Cherry Bomb

by dallaswnstn

It's for the girl's own good, honestly. Of course Sylvia won't let anyone go around saying they could fall in love with her boyfriend – Christ's sake, just because she won't let herself do it doesn't mean the position is open or something – but someone needs to set the poor little rich girl straight. Or, the "who is Sylvia?" question gets answered when she confronts Cherry Valance.

Sherri Valance is movie-star gorgeous – it's just too bad she has a pinched frown and the bad taste to wear a goddamn turtleneck to a drive-in movie.

It's a Friday night, and for perhaps the first Friday night in a year, Sylvia is stone cold sober and not hunting down a drink. She was, for a bit – until she swung around the drive-in on the way to Buck's, caught a glimpse of "Cherry" Valance's pin-curled red hair, and decided it was a good Friday night for a movie. She's sitting in her beat-up Chevy, which she took care to park crookedly right next to Cherry's red Corvette in the back of the lot, and she's got her pale blue eyes narrowed on the group of teenagers in the first few rows of seats in front of the movie screen. Jack Daniels can wait; right now she's hunting down a certain sweater-clad, South-side stuck-up.

She's lying in wait, "like a fucking hellcat", like Two-Bit had said once, after he'd watched her stalk down Alice Wheeler in a diner after she'd heard about Alice's comments about her. "You can string 'em out same as Dally, with your cussing and big words and all." And she can. She can string out the best of them. And right now, she wants to string out Cherry fucking Valance.

This isn't how she'd usually handle things. Sure, she can string someone out, but when Dallas fucks around with someone else, it's him she gets back at. Usually, she'd track down the girl he'd been with, at Buck's or some other sleazy, greaser-frequented roadhouse, and screw around with her. She'd wait to see him across the room, sharp eyes narrowed at her over his drink as if she can't fucking see him watching, and she'd play dumb and order a drink with the chick. And at some point, she'll slide off the barstool and hang on her a bit, swinging her arm carelessly around the girl's shoulders and pressing her body against hers, and she'll pull her in close and whisper in her ear and trace her neck with her lips, leaving smears of burgundy lipstick – it's trashy and obvious, but so are the hickeys from her boyfriend that they're covering. And he's the one she's getting back at. He's the one who deserves punishing. Everyone knows that Dally loves to bitch about Sylvia's two-timing; what not everyone knows is that half the time, she uses the same girls he does. Sylvia knows that it makes his jeans tighten and knuckles whiten – sees how it does from across the smoky room – in a way that her kissing random boys never will, knows it gets him nearly as riled up as it does her, and not even in a vastly different way. Sylvia likes girls; likes their gentle hands that give her control, and their cheap floral perfume that gives her a rush to the head, and their soft, curvy bodies that she tears into like a desperate teenage boy when she decides to lead the girl in the bar upstairs if Dallas has fucked up worse than usual. And there's something about dating a cold-hearted hood that makes you crave tenderness sometimes, the kind of tenderness that only comes from girls, with an immeasurably different wickedness than whatever he touches her with. It's never enough to keep her away from him for good, but it's enough to keep the hollowness that settles in at bay.

But Cherry is different. First of all, she never did anything with Dallas. And secondly, she's a Soc. A Soc that got mixed up with Dally and Johnny and the kid at the Dingo last weekend and needed her asshole boyfriend to come play hero. A Soc that became the brief object of Dally's harassment, and was evidently so moved by his lewd comments and Ponyboy's air of profound sensitivity that she made some comments to the kid about how she could fall in love with Dallas Winston – comments that he let slip later, along with said sensitivity. Evie had heard them while hanging out at the Curtis house with Steve, and regaled them to Sylvia, along with some incoherent bullshit about mutual appreciation for sunsets and the way Cherry's eyes looked sad in the light of the street lamps.

It took Sylvia all of five minutes to wade through the sappy superfluity, narrow in on the falling-in-love-with-Dallas-Winston sentiment, and realize that the seemingly superfluous sunset speech was the entire goddamn point. It takes another thirty minutes for her to get her temper in check and plan out exactly what she was going to do with this Cherry girl.

