𝒎𝒂𝒚𝒃𝒆 • 𝒓𝒆𝒅𝒅𝒊𝒆

* snow, and other falling things *

He doubted it.

***

Two weeks had passed since then.

Richie now had precisely twenty three days left to finish his final project, and all he had written so far were a couple of half hearted character names. If he'd thought he'd been worried before, that was nothing to how he felt now. He was consumed with guilt and anxiety each time he so much as thought of his neglected notebook, sitting accusing and unopened on his desk.

Not for lack of trying, of course. Richie had spent countless hours at that desk, writing in lines before promptly shaking his head and scratching them out. Even now, he was sat with his glasses pushed into his hair and his hands over his face, praying to a God he didn't believe in for just one fucking idea . No matter what he wrote, it always sounded completely stupid.

He hated this project.

He shouldn't go see Eddie tonight, he thought. He should spend some more time working on this fucking play. After all, he was running out of time, and it was worth thirty percent of his final grade. He should really just stay in and write whatever he could, even if it sounded stupid, just to get something on the page.

The problem was, he really didn't want to.

So, with only a small twinge of guilt, he fixed his glasses and closed his notebook and tried not to look back as he left the room.

He could always work on it tomorrow.

When Richie opened his door, Eddie was already there, standing in his own open doorway in just a t-shirt and flannel pajama pants. He looked as surprised as Richie felt.

"Hi, said Richie, bemused.

"Hi," said Eddie.

There was a pause, during which neither of them seemed to know what to say. The silence was loud in here, Richie noticed; louder than it ever was outside. It filled the space around them, echoed off the walls. They stared at each other from across the hall. Eddie picked at a hangnail.

"It's awful outside, isn't it?"

Richie hadn't noticed. He'd been too caught up trying (and failing) to write to notice much of anything. Now that Eddie mentioned it, however, Richie could hear the howling wind outside and he remembered hearing something about a snow storm predicted tonight. "I s'pose so."

Eddie nodded, and Richie nodded back. Another pause. Then, Eddie took a deep breath, as if preparing himself, and the next words that left his mouth sounded rehearsed.

***

It was rehearsed.

Eddie had been repeating the six words over and over in his head for almost two hours. He didn't know why it felt like such a big deal to him - he and Richie were friends after all; it wasn't weird or anything. But he was Eddie Kaspbrak. Everything felt like big deal to him. Everything new, in any case.