"my mom wants me to go visit my dad." was the first thing out of eddies mouth that morning. richie had received a text an hour earlier, asking him to make his way to the kaspbrak home.
"i'm sorry, she wants you to what?" richie was in disbelief. it felt like literally yesterday that sonia kaspbrak was ranting to him about how idiotic it was for eddies father to be acting the way that he is, and now she wanted him to visit?
"they talked the other day, and apparently my dad had forgotten that i was turning eighteen. i guess he thought i was turning sixteen? so now he's dropping the custody thing because he realized that i'm almost an adult anyways? and mom thinks i should go see him before i go away for college."
richie thought about it for a minute. it was ridiculous.
honestly, it was the dumbest thing richie had ever heard in his entire life. it made absolutely no sense at all. none.
"are you going to go?" eddie stayed silent. and then he shrugged, looking up from his lap and into richies eyes.
"i don't know. i mean, i don't know." richie let his head fall to eddies shoulder. he let out a sigh, staring at the nylon that carpeted eddies bedroom floor.
if there was one thing that richie didn't want, it would be this. it was their last summer as high schoolers. as soon as august hit, they'd be college students. they'd be adults.
sure, they were going to be at the same school. it wasn't like they wouldn't see each other, but that didn't matter.
this was their summer.
and eddie was being shipped off to massachusetts to visit his dad who hasn't done as much as send him a birthday card in the past 17 years.
"do you even want to go?" richie asked, his voice was quiet. he'd been so quiet recently. eddie hated it. he hated not hearing richies ridiculously loud voice all the time. he hated richie not cracking stupid jokes. eddie has grown up in silence. he'd grown so accustom to silence that he assumed that he enjoyed it. but after richie, eddie realized that he hated silence.
"no. i mean, maybe? i don't know. i feel like i sorta owe it to him? because yeah, he never tried to reach out to me, but i didn't really try either."
"eddie, it wasn't your job to reach out to him, he's your dad. he should've been here. you shouldn't have to go see him, he should be here."