Sylvia knows about Cherry Valance. They're in the same English class, so Sylvia sees everyday, sitting there in the first row with her cashmere sweaters and crossed legs. But everyone knows Cherry; she's popular and pretty – albeit in a very unremarkable sort of way – and she's a Varsity cheerleader and dating Bob Sheldon. She's a golden girl dating the golden boy. She'll probably win prom queen. Sylvia can practically see her putting on some sort of fluttery dress that she thinks is real sexy and walking across her manicured lawn to the white picket gate, where Bob is waiting in his Ivy-league pants and madras shirt to take her to some swingin' party where he'll get trashed and beat up a 14-year-old who looks at her wrong, and she'll pretend she's shocked. Cherry's got a reputation, same as Sylvia does, but Cherry's is for being a "real nice girl". She's supposed to be sensitive or something. Sylvia calls bullshit. Cherry Valance has all the sensitivity of a goddamn brick; she's just looking at the world through a pair of expensive rose-colored glasses. And someone desperately needs to snap them in half.

It's for the girl's own good, honestly. Of course Sylvia won't let anyone go around saying they could fall in love with her boyfriend – Christ's sake, just because she won't let herself do it doesn't mean the position is open or something – but someone needs to set the poor little rich girl straight.

The movie at the Dingo is coming to an end, and the credits are rolling on the screen. Sylvia is watching Cherry get up from her seat painfully slowly, saying something to her friend with the short dark hair and laughing. She watches her flip her red hair over her shoulder and turn to talk to someone else, and settles back against the ripped leather car seat. It's going to take her a while to get over here, anyway. Sylvia flicks her cigarette out the window and lights a new one, blowing a smoke ring against the windshield and watching the faraway outline of Cherry's body walk through it on her way to the aisle. As the pack of Soc's walk back towards the parking lot, Sylvia wonders vaguely where Cherry's boyfriend is and if he even lets her go out just with her girlfriends. It seems out of character for a controlling jerk like Bob, but whatever. It makes her job easier.

Sylvia sees Cherry's form dip behind a parked car at the end of the row, and her heart beats quicker. She's got a restless sort of buzz, the kind that always surfaces in anticipation of action like this. She's aching for a cold shot of whiskey; she always has one before parties or fights, just enough to keep her head clear and her hands still, but she'll just have to do this without any spiritual aid. Which is just fine, because this is Cherry and Sylvia could kick her ass in one go. She takes a final look in the darkened rearview mirror, at her tumbling blonde hair and angular face staring back scornfully, at her shiny lips and dark, arched brows and thick black eyeliner. If looks could kill, Cherry would be dead on arrival. Sylvia almost feels bad for the girl; it's near impossible to confront anyone with a fresh face and sweater set. Her pity evaporates, however, when she slides out of the car and catches sight of her.

Cherry's walking with a dark-haired girl she recognizes from school, and two others Sylvia doesn't know. They're talking, but Cherry's glancing around covertly like she's expecting someone to pop out at her, and Sylvia's lips dip into a smirk. Good. She sees Cherry, and she hates her; hates her sparkling green eyes and pink-rouged cheekbones and half-open smile. She wants to grab her bouncing red curls and strangle her with them, but she fixes a cold smile onto her face and steps out from around her car to meet them.

Cherry sees her and stops, and the conversation of the other girls ends abruptly. Sylvia leans against the hood of her car, smoking languidly and waiting patiently, cold smile fixed to her face and eyes narrowed on the redhead. Cherry's mouth opens, nearly imperceptibly, and then closes. Sylvia eyes her up and down, then stands and takes a few steps toward her.

"Hi, Sylvia." Cherry speaks in a casual, drawn out drawl, but Sylvia can see her wide eyes blinking quickly. She sounds tired as hell. "I'm guessing you're not here to talk about the English homework?"

Fucking Christ. Sylvia was going to go easy on her at first, but it's just like Cherry to bring up fucking English class, with that subtle intonation that it's all they have in common; that they shouldn't even have that. She knows Cherry's been eyeing her in the back of the class since September as if she doesn't deserve to be there. She even heard one of Cherry's friends saying it, until Mr. Syme started announcing who got the high scores on essays, and it's always fucking Sylvia. She might use words like heater, but she deserves to be in honors English more than Cherry Valance ever will. She can feel her blood burning, and can't believe she ever thought of starting out nice with this girl. Sylvia's got a hot temper and a sweet tooth for confrontation. There's something about honey-thick tension and perfectly placed insults and bloody knuckles, if it gets to that point, that keeps her from going crazy. Sandy hates it, and Two-Bit doesn't understand it, and Dally – well, there's a reason they're together, and while she could write a goddamn book on how they're not the same person, that wouldn't be a chapter.

