mixtape (reddie)

Chapter 13

"Mr. Tozier, you must realize that this is your third strike for fighting on school property, yes?" The principal, Mr. Vaughn, stares down his nose as if Richie is a piece of dirt contaminating his immaculate office.

"Mhm," Richie stares out the window next to him, slumped down in the chair, defeat running his body ragged.

"And Mr. Bowers, you said that he was the one who started it?"

Henry Bowers, sitting in the chair next to Richie, pathetically cries out "Yes! You can ask my friends, too, they all saw it! He just started attacking me for no reason, sir. I think he's mental."

Richie's fist tightens around the arm of the chair, but he remains staring out of the window with a fixated gaze that can't be intercepted by anything else on earth.

"While I do believe you, it is still our school policy to issue a detention to anybody who engages in physical fights, whether or not it's self defense, so I regret to inform you that you'll be serving detention this Friday with Mr. Tozier."

"I understand, sir," Bowers says in his faux voice. Richie knows his manipulation tactics all too well, but there's no point in even trying to argue his side of the story. The adults in this town never listen anyhow.

"Now, Richie, because it is your third strike, I have no other choice but to send a letter home to your parents. They will need to come in and have a session with me and a counselor to get to the bottom of your anger issues," Vaughn says. Richie's heart hardens at the mention of his parents, but he doesn't have time to decline the meeting. "As for your relationship with Mr. Bowers here, I would like both of you to write a letter to each other apologizing for what you've done and the pain you have inflicted. I will be reading over it, and I advise that you don't turn anything in unless it's more than three pages. Is that understood?"

"Yes sir," they both say in unison, although Richie's is less enthusiastic as Henry's ass-kissing tone.

"Then you are to be dismissed. Get a pass from the secretary and return to class immediately. No dilly-dallying in the halls, boys."

Richie and Henry stand up, and as Richie gathers his bag from the chair, he watches the way that Henry shakes the principal's hand. Fucker.

Neither of the two grab a pass, just exit through the left door and quickly leave the office as fast as possible.

"Did you fucking snitch, Tozier? Did you fucking rat me out?" Henry growls, approaching Richie closely.

"Right, because that's a genius move," Richie rolls his eyes. "Seriously, Hen. Use your fucking brain. Why the fuck would I snitch on myself?"

Henry backs down for a second, but his anger doesn't subside. It never really does, but Richie has learned to ignore it.

"Do you think they'll come?" Henry asks. Richie's pace slows down in the hall, and for the first time since he was called into the office, he finally looks at Henry. Sure Richie's face is bad, but Henry's got bruises that make him feel proud of his right hook.

"No," Richie says honestly. He hates that Henry even asked, but he hates the fact that Henry knows how Richie's parents are in the first place. "When have they ever given a shit about me enough to discuss my anger?"

Henry laughs, just slightly, and for a moment, it feels real again. It doesn't feel like high school, and it doesn't feel like Richie is taller than Henry, and it doesn't feel like November. Just for that brief second, as the two stand in the hall after getting their asses chewed out, it is fourth grade again when Richie and Henry saw each other everyday. Back then, the two used to fight for fun. Roughhousing. It's what boys did.