𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐞𝐧 - 𝐫.𝐭𝐨𝐳𝐢𝐞𝐫.

the ins and outs of love

THE INS AND OUTS OF LOVE

November 1989

It was another boring Friday that would inevitably be forgotten as the teens grew old and the Loser's Club had spent six long hours of it trapped in brick buildings, inside stuffy classrooms with people they had grown to hate over the course of their years in education. It was bad enough that Mike wasn't enrolled in the public school but Stan and Dawn were in the year below Eddie, Richie, Ben, and Bill. They were all split up.

Dawn sat in the back corner of her English lesson, leaning back in her chair slightly. She kept her brown eyes on the clock hung high on the disgustingly yellow wall. The only thing keeping her from running out of that door and not dying from boredom was the quiet tick of the minute hand on that clock. Though the ticking was almost silent, it raged in her head, knocking everything she had learned in the hour-long class out of her left ear.

The hand went around the white background dreadfully slow, finally reaching the top and flicking the short counterpart to the large '3', emitting a loud and terrible shriek indicating the end of the lesson, of the day, of the week.

Dawn grabbed her jacket and made her way out of the blue door. She walked briskly along the tiled floor and listened to the random conversations of different peers.

"I heard Mary is pregnant, her boyfriend is 20!"

'Ouch,' Dawn thought as she swiveled the lock and opened her locker. She swung her black Jansport bag over her shoulder, slamming the metal door back in place.

The boys could be seen further ahead, already with Stanley who had probably run out of the classroom to find them. She moved her legs faster and heard the familiar slap of sneakers on the shiny ground. She ducked her head under Richie's arm and gave him a side hug as they kept walking to the exit.

"Hey doll, how was class?"

"You don't really care, but thanks for asking."

"You know me so well," The lanky boy pressed a kiss on his girlfriend's forehead and continued to argue with Eddie over who had the best haircut.

Dawn grinned ear to ear, glancing at her friends.

"What the deal with you?" Ben inquired, clearly not used to the small girl having such a wide smile stuck on her peachy face.

The smile grew even bigger, "I missed this."

"What?"

"This," She gestured to the group next to her, "Us all together."

"We're always together," Stan replied, "Maybe even too much."

Her expression faltered for a beat, "Not always, Stan. Not always."

.....

It was around 6 pm, the sun only just starting to set, and the young Martinez girl found herself all alone in the small bunker Ben had built out of, ironically, a hole in the ground.

In the 10 years that she had lived in Derry, she had only been friends with the Losers for six short months of the grand amount of time. Maybe if she were more outgoing, kinder, less of a bitch then they would have befriended her a long time ago. Maybe if she had made better choices, had a different upbringing or even a more accepting father she would be able to be herself finally, not hiding behind any facade she could muster.

Dawn realized this when she was sitting in the hammock, headphones sitting over her head connected to her walkman. Queen blasted into her ears from the mixtape Richie made her when he found out she hadn't been introduced to his world of music. A wet tear fell out of her closed eyes, dropping onto her red turtleneck and melting into it. Once the first drop fell several more let out like a faucet whose tap broke off, but she stayed silent.