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Stan Uris is working part-time at a local restaurant near his university, trying to get some extra cash for Patty's birthday present. It’s the first birthday they’ve celebrated since they’ve started dating and Stan is desperate to get the perfect gift.
So he works in a Chinese restaurant two blocks away from the college, just for the extra cash in his wallet. The restaurant has two stars, the customers are rude, the work environment is abysmal, and the managers are all broke college students who hate working there. The food is very good, though.
“The interior construction of the building is absolutely horrendous. Definitely not up to code. One wrong fall against this panel and the whole roof's gonna cave in, and everyone will die.” Justin was a health inspector—he’s here about once a week, threatening a HIPAA violation. Justin is a very small and furious man, and every time he comes in, Stan is reviewing his work resume. Already looking for another place in case he's being serious and actually going to shut down the place. Which is very stressful and should annoy the hell out of Stan, but Justin's frantic dissection of the unhealthy conditions of the restaurant was far too amusing for Stan.
The man wore khaki pants and a fancy button up shirt and a Fanny pack. A fanny pack. Stan keeps looking at it. He doesn’t even know why. He just keeps darting down and then away—afraid someone's gonna think he’s looking at the health inspector's crotch or something. Which—well—Stan doesn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. He can’t afford people thinking that about him. He’s a Jew in a predominantly white Christian area; he can’t have people finding other things to question him about. Especially not that. Especially not now with all these protests going on.
“The only person I saw wearing gloves while handling the food is this guy.” The inspector points at Stan like he’s a model employee. He’s been working there for two months tops. But he can say with full confidence that yes, he is the best employee here. The restaurant is practically run by teenagers or part timers that couldn't care less about the quality of work. Stan wears gloves because he finds the texture of food disgusting without them. And he has a fear of cross-contaminating food, killing someone, and then getting sent to prison. Stan thinks it’s a very reasonable fear. Apparently not a fear anyone else here shares.
“Have any of you heard of a staph infection?” Justin says, and for a moment, his voice sounds like someone else's. Younger, higher. Stan’s amused smile slips away, and his stomach does a somersault.
He’s heard someone say that before. Those exact words.
In what context would he have heard those words? Stan writes his letter of resignation that day and on his very last pay check he received he got just enough to buy Patty the latest—most magnifying binoculars in the market.
They go bird watching for her birthday.
—-
Stanley Uris is a sophomore in college when he gets assigned a partner for a digital design project half way through the semester. He gets paired off with a junior he’s only seen in passing. He recognizes the name from roll call but otherwise had never spoken to the guy. Regardless Stan’s already organized their shared folders into three sub-categories. He’d already checked the syllabus twice and triple checked the contents of their outline and Stan is fully prepared to take this on by himself if his partner decides to not contribute to the project.
The boy, his partner for the project, is tall, lanky and ginger with a million fucking freckles and a profound stuttering problem. His D’s turn into P’s, a persistent split between vowels that keep skipping about like school children. The guy's sentences turn into paragraphs and Stan hangs on to those paragraphs like a fish on bait. Dragging him into whatever conclusion his sentences land on.
Steve. His name is Steve.
When Stan Uris first meets Steve it took the guy thirty whole seconds to get through his name and introductions. The longer he took the more tension melted away from Stan’s shoulders. Every elongated S settling a smile onto Stan’s lips. Involuntary and borderline unaware. For a split second after the boy starts speaking, the sterile classroom air smells like pond water and summer heat. Stan feels more relaxed in front of Stuttering Steve then he has in a very long time.
Stan hadn’t realized he was so tense to begin with. He had grown accustomed to the prodding pain in his back. Stan’s hand twitches around his binder and feels something scratch at the back of his head the longer the boy stutters through his vowals. Steve smiles and it doesn’t look like Superman’s at all. Stan doesnt know why he thought it would.
By the time the words “nice to meet you.” Finally leave the other boys mouth Stan is able to say “you too.” And actually mean it. It was very nice to meet Steve. Probably the nicest thing to have happened in a while.
