The End Of Us || losers club ✔️

twenty five

twenty five - the losers club

Richie's meeting took much longer than he had anticipated. As he sat in the hard chair with no hand to hold, surrounded by white walls and dirty carpet, he tried to push the memory of being questioned out of his head. The hours upon hours he sat with police officers, sixteen and terrified out of his mind. It feels as though that happened weeks before, not years.

It's very rare Richie thought about his friends longer than a few minutes. Stanley would try and bring them up, where they are, how they're doing, but Richie would shake his head and sink further into his mind. He didn't want to think about them. Not Bill, not Beverly, not Mike. Not Eddie. None of them.

But now, they won't leave his thoughts.

It's as though they're making up for the three years they've been an afterthought. Their faces cram into Richie head. While he walks down the hallway he repeatedly finds himself in, it's almost like he can hear Beverly's laughter ring out, or see a flash of Mike's bright smile.

Fuck, he misses them. He misses them so much.

The sadness tightens in his chest, a knot he can't seem to shake no matter how many steady breaths he breaths in. It's been there since Maggie, and has only grew harder and tighter.

Wentworth sits in the waiting room, fist pushing into his cheek as his eyes settle on the magazine in his hand. The harder Richie looks, the more noticeable Wentworth's distant, not-all-there look becomes. He doesn't snap out of it until Richie and his parole officer (Tiana, a stone-faced woman with a soothing voice. A weird combination that only unnerved Richie) are standing in front of him.

He throws the magazine down on the coffee table and stands, wiping his hands down the sides of his legs as he does. "All done?" He asks, sliding his eyes from Richie to the parole officer.

"All done," Tiana repeats. She pats Richie gently on the shoulder, one last message that speaks too many words. A pat that said this won't be the last time we'll see each other, and don't act up, and remember what we went over. Richie shrugs off her hand just as quickly as it made contact. It's messages a mother would send her child. And Tiana isn't his mother.

She leaves, and Richie's eyes dart right to the windows. He's not sure what he wants to see, but a parking lot with few cars isn't it. The white bus isn't there. Disappointment strikes him like a blow to the chest, pure sadness sweeping in right after. He can physically feel his mood drop.

"Stanley is uh.. in his own meeting," Wentworth says. He rubs at his chin, then puts his hands on his hips. "We should be out of here in a few minutes."

"Did anyone come in?" Richie asks.

Wentworth looks down at his son, eyebrows drawn. "Come in...? As in, into this building?"

"Well, yeah. Did people like me come in. With the orange jumpsuits?"

He looks up to the front door, eyes searching as he thought. "No.." He says, but it's soft and as though he's not quite sure of himself. "I don't believe so."

Richie stares at his dad. He feels a scoff waiting in his throat, because he was the one out here, he should've seen if someone - Richie's friends - walked in, right?