Chapter Text
The letter sat abandoned on his desk. Bill’s room had always been half-neat; it wasn’t the pleasant tidiness of Eddie’s room, with a bookshelf free from taunting dust, his toys placed neatly into ordered rows under the watchful eyes of his mother, but it wasn’t the scattered mess of Richie’s room where one had to be careful of falling over stray debris with each step. It only gave his mother a mild headache when she looked at it. Edging to the side of the letter, a pencil rolled loose and tapped against the envelope, once, twice, before finally colliding back with the other pencils and pushing three from the desk.
Clatter of pencils hitting against the ground awoke Bill from his dreary morning routine, the last ebbing sunlight of summer mocking him as it slid through his window. Laziness ached his bones, the promise of the first day of school make him feel sluggish as he tread toward his desk, gathering the pencils in his hand.
There was a half-drawn turtle buried in the sketchbook hidden under a stack of books, one he knew he wouldn’t finish now summer had ended. School brought a delay to his favourite pastimes. He knew soon enough that he’d have no energy to scribble down pictures, despite any promises he’d make to himself. He relaxed his hand around the pencils, only just realising that he had been gripping them hard enough to leave faint marks on his fingers.
Dropping the pens haphazardly onto the desk, Bill took a moment to take in the half-mess. Paper that he couldn’t quite part with laid scrunched up in a pile, pencils crisscrossed with pens, paint brushes had gone stiff from their lack of use. He touched the tip of his finger to the bristles, and felt their refusal to yield, a tight clenching in his chest making him frown and drop his hands away. He wouldn’t be using any of this until next summer, at least not in the way he wanted, where he could hunch over his desk for hours and carve pictures from blankness with the tip of his pencils.
It was only then, while mourning the irrevocable loss of freedom that summer air brought, that Bill’s eyes fell on the letter. His mother must have dropped it in his room earlier. Once, he would have been certain that his mother’s familiar footsteps would have roused him from sleep, but she had grown to be quieter than a ghost, a soft snowfall of steps as she moved around the house. She could be waiting outside his door, and he was certain he wouldn’t notice. Even her breathing seemed less real.
Bill’s eyes narrowed as he touched his fingers to the envelope, a dark blue border marred with splotches of red fading to a white block, where text has been scribbled. Bill Denbrough. Letters had been sent to him before, birthday cards from relatives with money slipped inside, the dentist telling him it was time for a check-up, a pay-by month comic subscription, but they had all addressed him formally as William. Bill felt too familiar when it was written in ink.
His brow crumbled as he held the letter in his hands, tilting it this way and that way as if it would suddenly reveal something to him. He wasn’t sure what, but the stony feeling in his chest was back, a heavy pull that spoke of unfamiliar familiarity. The scrawl on the front, black ink that wrote in towering letters that were just a little too close to each other, was his own. He saw it almost every day, there was no mistaking it. Perhaps it was a little more refined, no more overlapping letters or ink blots where he pressed too hard in his excitement, but it was his own.
A gasp left him, and the letter was dropped back to the desk with a startled quickness. He stared at it, and it stared back. He willed the letters change, as if it would suddenly reveal the messy handwriting of a favoured uncle who merely wanted to know how he was, but it refused to disappear - it was no trick of the mind, brought on by the early morning light and his own tiredness, but rather dreaded reality.
His gaze dropped to his hands after a heated debate, as if the offending letter would run away from him if it was not watched, and he checked carefully for any cuts. If the letter was sentient, it would try to hurt him. Hands decidedly unharmed, he lifted his trembling fingers to his chest to feel the gentle thump of his heart, breath catching in his throat as he returned to staring at the letter.
Nothing had changed.
“Bill!” A squawk left the young boy as he stumbled backwards from the desk, almost tripping over himself in his fright, before catching himself at the last minute. “Your friends are waiting outside, the scruffy one is being so loud, can’t you hurry up? Oh, Bill, you’re barely dressed, button up your shirt while I pack your bag.”