Stan has no words for why he feels so…comfortable around this guy. Stan isn’t someone that enjoys the presence of strangers—or small talk but something about this man’s speech impediment instantly put him at ease.
It’s kinda fucked up. Stan doesn’t even know why. Is it a pity thing? Stan doesn’t think he feels sorry for him—he doesn’t really feel anything negative towards him at all. He feels…calm. Strangely so. He feels nostalgic. The guy just feels familiar. In a way. Stan doesn’t have any clue why though.
He reminds him of someone. He just can’t quite put his finger on it.
In the end Stan did end up presenting by himself. Steve contributed to the actual assignment immensely though and Stan appreciates that considering this was his throw away class. He didn’t particularly need this course for his degree but he needed the extra credit to graduate and it was better than music appreciation 101. Despite this class being of no importance to Stan he often thinks about that project he had even years later. He remembers the hours he spent with the stuttering boy and how much he reminded him of someone. Years later Steve is invited to Stans wedding despite only ever speaking once for that project. It was a small wedding. Stan didnt have many friends–or any, really. It was hard to make friends in adulthood. Steve sat at a table with five empty seats around him. Stan insisted on having the table for his friends. Six seats. But when it came down to filling the seats, Stan could only think of Stuttering Steve.
——
Stan Uris is a married man and his wife Patty packs him lunches. He quite enjoys the way she puts thought into every meal she makes him. Sometimes she leaves flirty notes in his bag that he cant read at work because his face goes flush red. So he usually waits to read them when he’s on his way back home when he could actually do something about it.
He's on his lunch break from his first real corporate job at Hendersons Homes and decides to eat the park. He slips the note into his pocket without daring to read it. A boner in the park would be quite innapropriate. Especially with a kids birthday party just a few yards away. He’s halfway through his cheese sub when he spots the ruffling feathers from the corner of his eye.
A Blue Jay.
He nearly drops his sandwich with how quickly he grabs for his sketchbook. He’s never seen one before. Never. He never expected to see it especially out in the open like it wasn’t Stan’s life’s dream to spot it. Stans wanted to see a blue jay since…well—Stan can’t remember since when but surely it’s been a while if he’s this thrilled to see it.
The public park is nice and crowded with children and adults and the bird must be accustomed to the noise if it sits so perfectly still. Still enough to be drawn by Stan. The Jewish man sketches the bird with an easy air to him.
A child runs past the bench he sits on with a single red balloon and Stan drops his pencil. His heart rate spiking suddenly and he quickly puts his sketchbook away, his hands shaking too much to draw a single feather. He has no idea why the sight of a single red balloon made him have react that way but it did.
“You saw a blue Jay?” Patty looked at his drawing with a warm excited smile. He holds his wife’s hand—the only thing bringing him back from the memory of a stupid red balloon.
“Blue Jays are a symbol of protection. You’re very lucky to have seen one.” She presses a kiss on his cheek.
“Protection?” Stan repeats–he knows this–he does. But for some reason he had forgotten. “Its a good omen.” Patty says.
He thinks back to the red Balloon. He doesn't think that was a good omen. He doesn't mention it.
——
Stan’s wife is teasing him about his meticulousness, his ‘neurotic tendencies’ as she calls them affectionately. Hes recently been diagnosed with OCD. Obssesive Compulsion Disorder and as it turns out many of those traits that he hates about himself are because of this disorder. His wife says these are the main things she loves about him. His care for the details–his intensity when it comes to certain aspects of their lives. He calls it compulsion, and she calls it passion.
Currently hes very passionate about building a birdhouse from scratch. A goal hes been rambling about for the better half of an hour while his wife sips her tea and bites her lip like its another form of foreplay.
Maybe for her it is and when she laughs, "Stanley, love, you’re talking a mile a minute."
"Sorry," he says, his face flushing red and warm and without thinking, the words tumble out: "Beep beep, Stan."
