#bowers
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When the last bell finally went, I walked out of the school. I slipped through the crowd, while looking for my brother so we could walk home together. As I walk towards the street, knowing my brother and his friends will probably be waiting in front of the school, I see them near a dumpster. I chuckle to myself as I see them throwing their books into a trashcan while talking to each other. As I approach them, I begin to hear their conversation.
‘She’s not dead’, Bill says, ‘She m-m-m-missing.’
Were they talking about that girl? Betty Ripson?
‘Sorry Bill, she’s missing’, Richie says, before the group begins to walk away, not seeing me already walking after them, ‘You know the barrens aren’t that bad. Who doesn’t love splashing around in shitty water.’
Then I stop dead in my tracks, when I see a group of boys, around my age, going up to them. One pulls Richie by his backpack and into Stan, causing them to fall onto the ground. Then one of the boys, with dark, long hair crouch down next to Stan.
‘Nice Frisbee, flamer.’
‘Give it back’, Stan demands but the boy simply takes Stan’s Kippah from him and throws it into one of the open windows of a bus that’s driving by.
‘Fuckin’ losers.’
One of the boys, seemingly the leader, shoulder-checks Bill while mumbling, ‘Loser’, before joining his friends again. Bill turns around to this boy and calls after him: ‘You s-s-s-suck, Bowers.’
this makes the boy stop in his tracks and turn around. I can see my little brother his something at his friend, but I can’t hear it.
‘Did you s-s-s-say something’, the boy taunts, ‘B-b-b-b-Billy. You got a free ride this year cuz of your little brother. Ride’s over, Denbrough.’ The boy begins to stride over to Bill. I move to go up to them, but then the boy stops, looking over Bill’s shoulder. I look in the direction of the boys gaze, there I see a cop, I recognize to be Butch Bowers, looking over at the group of boys.
Butch bowers? … ‘You suck, Bowers’…
‘This summer it gonna be a hurt-train’, the boy speak, though in a lower tone, ‘for you and your faggot friends.’ He then licks his hand and drags it over Bills cheek. After this he turns and walks towards a car where his three other friends are getting in. I join my brothers group to hear him say: ‘I wish he’d go missing.’
‘He’s probably the one doing it’, Eddie retorted.
I cough, catching the boys attention. They turn to look in her direction.
‘Are those the boys?’ I ask my brother.
‘Kath’, Richie answers immediately, ‘don’t worry about it…’
‘but…’ I try to disagree but he interrupts, ‘Kathy, please.’
I sigh, ‘alright…’
Then the two of us walk home together in relative silence. That evening, our mother doesn’t come home.
She is probably out at a bar with friends… or yet another guy.
And dad was already out cold before dinner was ready. Richie and I had to struggle to try and lay him in bed upstairs.
august
I leaned back in the lawn chair I was sitting on as the boys cheered on Henry as he shot bottles and glasses using his fathers gun in his backyard. I roll my eyes as the boys clap when Henry shoots another bottle: ‘Yeah, there we go.’
Henry points out a cat at Belch, addressing it as ‘The next target’ causing me to yell out in outrage, ‘Henry!’ Henry turns his head to me and chuckles ‘I’m kidding! Don’t worry.’ I roll my eyes at the boy’s joke and get up out of the chair.
I walk over to the cat, pick it up and sit back down with it in my lap. The cat, though, was quick to jump off of my lap, it’s then that I notice the sound of someones footsteps approaching. All of us look back to see Butch, Henry’s dad, approaching. I glance back to the boys to see all of them have stiffened up.
‘What the hell’s going on here?’ Butch asks as I get up. It was in this moment I realized I’ve never been face to face with Butch Bowers; I’d seen him around school with his colleagues and what he could do when angry whenever Henry came to ask me to help him take care of his slashes. I look over at my boyfriend to see him looking at the ground as Butch walks up to him, getting in his face.
‘Cleaning your gun’, Henry mumbles in a small voice, ‘like you asked.’
‘You’re cleaning my gun, huh?’ Butch questions, sarcastically.
‘Dad…’ Henry begins as Butch grabs his gun from his hands.
‘Hey!’ Butch yells in Henry’s face. This causes all the boys to flinch. I just look over at the man, shocked and beginning to get angry. Butch turns to walk away, but then turns and shoots the ground close to Henry’s feet. Henry jumps at this and puts his hands up to protect his face, all while beginning to shake violently.
