2Hello, friends! This story is actually based on one that actually happened. Owl City just released a beautiful song called Be Brave about the night that he met his girlfriend at a midnight showing, and it is so beautiful and striking that I thought it would be a wonderful beginning to a story! This might be just a one-shot, but I am hoping for some feedback on whether it's interesting enough to turn into something more! Go listen to Be Brave, and please let me know what you think of this little story!2
The biting winter wind sneaked up through the gap in the window pane, making a low, squealing sound. Ponyboy Curtis yawned and stretched his arms out in front of him like a cat, then rolled his shoulders, working out the kinks in his neck. He glanced up at the wall clock, now propped against one of the boxes marked KITCHEN, and groaned. It was 11:30.
He untangled his legs from an enormous blue blanket that his mother had made for Sodapop's fourteenth birthday, shortly after he had hit his growth spurt. Shuffling over to the front door, he shrugged into his coat and began to lace up his dark brown boots. Hearing the wind continue to howl, he sighed, taking his time with locking the door so he could avoid stepping out into the inevitable cold, then slammed the door, hurried down the hall, and went out the main door to the old clunker parked in front of his apartment building.
He shivered as he sat for a moment, waiting for the car to warm up, and glanced around at the empty street and the dark building. Spending the last three years of college here had been a good choice. It was away from the "student slums" and housed mostly older people, so he had a quiet place to rest and study, and it wasn't too far of a drive from school. It had taken him a little while to get used to living in a whole set of rooms by himself, and there were nights when he missed Darry and Sodapop desperately. Sometimes he even wished Two-Bit would come crashing in at two in the morning, knocking over that same old umbrella stand by the Curtis' front door in his wake. Of course it would have been annoying, but at least then he wouldn't have felt so lonely.
Ponyboy swallowed hard, looked over his shoulder, and pulled out of his parking spot into the street. He tried not to focus on the ache in his chest; he looked in his rear view and side mirrors an unnecessary amount of times, and he turned the radio on then back off again three times.
Darry had begged him to find something to do. Ponyboy had graduated from college in December, a semester early. Darry and his wife, Pamela, had been proud, but not too proud, as they had expected that to happen. That graduation day, Ponyboy had been filled to bursting with joy and excitement and possibilities, genres and titles for potential books swimming in his head. But two weeks later, December 17 happened, and nothing would ever be the same.
"You've got to live, Ponyboy," Darry had told him quietly as they both stayed up late in the living room one night. The clock above the TV set chimed midnight. "How long has it been since you went on a walk? Seen a movie?"
Ponyboy had been silent; not because he didn't want to answer his brother, but because he didn't know how. He had never been good at thinking words inside his head; too many thoughts flooded in at the same time, and it was impossible for him to grab hold of one and not three, then make the words move from his brain to his mouth. He wished that he could just write everything instead of say it. His brain and the pen were connected, and he didn't even have to think when he wrote. It was the most freeing thing.
"And right now, you look like you're reading a book, but you've been on page 12 for the last hour."
"I'll try and do better," was all Ponyboy could think of to say. Darry frowned and leaned forward.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean-" Darry thought for a moment. "I'm just saying this because I care." With that, Darry stood up, clapped his younger brother on the shoulder, and left to go to bed.
On his way home from work, Ponyboy drove past the Circle Cinema, who proclaimed on January 4 they would be holding a midnight showing of West Side Story. He had never been that into musicals, but neither had most of Tulsa, so he thought it might be a good night to get out of the house and also not have to talk to people, two things that were important to him at the time.
He turned onto Wildflower Street on that cold, black night, and found a place to park next to a truck whose color was the same of Two-Bit's rusty hair. Ponyboy had never been to a midnight showing, and the silence and stillness of the ticket booth, the candy counter, and of the theater itself made him feel a strange mix of comforted and unsettled. He found an aisle seat high in the back, and people watched as maybe fifteen other people entered the room.
The beginning of the movie was the overture and the credits, and he wished there was something more interesting on the screen. Why couldn't they do this part at the end?
The door to the room slammed, and he heard some girls quietly giggling. They rounded the corner, one of them throwing a piece of popcorn at the head of the girl in front of her. Ponyboy glanced briefly at them, then turned his eyes back to the screen. He felt something inside his chest rise and quickly looked back at the pair.
The one in the front had on a lacy dress, which looked pink but that could have just been the red background on the screen. A dark sash draped her waist, and the dress seemed to float around her as she whirled to whisper something to her friend. When she turned back around, she was close enough for him to see how her wavy blond hair framed her face, how her eyes crinkled when she smiled, and how her smile was for everyone she saw. The shadows decorating her made it hard to tell, but he was sure that her eyes met his for a split second, and he wasn't sure what to do with the rest of his face, but by the time he thought to smile back it was too late. She had passed him.
