Not What It Seems ||An Outsiders Fanfiction||

Chapter 5

"Ana, how could you?" An angered, gruff voice in the darkness yells at me. Darry, definitely. Now's not the time. Slowly, I try to open my eyes, but become dizzy and slam them shut.

"Are you okay?" He asks, softening a bit as he puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. 

"Yeah. I'm fine," I say, but my voice comes out in a rasp, like I have a sore throat. After a moment, I'm able to open my eyes.

"Where am I?" I ask.

"Hospital," he says. I blink, thinking hard.

"The accident..." I whisper.

"How could you have been so stupid?" He demands, suddenly angered again.

"What do you mean? I wasn't the one driving!" I tell him. He rolls his eyes.

"That's not the point, Annalise. The point is that you willingly got in the car with someone who was drunk. You could have died! And with your injuries, you're lucky you didn't!" He yells at me.

Before I have time to even ask what my injuries are, someone in the bed next to me yells, "Shut it, man! I'm tryin'a get some rest."

"Why should I care, Dallas? You could have killed my sister!" Darry screams. With every word, his voice rises a bit louder, and my head pounds a bit more. The two of them yell at each other for a while, until I step in.

"Will you two shut the hell up already? You guys are friends. So what if I got in the car with him? It was my choice, Darry! I don't know what your problem is!" But I do know what his problem is. And he's too speechless to even attempt a response. He stares at me instead.

"Look, Dar," I say, lowering my voice. "You're my brother, okay? I love you, and you're welcome to stay, but if you're going to scream and yell about what an idiot I am, you can just get out now because I don't wanna hear it!"  And with that, he walks out. I don't try to stop him, either.

"Thank god, man! He was annoying me," Dallas says with a laugh.

"Yeah. He was loud... Hey Dally?" I say, a wave of courage washing over me to ask about what he was babbling about in the car before the accident.

"Earlier today... or yesterday or whatever... When we were in the car? What were you talking about?" I ask him. He looks down the side of his bed, not meeting my eyes.

"I dunno, Ana. Probably didn't mean nothing, anyways," he responds. I stare at him in disbelief. It seemed to take everything for him to say anything that night, and now he's pretending that it was nothing. He plays with his hands, probably hoping I won't say anything else, but something inside of me makes me ask the next question.

"Dallas? Are you... gay?" I ask him. Immediately, his head shoots up, he stares at me.

"What are you talkin' about, man? Who said that?" He asks. I blink, a bit shocked. Not that I had really expected him to say yes right off the bat, but had I been totally off? Was that not what he was saying in the car?

"No one... Well, you did, kind of," I remind him. He doesn't say anything.

"Who do you feel different around? You said you feel different around 'him' than you do with girls. And you were gonna tell me, but then I screamed. Remember?" I ask him.

"Yeah. Yeah, I remember," he says, a bit quieter than expected.

"But I'm not gay, man, hell no.... Maybe... bisexual?" He asks. I'm momentarily stunned, and I'm almost unable to respond. He cuts me off before I even find anything to say.

"It's just... Johnny, man," he says, his New York accent making the name sound more like 'Jhanny'.

"You like him?" I ask, lowering my voice to about the sound of his. He nods.