‘Look at him now, boys’, Butch says lowering his gun, ‘Ain’t nothing like a little fear that’ll make a paper man crumble.’
‘What The Fuck!’ I scream in outrage. And Butch, who’d been walking away, turns to look at me. Without another word, he shoots at me like he did Henry. I had force myself not to flinch, not allowing myself to give this man the satisfaction. I move to take a step forward but Vic grasps onto my arm, stopping me.
To that Butch snorts a laugh, ‘You’re way too strong and way too pretty a girl to be with that weakling of a boy.’
‘I can sort that out for myself thank you very much.’ After saying this, I side-glance at Henry, checking to see how he’s doing. He seems scared to death, though not for himself, for me, still holding his hands up to protect himself.
After Butch went back inside, I go over to Henry. I move to stand in front of him and gently pull his hands away from his face. ‘Hey, everything’s okay.’
Though Henry’s hands are still shaking, he takes me into his arms, embracing me into a crushing hug, but I don’t mind.
The tears are still falling down my cheeks as I arrive at the fair. There it doesn’t take me long to recognize Belches car, from there I go to look for the small group of boys. I find them fairly easily, sitting on a set of stairs, taking swings from a flask. As I make my way to them, I can see Vic pointing me out from the crowd. Henry look in the direction his friend is pointing and gets up to make his way over to me. ‘Hey baby’, he says, greeting me. But as I get closer, Henry’s expression changes into one of concern, at this moment I am sure he’d probably seen my red eyes. ‘Hey what’s wrong?’
‘H-h-had a fight with R-r-r-richie’, I stammer as Henry wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me closer to him. After a while he pulls back and wipes the tears off my face, before kissing my forehead, then my cheeks, and finally my lips. I wrap my arms around his torso, placing my head in the nape of his neck. All the while Henry holds me closer to him as he places another kiss on top of my head.
Eventually we pull away from each other slightly after hearing chuckle coming from Belch and the following comment from Vic: ‘Awww Henry, grown soft, have we?’ Both boys received a glare from Henry, causing me to giggle a little. This seems to catch Henry’s attention, as he smiles down at me, kisses my temple and takes my hand to guide me to the stairs where he’d been sitting. After Henry sat back down, I move to sit down next to him, but he pulls me so that I’m sitting down in his lap. I blush slightly at this, given that this was the first time we’d ever shown us being a couple in public. Henry puts his one arm around her as he holds the flask into his other hand.
I take it out of his hand and take a swing from it, before giving it back to Henry and leaning into his chest. Over my shoulder, I see a look amusement on Henry’s and his friends’ face.
After the fight with my little brother, I spend the majority of my time with Henry and talking to Richie as little as possible. Not that the latter was difficult, he wasn’t home all that much, he wastes his days of summer vacation inside the arcade. Because of this and the fact that my parents weren’t home a lot either, Henry and I would, more often than not, meet up at my place in order to avoid Henry’s father as much as possible.
From time to time, I would unfortunately have to patch up Henry after he got yet another beating from his father. I always tried to talk about it, but he insisted it’ll all be okay. He promised me that once we graduated we’d get out of there, out of this town, and leave all of this behind us. And I have to admit, I like the idea.
After a few weeks of our relationship, Henry put a little box into my hands. I opened it to reveal a small switchblade that matched his. Henry had blushed while giving it to me, he claimed he’d bought it ‘Just in case something happens to you’. I smile up at the boy upon seeing the thoughtful gift (though I am aware of the fact that most outsiders would consider this a strange gift, but to me it’s something that really links Henry to the gift).
I put the switchblade and box that it was in on the table before throwing my arms around my boyfriends neck and kissing him. His arms reach around my waist pulling me close to him while also pinning me against the wall behind me. Henry deepens the kiss, and it doesn’t take long for it to get kinda heated, though we stop when we hear a cough. We pull away slightly to see Vic and Belch in the door opening, getting ready to leave, yet grins obviously on their faces. ‘What are you two laughing at?’ Henry asks annoyed.
