Dally's Baby Sister//Ponyboy Curtis

Twenty-One//Night Air

AMELIA

PONYBOY AND I went outside for a second to get some fresh air. Really, he went out to smoke, and I just decided to go with him. Dally let me go with him, and I really needed to talk to him about Angela. What was going on with her? Doesn't she understand that Ponyboy is with me? Is Ponyboy "talking" to her behind my back? No, he wouldn't do that. I mentally scolded myself as we made it out into the crisp summer night air. 

Ponyboy took out his pack of cigarettes and slipped one out. He offered me one. I shook my head as he nodded once and put his cigarettes back in his jeans pocket. There was a small breath of wind that came over us. It gave me a small chill as I was so used to the warm air and that gust was cold. I drew my arms around myself and leaned against the bricks of the building. I heard the yells of ruffians and the clanking of plastic glasses together. I sighed. That was never my scene, but it was where I belonged somehow. Dally said that I should grasp any opportunity I could to get out of the whole Greaser scene. I was too good, he would say, and that I didn't fit the role of a Greaser. I wish I was tougher. I wish that I could say certain things, go to drag races without being afraid, and I wish that I could be attracted to guys like Two-Bit, Steve, or maybe even Dallas. 

Ponyboy lit his cigarette and looked at me. I didn't look over at him. I saw him out of the corner of my eye. I smiled, even though the thought of Angela and her posse and what went down earlier that day by the corner store was eating away at my soul. Why didn't I defend myself? Darry taught all of us things he learned when taking lessons down at the YMCA. He said to use it for self-defense. I was the best performing, he said. So why didn't those months of lessons from Darry kick in at that exact moment? Too good, I thought, you're too good and you wouldn't do such a thing. I kicked myself mentally for being such a wimp. 

"Amelia," Ponyboy said, causing my train of thoughts to crash and burn, "are you okay?"

I flicked my head in his direction. I nodded. "I'm fine," I said. 

He shook his head and blew out a puff of gray smoke. He stood right in front of me and put one hand on my shoulder. I looked up at him. The moonlight made his face look amazing. One side of his face was a pale blue, and the other was dark as the shadow cast upon a bottomless pit. He wasn't smiling, but rather was just looking at my face intensely for answers. I looked away. I don't know why, but his gaze was just starting to bother me. There weren't any answers—even though I did have some questions—that he could have been looking for at that moment, and when people tried to look for answers in my face, it just bothered me. It's not like I've always been that way. I've been getting bothered by quite a few things as of recently. 

"Amelia, look at me," Ponyboy said. I looked up and sighed. He smiled. "What's the matter?"

I tried to think of a good way to say it. I guess there really isn't a good way of asking your boyfriend if he and another girl are hanging out with each other. I stumbled over my words and eventually took quite the pause. I closed my eyes as the awkward moment passed, fumbling with my hands and trying to calm myself down. I took in one big breath and said, "What's going on with you and Angela?"

He look surprised, as I knew he would. In just a moment, he would get angry with me and we would have our first fight. I just knew it. It's in all of the books, movies, and TV shows—one person would ask the obvious question and they would get fired up at each other. I wish I kept my big mouth shut. 

"What?" he asked. "Baby, what do you mean?"

I couldn't answer. I looked up at him with a blank stare. He let his cigarette fall to the ground and he crunched it with the bottom of his shoe. We kept eye contact the entire time. His eyebrows started to furrow just a little bit. I thought I was in deep trouble then. He was going to start hollering at me, and that would have been two Curtis boys to have yelled at me.