SEMI CHARMED LIFE | CHAPTER FOURTEEN| 3.7K | TEEN
“You guys have kept in contact this whole time?” Bill asked, brow disappearing underneath hair line as he looked like his old friends in amazement. “And you guys are.. what? Room mates?”
Eddie avoided looking at Richie as he answered. “Yeah, uh… room mates. Something like that.”
[or: the adult!losers reunion, done 2000s sit-com style, just like we all deserve.]
PREVIOUSLY ON SEMI CHARMED LIFE: CUTEST COUPLE. Richie traced his hands over the words, smiling softly as he took in the appearance of himself and Beverly Marsh at fifteen. Hair that hadn’t been tamed on either part, paisley patterns and braces on Richie’s teeth. Himself looking like the best thing that could ever happen to him was standing there with Beverly Marsh in his arms, having their picture taken for their high school yearbook. | “I think… I think you, Richie Tozier, are the only good guy I’ve ever dated.” Richie looked down at her with a bemused smile. “Beverly, aren’t you married?” | Richie, it’s been ten years, man. I’ll regret what I did to you every day for the rest of my life but I’d really like to move past this. You were my best friend for fifteen years before that, and I... I’ve always missed you.” “You know….” Richie shook his head and frowned. “I thought I was past this, I thought I was easily eight years past what you did. But now I’m here, looking at you and having to listen to you go on about what a great experience you had at school and how in love you are and I…. I want to be happy for you, Stanley, but I can’t. Because you stepped on me to get it.” | “Wow…” Eddie chuckled slowly. “You’ve got some serious issues, Beverly Marsh. Get the fuck out of here.”
Author’s note/Warnings: A vague mention of a suicide attempt mentioned in this chapter!
permatags: @thundercatseddie, @eddiekabsprak, @appojoos, @s-s-georgie, @kaspwitch, @jwilliambyers, @tozierking, @eddiefuckinkaspbrak, @sloppybitchardtozier, @chaotickaspbrak, @vipertooth, @edstozler, @anellope, @tozierpunks, @thorn-harvester-ven, @wheezyeds, @emgays, @thegoths, @wilding-throught-thehallways, @reddie-to-cryy,
Beverly hugged Richie’s sweater tighter around herself and settled on the subway bench. She’d lied to Ben, after everything at the Kaspbraks’. Promised she had a place to stay, somewhere to go that wasn’t work. And Ben, bless him… Ben had believed her. People needed to stop taking her at face value, because she somehow now managed to lie without flinching. She didn’t know when she became this person, but she knew that a younger version of herself would be disgusted by it. Maybe this version of her was disgusted, too.
Beverly leaned onto her side and curled up, jacket still tightly around her. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she must have because next time Beverly opened her eyes, a teenage Richie Tozier was sitting on the bench beside her head.
“SHIT!” Beverly cried, scrambling to sit up. Richie smiled at her, braced-faced and acne covered. Curls completely fly away and nose covered in freckles. Fifteen years old, maybe sixteen. But he sure as hell didn’t match Beverly’s twenty eight years. “Fuck, I’m loosing it.”
“We can agree on that,” Richie said, grinning childishly at her. “What the hell are you doing, Beverly? Come on.”
Beverly let out a shaky breath. “Okay, is there like… acid in the air? Or something.”
“I think you have to physically take acid,” Richie said, crinkling up his nose. “But I don’t really know. But I can promise you that you’re not on any drugs or anything weirder than it seems.”
“So I’m just crazy.”
“No crazier than you’ve always been.” Richie said, bouncing up to his feet and holding a hand out to her. “I’m here to help you, Bev. Help you get your shit together before you ruin everything for good.”
“I’ve already ruined everything for good.” Beverly said, refusing to accept the hand that Richie was holding out to her. “Eddie hates me, you hate me… I cheated on husband, and I ruined things with Ben, and I… I’m living on a subway bench! I’ve hit rock fucking bottom.
“We all hit rock bottom at some point.” Richie said, words too wise for his young-again face. “That doesn’t mean your life is over, or that you can never crawl back up. It just means you need to look back and figure out where shit went batty.”
