Secrets | Reddie Fanfic

Swimming and Sleepovers

School lets out and Bev and I make our way over to the lake.

"Who are you texting?" She asks, peering over not keeping her eyes on the road. I answer, "Just telling my mom where I am."

I lie to my mom and say I'm staying at the school library studying with a group of friends. If I were to tell her the truth she'd never let me go.

"So tell me new kid, why'd you move here." She wonders. I, half lie, "My mother and I moved here because our old neighborhood wasn't good. We lived like forty-five minutes away."

She informs, "Well this schools alright, I guess. If you hang around the right group of people. You're lucky, Richie hasn't been this opening to an outsider since the eighth grade when Mike joined us. He likes to keep the circle small I suppose."

I ask, "Why does every girl have a story to tell about Richie? He doesn't seem so bad to me."

She begins, "Well for starters, Richie is famous for having one night stands. He doesn't like to stay in a relationship, and everyone knows that. Yet, something about him is so irresistible, it's like you can't say no. He's hooked up with almost every girl who's above a four at the school, and around Derry." "Has he hooked up with you or Cassie?" I question.

"No and no. I was never really single while he was searching for new fuck buddies, other than literally this past week. And as for Cassie, they practically grew up together. I think as much as he'd never admit it, he valued their friendship too much to put it at risk, which is

completely unlike him."

"If he valued the friendship so much, why did he just stop hanging out with her."

"She left the circle. She despises every one of us, even if it was only me and Bill who really screwed her over. I mean they all knew the secret affair Bill and I were having, which caused her to hate us all. That was a rough couple weeks for The Floaters."

"The Floaters?"

"That's what we used to be called. We were known for being druggies for a while, getting so high we'd float. No one else was smoking weed in middle school, but Cassie and Rich introduced us to it, so it just became our thing I guess. Once she left we couldn't keep the name though. So we changed it, and now we're The Losers Club." She explains.

We arrive shortly, and see everyone with beer cans in their hands, all stripped down to their underwear.

Ben hands me two beers, one for me to hold while Bev takes off her dress.

I remove my shirt, but keep on my shorts unlike the rest of them.

"Let's get in, losers!" Ben shouts as he sprints his way to the water.

While everyone splashes around, I stay towards the shallow area and keep mostly to myself, taking half a sip of my beer every five minutes to make it seem like I'm actually drinking it.

"What's the matter Edds, you don't like to have fun?" Richie says when he recognized my lack of activity.

"I'm just, um, relaxing." I say. He suggests, "Well you should move around a little, it would probably be more fun." I do as he says and attempt to enjoy myself.

The afternoon turned into the evening and before anyone knew it, it was ten o'clock. Everyone was pretty drunk, with the exception of Ben and I.

"Okay guys drive carefully." Ben says as the group stumbles to their cars.

For the most part, everyone seemed sober enough to drive. Everyone, but Richie.

All the members of The Losers Club had already begun to drive off, but Richie was still stumbling to his truck.

The "mama bear" side of me, that I inherited from my mother, comes out as I blurt, "Richie, you are not driving. Give me your keys, I'll drive you home."

"I'm perfectly fine to drive Eddie Spaghetti!" He replies. I argue, "No, you're not Rich. Give me your keys."

He slurs, "And why would I do that? It's my car, isn't it?" I try to reason, "Yes, but you're in no position to be driving a vehicle on the open road right now. So just let me drive, please."

Finally, he tosses his car keys to me and we get in. He tells me his address, which conveniently is only two neighborhoods down from mine.

Richie turns on the radio and cranks some rap song all the way up. Two seconds into the song I immediately turn it off.

"What was that about, Edds? Not cool. That song's my shit." He argues.

I don't give him an answer. In fact, every time he'd open his mouth I just ignore him.

I finally pull up to his house and in that instant he snaps into a still drunk, but aware state.

"I can't go home, Eddie. Take me anywhere else, I-I don't care where you take me but I can't go inside my house." He explains with almost fear in his tone. I ask, both frustrated and exhausted, "Well where do you want to go?" He suggests, "Maybe I can stay with you?"

Absolutely not. No.

I begin to brainstorm all of the possible outcomes of taking Richie home, none of which were positive. But, instead of going with my gut, I take a deep breath and look into his large, brown, frightened eyes and sigh, "I'll take you to my place, Rich."

When we get to my house I make sure my mom is nowhere in sight before letting him in. "Okay, just be extremely quiet. No one's to know you're here, got it?" I whisper.

After tip-toeing to my room, I say, "You can sleep on my bed, I'll take the floor I guess."

He suggests, "Or we can both just sleep on the bed? No offense my friend but you're not too big, so you won't take up too much room." I hesitate, "Um, I don't know." He assures, "There's nothing weird about it, just come sleep on the same bed as me. Don't get me wrong, you're a cutie Eddie spaghetti, but me telling you to share a bed with me so you don't have to sleep on the shitty floor isn't exactly my way of flirting with you."

I give in, "Alright, I guess. You need sleep though, so get to bed. Tomorrow is school. You're also a pretty annoying drunk person so the faster you get to sleep, the faster you shutup."

"Whatever. Night Edds."

"Goodnight, Richie."

I settle into bed and reach into my pillowcase to pull out a journal that I write in every night before I go to bed.

When my mother used to make me visit a psychiatrist, he suggested I wrote in it before I'd fall asleep, and I honestly enjoy doing it. It was something that no one, not even my mother knew about.

I started writing...

August 22. Monday.

Today was my first day of my junior year and my first day at my new school in Derry. I was so nervous going into it but I met a lot of people I kind of like. I don't know how long my friendship with them will last considering the fact that they're all popular and exclusive, but I'd like for it not to end. I want to know more about these people. I also want to know more about Cassie. She interests me. She also talks a lot and MAJORLY over shares which is intriguing.

After school I hung out all afternoon and evening with a bunch of drunk cool kids. If my mother knew about it she would have a heart attack. Now it's currently 10:28pm and I'm in bed with a passed-out Richie Tozier. Hopefully tomorrow continues to be successful. Goodnight.

Ps, I think a really cute guy just called me cute..!