Richie Tozier was sure that it was meant to. Always meant to. Meant to end, or meant eat him whole. No person could live with so much of it, for so long.
Too long. Ten years too long, it felt like. Twenty-seven had passed and just when Richie thought he couldn’t take another second of it, thirteen more went on. All the while that terror, that identity-altering terror sat growing in the deep inside of his body, careless and hungry, and whatever It was that had brought it here slept on.
Richie was growing old, despite his best efforts, and it was painful. Not so much in the back and joints—although, a little in the back and joints—but mostly in the face. The long lines in his forehead, around his mouth from all the talking. Every time he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, it struck him how deep they were. He spent a long while staring, prodding, utterly perplexed. They only ever got worse.
“Would you quit jerking it in my bathroom and get out here.”
Richie sighed, washed his hands under cool water, splashed some on his face, and called it a day.
“I wasn’t jerking off, I was ripping ass.”
He made his way to the kitchen, where the delicate, two-person slice of tiramisu he’d picked out earlier that evening sat on the island, lit by a singular candle. On the other side of it, Eddie Kasprak scrunched his nose up in distaste. It was an expression worn well in the lines between his eyebrows. Not as prominent as Richie’s, but he had always looked a little younger than he was.
Richie remembered that.
“You are an ass.”
He remembered that, too. The bite. Eddie always bit harder than it was ever serious when they were kids.
Richie didn’t know how long they’d known each other. Long enough to walk to school together, he supposed. From their little adjacent houses with trees growing out front, branches stretching and stretching out towards each other. Never quite touching.
He didn’t know when they’d lost touch, either. Only that they had.
“I got you something. Well, found you something.”
Then some years passed.
“Me?”
And then some more.
“Don’t get too excited.”
And then, ten years ago, they ran into each other in an airport just outside their hometown of Derry, Maine. Baggage claim. Eddie carried his duffel bag of prescription medicine, Richie—the shame of his spiraling career. Their hands were too full to embrace. He wasn’t sure if they would have otherwise.
That was probably the scaredest he’d ever been.
Now, Richie stood in the man’s kitchen—the one he shared with his wife. Watching him rifle through junk drawers and thinking they must be Myra’s.
Did he love her? Did her loose papers in his drawers endear him?
Finding Eddie married didn’t totally surprise him. He’d been with Sandy at the time, going on nine years—eleven by the time things had ended. Eleven years, two apartments, an almost-dog. More junk drawers than not. He’d loved her. He would have gone on loving her, too, but had understood why she hadn’t let him. Nobody had to tell Richie Tozier about his laundry list of bad habits, or maybe his commitment issues.
(Though she had snorted at the suggestion. Commitment issues? She’d scoffed. surrounded by half-packed boxes, plucking every third CD out of their once shared collection. Baby, you’ve got commitment issues alright. But not like people say!)
Richie was no stranger to shared spaces, or even, eventually, marriage. It was just that the last time he’d known Eddie, he’d been such a boy about girls. Sixteen and still grimacing at the idea of dates, Richie had almost thought—
“Found it.”
Eddie pulled an envelope from the deep confines of a junk mail drawer. It was sealed. There was a moment of hesitation before he quickly tore it open and pulled out a polaroid. He offered it to Richie, arm stretching out over the flickering flame of the candle. Richie reached back, and his shaking hand made him wonder if he’d just aged another twenty years before he remembered it was the fear, the goddamn fear that lived within him, breaking the surface.
It was a picture of them as kids, some warm summer day outside a soda shop they frequented downtown. Richie had an arm slung around Eddie’s neck, so tight it was nearly a chokehold, and they both held melting ice creams. Their grins stretched from ear to ear.
For a moment, for one breath, it almost felt to Richie as if forty years had not passed between himself and the day this picture was taken. That he was a boy, and could taste the vanilla sweet on his tongue. Could feel the warmth of that summer, the touch of Eddie close and solid in his elbow, and how it meant they’d never leave here. For a breath, Richie’s feet didn’t ache, his bones didn’t ache, his chest didn’t ache.
He exhaled, and it was gone.
“I found it in the storage unit of my mom’s things,” Eddie was saying. “You know, everything from my room is there because she never touched it.”
Richie twisted his face up every direction he could think of to hold himself together. “You don’t want it?”
“It’s on my computer now.” Eddie shrugged. “Memorialized on an ugly blue screen. Can you come blow out this candle before all the wax gets in the cake?”
It was too late for that, but Richie carefully pocketed the picture and came around to stand next to Eddie. Ignored the way his heart grew louder and blew out the candle, no wishes.
“I’m glad you prefer my spit to candle wax,” he murmured.
Eddie frowned deeply, then began fishing around for forks in lieu of dignifying that with a response. Richie watched him. His worry lines, his freckled nose. He was graying faster than Richie was—could never lay off the stress—but he wore it better than Richie did.
Things were different now than they were in that picture. They were different now than they were even ten years ago. And still, they found comfort in each other’s company. Still, they found something adjacent to fun. Still, they found that little Italian restaurant by Eddie’s apartment every year, celebrated a birthday, and walked the four blocks back, tipsily stopping by the nearest bakery on the way to pick out a dessert to share.
Eddie handed him a fork, and he was so close, Richie wondered what might happen if terror didn’t hold him hostage. If he could lean in, then could Eddie? Could they fall so hard they bring the cake down with them, and start an affair of sorts on the cool kitchen tile? Frosting and all?
His muscles protested at the mere fantasy of the thing, and the reminder of his wasted youth devastated him. Eddie circled the cake delicately with his fork until finding his perfect, predictable indulgence—the corner—and taking the first bite. Richie watched him until his eyes caught sight of the envelope still open on the table.
