew.

"You're a good girl, Angie" Her mum often repeated.

She felt guilty for not telling her mother the truth. . It wasn't a lie anyway, it was a part of her life that she preferred to keep private.

Was that wrong?

😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈

𝙰𝚞𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚛'𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚎

Hello, I would like to dedicate this chapter to my Wattpad friend Sany_writes_

Even if we're just Wattpad friends, I really enjoy chatting with you, we share many interests in common, it was a pleasure meeting you here! 😊