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Stanley didn"t want this to happen, any of this. He didn"t want to be unable to sleep, unable to eat, unable to think. Stanley Uris was just a thirteen-year-old kid, a child, and he couldn"t even look in the mirror without crying. It was because of a combination of things, he told himself; the first thing, of course, being the way the too-bright lightbulb in his bathroom seemed to just shout as it turned on. Then it came time to look at his face in that mirror Stanley"s thoughts screamed at him to smash (it"s wrong, it"s all wrong), that face that once looked back at him with some form of pretentious optimism expressed in his slight smile. But now, when he got the courage to look at the mirror that had since been covered with a spare blue sheet, every ounce of hope seemed to have been sucked right out of him, leaving him with a gnawing pain that left him, internally, crying out in horror. As the hollowed-out shell that once was Stanley sighed, the sheet was pressed back to its rightful place.
It was a daily affair ever since that day.
One hundred and twenty-three days later, Stanley found himself unable to move as he stared up at the ceiling from his place on the rather uncomfortable carpet in his small bedroom. He ignored his mother"s suggestion of playing outside in the snow, knowing it was too cold and too messy to do so. As much as he liked the idea of laying out in the debilitatingly cold snow in their front yard for everyone to see, Stanley much preferred to lay inside in his soft pajamas (which, these days, were made up of dark sweatpants he once borrowed from Bill and whatever shirt he deemed okay to sleep in) where he could be by himself with his thoughts, thank you very much.
Or, at least, he was alone until he heard two of the most familiar (and the most inconvenient, especially right now) voices he"d grown to know; though Stan shook his head in an attempt to somehow ward off these voices (they"re just voices, that"s all- they"re not real, they"re not here) from inevitably getting louder and louder until they"re right there and that"s just not what he needed right now. Or ever.
"Stan?" he heard that soft voice call out, that voice that absolutely should not be soft in the slightest bit. Not that the caller couldn"t be soft and kind, but it definitely was not the first thing you noticed about this person when you saw them. "Can we come in?"
Despite the fact he shook his head once more, not trusting his voice to be anything short of a brittle mess, Stan noticed the door slowly opening out of the corner of his eye, but he stayed in his place, nonetheless. They can"t fix this.
"Are you alright?" the same voice asked, the caller waiting a moment before entering the room fully. "I- I mean about you laying on the floor. I wasn"t sure if you fell or something."
"I"m fine," Stan replied softly, not really caring one way or the other if his voice was too small and too quiet to be heard.
"Hey Stan," another voice said, causing Stan to turn his head slightly to see Eddie"s obnoxiously off-white socks out of the corner of his eye. He also noticed the familiar dark boots of Beverly"s, though he didn"t need to notice those shoes to know who was talking to him.
"Eddie," Stan replied flatly, returning to his previous spot with a frown on his face.
"Could you maybe give us a minute?" Beverly asked, turning around to face Eddie. "I need to talk to him about something."
"Oh… yeah, sure," Eddie said quickly, stepping out of the room and closing the door.
So, it begins, Stan thought to himself, hearing Eddie"s soft footsteps as he made his way downstairs. Just spit it out already, Bev.
"I think I need to hang out here a bit more," she said, laughing a bit as she walked over to Stan"s desk. "I think your mom said I was Eddie"s girlfriend."
"Funny."
"Yeah, uh… she said she was going to lunch with Richie"s mom- did you hear her yell for you?"
"No," he replied softly. Just say it already.
"Where have you been?" Beverly asked, taking a seat in Stan"s plastic desk chair after taking it and turning it to face Stan. "You"re scaring the shit out of us, you know that? You- you haven"t been hanging out with us, no one"s heard from you in, like, a month. We thought giving you space would help, Stan, but it"s making things worse. Now, are you going to tell us what"s been going on, or was coming over here a big waste of our time?"
There it is.
Stan shrugged, taking a breath before slowly thinking of what to say to her. "Yes."
"Yes, what?"
"Both."
"Stan, I don"t- talk to me, please," she sighed, nudging him softly with the toe of her boot. "I can"t help if you don"t tell me what"s going on."
"No one can help me."
"You don"t know that, St-"
"I"m not here, Beverly," he blurted out, reaching up to cover his face. "You want to know where I am? I"m- I"m not there, and you know it. You know it."
"I don"t understand," she said, shaking her head. "Where are you talking about?"
"You- the cistern."
"What about…" Beverly trailed off, thinking back to that day as she looked down at the back of her hand. "Oh."
"You said we were all there, but you lied to me. You lied to me."
"What was I supposed to say, Stan? I- I didn"t even know what it meant. It could have just been some stupid dream." She bit her lip, knowing what she was saying was really only half-true.
