Just watched a WhatCulture video about “8 movie scenes you didnt see (thanks to test audiences)” and it says that in the test version they showed to certain audiences there were enough unused scenes that made the film up to 3 hours long. apparently alot of the scenes cut were very violent with death scenes being more gruesome, darker scenes that were more intense than what was shown and more scenes with Bill’s mum.
Now Im sorry I love this movie to death and bar a more gruesome death for Georgie i want to see these scenes, even if it no longer fits the plot that was set Id love to see how this movie was heading at one point. I just really miss reading this book and watching this film for the first time. any new content would be great.
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.
️ you and him were in a couple of the same classes
️ he’d think you were just like any other girl
️ that is, until you beat the hell out of Greta
️ after your sister Beverly told you she’d been harassed by Greta for months now
️ something in you snapped
️ you’d seen that girl before, seen what she did
️ and you were gonna make it stop
️ you found Greta in the washroom without her friends
️ and long story short:
️ Henry Bowers put 2 and 2 together when he saw you leave the restroom with bloody hands and Greta with a bloody nose, busted lip and a black eye
️ after that he saw you again when one of his friends Patrick stood there flirting with you
️ sure, he flirts with everyone
️ but then Henry started to think: ‘She isn’t just anyone’
️ so he made Patrick stop
️ after that he found out you were Beverly’s big sister, so he made it a point to undo the damage he did when he spread the rumor that he’d slept with her
️ Your sister had told you before about this boy, Henry Bowers, who’d spread a rumor about your sister causing them to trashtalk her
️ But when you find out from your sister that everyone had stopped, you were very confused
️ and it didn’t help that the boy in question came up to you in class to try and talk to you
️ this caused you to snap at him, much to his surprise
️ ‘Can we talk in private?’
️ you didn’t know why but you accepted
️ he apologizes for his behavior towards his sister
️ and asked you to give him a chance to take him out sometime
️ you hesitantly accepted, and hoped your sister wouldn’t kill you for this
️ he isn’t really a pda person
️ an arm around you and some pecks on your temple or cheek is all he’ll do
️ unless he’s jealous
️ If a guy had the guts to flirt with you
️ he’ll find out soon you’re taken
️ in no time here would be and arm around your waist
️ you’d be pulled to Henry Bowers side
️ usually the sight of one of the most infamous guys in town would be enough to scare off anyone
️ if they weren’t, Henry would commence a make out session right then and there
️ just ‘cause.
️ His kisses are slow and passionate, and depending on the situation, quite demanding
️ He isn’t super cuddly though, you’d usually be sitting on the couch together
️ his arm would be around you, pulling you close
️ and your legs would be intertwined
️ despite this, he’d be the first one to tell you he loved you
️ you’d patched him up after another beating of his dad
️ you were both kinda cuddling on the couch
️ his head leaning on your shoulder for a change
️ ‘I love you’, he sleepily sighted
️ ‘what?!’
️ he leaned up and pecked you lips before repeating: ‘I love you’
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.
‘You, you did this. You know how delicate he is’, Mrs K accused us as she ushered Eddie into her car. Bill attempted to defend: ‘We were attacked, Mrs. K.’
‘No’, Eddies mom cut him off, ‘don’t, don’t try to blame anyone else…’ In her hurry, Mrs K drops her keys and Beverly moves to pick them up for her. ‘Let me -’
‘Get back!’ the elder lady cuts off, ‘Oh, I’ve heard of you Miss Marsh… and I don’t want a dirty girl like you touching my son.’
‘Who do you think you are’, I scold the lady, ‘talking to her like that?’
‘I am Eddies mother’, the lady tells me, suddenly dead calm, ‘and eddie’s too young to make his own decisions and I won’t allow children like you to be a bad influence on him.’
‘Mrs. K, I…’
‘No, you are all monsters’, Mrs K tells us, ‘all of you, Now Eddie’s done with you, you hear, done!’
With that mrs K drives away with Eddie.
‘I saw the well’, Bill tells everyone after the car has completely disappeared out of sight, ‘W-w-w-w-we know where it is and next time we’ll be better prepared.’