The boys only let out a chuckle before leaving, closing the front door behind them. As my head was still turned to the door, Henry connected his lips to my neck, kissing and occasionally biting it, causing me to gasp. My hands move up over his chest to rest on the nape of his neck, guiding his lips back to mine. Henry grabs onto my thighs, motioning me to jump. When I do, wrapping my legs around his waist as Henry keeps his hands on my butt to keep me from falling. As Henry moves his hips against mine, I bite his lip, pulling it back before releasing it, causing my boyfriend to groan.
‘How about we take this upstairs’, I propose.
‘Well well’, Henry chuckles, ‘what happened to my good girl of a girlfriend?’
‘Well, I guess you started to rub off on me’, I mumble against his lips. My comment makes Henry smirk and begin to carry me upstairs as I move down to kiss his neck.
As I arrive, I can see the boys on the edge of the quarry. Looking around, I also notice Beverly biking up next to her. Both of us are taking off our clothes, leaving us in our swimsuits.
‘Wanna jump together?’ Beverly asks me, offering me her hand. ‘Yeah’, I say, taking it.
‘Alright’, we hear Bill say, ‘Who’s first?’
‘We’ll go!’ I call out as we jog together, past the boys. As we jump I can hear Richie call out:
The girls join hands and jog past the boys and she hears Beverly say: ‘What the fuck? Ahhh, holy shit, we just got shown off by two girls.’
Once we are at the bottom, Beverly call to the boys: ‘Come on!’ and after a while longer, all of us are in the water, playing around and swimming.
After a few hours, all of us lay by the side of the quarry, drying in the sun. Both me and Beverly are laying down as the boys sit on the rocks together. I turn my head to them to see them all looking away from my direction. I move to get up and join them.
‘News flash, Ben’, Richie calls out, going through a schoolbag I assume to be Ben’s, ‘School’s out for summa.’
‘Oh that, that’s not school stuff’, Ben mumbled.
‘Who sent you this?’ Richie held up a postcard
‘No one’, Ben said almost too quickly, ‘No one.’
‘What’s with the history project?’ Richie questions, going through the boys backpack again.
‘Oh well’, Ben begins timidly, ‘when I first moved here, I really didn’t have anyone to hang out with so I just started spending time in the library.’
‘You went to the library?’ Richie calls out, ‘On purpose?’
‘I wanna see’, I look up to see Beverly joining us on the rocks, sitting on Bills left.
‘What’s the Black Spot?’ Stan asks, looking at the papers.
‘The Black Spot was a nightclub that was burned down years ago by that racist cult’, I tell them.
‘The what?’
‘Don’t you watch Geraldo?’ Eddie accuses.
I turn my gaze away from the scene in front of me when I hear a stutter to the left of me: ‘Y-y-y-y-your hair…’
‘Your hair looks beautiful. Beverly’, Ben finishes for Bill.
‘Oh’, Beverly reaches up to touch her hair, as if she’s forgotten what it looked like, ‘hey thanks.’
‘Why’s it all murders and missing kids?’ my little brother spoke, breaking the moment.
‘Derry’s not like any town I’ve ever been in before’, Ben said, turning his attention to the boy who’d asked the question, ‘They did a study once… it turns out people die or disappear six times the national average.’
‘You read that?’ Beverly asks the boy.
‘Not just grown-ups’, Ben continues, ‘Kids are like worse way, way worse. I’ve got more stuff, if you want to see it.’
As we all arrived at Ben’s place, and enter his room, Richie vocalizes his first impression. ‘Woah, woah, woah, wow!’
‘Cool, huh?’ Ben smiles.
‘No, nothing cool’, Richie states, ‘There’s nothing cool.’
‘Well this is cool’, Stan says, looking at some of the photo’s and articles, ‘wait, no it’s not.’
‘What’s that?’ Eddie asks, pointing at a map.
‘That?’ Ben looks the way Eddie points to, ‘That’s the charter for Derry Township.’
‘Nerd alert’, Richie mumbles.
‘Actually, it’s really interesting’, Ben defends, ‘Derry started as a beaver trapping camp.’
‘Still is, am I right, boys?’ Richie jokes, putting his hand up for a high five, not getting one.
‘Ninety-one people signed the charter that made Derry. But later that winter, they all disappeared without a trace’, Ben explains.
‘The entire camp?’ I question finally.