Beverly exhaled hard, and grabbed Richie’s hand. There was a pull in her gut, like she’d started the drop off a huge rollercoaster. She squeezed her eyes shut to swallow back the rush of nausea and when she opened them, she was standing in much too familiar living room. One she hadn’t seen in over a decade, but she suddenly recognized without a doubt. She sighed, the sight of herself and even younger Richie sitting on the white couch not far from where she was now standing.
“Oh my God,” Beverly groaned, rolling her eyes. “You guys really just let me walk around dressed like that?”
The Richie by her side chuckled and knocked at Beverly with his elbow. “You looked beautiful. You always looked beautiful, but something about this night… You know.”
“Yeah.” Beverly whispered. She turned to Richie and swallowed roughly. “Why did you bring me here, Richie? I know what happens.”
“No, you don’t.” Richie said with a shrug. “And that’s your problem. You think you know, but you don’t. All you know is what you remember happening to you. But there’s always something else going on around you, but you don’t see.”
Beverly looked back at the couch, taking in the sight of her teenage self and Richie sitting pressed together on Greta Keene’s fancy couch. Teenage Beverly ran her fingers through Richie’s curls, leaning close enough that she was half on his lap. It was the moment of something, Beverly remembered this night. Before this, before Richie in those ugly yellow shorts and too much alcohol in both their systems, Beverly had never considered Richie as anything more than her annoying Trashmouth friend. After this night, he was her boyfriend… for a long time. Her first heartbreak.
“So, what am I missing here?” Beverly asked, watching Richie lean in closer to herself and knock their noses together.
“Eddie.” Richie said simply, looking over his shoulder. Beverly followed his gaze, seeing a tiny, 14 year old Eddie Kaspbrak leaning against the wall of the living room. He was making a show of talking to Bill, but Eddie could see where Eddie’s eye line was. Where it followed to. A weird sense of guilt fell into her stomach.
“That whole time?” Beverly asked Richie, unable to take her eyes off of Eddie. Eddie, with perfectly styled hair, and polo shirts. Tube socks, and fanny pants. This Eddie barely looked a day older than the day than the day Beverly had befriended. She loved him so fucking much.
Richie made a clicking sound with his tongue. “You doubt it? After everything, you’d think you’d have accepted that Eddie and I belong together.”
“I don’t…” Beverly sighed. “I just didn’t think it went that far back. I never thought…”
“You had no reason to.” Richie said. “Let yourself off that hook before you put yourself on it. You aren’t a bad person for dating somebody that somebody else- especially if you didn’t know.”
“I can’t decide if I should feel guilty for dating somebody my friend liked or…” Beverly sighed. “Pissed that one of my friends liked my boyfriend.”
Teenage Eddie suddenly thumbled with his drink, the solo cup dropped to the ground. Eddie stammered out some sort of apology to Bill then booked from the house. Beverly whipped around quickly, seeing now that she and Richie were finally kissing.
“Well.” Richie cleared his throat. “You know what happens next here. Do you want to see what happened outside?”
“No.” Beverly meekly, but they were older outside.
Eddie gripped at a tree in the yard, heaving for a second before vomiting. He collapsed against the trunk, hugging himself to it, breaking into loud and messy sobs. Beverly pressed her hand over her mouth, wanting to look away but finding herself unable to do so.
“Horrible.” Richie said, devote of any emotion.
“We’re just gonna… stand here and watch him?” Beverly gasped. “Can we… help him? Richie!”
Richie smiled. “This was almost fifteen years ago, Beverly. You can’t jump in change anything. It’s already been done.”
“Then why are you showing me this?” Beverly cried. “Are you trying to make me feel guilty for dating you? Because Eddie liked you? Well, I don’t! I’m sorry he was hurting, but that’s my fault. I didn’t even know.”
“I didn’t know, either.” Richie said. “That’s not on us, Beverly, it’s not. Nobody blames you, not me, not Eddie. But this stuff you need to know. But you don’t understand.”
“What the fuck is this? A fucking Christmas carol?” Beverly snapped.
“Yeah.” Richie laughed. “Just call me Ghost of Boyfriend Past.”
“As long as you’re the only one.” Beverly grumbled, turning away from Eddie’s sobbing form. “That’s pretty much all I can handle.”
Richie scoffed, with a sharp shake of his head. “Who else would it be? Ben? Big Bill? Boring.”
