****Disclaimer: If I really wrote The Body or had anything to do with Stand By Me would I really honestly and truly be writing on for FanFiction??? Enjoy! ^-^****
Chapter Song:::: Who You'd Be Today—Kenny Chesney
The sky. I will always remember that clear Oregon sky. No clouds. Just blue, a perfect azure. The sun was beaming heavily on this lovely September morn. Most would see it as perfect. I saw it as another day without him. Six months tomorrow and everyday stung as much as the first. His name was always on the tip of my tongue but I was directed not to speak of him. Oh I longed to talk of him, to laugh and cry about him, just to be with him again. But no. From the day we stuck him six feet under I no longer had him. Pictures were taken. Old stories were snatched. All memorabilia had been robbed and stuck high on a shelf, to be forgotten. I looked down at the box in my hands and then to the pretty house I would now live in.
My sister and her new husband standing on the front porch. They were smiling. They were so…beautiful. My sister with her wavy blond locks and him with his studly dimples. They were not only beautiful but kind. People I would never be.
"Come on, honey." Sylvia urged, crossing her arms and smiling some more.
"We don't bite." Mark laughed. I looked to the sky and nearly saw his face grinning down at me from the clouds above. I smiled faintly and walked into the house. Their house. My house.
That night we sat at the dinner table eating Sylvia's delectable chicken and mashed potatoes. She always was the cook in my family. I sat silently as they bantered on about meaningless things. Simple married couple's jargon I didn't give much a shit about.
"So Sadie." Mark began. "How do you like your room?" I thought about the upstairs room. All the walls were white. So was my new dresser and bed. All of my furniture was at my parents. I only brought clothes. I was only allowed to bring clothes.
"I like it." I mumbled, taking another bite of carrots.
"We can paint it later on down the road if you want."
"Yes. Any color you want!" Sylvia pitched in, trying to sound cheerful. Just for them I plastered on that all too known fake smile and acted cheerful.
"That would be great. Thank you so much for letting me stay here." Sylvia's smile faded as did Mark's.
"It's not a problem. As long as your okay." She placed her hand over mine with that look in her baby blue eyes that cried 'please don't talk about it'.
"And I am. So when does school start here?"
"It did three weeks ago. I have your schedule and everything on my desk upstairs." She smiled again.
"That's wonderful, Sylv. You know, I think I am going to go for a walk. Get to know the town. Dinner was great." I stood, leaving my nearly full plate on the table.
As I walked down the hill into town small kids ran barefoot freely. Still refusing their mother's please for shoes. Up in Philly that never happened. Old men sat on front porches and not inside with their Old Western's. In town teenagers idly hung around outside of shops, just talking. I felt a chill run down my side and I could nearly feel him standing next to me. I sighed and shoved my hands into my jeans pockets. I noticed right off that no girls here wore jeans. I kept walking until I walked right out of town and to an old field where I saw a tree house.
Walking towards it I couldn't hear any noise coming from it.
"Must be abandoned." I muttered, thankful for a hiding place and not thinking that the old thing could hold anyone or that anyone would be up there anyways. Climbing up the rickety ladder I pressed on the slat of wood covering the entrance. It wouldn't open so instead of leaving like a normal girl, I pressed harder. Not a minute later I heard something crash from inside and the wood lifted up, revealing a teenage boy looking slightly bored and slightly ticked. His hair looked like it was having an identity crisis, half blond and half dark brown. He dawned thick glasses and had worn looking dog tags around his neck and one of his ears was warped and melted, looking like one of my Barbie Doll's after a very eventful 4th of July. He was slouched in the corner smoking a cigarette and looking out the window. The crate that must have been holding down the wood slat was toppled over like he kicked it in order to free the entry way.
"Vern, piss off."
"Would you like me to relay that message to this Vern person?" I asked with a comical tone.
"Who the fuck are you?" he inquired, swiveling his body towards me and staring at me.
"Sadie. Never seen a girl before?" I was still only half in the tree house, in case I was demanded to leave.
"I've seen lots of girls." He replied, a hint of pride in his voice. "Just not you girl."