And he freezes. He didn't say it; it felt like someone else said it through him. A boy with bulky glasses flashes through Stan’s mind, and Stan’s grip around his screwdriver tightens. He tries to think back. To get that flashing face back in his head. Who was that? Who was that? Why can’t he remember them? Stan tasted salt—tears he didn't realize were falling from his eyes. Why does he feel so sad every time he can’t remember? Why can't he just remember? Damn it!
“Are you alright?” Patty is in front of him now with a worried expression–wiping tears from his eyes.
“No, I don’t think I am.” Stanley cannot seem to stop crying.
—-
It was the first of many panic attacks he would grow to have throughout his adulthood. It’s a new truth he has to get accustomed to. Panic attacks.
He has panic attacks sometimes. It’s not something he has to be ashamed of—at least that’s what Patty says. She tells him she used to get them a lot when she was younger. She takes medication for it.
“Do you remember if you used to get them when you were younger?” Patty asks, and Stan can't. He can't fucking remember. Did he? He tries to think back to high school–to middle school—to elementary—and it's like a giant cloud in his memory. He knows that's not normal. His Therapist—the one Patty forced him to talk to after he had a severe panic attack at the sight of a missing poster in the grocery store—says that it's normal for the human brain to block out traumatic events. Certain things will trigger panic attacks. Thing that feel unrelated but might be connected to his childhood.
They happen at random. The next big panic attack he has is when Patty and him where at an art museum and a wonky painting of a lady just sent him to a state of terror so profound that he had to stay in the museum bathroom for hours with Patty rocking him back and forth like he was a baby. They didn’t leave until the museum announced they were closing. He has no idea why he felt so unsettled or why it unlocked a wave of panic, but the triggers continued at random points. It would be over something unconnected to the other.
A clown mask at a grocery store around Halloween. An abandoned house in their neighborhood. Red balloons. Sewers.
His way of preventing this was by not going to the grocery store in October, taking a different route to his house and avoiding all birthday parties or celebratory events that may require balloons. It’s not exactly easy to avoid these things but it’s manageable.
His therapist calls this avoidance. He calls it survival.
——
Patty has been looking at farm houses. She was raised on a farm and she misses the life of raising livestock and living off the land.
Stan Uris should not want to live in a farm. Because of the type of person that Stan is he should not be compelled to agree with his wife. But—for some reason he absolutely loves the idea. Farms are messy—and animals are unpredictable and Stan probably won’t be able to work as much with the real estate away from the city. But the idea of living on a farm makes him happy. Unexplainable. Every time he tries to imagine living in a farm he thinks of long sunsets and the rock he keeps on his nightstand right next to his chipped Magneto figurine.
He can see it. Long summers. Pretty sunsets. Fresh eggs and fluffy animals to take care of. Patty him and—and who. Someone else is meant to be there. He knows it. He signs his name on the lease. A two bedroom farm house. Patty and Stan don’t want children—they never plan on having children. The spare room is for guests.
Despite this Stan takes charge of the room. He begins to collect oddly shaped rocks and displays them in that room. He hopes that his guest—whoever that may be—would appreciate it.
“Why rocks?” Patty didn’t have an ounce of judgment in her voice—she was actively helping him add another shelf on the wall to put his newest batch of rocks there. “I just thought he’d like it.” Stan says easily.
“He who?” Patty asks and Stan falters. He. He’d said he. Who was he thinking of? “I have no idea.”
“If you wanted this room as your man cave you should’ve just said so dear,” Patty teases lovingly and they don’t talk about it further.
Stan doesn't even necessarily like rocks.
—-
Sometimes Stan and Patty like going on vacations in the summer. Stan is a realtor and Patty is a high school teacher so it fits better in their schedule. They haven’t gone on vacation since they got the farm so it’s a bit different now since they can’t just drop everything and go. They have animals to take care of now. A farm they need to maintain. So they hire someone to take care of the animals while they are out on vacation.
“Mandy’s a hard worker. Very sweet girl.” Patty had suggested one of her previous students that had graduated the year before. She’d been an easy solution. Mandy was a bit of a tomboy and didn’t mind getting her hands dirty in the farm. She also didn’t mind washing her hands with three separate disinfectant soaps, which Stan appreciated. She was a good kid. Good with the animals and a quick learner. Stan can see why Patty always spoke highly of her.
