Author's Note: Hey all! This here is a two-shot, and will be completed in two parts. I'm hoping to finish it when I post the next update on Viva Voce, so soon.

Evie has fascinated me for a long time. And this is really a story about female friendship. I include my OC, Bridget Stevens from my novel-length stories, but that plays into the whole story-arc I've got going. You don't need to have read those for this to make sense, though. Just know that Bee is with Two-Bit.

Happy reading :)

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If anyone asks, I was the first one. I've known Steve Randle since junior high school, and I think I've loved him almost as long. Of course, people overlook us cuz we've been together so long, and there are other stories to tell. Nothing exciting about the couple that's been together since they were fifteen. No. People are much more interested in all of Dallas and Sylvia's back-and-forth, when Dallas was alive, that is. Or how Sandy became pregnant with a child that wasn't Sodapop's. Or how Two-Bit lived out his own version of West Side Story with that soc, Bridget.

Drama is always a lot more interesting. I get it. I do. I'm a pretty big gossip myself, and not ashamed to admit it. I eat that shit up. And I'm not sure if I exactly want all the attention, either. But the thing is, the rotation always changed. I was the only constant in this group, especially after Dallas died and Sandy and Kathy were out of the picture.

So, not only was I the first, I was the holdout.

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I was Steve Randle's girl. I'm pretty sure that's all anyone knew about me, besides the fact that I helped out at my mother's salon. My plan was to graduate, go to beauty school, and become a beautician to help out my mother. And that? That was the dream. That was probably just about all a girl from my side of town could dream.

That, and being the leader of the Girlfriend Coalition.

And I was really only the leader cuz I'd been around the longest, but Sylvia liked to think of herself as the leader, even though that was bullshit.

See, there was the gang. Well, not a gang in the traditional sense. More like a group of buddies that got into fights. Not like the Shepard Gang or the Tiber Street Tigers or the Brumly Boys. These were just…guys. Except Dallas Winston, but he's an outlier. There were three brothers in it, the Curtises (which is why they were casually known around town as the Curtis Gang), and the oldest one, Darrel, was sort of their leader. He'd known Kathy's (on-and-off) boyfriend, Two-Bit, forever, so that bum was sort of his co-conspirator. Steve was mine, and Sodpop Curtis's best friend. Soda was Sandy's. Winston was one of theirs, too, and Sylvia had marked him hers, even though she often snuck around on him behind his back. The other two boys, the youngest Curtis, Ponyboy, and their friend Johnny Cade rounded out the bunch, but they weren't much interested in girls.

Because they were all buddies, we usually ended up going out on these huge group outings together. Eight of us, because like I said, Pony and Johnny weren't interested in girls, and Darry Curtis? Well, he could have any girl he wanted, but that poor guy had too much on his plate as is to deal with a girlfriend.

But here's the thing: all of them? The boys? They were actually friends. I'd go as far to say they loved each other like family. The four of us girls? We really weren't.

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Come to think of it, I really only ever had the one friend.

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Mom and Daddy did their best. Mom had the salon, and Daddy had the warehouse job. They did what they could for my sister and I. It just wasn't always enough. Neither me or my sister dropped out, but we did work. We helped out. I never really had as much time as the other girls did to just hang out and date around like they did, especially those soc girls. That's part of why I was so wary of Bee Stevens when Two-Bit started bringing her around instead of Kathy.

Sandy and I had always had each other. Ever since grade school. I don't remember exactly how it had happened, but we'd quickly become friends. Swapped secrets and lunches. She'd keep me company while I swept floors and I listened to her when she needed to vent about her overbearing parents. I dunno – you know someone so long, you just sorta depend on each other. Or, depend on them being there without question because that's the way things have always been.

Sandy and I, though, we were different. She was fair-haired and willowy and pretty and looked like a china doll. I had black hair and was a little too awkward with my height and all and I thought my nose was too big. And, though I'm a little ashamed to admit it, it made sense to me that she ended up with Sodapop and I ended up with Steve. Steve and I knew what it was like to play second fiddle to our best friends.

"She'll walk by, and people will stop in their tracks, ya know?" I told him. He nodded.

"I know exactly what ya mean, baby."

"You think I'm pretty?"

"Prettiest damn woman on the planet. Tuffest, too."

"Oh, Stevie –"

He always rolled his eyes and groaned when I said that, and I always laughed.

That was another difference, between me and Sandy. She was fickle. She bopped around from boy to boy. I was surprised she had become so attached to Sodapop, and even more surprised that she hadn't moved on by now, considering how clearly head-over-heels he was for her. That sort of devotion usually scared her off. But me? Well, I knew I had something good in Steve, grumpiness and all.

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The four of us would make like we were best girl-friends. We'd hang around together without the boys, and go to diners and eat fries and drink floats and gab.

"Did you see what she was wearing?"

"Heard she got with him last night…"

"Did you hear what happened at that party?"

