Lollipop // Richie Tozier x OC ( IT 2017 )

"Me Too" (Chapter 10)

Beverly pressed herself against the wall behind Lolly's bed, a few long red hairs had found their way out of her ponytail, "What the fuck?"

"I-I don't know what happened, there's no way it was real?" Lolly ended her sentence as a question.
"Listen, I need to tell you something."

Lolly looked at Beverly intently as she described a time when she was coming home from school and was harassed by the Bowers gang. One of the gang held a knife to her neck while Henry kissed her face, Beverly, frightened, saw one of the neighbors, an old man raking his lawn. She expected him to help since he saw what was going on, but the old man just stopped raking. He took one look at Beverly and went back into his house as nothing had happened. Her father had come home early which caused the gang to flee, thankfully nothing else happened.

"Why didn't he h-help you?"
"I-I don't know, but I think it's all connected. The weird stuff that's been happening, and the adults that don't seem to care."
"I said the same thing to Stanley earlier! God, I'm just so happy someone understands."

Lolly dropped down on her bed next to Beverly. The cordless phone was left on the pillow of Lolly's bed from the night before; it began to ring, then stopped.

"The phone is for you Louise!" Her mother called from the kitchen.
"Excuse me Bev,"

Lolly hit the 'talk' button on the phone,
"Hello?"
Beverly couldn't hear what the other line was saying, but she could roughly make out that the voice was male on the other end.
"Hey Bill, Bev's here so I can't really talk."
"Yeah, I'll fill you in on what happened then. See ya."
She hung up the phone and placed it back in its original space on the pillow like it was sleeping.

Beverly's heart sunk a little, and her eyes brain replayed the image of Lolly and Bill twirling together in the sun.

"Bill wants to know if we want to hang out tomorrow," Lolly said
"That's nice. You should go,"
"No, us. Like both of us. He said he was going to try and find you in the phonebook but just got lucky that you were already here. The other boys get him to make all the calls for some reason."

Beverly's heart rose back again and she nodded, "What was the other thing you wanted to talk about?"

"I'm really happy Richie brought you along today, I-I don't have many girlfriends." Lolly exaggerated the word girl.
"Me either," Beverly admitted, "Greta Bowie kind of has this thing where if any girls' talk to me she starts targetting them too...So girls just stopped talking to me."
"I hate Greta."
"Me too!"
"She's like a female Henry, but she plays in rumors rather than hitting kids," Lolly smiled, "they'd make a really great couple."

Beverly slid down the wall until she was laying beside Lolly; neither girl took their eyes from the ceiling.

"What do you think you're going to do about the dance with Henry?" Beverly asked
"I don't know, maybe I should just go with him?" Lolly shuddered, "I would hate for whoever I ask to get knocked around because of me."
"Are you crazy? You have to stand up to him. What are you going to do, just go along with it the rest of your life? Become Mrs.Bowers?"
"What am I supposed to do?" Tears prickled in Lolly's eyes, "Just watch whoever I ask to the dance get hurt?"
"What if you went alone?"
"I don't know if that would help, I think he'd just go after the first guy he saw me talk to,"
Beverly nodded in agreement, "I don't think you should go alone, I think one of the guys would stick up for you. The whole group will be there, there's strength in numbers. "
"That just leaves the burning question, who to ask?"
"Did you have someone in mind?"

Lolly sat up on her bed and crossed her legs; crisscross applesauce style. She thought of a special someone with dinner plate glasses and a Hawaiian shirt.

"Uh," Lolly was scared to say it out loud, she'd never really admitted she was into Richie. Was she into Richie? She thought about him all the time, and she really wanted to hold his hand, and no other guy had her attention as Richie did- okay scratch that, she was really into Richie, "Sort of."
"Too scared to ask?"
"Yeah,"
"Me too,"