❝ the DAY you chose to LEAVE me
it RAINED constantly OUTSIDE
in TRUTH i SWORE the RAIN to be
the TEARS in CUPID's EYES ❞
[ bill denbrough x oc ] [ it 2019 ]
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in which, april ambrose gets a phone call from a childhood friend urging her to come bac...
MIKE'S VOICE FILLS THE PHONE AS APRIL CHOKES ON HER BREATH, she tugs her knees up to her chest, letting her head fall against them as she holds her phone to her ear with her left hand. The clown... Her friends... Derry. She was remembering jagged pieces of a mystery she had spent the last half of her life trying to solve. She takes ten breaths, shaky and deep. Nearly shallow, she forced herself to carry each breath through -- to not give up on allowing herself the comfort. She clenched and unclenched her right fist continuously throughout each exhale.
It was a grounding exercise she was taught by her long-time therapist. "Use these exercises when things begin to 'bubble up', April. It won't stop your feelings but it will quell them. You deserve peace," She recalls Laura saying during the session she first learned of them.
She frequented therapy since she was a teen. From the minute she moved to Seattle, from the minute her dad died. She needed it more than ever. It frightened her to think about who she would be without it... If she would even be. Or, if she would be gone by now. A victim to loss, a victim to her big emotions. No. A victim of this depression that has never left her side since the last time she saw her dad.
"April? Are you okay?" Mike asks softly. He hears the deep, shaky breaths on the other end of the phone and his mind is filled with the image of frail, April Ambrose.
April when she had just woken up, her knees knobby and ribcage protruding from the six months on bed rest, when a machine was the only indicator of her beating heart. He thinks back to a hollow, April Ambrose, the sunny girl gone and replaced with a sunken-eyed shell which wobbled when she walked and could hardly leave her bed.
Mike sees a vision of her at the beginning of it all when she did not speak for weeks until she finally broke into a fit of tears and screaming in fear, agitation, and anger -- sputtering nonsense until she was finally calmed, pulled into father's arms while her mother strokes her hair. Mike remembers it too well. He and Richie were there. He remembered sitting on the floor and rubbing her back while she lay on her side, unmoving, staring into a wall as if it were the most interesting thing she had ever seen. Richie next to her, carefully unknotting her hair and twisting it into careful braids. Mike remembered him saying "My mom always wanted a girl. I wanted to be a big brother too,". Mike also remembers April breathing in a shallow breath before beginning to scream, Richie jumping back in a panic and running down to her parents -- calling them for help.
April hums in response, signalling to him that she needs a moment before responding slowly -- unsure of what to say. Unsure of how to go about this. "When? When do I need to come back?" She asks, voice shaky and head still against her knees. Still, she attempts to brave it.