"God, my cramps are fucking unreal…"

People would watch us as we came into a room, eyes roaming up and down our bodies. They knew who we were, who we belonged to. I wonder if they knew how fake all of it was. How really, we were just conveniences to each other.

We spent enough time together that we got synched up. We knew enough about each other to pretend with ourselves and others that we really knew and cared about each other. Sylvia and Kathy sang in the church choir, and we'd go see Sylvia in the school plays, knowing she wanted to make it big. Kathy's father was a preacher, and we'd go to his sermons, even though the rest of us were Catholic and Kathy was Baptist. Sandy would invite all of us to go shopping, and we would, and we'd all try on ridiculous outfits and laugh, because the joke was probably funny even if the person really wasn't. And we'd all get together on the nights of dances, even though Two-Bit and Dallas would never be caught dead at a school function.

We were the closest thing you'd find to those girl gangs the movies like to pretend were a thing.

And I did enjoy it. I enjoyed pretending I had more than one friend.

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Sylvia liked to screw around. Even tried it with poor Johnny Cade. You can bet your ass Steve wasn't happy when he found out about that.

"I don't know how you can be friends with that tramp," he bit out, "and I don't know how Dally puts up with her."

Truth was, I didn't know how I put up with her.

When Dally went to jail right before he died, Sylvia cheated on him for what must've been the umpteenth time. She came to us crying after he'd taken his class ring back from her, and she sat on my bed while she clutched at mine and Sandy's hands.

"He don't know what it's like, with him in there and me out here!" She sobbed. "One'a these days he's gonna do somethin' so awful he'll go away forever."

Kathy scoffed. "Oh, c'mon, Syl. What'd you expect? He wasn't gonna put up with your shit forever."

Sylvia scowled back at her through her tears. "And I'm s'posed to put up with his?"

Sylvia and Kathy were both mean. But the difference was that Sylvia was hardened. Kathy had no reason.

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"Evie."

I looked up from Mrs. Adams' nails. Sandy was standing in the entry to the salon, looking terrified. "Yeah?"

"We need to talk. Now?"

I glanced at Mrs. Adams, who quirked an eyebrow. "I'll be right back, Miz Adams. Just soak your hands for a minute. There you go."

"What's up?" I asked Sandy after I had pulled her out back. She pursed her lips and looked to the sky, her eyes filling up.

"I'm pregnant," she breathed, and I could feel my heart sink.

"You're kiddin'. I didn't even know you and Soda had done it yet!"

"We haven't!" She cried. "Evie, I…I – I…I've done something horrible. Evie, it ain't his," she admitted miserably. "My parents, they flipped when they found out. You know what they're doin'? They're shippin' me down to Florida to live with my grandmother. Oh, god, Evie!"

I held her while she cried, allowing Mrs. Adams' hands to go pruny.

I told you Sandy was fickle.

I saw her off when she got on her bus to Florida. Hardly a real goodbye. Not one worthy of giving to your best lifelong friend. But I wasn't sure if my best friend was the one who would cheat on her boyfriend.

Soda had offered to marry her anyway. She said no.

I still don't know why exactly she did it, not even to this day.

And I have no clue why it is that a sweetie like Soda has no luck with women.

"I hate her," Steve told me. "I had no idea she would do somethin' like that to him. I thought she loved him."

I knew, deep down, all along, that she hadn't. "I thought so, too. Steve?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you, Stevie."

He didn't roll his eyes that time.

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Sylvia had no idea how right she was when she said that someday, Dally would do something so awful that he'd go away forever. And go away forever is exactly what he did when he was shot dead by the cops, right after Johnny Cade had died.

Everyone was real mixed up back then. And everything happened so quickly. In one week, Sandy confessed to cheating on Sodapop, Two-Bit dumped Kathy, and Dallas died, leaving Sylvia essentially widowed.

(Bye-bye, Girlfriend Coalition.)

It was, all of it, terrible.

Suddenly, I was the only girlfriend left. And friendless, except for Steve. And Steve was a wreck after everything. That was the first time I'd ever seen him cry. Not even when his mother had died had he cried. We both now knew intimately what it was like to lose your friends, even your fake ones.

But when God closes a door, He opens a window.

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It was a lonely while, though, I won't lie.

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The first time I met Bee Stevens, I hated her. She was the new girl. She was rich and pretty, and that was really enough, wasn't it? For me to dislike her because she had more than I did. But I never really went in for that. No, she gave me another reason. We were discussing The Catcher in the Rye in English class, and I had the nerve to offer my opinion, how I didn't mind all the cussin'. I know what I looked like to a soc like her. My clothes were a bit tighter, a bit shorter, and compared to her knee-length green dress and kitten, I must've looked like a streetwalker. But I'm no prostitute. And I ain't like Sylvia. I ain't a whore. I just dress the way I want to. But Bee Stevens told me I was unruly and uncouth and smiled smugly at me like she had me all figured out.