“Richie, I’m literally married and-” Beverly was cut off by Richie waving his hands in her face. She glowered at him, arms crossed angrily.
Richie wrapped his hands around her wrist, with another shake of his head. “We don’t have time for all that.” He said. “There’s too much to do, too much to see.”
Beverly barely had time to react to anything before she found herself no longer standing outside Greta’s house, but sitting in the back bench seat of Richie’s shitty old beat up truck. They were sitting out by the old abandoned railroad tracks. Trains had long stopped coming out there, even since the boy had been killed out in Castle Rock, they’d been slowing the travel through smaller towns.
This wasn’t just a regular hang out, smoke, maybe fool around like the usual “sitting in Richie’s truck at the railroad” and Beverly knew it immediately. Could feel the tension in the air. Could see how Richie was pressed right up against the truck window, sitting as far as away from Beverly as he could in the small space.
“Why are we here?” Beverly whispered, though she knew that their younger selves couldn’t hear her speaking. “I remember what happened. I was there.”
“You remember what you wanted to think happened.” Richie said back. “I told you. You don’t really know anything.”
“That’s rude.” Beverly snapped. She wondered if it was acceptable to punch a hallucination of a sixteen year old, or if it was still frowned upon morally. “I don’t know what this has to do with Eddie. He wasn’t even here.”
“This isn’t about Eddie.” Richie said. “None of this about one thing. It’s about you, about me, about Eddie… Bill. It’s about everything that happened that made your situation like this, Bev.”
Beverly felt her face burn. “You know about the stuff with Bill?”
“Objectively, I know everything that has ever been and ever will be.” Richie said, stroking a long invisible beard. Beverly rolled her eyes. “But if you’re asking me if your Richie knew about you and Bill, then yes. I knew the whole time.”
Beverly looked down at her hands, but Richie pulled her chin back up to look at younger version of herself.
“I’m sorry,” young Richie was saying to her, hands tight around the steering wheel. He was staring out the windshield and Beverly remembered the feeling in her gut when Richie refused to look at her all too well. “I just… I’m confused. I have a lot of shit I need to figure out.”
“I don’t understand.” Young Beverly said, and she hated hearing the broken cracks in her voice. She wasn’t sure what kind of cosmic joke was forcing her to physically relive her first heart break, but she wanted to destroy it with her bare hands. “We were fine yesterday! Things were good, I thought-”
“I’m sorry.” Young Richie said again, eyes squeezed shut. “I can’t explain it right now, I don’t know how. I just need this to be over right now. I love you, Beverly, but I can’t do this.”
Beverly could see her younger self pressing her hands to her mouth to keep from crying, and she thought she could feel what that Beverly was feeling. The swirling of her stomach and the clenching of her heart. The feeling of looking at the person she thought she was in love with, and seeing somebody she didn’t know. Couldn’t understand anymore.
She watched herself grab at the handle of the truck and tumble off, taking off at a run into the night. Richie called after her weakly, once, then leaned over to close the truck door and crash his forehead against the steering wheel.
Beverly and her Younger Richie were suddenly standing outside the truck, and she was watching herself run down the streets. On a reflex she started to run after herself, but Richie appeared in front of her and caught her once again. “That’s where we’re going next.”
“Why do you get to decide where we go?” Beverly cried. “You’re not real!”
“I’m as real as any of this.” Richie said roughly, though he let Beverly go and stepped back. He crossed his arms over his chest, and suddenly looked so young and so real that Beverly’s breath caught and her palms began to sweat. She’d lost her fucking mind, it was official. She couldn’t even control her own halluications.
“Stop.” Richie rolled her eyes. “I’m not a dream, or a fucking hallucation.”
Beverly blinked, and sighed heavily. “Then what the fuck are you? Because this… this doesn’t make any sense and I don’t want to be here!”
“Well, you can’t leave until you see everything.” Richie said, voice cold and detached. It didn’t even sound like the voice of a human anymore. “And you still don’t get it.”
“I get it, okay?” Beverly cried. “Richie was in love with Eddie the whole damn time, I was some sort of gay cover. Fuck him. What the fuck ever. Let me go back to-”
“To your subway bench?” Richie sneered. “If I wanted to show you how much Richie and Eddie love each other, I could do that.”