His mother’s voice was touched with the facade of care, the echo of love - she wasn’t the only ghost in the house. She hesitated in the doorway, her eyes looking just past Bill, and he realised too late that she wanted him to turn her away. He remained silent, and she stepped into the room without ever glancing at him.
Turning from his desk, he buttoned his shirt quickly, knowing that Richie would march off if he was kept waiting too long. Or start throwing pebbles at his window. His mother probably wouldn’t even flinch, not even if one smashed the glass right open. “Mom?” he spoke, the waver in his voice barely noticeable.
She didn’t answer. Her hands straightened out pencils, checked pens to make sure they worked, and filled Bill’s bag up with two new writing pads. In their dual silence, he smoothed his hands along his shirt until they caught on a wrinkle, tugging at the bottom of his shirt to see if he could straighten it out, before he gave up. “Mom, do you see the letter on my desk?” He turned to face her back, and she still didn’t answer. Nails, bitten down to the root with their jagged edges, lifted the letter for a second and placed it into his bag. The matter was over.
Weighted silence prevailed as they descended the stairs, his mother’s eyes trained on the wall ahead, while Bill counted the steps as they dashed from under his feet. His mom stood still at the bottom of the stairs, and he waited for her to lift her hand and ruffle his hair, wish him a goodbye or a good luck at school, but she stayed lost in her own thoughts. He ran past her after lingering, the front door open and shutting, and Bill felt better in the bathing sunlight.
Blotting out the sunlight were two figures, one swaying lightly and humming, the other stood in a manner that seemed fastidious.
“What took you so long to get out here, Billy boy? Were you tugging off a quick one?” Eyebrows wiggled from behind the frames of bottle-cap glasses, one of the sides tilted a little further down his face because of the tape that held them together. He seemed to instinctively sync pushing them up his nose with Stan’s half-interested eye roll. The summer had stolen the roundness of Richie’s moon-like features, his cheeks growing from their usual red to a pink, and Bill noted with gentle surety that he would grow into someone handsome.
“No dirty jokes until I’m actually awake,” Stan mumbled, his voice ancient as it croaked from his throat. His eyes were narrowed slits as they slid to throw a glare at Richie, who politely ignored it and dug his elbow into Bill’s side. It prompted the leader into walking, and the two flanked him, following the rhythm he had set.
“If that was a rule, I’d never be able to make a dirty joke.”
“Good.” Writhing look was fixed on Richie, but it wasn’t used sparingly enough to summon any fear from the other. Laughter left Richie’s lips in howling ringlets as he met Stan’s gaze, and he marched in front of the two boys, turning to face them so he was walking backwards.
“Yowza, Stanley! You got off a good one this early in the morning! You tryna beat me for the most chucks this year?” There was something pleasantly soothing in the familiarity of Richie. His mind chose to focus on the ridiculous absurdity that he was, a cartoon character sketched by some drunk fool, rather than the strange letter that pulsed in his bag, begging for attention that Bill refused to give. Everything about Richie seemed out of tune, a face that was almost handsome, a joke that was almost funny, eyes that were almost happy. Bill supposed he loved him for all his almosts.
His eyes found Stan’s, and twin smiles shone over their faces. The scar had faded into a handful of white lines that kissed his cheek, and Bill wondered how the skin would feel beneath his touch - puckered, the raised skin rough while his cheek was still smooth, and his fingers curled into a fist as if he needed physical measures to stop himself. Richie had fallen back in line with them, head cocked to the side as he watched the Derry residents attend to their lawn, and busy themselves in kitchens, and kindly ignore the shared look of two boys. It felt almost an invasion to witness the glance as a third party, to interrupt it with a joke, to exist while it happened.
It wasn’t something that someone could just see, it was a moment that only two could live in.