‘NO!’ Stan snaps, ‘No next time, Bill. You’re insane.’ This outbursts caused Beverly to protest: ‘Why? We all know nobody else is going to do anything.’
‘Eddie was nearly killed’, Richie shoots back, ‘and look at this motherfucker, he’s leaking hamburger helper.’
‘We can’t pretend it’s going to go away’, Bev defends, ‘Ben, you said yourself it comes back every 27 years.’
‘Fine!’ Ben calls out, ‘I’ll be 40 and far away from here. I thought you said you wanted to get out of this town too.’
‘Because I want to run towards something, not away.’
‘I’m sorry but who invited Molly Ringwald into the group?’ Richie mocks, causing me to hiss under my breath: ‘Richie…’ But my little brother simply cuts me off: ‘I’m just saying, lets face facts real world Georgie is dead, stop trying to get us killed too.’
‘Georgie’s not dead’, Bill states stubbornly
‘You couldn’t save him but you could still save yourself’, Richie persists.
‘No!’ Bill insists, ‘T-t-t-take it back, you’re scared and we all are but take it back.’ When Richie doesn’t, Bill punches him and the boys begin to fight. The rest of us immediately step in to tear the two boys apart. I help hold my little brother back.
‘You’re a bunch of losers, get us all killed… while trying to catch a clown’, Richie screams at Bill.
Richie and Bill are then let go off, after Richie screams: ‘keep your hands off of me!’ before leaning his head towards me, he spoke to me in a slight threatening tone, ‘especially the ones belonging to Bowers’ new bitch.’ This caused me to take a step back from my little brother in shock.
‘Stop!’ Beverly cries out, ‘This is what IT wants, IT wants to divide us. When we’re all together, when we heard it, that’s why we’re still alive.’
‘Yeah, well I plan to keep it that way’, Richie insists before turning and leaving on his bike.
‘Mike…’ Beverly attempts but the boy simply shakes his head: ‘Guys… I can’t do this. My granddad was right. I’m an outsider, gotta stay that way.’
That only leaves Bill, Beverly and me, standing on the kaspbra household. I can feel the tears begin to fall down my cheeks. ‘W-w-what did Richie me-mean’, Bill asks, somewhat snapping me out of my shock.
‘I don’t wanna talk about it right now.’ With that I begin to walk into the direction of the fair, though I turn to the two kids one last time, ‘Listen, if you want any help, you can call me, alright.’
All of is go upstairs. There we see a little girl, laying in an open door.
‘Betty?’
‘Ripsom?’ Richie finishes.
Just then the girl is dragged away by something as her scream fills the room. Suddenly my attention is drawn to another part of the hallway. There I see something move in a room. As I enter it, I hear Eddie sceam ‘Guys! Guys!’ and the sound of a door slamming.
‘Eddie!’ I call out, but no response.
I turn to get out of the room but the door slams shut in front of me. I bang on the door, but to no avail. The sound of something falling, a thud of something landing and a crack of something breaking causes me to turn my gaze into the room. There I see Henry, dead on the ground, broken and mangled, slashes all over his body. Immediately I go over to him, sink down on my knees next to him and lift his head onto my lap.
‘T-t-this isn’t real’, I try to tell myself. I keep repeating it until my breathing becomes more steady, ‘This isn’t real.’ As I say this, the floor cracks underneath me. Eventually the floor gives away under the weight, causing me to fall down to the floor below. As the daze of the impact slowly fades away, I begin to look around. I am in a kitchen of some kind and somewhere beside me something is moving, I turn my head, expecting it to be the corpse of ‘Henry’ that’d fallen down with me, but no, ‘Henry’ was gone, next to me, sat Eddie with a broken arm.
I scramble up from the floor and sprint outside to get help from the rest, we need to get Eddie to the hospital, ‘Guys come quickly!’ I say catching their attention while at the same time turning to get back into the house.
On the way, I take hold of a metal pipe while going back inside. I pause for a second when I see IT looming over Eddie, but then slam the pipe into IT’s head. IT turns around to feel ITs face, then, it turns around to us again, ITs face now torn open and contorted.
‘Get Eddie. Get Eddie’, Richie calls out to IT, ‘Whoops! Let’s get outta here. Go for Eddie.’
