When a friend is in trouble, how far would you go to save them?
Disclaimer: Though I own both of Wil Wheaton's books and a copy of this movie on DVD, I own nothing else.
Author's Note: First attempt at a Stand By Me fic…Thanks to Aleka for beta reading!
Chapter One: The Beginning
CHLOE'S POV
It's funny how when you're younger, you make all sorts of promises that you have the best intentions of keeping. You promise your parents you'll be home before midnight; you promise your friends that you'll stay in touch after graduation; and you promise that if you ever get out of your hometown, you'll leave and never look back. Out of those three promises, I've kept one religiously. I was never home before midnight, but I have managed to keep in touch with my four best friends. I've sort of kept my promise to leave and never look back, but I had to break it.
After graduation, I promised myself that when I got out of Castle Rock, I'd never go back. But here I am, driving down the highway, on my way back to the last place I would have chosen to go, more than a year after I left. I wouldn't have even remembered it if Chris hadn't called me. See, we have this system: One of our parents calls one of us, then that person calls one person, who calls the next person, who calls the next person, and so on. In this case, my dad called Chris, who called me. I called Gordie, who called Vern, who called Teddy.
So now I'm on the road back to Castle Rock, bags in the back seat, no radio because this car sucks, and my thoughts drifting back to the day it began. The summer that I turned 18, and the summer that my friends and I risked it all and got into the biggest mess of our lives.
May 31, 2005
Chloe Davidson stepped out of the front door of her house and stood on the front porch, looking anxiously at the road. It was summer, and she had just finished her junior year at Castle Rock High, and the whole summer was ahead of her. She had to be careful, though, or else her parents would rope her into babysitting her little sisters, and that was the last thing she wanted to do that day. So she had been glad when her friend Gordie Lachance had called and asked her to come to the treehouse for a post-school celebration. Getting out of the house had actually been the easy part…leaving undetected in one of her friends' cars, now there was a challenge.
Finally, she saw a truck coming down the street. Chloe cringed when she realized that Gordie was driving Chris Chambers' truck. It wasn't that she didn't like Chris…they were best friends. It was the fact that Teddy had dubbed the truck "The Fartmobile," because of the loud sputtering noises it made. When the truck slowed down to a stop, Chloe jumped off the porch and hit the ground running. When she got close enough, she launched herself into the truck bed, and almost landed on Chris. Gordie turned around in the driver's seat and laughed as Chris and Chloe pretended to argue.
"Those were my legs!" Chris said, acting indignant.
"What do you mean, those were your legs?" Chloe asked. "I missed them!"
"By an inch!"
Chloe shook her head, then said, "OK, let's go already! If my parents come out, they'll try to tap us for babysitting duty!"
Chris' eyes got wide and he pretended to be scared. "Haul ass, Lachance! I'll be damned if I get stuck babysitting her sisters…they're crazy!" Gordie hit the accelerator, and they drove to the treehouse, laughing all the way.
"Come on, let us in!" Chloe said. She was standing at the base of the tree, hands on her hips, staring up at the tree. Chris and Gordie snickered. As usual, Teddy was being a dickhead and wouldn't let them in.
"I'm not letting you in unless you do the secret knock!" Teddy said. He was hanging out the window of the treehouse, yelling down at them.
"The only knocking is gonna be my fist knocking against your head!" Chloe shouted. "Let us in, you asshole!" Undeterred by Teddy's wild laughter and refusal, the three started to climb up the ladder, Chloe trying to carry a large stick with her.
At the sight of the stick, Teddy finally relented, and soon Gordie and Chris were inside the treehouse with Vern and Teddy. The four of them were laughing, because even though Chloe had let go of the stick, she was having trouble getting into the treehouse.
"Come on guys, this isn't funny!" Chloe said, trying to grab onto something she could use to pull herself into the treehouse. "Help the skinny idiot who's going to fall down and die!" Finally, Chris helped pull Chloe into the treehouse, shaking his head and laughing the entire time.
"At least SOMEONE is a gentleman!" she said, brushing herself off.
"You've got to have ladies around to have gentlemen," Teddy said. "I see no ladies here, unless you count Gordie." Gordie and Chloe flipped Teddy the finger, which caused Chris to make a crack about synchronized obscenities, producing a fresh wave of laughter.
"OK, quiet everyone!"
They were all sitting on the floor, except for Teddy. He was standing up in the middle of the treehouse, acting like the master of ceremonies at a major event. The guys and Chloe looked at him intently, waiting for his next move, which was passing around big glasses of soda.
"As you all know, today was our last day of our junior year of high school. Starting in the fall, we'll be seniors, then after that, who the hell knows. So I propose a toast. Each one of us toasts something, and we'll drink to it. Vern, you go first." Teddy sat down and waited for Vern to speak.
Vern stood up. "To my pennies…I FINALLY FOUND THEM!" Everyone laughed and drank to Vern's long lost and finally found pennies.
Chloe was next. "To whoever let that cow loose on the second floor of the school…that was priceless."
"To Teddy," Gordie said. "May he get laid after high school." Everyone laughed at this rather uncharacteristic show of snarkiness from Gordie.
"To you guys," Chris said. "For being really great friends." Everyone made "awww" noises, which received a combination of a grin and the middle finger. The toasts continued, getting progressively weirder, culminating in Chloe toasting whoever invented Mountain Dew, and the laughter continued for a long while afterwards.
After a few hours, everything had calmed down. Gordie was writing something in a notebook, Chris was reading a book, Teddy and Vern were playing scat, and Chloe had fallen asleep on the floor while wearing her headphones.
Gordie nudged her with his foot. "You think she's dead?" he asked.
Chris walked over to her and lifted the headphones. The song "Tiny Dancer" could be heard coming from the headphones. "She's just sleeping," he said, shaking his head in mock disgust. "I told her not to listen to Elton John when she's had soda! It knocks her out like nothing else…"
Teddy looked at his watch. "Well, you guys had better wake her up. It's almost seven, and I thought you said you had to be home by 7:30, Chris." Panic slowly set in as repeated attempts to wake Chloe up failed. Teddy was mid-kick, when Chloe suddenly sat up and grabbed his leg, knocking him backwards.
"Never, EVER, do that again Duchamps," she said as she climbed down the ladder, followed by a snickering Gordie and Chris.
They reached Chloe's house in record time, due to the fact that Gordie had been speeding down the back roads. Hearing noises in the back of the truck, Gordie went around to the back, only to discover that Chloe had fallen asleep again and was now lying sideways across Chris' legs.
"She fell over!" he said. "Get her off me, man! Get her off me!"
After succeeding in getting the sleepy one quietly out of the truck and up the walkway-Chloe muttering sleepily about killing damn ants causing silent laughter along the way-the boys delivered her to her older sister. They went back to the truck and waited, looking up at Chloe's window. After a few moments, a sleepy-looking face appeared in the window.
The boys waved and saluted. Chloe smiled, waved, and then gave the boys the one-fingered salute in return. Once again, the boys drove away laughing.
A/N: So, what did you all think of it? Please Review and tell me!