“I thought you were supposed to make an effort for your first day back, Bill. You’re looking pretty comfortable to me.” Moment faded into little more than an exchange of a look, lasting nothing more than a few seconds, and Richie exhaled softly, and tilted back to the pair. Bill’s eyes traced stories from Stan’s features, but the other boy was reaching out to flick at his plaid shirt, glancing over to Richie. “What do you think, Richie?”
“I duh-duh-don’t want Richie Tozier’s opinion on my cluh-cluh-cluh.” Word tangled on his tongue, brutally clear in his mind and yet refusing to fall. Clothes. Clothes. Clothes. How easy it was for the word to flitter uselessly through his throughts, even while he turned a heated red under his inability.
“Clothes,” Richie finished for him, sympathy raw in his voice. He thought of the embarrassment that shone over adults’ faces when he couldn’t quite grasp a word, unease forcing them to cut him short so they wouldn’t be standing around all day listening to him, and he wondered how long it would be until the losers looked at him with the same pity. “I think Big Bill is looking pretty hot right now, actually. This isn’t just any plaid, Stan, oh no. He’s wearing the winter collection, imported especially from France, to give him this sexy lumberjack look.”
A smile broke across Bill’s red face, and he decided that the losers wouldn’t ever betray him with unfeeling pity.
“You’re right, we don’t want Richie’s opinion on clothes,” Stan decided, smirk curling over his lips as Richie’s mouth fell open, eyes growing wide in exaggerated disbelief.
“How quickly you turn against me, Judas. Ha, Jew-das.”
“Oh, and he wonders how I can so quickly turn away from him. You really are something special, Richie. Too bad I wouldn’t ever kiss you on the cheek.”
Laughter was light and free as it spilled from Bill’s lips, and he felt the immeasurable safety of youth and friendship. Smile, as radiant as the sun as it splashed across the sidewalk in slanted waves, lit Stan’s features into an unearthly glow as his eyes stole glances at Bill’s laughing face. Richie, deciding that moment was meant to be drank in by all three of them rather than carefully shared between two, joined in with the laughter, and consoled his soul that Stan was certainly kiss him on the cheek if he was given the opportunity.
“Two good chucks in one morning, Stan? It just upsets me how easily Bill gives it up, really, I thought he was better than that.” The three boys, two of which glowed with red-faced joy, the other who remained tightly composed bar the sweet grin, stopped together as the school doors blurred into view. It was instinct to eye up the predator before making a move.
Crowds of agitated children were already filing in, chaotic lines muddled by shoulders that clapped too harshly together, and hands pushing at backs. Three pairs of eyes moved from left to right, the doors their first target before the field was scanned with equal vigour. “I duh-don’t see Greta. No Belch, either.”
“Thought I saw Victor Criss, but it just turned out to be a stick with a bleached leaf,” Richie snorted, waiting for the two others to follow with their laughter, but they stood with their stony faces, men casting their eyes upon battlefields where thousands already laid wounded. “Beverly’s smoking by the trashcans. Do we infiltrate, boys?”
Richie lifted a hand to spare a wave toward Beverly, a soldier who had braved the battlefield with Ben by her side, two capable lieutenants that would survive the threats of teenagers together. Bill moved toward them, and the others followed, Beverly quickly snubbing out her cigarette as she watched them approach. Her walk to school had been longer than theirs, kept away in the tiny apartment on the far edge of town, and it had left her shoes covered in faint splodges of yellowing mud, a few stubborn tufts of grass fixed to the stains.
“Got any smokes, Bev?” Eager eyes swept toward the cigarette stub that laid upon the trash heap, grey smoke curling out from it as the flame flickered lightly and died. “I’m dying for one, don’t let me down like this, don’t be so cruel.” Bending over slightly, Richie furiously ran his hands up and down his legs, drawing the attention of the others hunched around the trashcans. A pair of girls exchanged looks of confused disgust, before walking away from the scene, and Ben shot them a sympathetic smile.