IT lashes while turning away once again, cratching Ben in the process. As all of us hastily try to help Eddie, Bill and I run after IT. We follow IT into the basement and see him crawl into a well that’s there. Once IT’s gone, I hear my little brothers voice: ‘Bill, we have to help Eddie.’
‘Nooooo, Nooooo!’ Eddie creeks.
‘I have to put the arm in place’, Richie insists.
‘Don’t fucking touch me!’ Eddie threatens.
‘Well, one, two, three.’
‘Don’t fucking touch me!’ Eddie screams but Richie doesn’t listen, as he snaps Eddies arm back in place. After this the group runs out of the Neighbolt house. Mike lifts up Eddie and places him into the basket of his bike as I take Eddies bike.
‘Bill! Bill, you can’t go in there’, Beverly called after her friend, ‘This is crazy.’
‘Look’, Bill said as he got off his bike and stood on the steps of the Neighbolt house, ‘you don’t have to come in with me, but what happens when another Georgie goes missing, or another Betty or another Ed Corcoran or one of us? Are you just going to pretend it didn’t happen like everyone else in this town? Because I can’t. I go home and all I see is that Georgie isn’t there, his clothes, his toys, his stupid stuffed animals but he isn’t. So walking into this house for me… it’s easier that walking into my own.’
‘Wow’, Richie gasps after a short moment of silence.
‘What?’ Ben asks confused.
I answer before Richie could: ‘He didn’t stutter once.’
‘Wait!’ Stan calls out as all of us begin to advance towards the house, ‘Uhhh, shouldn’t we have some people keep watch, just in case something bad happens?’ To this Bill sighs and asks his friends: ‘Wh-wh-wh-who wants to stay out here?’
In response to this, everyone except for Beverly and Kathy, raises their hand.
‘Fuck’, Richie complains.
So after a round of pulling straws, Bill, Richie, Eddie and I enter the house.
‘I can’t believe i pulled the short straw’, Richie complains while entering, ‘you guys are lucky you’re not measuring dicks.’
‘Shut up, Richie’, Eddie snaps, ‘I can smell that.’
‘Don’t breathe through your mouth.’ Richie advises.
‘How come?’
‘Cause then you’re eating it’, Richies statement causes Eddie to make near-gagging sounds.
I can see Richie leaving into another room and pick something up. I follow him to see what he took in his hands. It looks like one of those missing kids posters.
‘What?’ I question.
‘It, it says I’m missing’, Richie stutters.
‘Y-y-y-you’re not missing, Richie.’
‘Then why’s it say it there’, Richie calls out more frantically, ‘it’s my shirt, that’s my hair, that’s my face…’
‘Calm down, this isn’t real’, I try calming him.
‘That’s my name, that’s my age, that’s the date…’
‘This isn’t real, Richie’, I repeat more urgently.
‘It says I’m missing’, Richie continues to scream fearfully, ‘Am I missing? Will I disappear?’
‘Take it easy’, Bill slightly shakes his friend, ‘Look at me, Richie. Look at me. This isn’t real. IT’s playing tricks on you.’
Right before Richie attempts a reply, all of us hear a noise coming from upstairs: ‘Hello? Hello? Help me please!’
‘Okay. Look’, Bill said pointing at one of the maps on the walls, ‘Storm drain. That’s were Georgie disappeared, there’s the Ironworks, and the Black Spot. Everywhere IT happens it’s-it’s all connected by the sewers and they all meet up at the…’
‘The well-house’, Ben states, jumping up.
‘You mean the house on Neibolt Street’, I correct.
‘You mean the creepy-ass house where all the junkies and hobos like to sleep?’ Richie notes.
‘I hate that place’, Beverly states, ‘Always feels like it’s watching me.’
‘That’s where I saw IT’, Richie tells us, ‘There I saw a clown.’
‘Tha-tha-tha-that’s where IT lives’, Bill concluded.
‘I can’t imagine anything ever wanting to live there’, Stan complains.
‘Can we stop talking about this?’ Eddie exclaims, ‘I can barely breathe. It’s summer. We’re kids, I can barely breathe having a fucking asthma attack and fuck doing this.’ Eddie jumps up, ripping the map off the wall.
