Estelle woke up at the Curtis house on the couch very confused as to how she'd gotten there. She looked around in a panic, trying to find the missing pieces to the story.
She felt a hand on her shoulder, and whipped around to see Dally.
"Calm down, you fell asleep, I carried you back here."
She blushed. "I'm sorry, I'm not that light, you should have just woken me up."
He rolled his eyes. "Shut the fuck up, you're lighter than you should be, it was no problem. Besides, I'm strong, aren't I?"
She took her turn to roll her eyes. "Yes Dally, you're very strong. Now what time is it?"
"Time for you to find a clock and tell the time yourself."
"Oh go fuck yourself."
He smirked. "No need to, not when you're here."
She started back at him with a straight face. "Yes, because I would do that on a couch by the gang, and you would let Ponyboy see that."
She turned to see that it was around 6:30, most of the gang was there, and Darry was cooking dinner.
She didn't have anything she had to do, but she didn't want to sit and do nothing in the busy house, so she silently got up off of the couch and went to help Darry.
She didn't say anything to him, she had nothing to say and besides, he scared her. He held an authority she'd learned to fear. Nevertheless, she plastered another smile onto her face and helped Darry cut vegetables and handed him ingredients as he cooked.
"How are you and Dallas doing, out there in the middle of nowhere?" He asked.
She groaned internally, she despised small talk. "Well enough, no one's dead yet and we're both healthy enough," she said, trying to sound interested.
Darry snickered. "Small talk not your think?"
"No," she admitted, "I usually try and avoid small talk, never was good at it and I don't like it either."
"Okay, I won't talk anymore, then."
"No, no! It's fine," she said, quickly backtracking, trying not to sound rude. "I'll try and keep up."
"How are you and Dally getting along?"
"Pretty well, I guess," she said, her ears turning pink. She left out the details, Darry didn't need to hear most of it. "We haven't got into any serious disagreements, we work together pretty well."
"That's good to hear. When y'all left town I had a few concerns, both of y'all are real independent spirits."
"That may be true, but I think it's good to have someone to lean on after fighting alone for so long."
Darry frowned. "I'm sorry you felt like you were alone, you would have been welcome here any time."
She shrugged. "I know. But y'all were a family, and I didn't want to butt into that. I couldn't even keep my own together," she said, chuckling darkly.
Darry sighed. "I know how that feels, it's been hard keeping what family's left together after our parents passed away."
She shook her head. "With all due respect Darry, you really don't. I just think our loss of parents was so different. Cause y'all were such a beautiful family, maybe not the prettiest looking in, but y'all were close and all loved each other. But as I'm getting older, I'm starting to realize that my mama didn't really love me after all."
Darry's face darkened. "Did they-"
She shook her head and plastered an overly bright smile onto her face. "Don't worry about it, they're both, they're both gone now. I don't have to worry about them anymore."
"Well I'm sorry you had to worry about them in the first place."
"I am too," she sighed.
_____
Estelle smiled a genuine smile through dinner, the atmosphere in the small dining room made it hard not to. The say the boys laughed and joked with each other, they were the most genuine family she'd ever gotten to be with.
She picked at the food, even though what she'd eaten was delicious, especially compared to what she'd been eating for the past few months, scratch that, the past few years. She had no appetite, simply being back in Tulsa made her uncomfortable.
When the gang was done, she handed her plate to Steve and avoided Darry's disapproving stare.
"Where are we going tonight?" Dally asked.
"I dunno, if the Curtis' don't mind I guess we could crash here, there's the car, and there's the obvious shit we can go out and do."
"Wanna go catch a movie?"
"Not looking like this, and not with you."
Dally glared at her. "Why not? Ashamed to be seen with me?"
"No, this is Tulsa, dumbass. We're supposed to be enemies, and I'm supposed to be a boy."
"You look like a boy to me."
"Well not enough, my face isn't as sharp anymore. I look like a girl."
"It'll be dark, it'll be fine," Dally said in a careless tone.
"If we don't act too close I guess it'll probably be fine," Estelle told herself.
_____
An hour later, Babydoll and Dallas walked towards the drive-in theater, to once again hop the fence and do whatever they'd like. Armed with a switchblade Dally had tossed to her before they left, Babydoll was confident that they'd get back to the Curtis house in one piece.
Babydoll clenched his jaw when he spotted that Cherry Valance girl, it rushed him right back to that fateful night.
"I'll find you in a moment, gotta go do something real quick," he muttered under his breath to Dally.
"Make it quick," Dally hissed back.