“That was my last one, Rich. Maybe if you had gotten to school earlier, I’d have something left over for you, huh?” Hand reached out, there was a brief moment where Ben thought she was going to tangle her fingers in the boy’s hair, but she flicked at his forehead. A flesh of red covered her nails, dotted with the neutral whites that had shown where Beverly had picked at the nail polish in nervous thought, and Ben thought they were so pretty that he had to look away for a second to collect himself.
Self-pitying in his own desperation, Richie dropped to his knees in front of Beverly, beginning to bow recklessly. His head almost hit against the trashcans a few times, and Stan would have warned him if he was not so interested in seeing how it played out. “Miss Marsh, you don’t understand! I was fine and ready to be on my way right as the chicken coos, but Mister Denbrough just didn’t want to leave his bedroom. Me thinks the boy had his hand down his pants.”
Splash of red attacked Bill’s cheeks, an infectious predicament as it spread across Stan’s, Ben’s, and Beverly’s cheeks in quick succession. Richie glanced at each of them with muted wonder, shying away from Stan’s hand as it swooped down to pinch at his shoulder. “Richie and I had first period together. I’ll be taking him from your company.” Hand dropped away, Stan escaped at a clip that meant he wouldn’t pause for the other to follow, and Richie said his goodbyes with a small salute, before dashing after the other.
“I think I missed him and stopped missing him in the same breath,” Beverly murmured around a bright laugh, the last remnant of summer tainting her voice into gentle happiness. Though the blushes had disappeared from Bill’s and Beverly’s high cheeks, it seemed ever-present on Ben’s features, rough cheeks bruised with the deepening red. “I guess Mike couldn’t convince his parents to let him out of homeschool, then.”
Three pairs of eyes looked around them, as if searching for their lost member, before settling on each other. The air felt tighter without Mike’s presence. “I guess not,” Bill sighed, with a shake of his head, and his words were final; though Mike was not with them, he was not to be forgotten. As if sensing his thoughts, Ben and Beverly exchanged a quick glance, before nodding. “I’ll suh-see you guys at lunch, I don’t think it’s smart to be late to my first period.”
Words were spoken above the dull ringing of a bell, the ancient chiming that rendered children in inexplicable unease, before Bill turned on his heel and headed toward the doors. Teenagers had already began to clear from their posts, only a dwindling few trudging longingly into the doors, the taste of summer still sweet on their tongues beneath the fateful concoction of stagnant air and mothballs that covered Derry High. The last two watched as Bill climbed the slabs that led toward the doors, hearing the clatter of his footsteps as he paused for a second before marching on.
It would be untrue to say that Ben and Beverly shared a look after the doors had swung shut and obliterated Bill from their sight. Beverly looked at Ben. Ben looked at Beverly. There was no torrid meeting of their eyes, no shared moment that collapsed the breath from their lungs, no part where Ben blinked and ruined the spell. Ben focused on Beverly’s button nose, shaded with freckles in the morning air, and Beverly looked at the shaggy blonde locks that fell over his forehead. There was some subtle ease that bled into the look, a familiarity that spanned decades rather than the months that had passed in their friendship, and their smiles met when their eyes did not.
“I’m going to hide behind the bleachers to escape homeroom,” Beverly decided, patting at her pocket to reveal a slight ruffle in the material, where a packet of cigarettes was hiding, all except the one she had flicked into the trash. “Don’t tell on me, okay?” she laughed, and her fingers met her hip, resting lightly there.
“I won’t,” Ben promised in a breathless rush of words, the heaving voice of a man who had just ran a marathon; he thought that was how looking at Beverly Marsh made you feel, exhausted and tired and victorious.
“See you at lunch,” Beverly hummed, turning away from Ben to walk to the side of the school, her brave escape easily plotted in her mind. Ben watched her until she was out of sight, and then still kept his eyes focused on the last point of where she had been - he could think of nothing other than the glint from her ankle bracelet.
