Work Text:
Eddie didn’t think he would miss Derry. Thought he’d be able to pack his bags and just leave it all behind. The rest of the losers were long gone, Stanley being the last to leave eight months before him. And yet, when he sits in his Brooklyn apartment all alone, he misses it. Misses the familiar streets, the people who had all been there for as long as he could remember. He misses his mom hovering over him, watching his every move and he knows he shouldn’t want that, knows it was wrong and awful and yet it feels like a loss. He misses sneaking off to the clubhouse, even when he was the only one left. Being there felt lonely yet familiar and left him with an aching pain that wouldn’t go away, following him everywhere he went but still he couldn’t leave it behind, couldn’t leave it in silence like all the other places they used to be.
And now he has left, finally found the courage, and he’s been here in New York all alone for weeks now and somehow he misses it all. There are six holes in his heart that are shaped like people who won’t call him back, won’t respond to any of his letters, who left him in that town and never looked back. And he wonders how they did it. If it was easy for them to leave him behind, leave that town behind, all the memories they had. He wonders, but doesn’t want to know, afraid the answer will hurt more than not knowing.
Months pass and the loneliness doesn’t go away, but the longing subsides. It’s getting harder to recall anything of Derry, of his life before, but it doesn’t feel bad. Just weird. It’s a weight off his shoulders to not spend his waking moments reminiscing about how everything used to be. He is starting to find his place in New York, knows how to get everywhere he needs to be without even thinking twice and it feels nice. Natural. Comfortable.
There’s a thought at the back of his mind but he can’t reach it. Feels it eating away at him every moment of the day. It keeps him up at night. There’s a hole in his heart, weighing him down, and he doesn’t know what used to be there but knows it must have been important. Knows it won’t come back. It leaves him lonely and afraid.
Someone asks him a question about his hometown and he blanks. Says he can’t really remember, vaguely recalls it was in Maine. They look at him like he’s crazy, and he thinks he might be actually. But the more he thinks about it, the blurrier it all gets, until all he can recall is a pair of brown eyes smiling back at him.