"Okay that's the last box! I have officially completed unpacked all of my stuff." I say to no one, my room looks great. It looks similar to my one back in California but with a few differences. My mom walks by my room "Wow it looks great in here! But I'm surprised you're still here."
"What do you mea- oh shit!" I completely forgot about the DX! I look at my watch and it's 4:49, it's an at least a 15 minute walk to the DX. "Bye mom!" And I run out of the house, and I run most of the way to the DX but I'm still kinda late. When I get there I'm sweaty and can't breathe.
After a couple of seconds Soda and Steve come outside and they see me breathing slightly better "Oh hey! Are you alright?" Soda says locking the front door
"Yeah I'm fine, I just ran here."
". . . Why?" Steve asks me
"I didn't want to be late."
"Oh, well we were running late anyway so it worked out fine." Soda double checks the door "okay lets get going." Him and Steve start walking off
I follow behind them "So where are we going"
"To my house." Soda says
". . . Why"
"Thats where the gang always hangs out." I shrug and keep following them, we talk about our day on the way. After a 10 minute walk we're already at his house, it's a small little place with a chain fence out front and steps to the front door, I can hear some commotion inside.
Soda and Steve start to make their way to the door but I stay still "You okay?" Soda looks at me with concern.
"Yeah, I'm just nervous to meet new people," I take a couple deep breaths and join them in front of the door "I'm ready." And we step in the door.
When I walk in I see so much. There is a guy on the floor eating cake and drinking, Darrel's in a recliner, Ponyboy and another kid are playing a card game in the corner, and theres a guy in the kitchen rummaging around. "Whoa." The guy on the floor sees me and he has a puzzled look on his face.
"Wait? Did Soda bring home a girl?" He says with a smile on his face. A few of the other guys turned to look at me, my face got hot out of embarrassment and I looked at the ground.
"No it's not like that, She's just my friend!" He says putting his hands up
"Oh is that the chick you said moved in down the street?" The guy in the kitchen said. Chick? Rude.
Soda rolls his eyes "Okay Stacy, the guy in the kitchen is Dallas or Dally, the dumbass on the floor is Two-Bit, and the kid next to Ponyboy is Johnny."
"That's a lot of information." I'm looking at all the guys in front of me, I start whispering the names to myself so I remember them.
"So what's your name pretty lady?" 'Two-Bit' asks winking at me.
"It's Stacy, Stacy Greene." I murmured
"Nice to meet you Stacy Greene. . ." Hey eyes me up and down "Y'know I actually have a thing for blondes-"
"Okay that's enough out of you Keith." Steve says pushing him over. My eyes are wide, after 10 seconds of meeting me he had tried to ask me out? What the hell?
"Sorry about him, he's probably drunk." Soda says to me, "Why don't you go talk to Johnny." He points to the kid in the corner so I make my way over there.
"Hey, you're Johnny right?" I ask the kid
"Yeah, that's me."
"Hey how old are you? You look about 13." He's got sort of a lost puppy look.
"I'm 16 actually, I just have a young face."
"Wow, okay then." I look at the card spread "What're you guys playing?"
"Poker." Ponyboy says putting down a card
"Poker? What're you gambling?"
"Money, cigarettes, etc." Johnny says putting down another card
"Lemme join." I say sitting down beside them
"You play poker?" He gives me a skeptical look
"I rule at poker. I've been playing it with my friends for years." They give each other looks but let me join.
It's been an hour and a half, I've won $34, 2 packs of cigarettes, a pocket knife, and can of hair grease. Pony stopped playing 30 minutes ago so Dallas and Soda joined in his place. I'm killing it. "Oh c'mon!" Soda shouts, I had just won.
"Sorry boys!" I said in a cocky tone "But I think I'm done," I stand and start to pick up my earnings. "Oh I don't want these, do you want them? I don't smoke." I held up the packs of cigarettes.
Dallas grabs them out of hand and immediately starts smoking one "Thanks doll."
I walk away from the game and sit down on the couch next to Two-Bit and Steve. Two-Bit pulls out a beer from somewhere and offers it to me "Here, or do you not drink either?" Back in California I got drunk once or twice and it and was a lot of fun but I haven't since then, I got scared that I would get addicted or something. After a moment of thinking about it I grab the beer out of his hand and start drinking.
I got really drunk, we all did, after I started drinking, Steve and Dallas did as well, and after an hour or so the only ones who were still sober were Soda and Ponyboy. I have never laughed so hard in my entire goddamn life, it was so much fun. We didn't really do anything that funny but we all just kept laughing. "Heyyyy what ime is it?" I slurred out
"Almost 10." Ponyboy answers. Uh oh. My curfew is 9.
"Oh shit," I tried to stand up but I was wobbling. "I gotta geett home!" I started making my way to the door when Soda caught up to me.