"I was there, too," Stan said (or tried to say, as it came out as more like a whisper than a confident statement), moving his hands to point at the scars on his face. "Those stupid lights."
"What?" Beverly looked back to Stan, a slight mix of exasperation and confusion growing on her face; a look that, without seeing her face, Stan knew was there. He hadn"t told anyone what he had seen, not anyone that believed him, anyway (Richie, poor Richie, said it was just a dream- a nightmare; of course it fucking was).
"I wasn"t in the cistern, Beverly, because I wasn"t anywhere at all," he sniffed, hating those tears he could feel coming; though, at the same time, he was anxious about them, those tears that had evaded him for months. "I was in a porcelain bathtub that was stained red with blood. And I- I remember everything about it. It was so sticky, it was so dirty. I thought that I was going to be sick, that the lights were blinding me, but I couldn"t feel anything. I couldn"t hear anything either, but I remember that smell, that fucking smell. Promise me you"ll never get me anything lavender-scented."
"I don"t understand. Stan, that doesn"t-"
"I was dying, Beverly, what isn"t there to get?" he cried, letting the tears roll down the sides of his face. "I die all alone- covered in scars- in some shitty fucking porcelain tub. I fucking hate porcelain. If I"m going to die in the worst way, I at least think I deserve some fucking marble."
"You"re not going to die, Stan," Beverly said sternly, turning around and grabbing the tissue box off of the desk behind her. "We don"t even know if that stuff is going to happen. It was probably just trying to scare us."
"I can"t sleep because that"s all I see, and- and I can"t do anything during the day because I"m going fucking insane."
"Stan, it"s okay." Beverly tried handing the tissue box to him but settled on setting it down next to him when he shook his head. "Just- just calm down."
"Tell me you hear them," he sobbed, turning his head to look at the window. Stan couldn"t look out his window, not anymore. That, along with the mirror, had been covered up in an attempt to forget what was waiting for him on the other side: a grotesque mess he didn"t want to see. "It got you, too, so you have to hear them. Please tell me you hear them."
"I don"t hear anything," Beverly said slowly, completely unsure of what to say. She didn"t want to admit it, definitely not to Stan, but she didn"t know what to really believe anymore. "Stan, when was the last time you slept?"
"It"s the fucking birds. They"re all I can hear, Beverly, they"re always there. The singing, the chirping, the- the everything. It"s driving me crazy and I don"t know how you don"t hear them."
"I guess I- sometimes I hear screaming, but it"s not like that. It"s not constant, but it"s terrifying when it is there."
"I used to love the birds, you know that, but now I- I can"t even love them. I have to hate them now," he took in a shaky breath, reaching around blindly for the box of tissues. "God, it"s just like with fucking Richie. My whole life is ruined because of this and I can"t even be upset about it because half the people I talk to don"t believe me and the other half of people I don"t want to believe me."
"What about Richie?" Beverly asked, reaching down and handing the tissues to Stan.
"I don"t know, why don"t you ask him ?" Stan shot back, wiping his eyes with a tissue he thought felt more like sandpaper. "Or not even Richie, just ask Eddie. They"re basically attached at the hip these days."
"I understand," she said softly. And Beverly did, of course; after everything, she had a hard time recognizing the person that Bill had become. The once gentle boy that had grown distant, the boy she thought she loved had transformed into a complete stranger. He spent most of his days with Mike now, holed up in the library. She wanted to say something, anything, to get him to stop, but all scars heal in their own ways.
"You know Ben loves you, right?" he asked, turning back to look at the ceiling. "He got you out of there- he saved you."
"Yeah," Beverly replied, staring down at Stan, who tossed the tissue aside and wiped his face with the sleeve of the shirt that most definitely belonged to Richie. "Who got you out of there? Away from the lights, I mean. I remember it feeling cold and dark, like… like nothing could get me out of there. Next thing I know, there was Ben. And all of you guys, of course. You guys must have loved me something fierce to be able to pull me away from that."
"It was Richie," Stan cried, burying his face in the sleeve of the garish purple shirt. "Maybe- maybe it"s not about who loves us, maybe it"s more about who we love."
"I don"t know," she shrugged, truly not understanding any of this. She was glad for that, in a way, that she didn"t know what it all meant. "All that matters is that we"re here, and we are… relatively okay."
"Richie could never love me," he sighed. "Not when I"m all broken. I mean, I"ve always been broken, but I think this time I am beyond repair."
"We all love you, Stan," Beverly smiled softly, looking down at the curly hair and the too-broken heart. "I"m sure Richie loves you, too. You guys have been friends for, like, ever- why wouldn"t he love you?"
