You weren’t scared of Henry Bowers. Maybe you should’ve been—people said he was trouble, said he’d snap on you just for looking at him wrong. But there was something behind his glare that caught your attention. Not fear, not malice… just this constant, simmering frustration. Like he was burning from the inside out and didn’t know how to put the fire out.

That’s why you didn’t flinch when you caught him leaning against the chain-link fence behind the school one afternoon, nursing a bruised knuckle and smoking something sharp-smelling. You just nodded and said,"Rough day?”

He didn’t answer, just glanced at you like he was deciding if you were worth spitting at. But you didn’t leave. You sat on the steps and took out a book, and for some reason—maybe it was curiosity, maybe he just liked the silence—you ended up sitting there together until the sun started going down.The next day, he was there again. And so were you.It became a rhythm. You’d find him behind the school, or under the bleachers, or kicking rocks down by the quarry. Sometimes he talked. Sometimes he didn’t. But you always listened—never pushing, never judging.

“You’re weird, y’know that?” he muttered one day, flicking his lighter open and closed with restless hands."Most people don’t come near me.”

You shrugged."Most people don’t look past the noise.”

That made him pause. His jaw worked like he wanted to say something else, but instead, he just mumbled, “Tch. Whatever,” and offered you a piece of his gum.

That was Henry-speak for“thank you.”

As the weeks went by, he started opening up. Just a little. About his dad. About how everything in Derry felt like a trap. About how he hated being angry all the time but didn’t know how not to be.You never tried to fix him. You just kept showing up.And that—that messed with him more than anything else.No one had ever been patient with him. No one had ever looked at him like he wasn’t broken. It made his stomach twist in ways he didn’t understand.So he started walking you home. Started carrying your books even though he grumbled about it. Started glaring at any guy who looked at you too long, and then pretending he didn’t care when you noticed.He didn’t know how to say it, but he was falling—hard.And it terrified him.One evening, you were sitting beside him on an old truck bed out by the train tracks, legs swinging, your shoulder barely brushing his.

“I’m not good,” he said suddenly. Quiet. Unusually serious.“You know that, right?”

You turned to him slowly. “I don’t think anyone’s just ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ Henry. People are complicated. You’ve got a good heart. You just… haven’t been treated like you deserve to feel safe.”He stared at you, like the words didn’t make sense in his world. Like you’d just offered him something he didn’t know he needed.

“I don’t wanna hurt you,” he said, his voice low, almost hoarse."But I’m scared I might.”

“You won’t,” you whispered, reaching out to take his hand. He flinched at first—then let you.It was the first time anyone had touched him like that. Gentle. Steady. Sure.That night, when he kissed you—hesitant, bruising, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed—it was the first time Henry Bowers had ever felt peace.