Would it be strange if I looked over my shoulder at her? Ponyboy wondered, and after arguing with himself for a minute, as casually as he could he glanced over his shoulder. The girl and her friend had found seats secluded from everyone, at the very top row. The friend was still throwing popcorn at her, and they were whispering and pointing at the screen.
Ponyboy didn't know how long he watched the closest thing to a princess he had ever seen, but when someone in the movie spoke for the first time, he broke from his trance, and moved his eyes to her friend.
He couldn't make out the curly haired popcorn thrower's eyes, but he could feel her staring at him. He felt his cheeks burn. How long had she seen him doing that? Did she think he was a creep? He quickly turned around and looked away, and tried to pay attention to the movie.
The movie was about two groups of boys that were in rival gangs, and there were times when Ponyboy's heart hurt as he remembered his own gang, but there were also moments of affection and joy. The boys had nicknames for one another, they looked out for one another, they had rumbles. It had been a long time since his life had looked like that-about seven years.
It had been seven years since the longest to weeks of his life. The week he met Cherry Valance at the drive-in, when Johnny killed Bob, when they ran away to Windrixville, the fire, when he lost two boys that were as good as brothers, and when his life as he knew it changed forever. Losing the sense of normalcy that he had developed after his parents died, less than a year later, along with losing two of his best friends.
Ponyboy tried to move his mind in a different direction, but it was hard when it wasn't just thoughts coming to the surface-it was flashes of things he had seen, feelings he had had. You should have left those feelings at home, in that cold, empty apartment, he told himself fiercely. You're here to live, so do it. He focused on the screen, which was depicting a dance going on at a gym.
But then, the entire gym blurred out except for two strangers, a tall boy in a suit, and a petite girl in a lacy white dress. They beheld each other, not saying anything, and began to dance. The music was soft, slow, and light. As they twirled, they didn't take their eyes off of each other. They were clearly mesmerized by each other, and Ponyboy was mesmerized with them. He could feel the questions that the main character, Tony, was asking: Who is she? What is her name? How can I know more about her?
Soda had told him once that a normal person goes to the movies and they're entertained for a couple hours, but Ponyboy could go to the movies and get so swept up in what was going on that he became part of the story. He did the same with books, and writing. It all helped him escape to somewhere else, somewhere he watch someone else's life, live it with them, process the events with them, and in turn do the same with his own.
Fear bubbled up inside of him as he watched the couple sing to each other, hold each other, delight in each other without even knowing each other, and he realized he was not the only one who had fallen in love that night. I've only seen her, I don't even know her, he reminded himself, pushing all thoughts of the twirly girl out of his mind.
"Tonight, tonight, it all began tonight. I saw you and the world went away!" The words of the song made him feel like he was flying. He knew Two-Bit would tease him to no end if he found out Ponyboy had gone to a musical, especially because he had gone by himself, not to appease a date. "Tonight, tonight, the world is full of light, with suns and moons all over the place..."
What seemed like a minute passed and then the two gangs were going to rumble, and he could feel their energy, something he had not felt in seven years, not since that last rumble. Remembering that night gave him a sick feeling in his stomach, and the next scene was hard to watch. He had to turn away, and when he turned, he tried not to glance at her.
West Side Story was a roller coaster he had never before experienced. It started off slow, and then suddenly, it was 2:30 in the morning, the screen was dark, and people were mirroring the last scene of the film: walking out silently in small groups, the gunshot that took a life that was too young still echoing around the room.
Ponyboy's heart was beating fast as he repeated to himself it's just a movie, it's just a movie, it's just a movie. It was hard to forget something like seeing your friend senselessly killed and the pain and aimlessness on the other gang members' faces in the movie ripped at his heart as he remembered that night. He took some deep breaths with his eyes closed and put his face in his hands. He knew he was tired, the movie had stirred his emotions, and the flashbacks happened sometimes. It was a dangerous combination.
And then he jumped; he had felt a hesitant hand on his shoulder. "Hey, are you okay?" a soft voice asked him, just above a whisper.
The lights slowly faded back on, and he saw her. The first thing he noticed was that her dress was not pink, it had just been the reflection of the red on the screen; her dress was almost exactly like the white lacy one Maria had been wearing at the beginning of the movie, with a deep red sash around it. She looked so soft and beautiful that instead of being nervous, his breath slowed and he relaxed.
"Yeah." Then he realized he had tears in the corners of his eyes, and he quickly wiped them with his sleeve. "Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks."
She smiled at him, lingering on the step. "Movie's over, kids," a tired man said in a rumpled movie theater uniform. "Time to head home." Ponyboy stood and walked with the girl and her friend out to the parking lot. The girls kept glancing at each other, he could tell from behind them, and he felt like there was something they were waiting to talk about until they got to the car. He watched them from his truck, making sure that they made it safely to a little yellow car, the only other one left in the parking lot. "Goodnight," he called to them, waving.
Her coat twirled with her as she turned back around to face him. "Goodnight. Sweet dreams."