Stan saw no faults in Mandy. She was a good kid. So he couldn’t see why anyone would attack her. It was a jarring experience overall.
Stan rarely ever went into town unless it was for work or groceries but he wanted to buy flowers for his wife—it wasn’t any special day. He just had the urge to do it.
So he went into town on a day that he usually wouldn’t—in a part of town that he’d never gone to before and he’s going into a flower shop he’s only ever seen in passing. He’s just turning the corner when he witnesses the debacle. Mandy is having an argument with a man maybe twice her age and about a foot taller than her.
Perhaps even half a foot taller than Stan. He was overpowering her as he grabs Mandy’s arm and corners her into the wall. “One night with me will change your mind.” He says sluggishly—clearly a bit drunk.
“Let go of me.” Mandy snaps at him, her voice spiked in fear. It’s Mandy’s fear—the way her eyes shine in the secluded place— that sparks Stan into action.
Stan Uris does not consider himself to be the heroic type. In fact he will gladly tell anyone that he’s a coward. He always follows the laws and is terrified of conflict and violence and anything that has to do with being truly brave. But for a moment Stan was someone braver than himself, someone fierce and confident and who won’t stand for bullying. Someone younger. Kinder. Stan is marching over to the man—who is definitely drunk—and ripping him away from Mandy who looks so overly grateful for the assist that Stan barely has time to regret it.
He gets punched in the face, and with the strength Stan never imagined himself possessing, he strikes the man right back with a deafening crunching noise.
The mans face is bloody and he spits at Stan with ugly anger “She’s not gonna fucking sleep with you! She’s a fucking Dy—“
Stan has a visceral reaction when he hears the slur. The words scribbled on bathroom stalls. Spat in between class periods. Stan feels like someone just splashed freezing cold water on his body. Stan punches the man in the face so hard that his knuckles start bleeding.
Stan is hyperventilating but not nearly as bad as Mandy. They are both freaking the fuck out as Stan drags the poor girl into his car. They buckle up in unison—breathing jaggedly. Stan suddenly starts driving back home. Neither of them say a word.
Stan is still in shock. He doesn’t think he’s ever punched anyone before. He’s never considered himself a violent person.
“I’m so sorry Mr. Uris.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.”
“That guy was—he was such an asshole. I don’t even know how he…I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was just buying flowers for my roommate.”
“It’s alright. You don’t need to explain.”
“Please don’t fire me.”
“Why would I fire you?”
“I—I’m —I don’t know. You and Mrs. Uris seem like good people but I get it if you don’t want someone like me around. I tend to bring trouble with me.”
“It’s alright.”
“No you don’t understand. It’s—I should’ve said—I assumed that Mrs. Uris suspected, she was always so nice to me in school I just…god this is so fucked. I don’t actually know if she knows.”
“Knows what Mandy?” Stan knows. Stan knows what she’s saying. He knows. He wants her to say it. He wants her to say it. For some reason he really needs her to trust him. To tell him. To say the words. Why does he want her to say the words?
“I’m not like everybody else.” Mandy says like she’s being held at gunpoint. Stan suddenly realizes how much pressure he’s suddenly put on her to tell him her secret. “It’s alright. I understand.” He mends quickly–feeling some weird paternal urge to sooth her. To not make her cry any mor ethen she already is.
“No you don’t.”
Stan doesn’t understand. Not fully. Not really. But he thinks he knew someone that did. He thinks that’s why Stan always gets queazy when he sees News Channels discussing AIDS or why he gets so irritated when he sees hateful graffiti in public restrooms. He carries this person with him everywhere. He doesn’t know their name. But Stan thinks this person was like Mandy. Stan thinks that he really loved this person. He must have.
Why else would he be crying more than Mandy is right now while she’s actively coming out to him. “I’m gay.”
Stan is crying. It’s embarrassing, but he wishes someone else were telling him this. He wishes he could remember who.
