“July Quiet”

Derry, Maine – 1985

It was hot for July. The kind of heat that made everything stick—shirts to backs, thoughts to grief, grief to every inch of the inside of your chest.

You and Bill sat in the Denbroughs’ backyard, under the half-shade of a tree that looked like it had been there since the town was built. His bike, Silver, was laid in the grass a few feet away. You hadn’t been riding. You just sat.

You, cross-legged with your arms hugging your knees. Bill, leaning back on his palms, staring up at the sky.

It had been a year since Georgie.

No one really talked about it anymore.

But the weight of it still hung around Bill like fog that wouldn’t burn off. You could feel it when he didn’t laugh like the others, or when his eyes stayed fixed on some far-off place you couldn’t see.

And today, he hadn’t said a word in over ten minutes.

So you didn’t either.

That was the thing with you and Bill. You didn’t push. You just sat in it with him.

After a while, he let out a breath like it hurt. “I-I keep thinking he’s gonna come back,” he said, voice quiet, words catching on each other. “L-Like, he’s just… h-h-hiding somewhere. Playing a g-game.”

You nodded. Not because you believed that, but because it made sense to believe it when you were thirteen and nothing else made any.

“I wish he was,” you whispered. “I’d help you find him.”

Bill looked at you then—really looked. Eyes a little watery but not crying. And it was the first time in a long time that he didn’t look alone in his sadness.

He reached over, slowly, and took your hand in his. Yours was cool from sitting in the grass. His was warm and a little shaky.

“I-I don’t talk to the others about him,” he said. “N-Not like this.”

“I know.”

“I c-can with you.”

You smiled softly, and it was the kind of smile that didn’t need to be big. Just honest.

A breeze passed through the trees, stirring the leaves like whispers. You both leaned back in the grass, still holding hands, heads close, staring up at a sky that felt impossibly big for two kids who felt too small.

And you knew, deep down—even if Bill never said another word about Georgie—you’d carry the silence with him.

Because that’s what love looked like when you were thirteen and your heart already knew loss.

You didn’t have to fix the broken things.

You just had to sit beside them, and never look away.