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Richie’s been different since they killed It. The statement is almost stupid in its simplicity, especially since everyone’s changed since Derry. But Richie’s changed for the worse, whereas for everyone else, life seems to have changed for the better. Beverly and Ben start traveling the world, Bill can start to write books with good endings, and Mike can find the rest of the world. Richie seems to have stagnated, or gone backward, or something, but it’s hard to tell because none of the other Losers can chisel past the stone wall that he puts around himself.
The only person who might’ve been able to get past it was Eddie, but he’s dead. The others went to his funeral, trying to console an inconsolable Myra. Richie simply dropped off the map. No one knows where his permanent residence is, and his agent refuses to talk to any of them. When they all see Myra, they think maybe it was for the best that Richie was a no-show. They were barely allowed to attend the funeral, as she was convinced that they were all the reason that her darling Eddie died. None of them could say otherwise. They wonder if Eddie would’ve been happier afterwards, or if he would’ve returned to his seemingly miserable life with his mother-clone wife. In the hotel, after the funeral, they talk deep into the night about the what-ifs and should’ve-beens. Wondering if Eddie would’ve built up the courage to divorce Myra, or if he would’ve tried to return to his old life, even with the knowledge of what was missing.
The attendance at the funeral is meager. Myra kept Eddie on a short leash, and most of the people at the funeral are Myra’s friends and family. They wonder if Eddie had any friends. Everyone seemed shocked to see that Eddie knew people who could be called celebrities, if you were feeling generous. Eddie and Mike were the only two who never made names for themselves. Mike by choice, and they all feel guilty for that. Mike reassures them that he’s happy with the choices he made. No one pushes too hard. Eddie had the choices that Mike gave up by staying in Derry. Richie would’ve told Eddie to his face that he wasted them. No one else would’ve dared say anything. Without the rest of the Losers, he chose to marry his mother and have a soulless corporate job.
They wonder what Eddie could have been, had he broken the cycle. Wonder if Richie ever thinks about the life Eddie chose for himself. Bill and Richie are near-household names, Ben could’ve bought a small country, and Bev. Well, Bev was rich, but she couldn’t break the cycle either. It broke Ben’s heart when Bev told him, quietly, that she thought dying was a better option that going home. But Eddie never found his Ben. Eddie found the razor-sharp end of Pennywise’s talon
Not that it matters. Eddie is dead. Richie is missing. He didn’t make it to Reno. He didn’t make any of his dates. The tour was cancelled, and the tabloids all have their own opinions on where famous comedian Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier went, theorizing about drugs and hookers and secret wives and children. He was notoriously secretive about his personal life. He was “one of the brightest names in comedy,” according to the magazines. Now he’s gone. None of the Losers want to bring up why they think Richie left. It’s not their place.
“I just want to help him,” Bill says over the phone to Ben, late one night, a few weeks after the funeral. “I want him to know it’s not his fault. Because I lived with that for years. Not even knowing why I lived with it, and I don’t want Richie to feel like I did.”
Ben takes a moment to respond, the phone line quiet. “It’s hard to help a man who doesn’t want to be found.” He takes a breath. “And I don’t know if your trauma and his trauma are the same. You lost your brother. He lost his—” His voice falters, searching for the right word, and failing to. Or maybe not wanting to. “Eddie,” he decides on.
“I know that!” Bill says, quick and defensive, “I know that, but that doesn’t mean that he should be handling those emotions alone. It’s not like he can talk to anyone about this, and knowing Richie he’ll make jokes until everyone forgets. And he’s not making jokes.”
Ben only gives a thoughtful hum in response, then changes the subject entirely, talking about nothing much in particular. He hands the phone over to Bev at some point and she decides that tonight’s topic is her high-profile divorce. Bill thinks about how that could’ve been both of them, together. He thinks about Eddie, and the divorce that never was. Never could’ve been. Thinks about Richie, and how he never had the chance to have a divorce. Supposes that it might be for the best, as he could never imagine Richie with a wife. Richie is far too crude, and was on tour far too often, and alienates almost everyone he meets when they realize that his stage persona is somehow a toned down version of his actual personality.
He misses the levity that Richie brought to the group. Bill’s too serious, Mike is too serious, and Ben and Bev are bad at pretending to not be serious.
They try and meet at least once a month, for dinner. Trying to recreate the magic of that first meeting as adults, where they met each other for the first time a second time. It feels so quiet, though, when it’s only the four of them. The hole that Stan’s absence left has turned into a void without Richie and Eddie. They wonder what the dynamic would’ve been like with Richie but no Eddie. If it would’ve been too depressing. They wish Richie would come back to they could find out.
This month, they get Indian food from an upscale restaurant, and Ben pays. They switch between Ben, Bill, and Bev every month, though Ben and Bev might as well be one person by this point, and never make Mike pay. Mike never asks to, and no one ever asks Mike. The dinners are their ways of getting to know each other again. They find themselves fitting into the roles they had as children, but with 27 years of change trying to cram its way into what’s already been carefully carved out. They make casual conversation about their lives, and no one mentions the fact that it’s been months without a word from Richie. They all assume he’s alive, because the idea that Richie killed himself, even after they won, is too heavy to think about. The fact that they haven’t heard otherwise is the only thing that keeps them going. Stan believed he died for the greater cause. No one wants to think about what Richie’s death would mean. They continue to pick at their paneer tikka masala, laughing politely when Ben jokes about going to the NKOTB reunion tour.
