Home (Reddie fanfic)

Chapter 2

The musty smell of old books and wood was the first thing you noticed when walking into an empty classroom at Derry high, and soon that smell would be replaced by one of sweaty teenagers who didn't know the meaning of the words shower or deodorant, their noses too accustomed to their rank smells to notice anyway. 

But of course, this was one of the things Eddie most hated about school, everyone's disregard for sanitation was absolutely disgusting, and he shuddered at how the ventilation in the room would soon be blocked up, since none of the windows actually opened, and how his nostrils would have to commit suicide at least 12 times throughout the day. There was the crinkling sound of an antibacterial wipe packet, as Eddie pulled one out, thoroughly wiping down his desk and chair.

You never know what sweaty, snotty kid has been sitting there all day, whether or not they picked their nose and touched the desk, whether or not they washed their hands after peeing, whether or not they fell asleep and drooled on the table, whether or not they-

His germaphobe thoughts came to a grinding halt as he heard the shrill ring of the bell, and the unstoppable chatter of students, that were making their way up the hallway, and he scurried away from the door to his desk, not wanting to get pushed or knocked over by the taller and bulkier kids, not that he was scared of them, no, but he just preferred not to be in their way, for his own safety, he was quite a small person.

He watched as the class filed noisily in, the jealousy threatening to stir inside of him every time he saw a hug exchanged, something laughed about, and overall, the socializing of his classmates. The girls broke out into giggles as they all say near the middle of the class, slamming their bags carelessly onto the desks and mindlessly gossiping about anything and everything. The boys in the other hand, made their way straight to the back, propping their feet up on the dirt smeared surfaces, talking in hushed voices while eyeing the backs of the girls hungrily.

Eddie knew he was being a bit overdramatic, but there's a point when it starts to get to you. Although they grinned happily and laughed now, no one was really and truly genuine in this school. It was every man for himself. There were constantly fights after school and various arguments over boyfriends, one or the other of the victims nearly always ending up in the nurse's office, where they would be offered a singular ice pack despite all the cuts and bruises. It was a long process to name all the girls that were each other's enemies, nearly every new week there would be a rumour flying around the school, often about who'd fucked who's fuckbuddy – but Eddie wasn't really interested in all that.

The point is they didn't actually care about their friends, no matter how good the act was now, Eddie knew that they would stab each other in the back, when it came to gaining popularity by ditching your crew, this friendship wasn't real, it was a temporary thing and would be long forgotten when they got to graduation and moved off to college, most likely remembering high school as a drama filled place with pointless social ranks.

It was thoughts like these, which helped Eddie convince himself that it didn't matter when he was the only one in the class without a partner, it didn't matter that he was always last one to get chosen for teams, it didn't matter that he had lunch with the librarian every day, and it didn't matter that he never had anyone to talk to.

 
He wasn't missing out on much, and that most of the people in this school were just backstabbing bitches. But... but here was still that one part of his mind that spoke when he watched, from his corner of the class, everyone move to sit at their desks, lean over to carry on chatting, passing notes, grinning and gossiping about anything and everything, that thought I wish I could have that, because as much as he tried to deny it.

Eddie kaspbrak was lonely

Really lonely.

It wasn't new to him, he'd practiced being on his own for many years now, getting quite good at it, he had started off always looking for a friend to make, someone to talk to, someone to joke and laugh with, but as time went on, and he was ignored in the hallways and conversations, almost always getting dirty stares, Eddie got the hint. He eventually stopped trying altogether, accepting the way he would be spending the next 2 years of high school.

A small sigh escaped his mouth as his eyes shifted to look at the desk next to his. It had never been occupied, at least, not when he was in the room anyway, he knew that people would avoid it on purpose, even going as far as to bunk every class, it's no fun sitting next to a loner. His eyes lazily looked over the room, the loud voices of his classmates drilling into his mind, they don't ever shut up do they, he dropped his head onto his arms, which were placed on the table, and then longingly glanced up at the clock, class started 12 minutes ago, and although Eddie would do almost anything to skip math, that didn't include waiting till his ears went numb and fell off from all the noise.

Shutting his eyes, he thought again about friends.... well more like his his lack of.
I don't have any friends, I wonder what it feels like, probably all sappy and shit, bet it still feels good though...

What about Richie? There it was again, that stupid voice in his head, intent on confusing Eddie about his own thoughts, which had remained unchanged for 6 straight years, he was alone, he was sure of that. Richie wasn't really a friend, he was just some random boy that had bumped into him and invited himself to walk with Eddie, it's not like Eddie depended on his potential friendship maybe looking forward to having the first civil social interaction he had had in years, after wishing for people to acknowledge him as a person but not having the courage to do anything about it himself. 

No.

It's definitely not that, Richie is annoying.

End of.

The sudden opening of the door caught Eddie off guard, and he jumped at the noise, thankfully pausing his internal dilemma, as he turned to look at who had just entered. It was the teacher, who was carrying what looked like at least 6 folders at once, and tripping over his own bags, papers flying everywhere as he dumped the items on his desk, letting out a tired huff and shifting things around, piling papers up and attempting to organize the mish mash of things scattered all over his desk.

Mr. Ferris, a rather tall man, hardly out of his thirties, but his golden-brown head was already balding, his large belly protruding over the belt of his trousers, and the odd tuft of hair suck out of his ears. That morning he chose to wear dark green trousers, with a light green, cacti print button up, and muddy green boot, the large square spectacles on his face, almost falling off the bridge of his nose as he still rushed to clear up his desk. 

It wasn't that Eddie, or any of the others really disliked Mr. Ferris, he was a dull man, excluding his fashion sense, because he looked like he belonged in an eccentric clothes convention, the fact was that he taught math, and their dislike of the subject undoubtedly led to the dislike of the teacher, even though he had yet to do anything wrong.

The voices died down, replaced by the scraping of the chalkboard, on which the Mr. Ferris was now writing up some equations, having abandoned his desk, giving up on the piles of papers that refused to sort themselves out. "Math," he said, turning around, "Is an extremely important subject, and I want to see you all working hard in today's lesson, try to minimize the chit chat, or else there will be detentions handed out, do I make myself clear?"

The silence of the class was all that was needed for him to carry on with his lecture, and Eddie pressed the palms of his hands to his temples, sighing in boredom and waiting for the hour to end, but that wouldn't happen of course, it would stretch on, time slowing itself down just so it could kill their brain cells listening to a speech about algebra and quadratic graphs or some shit.
It hardly took more than a full minute for the board to be filled up completely with scribbles, formulae, and letters too, which idiot decided to include the alphabet in math, he didn't need to solve equations for English. 

They were instructed to copy it all down and would then be assigned some pages of their textbook to complete. Mr. Ferris sat down, still with all the mess on his desk and grabbed a very large Spanish textbook, opening it somewhere halfway and balancing it in front of him, Eddie looked at him weirdly, not understanding why a math teacher would need a Spanish textbook, but decided not to question it. 

He had just unzipped his pencil case, when he heard the door creaking open, not bothering to look up, because he knew it was just some irresponsible kid who had been caught skipping class.
He heard the shift in weight of a chair, and an annoyed sigh,

"Ah, how nice of you to finally join us Mr. Tozier."

...

A/N Hello again to my four readers, hope you like today's update, I'll probably be updating again tomorrow

Tell me what you think in the comments <3