Lover | Richie Tozier

Chapter 1.

The writing on my paper was good, it always had been, and I was convinced that I knew how to write. But it was all utter bullshit. Comprised of excerpts from novels and scenes from romantic classics were the words written on my pages, not a single word derived from an actual experience of love I've had.

Just be honest with yourself, Elle; you don't have the slightest fucking idea on what you're writing about this time.

I glanced down at the surface of my desk while perplexing over the material, trying hard to day-dream about what love must be like and get something that would stun the rest of the words. Not even to be in love, but the concept of love in general; the word that had made itself so prominent in the mainstream way of living and stretched back all the way to before time had been charted. Up until this point, the only branch of love I had experienced was the one that extends through you from your blossoming family tree. Except for the prized possession that wasn't related to me: Beverly Marsh.

Beverly was the most gentle of souls yet harbored an incredibly destructive fire between her ribcage where her heart should be instead. Every time you conversed with her, the embers coming from her attitude could be felt in her tone.

Despite flames burning against her soul occasionally, there was still a kindness in her timid smile. Maybe she was a storm, but she was also the entire rainbow that painted the gray sky afterwards. And that's how she became the truest form of friendship I've ever had.

Her colors arch into the sky, stretching across the atmosphere with open arms. She's natures graffiti; beautiful yet lawless all at once.

She had to have that sheen of self-justification though. It wasn't a personality trait, it was a dreadful survival mechanism. Had it not been for her feisty nature, Alvin Marsh could overpower her easily.

My mother, on the other hand, had no trouble taking Bev into our home occasionally to shower her with affection and nourish her with care — something Al had failed to do. It was like having a second daughter; taking routine care of another girl and watching as she grew up alongside your actual daughter from the time they were in the second grade.

None of that seemed to matter at the end of the day when Beverly still had to walk down shadowed streets to her apartment, though. The light she'd gotten from our time together would dim with every new step that she took. Rainbows still fade away until the next storm comes to welcome them again.

I looked back at the girl in question. The tip of her pencil curved and twisted, printing fine handwriting onto the paper in front of her. My gaze narrowed, wondering who she'd possibly be writing about regarding a subject she's never truly experienced.

She abruptly fixed her eyes with my own as if my stare focusing in on her physically put a weight on her shoulders.

In the corner of her lips, a crease decorated her pale skin with a smirk. Deep red hair settled over her shoulder like a burnt orange sunset trickling over a horizon, the stars that had fallen upon her face in the form of freckles sparkling along with it. The glitter in the sky had nothing on her.

Her fist enclosed around the pencil in her hand as if the eye-contact only persisted her to write more, mouthing, "This is so dumb," before returning to her scripting.

An elusive smile infused my cheeks as a way of silently showing that I agreed. Turning back around, I scribbled a final sentence onto the sheet and took in the relief that filled my lungs in the form of a heavy breath. It was a stupid sentence, but it was something.

I rested on Beverly again, who was immensely invested in whatever she was writing despite calling it stupid just moments ago.

"Time."