Beverly thought she was maybe going to get whiplash as the world flashed around her while they stood in the same spot.
Eddie and Richie carrying boxes into a tiny apartment. Eddie and Richie sitting on swings in the Derry, snow in their hair. Eddie dropping down onto one knee at a tiny coffee shop. Them bringing boxes into the house they lived in now. Eddie picking up a small bundle of pink blankets in the hospital. Richie climbing in a crib to soothe a crying Frankie…
“Or I could show you the real truth.” Richie said simply, as the scenes began to change.
Eddie walking out of Richie’s bedroom, hands pressed over his face while tears were still visible under them. Eddie and Richie standing in the middle of the road, rain pouring down on them, screaming at each other. Richie sitting in a dark living room, staring at nothing, while Eddie cried on his knees in front of him. Eddie holding Richie’s hand in a speeding ambulance, them hugging in a hospital room, packed suitcase on the bed behind them-
They were standing in the hallway of Derry High School when Beverly’s head stopped spinning. They stood in front of their lockers, Beverly having a casual conversation with Bill and Eddie when Richie made his way down the hallway, carrying a cardboard box. He ignored his friends greetings as he yanked his locker open and started throwing his belongings into the box.
“No.” Beverly said softly, mouthing curling up in disgust and stomach bubbling. “I don’t want to see this again. Richie, I don’t-”
“It doesn’t matter.” Richie said quietly, eyes stuck on the scene unfolding in front of them.
“What are you doing?” Eddie asked, and Beverly could hear the panic in his voice. She had been able to hear it back then, in the real moment, too.
“Apparently I cheated on the SATs.” Richie said, not taking his face away from his locker. Not looking at anything he threw into the box. “They expelled me.”
Beverly’s stomach dropped to her feet, and she remembered feeling the exact same sensation in the moment as well.
“What?” She’d cried. “That’s such bullshit, Richie! You’re the best student in our year, why the fuck would you cheat on the SATs? You don’t need to.”
“You have to fight this.” Eddie said pleaded, and Beverly saw something in him this time. Something that she hadn’t noticed in real time. The way Eddie trembled when he reached for Richie, the way his entire face seemed to collapse when Richie jerked away from him.
“You were together then.” Beverly said, not a question.
“Yeah.” Her Richie answered anyway.
“They have a witness.” Then Richie said coldly. He closed the now empty locker and removed his lock. “Somebody said they saw me, or some shit. It’s over. It’s done.”
“Rich-Rich-eRichie.” Bill stammered, but Richie waved him off.
“It’s fine.” Then Richie said. “I’ll see you guys around.”
Eddie took off after him as Richie walked from the school, books and locker decorations all in a box. Beverly knew before it happened that they were going to outside standing with them. Richie had almost made it to Maggie’s waiting car, when Eddie caught up to him.
“Richie, Richie, wait, please.” Eddie pleaded, only wheezing for a moment. Richie placed his little box into the back seat and turned around slightly. The open, vulnerable pain on his face was something Beverly had never seen before on the teen. “Please, we can still fight it, we can-”
“No, we can’t.” Richie cried, voice breaking. “I’m not graduating, I’m not going to UCLA or NYU or anywhere we applied. I can’t, they’ve made up their minds. It’s fucking over, Eddie.”
Eddie jerked back as though Richie had slapped him, and the words rang in Beverly’s brain. Eddie’s shoulders hunched up higher towards his ears, and he swayed slightly on the spot. “What’s over, Richie?”
Richie glanced around at the amount of students wandering around the front of the school, students who were looking, students who could hear. He turned back to Eddie with a look that Beverly couldn’t really describe but could feel like a punch to the gut.
Eddie stared after him with his mouth dropped open as Richie climbed into the front seat of his mother’s car and pulled out of the parking lot.
“God.” Beverly breathed out and rubbed a hand over her face. “That’s so…” She shook her head. “What’s next you’re going to make me live through? What? What else do you need? You want me to feel bad for Eddie, I do! Okay, I do! What sort of terrible awful memories do you have lined up for me? Eddie’s dad dying, everytime Henry Bowers abused one of us?”
