East West Sunset - A Darry Curtis Fanfiction

Chapter Fourteen

There was something in how he was standing there, shoulders hunched, back tense, full of worry about his brother who was almost his whole world, that filled me with such inexplicable tenderness that I had to look away too. I had to hold onto the hallway wall to steady myself as the warm emotion poured through me, disorienting my senses. 

"He hasn't had them for a while," Darry said in a low voice. "I almost wonder if it was getting jumped again that triggered it." He was speaking to himself more than to me, but I hung onto every word. Were there traces of blame in the timbre of his voice, blame at me?

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" I began softly, but stopped as he turned to look me in the eye. It was the first time he'd done so since his betrayal that afternoon, and the intensity of his gaze almost took my breath away. His blue eyes were full of that hard piercing light.

"It's not your fault. It wasn't your fault. You shouldn't blame yourself," he said. "It's something I've got to just come to expect. That's how it is around here- greasers get jumped. Socs go unpunished. Life goes on."

"You can't live that way," I told him quietly. "It's not fair."

"None of the way we live is fair. My parents died too young, I dropped out of school to care for Soda and Pony... I work hard to keep Pony in school and Soda does too. We live with it. We keep going," he said. There was no bitterness in his voice, just acceptance and determination.

I had to admire his view. "You're strong, you know that, Darry?" I said, as much to my own surprise as to his. His eyes searched mine carefully, but I ducked back into my room before he could say anything else.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning wasn't as awkward as I had envisioned it to be, probably because Darry and I still didn't know if our nighttime encounter was merely a passing dream. As the day wore on and the memories solidified, however, I began to doubt less and less that our conversation had just been a midnight fantasy. I could remember details about his moonlight-edged profile and deep breaths that would be impossible to recall if it had been merely a dream. In English, we were instructed to write about any topic we wanted to in our journals, and I found myself inexplicably drawn to describing just what I could remember, writing from the point of view of an angel.

There was an almost tangible thing between them, a connection so strong you could feel it from my viewpoint at the ceiling. The two of them didn't speak. The girl grabbed the wall and the boy just stared at her. They were two children caught in an orbit of some heavenly body that was hurtling towards them, and yet they stood, heedless, powerless against the forces unknown to them.

I stopped and bit the cap of my pen, looking over what I had just written with a critical eye. Mr. Syme wouldn't be able to tell that I was writing down something that had actually happened and would take it as a meaningless little story. Entertaining (and certainly well-written, if I did say so myself,) but nothing more than the musings and daydreams of an eighteen-year-old girl. I didn't know why I felt this way. I just knew that what had happened that night was something private, something that I felt only me, Darry, and now my unsuspecting English teacher would ever know the impact of.

In every single class that day, I felt the strange dreamlike state I had entered strengthen and shift. I saw Pony looking at me strangely from the corner of my eye. I was oblivious to everyone I bumped into, saw, or touched- their energies weren't as strong as Darry's. It was odd, how that one close brush to Darry's true nature completely morphed my perception of the entire world. Nothing could shake me. When Arnie caught my eye during a passing period, I stared right back, my glare as hard and as cold as steel. I wasn't afraid of him anymore, for some reason.

I walked into math class that afternoon with a breezy attitude and a head full of optimism. There were only a few kids who were seated at their desks when I got there because most people either cut last period completely or showed up as late as possible. I had noticed that though the teachers called out at least thirty names off of the attendance sheet at the beginning of each class period, only about half that ever replied that they were present, leading me to expect that not many people took school too seriously.

A group of Soc girls was grouped around one desk in the back corner, whispering behind their hands and giggling to themselves. A few of them gave me curious looks as I came in and tittered like a flock of bluebirds. I ignored them (as I was getting extremely good at that day) and slipped into my seat, which was modestly located by the windows in the third row. Absentmindedly, I wondered what the Soc girls were so avidly discussing, but I shook those thoughts away. I didn't really care what they were saying. 

As I was pulling my math textbook, notebook, and pencil out of my bag, I noticed that one of them had approached me. I straightened up warily and looked at her in the eye. She was tall and willowy, with light brown hair that cascaded down to her waist and light hazel eyes. Her dress was classically modern and very cute, though I doubted I would have been able to afford it.

"Hi! What's your name? My name's Susan. I live on the west side. Where do you live?" She rattled off the questions like they were a meaningless formality and gave me a wide, white-toothed smile.

"Oh, um, nice to meet you, Susan. My name's Diana, and I'm staying with my- uh- cousins on the east side," I explained as smoothly as I could.

"Oh." Her smile grew wider and somehow more condescending. "How has your stay been so far?"

I understood the thinly veiled contempt in the question, and I felt my mouth freeze in a smile. "It's been real nice, thank you. Tulsa's a wonderful city," I said coolly.

"You saw Cherry- I'm sorry, Sherri- Valance in the hallway today, didn't you? She's a real nice girl. Real smart, too," Susan said pointedly. "She's a good friend of mine. The smartest person I know."

This time, there was no mistaking the point she was trying to make; Susan and the other Soc girls wanted me to stop hanging around the gang for some reason. "Real smart," I repeated, giving the girl another cold smile. "I'll bet she is. She seems like a nice girl," I lied through my teeth.

Susan flashed her perfect teeth at me and turned away. I could almost see her roll her eyes at me when her back was turned, but I didn't say anything else. Honestly, I couldn't care less what Cherry Valance and her preppy friends thought about my friendship with Pony and the gang; they were sure nicer to be around than Socs, anyway. I flipped open my notebook to a fresh page as the teacher bustled in and began to copy down the problems she wrote on the board.

All throughout the class, I felt the Soc girls' eyes boring into my back. I began to raise my hand more and more, answering all of the questions the teacher asked and steadfastly ignoring them. I told myself I didn't care what they thought of me. The dreamlike state began to descend upon me again, and my mind began to run on autopilot as my thoughts returned (for what seemed like the hundredth time that day) to the conversation of the night before. I dutifully wrote down equations, answered questions, and avoided the stabbing Soc stares pointed at me, and before I knew it the class was over. The bell rung loudly and chairs were deafeningly scraped back as the class stood as one and began to pack up.

I breezed through the door, not allowing any time for Susan or one of her friends to approach me, and made a beeline for the stairs. I caught Pony on the way down, and we walked together towards our shared locker.

"How was your day?" Ponyboy asked me, unlocking the lock and throwing open the metal door.

"It was good. Boring, but good I guess," I said as I shoved a few textbooks and notebooks onto the top shelf.

"Yeah, well, that's school for you," he said ruefully. "Let's get going. Darry's gonna pick us up outside."

Ever since we had been jumped, it had been decided that one of the gang would come to pick us up after school, either walking with us back to the Curtis house or driving us home. It made me feel better to know that the Socs probably wouldn't jump us with them around, though I still couldn't shake the nervous tension I felt whenever I thought about being beaten up again. Now, though, it wasn't the idea of being jumped that caused my stomach to fill with butterflies, it was the thought of being with Darry.