It wasn't a good question. It wasn't like it wasn't fair, though -- Beverly should definitely have asked it. But based on Richie not being able to bring it up now and going a little hollow even as he tried -- there wasn't a goddamned way Eddie didn't know about it. "He's a weirdo, but he's not stupid," Richie said, smiling without humor. "He knows. We just haven't-- you know. Talked about it."
Richie had spent a very long time, most of his life, talking constantly but never really saying anything. This wasn't new. Even if he was trying to fix that, had been working toward a better version of himself, that didn't mean there weren't still things he couldn't say.
"No," he said, and it came out a little too sharply, a little too knowing, even as Bev started up. "No - don't. Bev. Please." And it came out too much. Too fast. He backtracked. "It isn't your fault. You can't apologize. It's--" God, the shit he still saw. Nightmare stuff. "Fuck."
Beverly was crying, and Richie pulled himself together enough to realize that he was too, and oh weren't the two of them probably a sight? He sniffed, looked away for a moment and then gestured vaguely to a cluster of houses. "Over there. We've got a place. Me n' Eds. You should stay with us." Because they were together again and the idea of ever being apart again hurt. Richie knew what it felt like, to lose. And he was so tired of it. Maybe just tired in general, sometimes. "And Stan. He's there too. Surprise."
Look, there was no easy way to tell her that Richie was living with his two dead best friends. Any way he would have said it would have been a shock to the system.