“That’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. You are still you. I’m so sorry you were afraid to tell me.” Stan was sobbing in his car—probably sounding completely insane to this nineteen-year-old girl. A gay girl who was petrified of losing her job because she has a girlfriend.
Stan wants so desperately to say more. But he knows the words he wants to say aren’t actually for her. They are for someone else. Someone else he can’t remember.
“You’re really brave, Mr. Uris. That guy was buff as hell.“ Mandy jokes, and it breaks the tension quickly. Stan laughs, choking in his own tears. “I’ve fought bigger,” Stan says and is surprised by how genuine it sounds. He doesn’t remember ever fighting anyone. Ever. He avoids conflict.
——
Stan is walking through the newly built mall with Patty and stops dead in his tracks when he sees a face on a window. A poster of a woman modleing clothes. Perfectly red hair and fierce eyes wearing business casual attire–promoting a brand of clothes far too fancy for Patty to buy. Patty wears sun dresses and Jean shorts with patch world on the. She’s a school teacher and has no need for a business suit.
“You think Mandy would like a blouse from there?” Patty asks and Stan is still paralyzed as he stares at the women in the poster.
“I think—” Stan doesn't blink, he doesn't dare move at all. “--I think I know her.”
“Of course you do love. She owns the Marsh Brand. Half her clothes are in this mall.”
Stan lets that sink in. Of course. That makes sense. Of course that’s how he knows her. Of course.
“She's an incredible woman. I just wish she had more accommodating prices. 25 dollars for a blouse is obscene.” Patty comments.
Stan agrees. That is an insane amount of money. She must be successful. Marsh. Stan can't explain it– surely he doesn't actually know her– he should move on and go on his way. But he feels…he feels pride. He feels so proud of this woman he's never met. So he buys a headscarf from her. Made of silk and with a pretty purple color that he knows Patty would wear when she's in the garden. It's worth too much–too expensive for a piece of fabric—but Stan would have paid more.
Every time he washes the cloth during laundry, he's extra careful with it and feels a soft tug in his chest when he sees the name Marsh inscribed in its brand.
——
Patty wants a shed. For the tractor. So Stan, ever the good husband, is standing on the porch of the farmhouse, a blueprint spread out on a makeshift table.
He’s trying to design the shed but the lines won’t stay straight in his head. He’s meticulous, yes, but he lacks the structural intuition he feels he should have. He finds himself looking at the joints of the farmhouse, wondering how someone could make something so sturdy out of something as fragile as wood.
"You're making that cute little peculiar face again dear." Patty says, leaning against the doorframe. She’s wearing the silk purple Marsh scarf tied loosely around her neck. It looks perfect on her. Everything looks perfect on her.
Stan sighs deeply—and takes a step back—peering at the blueprints like they might look different in a new angle.
“I just feel like I knew a builder once," Stan murmurs, his pencil hovering over the paper. "Someone who knew how to make things that last.”
Stan’s hand trembles on the page, and he draws a perfect, sharp angle on the page—an architect’s line. He thinks he can almost picture him in his mind. A boy. Definitely a boy.
“One of your college friends?" Patty asks softly. Stan didn’t have any college friends.
“No, I don’t think so.” Stan frowns.
He ends up hiring someone else to build the shed.
——
Stan and Patty go to the movies. They don’t go often but Stan had seen a trailer for the film by accident and something about it spoke to him.
He wasn’t really a movie person but Patty adores them. She collects DVDs and writes reviews online. She used to be a film major in college.
“My god, that ending was absolutely awful.” Patty couldn’t keep the humour out of her voice.
“It was.” It was awful. It started off so well but took a sharp decline about half way through.
“Did they have to kill all of them off like that? It was so gory.”
“Yes it was.” Stan nods with a smile.
Patty keeps going on and on about how horrible of an ending it was and how heartbreaking it all was. “Did you hate the movie though, kvetching?” Stan asks with a soft knowing smile.
“I’m absolutely outraged. So of course I loved it dear. Did you like it?”
“Yeah, it was awful. We have to buy it when it goes on DVD.” Stan can’t stop thinking about it.
