possibilities ( it: chapter 2 )

EPILOGUE.

RICHIE TOZIER LOVED EILEEN when he was seven years old, he loved her more the day that they got married, but he loved her most the day that she took her last dying breath.

he struggled a lot, the first few days were hard. yet having to fly home alone and having to deliver the news to jade was the toughest, most challenging day of his entire life.

jade olivia tozier stood in the hallway—it seemed like their house had grown macabre and grim. where there was once light, darkness and hollowness now lingered. she saw her brother's textbook sitting on the kitchen table, her mother's reading glasses on the kitchen island.

her father struggled, but the deaths of her mother and brother consumed jade whole. the funeral was the hardest for her.
"come on, jay." richie stood behind the girl as she kneeled in front of her mother's headstone.

jade tozier had so many different emotions plaguing her mind—guilt, despair, regret. regret shook through her body most days, she should've been more loving to her mother, she should have cared more.

richie knew that if there was anything that eileen would've wanted in the event of her death, it was therapy for jay. and that's exactly what richie did. it wasn't easy at first, jade refused to open up to her therapist. then one day, she had a breakdown.

"and how did your mother die?" the therapist had asked.

jade's blue eyes were full of hurt and anguish, she couldn't tell the truth. no one would believe her, so she used the lie that her dad told her to use.

"she...sorry," the thirteen year old swiped her tears from her cheeks. the therapist only nodded. "we went back to my parents' hometown and...there was—she was murdered." was all that jade said, no elaboration, no explanation.

but it was terribly far from the truth. eileen tozier died during the ritual of chüd in which she saved eddie kaspbrak's life. that was the undeniable truth. she would never know the actual story, her father refused to tell her, but it was the small bit that he told her.

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jade tozier was fifteen when her father sold their family home. they shared a birthday cake in their new, three bedroom home that richie had bought. staying in their family home was too much for the both of them to bare.

"make a wish, okay?" richie smiled at his daughter.

it had been richie's birthday and he said that all he wanted was to celebrate with his favorite girl. jade nodded, doing her best to offer a plausible smile.

"1...2...3..." the toziers blew out the birthday candle as the clock struck midnight, richie was finally forty-two.

"what'd you wish for, kiddo?" richie asked as he cut into the birthday cake.

every year, eileen had baked them a birthday cake to share—chocolate cake with strawberry icing, jade's favorite cake with richie's favorite frosting flavor. this was the second year in a row that they had to settle for a standard sheet cake from the local grocery store. jade hadn't known that birthdays could be that depressing.

"i can't tell you or else it won't come true!" jade smiled as she plucked the candles out of the top of the cake.

she would never tell him, but on her father's forty-second birthday, she wished for the same exact thing she had wished for the year before.