‘There were rumors of Indians…’, Ben tells me, ‘but no sign of an attack. Everyone thought it was a plague or something. But it’s like… one day everybody just woke up and left. The only clue was a trail of bloody clothes leading to the well-house.’
‘Jesus’, Richie breathes, ‘we can get Derry on “Unsolved Mysteries”.’
As I look around the room, I close the door to see what’s behind it. There is a poster of New Kids On The Block hanging on the door. Beverly who’s standing next to me sees it too. Both of us glance at Ben, as he just looks at us with an expression of ‘pleassee don’t say anything’. We chuckle shortly before reopening the door.
‘Maybe he’s just trying to make friends, Stanley’, I hear Richie whisper to Stan, talking about ben.
‘Where was the well house?’ Bill asks suddenly.
‘I don’t know, somewhere in town, I guess’, Bill answers, ‘Why?’
‘Nothing…’
That day, I go home together with my little brother, though later that day Richie gets a call from Bill that both Tozier siblings need to get to Beverly’s place as soon as possible. I grab my bike and go along with Richie. Along the way my little brother keeps questioning as to why we are going where we are going. As we arrive at the house, we all stop our bikes as Beverly walks into view.
‘I-I need to show you something’, Beverly told us, a shocked look still apparent on her face.
‘What is it?’ I ask her.
‘More than we saw at the quarry?’ Richie snaps.
‘Beep beep Richie’, I tell my brother.
Beverly looks between all of us before saying: ‘My dad will kill me if he finds out that I had boys in the apartment.’
‘W-w-w-w-we’ll leave a lookout’, Bill offered, ‘Now Richie, just stay here.’
‘Woah, woah, woah’, Richie calls out waving his hands in the air, ‘what if her dad comes back?’
‘Do what you always do’, Stan calls out, following the group up the fire escape, ‘Start talking.’
‘It’s a gift’, Richie calls after his friends in a slight disappointed tone.
‘Uhm’, I say catching everyones attention, ‘I could stay instead and distract.’
‘NO!’ Beverly yells, almost too quickly, ‘… uhm girls like us don’t want to cross my dad alone.’
I nod, understanding what the younger girl means (perv alert) and go into the house with the group of kids, leaving Richie as the lookout.
‘In there…’ Beverly points down the hall to a closed door at the end of it.
‘What is it?’ Stan asks as we approach the door.
‘You’ll see’, Beverly states.
‘Great, bringing us to the bathroom’, Eddie complains, ‘You know that 89% of the worse accidents occur in the bathroom and kitchen. And that’s where all the bacteria and fungi are… and it is not a hygienic place…’ I open the door to reveal a bathroom completely covered in blood, ‘I knew it!’
‘Do you see it?’ Beverly asks shakily.
‘Yes’, Eddie breaths out shakily.
‘What happened in here?’ Stan asks.
‘My dad couldn’t see it’, Beverly tells us, ‘I thought that I might be crazy.’
‘Well if you’re crazy, then we’re all crazy’, I comment before looking over at the boys, ‘guys I don’t know what’s going on, you all see this stuff too, right.’
‘yeah’, Ben is able to reply.
‘I thought I was the only one’, Beverly confesses.
‘We’ll have to talk about that later’, I conclude.
‘We c-c-c-can’t leave it like this.’
And thus we began to clean the bathroom, that is until I feel some kind of pressure, as if I were a deep way under water and begin to hear some kind of cackling. Though I don’t mention it to the kids.
‘Hey, are y-y-you okay?’ I suddenly hear Bill ask me. It’s only then that I notice that my nose is bleeding. Eddie takes a tissue out of his fanny pack and hands it to me. ‘Thanks.’
As I come back inside after having taken out the trash, I can see Ben standing still in the hall. I walk over to him and look in the direction in which he’s looking. There I see Beverly and Bill, talking and laughing. I pat Ben on the shoulder before getting back to work.
While arriving at the ally near the pharmacy, I can see Bill just beginning to talk to a girl I recognize to be Beverly March. I then enter the ally where I saw the boys while patting Bill on the shoulder in greeting and enter the ally.
‘You have to suck the wound before you apply the bandage. It’s basic’, I hear Richie call out.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about’, Eddie retorted before I tap his shoulder, making him scoot over to give me some space.
‘Hey’, I greet the wounded boy, ‘I’m Kathy.’
‘I’m Ben.’