The rest of the day passed in a disinterested haze, childhood wasted within the walls of classrooms. Introductions took up the first five minutes of every lesson, children spewing out useless facts about their favourite colour and football team, which everyone would forget come Tuesday. The teachers spiralled endlessly about themselves, malevolent masters with an array of children who were forced into quietly and politely listening to their every word. Richie was a different Voice in each classroom, and Stan remained voiceless until the teachers asked him to sit when they realised they would get nothing from him. Beverly wasted away two periods with a cigarette between her fingers, and Ben became his teacher’s favourite in an instant. No one made Bill talk at all.
It was comforting in how mind numbing it was. Silent cheers echoed through hallways when the bell for lunch rang, and not even the sternest of teachers could stop the hordes of children as they spilled from classroom doors.
Carried by the steady flow of hungry children, Bill only began to put effort into walking when he escaped, diverting from the path to brace himself against a locker. Someone muttered something, and another kid threw a glare when his body blocked their path, but there was little time for them to take any grievances up with him; the steady flow had disappeared into the waiting doors of the cafeteria, and Bill was free to walk across the empty space and duck into the boy’s bathroom.
His nose wrinkled at the sight, toilet paper strewn across the floor, a leaky sink covered in some odd greying speckles, a hand dryer knocked clean from the wall. Unruly boys left to their own devices, away from their parents' watchful eyes and the giddy glee that siblings weren't allowed by tattle-tailing. He stole away into a stall that looked half-neat, the same state of his room, locked the door, and dropped the toilet seat so he could perch on it. The letter still burned in his bag. It seemed to have a life of its own, the way he could see the outline steadily pressing against the edge of his bag, the thick side bulging and slithering.
Integration was a symptom of a child’s mind. Everything was new, so everything was odd. Such oddity became a normal part of life, and every thought was accepted as truth, a sight was simply what it was and nothing more. Adults had time to collect themselves in logical ruses, to justify and pile away, and ignore things that didn’t fit with the patterns they knew - he supposed an adult would go crazy if they couldn’t rationalise. He lifted the letter from his bag with careful slowness, switching it over and over in his hands, before placing it in his lap. The letter had to be reasoned with. His fingers traced the familiar font that was sliced into the front, the ink wet enough to stain his digits. It had to be reasoned with, or he’d go crazy.
His friends would be waiting for him in the cafeteria. They would have selected a table, one which they’d spend the rest of the year sat on, and saved a seat for Bill. A bag would be resting in his place. Richie would be sat beside the bag, ready to steal his orange or his chocolate bar, pleading eyes magnified behind his glasses. The day could go ahead as it was planned. The letter could be thrown into the nearest trashcan.
Frown deepening over his lips, his nails pulled apart the envelope, forming jagged edges when it wouldn’t easily give. The paper was a rusted yellow, caressed by neat red lines, and the familiar scrawl danced across the pages in a teasing fashion.
Dear Bill,
Beverly would knock her knee against his own to catch his gaze, jerking her head toward Greta Bowie or Belch, who would be doing something terribly hilarious. She’d bury her mouth into her sleeve to hide her squealing giggles, and Bill would bite into whatever Richie hadn’t stole from him, but mirth would warm their eyes until they couldn’t hold back anymore. He read on.
Dear Bill,
You should be reading this around mid-September. Your first day of school, if everything has gone well. You must have noticed some odd things about the letter. How it appeared. Your handwriting. It’ll all be explained soon, but I’m worried that overloading you will just make things worse. All I want you to know is that I’m you. I’m you, just a different you.
Which is confusing enough in itself, isn’t it? I know you won’t believe me. You’ll think it’s just one of Richie’s pranks. It’s your first day of school today, and your mom packed your bags. Richie embarrassed you with a joke, I can’t remember about what, he was always telling jokes. You met up with Beverly and Ben - and Eddie was nowhere in sight, was he? You didn’t question it, his mother always drives him to school. There’s no need to worry.
I need you to listen to me. If you don’t listen to me, something bad will happen to your friends.
