Chapter 2: Standing in your flame

Alone in his room, Eddie lay on his bed reading through one of his comic books, when he heard the all-too-familiar noise of someone climbing up to his window. It was a common occurrence. Eddie's mother liked to keep him locked away as much as she could, hating when he socialised outside of the house with his friends. If she were given the choice, he wouldn't have any friends at all.

As long as he was stowed away in his room, she was happy and tended to leave him to it. It was pointless for the other Losers to call round for him, as Mrs Kaspbrak usually turned them away, telling them Eddie was too ill to come out and play. Total lies, they all knew. But, Eddie's mom was a control freak and unfortunately, Eddie had to bear the brunt of it. Being 13 years old, there wasn't much he could do about it.

Hence, the climbing up the side of his house, into his bedroom window. All the Losers did it when they wanted to see Eddie. He always left the window open partially, just a crack, to let them know he was there, and that they were welcome. But, curses! Eddie had meant to shut the damn window that day as he didn't particularly want to see anyone.

"Oh, Rapunzel!" A voice called out, "Let down your hair!"

Eddie recognised Richie's voice but was in no mood for his bullshit. He rolled his eyes and stared at the window until Richie made his appearance.

"Ah, there you are princess!" Richie called out as he pushed the window fully open and climbed into Eddie's room. Richie knew to slip off his shoes before walking across the bedroom, so as not to alert Mrs K.

"What do you want, Richie?"

Richie adjusted his glasses, looking a bit taken aback before his expression changed. "Oh shit, I must have climbed through the wrong window, sorry Eds," he smiled, "normally your mom is ready and waiting for..."

"Beep Beep Richie!"

Richie closed his mouth.

"And don't call me Eds." Eddie went back to reading his comic book.

Richie made his way over to the bed, kneeling on the floor before his friend. "Hey, what crawled up your butt? You didn't even wait around after school."

Eddie refused to look up from his comic book. He didn't want Richie to see his eyes. He knew that if he looked at Richie, he might not have been able to hold back his tears. He could already feel himself on the verge.

He was irritated from seeing Richie and Tiffany kissing and he couldn't shake the image from his mind. Maybe Eddie wouldn't have minded so much if Richie had even told any of them about her. If he'd even said, "Oh hey, I have a girlfriend now." Nope, he just shows up one day, hand in hand with her, acting all giggly and in love.

Since when did Richie want a girlfriend anyway? Since when did they reach the age where they got girlfriends? Eddie took comfort in the fact that all of the Losers seemed to be in the same place regarding that sort of stuff. That it was way beyond their years. Nobody would ever be interested in a bunch of nerds like them, and girls were stupid and gross. Who wanted a girlfriend anyway? That's what they'd all thought. And Eddie felt safe and comfortable with that.

He had been terrified of all of them getting girlfriends one by one, and with him being the only one without, he'd soon stand out like a sore thumb. Everyone would question why? Why hasn't Eddie got a girlfriend? He was terrified to the ends of the Earth that people would discover his sexuality. That was not something he was ready to share. Derry was not exactly the most accepting of places. In fact, the town was rife with homophobia.

But now, Richie had started the ball rolling. Although Stan knew Eddie's predicament, Eddie felt it was only a matter of time now before Stan and Bill followed in Richie's footsteps, leaving Eddie out in the cold.

"Nothing, I just wanted to be by myself."

"Then why'd you leave the window open?"

"I forgot."

"You know... you've gotten really boring these days Eds." Richie tried to push his buttons.

Eddie lowered his comic, raising his eyes to meet Richie's annoyed expression. "Are you fucking kidding me?" Eddie exclaimed.

"What?"

"Suddenly we're not good enough for you, all because you have a girlfriend?"

Richie smiled in the way that people do when they can't believe what they've just heard. More of a shocked reaction than anything.

"So that's what this is about." Richie said.

"What?"

"You don't like Tiffany."

"I never said that,"

"Well, it's freakin' obvious."

"You don't know anything," Eddie was starting to get really upset, his heart rate increasing, his skin crawling just talking about it. He put his face back into his comic book.

Richie grabbed the book out of Eddie's hands and tossed it on the floor.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"What are YOU doing?!" Richie raised his voice.

"Keep your damn voice down. My mom's downstairs."

"I don't give two shits! What has Tiffany ever done to you? She doesn't even talk to you."

"Exactly!" Eddie replied. "She doesn't talk to us. She never says hi. You've NEVER even introduced us. Us. Your best friends. You just show up with her one day, and suddenly we're all supposed to be okay with that?"

"The others are fine with it..." Richie said calmly.

Eddie felt frozen to the spot for a moment. "...W-what?"

Richie almost looked proud, a smug expression plastered on his face. "Yeah, Stan and Bill like her just fine actually. The four of us are always joking around. She's quite cool actually, but you'd know nothing about that."

Eddie felt hurt and betrayed. They all hung out together? With Stan and Bill? And no-one had SAID anything? Why?

"So, it's just me you didn't talk to about her?"

"I TRIED to tell you I was seeing her. The others were happy for me. Do you even know how closed and repressed you are, Eds?! It's a real drag." Suddenly the cute nickname Richie had for his friend sounded disgusting coming out of that trash mouth.

"Don't FUCKING call me Eds."

"You know what... this is bullshit." Richie got up, stomping across the floor, not caring if he would be heard. "I'm done. I dunno what your fucking problem is, but whatever it is, fucking get over yourself."

Eddie watched Richie put his shoes back on and climb out the window. He didn't want him to go. He wanted more than anything for him to stay. For it to be like old times. For them to read comic books under the bed covers in the dark, giggling whilst using a flashlight to see. To wait for Mrs K to fall asleep so they could raid the kitchen for snacks, staying up 'til 3 am, eventually falling asleep next to one another, sometimes cuddling.

Maybe that's why he had fallen for Richie in the first place. Their relationship was so comfortable and natural. He couldn't imagine having one-on-one sleepovers with either of the other two. But with Richie, it just felt... normal. To just lay with each other until they fell asleep. They never bothered with airbeds or sleeping bags. It was suggested once, for Richie to sleep on the floor in his sleeping bag, and Richie had been the one to veto it, instead opting to climb into Eddie's bed and cuddle up close to the smaller boy. They'd been 8 years old at the time, so neither of them thought anything of it.

In the years since, they'd had regular sleepovers, usually ending with them cuddled up as they fell asleep. It was never discussed as an issue, but Eddie knew it was one of the contributing factors as to why he fell for Richie. Surely it must have meant something if he was the only person in the world he felt comfortable doing that with?

But it wasn't like old times. Richie was growing up. They all were. Maybe Eddie had to accept that. Why would he want to carry on having sleepovers with Eddie when he could be with his girlfriend? Eddie felt stupid, for thinking things could always stay the same. Why would a 13, almost 14-year-old boy want to carry on sleeping in a bed with his best friend at that age?

Eddie had supposed their relationship wouldn't ever change, but he guessed that at some point, the sleepovers would become weird. That the closeness would become weird. He couldn't picture them at age 16 still doing that. Although he wanted it more than anything in the world.

But Richie didn't... and he guessed that was the fucking bottom line of it all.