As I begin to patch him up by wiping the blood off his stomach, I can see a wound in the shape of an H.
Nonono… Even he wouldn’t go as far? …would he?
My thoughts are interrupted when I hear footsteps approaching, I sideglance to see Bill and Beverly enter the ally with us.
‘Are you okay, that looks like it hurts’, Beverly gasps.
‘No, I’m good’, Ben ensures her quickly, ‘I just fell.’
‘Yeah, right into Henry Bowers.’ Richie then calls out, making me stop my movements for just a second before I proceed what I was doing.
‘Shut it, R-R-Richie!’ Bill hisses.
‘Why?’ Richie scoffs, ‘It’s the truth.’
‘You sure she’ got “The Right Stuff” to fix you up?’ I hear the girl say, making me chuckle involuntarily. I turn around, raising an eyebrow in mock-offense: ‘Scuse me?’ My response makes Beverly chuckle.
‘You know w-w-w-w-we’ll take care of him’, Bill told the girl next to him, ‘Thanks again, Beverly.’
‘Sure, maybe I’ll see you around.’
‘Yeah’, Bill says almost too quickly, ‘we were maybe thinking about going to the q-q-q-quarry tomorrow, if you wanna… Come?’
‘Good to Know. Thanks.’ With that I hear Beverly walk away.
‘Nice going, bringing up Bowers in front of her’, Stan accuses.
‘Yeah’, Eddie agrees, ‘did you hear what she did?’
‘What’d she do?’ Ben asks innocently as I continue to bandage the wound
‘More what could she do…’ Richie scoffs, causing my head to swing up in shock, ‘I heard that the list is longer than my wang.’
‘Richie!’ I scold, causing my little brother to flinch at the harshness in my voice.
‘That’s not saying much.’ Stan retorted.
‘They’re j-j-just rumors’, Bill defended.
‘Anyway’, Richie ignored, ‘Bill had her back in third grade. They kissed in the school play. The reviews said that you can’t fake that kind of passion.’
After a moment of silence among the group, Richie takes the word once again: ‘Now, pip pip and tally-ho my good fellows, I do believe this chap requires our utmost attention.’ This makes me once again glare at my brother, causing him to stop once more. It doesn’t take long for me to finish up bandaging Ben’s wound. ‘There you go’
‘Thanks’, Ben smiles cutely.
‘No problem’, I reassure him.
‘We were going to s-s-swim at the quarry’, Bill speaks up, gaining my attention, ‘Do y-y-y-you want to join?’
‘Ow hell no!’ Richie cries out, ‘Y’all are not seeing my sister like that.’
I laugh at this but accept the invitation anyways: ‘Sounds fun. I’ll meet you there. I still have to get some things at home.’
masterlist
We reach my house, ‘you can sit there, I’ll get the aid kit.’ He sits down on the couch in her living room, while I go to the bathroom to get the aid kit. When I come back, I sit next to Henry, I can’t help but notice my knees touching his as I disinfect the cuts on his face. I can’t help but I catch myself looking between the boys cuts and his lips.
After finishing his face, I move on to his knuckles. Then, when I finally dare look up at him, I see cuts on his neck, leading to his back.
‘Uhh’, I start, a blush beginning to burn on my cheeks, ‘’you want me to do those on your neck and… back too?’
I’m about to take back what I said when I see him tense. But it’s replaced by a blush when he starts to take his muscle shirt off. Upon seeing the cuts, the red, and the bruising on his back, I couldn’t suppress a gasp. I can see how tense he is, so I decide to keep quiet while cleaning the wounds on Henry’s back. Occasionally the boy would finch in pain. While disinfecting the cuts, I can’t stop myself from lightly tracing them with my fingers. I could feel him tense and then relax under my touch.
I didn’t realize it until I did it…
I kissed a cut on the nape of his neck.
I pull away, looking down, embarrassed, though I can see the boy turn in the corner of my eye. He slides his hand from my cheek down to my chin, making me look at him. I could tell I was completely red right now.
I see a look in his eyes that catches me by surprise, I’m about to say something about it when Henry leans down to kiss me. I gasp, being slightly taken aback, but it doesn’t take long for me to start to kiss him back. His arms find their way around my waist as mine go around his neck. After a while longer, Henry grabs onto my thigh, pulling me onto his lap so that I’m straddling him. My hands reach over Henry’s shoulders to stroke his back as I’d been doing before, making him relax under my touch as well as softly groan.
