Summer of '93 - Stozier

3

"Richie? you okay in there?" Stanley asked, knocking on the bathroom door.

there was no reply.

Stan twisted the doorknob of the bathroom, lucky for him it wasn't locked. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

Richie was on the floor, his back pressed against the cold tile of the wall, head down, hugging his knees and crying.

Stanley slid down beside him, wrapping an arm around him and tangling his free hand in his hair, gently scraping his perfectly manicured fingernails against the others scalp.

"Hey.. shhh, its okay, Richie. i'm here. you're okay, its just me..shh.." Stanley whispered into Richies ear as the sobbing began to die down.

Richie lifted his head up and sniffed, his vision blurred by the tears in his eyes and on the lenses of his glasses. "Thank you.." He smiled and sniffled again. "I cant see you so I dont know who you are but, thank you." Richie joked, earning a chuckle from Stan and, surprisingly, himself as well.

Stan took Richies glasses from his face, untangling himself from the other and wiping the glasses with his shirttail. He placed the large coke bottle frames back onto the bridge of Richies nose and slid them up with his forefinger, tapping his nose when he was done.

"So.. d'you wanna talk about what happened.. y'know, back there..?" Stan asked.

"I- uh-.." Richie turned his head to face Stan.

"You don't have to if you don't want to, Rich, your choice."

"I-" Richie took a deep breath before starting again. "I had a sort of like daydream.. I was- it was-.." Richie paused again, trying to collect his thoughts. "Back in the cistern.. but I was alone, calling out for you guys but you weren't there and-.. IT.. It said I'd been down there for weeks.. no one had noticed.. like no one.." Richie took another deep breath and blinked away the tears in his eyes "Like no one cared about me enough to notice I was gone," His voice cracked. "And the thought of no one noticing me.. acknowledging that i'm here.. no one paying attention to me scares me more than it should. I mean, ts no secret that i'm an attention seeker, I always have been and I probably always will be," He let out a self deprecating laugh."'Cause as I said, the thought of no one paying attention to me scares the living shit out of me.. but back there.. I don't know- the attention was too much? everyone was talking to me at once, and on a normal circumstance, yes, i'd have literally loved that but.. I felt like i was suffocating.. almost? like i couldn't breathe, like there was the fuckin' avengers piled on top of me all at once, wouldn't mind that if ya know what i mean, but thats besides the point.. I felt like i was trapped.. it's definitely happened before i can guarantee you that but.. not as bad as this.. i can usually hide it better.. control it more until i'm out of sight, but, this past month the nightmares have been getting worse, they've been getting more and more frequent, i've been getting them during the day too, like i did earlier and I just want it to stop, y'know? Its like everything's happening all at once and I just need life to just pause for a second and let me process everything before i lose my fuckin' mind.. and if it doesn't fucking stop i'm gonna go bat-shit crazy, i'm not fucking kidding.." Richie finished.

Stanley nodded, not quite knowing what to say. He opened his mouth to speak but closed it again as no words were processing.

"I'm sorry.." Richie shook his head and looked down.