The whole way there, Ivy does her best to be kind. She compliments Richie every chance she gets, and Stan throws an apologetic look every time he shuts her down.

Once they near the drop off, Ivy begins to seriously regret her decision to come along. How could she jump if she's afraid of water?

Novocane senses her fear, and as a dog, decides to make the first move. The dog jumps off the cliff as soon as they get there.

Panicked, Ivy quickly pulls off her clothing and jumps after the dog.

The boys stare dumbfounded and blushing.

"Holy shit!" Richie shouts, looking over the edge as the girl resurfaces and begins cussing at her dog.

If a dog could laugh, Novocane was definitely doing that, even the boys could see the dog's smug face as it paddles around the water.

"You piece of shit! You scared the crap out of me! I don't even like water how could you do this to me?!" Ivy exclaims, splashing the dog.

The dog howls back at her, paddling around. Stan can't help but laugh at the whole ordeal. Despite seeing her so easily jump, they still weren't to confident about jumping down.

"Sissies!"

Suddenly, the wild red head, Beverly, is also in the water.

"What the fuck! We just got showed up by two girls and a dog!" Richie exclaims, pushing up his glasses.

The other boys look between each other.

"D-Do we have to do that?" Stan asks.

"Yup," Bill states.

One by one, they all begin to jump off the cliff. Novocane swims back to shore and sits on a rock, observing as the teens splash one another and laugh loudly.

A smile is shared between Bill and Beverly as the others joke around.

Ivy does her best to keep her eyes off Richie, not wanting to come off as a complete stalker. Richie does the complete opposite, never letting his eyes leave Ivy. Not even to splash Eddie.

Something about her in the water, it just made her even prettier than she already was.

Pffft

He can't help but roll his eyes at himself. Ivy Okonma was definitely not Janice Baylor.

Janice Baylor is the ideal girl to be with. Perfect in every way possible. Perfect family, perfect hair, perfect life. Richie often found himself swooning over the girl for the same reason that Ivy swooned for him. They are complete opposites. Richie is usually pretty loud about his feelings towards Janice, and even then, Ivy pretends it's nothing.

She really wants to believe that Richie can do her good, but his constant attitude is starting to make it hard.

"What's on your mind?" Beverly asks from beside her.

Ivy flinches, allowing a blush to climb her face.

"Oh uh– nothing. I'm just...I'm just scared of water," Ivy hums.

She isn't entirely lying. She really is scared of water.

Bev nods watching as the girl flinches each time Richie makes a dirty joke about Janice Baylor.

"Let's get out," Bev encourages, pulling her towards the shore.

Ivy throws a look of appreciation and follows.

"You're really brave. To so easily peel your clothes off like that," The frail girl compliments.

Bev looks up confused, only now catching all the bruises scattered along her body.

"Where'd you get those?" Bev asks shakily.

"My dad," Ivy admits, climbing onto the land and sitting beside Novocane.

Bev feels a sudden connection to the girl, realizing that they have more in common than she thought. She lays back on her towel, soaking up the sun.

Ivy sits leaned against a rock, reading her book quietly to Novocane.

The sweet sounds of "Bust a Move", play loudly from a small radio Bev brought along.

The boys are stuck staring at the two, this being the closest they've ever gotten to seeing a girl naked. Their eyes scatter as soon as Bev turns to look at them.

Richie is at war with himself, and to cover up his stare decides to make as many comments about Janice Baylor as possible. He doesn't even notice when Ivy's grip on her book tightens.

She despised Janice Baylor. Not only because Richie seems to be madly in love with her, but because of how much of a bitch she'd been to the poor girl.

"Shut up, just cause Ivy's here–" Stan begins to say, annoyed with his friend.

"Ivy? You really think Ivy's the reason I'm talking about Janice. Try again, Stan the man. No offense, but I'd never even consider dating Ivy," Richie shrugs as if it's nothing.

Ivy looks up with a bit of pain in her eye, and Richie immediately regrets what he said. But he never takes it back.

That's it.

Ivy's mind echoes.

You're done with him. That draws the line.

To distract himself, Richie begins ruffling through Ben's backpack, much to the boy's dismay.

"Newsflash, Ben, school's out for summer!" Richie says, with his best impersonation of the principal. He pulls out a post card. "Who sent you this?"

"No one!" Ben shouts, taking it and shoving it back into the bag.

Curiously, the girls begin to watch.

"What's with the history project?" Eddie questions curiously.

