☆ My Star ☆ ~Reddie~ (completed)

☆ Two ☆

Eddie stood at the phone silently before delivering his answer. "N-no, the others haven't contacted me since, well, summer," Richie felt compelled to go. Not out of guilt, he wanted company too. Besides, Eddie had been all by himself since summer, it would be nice to finally spend some time with him. They hadn't seen each other in person for quite a while since Richie had stopped attending school due to his mental state. He still took online school, even though he could probably have stopped for a year because he was working a year above. "Sure, I'll be there Eds," A small smile crept on Richie's face just thinking about him again.

"Don't call me that, but yeah, I'll see you in... an hour?" Eddie suggested. "Yeah... an hour..." Richie put the phone down and sighed. God how many things he had wanted to tell him. How much he loved him, how much he needed him right then, how much he cared for him. Everything he had bottled up for years, he wanted to spill it all out. But he just couldn't, he didn't want to ruin his friendship with him. Eddie was the only thing Richie had left, if he was gone... Richie wouldn't know what to do. He slid down his wall and buried his head into his knees. "He'd hate me if he found out." He whispered.

Richie whispered to himself quite a lot. He would subconsciously do it when he was in distress as sort of a coping mechanism. But this time was different. It didn't work, nothing worked. He tried everything. Listening to music, watching some tv. He even tried to sit outside in the rain for a while, but once the clouds grew dry, he went back inside. At the side of his bed sat a cabinet and on that cabinet was a picture. A picture of all of the losers before they split up. He looked at them all, he missed what they had... but he couldn't face them. They probably hated him, and they hadn't even tried to contact Eddie either. Richie wasn't even sure if any of them kept in contact with each other. His eyes focused on one point in the picture... him and Eddie. They were closer together than the rest and Richie could've been sure that the day that photo was taken, they were holding hands...

He looked at the clock that had been hung up pretty lazily by his father years ago. He had about half an hour to change. The thought of getting all dressed up never crossed his mind so he threw on a flannel and some baggy pants. A black t-shirt and the kept bangles he always wore. They were also black, he liked the colour black... reminded him of how empty everything was. Sounded angsty, but it was true. His life was practically over. He only held on to see Eddie's smile, until that phone call earlier that day... Richie almost gave up. He found it hopeless to keep wishing that Eddie would show up and find him in his forest of brokenness... but he did, he found him. That made everything okay, because it meant that there was hope, it was all pinned on Eddie.

The walls of the house were covered in pictures from old family outings... family outings wasn't exactly what you would call them. They would start out as those, each time his parents promised it would be different... but it wasn't. They would leave Richie outside and let him go off on his own whilst they sat in a bar and drank for hours. Just at ten years old Richie had to take the public bus all the way back to Derry with only five dollars in his pocket. His parents were never in the right condition to drive, and the bus journeys from most places were at least three hours long each. Richie stared at these photos and threw one to the ground. Only he was in them, and he hated it.

His thought train was broken when the doorbell rang. He shot up and ran as quickly as possible to open the door. "Hey Eds," he beamed. Or at least, tried to beam. He wasn't as enthusiastic as he would have liked to have been. "Ready to go?" Eddie giggled. Richie was a sucker for that giggle. It sent him into gay panic every time. Richie couldn't speak, he just nodded and they set off down the garden path. He'd been fine as long as Eddie was with him.