Lachambers- What If?

12

"Fine! Stupid." Chris snapped at the empty air in front of him. Gordie was long gone by now, refusing to even attempt walking back to school for the day.

Chris mumbled a few more curses and kicked the pile of Gordie's now ripped up papers.
He felt bad.
The boy squatted down next to the papers dancing around in the wind, picking one random shred up.
He smiled slightly at Gordie's hand writing although it was upside down. His handwriting wasn't the neatest by far, but it was Gordie's. And anything of Gordie's was nice to look at.

Chris flipped the shred of paper over so he could read what had been written. In the corner it read:

October 3, 19-  (The rest of the date had been ripped off.)
Chris and I- (The rest of this sentence had also been ripped off.)

The blonde had to double take on that. Was that his name that Gordie wrote? How privileged can one get to have such an amazing mind think about them and then take those thoughts and write them down? This caused a huge, goofy grin to spread across Chris's face.

Also, weren't those notebooks for school? Why the hell was Gordie doodling around in his notebook about some Chambers boy? He sure as hell didn't get straight A's by daydreaming about him.

Chris pinched the paper tightly and shoved it into his back pocket before standing up.
All these dates, math problems, and basically just a mixture of Gordie's handwriting now covered the place in which he was standing.

"Jeez, Gordie.." Chris sighed to himself, lifting his eyes up from the depressing sight of torn up papers. Not wanting to bare it any longer, he lifted his head back up and stared into the miles and miles of orange, red, and brown autumn leaves that covered the trees. It was the end of fall, which made the woods near Castle Rock look ugly and naked.

Chris had always favored spring, the time when the trees were green and full of luscious, healthy leaves. Right now they just looked like they were dying.
One tree in specific had only dark brown leaves scattered across its skinny, shriveled up branches. Chris tilted his head to the side and squinted his eyes down onto the tree. Those brown leaves reminded him of something, he just couldn't put his finger on it.

Chocolate? No.

Dirt? What? No.

Maybe chocolate ice cream? No.

Possibly a person- Oh.
Of course, it reminded him of Gordie. Every stupid little thing reminded him of Gordie these days.

A book? Hm I wonder if Gordie would like that.
School? Gordie always does good in school.
A flower? So effortlessly beautiful. Just like Gordie.

Those brown leaves Chris had focused his attention on matched Gordie's fluffy brown hair and large doe eyes. Sure the tree wasn't the most gorgeous plant in those woods, but that wasn't really the point. It stood out, and that was all that matters.

Speaking of the woods, Gordie had left his books out there. Or technically, Eyeball and Chris threw his books out there, but Chris didn't really use logical thinking when it came to Gordie.
Either way, the little guilt bubble that was currently inflating like a giant balloon inside Chris's stomach was starting to hurt. He quickly decided that he was going to search those woods until he found at least one of those books, and give them back to Gordie whether he wanted to see them or not.

Chris trudged into the woods, hands stuffed in his pockets, and his mind trying to remember which direction the books flew off to.

If felt like a million hours of walking to Chris. Stepping on dead leaf after dead leaf. Crunch after crunch.
The sound of the dried up leaves cracking under his foot had become such a natural thing for his ears, that when he heard a soft pat instead of a crunch, it shocked him. Chris lifted up his foot and stared down at the object that caused this sudden noise. It was a small paperback book.
He quickly bent down, picked the book up, and brushed the muddy footprint he left off of the cover.