Something bad will happen to Stan, Bill. I know this is hard, but I know you want to keep your friends safe. You need to question where Eddie is in the morning, and you need to go find him. Don’t go to baseball tryouts tonight, Stan is going to ask you to hang out.
Please listen to me.
Sprawled across his hands, two palms supporting the hefty weight of the letter. It forced him to rest his fingers against his thighs. With an impossible bout of exhaustion, as if the words had sapped the bleeding childish excitement from him that seemed rampant hours before, he reread the letter until he was certain that he knew it word by word, line by line. Closing his eyes brought the familiar curling handwriting to print against his blackened vision. Please listen to me, it whispered with pleading narrative, but Bill felt the ominous press of the words, the slack threat that hung among that idea of disobeying.
Eyelids, closed against the harsh light of the bathroom to absolve himself in a moment of darkness, opened with hurried horror. You need to question where Eddie is in the morning, and you need to go find him. Expectant writer had been led to believe that Bill would read the letter in the morning light, struck by fierce curiosity rather than rampant fear. Eddie was driven to school by his mother, and had been ever since he had started attending Derry Middle School.
With no more thought to the truth of the letter, his mind conquered by the single idea of Eddie being hurt, the letter was reduced to a scrunched up ball of paper and shoved into the depths of his bag. The stall door swung shut with a clang, the bathroom door with a bang, and he skidded to a halt in front of a teacher, narrowly missing a head on collision in his hurry. She seemed to debate over issuing a reprimand, heavy brow pleated, before dismissing him by turning her gaze. He walked until he was out of her sight, turning rigidly down the corridor, before continuing his heavy footfalls.
A thousand bodies piling into the corridor as the lunch bell rang had made the walk seem short, the jostle of others’ arms and warmth carrying him forward, but it stretched on for an eternity as his feet clashed against the tiles, a muted desperation blooming into near-panic. Doors burst open under the intent of his hands, and his eyes sprinted over the tables, only those near the doors turning to shoot him a mixture of glares and inquisitive glances.
Red hair drew his gaze, and his steps were subdued in the facade of calmness as he approached the table they had chosen. Huddled under the protective arm of Beverly’s smooth grip was Eddie’s bobbing head, and it tightened around his shoulders as she heard the incoming threat of footsteps. “Bill’s here,” Richie whispered, hand spread across the table as he ducked below Beverly’s head, eyes finding Eddie’s. Beverly’s arm, dusted by the thin light that spread over the cafeteria, loosened.
“What happened?” Suppressed tremble threatened to overpower his voice, but he held back the guilty tides with the flick of his eyes between them all. Richie’s mouth opened to answer, but Bill’s eyes were focused on the huddled mass beneath Beverly’s arm, and they knew it was no one’s story to tell but Eddie’s. They knew Bill would have accepted no other words than Eddie’s.
With a reluctant acceptance of his burden, Eddie tore his eyes from the calming blue of Richie’s to take in Bill. A flower of speckled purple had bloomed across his cheek. Smaller grazes decorated his chin and nose, a snarling cut slicing from his cheek and to the tip of his nose. Drops of red had smeared across his blue shirt, one his mother must have bought late into the summer under the fragile pleas of her son. It was ruined. Sonia wouldn’t ever let him keep something that had been marred with blood.
Dull, throbbing pains attacked behind Bill’s eyes, a warning of a headache overcoming him. His legs wobbled, body swaying as if caught in a delicate wind, and Ben shuffled over to make room for Bill. He sat with a low thump, eyes still fixed on the blood, Eddie’s eyes heavy and lost as they focused on Bill’s face. “What happened?”
“Belch was stood in the carpark, and he must have waited until my mama drove off.” It was all Eddie could manage to confess. Anything else would have left him in sobbing misery, his shoulders shaking as he made inadequate little noises, a thousand words trapped on his tongue, at a loss with the inability to speak them. Bill understood. Freckled arm fell over Eddie’s shoulder once more, and his cheek rested against Beverly’s chest, her other hand running through his hair. With a crumpled brow and stern lips, she looked every part the agitated protector. Clarity was a painful mistress, and it came quickly to Bill, the jagged thought that he could have stopped this from happening hitting him.
