coy ➳ Reddie

Eight

A/N I changed the description for the story because I have a slightly different idea for the plot.

Richie rode his bike away from Eddie's house after dropping him off. As he approached his gloomy house, he could already tell that nobody was home. All of the lights were off, and he couldn't hear the muffled talking or sound effects emanating from their old television. He thrust his bike carelessly into the already opened garage, and went inside. The door was unlocked.

The familiar stench of an assortment of different beers and booze immediately filled his nose when he walked inside. He was right, his parents weren't home. They hadn't bothered telling him where they were going before they left, and they hadn't bothered leaving dinner on the table for him to eat later. They were just gone, like usual. Richie knew that the next time they'd be home, they would be sitting on the couch with an entire bottle of some kind of liquor, and they would order him to do different chores, or make them a meal. When Richie wasn't being treated as a slave, he would go to his room and read. He'd always loved reading, but not many people knew that about him. 

Over the years, his parents became more and more neglectful, and Richie would just be in his bedroom most of the time. He didn't want to go downstairs, of course, so he'd just watch the clouds from his window or try to listen to what his parents were watching on TV. One day, when he was about 15 years old, he got so bored while just laying down on his floor, so he decided to pick out a novel that his grandmother had given him one year for Christmas. It was called The Big Book Of Ghost Stories, and after after a few days of reading it, he finished, and decided on getting some more novels. He gained a love for horror fiction, and by now he had an entire bookshelf practically overflowing with it, along with a stack of even more novels on top of it.

Richie walked into his room, which had loved books and worn clothes strewn negligently across the floor. He looked toward his bookshelf, and saw Stephen King's Carrie in the middle shelf, and his mind went to the time Christopher had ripped up Eddie's softcover copy of it. Richie had read that book about seven times, and it was one of his favorites. It was in good quality, despite the fact that he had written his name on the first page, and it was even a hardcover, and he decided that he would give it to Eddie, and make sure that nobody ripped it up this time.

He pulled Carrie out from between Misery and Pet Sematary, and stuffed it into his almost empty backpack that lay limply on his bed.

Richie was so stressed about what could be going on with Eddie at that moment. Eddie could be getting hurt by Sonia, or yelled at. He could have another panic attack because of her. Richie needed a cigarette.

He went to his nightstand, which had a few empty boxes of Winstons and Marlboro on it. He picked up a fresh box of Winstons, and a black lighter. He then sat on his bed, which had an open window right near it, and opened the box.

He didn't smoke as much as he used to. Usually he would have two, or maybe just one, cigarettes a day. But this day was different. Someone was hurting Eddie, one of his favorite people, and that was a different kind of stress than the kind he got when he goes home and remembers that his parents don't give a shit anymore. He was used to his parent's carelessness, but he wasn't used to seeing Eddie cry like that, or seeing him look like that. He put the end of one of the cigarettes in his mouth, and lifted the golden flame from the lighter up to it. He immediately felt some relief as he felt the nicotine start to go into his system and the smoke into his lungs, but he was still worried about Eddie, and his well-being. Richie blew some smoke out into the cool autumn air, tapped excess ash onto his windowsill, and let out a sigh.

  ♚  

Eddie was walking to school with both Mike and Stan the next day. 

"So, where were you yesterday, Eddie?" Stan asked.