Once, Audra tagged along with Bill, wanting to meet his childhood friends. Everyone else thinks it’s because she was afraid that Bill is cheating on her. No one was willing to admit that out loud. She made quiet conversation, asking everyone about their lives and what they do, then sat silently as the others fell into their own roles as members of the Losers Club. After dinner, Audra looks at Bill and comments on how he seems like a different person around their friends, and how she can’t imagine all of them hanging around each other as children. They seem less like childhood friends and more like business partners, out for a meal together. Bill doesn’t mention Stan, Eddie, or Richie. He laughs, and quickly changes to conversation to how good the food was. Audra lets him.
Bev gets a call from a number with a blocked caller ID. Bev ignores the call. She’s worried that it’s her ex-husband, who has been very bad at ignoring the restraining order she has against him. She rejects the call, and her phone immediately starts ringing again. She stares at it, and lets it ring. The phone starts ringing a third time. She decides to pick up the phone and answer. Third times a charm, and all that.
“Bev,” is all that she manages to hear before dropping the phone. It is decidedly not her ex-husband, who only ever called her Bevvie (like her father did), and his voice doesn’t have the desperate, raspy tone that Richie’s does. The phone clatters on the ground and she worries, for a second, that it’s broken, or that Richie hung up, or that a million other little terrible things could have happened.
She picks the phone back up and is relieved to see that Richie is still on the line.
“I’m sorry, I dropped the phone. I wasn’t expecting it to be you. I didn’t know if we’d ever hear from you again.” Before Richie can get a word in edgewise, she makes sure to add that, “It’s so good to hear your voice, we were all so worried, you’re safe, you’re alive, right?”
He laughs, but it’s not his usual bellow. It’s quieter. More thoughtful, if a laugh can be such a thing. “I only got one word out, Bev. You barely even heard my voice.” The phone line goes quiet.
Bev has so many questions she wants to ask. She makes sure to ask the most important questions first. “Where are you? Do you need help? Are you coming back? It’s been so quiet without you, so lonely, it’s not the same without you. We missed you. We missed you at Eddie’s funeral, we have dinners together once a month, we miss you then. We miss you all the time.” Bev can’t remember the last time she talked this much. Richie brings out the talkativeness in everyone, she supposes.
“Bev, I’m fine.” Bev knows there’s varying degrees of fine, but knows that this isn’t the time for semantics. “I’m just not ready to come back yet. I’ve been doing some soul searching which, I know is some gay shit, but it’s something I’ve been putting off for a long time. Your mom jokes can only fuel a man for so long.”
“Please come back. It’s not the same when you’re not here.”
Bev’s voice is so small, so unlike the strong girl Richie thinks of her as, or the woman who was able to overcome all the odds and find her own happiness, in a way Richi never could. Never can.
“Maybe eventually,” Richie says in response, not a promise, but a sliver of hope that wasn’t there before. “But like I said, I’m not ready to come back yet. It’s just hard. Being around everyone. You know?”
Bev’s voice stays breathy and quiet. “Yeah. I know.”
“I just… needed to talk. And I talked! But I uh, have to go now.” Bev can hear clattering in the background, and wonders what it could be. “I might call again, I might not. I’m not sure.”
“Please don’t go,” Bev says, as the line goes dead.
She yells up to Ben, who comes running down the stairs. He’s worried it was her ex. When she tells him what it really was, his face goes white as a sheet, then he hugs Bev. No words are needed between the two of them, each one taking solace in the other and the knowledge that they haven’t lost another member of the Losers Club. They stay close for what feels like hours, then call Bill and Mike. The phone call is mostly silence, with a few sniffles no one acknowledges. No wants to talk about what could be so bad that Richie had to disappear from their lives, so they don’t.
The mood finally starts to lighten, after the phone call, but when it’s six months since Richie’s vanishing act, it’s hard to hold onto any hope that he’ll ever come back. When they talk to each other, Richie is the thing left unsaid in every conversation. They can finally talk about Stan and Eddie, but not Richie. Richie is still alive, somewhere. Richie could come back into their lives at any moment. So they can’t talk about him. It might jinx whatever slim chance there is that Richie will come back.
Ben and Bev break up. Ben realizes that Bev is more like a sister than a lover, and that it’s unhealthy, how close they are. Bev realizes that Ben just wasn’t what she wanted, or needed, and that relationships shouldn’t be centered around violence. They both say it’s for the best, and that there’s no bad blood between them, but whenever the group meets up there’s a tension there that didn’t exist beforehand. Everyone wishes that Richie was back. He’d know what to say. Bev wants to tell Richie that she understands why he left, but he hasn’t called again. She wonders if he’ll ever call again. If any of them will ever see him again. Ben and Bev say they broke up, but they still seem as close as ever. Maybe even closer. They ignore how unhealthy they admit their relationship is.
