Beach Babe | The Outsiders | Johnny Cade

| Goodbye | 13 |

I was on the couch watching 'Petticoat Junction' with August and Marshall, whose face has been stuck in a scowl since Hannah left for her date 20 minutes ago. It was the first time I've ever seen Steve look halfway decent, he's usually got cake or dirt on him and he's always wearing that jean vest thing.

"You really like this show?" August asks me with disgust in his voice

"I love this show, I mean I love the way they dress, that dog is so cute, plus it's funny. How do you not like it?" I say

August rolls his eyes "Every episode is the same."

"It's called a formula dickwad, every show on earth has one. It's just a little more apparent in this one." I stick my tongue out at him

"I want to watch something different, I'm tired of this show." He reaches for the remote but I snatch it up before he can get it "gimme" he hold his hand out.

"Negatory." He trys to grab it but falls on top of me.
I push him off and he pushes me back, we quickly escalate to kicking and punching one another. Marshall keeps yelling "Fight!" Over and over which gets a laugh out of both of us.

       August gets me in a headlock that I can't get out of so I have to admit defeat. I find the remote and reluctantly hand it to him, he takes it and smiles triumphantly. I tell him to shut up and sit back down on the couch. He flips through a few channels before settling on 'The Flintstones' I personally don't care for it but August has seen every episode of that show at least seven times, he never gets tired of it. Marshall likes it too so I sit and watch it.

      An hour goes by while we watch the show, each minute Marshall has gotten more antsy waiting for Hannah. He was wondering what was taking so long and if something bad had happened, I had to keep talking to distract him.

"I'm back!" Hannah's voice calls out from the entrance

We all get up and go over to her, she is absolutely beaming "How was it?" I ask her

"It was so great! We talked about everything, he bought my food, he's funny, he's soooo cute, and when he dropped me off he kissed me right here!" She points at a spot on her cheek "I can't stop smiling!"

Marshall's scowl disappears "Good. Then I don't have to murder him."

I chuckle "Marsh you couldn't kill someone in a million years."

"And you could?" He asks with a smug look on his face

I get right up in face "You wanna find out?" I ask him playfully

He gets all flustered "I uh.... I- well-" is he blushing? Weird. He backs up and looks around "Where's Theo?" Is he trying to change the topic?

"You've been here for three hours and your just now asking that?" August asked him

"I uhh... was just wondering since he's the only one not here." Why's he being so weird?

"He's staying over at friends place tonight" I tell him

August furrowed his brow "Which friend?"

I shrug "Tim, I think. I don't really know, he just said he wanted to get out of the house for a day." Theo has seemed a little off recently, is something going on that he's not telling me about? I'll ask him about it later.

We spent a few more minutes talking before Hannah and Marshall went back to their hotel. When I got back from dropping them off August had already gone to sleep, so I did too. It didn't take long for me to drift off. Tomorrows their last day.

Hannah wanted to see the tourist stuff for her last day so I took her all around town showing her stuff, which because it's Tulsa, Oklahoma that isn't much. After an hour we had already seen everything in town, so we decided to go bowling. We played three games, all of which I lost. Hannah won the first two and Marshall won the last one.

Since there was still about an hour till they had to leave we were just going to hang out with the gang. Hannah and Steve were off in their own little world, Two-Bit and Pony were wrestling, Johnny was listening to stories about me from Marshall, and I was trying not to fall asleep. Even though I got a full seven hours of sleep I was still exhausted.

Apparently I did end up passing out cause I woke up to Marshall throwing me off the couch. I hit the ground with a hard 'thud' "What the helllllll...." I groaned

"Finally! I've been trying to wake you up for ten minutes!" Damn, was I sleeping that deep? "Did someone slip you something? Lord, I think you could've been tied to train tracks and not woken up." I flipped him off and sat up.

"So why did you wake me up?" My side hurts now

"We have to leave, Hannah and Steve are already in the car." I forgot Steve was taking them "but I want to talk to you about something first." Uhhhh.....

He walked to the door and held it open for me, I went outside on the porch and Marshall followed me and closed the door. "So what did you want to talk about?" If this is what I think it is I swear to god

"I still love you." God dammit. "I never stopped loving you. Not when we broke up, not when you started dating Jesse, not when you went missing, not when you were found, not when you left, and not now." He's got a sad look on his face "I don't expect you to feel the same way, I know you don't but I just had to get that off my chest, I've been carrying it around for so long. I never wanted to tell you because I didn't want it to end our friendship. . ." He looks down and the ground "but I think it just did."

      I hugged him, I didn't even think about it. It just happened. I didn't want to lose him, I've lost enough. This can't be the end right? I can't lose him.

He pulled away from the embrace. He had tears welling up in his eyes "Goodbye Stacy." And he was gone. He got in Steve's car and he was gone.

The tears fall and I don't wipe them away.

Richard

Dad

Dylan

Marshall

All people I've lost, my twin, my father, my closest friend, and now my oldest friend.

I hear the door open and I dry my face with my sleeve "Hey are you okay?" It's Johnny "You didn't come back in"

I sniffle "Yeah I'm fine"

"You promise?"

"Yeah, I just need a moment." He nods and goes back inside.

I'm still confused about how I feel about him. But if I do like Johnny, I can't date him. Because if we break up and I lose him too. . . I don't know what I'll do. I'm just one more loss away from doing something I'll regret. I can't lose Johnny.

I can't.

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Updates may slow down a little bit and I'm sorry about that, I'm starting band camp soon and it is going to kill me. I'll wright as much as I can without burning myself out and try and stick to the schedule as much as possible.
Thanks for reading!!

Word count : 1224

P. S. Thank you so much for 250 reads!