Once we had to pull away, panting for air, we are both flushed. I let one of my hands stroke his cheek, making Henry to lean into it. I don’t know what caused it, but something makes me snap out of my daze, makes me realize what I’m doing right now…
… making out with my little brothers bully.
I slide of his lap. Henry also almost immediately gets up and thanks me for patching him up. I expect him to leave immediately, but he places his hands on my cheek again, making me look up at him again. He pecks my lips once more before pulling away and turning to leave.
‘See you around’, he calls over his shoulder.
‘See you around’, I repeat in a small voice.
—-
The next day I stay home until noon, reading, trying to keep my mind off yesterdays events, but failing. I look over at the television to see that show with the teacher and some children playing again.
‘Toilet and tub water travels down drains into sewers.
Culverts are fun to play with all your friends.
Just keep the water into drains and sewers reach.
When you are there with friends, you can have fun like a clown!
That’s right, it is the word of the day.’
I turns it off immediately, that show is fucking creepy. All of a sudden there is a ringing coming from the home phone, it’s Richie, speaking rapidly and frantically, saying a boy has been attacked and needs help. The boys are getting supplies and she needs to come to help patch him up. He ends the call by telling her they are in the ally near the pharmacy.
***let us pretend there is a day in between boys going to the barrens and ben getting attacked***
Richie went to his room quite quickly after dinner. After cleaning up, I go out on a walk to clear my mind after this long day. Everything is relatively peaceful and quiet until I pass the fields just outside of the town center when I hear yelling. From basically the only house in the neighborhood, I see the front door open and someone storming out.
From what little light I have I recognize the person storming out to be Henry Bowers, the boy that harassed my brother after school today. I look at the house again to see a man by the window inside the house…
Butch Bowers.
Every nerve in my brain is telling me not to follow the boy, but every other part of me is telling me that I should follow him.
And so…
I walk into a wood where I saw him disappear into, there I find him sitting on a bench, his head in his hands. As I approach, I see blood on his arms and the side of his face.
Suddenly, under one of my feet, a twig snaps. Henry’s head snaps up, his eyes shoot enraged and full of tears in my direction. Then I sees, his face too is bruised up…
‘Are you okay?’ I ask him in a small voice.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ Henry snaps.
‘I just…’, I think for a second, ‘wanted to see if you were okay.’
This response seems to shock Henry for a moment, but that moment is replaced with anger he lashes out at me again: ‘Do you think you know me?! Huh? Do you think you know what I’m going through?!’
‘No, I don’t know’, I answer calmly, sitting down next to him, ‘I don’t know anything about you, I don’t know what happens between you and your dad, I don’t know why you hurt those kids. And yes I want to know, but I won’t cause it’s none of my damn business.’
Henry is visibly taken aback by my statement yet again. For a moment he just looks at me sitting next to him in silence.
‘My name is Katherina’, I tell him in a soft voice, ‘but…you can call me Kath or Kathy if you want.’
Better not tell him my last name, don’t wanna put an even bigger target on my little brothers back.
‘I’m uhh…. I’m Henry.’ As he speaks, I once again notice there are cuts and bruises along his cheeks, forehead and jaw.
‘Those cuts should get treated’, I tell him, ‘they’ll get infected if they don’t.’ With that I get up and reach my hand out to him, ‘Come on. I don’t live far from here, I could treat those wounds if you want.’
Henry opens and closes his mouth a few times, but doesn’t say anything. He seems hesitant but finally reaches his hand out to take mine, but he lets go of it once he’s gotten up. I turn to walk but Henry grabs my wrist, ‘why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why do you care about my bruises?’ he clarified.
‘Why wouldn’t I care?’ I retorted.
‘You don’t know me’, he states matter-of-fact.
‘And you don’t know me’, I smile. Again, Henry doesn’t say anything. A cheeky part of me smiles at this.
Henry now stands in front of me, reaches his bruised hand up to brush a strand of hair behind my ear that had fallen in front of my face. He continues by stroking my cheek before dropping his hand, I must admit, much to my disappointment. You see, I noticed myself leaning into his touch, while I looks up at him.
We walk to my house in mostly silence.
