adjectives | reddie

thirty&one - shaken

rain fell gently onto the window, making small tapping noises on the glass. i shivered in my freezing cold room. the air-conditioning in my house was on; my mother had said that my core temperature needed to be lowered, whatever she meant by that and however she supposedly 'knew'. i clung onto my jacket tightly to get some kind of heat in the house.

i had spent the day alone for the first time since december. richie had to work at his dad's dentist office as the receptionist while the actual one was off on maternity leave, and mike had to work on the farm to catch up on things after the winter. bill and stanley had went out for the day. i didn't bother to ask anyone else; i just went back to bed after a couple calls.

after i woke up, i had to decided to write in my journal in front of my window, which is how i ended up staring out of the window in the middle of the night. i briefly talked about how the rain made so much noise and how i thought noise was comforting. after i threw my pen back on the desk and placed the journal on my lap, my eyes stared at my reflection through the dirty window.

suddenly, i saw a face pop up right outside my window, making me jump back. beverly's red hair was soaking wet from the rain, messily covering her eyes. lightning struck behind her as if we were in a horror movie, making us both jump. she shook from, what i assumed was, the cold.

ever since i had known beverly, she was the only one grounded one in the group. nothing ever seemed to phase her, except for greta's snide remarks. stanley's passive aggressive comments or random comments from richie never broke her stride. however, the adjective above her head was something i had never seen from her before.

shaken

"beverly!" i whispered, opening the window quickly. she quickly crawled into my room and stood up, creating puddles on my carpeted floor. water dripped from her hair and her clothes quickly and ran down her arms and legs onto the floor. her eyes beamed towards me blankly, terrified, as if she had seen the ghost of her dead relative. she walked towards my closet and took out one of my dads old crewnecks. when i turned back from closing the window, she was already changed into the oversized shirt.

i watched closely as she sat on the edge of my bed, trying her best to come up with some kind of sentence to say. her eyes were glued to the floor, not daring to look at me in the eye. her breath staggered as she opened her mouth to speak, "i didn't know who to go to, i'm sorry."

my head shook side to side as i looked to the floor, "it's okay, beverly." i walked over to a drawer and picked up a pair of sweatpants that she could change in. "i'll turn around."

looking out the window, i heard noises behind me. "okay," beverly whispered. when i turned around, she was in the pants and laying on the left side of the bed. "i'm sorry," she spoke softly, "my dad was being— well, my dad."

i nodded understandingly and laid beside her on the bed, about half of a foot of space in between us. we both stared at the ceiling silently, our hands laying on top of our chest softly. my breathing steadied along with my heart, which caused me to close my eyes.

beverly never specifically told my what her dad did. i knew from small pieces here and there that he wasn't a good man. when elfrida was around, she worried, but nothing was done. beverly hated being in the house with her dad, and that was a fact.

my fingers traced along her arm slowly, feeling the goosebumps that were scattered along it, until my my pinky brushed along hers. the room was cold, dark, as if a giant storm cloud sneaked into the window. when my hand fell back onto my blanket, i heard her let out a breath. the slight touch scared her, but i didn't dare utter an apology; i just thought about it until the questions and statements disappeared from me. my only focus became staying as still as possible, like a board.

i started to think what could make her better. i knew her as the cool and confident one, but now she was letting out staggering breaths beside me in the middle of the night. i tried to imagine what or who could make her feel better. i suddenly thought of what richie could do. he would probably comfort and then say something stupid to make her laugh, simple as that; no specific plan and no beating around the bush, just a normal day for him with a minor set back. without a second thought, i tried to say something, anything stupid.

"fucking theorems!"

"h-huh?"

i cringed, mentally slapping myself in the face, "nothing." being richie wasn't going to work, i wasn't richie, i knew i wasn't. it would be easier to be him, but i wasn't. beverly and richie would have been laughing their asses off about something in half the time it took for me to say "fucking theorems!". beverly was just not that close to me; the only thing we had in common was richie. we were a real sean and topanga situation if we had known what 'boy meets world' was at the time.

"i'm sorry," she shook her head, "i should've went to richie, but i just thought that you-"

"i would understand," i finished for her, "parents suck, i know."

"i would give anything to be richie," she explained, "his family seems so perfect, and they make it work."

"you feel safer with them, like they are your family," i added on, "but then when you go home it feels like the world is closing in on you."

"yeah."