"Well that's to be expected seeing as I just got here not ten hours ago." Now he seemed interested.
"Are you gonna stay there all day like a retard or are you coming up?"
"Well I got nothing better to do."
"So who are you?" he asked, taking a long drag of his cigarette.
"Sadie Zelper." I sat on a crate and watched his face turn in to astonishment.
"Zelper? As in Miss Sylvia Zelper, the sexy English teacher Zelper?"
"Yeah. She's my sister."
"You don't look anything like her." He commented.
"I'm well aware of this fact. I got the shit filled end of the gene pool."
"What grade you in?"
"10th."
"Well well. Looks like I might have to get to know your ugly freckle faced mug."
"Fuck off ya four eyed freak."
"That the best you got?"
"Any other slurs I got aren't yet legal in this pussy state." He eyed me carefully, judging me closely. He stuck out his right hand and smirked.
"Teddy Duchamp."
"Ha!" I exclaimed. "You're that lowlife Duchamp my sister always rants about. Uhhh. I mean hello." He laughed oddly, like a hyena fucking pelican.
It wasn't too long after I got up there that I heard an oddly organized knock on the entry way.
"Enter." Teddy called out.
"Hey man." I looked at the boy entering through the floor boards. His hair was short and brown and his eyes blue and expressive. He was tall and well built, I could tell as he wore only a see through white t-shirt and jeans.
"Hey, Chris." After Chris came a lanky, gawky looking boy with shaggy brown hair and eyes that resembled a fawns. He had a soft spoken face with a wise look in his doe eyes, like he had seen and heard too much. "Hey Gord." By this time I was hunched in a corner in order to make room for the other two teenage boys. I had forgotten how much space and oxygen boys took up.
"Who's the girl?" Chris asked looking me up and down with curiosity.
"Get this. She is Miss Zelper's," he paused for an unneeded dramatic pause. ",sister!"
"Your shitting me." Gordie laughed looking at me.
"Nah."
"I don't look like much but yes in fact I did at one point share a bedroom with Sylvia. Amazing I know."
"I'm Chris Chambers. This here is Gordie LaChance."
"Sadie Zelper. Hey why do you guys still use her maiden name? You know she got married three months ago right?"
"It's a fact every man in Castle Rock chooses to ignore." Teddy explained with a sigh. I laughed at the fallen expressions of all three boys.
"It's also a lot better than Leech." Gordie pointed out, cringing at Mark's last name for reasons unknown to me.
"Yeah." Chris mumbled, ready for a subject change. "Where ya from?"
"Philadelphia. Mom and Dad…sent…me down here for, uh, a little bit." I didn't know how to explain why my parents set me miles away from home to live with my estranged sister to strangers yet.
"Cool." He was now dealing out cards and the conversation was over. "Bullshit. In or out?" he asked me.
"In." I smiled. Little did they know I was the B.S. champion. I stayed until the sky began to darken when I figured I had better go to the house.
"Gotta go." I had already lifted the crate off the slat and had started to descend down the ladder when I heard boys voices reject.
"You can't go alone. Little girl like you is gonna get killed." Teddy taunted.
"I take that offensively." I stepped down another rung.
"We'll walk you home. Dad's gotta be gone by now anyways." He mumbled the last part and dropped through the floor. I jumped off the ladder and saw Gordie leap down, also without the use of a ladder. I had started to walk away with Chris and Gordie on either side of me when I heard Teddy.
"Turanimo!!!" he bellowed, causing us all to turn around. We were just in time to witness him flying out of the window and landing on the ground, mostly unharmed. I looked to the faces of Chris and Gordie who where un-phased. Teddy sauntered towards us like he hadn't just jumped out of a tree house window like a flaming idiot. He stood beside me and smiled down at me. I only came up to his chest. I hadn't realized how freaky tall he was in the tree house. Then I looked to Chris and Gordie. They were both taller than me too. Maybe I was just freaky short…
"Ready?" Teddy asked, wiping the dirt off his shirt. I nodded and with three boys, I walked into my new life, still not ready to forget my boy above.
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