Bill and Audra get a divorce. Bill says it’s been a long time coming. Everyone believes him. He hides himself away for a few weeks after it’s finalized, in an apartment that’s too small for him and all of his stuff. He says that he didn’t like how large his and Audra’s house was, and he got freaked out by all the empty space. He would wake up screaming more often than not. Audra hated his secrets. Bill wouldn’t go to therapy. She left him, officially. Everyone in the club thinks that Bill’s given up, but no one wants to say anything to him. The novel he writes in the few weeks alone sells the worst out of any of his books. Critics think it’s too dark, that he’s alienating the audience he worked so hard to build up, and they wonder how he managed to write another novel so quickly after his last one. The writing is sloppy, they say, and they wonder if Bill Denbrough’s fame will collapse as quickly as it came.
Mike found the world, but he couldn’t find himself. He left Derry, and wandered for a while, seeing the world, but found it hard to settle down. He couldn’t bring himself to go back to Derry, but nowhere else felt right. He lives in motels, and hotels, and Bill and Ben and Bev pay for all of it. Mike doesn’t want their guilt, but takes it anyhow. He wants to scratch out of his own skin sometimes. His purpose in life was to kill It, and now that purpose is gone, and there’s nothing left. He’s never had a real romantic relationship. He doesn’t really want one, doesn’t know what he’d do if he ever got one. No woman would ever want him, with all the baggage he’s carrying, he thinks. Mike never got a childhood or an adulthood. Everyone else got to have their second lives, outside of It, but he didn’t. It is what it is, he supposes.
The Losers seem to collapse in on themselves. The only people they ever talk to are each other. None of them live together anymore, but sometimes they all stay at each other’s houses, afraid to be alone. Afraid to be with people who don’t know about It. They wish Richie was there. Maybe everything would be better if Richie was there. They know everything would be better if Richie was there. No one says it outloud. They don’t need to. Their relationship isn’t romantic, isn’t sexual. It’s indescribable. It just is. It’s their relationship. They’ve all stopped working, as none of them really need to worry about money for the foreseeable future. Life was supposed to be better, they all thought, but it isn’t. Maybe they’re jealous of Richie, who seems to have moved on. Maybe they’re jealous of Stan and Eddie, who didn’t have to live with the weight of the world on their shoulders.
Of course, it all goes unsaid.
The Losers end up buying a large condo, and living together there. They all make money doing various things online. Bill’s name has completely faded from the newspapers and tabloids, after being labeled a mysterious shut it, though he still ghostwrites. No one ever actually sees him, as he does all work over email. Beverly sells clothing. Ben takes phone calls, and no one seems to know what he’s actually doing. Mike runs a website about the paranormal. They leave the apartment as little as possible, but they won’t let each other become complete shut ins. They very nearly are, though.
There’s a knock on the door, one day. Everyone is confused. No one’s knocked on the door in so long. It’s Bill who gets up to get the door. There’s no peephole, so he slowly opens the door, staring out the sliver that’s open. After a glance, the door is thrown open.
“Richie?” Bill says, like he’s not sure the man in front of him is real. He wouldn’t be surprised if he’d actually started to hallucinate. He leaves the apartment the least out of any of them.
Richie looks healthy. Healthier than any of the Losers currently do. Bill wonders what that means. “I’m back.” Richie’s voice is firm. “I’m back, and I won’t leave again. I promise.”
“Come inside. Please.” Bill shuffles back, and Richie steps in, looking around at what’s become the Losers’ den. The living room is clean, to the point where it’s sterile, almost unlived in. Eddie would have loved the living room. “I’m gonna go get the others.”
Richie smiles and sits down on the couch, waiting. Bill wanders down a hallway, and Richie waits. In seconds, the other Losers come running into the living room. They all stare at him, like they can’t quite believe Richie is actually there. Richie stands, and hugs them all, one big bear hug, mumbling apologies for leaving.
“I wanted to start over, after everything, after Eddie. I moved out of the country. I had a boyfriend. But I was so sad, there was a hole inside of me, I couldn’t live without you.” He buries his head in Bev’s shoulder. “I almost broke when I called, but I knew it wasn’t time. But my boyfriend and I, we broke up, and I knew I had to come back.”
“It’s okay,” Bev says, “you’re here now.”
They all feel complete in a way they haven’t since It died, since Richie left. Their lives can finally be good now, now that they’re all together. They lead Richie into the bedroom, with the bed that they all share. All they want to do is talk, talk about what they couldn’t without Richie. Richie opens up first, and then the floodgates open for the rest of them. Richie and how he loved Eddie, loved Eddie more than he’ll ever love anyone or anything else, but it’s okay, because everyone is together now. He can be whole again.
They’re all whole now, as whole as they can be. As whole as they’ll ever be, without Stan and Eddie. They’ll never let Richie go. Richie doesn’t want to be let go of— he’s already lost so much, he can’t lose anything more. Ben and Bev and Bill and Mike and Richie. Many people, one person. Now that It can’t block their memories, they can live how they want to. How they need to.
They’re the Losers Club, and nothing can tear them apart now.