"You're not walking home this drunk." He stood in front of the door, blocking my way out.
"Oh come onnnnnn," The room was slightly spinning "My mom isss gonna kill mee! My curfew is 9."
He looks around for a minute "Fine, but I'm going with you." He moves out of the way a little bit and we leave. The walk goes by in a blur, I'm at my house before I know it.
"Thiss is my placee" I point to my house "I live here."
"Okay," he gives me a hug "hopefully your mom won't be too mad at you." And he starts walking off. Im gonna have to act sober, crap. I stand outside for a second trying to force the world to stop spinning, and I walk in.
The door quietly closes behind me "Where were you?" Theo asks peeking out of his room.
"At my frienndss."
"You're drunk?" He whisper-yells.
"No." I say whilst still wobbling.
He lets out a disappointed sigh "Mom went to bed around 8 so she doesn't know you got home late. Go to bed and we'll talk in the morning."
I slam into him giving him a hug "I lovveee youuu."
He pushes me off "You smell like beer. And you look like shit, go to bed." I hobble up stairs and into my room, once I get to it I collapse on my bed and almost immediately pass out.
I wake up with my head absolutely pounding, all light and sound hurt. I'm hungover, great. I stumble to the bathroom and take some painkillers. I take a quick shower, get dressed, and go into the kitchen. It's still kind of early so Theo is the only one awake. "Hey."
"Hi." I muttered
He puts his head in his hands and he looks at me with mock interest "So what happened?" He says in a high pitched sing-song voice.
I wince from the sound "Hung out with my friend's friends and got stupid drunk, it was honestly really fun." I grab some milk out of the fridge and make my way to the pantry.
"Yeah I really like those guys, they were really nice-"
"What guys?" My mom appears in the doorway making me jump. Again.
"Stop doing that!" I take a bowl out of the cabinet
"What guys Andrea?" She used my middle name that's really not good.
"I just met some of Sodas friends, we just hung out and played a couple games." I poured the milk and cereal into my bowl.
"How many boys were there?" I start to count in my head. Soda, Ponyboy, Darry, Steve, Two-Bit, Dallas, and Johnny.
"Seven." It comes out barely above a whisper.
"Seven guys?" She shouts, her voice booms into my head making my head throb. "Stacy Andrea Greene! You know how I feel about boys! Especially if you were the only girl! You aren't going back over."
"Mom! What the hell we just hung out! Nothing happened!"
"Excuse me?"
"W- wait I didn't mean to yell-"
"You're grounded, one week," she has a stern look on her face "No friends, no tv, no going out, no music."
"Are you kidding me?" I storm off to my room and slam the door.
I hear my moms footsteps come up to my room "We do not slam doors in this house! Do you want to be grounded for another week?" She opens my door.
"Look-" she starts
"Dad would never do something like this." I say under my breath.
"What was that?" My brothers have come upstairs and are behind my mom watching this interaction.
"I said: Dad would never do something like this." I have my back turned to her.
"Alright. Three weeks." She storms off to her room and I hear her door close.
"I actually do think dad would've done this." August chimed in
"How would you know?" I'm screaming at this point "You were 5 when he died! You didn't even know him!" He's got a shocked look plastered on his face
"I did! Maybe not through many memories but through stories!" He yells back
"That's bullshit! Dad was fine with me having guy friends!" I'm very close to him now. "You didn't know dad. He died in my arms while you were falling asleep at home in a crib in California 100 miles away." I didn't realize I was crying till something wet hit my hand, I feel my face and it is drenched.
"He didn't like Jesse." Theo adds bluntly, he's got a cold look on his face. My body freezes in place, my heart rate doubles and my breathing becomes shallow. "Wait Stac-" I slam the door in his face.
I slid down the door and press my knees to my chest. I'm having a panic attack, I can't breathe, my head is spinning, I'm crying, and my heart is so loud in my ears it sounds like drums.
"Come on Stacy I'm sorry! The name just slipped out!" I can't respond, I'm breathing too heavily, I feel like I can't get air in my lungs.
Jesse was my ex-boyfriend, he was the reason we had to leave California. We dated for almost a year, towards the end of our relationship he became really creepy and possessive. He kidnapped me for 3 months, he did awful things. I was found and he was arrested, the day before we left was his trial, I had to testify. He was found guilty but he only had to do community service and house arrest. All because his dad was the sheriff. So that's why we left.
I can hear my mom yelling at my brothers outside but I don't hear what she's saying, my head is spinning so violently that I can't see anything.
I crawled into my bed and curled up into ball and just sat there.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Got a little backstory from this chapter! This story is really fun to write and I'm enjoying it a lot. It's different from what I'd usually do.
Thanks for reading!!
Word count : 1980