"Uh," Ben clears his throat a bit, "when I moved here, I didn't really have anyone to hang out with. So, I just started spending time in the library—"

"You went to the library on purpose?" Richie scoffs, passing the article clippings around.

Bev and Ivy have moved to sit next to the boys by now. A small scoff comes from Ivy, causing all eyes to turn to her.

"I was gonna say, that's where I met Ivy..." Ben finishes with an apologetic smile.

"What's the black spot?" Stan queries, drawing their attention back to the subject at hand.

"The black spot was a nightclub burnt down years ago by—" Ben cuts himself off as he begins to notice the closeness of Bill and Bev.

Bill turns to the strawberry blonde, only now noticing the shortness of her hair. "Your....
y-your hair..."

He couldn't quite get his words out correctly.

"Your hair is beautiful, Beverly," Ben cuts in, earning a small glare from Bill.

"Oh," the girl tucks a few strands of hair behind her ear, "right. Thanks."

There's a small moment of silence before Ivy fills it.

"Pass it," She gestures towards the news clipping.

Richie fumbles to hand it to her, heart thumping when their fingers collide. Ivy ignores her pounding heart as she reads the clippings.

"Why's it all murders and missing kids?"

"Derry's not like any town I've ever been in before," Ben hums putting everyone on edge. "They did a study once, and it turns out people die or go missing six times the nationals average here."

"You read that?" Bev inquires.

He nods, "That's just the grown ups. Kids are worse. Way worse. I've got some more stuff at my house if you wanna see it."

Eddie shakes his head, clearly shaken up.

It was too late for that though, Bill agreed that everyone should go tomorrow. Richie doesn't want Ivy going, not if he has a say in it.

You may wonder why the boy was being so harsh on the girl. It's because most of he school treated him like shit as it is, but when they all started finding out that the ill girl liked him, the shit he got was 20x worse. The last thing he wanted on earth was to be seen with Ivy Lee Okonma, and ruin his chances at ever being with Janice Baylor. If he had any at all.

"Ivy shouldn't come," Richie hums, causing everyone to tense up at his rudeness.

Except Ivy, she's just confused.

"Why not?" The girl questions with genuine confusion.

"Cause. We don't want you to be shaken up and then go all ape shit with your illness if things get too "scary" for you–plus, your dog isn't exactly the most sanitary thing in the world. Why would Ben's mom want—"

Ivy tuned the boy out the second the word "sanitary" left his mouth.

It was one thing to talk about her, but it was crossing the line to talk about Novocane. Her heart rate begins to pick up, and rage fills her veins. Novocane perks up, as the watch around the girls wrist begins beeping over and over, louder and louder.

A loud bark erupts from the dog, a signal of warning.

Ivy can't hear. She can't breathe. She can't see. She can barely feel.

Her hands are shaking out of control and her breathing becomes out of control.

She's having a panic attack.

All along, the reason she owned a service dog, is because she is diagnosed with Panic Disorder, PTSD, and major depression. Not because she has some "disease".

Everything around her is a blur, all she hears is the sound of people speaking, and her dog barking. Then, suddenly, she sees Eddie. He's holding her cheeks, and speaking words to her. What is he saying? She couldn't tell. But he is the only the she can see clearly.

"....breathe, it's okay. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe."

His words become more clear to her, and slowly she complies with his wishes.

The losers watch in shock and slight amazement as Eddie Kaspbrak, the king of anxiety, calms the once frantic girl. As soon as she began having her panic attack, the losers had broken into action but ultimately had no idea what to do.

Eddie knew though.

He knew from his numerous attacks.

Novocane is pacing around, whining quietly. Bev glares at Richie, who in turn hides is guilty expression.

"See! That's exactly what I'm talking about– whatever just happened there– that's what I was warning her about!" He calls, causing Eddie to turn his head back and give him a 'shut the fuck up' sorta look.

He quiets down at this, watching with a sense of jealousy as his friend holds Ivy's shaking hands in his own.

When she is back to her senses, Ivy slowly stands up.

"A-Are y-you—"

"I'm fine."

Without looking any of them in the eye, the girl begins to gather her things and rush away from the group.

"W-Wait!" Bev calls, following after the girl with guilt.

Ivy stops, not turning around. Bev takes this opportunity to swallow the lump in her throat and speak up.

"A-Are you going to Ben's house tomorrow?"

"No."

With that simple answer, the losers watch as the frail girl rushes home with her dog.

I shouldn't have said that.

Richie repeats the statement in his mind.