Would you believe it when I told that was the start of a beautiful friendship?

She and I, like me and Sandy, were totally different beasts, but the differences were more pronounced. Rich and poor. Betty and Veronica, though I'm not blonde. Restraint and decorum, which I had long since thrown out the window, were what she lived by. The first party Two-Bit brought her to at the Curtis', a New Year's thing, she was the best-dressed gal in the joint. We'd all met her before, but she looked decidedly out of place among all of us, this west-sider with all us east-siders.

"I dunno, man," I overheard Two-Bit saying to the boys when they expressed that sentiment to him, "we're just kinda…in love?"

The two of them were so different from each other, but so were she and I.

"Nice dress," I told her that night at the party. The two of us were alone for the moment. And it really was a nice dress – a deep green velvet number that almost reached her knees. She was wearing pantyhose and little black heels. My mini skirt was cute but inappropriate for the weather. I doubted she was much warmer.

"You don't have to pretend when it's just the two of us," she said miserably. "I know you don't like me."

I frowned. "Why would you think that?"

She shook her head. "Don't play dumb. I know you remember what I said to you. When I called you uncouth."

"Hey," I shrugged. "That was in '66 – it's almost '68," I grinned, but she just looked even more miserable.

"I am sorry about that," she apologized. "I was…I was in over my head back then. I…I was scared."

"Of what?"

"Of you."

I raised an eyebrow and slowly sat down on the porch steps. She sat beside me. "Oh. Why?"

She shrugged. Bridget Stevens had no reason to be afraid of me. She had everything. She was in love with that clown Two-Bit Mathews, and he'd do anything for her. "I dunno. You just…scared me. A lot does," she added quietly. "And I know Steve hates me for what I did to you."

"He hates a lot of people. If you an' Two-Bit really love each other, then he'll come around. They're all like brothers."

"I know," she sighed. "They love each other, don't they? In their own way."

I nodded. "What the five of them got…it's real special."

"I've never really had that. Not 'til I came here. But, sometimes, even though I'm friends with people who I guess are s'posed to be popular" – like Cherry Valance, Bridget was close friends with her. And this perky blonde named Missy Redar who sometimes reminded me of Sandy, which made my heart ache – "but, I dunno. I still feel alone sometimes. Like, people want to be your friend just because of who you know. You know?"

"No. Not that last bit. But I know what it's like to feel…alone."

"Even with Steve?"

"Even with Steve. And you, even with Two-Bit?"

She nodded, her lips quirking for a moment like she wanted to smile. "I wish, sometimes, that I had what they have."

"I did. Once. You remember Sandy?" Bridget hesitated, but nodded.

"She was Soda's girlfriend. She got pregnant. With some other guy's baby."

"Yeah. That's the gist. I knew her forever, and she and I, we were friends with Sylvia Capoletti and Kathy, Two-Bit's ex. Called ourselves the Girlfriend Coalition. Well – I did. In my head."

"I know them," she laughed. "I mean, I was in the play with Sylvia. And Kathy…well, I don't know her, but I know of her."

"You're lucky, then," I smiled, raising my eyebrows at her. "If you ask me, Two-Bit's really moved up in the world."

"You think so?"

There was so much hope in her voice. I realized then that she really was sorry for what she'd said to me, for making fun of me, maybe for more I didn't know about that had happened behind my back.

"Yeah," I said carefully. "I do."

Bee bit her lip. "I'm sorry about your friends."

"They weren't really my friends."

"Evie?"

"Yeah?"

"Shit, Evie – if…if you ever just want to hang out, and talk about these crazy guys we're hanging around with…well, I wouldn't mind that."

I smiled. "I wouldn't mind that, either."

XXXXX

We were seniors in high school, but she invited me over for a sleepover. Crazy, right? Her father left for the night, and we sat up in her room. There was no one to stare at us whenever we entered a room, or to whisper about us. There were no boyfriends. We were just getting to know each other as members of the Girlfriend Coalition 2.0, if you could call it that. We listened to her records – the score to West Side Story and the Beatles and the Supremes – and did our regular makeup routines on each other ("Evie, this is…too much." "And this ain't enough. You can see the bags under my eyes!") She combed out my hair, which I had kept in the same 'do for so long that I'd forgotten how long and shiny it could be. Some beautician I'd make. I painted her nails bright red. We looked through all her magazines. She had snuck up a bunch of junk food, and we chipped away at it all night. The sugar high was unreal, and we ended up sprawled across her princess bed giggling about something-or-other.

"Did you do this with your old friends?" She asked, breathless.

"No. Did you?"

"No. I do it with the ones I've made here, though. Sometimes. Hey – do you think we're the first girls from opposite sides of town to have a sleepover?" She asked, grinning like she'd just had some big revelation.

I thought about it. "Maybe." I rolled over and looked at her. "Hey. Next time, we'll do this at my place."

Bee lit up at the possibility of next time.

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AN: Part two to come soon.

Thanks for reading :)