Arrietty Mulligan is going through life and has been having fun doing it.
Richie Tozier has grown up, the way everyone does, and he's been staring at his girlfriend along with it.
The Losers Club never really changed, until they did. Life does this...
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Have you ever been tired of waiting, I mean so tired of waiting that you took matters into your own hands with an extravagant plan? Yeah, well, that's what I did, minus the plan bit. You see, we had gotten back into town a few days ago, everything was fine and we were hanging with our Losers again. All except one Edward Kaspbrak.
So that's what I'm doing at this current time I was driving around Derry with my heart racing and my heat on blast. It was cold as shit but I was boiling hot right now.
I rounded a corner and spotted a familiar figure on the side of our diner, on familiar crates with a small, familiar carton in his hands. I parked a little says down the road and got out, locking my car and taking off in a sprint. He didn't even see me, but he felt me tackle him onto the hard concrete with a 'thud' am a couple of fresh scrapes.
"Where the hell have you been?" I snarled in his face as I straddled his hips and held down his shoulders to the cold, damp ground.
"Around, why,miss me?" He said smirking. Okay, I know that he's been acting differently, but this is way out of character for him.
"Yeah, of course I did ya big cutie." Maybe it wasn't the best time to joke around with Eddie because he then tried to grab my shoulder to push me off. I, instead, pushed his arm back down and placed me knee on his wrist. That's probably dangerous.
"Edward Kaspbrak—you're gonna tell me why you've been avoiding the rest of us!" I screamed at him, why was no one stopping this?
"No, Arri, get off." He said sternly and tried to squirm but I pushed all of my weight onto him until I was practically crushing his lungs. My hands and ears were so cold that they glowed red and burned.
"No, Eds, we've all been going through our things and getting older, but we still stayed the Losers Club. You're not backing out of this now." He groaned and finally pushed me so that his foot pressed against my stomach and pushed me to the ground.
"It's just a thing, alright? It'll be over." He said snatching the box of cigarettes from the ground near my feet. I furrowed my brows and stood up to hold my injured tailbone and grabbed his arm to turn him towards me.
"But I still want you to talk to me, what's going on in that big idiotic head of yours?" I said a lot softer and stalked towards him. My movements were filled with sorrow and I frowned, kicking a rock, and I even thought I was gonna cry.
He gave me a hug; a tight, reassuring, comforting one that fuzzed my thoughts. I breathed in his scent as I stuffed my face in his shirt. He smelt of disinfectant and rubbing alcohol. Eddie never used scented laundry detergent because it messed up his sinuses.
The one thing that I noticed about all of this was that he didn't smell of smoke. When Richie came back from smoking he would smell of a burnt house and cologne. Maybe Eddie wasn't completely gone, he's in there somewhere.
That's what I did for the past couple of days—three to be exact— I thought of Eddie Kaspbrak. That was something I dealt with for awhile. Here's what happened on the second night. Richie and I were at the part late at night. I laid my head in his lap as he leaned against the a large tree.
The night was cold and I could see my breath as I waved my hand in front of my face against the starry background of the night. Richie looked down at me with admiration as the other freckle-faced boy in my life flashed through my head. He chuckled at my spacious mind and attitude and then swiftly grabbed my hand. He pressed the back of my hand to his lips and kissed it. What I'm the hell are a couple of seventeen year old kids doing at a park at dark? I wouldn't know, and I'm one of the kids.
He inhaled and exhaled greatly, I could see his breath, warm and calm. I laughed at his face, not like it humored me, more like I admired it so much that even looking at him began getting me love drunk.
The way his breath floated about with the clashing temperatures made me think of Eddie with those cigarettes. Would he ever really smoke them? I mean, he's the most health cautious person I've ever met.
When Richie first told me he started talking I knew that it was just something he would do. I was concerned, in fact I told him, 'Don't get too carried away, I want you here when I graduate.' Then another time when we were arguing I threw him his cigarettes and yelled, 'get out and smoke up cause that's what you like to do more than hang out with me!' I didn't really mean it, but it made sense as to why I said it in the first place.
That was around the time when Richie would smoke almost everyday after school with Bev, and he'd smoke a few before going to bed or while we were hanging out like some addict. Maybe I was wrong? Anyways, when I yelled at him his face broke down and he instantly picked me up and laid me down on the bed. I was confused but didn't think much of it.
He then rummaged around my floor amongst the other things we'd thrown towards each other and picked up his cigarette box. He stuck them in his nightstand drawer on his side of my bed. This kind of felt more like our bed than my bed.
We laid down the rest of that night, at first I was quiet but after Richie gently grabbing my face and turning it to his whilst muttering, 'talk to me, precious,' I just had to talk.
I shook my head at the memory and watched him. My eyes watered a bit from the cold and my ears were numb. Richie looked down at me with a toothy, lop-sided grin and chuckled.
"What'cha thinking about?" He asked softly. I leaned up and kissed him gingerly before curling up on his lap. I stuffed my face in his neck and inhaled deeply. He smelled of men's body wash and cologne.
"You..."
And Eddie, but let me make out with my boyfriend in peace.
