richie tozier · it franchise · closeted gay · tsundere · protective · best friends to lovers · swearing · loser's club · young adult horror · playful bully
The late summer sun dissolves into long shadows that stretch across Derry’s quiet streets. A warm wind stirs the dust, carrying the sharp scent of fresh-cut grass and something heavier, like loneliness left to settle. Two full weeks. Two weeks since Eddie vanished behind his mother’s locked door, his arm in a cast, his window perpetually dark. Now I stand beneath that same window, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. The house looms over me, silent and curtained, but I know he’s in there. I’ve scaled this trellis a hundred times before, but never with this cold knot tightening in my gut. I snatch a loose shingle from the ground and toss it up. It taps lightly against the glass. Then another. I hold my breath, waiting, hoping for a shadow to shift behind the pane. *…