inspired by Stand By Me '86

When you walk through the hallways in school, about a hundred faces pass you each time you pay attention and it's likely you recognise a few for being so precious in a certain period of your life but have now just drifted to a smile as they pass you, if you're lucky.

Before the wrath of high school began, there was a handful of tiny little guys that I clung to each day because it just felt right and because we were the outcasts forced together by the bad guys who were slapping us around each day just because we were a little different. It was these differences that brought us together and from that moment onwards we stuck together like superglue. 

There was Teddy Duchamp, one of the most idiotic guys you would ever meet, who would do anything at all to keep the legacy of his father alive. His thick glasses were way too big for him but then again so was his heart. He tried to kill himself once, challenging a train on the tracks as we tried dragging him from there. That was a strange day. 

Vern Tessio was at Teddy's side at all times despite being the inspiration for his meanest punch lines. He was an overweight kid, dressed as if he didn't belong with us, smart and nerdy. His brother was a part of Ace Merill's gang that painted our childhood years with red and I didn't even want to know what went on at home so I never asked. 

Gordie Lachance was one of my closest friends out of the group, he was an intellectual but too self-deprecating for his own good following his brother's death. His brother was great, everyone loved Denny including his parents, unfortunately, more than they loved their youngest. He was ignored at home so I always made sure to involve him, his big brown eyes glistening as I warmed his hear and showed him the things he never knew.  He was a talented writer, mustering the best storylines out of nowhere for those empty silences at the end of the nights. 

I missed him so. 

Chris Chambers was my greatest friend out of the bunch and he was the true glue to the group, keeping the peace, fighting the crime and solving the problems. In the process of monitoring, he forgot about himself until he'd go home to a drunk of a father. I don't imagine there was one piece of furniture in that dull house that wasn't thrown at his pretty head at one point and that was by his father or his older brother, another one of Ace's accomplices. 

Out of all the guys, only Chris was left with us. Teddy and Vern got transferred to another school after failing all their tests, they never were the academic sort and Gordie well, let's say life got a bit too much and people cared a little less at one point so he took his own life at just 16. 16 and dead, the newspapers relished in that title while his parents only wished it was sooner. 

We all had the best times, chasing each other through trees, screaming along to the radio, blissfully unaware of what was to come to our pathetic little lives. What our older selves would become was a mystery that we didn't even care to think about.

I could see Chris Chambers grinning at my goofy jokes while kicking some rocks in the dirt but now we were in algebra and he was kicking the back of my seat harder than he would those rocks.

Before you assume, it wasn't because he developed feelings for me as this was real life where people could choose to present themselves in any way they wanted so they could make someone like me feel a little shittier each day. 

I didn't bother confronting him, I just relished in the boy Chris Chambers once was, who I once really liked. 

People chuckle as he continues jolting me in the chair, hair "accidentally" getting tangled in his fist sometimes that were plastered in fresh cuts and bruises. 

One day we just drifted as he got a little smarter than he wanted to admit. One day his cute little cigarette fad turned into sex drugs and rock and roll with a gang of guys that looked exactly like the ones who used to keep him inside his locker. 

He cried over this, becoming his brother and his father and not wanting to live up to societies expectations of his and yet he has become exactly that and then some. 

I was staring at my paper in the busy class, getting confused about writing letters instead of numbers in math when the teacher decides to hand out the test scores in which Chris nearly mounts my shoulder to peak after he smirks at his own score. 

I had to admit 36/80 was incredibly low for my average but I had been struggling, feeling alone and mostly missing my best friends. 

"If you have any questions just come and see me but remember this is your ability, your effort an there is no special treatment especially for slackers," the teacher affirms, beady eyes glaring at us all over his thin glasses. 

"Sir?"

"Yes Christopher," his eyes drifted to directly behind me. 

The teacher at this point was probably in shock he had bothered to contribute to the class or even show up although he never seemed to miss this class, the only one we shared- the last thing we shared. 

"Does Y/N here get special treatment considering she is now a retard- oh wait that's not right," he scratches his chin plastically.

"I believe the correct name for it now is mentally challenged."

I feel a thick cloud of nicotine on my neck with chuckles in between. There is a sea of chuckles however the teacher seemed to sympathise with me as the dark teen cloud rained over me.

Class ends without further confrontation and no reply from the teacher but a couple of high fives from those faces that I once recognised. People do change, it's not true what the say. 

"Oops," he whispers as his hand wipes the contents of my bag onto the ground causing a thousand pairs of converse to trample on it mockingly. 

I chuckle under my breath. 

"Something funny?" he asks at the doorway, teacher fleeting with his mug as an excuse. 

"You know I think you're hilarious Chris," I slowly stuff my things into my bag tidy exactly where they should be, "That is if that even is your name anymore. Probably cool white snake or something like that, one could even argue Ace Merrill..."

The eyebrow lifts, more faces reappear as they keep walking by the classroom. He closes the door behind him in their faces and I'd be lying if I said I was intimidated at this point. I heard of the things he did but the person I knew I trusted with my tiny life back in the day. 

"Stop this shit, you're just jealous because you're still stuck in the dirty blue sneakers that you used to run around in," he seems to drift to the past a little, eyes gaining a little bit of blue from the pitch-black they currently were.

"Yes, of course, I am incredibly jealous of you. I admire you Chris when you say 'Oh please love me, cool people, oh please, please, pretty please drag me into hell'."

Being mocked by a woman was infuriating for any man but Chris always hated to be mocked, mocking himself on a daily basis was enough for his fragile state when he was a kid. But, I didn't know this guy, who knows how he felt. 

"Do you even miss Gordie?"

He is silent, unable to look in my eyes that were currently drowning in my own grief. It was true that I missed him with all my heart. 

"I do, every god damn day and the guys. And, I envy Gordie right now as he never had to see the monster you became."

Silence.

"He's dead Y/N, he's not coming back."

I finally grab my stuff throwing the strap over my shoulder, not caring if i hit him since the mental torture he had done to me was enough. 

I look over my shoulder, seeing a balled-up fist strikingly similar to his old man and his brothers. 

"Gordie may be dead but you will always be more dead to me."

I couldn't bear to see that vein pop out like his old man when he was angry. His bad abusive temper had been passed down the generations like the fucking flu. 

I didn't care if I had to live in that treehouse forever, leaping through the wood when 33 years old with taxes. If Chris Chambers was what it meant to grow up and abandon the golden years, consider me Peter fucking Pan.