Fingers balanced upon Eddie’s shoulder, deft and poised, the nails trimmed finely down. Gaze trailed along the fingers to the thin wrist, the sparrow-quaint arms, the dove-boned shoulders, until it fell on Stan’s worried face. There were certain types of almost people in the world. Almost ambitious, almost smart, almost pretty. Those people caught between inabilities and heartbreak and desperation. Richie was an almost person. Belch was a nothing person. Stan was an everything person, and Bill knew he was the only everything person he’d ever meet. He hadn’t realised he was staring until Stan’s eyes flickered to his own, searching for some kind of answer, and running cold at the stalling confusion.
A soft thrumming noise shook the walls, before it grew louder, a blaring ringing that summoned the teenagers to their feet. Standing with the congregation, a nervous glance was thrown across the table, before Stan gingerly sat himself back down.
“No, it’s okay, you guys can go,” Beverly murmured, with all the shooing aggression of a librarian. None of the boys disobeyed. Like children sent to their rooms, they stood with bowed heads. “I’ll take Eddie out back for some smokes. I’ve already missed most of the day, there’s no harm in skipping out the last part.”
Mournful silence descended on them as they filed from the cafeteria, Ben and Richie waving their farewells as they parted. Stan lifted his hand in return, and Bill had the strength to return a nod. The silence continued until Stan found his next class, a muffled voice from behind the door already taking names.
“Why were you running into the cafeteria? I thought you were just worried about Eddie, but you clearly didn’t know anything.” Though it was years before Stan would become an accountant, he had the vague air of prestige and stuffy suits about him at all times. His posture was forcefully straight. His hair was precisely parted, and his kippah rested serenely on his head. His shirts never betrayed a crumple or a wrinkle, tightly tucked into his pants. He was a shrunken adult.
He was beautiful. Heat rose over Bill's cheek at the invading thought, the intensity behind it, the way beauty and the shape of Stan’s smile seemed impossible to separate.
“I was worried I’d be late for lunch, and euh-euh-everyone would have eaten without me.” The letter throbbed. His hands quaked.
“We wouldn’t eat without you, Bill,” Stan promised, head twisting over his shoulders when a faint voice called out the familiar roll of his name, followed by a murmur of confusion. “Hey, Bill, what are you doing tonight?”
Two thoughts came in succession: baseball tryouts were tonight, and the letter had told him not to go. A mind less consumed by inner turmoil would have been able to spot the hopeful gleam burning in Stan’s eyes, the nervous fidget of his questioning body, but Bill instead thought on wasted opportunities. His dad would probably come to games if he played baseball. He’d always liked the outfits, the hats, the feel of a bat in his hands. Stan could cheer for him in the crowds, all of them could make signs with his name printed on them.
He thought of the crawling purple bruise on Eddie’s features, the red spots on his new shirt. Wasted opportunities came by the dozen, regrets that festered and eased resentment. “I’m free tonight, what’s up?”
“I was thinking of going down to the Barrens, but I didn’t want to go alone.”
“I’m in.”
Hopeful touch had been replaced by quiet pleasure, the softening smile over Stan’s lips a rare and wondrous thing. Fingers, that had not so long ago soothed Eddie, reached out to adjust the strap of Bill’s bag over his shoulder. “You’d get yourself into trouble without us, Bill,” Stan laughed, a free noise to be shared only between them, and Bill luxuriated in the private nature of the moment. He felt secluded, and powerful.
“I get myself into more trouble with you.”
Chuckle gave way to a wink, and Stan turned to his classroom, and marched through the door with the same depleting look as a man entering a funeral. His beauty had seeped from him. Pallid and loitering, Bill resolved to talk to the coach about arranging separate tryouts later, resolving himself to no wasted opportunities.