Work Text:
Dear Eds,
Wait, maybe I shouldn't call you that. You always said you hated it when I called you that. I never really knew if you were serious.
God, this is fucked up. You're dead, and I'm writing you a letter like you'll write back. But, alas, good sir, I've never been good at keeping my mouth shut. My court-mandated therapist says it's because my parents didn't give me attention.
Boy, Eddie Spaghetti, things are different without you. After my public breakdown before Derry, somebody called in a wellness check on me. I had just gotten back from... well, you know. The police found me unconscious surrounded by booze and what items I dug up from our childhood.
So now I see a woman named Stella once a week and talk about my childhood and you. I hope you're not mad that I talk about you to a stranger. I know you were always insecure about people talking about you, Eds. But now that you're... gone, I feel like I need to tell everyone I meet about you, to make sure that they know you existed. God, that's bleak. But hey, that's me now.
I bet you don't want to hear just about me, though. Bill went back to Hollywood, wrote another book. This one actually has a decent ending. He and Audra are trying to repair their relationship. They got a cat. Mike finally left Clown Town, bought a beach house on the Florida coast. Ben and Bev are trying hard to be normal. Bev left her husband, thank God. She's now the sole owner of their fashion line, after some legal shit I couldn't follow. Ben's still stunningly ripped, and they're sailing around the world on their rich-person yacht. Bev texts me every day, to check up on me.
It's a little pathetic, honestly. I'm almost forty years old, sitting in the ruins of my almost-career, and my friends feel the need to check up on me, to make sure I haven't drank myself to death, or slit my wrists like old Stanny.
Eddie, I miss you so much it hurts. I wake up screaming your name most nights, still seeing that stupid fucking clown skewer you like a kabob. I haven't had a full night of sleep since I got back from Derry. I sleep with a knife under my pillow and a bottle of vodka on the nightstand.
Since you're dead, I guess there are no consequences for what I write here. And I need to get the thing off my chest that strangles me most nights after I wake up.
Eddie Kaspbrak, I love you. I've loved you since the fourth day of second grade when Bill Denbrough introduced us. I ruffled your hair, you squawked at me about bacteria, and I fell head over heels. Sometimes, when I'm three drinks in and delusional, I like to think that you knew. I like to imagine that the thing you never got to tell me was that you loved me back, and if I could have saved you we could be happy together.
Both Bev and Stella say I need to stop blaming myself. But the truth is, Eddie Spaghetti, I will never stop blaming myself. If I had fought harder, if I hadn't left you, if I hadn't gotten caught in the Deadlights. If I had fought Bill and Mike harder, fought to stay with you. It's my fault, and I have to live with the fact that I had a hand in causing your death.
I'm rambling and I know it. But fuck it, you always were the one to listen to my hour-long rants. And this is more talking than I've done in the last six months combined, so fuck it. I'm starting to forget what you look like, Eds. I don't think it's the Derry curse thing, just the normal passage of time. I spent less than a week with you, and I can't find any pictures of you grown up. So yeah, I'm forgetting what the love of my life looked like in adulthood. Yeah, that's right. You were the love of my life, Edward Kaspbrak. Even when I didn't know you, even when I forgot about you. Something was missing from my life, a 5'0 little something that used hand sanitizer every time he touched anything remotely unsterile. And now that I remember you, and you're gone, it's like you took my entire heart with you.
To be honest, Eds, I think I would rather forget you again. If the fucking clown came back to life and told me that you could come back, but I would have to forget you and the rest of the Losers again, I would take it. My heart would know that you were alive again and going about your normal life. Even if you went back to Myra, I wouldn't mind. I just want you to exist again.
That's the part that I can't really wrap my stupid brain around, Eddie. You don't exist anymore. Not just your beautiful, beautiful soul, but your physical body doesn't exist. It was left in the sewers of a tiny town in Maine, and most likely destroyed when they collapsed. I can't imagine it, you not existing. At least when normal people lose a friend, they have the grave to mourn at. They can find comfort in knowing their friend is just below their feet, resting comfortably. But I don't have that. I have the knowledge that you died in pain, without me there, and were crushed by the collapse of the cave.
The rest of the Losers miss you too, I can tell. But they are healing or trying their best. They've resumed their normal lives, and I don't blame them. God knows I wish that could be me. But they pity me. They don't understand why I haven't moved on. They don't know, Eddie. I'm too much of a coward to tell my best friends that I fell in love with a man. I've killed a malevolent clown twice in my life, but I can't tell my friends two simple words. I haven't told anyone, aside from Stella. But since I'm airing all my dirty laundry in here, why not? I'm gay, Eddie Spaghetti. I'm gay, a big fat homo.
I hope you don't mind Eds. You never struck me as the homophobic type, but with all the other shit your mother did to you, why not pepper in a healthy dose of homophobia? I don't know what I would do if you did end up hating me. Maybe it would be better. Maybe I could finally get over you if you told me I was disgusting, sick. I don't know a lot of things when it comes to you, though. That's the bitch of getting older, Eddie. Especially when you forget every single detail of your childhood. I don't know if your favorite food was still tacos or if your favorite color was still blue.
I've written enough for one night. I'm probably gonna put this in an envelope and hide it away in a box. Or, who knows, maybe I'll try to send it. Anyways, I just wanted to say that I miss you, Eds. Thanks for listening.
Yours Forever,
Richie