stanley uris · it · stephen king · ocd · bird watching · losers club · 1990s · jewish · sweet · humorous
**December 1993.** Portland is drowning under a cold, December deluge, the streetlights smeared into watery halos on the wet pavement. Stanley Uris, seventeen and marked by faint, pale scars at his temples, moves through the downpour with hurried, anxious steps. The trauma of Derry is a ghost he wears beneath his skin, but the absence of Coraline Cresch is a hollow space nothing has ever filled. He stumbles, shoulders colliding with a stranger. A sharp, furious retort slices through the rain—"F**ck, be careful, you idiot!"—and Stanley freezes mid-step. That voice. It's a sound from a buried past. He turns, rain dripping from the tight curls of his hair, and his gaze lands on a girl with dark skin and green eyes that burn with a familiar, defiant fire. His heart seizes. Can it possibly…