Another flash. A dark park, Richie on his back, Patrick Hockstetter on top of him. Stanley Uris behind them, baseball bat in the hand, swinging-
Beverly gagged, spinning around and clapping her hands over her mouth. The scene changed again, her standing in her own childhood bedroom. Mike Hanlon laying across the bed with her, Stan sitting straight backed in her desk seat.
“I cheated off Richie on the SATs,” Stan said in a empty voice, sounding perfectly rehearsed. Beverly remembered the chill that ripped through her body at Stan’s words, and her arms broken into goosebumps just hearing it again. “They called me into the office about it, and I… I told them he cheated off me. That I’d saw him, but I didn’t want to get him in trouble.
Stan and Richie in diapers, bathtub running behind them while Maggie crouched down in front of them with a rubber duck in each hand. Richie standing and applauding at Stan’s bar mitzvah. Stan’s baseball colliding with the back of Patrick Hockstetter’s head and and knocking him away from a half conscious Richie. Richie wrapping a towel around bloodied wrists.
“I don’t know why I did it.” Stan said slowly, Beverly and Mike both staring at him without blinking. “I just knew I couldn’t fail, that I needed to get a good grade and this test was right there and I just did it. I didn’t think we’d get caught, that Richie would never know what I did and then they confronted me and I panicked. I couldn’t get expelled, I couldn’t, so I just-”
“You don’t have to explain it to us.” Mike interrupted, but Beverly remembered wanting to say things much, much worse to Stan in that moment. “The only person who can forgive you is Richie.”
The scene twisted once again, but Beverly and Richie were now in some sleazy looking New York Club. Beverly wiped at the tears that started to fall down her face. Richie rubbed at her arms. As she pulled her face back, trying to catch her breath, she caught sight of Richie stumbling out the front door into the dark NYC streets. She watched the guy in the leather jacket accept a bill from his friends and followed after him. “God. What now.”
“Not out there.” Richie said somberly. “We’re not here for me. We’re here for you.”
Beverly turned around and let her eyes fully adjust to the ugly bar lighting, and she suddenly recognized it. Recognized herself, sitting alone at the bar. The man who had given the money to the friend who had followed after Richie noticed her and got up. Beverly realized who he was now. Tom.
“What did that guy do to you, Richie?” Beverly asked, feeling her heart begin to hammer in his chest.
“Not the point, Bev.” Richie said sadly. “This is your story, no matter how connected everything always is.”
Beverly shook her head, watching Tom putting on the charms for her. He didn’t seem nearly as attractive as Beverly remembered him being all those years ago. He just looked like another scumbag in a bar, and Beverly was disappointed in herself for going home with the loser that night. Never mind the path it lead her on.
“Did you ever like him at all?” Richie asked her.
“Did you ever like me at all?” Beverly shot back. Richie raised his brow at her and she sighed. “I thought I did. I wanted to.”
“Yeah.” Richie said, giving her a soft smile. “Me too.”
Beverly gave him a smile back. “I know that it wasn’t meant to be and Richie. I didn’t even think so when I threw that shit in Eddie’s face. It was some stupid defensive bullshit and I never meant those things to him for a second, I just didn’t know how to take them back or make anything better.”
Richie shrugged one shoulder, eyes still stuck on Beverly’s husband. “So, what are you going to do now? When you go back to the real life? You have a husband waiting for you, a nice round of apologies to make…”
“I don’t know.” Beverly breathed out. “I could go back to Tom, I should. I need a place to live and we’re married and he loves me. I thought I loved him once, I could do it again. What other options do I have, really?”
Standing outside Derry Middle School, a completely unsigned yearbook in her hands. Ben slipped a A Derry postcard with a poem into her book bag. A slow dance in the school gym at senior prom. Drinking in a Derry hotel room. Kissing in front of beautiful, empty houses.
“Okay.” Beverly rolled her eyes. “That one was a little unnecessary.”
“Was it?” Richie challenged with a grin. Beverly opened her mouth to respond, but suddenly found herself opening her eyes on a subway bench. She sat up, and pulled the sweater tighter around her. She found suddenly that it didn’t smell like Richie anymore.
She took her time walking through the streets of NYC before reaching her designation. She buzzed into the building.
“Hello?” The groggy voice on the outside side answered.
“Hey, it’s me.” She said through a voice crack. “Can I come up?”