"No, not like that," he shook his head, wanting to look anywhere but at her, at the girl in his room he should have loved instead. "I- I think I"m gay. You know, because my life is already just such a blast."
"Oh." Beverly felt her face darken, though mostly out of embarrassment over her previous statement to the troubled boy on the carpet. "Does-"
"Yes, he knows. I told him the minute I first knew," Stan sighed. "He just smiled and gave me a stupid hug. A hug. Like it wasn"t just fucking killing me enough to know I liked him, he had to just go and do that to make it worse. To make me feel like he liked me, too."
"Maybe he does."
Stan scoffed, reaching down to play with the loose button at the bottom of the shirt. "Maybe I"m not the only one going crazy, then. It"s pretty impossible to do anything with Richie when there"s that big fucking freckled wall making sure it"s right between us. Thanks for bringing him over here, by the way. It totally doesn"t make it more awkward at all."
"Hiding things isn"t making anything better, Stan," Beverly shook her head. "You should talk to him."
"What"s the point? I"m going to be dead in 30 years anyway," he shrugged. "I- I love him too much to put him through that. I"d rather put myself through hell for the rest of my life than put him through that."
"What about the person you do end up with? You"re okay putting them through that?"
"I don"t think I end up with anyone," Stan said softly. "I would have noticed a ring, I think. But there was just… just nothing. It"s all nothing. While I"m dying in an ugly-ass porcelain mess of a bathtub, Eddie gets to be the one that ends up with him. And I"m just here, with my fucking birds, being bitter over a life that hasn"t happened yet."
"You don"t know they end up together," Beverly shook her head, puzzlement growing on her face. "Even I don"t know if they end up together. Things just seemed very… muddled? I don"t remember a lot of it, Stan. Maybe Richie ends up with someone we don"t even know, someone we haven"t even met. Thirty years is a really long time, and things could change."
"I don"t really know," Stan said, stifling a yawn as he continued. "It"s hard to really be sure of anything after what I saw- after everything that happened."
"Well, I"m sure you"ll end up with someone amazing and beautiful that loves you for who you are. Even if you think you might be a little bit broken right now."
"Yeah, well, we can revisit this conversation when we"re thirty-nine, how about that?" Stan rolled his eyes, moving a loose curl away from his eye when he heard Eddie"s voice call out from downstairs.
"Bev?" he asked, voice obviously laced with some semblance of concern. "I think the movie"s starting soon, I think we should go now."
"Instead of in thirty years, how about we continue this conversation tomorrow?" Beverly asked, standing from the chair and moving it back to its original place. "Thank you for trusting me with… all of that stuff."
Stan nodded, struggling to think of something to say in return. "Well, I- thank you for, uh, listening, I guess."
"You shouldn"t hate your birds so much, Stan," she said, walking towards the door and reaching out for the doorknob. "I think that, even if they might be annoying and driving you crazy, it still might be nice to have their company. You might wake up one day and all the birds will be gone, and you"ll miss them. They"re just singing, what harm does that do? Let them sing their little hearts out for now. Tomorrow is a new day, and anything is possible, you know. Even the impossible."
"Yeah, well… tell your boyfriend that I hope you guys have a nice time on your date." Stan watched as Beverly smiled at him, shaking her head as she opened the door. "What movie are you seeing?"
"Oh, uh… the new Back to the Future movie, I think. They actually go to the future this time."
"Well, here"s hoping they make it back."
Beverly wanted them to make it back as well; 2015 seemed like such a strange year, a year that had so many possibilities presented for people like her, like them, a world that was simply better. Even in that year, 2015, she knew things were better than they were, even if she didn"t know how things used to be at all. Beverly tried, at times, to remember her childhood, but she couldn"t, of course. None of them could. But she thought she could on that day, a particularly warm spring day as she sat in her accountant"s office, chatting away about things only adults could ever find interesting; housing markets, investments, paint colors, even weddings seemed to be a dull topic when presented amongst things like stock portfolios.
Her accountant on that day was all smiles, offering Beverly weekend stories as he usually did after their meetings; on that particular weekend, he had attended the wedding of a former coworker of his, whom he described as being a rather prissy entertainment accountant that now lived in Georgia ("I love the guy, but I think he only moved there because he wanted the heat as an excuse for being a whiny dick all the time," he had said). As her talkative accountant showed Beverly pictures of the small but very formal event, she couldn"t help but want to offer the man in the picture- the curly-haired groom, the man that was nothing but a stranger to her- a hug and a quite hilarious declaration of "I told you so."
But, for now, as she looked down at the boy with the curls as he was lying on the floor, all Beverly could offer Stan was a smile, a silent smile that hopefully let him know that things would be a bit better than they were, even if the entire world inside of him was falling apart.