‘What the hell!’ Bill exclaimed, ‘Put the map back!’
Then suddenly all the projector begins to show photo’s of Bills family, ‘What happened? What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know, look!’ Mike states, ‘Guys…’ Everyone turns their attention back to the projected images of Georgie and Biil at the waterpark.
‘Georgie’, Bill mumbles at no one inparticular.
‘Um Bill?’ I ask as the family photo began to zoom in on Bills mom on it’s own. Then the image of Bills mom turns into a clown, who was looking directly at the camera.
‘WHAT THE FUCK!’ My brother screams, ‘WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?’
‘Turn it off!’ ‘Yes, Turn it off!’ Mike and Beverly demand.
I jump forward and kick the projector off the table, breaking it. For a short moment it seems like the projector has stopped, but it starts again, I back into the wall when I see IT jump out of the screen. IT turns it’s heat towards me and comes for her. She closes her eyes, waiting for it to kill me. Mere moments later I feel a hand on my shoulder.
I jump and open my eyes. The gate to the garage is open and I see that Mike is the one who touched my shoulder. He reaches his hand out, helping me up: ‘You okay?’ I shakily nod.
‘IT saw us’, I say, ‘IT saw us and IT knows where we are.’
‘IT always knew’, Bill correct, ‘Alright, so let’s go.’
‘Go?’ Ben questions, ‘Go where?’
‘Neibolt’, Bill clarifies, ‘That’s where G-g-g-Georgie is.’
‘After that?’ Stan asks, referring to what’d just happened.
‘Yeah, it’s summer’, Richie objects,‘we should be outside-’
‘If you say it’s summer one more f-f-f-fucking time-’ Bill begins, but then simply turns around, takes his bike and cycles away.
‘Bill?’ Beverly calls after him, ‘Wait!’
Everyone is grabbing their bikes, except for me, since I hadn’t brought mine with me. I look around to share a short look with Richie but he quickly looks away. Then Mike taps my shoulder yet again, motioning me over to let me sit on the back of his bike.
After walking around the fair for a bit, I find them on the bench at the Paul Bunyon statue. There, I quickly meet the newest addition to the group, Mike, before Ben starts talking: ‘So I was going over all of my data research and I charted out all of the big events. The Ironworks explosion in 1908. The Bradley Gang in ‘35 and The Black Spot in '62. And now the kids being… I realized that this stuff seems to happen-’
‘-every 27 years’, Bill and Ben say at the same time.
‘Ok so let me get this straight’, Eddie chimes in, ‘IT comes out from wherever to eat kids for like a year and then what? IT just goes into hibernation?’
‘Maybe it’s like…’ Stan attempts, ‘What do you call it? Cicadas. You know, the bugs that come out once every 17 years.’
‘My grandfather thinks this town is cursed’, Mike says, gaining all of our attention, ‘He says that all the bad things that happened in this town are because of one thing. An evil thing that feeds off the people of Derry.’
‘But it can’t be one thing’, I argue, ‘We all saw something different.’
‘Maybe’, Mike opts, ‘Or maybe IT knows what scares us most and that’s what we see.’
‘But what did everyone see?’ I ask, honestly confused.
‘I-I saw a leper’, Eddie tells us, ‘He was like a walking infection.’
‘But you didn't’, Stan insists, ‘Because IT isn’t real. None of this is. Not Eddie’s leper or Bill seeing Georgie or the woman I keep seeing.’
‘Is she hot?’ Richie jokes, trying to defuse the tension.
‘No. Richie’, Stan raises his voice, very annoyed, ‘She’s not hot. Her face is all messed up. None of this makes any sense. They’re all like bad dreams.’
‘I don’t think so’, Mike states, ‘I know the difference between a bad dream and real life, okay?’
‘What did you see?’ Eddie asks Mike, ‘You saw something too?’
Mike then told us about his parents, and the fire-accident at their house, the sound of their hands pounding on the door trying to get to him and the firefighters saving him. After this, Richie told us his fear: ‘Clowns.’
‘Me too’, I told everyone.
‘Ow so you ARE scared of something?’ Richie exclaims, earning a glare from me, ‘I wouldn’t have thought given the people you let yourself get close to’, I slap his arm, ‘Like REALLY close.’ I hit him again, but eventually we leave it at that, as go to Bills garage.
