photographs | chris chambers ✅

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  " Ma! You know where my canteen is?!" She doesn't reply. Doesn't even give Gordie a look over. "Ma!"

" It's in Dennis' room!" His father yells, face looking in the opposite direction.

" Oh." Gordie breathes in hard, exhaling heavily, and walks to Denny's room. No one has touched it since he left the LaChance household. The door slowly creaks open, groaning with each movement. Everything has a thin layer of dust, but it still looks the same. The closet door creaks in agony as well. The boy stands on his tiptoes to grab the canteen on the top shelf. The door closing behind him as he leaves the room. One thought constantly repeats in Gordie's head: If Denny hadn't left then his life wouldn't be like this. But in the end, is that even true?

" You found it," someone states, snapping Gordie out his thoughts.

" Huh?" Looking left then right, he finds his father my Dad partway down the hallway.

" You found it."

" Yeah." He walks away until he starts speaking again.

" Why can't you have friends like Dennis?"

" Maybe because I'm not Dennis. I'm Gordie. You know your other damn son!" Gordie wants to say, scream, and cry, yet it's kept it to myself. " Dad they're okay."

" Sure they are. Two thieves and two feebs."

Gordie slowly turns to him, the groaning underneath the little movement. Annoyance grows through him and is heard as he speaks. " Chris and Dylan are not thieves."

" They stole the milk-money at school and stole a bike from a high-schooler. It makes them thieves in my book," his father states before passing by the boy, going downstairs as Gordie shoots daggers into his back.