Eddie stood in front of the large wooden red door that protected his house as he fiddled in his fannypack for his house key.
It was Thursday and Eddie still hadn't asked his overbearing mother about the sleepover at Bill's, thinking hard about different excuses.
Finally Eddie's fingers met with the gold bronze of the key and he grabbed it, sticking it through the key hole and turning, immediately being met with cold air as he stepped inside his house.
"Is that you, Eddie-Bear?" His mother called from her recliner.
"Yeah, Ma!" Eddie called back, heading upstairs toward his room but stopped and turned towards his mother.
"Hey, Ma?" He started.
"Mm." Her eyes darted toward him.
"Is it alright if I have a sleepover with Bill this weekend, we have this project at school we need to work on, and-" He was cut off from his excuse as his mother spoke,
"Yes, that's fine. As long as that slut Beverly Marsh or that faggot Richard Tozier isn't going to be there. Are they, Eddie?" Eddie flinched as she called his two friends the horrible slurs. He hated how his mother thought of them that way, Beverly wasn't a slut and Richie wasn't gay. But Eddie of course had no courage to stand up to his mother.
"No, they won't Ma." He reassured her instead, and that seemed to satisfy her as she waved her hand for him to head to his room.
Heading up to his room and opening the door, he dropped his backpack and sat down on his bed, excited about the upcoming sleepover he would have with his friends. Especially Richie.
Richie.
Why did Eddie feel so strong towards his best friend? Eddie had always wondered, including now as he reached down into his backpack to grab his maths homework he needed to finish.
Sure, everyone was fond of their best friend, who wouldn't be? But Eddie's fondness of Richie was different. Whenever Richie would smile at Eddie after making a stupid joke Eddie's heart would flutter and he would feel his heart rate start to increase. Whenever Richie would call him 'Ed's' or 'Eddie Spaghetti' he would have to push down a smile and he would have to hide his blushing face. Whenever Richie was hurt or sad, Eddie would go into complete panic mode, doing everything he could to make sure he could cheer Richie up, hating seeing Richie out of his usual annoying hyperness.
Even thinking of Richie now made his fingers tingle and his heart skip a beat.
Could he possibly be in love with the disaster named Richie Toizer?
No! He immediately pushed that thought away. I'm not gay! Stop it, Eddie. Stop it.
But no matter how hard he would try, he couldn't push the butterflies in his stomach away that would hatch out of their cocoons whenever Richie found his way into Eddie's mind.
He couldn't stabilize his heart beat, he couldn't stop the blushing, he couldn't stop this feeling.
"I-I'm gay..." Eddie put aside his math homework as the words suddenly floated from his mouth with such ease Eddie felt like crying.
And he did. He cried.
He thought of how the other Losers' would feel if they found out about Eddie, or how people at school and Derry would react, or even worse. His mother.
That was one person Eddie definitely couldn't come out to. She'd put him through some sort of conversion therapy type of thing and tell him he was sick, and he would believe it. He believed anything his mother told him. She was good at manipulating.
She had done it all Eddie's life, especially after his Father's death, who had died from Cancer when Eddie was five. Eddie didn't remember much about his father even though he wanted to.
After his death, Sonia had taken down anything that could resemble him, and that made Eddie even more angry at her. He didn't even know what his father looked like.
Sonia said it was for Eddie's own good, and that she was just trying to protect Eddie.
Protect him from what?
"Eddie-Bear," His mother suddenly broke into his thoughts and he wiped away his tears quickly as she barged into his room.
"Remember to take your pills." She told him.
They're gazebos! They're bullshit!
Placebo means bullshit.
The old words from the summer of 1989 rang in his head.
Last time he had refused to take his pills, his mother had locked him in his room and refused to feed him until he would take them.
Eddie had taken his pills ever since then, not wanting such a thing to happen to him again.
"Okay Mommy." He agreed, grabbing the pill bottle out of his fannypack and dumping two of the small red and white capsules into his hand.
"Good boy." She said and exited his room.
Placebo means bullshit. Greta's words kept ranging through his head.
They're gazebos! They're bullshit! Eddie remembered smashing the pills onto the floor and the horrifying look Eddie's mom had given him.
With the two small pills in his hand, Eddie walked over to his window and opened it.
He dropped the two pills into the bushes below.
{A/N: Ik this chapter sucked, but I really didn't know what else to write and I didn't want it to get too short 😭}