“Of course.” Patty kisses him deeply. “It’s based on a book you know.”
“Is it? By who?”
“William Denbrough, I believe.”
“Denbrough," Stan whispers, testing the name on his tongue. It feels like a secret he wasn’t supposed to tell. It feels like the taste of silver and the sound of a bicycle chain.
“The name sounds familiar.”
“Maybe you’ve read one of his books.” Patty considers.
Stan buys the book a week later. The ending was awful. He buys the rest of the author's books despite this. A compulsion he can’t quite tame.
——
Stan doesn’t watch much tv. But he does have one show he likes to watch. Repeatedly and religiously. A bit of a guilty pleasure considering Patty doesn’t like the show. And it’s not even the whole show, it's just one particular episode. One specific comedian.
Trashmouth.
Stan listens to his regurgitated nonsensical comedic shlob and he doesn’t even particularly find him funny. Not really. But Stan watches the special and he smiles. He watches the way the man moves around the stage comfortably—telling obscene stories that feel disingenuous but Stan still listens. He listens like he’s catching up with a friend.
He’s obnoxious and the voices he makes are dumb. Stan knows all the jokes by heart. He knows the punchlines and the kickers. He knows all his dramatic pauses and he knows how the crowed reacts. He recites it like a sermon—like a prayer only Stan understands.
“I heard he’s going on tour here in the summer.” Patty says one day despite disliking the comedian. She finds his jokes crude and mean and more than a bit sexist. A comedian for white horny middle school boys is what she’d tell him.
Yet she offered to suffer through a showing just for him.
“Really?” Stan smiles at her.
“Yes, Really.” Patty rolls her eyes with a big sigh.
Stan never ends up going to that tour.
——
It happens on a Thursday. Patty is looking at cruises on her laptop—and Stan is finally finishing the bird puzzle he’s been working on for weeks. He just never had the time anymore. But he’s finishing it tonight. He can see it all so clearly.
Stan had been receiving a series of Spam calls for a while now—Everytime he goes on a website and allows them to give him cookies it triggers some sort of phone call advertisement. He’s gotten calls about OCD medication. Calls about Jet skis. Calls about Bird tours. calls about buying a new car. Calls about buying and selling his house. It’s all targeted advertisement and so he blatantly ignores it when his phone call rings. The only people that would call him at this hour is his wife—who is right beside him—or his mother who rarely knows how to work the phone to begin with. It’s not his mother—he has a special ringtone for her.
“Should I just book it? Are you sure you can get away from work?”
“It’s summer! Why not?” Stan insists—fully enraptured in the puzzle.
“Okay, we are Buenos Aires-bound.” Patty chuckles happily.
So he ignores it when his phone rings against the glass counter.
Stan has to drag himself to the ground to pick up the puzzle piece that somehow ended up underneath the glass table. If Grace or Hope, their foster cats, got a hold of the pieces they’d be done for. And it would drive Stan mad if he couldn’t finish the puzzle.
The phone rings. Insistent and urgent and Stan doesn’t recognize the number. It’s from Maine.
From Maine.
Stan answers it simply because he’s pretty sure—maybe about fifty percent sure— that he’s from Maine. He hasn’t a clue who’d call him from Maine but surely it must be important if they are calling at this hour.
He answers with a furrow on his brow. “Stanley Uris speaking.”
“It’s Mike.”
Stan blinks, his heart racing suddenly for some reason. “I’m sorry?” He breathes out like a punch to the gut.
“Mike Hanlon. From Derry.”
An abrupt image of a boy appears in Stan’s head. Tall, broad and kind, stronger than any boy Stan has ever met. A farm boy. A rock collector.
Stan has a room in his farm just for him. How could he forget his name?
Stan’s entire fucking chest felt like it’s been cracked open. Mike.
“Mike. God, sorry. Yes, hi.”
A memory of Mike appears in Stan’s mind—A boy throwing rocks at a group of bullies. Other boys. His friends. Stan’s friends. He can see flickers of them. Glasses. Red hair, bloody shirt, a cast, a Superman smile.