There we close the blinds and gates, while hanging open a map of the sewers.
The next morning Henry and I wake up in my bed. I wake up first, only wearing Henry’s muscle shirt. My head and hand rested on his chest, his arm is around my waist. I look up to see Henry’s peacefully sleeping face, I smile. As I’m just about to close my eyes again, I hear the slight ringing of the house phone going off. I carefully slip out of his arms to go get it. The call is from Bill.
‘Hey, can you meet us at the Paul Bunyon statue? Ben found some things out.’
‘Uhh, yeah’, I answer hesitantly, remembering Richie went to Bill’s place, ‘I’ll be there in a bit.’
With that Bill hangs up. I re-enter my room and to see Henry putting on his pants and shoes. As I close the door behind me, leaning against it, Henry looks up at me and smirks: ‘That’s where my shirt went.’
I smile and blush before walking to my wardrobe. There, I take off Henry’s shirt and tossing it back at him. I was aware of his gaze on me as I put on a skirt and a black crop top with lace. With that I walk over to my (now-dressed) boyfriend and puts my arms around his neck as his pull me close to him by my waist, all the while pecking my lips.
Henry sat back down on the bed, pulling me with him. Just as he began to kiss my neck, I remembered that: ‘I gotta go’, it took quite a bit of self-control to pull back, as much as I wanted to continue, ‘I gotta meet some friends in town.’ As I say this, Henry is still pecking my lips.
‘I probably gotta go too’, he says as he finally leans back, though still holding me in his arms, ‘the guys will probably want an explanation. And my dad… will want to know where I was.’
With one final kiss we let go of each other. I take my bag, before asking Henry: ‘What are you gonna tell him… your dad’
‘I’ll just say I stayed over at Vics place, don’t worry about.’ With that he asks to use my phone to call Belch to come pick him up.
A while later, Belch, with Vic in the backseat, come driving up to my house. Henry and I walk outside together. He kisses me one more time before getting into the car, though he looks back and calls to me: ‘Are you sure you don’t want a ride?’
I think for a second before ending up accepting the ride from the boys. Henry smiles at my answer before climbing into the back, letting me sit in the front seat.
I sat in the passenger seat next to Belch as we arrive at the fair. There we park the car and all of us get out. Henry wraps his arm around me again, pulling me against him, and kissing me. I am vaguely aware of the whistles we are getting from other boys.
When he pulls away, he asks me: ‘See you later?’
‘Yeah, see you later’, I mumble against his lips. After a few more kisses, I set out on the way to find the kids.
‘They’re not you’, he states quietly, looking down at my lips and sliding his hand from your cheek down to your jaw, caressing it, ‘Please give me another chance, I know I don’t deserve it but… I promise to apologize to those kids if that’s what you want, i’ll leave them alone, I’ll do anything, please just…’ I cut him off by kissing him, placing my hands on his cheeks. The kiss is passionate, I can feel Henry gasp as I slip my hands into his hair as I’d done a couple nights prior. After a while, I pull away for air, drawing a quiet whine from Henry.
—-
‘Be my girlfriend’, Henry breathes.
‘What?’ I ask, thinking I must’ve misheard him.
‘Will you be my girlfriend, Kathy’, He repeats simply. Instead of just answering I kiss him again with the same passion as before, if not more.
As Henry puts his arms around my waist, I return my hands to his hair, pulling it slightly. This makes him groan slightly and grasp onto my thighs, squeezing them and pulling me onto his lap. He pulls me close to him, so there’s no space left between us. The passion between the two of us gradually builds up until eventually Henry falls back onto the pillows leaning against the couches’ armrest, pulling me along and on top of him. This makes me to accidentally move my hips against his as he pulls me to straddle him, causing him to involuntarily groan. In reaction he bites my lip. I, in response, slide my hands over his abdomen, then reach under his shirt, starting to pull it up. This makes Henry pull back from the kiss, smirking slightly, much to my displeasure, leaving us both panting.
‘What?’ He breathes huskily, ‘Want me to take my clothes off again?’
