sweet ♡ richie tozier

chapter eleven

Five days.

Adelaide lasted five entire days on her front porch, waiting to see Richie walk by her house to the arcade. The only other way to get to the arcade was a long ass walk, but Richie did it to avoid her.

She didn't know what to do. Was she supposed to apologize? Was he?

She never lied, though. She just avoided the truth. Completely. That's not as bad as lying, is it?

She spent the whole five days reading. She read many magazines titled: "How to know if your crush likes you." She felt ridiculous reading them, and immediately regretted it, but she couldn't help it.

"Adelaide, get off the porch!" Maggie Henderson yells.

Adelaide jumps, her thoughts interrupted. "What?" she dumbly asks.

"I said get off of the porch," she raises an eyebrow. "What's up? You've been like this for a week."

"It's only been five days," Adelaide grumbles.

Maggie rolls her eyes and grabs the book from Addy's hands, which she wasn't even reading in the first place. "You haven't had candy in five days. I don't know what's wrong, but you better fix it by the time I get home."

Adelaide puts her hand on her forehead for dramatic effect. "But I don't know how!"

Maggie bends down and flicks her younger sisters forehead. "Just do what you think is right. I gotta work. Bye."

With that, Maggie leaves the house and Adelaide is staring at her empty yard.

She watches her lonely bike on the sidewalk and sighs.

She goes inside and creates a plan.

—

At approximately 7 PM, Adelaide knows that Richie will get home, because that's when the arcade closes.

To make sure she won't run into him, she waits a while before going to the grocery store, using money from her piggy bank for a gallon of ice cream.

It's already starting to get dark, so, naturally, she sprints home from the store and goes into her room.

She looks in the mirror and brushes her bangs through with her fingers, fluffing up her hair. She touches her round lips and frowns.

She grabs the watermelon flavored lip gloss from her vanity and applies it slowly. She stares at herself in the mirror, then her eyebrow twitches.

She slaps her forehead and her face scrunches up. "I'm literally preparing to kiss Richie Tozier right now. Snap out of it," she whispers to herself.

She wipes her the lip gloss off of her lips with the back of her hand and takes a deep breath.

She stands up, grabs the ice cream, and marches out of her room.

She leaves her house and walks down the street to his house.

She stares at it for a solid five seconds before walking up to his front door.

A few lights are on, so someone is home. Adelaide was just silently praying someone from his family didn't open the door.

She remembers the time his mom picked up the phone and cringes. Hopefully that was the last time that will happen.

She brings her hand up and practically forces it to knock on the door. Hard.

She waits a few seconds, hears some shuffling, but nobody comes to the door. Someone's obviously home. She knocks again, getting impatient.

No answer.

She bangs on the door, and while she is, the door swings open, and an extremely pissed off and scared Richie appears, a baseball bat brought above his head.

He looks ready to strike, and Adelaide screams. "Richie, it's just me!"

He freezes and his face turns into confusion. "Adelaide? What are you doing here?"

"Why do you have a bat?" she shrieks.

He drops it and moves aside, letting her in. She sighs in relief and walks past him.

"Where's your room?" she asks.

Richie doesn't say anything, just walks up the small stair case and lets her follow him. They go into a room and she looks around as she enters it.

It's pretty plain and a little messy, but she doesn't mind.

She sits on his plaid covered bed and thinks about what to say.

And then, like word barf, she starts talking.

"Okay, so, for the past five days I haven't eaten a single sweet, and I think I'm going through withdrawals, because obviously I was wack enough to come here and apologize. Which, I am sorry. Not just because I was feeling desolate these past few days, but really. I'm sorry for not telling you." She takes a deep breath. "And I, um, brought ice cream."

Richie stays silent, then quickly grabs the ice cream and takes the lid off. She stares at him, not really knowing what's going on, and her eyebrows furrow.

"It's gonna melt. Hurry," Richie says, handing her one of the spoons she brought.

She takes the spoon in her hand, but doesn't unfurrow her eyebrows.

"I forgive you, I guess. I was being a douchebag. Sorry."

Adelaide's face relaxes and she nods. "It's okay."

They dig into the ice cream, and within minutes, the whole gallon is gone.

Richie suddenly looks really uncomfortable, and he stands up and goes over to his nightstand drawer. "Um... here."

Adelaide, confused, stands up, and walks towards him, leaning over to look inside the drawer.

"I did some gambling at the arcade, and a bunch of losers gave me all this candy. Since you didn't eat any for a few days, you can have it."

Addy's eyes widen and she tries to hold in the drool from coming out of the corner of her mouth.

A whole drawer of candy.

She looks up at him and wheels spin in her head. She thinks back to the magazines she read and blurts, "Do you like someone?"

His face flushes red and he looks away. "Uhh, define 'like.'"

"Like an infatuation, but more."

"Can you demonstrate?"

Adelaide's common sense is all of a sudden completely gone and she finds herself doing something she never thought she would ever do. Maybe until recently.

She leans in, and kisses Richie Tozier.

—
it's been way too long oopsie daisies but hope you enjoyed ;)
1009 words