Stan chuckles nervously. The memory flooded his head like some sort of sick joke. “I don’t know why I didn’t um—“ Stan can’t believe he couldn’t remember him. Mike was his friend.
“—how longs it been?” Stan tries to draw it back—he tries to pinpoint the exact moment that he forgot about his existence. His farm friend from Derry. He spent his last summer with him. He saved his life. He can’t remember how. But he saved his life. Stan remembers water. A quarry. He’d made a promise to him, didn't he? Why can’t he remember?
“A long time.” Mikes voice is older, more mature. Stan sounds the same. “Twenty seven years.”
Twenty seven years.
It comes back every twenty seven years.
Stan is remembering the wrong summer. The bad summer. The fear. He doesn’t even know what he’s afraid of yet.
“It’s come back hasn’t it, that’s why you’re calling.”
“It’s starting again, Stan. Bad things are happening.”
Stan is stammering. His nerves are getting the better of him “Did you call the others?” The others.
Who are the others?
“I mean, what if they don’t come?”
“We made a promise, remember?” Mike says it like it’s a given—like he could just cash in this promise at any time without consequence. He can’t! Stan has a life! He has a wife and he has animals and pets and a job that he’s good at.
Mike can’t just assume he’ll drop everything over a promise he made twenty seven years ago. He can’t just— “how soon can you get here?”
Mike doesn’t sound certain. He sounds like he’s thirteen again telling the losers he wants to move to Florida. The losers. Oh god—the losers.
“Um, well I—yeah, I would need to do a few things.” Stan can’t go back there. Holy shit he cannot go back there.
He can’t!
“Tomorrow?”
Stan can barely breath.
“We don’t have much time.”
“I’ll text you everything you need. I’ll see you soon, Stan The Man.”
Stan The Man. He hasn’t heard that nickname in nearly three fucking decades.
One nickname. That’s all it took for him to come back. Richie. Richie Tozier. His best friend. His brother.
How was he breathing before? Oh god, how was he breathing?
He hadn’t realized how much weight had just fallen off his shoulders. He had realized how much he’d been holding back—how much he had forgotten.
It doesn't come back to him all at once. Richies comes to him the easiest. Maybe because Stan had been watching his damn comedy specials without realizing—memorizing his laugh—categorizing his updated voices like a checklist.
Stan remembers his best friend and how much he fucking loved him.
“Stan? What’s wrong?” Patty is closing her laptop and finally notices Stan in a ball next to the couch. Hyperventilating even after mikes hung up the phone.
She’s in front of him with worried eyes and taking the phone away from his shaking hands.
“I have a best friend.” Stan says with a choked out laugh.
Patty's eyes begin to water and she grips his hands fiercely “you’re scaring me dear. What’s the matter?”
Stan pulls his wife’s hands towards him—kisses her knuckles and breaths in her vanilla lotion. Taking her in. Taking in his life. His life. “I love you.” Stan says with tears in his eyes.
“I love you too.”
“I have a really fucked to childhood.” Stan says like that wasn’t super fucking obvious. It’s not everyone who can’t remember anything before they went to college.
“I figured.” Patty says and Stan laughs and shakes his head “like super fucked up.”
“Okay. You wanna talk about it?”
“No time right now.”
“No time?” Patty frowns and Stan can’t drag her into this whole mess. Not her. Not his beautiful patient wife.
“You need to cancel the trip.” Stan says suddenly. It’s not what he meant to say. It’s not what he wants to do. He doesn’t want to go to Derry. Not really. He’s terrified.
Patty gasps “but my points!”
It makes Stan laugh. Patty is always making Stan laugh even when he’s actively having a panic attack.
“It’s important. Like life or death, important. You need to book a flight to Derry.”
“Derry?”
“Derry Maine.”
“God, what’s even there?” Patty is already pulling away—going to her computer to cancel the trip they’d been planning for months. She’s on board for whatever crazy bullshit Stan’s life is becoming now—has always been apparently.
“My family.” His family is in Derry. They need him to be there.