The comment causes me to blush and Henry to smirk again. The boy then sits up, meanwhile pecking my lips several times and ‘accidentally’ having his hips move against mine, making me gasp.All the while, Henry takes off his own shirt before leaning back against the pillows again.The sight of this, once again, makes me blush. Henry pulls me back down onto him, resulting in both myhands on either side of his head and our chests touching. I look into his eyes, then at his lips. I bring my lips up to his again before kissing his check, then moving down to his jaw – causing Henry to inhale sharply – then his neck, and further down.
I can feel his hands go under the hem of my shirt, starting to pull it up, until suddenly:
‘What the fuck!’ The sudden voice belonged to Richie. Henry and I broke apart and look up in shock at my little brother who was standing in the open front door. ‘Richie…’ I breath.
‘Bowers? Really?!’ He yells out, ‘After what he did to Ben?!’ I avoid my brothers gaze, remembering my thoughts the first time I’d kissed Henry.
‘I-I’m sleeping over at Bills place’, Richie snaps finally, ‘BYE!’ With that he turns and leaves, slamming the door on the way out. There is a brief moment of silence, Henry took the word: ‘Trashmouth- I mean, Richie, is your brother?’
‘Yeah’, I reply, ‘And he really IS a Trashmouth.’
When I turn my head back to Henry again, we are so close our noses are touching. Henry shifts under me, feeling this, I inhale sharply. Slowly his hands begin to move on me again. All the while, he leans in to kiss me, but I averts to kiss his jaw and then his neck again, making the boy groan, before moving my kisses further down. During all this, Henry’s hands moved to my butt, before squeezing, causing me to moan as I kiss, and occasionally bite the base of his neck. Henry’s grasp tightens slightly as he flips us over, so that now he’s on top. This makes our hips against each other, making me moan again. Henry chuckles at this before moving down to now kiss my neck as I slide my hands into his hair.
‘You kisses me first’, he retorts gently, causing me to blush. I resort to correcting: ‘Why did you kiss me back.’ He breathed in and out before telling me: ‘I don’t know, it’s as I said, I feel this attraction to you… I can’t help it’, one of his hands reaches up to rest on my cheek once more, I lean into his touch as his thumb touches my lower lip, ‘I guess it’s just, you came to me that night, you cared about me when I got hurt, you didn’t know me personally yet you must’ve heard so many bad things about me. I promise I’ll be better… o-or try to be. I don’t want to lose the one person who cares for me.’ Being slightly taken aback by what he said, I don’t immediately know what to say. I open and close my mouth a few times before saying: ‘I-I’m sure I’m not the only one, I’m sure your friends care about you too.’
‘They’re not you’, he states quietly, looking down at my lips and sliding his hand from your cheek down to your jaw, caressing it, ‘Please give me another chance, I know I don’t deserve it but… I promise to apologize to those kids if that’s what you want, i’ll leave them alone, I’ll do anything, please just…’ I cut him off by kissing him, placing my hands on his cheeks. The kiss is passionate, I can feel Henry gasp as I slip my hands into his hair as I’d done a couple nights prior. After a while, I pull away for air, drawing a quiet whine from Henry.
‘Can we talk?’ Henry asks lowly. ‘I have nothing to say to you’, I tell him bitterly. ‘Listen’, Henry begin, sighing, ‘I know I’m an idiot.’ ‘Understatement of the year’, I mumble. ‘I know you have every right to hate me. But I… I-I just wanted to ask for another chance.’ ‘A chance to what?’
