Stanley Uris, a boy with three secrets hidden beneath a thick sweater - one of them being his love for his best friend.
Bill Denbrough, a boy who spends every morning trying to convince himself he's not gay.
This is their tale, told through both of...
"Just because my path is different doesn't mean I'm lost."
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Eddie slept, almost peacefully, while Bill sat next to Stan and wondered how much of this was his fault. He had been in denial, probably hurting Stan, he had then failed to convince Stan Richie's lies were indeed lies, and he hadn't been kind and brave and strong enough to make the boy he loved feel okay.
He hadn't been strong enough to save Georgie, and he hadn't been strong enough to stop Stan, either.
If this beautiful, perfect, broken boy died, how could Bill ever forgive himself?
And so he sat next to Stan on the bed with Eddie asleep near them and an immense worry freezing his veins, and he simply waited. He heard Ms. Kaspbrak arrive sometime late, or maybe it had now become early, and pretended to be asleep so when a crack of light showed the door had opened and Sonia was undoubtedly checking on them, she saw three sleeping boys on her son's bed. One of them hadn't just attempted suicide, and the other one hadn't gotten drunk, and the third one hadn't totally fucked up his relationship — no way.
When dawn finally arrived and seemed to chase away all the darkness of the previous night, until only faded scars remained of what had once been shadows, a half-asleep Bill noticed Stan stirring a little and immediately snapped back to consciousness.
Stan didn't sit up; he simply moved his head a little. Bill gingerly crept closer and took Stan in his arms, holding his body close, feeling his warmth and life and knowing that Stan was so strong and Bill was so lucky to have such a wonderful person in his life. A person who was human. A person who had screwed up last night but only a result of Bill's beyond-screwed-up actions.
Bill couldn't afford to abuse Stan as the other boy had abused drugs. They could both lose Stan's life, a life that though quiet and seemingly distant, was still an important part of so many others.
Bill would have to be better. He would have to help Stan as he had failed to do with Georgie; he would have to be strong for Stan and for himself. It would be different than most early relationships — they were young, gay, closeted, and both suffered from inner conflicts. For the first time, Bill found it a little easier to admit everything wrong about him; everything that made him.
Bill held Stan his arms and pressed that beautiful boy close so he could feel Stanley Uris' heartbeat and sense he was alive. And though he didn't know if Stan could hear him, he whispered without stuttering or missing a beat, "I love you so much. Please never leave me, baby. Please."
He laid Stan back down, but a few minutes later, the boy began to rise. He stopped halfway up, rubbed his head, and whimpered.
"Fuck. My head hurts." He saw Bill, and a ghost of a smile was etched on his lips. He looked tired and sick and stressed, but he was alive. "Bill, I love you, too."
They embraced again, relief welling up in Bill. "H-how you are you f-feeling?"
"Light-headed, exhausted, dizzy, foggy, and unsure of what happened last night."
"Y-you attempted s-s-sui..." Bill, incapable of saying it, stopped short.
Stan leaned against Bill, eyes half-closed, and Bill held him up. "Oh, right," the curly-haired boy muttered. "Xanax and beer. Wonderful," he added, the sarcasm and regret dripping heavily off his words.
"Uh...d-do you st-still w-want to...?"
"I don't know. But it's nice to see you, Bill. And it's nice to feel like I should forgive you even though last night I was very sure you were a fucked up slut. Of course, that's still a small step away from forgiveness. I guess I've seen it through different eyes. Eyes that still somehow belong to me."
"I'm s-sorry about how I re-reacted when you t-told me a-about y-your..."
"Cuts." Stan's eyes were full of unidentifiable emotion.
"Yeah. I w-was j-just sh-shocked and c-confused."
Stan nodded.
Bill, trembling, took another breath and continued his string of excuses. "N-nothing ever h-happened between m-me and R-Richie. He s-sort of l-likes me, or liked m-m-me, or wh-whatever , but I never ch-cheated."
"I mean, Bev..."
"Y-yeah..."
"Bill, I wonder if it's time to stop being hidden. I wonder if it's time to shed our secrets, or...whatever these are, and just be us, proud, flawed, screwed-up us."
"Th-this wh-whole experience s-serves as quite the ep-epiphany?" Bill inquired, hoping he didn't sound unkind or resentful.
"Well, I need help." Stan stretched out his scarred arms and gestured to the room, though Bill didn't need a reminder. "I can't heal if I keep hiding. It's time to say it. My name is Stanley Uris. I suffer from self-harm, suicidal thoughts and quite possibly depression. I'm ready to ask for help, to heal what's broken. Or prevent more breaks. I attempted suicide last night, something that will never leave me — and that's okay. This is bad, and unhealthy, and it needs to change, but until it does, these marks, these scars, they're a part of me — and that's okay." He then smiled a little. "And also, I'm gay and I love my boyfriend, Bill Denbrough."
Bill turned his head and kissed Stan's forehead softly. When the words came, they came from his heart. And his heart had no issues completing the sounds. "I also have problems. I have never gotten over my brother's death, and I might never get over it." It felt nice, a nice wrapped up in pain, to admit the things he'd never even had the courage to admit to himself. "I'm also in denial about a lot of parts of me, but I'm coming to terms with them. I've made mistakes, and I will make mistakes, and I will hurt people, but I will search for the courage to stand up and help them when they need someone, no matter what. I'm also gay, and cheating on my girlfriend, and I love my boyfriend, Stan Uris."
They kissed again, this time on the lips.
"Next, we'll tell the world," Stan declared.
Bill was almost tempted to whisper "but you're my world" and then decided that was too sappy even for them.
Instead, he hugged Stan tenderly. "W-we'll get through th-this." His stutter was back, but that too was out of control, and a piece of the rugged Bill Denbrough puzzle, and something that didn't need to stay hidden. For years, he had looked in the mirror and tried to change his reflection, and now finally, he felt okay with who he was and who he'd become. Maybe it was Stan who had helped him, maybe it was growing up, or maybe it was some mix of the two. He hugged his boyfriend, hugged the cut-up arms and beat-up heart and drugged-up brain, hugged the bad and the good and the everything in between, and felt somewhere in that grey zone between happy and sad.
And that was okay.
[we're nearing the end of the book. I know it's been a lot in the past little while. Thank you for reading. Thank you ghost readers and voters and commenters. Thank you]
