“The Sketchbook”

Derry, Maine – November 1986

The Denbrough house always felt a little too quiet.

The kind of quiet that made you tiptoe, even when you didn’t need to. Like if you spoke too loud, it might wake up something heavy in the walls.

You were sitting cross-legged on Bill’s bedroom floor, flipping through one of his comics while he rummaged through the closet. The air smelled faintly like dust and laundry. Outside, the trees were bare and the sky was bruising toward gray.

“F-Found it,” he said quietly.

You looked up. In his hands, he held a worn, beat-up sketchbook—corners bent, edges frayed, rubber band holding it closed like it had something important inside.

You tilted your head. “What’s that?”

Bill hesitated, then crossed the room and sat beside you, the sketchbook in his lap.

“I u-used to draw a lot,” he said. “B-Before… everything.”

You knew what he meant. Before Georgie.

“I haven’t really shown anyone this. N-Not even the guys.”

He didn’t need to. Just the way he held it said it was sacred.

Carefully, he peeled off the rubber band and opened it.

The pages were full of pencil lines and quiet imagination. There were little comic panels, scenes from stories he’d never written down, and soft portraits of things that mattered—trees from the Barrens, the Quarry, the front steps of your school, his bike.

But the drawings that stopped you were the ones of Georgie.

There were three. One of Georgie in his raincoat. One of him laughing. And one—unfinished—of the two of them holding hands in front of their house.

You didn’t say anything.

You just gently placed your hand over his, grounding him there with you.

“I w-was gonna draw a new one,” he said, voice low. “Of him. But I couldn’t. S-So I tried drawing you instead.”

You blinked.

He flipped to the very last page.

It wasn’t finished. But it was unmistakably you. Sitting under the tree near the Barrens, your legs tucked up, hair falling in your face as you looked out across the water.

You felt your throat tighten.

“It’s beautiful,” you whispered. “I—I didn’t know you drew like this.”

Bill rubbed the back of his neck. “I-I stopped for a while. It… h-hurt. But then we started spending more time together. And I kinda… wanted to remember it. Like this. Just you. Just that day.”

You didn’t know what to say. So you didn’t.

You just leaned over and rested your head against his shoulder.

And he let you stay there, both of you sitting in the hush of his room, the pages open between you, and something soft and quiet settling into the space where sadness had lived for so long.

Not to replace it.

But to sit beside it.

Like healing does.