Henry opens and closes his mouth a few times, looking for the right thing to say. But eventually he resorts to lean forward and taking one of my hands in both of his. He settles on saying the following: ‘I don’t know why I came to you today. All I know is that after that one night you came to me, all I could think about was you. I feel a pull to you, and that moment we had together…’ I blush, remembering. ‘Listen, I know i’m an idiot, and you have every right to hate me after all this, I am a bad person but you make me want to be better. And I… I want to make it up to you, I want to be better.’ It takes a while until I know what to say as all I can focus on is Henry’s hands holding mine: ‘I-I don’t think you are a b-bad person. No one is, something happens to make people like this, they can’t be born like this. You just have to be close enough to the person to ask…’ ‘Then ask’, He cuts me off. ‘What?’ I ask, confused. ‘Ask me’, he repeats, now seeming a bit more confident, ‘I’ll tell you everything you want to know. I know you think it’s none of your business, you said so yourself… you don’t really know anything about me, you don’t know why I hurt those kids – and to be honest, neither do I – and you still helped me the other night even when you didn’t know what happened between me and…’ ‘…your dad?’ I finish. ‘Ask’, Henry repeats again. ‘Why those kids?’ I ask simply after thinking for a second, to this Henry’s seeming confidence disappears and he hangs his shoulders: ‘I really don’t know, they’re just… weak…’ I have to stop myself from huffing in annoyance, ‘What people say about Beverly and you…’ ‘Nothing happened between me and her, I just said it did…’ Henry states blushing. ‘Why?’ ‘Greta wanted an excuse to…’ ‘You and Greta?’ I cut him off. ‘She is nothing to me’, he told me quickly, ‘not even a friend.’ At this point it’s me that can’t look him in the eye anymore. All I am able to look at his his hands holding mine, his thumb gently caressing my knuckles. Eventually I look up a bit, looking at him through the hair that had fallen in front of my face: ‘What happened the night we met?’ ‘I had an argument with my dad about me bullying that last day of school’, He states simply as he takes the hair in front of my face and puts it behind my ear, then sliding the hand down to my cheek. ‘What happened?’ I ask as I find myself leaning into the touch. ‘We fought’, He answers as if it’s nothing special. ‘I mean the l-lashes on your back’, I stumble, preparing for the worse. This caused Henry to drop his hand from his lap, making it fall down on his lap, he leaned back, letting go of my other hand. ‘My dad…’ he begins but seems unable to finish. ‘What did he do?’ I ask carefully, encouraging him to continue. ‘B-belt…’ He stammers, shaking slightly. Though it was probably subconsciously, I take his hands in mine again and caress his still bruised knuckles gently with my thumbs. I stay quiet for a while as I wait for Henry to shake a little less.‘Some of those lashes weren’t new…’ I say finally, in response he simply shakes his head ‘no’. ‘Was it your dad also?’ I ask gently.
As soon as I said it, I wanted to take it back. Henry casted his gaze down, beginning to shake again at the memory, regardless Henry shakily nods in response. Again, I squeeze Henrys hands in an attempt to reassure him and slowly move to sit closer to him. ‘Why did you kiss me’, I ask in an attempt to make him think of something else. Henry gives a short chuckle, a small smile returning on his face.
As I clean up the dinner I made for myself I hear a knock on the door.
That’s probably Richie, I think, he will have forgotten his key again.
But when I open it, it’s Henry, Victor and Belch standing on my front door. It’s obvious that the two latter are confused as to why they’re there. All three of them are bloodied up and bruised, but Henry is looking the worst. He has blood dripping down a wound on his forehead. Henry looks at me pleadingly. Although I’m still angry at Henry but just can’t resist his eyes.
I sigh, ‘come in.’
I lead them inside and to the living room. ‘Sit down’, I tell them as I go to the kitchen to get the first aid kit. As I make my way back I can hear Victor ask: ‘Who is she, Henry?’
‘She’s my girl-’
‘Didn’t I tell you all to sit down?’ I say as I walk into the living room.
They do as I say and I begin to tend to Victor’s scratches and bruises, then Belch’s, leaving Henry for last. I notice that I am being less gentle then the last time I treated his wounds… At one point he flinches and grabs onto my thigh near my knee, but I swats him away.
‘What’s wrong?’ Henry asks lowly.
‘You’re not the only boys I had to patched up these past few days.’ I say bitterly.
‘What do you mean?’ Victor asks gently before anyone else could.
I glare over at the boys, causing them look down. It’s then that I also notices Henry hanging his head.
‘I-I told you’, Henry stammers again, ‘I-I’m s-s-sorry.’ I look at the bruised up boy, and I can tell he doesn’t seem to really know where to look, given that his eyes dart around the room. Everything is quiet until I’m done patching Henry up.
‘What happened?’ I ask finally.
‘Uhmmm…’, Victor and Belch mumble in unison.
‘What. Happened’, I snap.
