INSTANT REPLAY | REDDIE

- 13 | INSTANT REPLAY

♥

Two weeks went by with nothing to show for it. Eddie was allowed to keep his phone, but it was monitored closely, so he made sure to keep the more personal conversations on hold. He mostly used SnapChat, hoping that the doctors weren't smart enough to trace back the photos to read his conversations, even though they were brief.

Richie was even more of a mess than Eddie thought. Every day he got worse. Every day there would be a new picture or video on his story of him drinking with a group of friends, or smoking, whether it was weed or normal cigarettes. Every day he got paler, every week he got skinnier, and by the time a month had rolled around, Richie looked even worse than Eddie.

Eddie had been looking better, however. He was still a bit skinny and small for his age, but that was nothing new or surprising. The monthlong standstill where his dreams were calm had certainly helped in refreshing him and returning some of the color to his face. He tried to send Richie happy messages, with the cute filters, but the boy either didn't respond or spiraled downwards into a ditch where all he could do was tell Eddie that he was so much prettier in real life and say how much he missed him. The comments made Eddie happy, but he was afraid to admit it. To himself, more than anything. When Richie went off on these rants, Eddie usually just listened without saying anything.

I love you.

Richie's words back in the RTI room had been bouncing around a lot in Eddie's Head lately, though it had been almost two months ago. He had convinced himself that the follow up comments of, 'You're my best friend' and 'We all love you' meant that he had been suggesting something very different from what Eddie had (hoped?) believed it to be at first. The mixed signals were almost as confusing as the feelings were terrifying. Whenever Richie wasn't there, Eddie wanted nothing more than to know the feeling of his friend's lips against his own. However, when Richie was there, all Eddie's mind would do was to scream at him how wrong and absolutely unforgivable his feelings and actions were.

He was both longing for and dreading the day that he was able to go home. Over his elongating visit he had only gotten a few more hangouts with his friends, who were increasingly busy, but he was still only allowed to see Bill and Stan in person. He had slowly begun to forgive his mother for her harsh words towards Richie, and all he could do was hope that she had forgotten all about seeing him milliseconds away from kissing his closest friend. She came to visit quite often, and she brought him a few meals from his favorite Chinese food place on occasion, which was better than the hospital food by far.

Eddie had begun to give up hope on ever having another bad dream. Everything had been quiet in Derry. In the waking world, Eddie had even been able to take the bandages off of his healed knuckles. Everything had been calm since the Smoke-Hole.

Then in his dreams, Mr. Keene gave him some horrifying news.

'Placebos,' Eddie thought, shaking his head in disbelief. 'My medications are placebos.' That was all he could think as he exited the Costello Avenue Market with a Pepsi in one hand and two candy bars in the other. He was so concentrated on his thoughts that he walked right into the last person on planet Earth that he would ever want to see in that moment.

"Well I be go to hell!" Henry said softly, his face splitting into a horrible smile. "It's one of the rock-throwers. Where're your friends, asshole? They inside?"

Eddie shook his head automatically, before realizing that he had just made one of the biggest mistakes of his summer. Henry's grin widened, which seemed impossible, and Eddie took a shaky step back.