“Anything else in there for me?” He nodded towards it, shifting to further face Eddie, pressing his hip into the island and propping an elbow on the table.
“Just an unfunny card,” Eddie said, swiftly snatching up the envelope and stuffing it back in a drawer. “And, um, a Khol’s giftcard. Heard they have good senior discounts.”
“Hilarious.”
Later, Richie would catch a cab back to his hotel, then a flight home in the morning. Eddie would turn in early, or wait up for his wife. And they would call, when they remembered to. Make plans, when they could. And Richie’s heart would go on beating wildly in his chest so that he’d never forget it was there, inside of him.
Eddie took his second bite and Richie shamelessly went in behind him, scraping up every crumb that may have touched his fork. Eddie sighed.
“Happy birthday, Richie.”
They took smaller bites and chewed longer than need be, finding interest in the patterns of the walls they both faced.
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Hello! I appreciate the message so much. It's been a really hard few years, but I do think I'm doing alright considering. Thank you for reaching out <3
Memory. Memory. Me-mor-y. Richie mouths the word to himself, a silent sound pushing his lips apart and pulling them back together. Memory. The motel sheets are dry and scratchy, there's movement in the room next door. Memory.
Memory: always bleak, always unfunny. Potentially the least funny word in the English language and for that reason, ticklish and unfamiliar on Richie's tongue. He makes a face and listens to the hushed noises on the other side of his wall—love, palpable.
The wrinkles in his forehead twist and deepen. He thinks of memory as some dead thing risen, a zombie from one of those old horror flicks he’d catch well past his bedtime back in the 80s, flickering on his static-stricken television set. He can see it: memory a grotesque, unrecognizable body crawling over him, and love in the other room. It tears him open and he listens, to the ripping and the rearranging and the sharp, quickening breaths. What does he know of love, anyway?
Memory has ears that are in tact, a nose that he knows, and between bites Richie can almost make out the warmth of youth. It’s sweat-sticky skin, it’s candy-sweet breaths. But memory is more-so estranged, and these glimpses are overwhelmed by the smell of rot and pain—unbelievable pain.
He shouldn’t have come here. These motel walls are thin, so paper-thin, and love is on the other side, drifting off. He listens to the gentle rustle of sheets, finding and touching, to himself, being eaten alive, and stuffs a large fist into his broken mouth, muffling a sob.
Memory should have stayed a six letter word in his father’s Sunday morning crossword puzzle: m-e-m-o-r-y.
I’ve been kind of dependent on audible books for the last couple years, but I have some time off work next week and would like to try to read a physical book. Anyway, does anyone have any stephen king recs for that?
Eddie’s first kiss with Richie, could he do it all over again, he wouldn’t do any differently. He has to figure that at 12 or 16 or 50 didn't matter—it was always going to be sticky or wet.
Their dorm is bigger than last semester’s, since getting a third roommate. Still no kitchen, but there’s a tiny loft now connecting the two bedrooms where they’ve managed to squeeze a couch and television, plus an old microwave Richie found in his parent’s basement over winter break. This has been great for eating in front of the TV, a pastime Eddie has taken an overindulgent liking to since settling more comfortably into college life.
There have been a number of things Eddie’s taken a liking to since moving away from his mom, and there will be a number more, but for the moment it’s just this—messy, greasy, dirt-cheap food and shitty television. He’s hungry all the time for anything downright bad for him, but will warm his belly all the same.
He’s eating mac & cheese right now—those shitty, 25 cent microwave kraft cups they sell in the market downstairs. Bill bought an apocalyptic-sized pack at the beginning of the semester before Richie got him on ramen, and now Eddie eats two on his breaks between English and Chemistry. He’s cross-legged on the couch humming around a spoonful of his second cup when Richie gets in from class. It’s a moment or two before he realizes he’s being watched, and even then it’s only because Richie makes a disruptive noise.
“Dude, are you...good?”
He must have cheese dust on his face. He knows he has it on his fingers. He glances up to see Richie looking at him, head tilted curiously.
He’s been, predictably, pretty encouraging of all of Eddie’s newfound (if sometimes a little destructive) freedom—anything that might send mama Kaspbrak to an early grave has always gotten Richie Tozier’s loud stamp of approval. Even now, asking, he doesn’t look concerned so much as he does amused. Almost fond. Just checking in. Maybe he’s tired of sharing his candy bars during movie nights.
Eddie likes him for this. He likes Richie a lot. In fact, of all the things he brought with him from home, Richie is his favorite. No contest.
When he doesn’t answer right away, Richie grips the armrest of the couch and bends to him. “I’m just worried the next time you go to the hospital, they’re not going to have your blood type,” he says. “Type C. You know, for cheese.”
For one fleeting moment, Eddie fantasizes about dropping out of school to laugh at Richie’s godawful improv exclusively, but he’s quickly distracted by the proximity between them. They’re close—closer than they’ve been in a while. And he can't stop looking at Richie’s mouth.
It looks good. It looks messy and bad for him, and fulfilling for exactly those reasons. Satiation is in the pout of his lips and so Eddie, who’s been blinking expressionless at Richie for the last two minutes, grabs a fistful of his t-shirt and pulls him into a messy, inexperienced, cheese-filled kiss.
It’s probably objectively terrible, but that doesn’t seem to matter between two reasonless people running on emotion raw since ‘82. Richie is pink in the cheeks, orange around the mouth when they pull apart, and all Eddie can do it grin. Grin, and regret nothing.
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