‘We… uhh’, Victor started in a low voice, ‘were following that homeschooled kid. Why caught him at the river, we… uh… beat him and we ended up getting in a rock fight with some of those Lose- kids…’ I sigh at this, turning to Henry: ‘Didn’t I tell you that I’d beat your ass myself if you hurt any more of those kids.’
Henry responded to this by putting his head in his hands, yet after a few seconds he looks back up stating: ‘Belch. Vic. Leave’, in a quick rough voice.
And they do, though hesitantly. Once they are gone, Henry finally looks me in the eye.
‘No, I love being your personal doorman’, Richie calls out angrily as we bike through the streets of Derry, ‘Really could you idiots have taken any longer?’ ‘Shut up, Richie’, Eddie snaps, making Stan chime in: ‘Yeah, shut up, Richie.’ ‘Oh okay, trash the trash-mouth, I get it. Hey I wasn’t the one scrubbing the bathroom floor imagining that her sink went all Eddie’s mom’s vagina on halloween.’ ‘She didn’t imagine’, Bill defends Beverly, ‘I saw something too.’ ‘You saw blood, too?’ Stan questions. ‘Not blood’, Bill admits, ‘I saw G-g-Georgie. It seemed so real, I mean it seemed like him but there was this…’ ‘A clown’, Eddie finishes, ‘Yeah, I saw him too.’ ‘Wait, can only virgins see this stuff?’ Richie attempts to joke, ‘Is that why I’m not seeing this shit?’ I want to make a comment but then I hear my phone ring. I answer it to be met with my fathers voice yelling through the phone, what he is saying is basically unintelligible. It’s so loud I’m sure the boys and Beverly can hear it. ‘I should go home’, I conclude. ‘Yeah’, Richie agrees quietly. With that I turn my bike and begin my way home.
After a while I pass what’s known as the Neighbolt house. I couldn’t say what but something makes me stop in front of its gate. I shoot up when I suddenly feel what’s like the letting out of a breath right next to my ear. ‘Hello Kathy’, the voice whispers, ‘nice of you to stop by.’ I turn my head quickly in the direction of the noise, but there is nothing there. ‘Come on in’, I hear again. I turn my head to see the door of the neighbolt house fly open. The shock makes me dart back. In the darkness of the house I can see a big lanky figure in the doorway. I jump back onto my bike and cycle away quickly. When I look back one final time, I see the figure lean out the door to wave me goodbye. After that she hears the door slam closed again.
– —
While cycling, I pass the kissing bridge, I remember this to be the place where Ben got cut and Henry lost his knife. It’s then that I sees a red balloon drift across the road and down the hill. I step off my bike and follow it downhill. When I’m at the bottom, the balloon drifts on the ground and pops to reveal the switchblades laying among the shards of the popped balloon. I grab it and speed up the hill. I bikes away with the feeling of blood dripping down my nose.
As I reach Henry’s house, I see the boy in question on the steps of his house. Henry seems to have heard me approaching, he looks up, smiling at me and moves to greet me. Though I don’t give him a chance to… ‘What the fuck did you do?’ I yell at him, ‘Why did you hurt that kid? That’s so messed up. It’s just a kid, what the hell did he ever do to you?’
Henry seems shocked to see me yelling at him. He doesn’t seem to know where to look while I’m yelling at him. ‘I-I’m s-sorry’, he stammers finally. ‘It isn’t to me you should say sorry to…’ I say softly, shaking my head, but Henry remains quiet. ‘Why?’ I ask finally, ‘Why do you bully those kids, what did they ever do to you?’ Henry opens and closes his mouth a few times, before saying: ‘I don’t know…’ I shake my head again, throwing the closed switchblade in front of Henry’s feet and pointing: ‘If I ever catch you hurting one of those kids again with that, I’ll cut you myself.’ With that I turn my heel and begin to bike away. As I do so, I can see Vic and Belch in Belch’s car driving down Henry’s porch, but I don’t pay much mind to them. I goes home after this encounter to see my father just storming out of the house, mumbling something about ‘bars’.
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!’
‘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.’
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.
A rather random idea that popped up in my mind. Not quite satisfied with it, but I love the idea to use the handwritings and little notes from the book for new edits, so this definitely won’t be the last.