"Cherry." Sylvia jerks her head up in a nod, eyes locked on the girl and eyebrows raised. "I thought we could talk." She has to swallow a triumphant smile when Cherry visibly squirms. She sees the girls eyes survey her warily, lingering on the exposed strip of skin at her waist between her tight jeans and knotted black blouse, and her cleavage where the top three buttons are undone, letting her lacy bra peek through. Sylvia gives herself mental congratulations for her outfit choices; she always looks good when she goes out, but she whipped out this outfit since Dallas dumped her last week, and even if it doesn't have him tearing into her in bed later while he whispers hatred in her ear – which it will – it's doing a good job of shutting Cherry up. Sylvia will play the trashy greaser girlfriend, just like Cherry wants her to. She's never felt more poised.

"Go ahead without me," Cherry says coolly, to the two girls Sylvia doesn't know. She hands the dark–haired girl her keys. "Wait for me in the car, Marcia, I'll be over in a minute." She crosses her arms, shoulders bent in against the wind, and turns back to Sylvia. "What's this about?"

"I heard you've got some sort of escapist pipe dream going."

"What?" Cherry furrows her high-arched brows. Sylvia raises hers in response. She's got her; Sylvia speaks in her own strange vernacular that's half twangy, harsh, blue-collar hood slang and half lifted out of a pretentious classic novel, and it's never let her down in a run-in.

"I heard you were here last weekend," Sylvia continues casually, "and got mixed up with my boyfriend. Heard you said something to the kid with the weird name about falling in love with Dallas Winston."

Sylvia can see the wheels turning in Cherry's head before her eyes widen. She watches her face redden and her hands drop from her arms. Sylvia offers a cold smirk. "He's a nice kid, honey. I'm sure he's great for sunset watching, but he's a goddamn loudmouth." Sylvia sucks on her cigarette. She picked up her habit of using terms of endearment in decidedly un-enduring ways from Dally, and it worked on just about anyone.

Cherry's cheeks are still flushed when her lips settle into a frown, and she tilts her head to the side, tucks her hair behind her ear, and looks at Sylvia. "You're mad that I said I could…Sylvia, I barely know him. I didn't know he was still dating you. The way he was talkin' to me, it sure seemed like he wasn't."

God, Sylvia hates her. She wants to rake her nails down Cherry's pink-rouged cheek, wants to hit her, hard, and leave a bruise on that pretty little face. Luckily, Evie told her everything Ponyboy had said, and she knows all the crude details of Dallas's monologue.

"He wanted a rise out of you. You thought he was expectin' you to ask him to give you the time in the back of your Corvette or somethin'?"

Cherry blushes deeper, but manages to screw up her face and give an icy stare. "No, I didn't think that." She spits it out, and for a split second, Sylvia almost respects her. Almost.

"I'm more concerned about you sayin' you could fall in love with him." Sylvia gives a close-lipped smile. "You keep your hands off him, or I'll kill you."

Cherry's taking care to look contemptuous and shocked, but Sylvia can tell she's scared. Her eyes are wide and her mouth is open, and she's got one shaky hand on her narrow waist, where her sweater meets her pleated skirt. A shiver runs through Sylvia's body when she thinks of doing to Cherry what she's done to so many other girls who flirted with the idea of Dallas, and it's followed by a hot flush of embarrassment that turns into anger. Sylvia could never touch Cherry Valance, because she's a Soc. Not that she'd want to – callous, straight-laced stuck-ups don't do it for her. Sylvia finds innocence hot, but Cherry is no innocent. She may not have been through half the shit that Sylvia has, but she knows how things are. She just doesn't give a damn. And that's the whole principle of the thing.

"Listen, Sylvia." Cherry's drawl comes out thin and worn. "I'm sorry. I don't want anything to do with Dallas Winston, and that's the truth, okay?"

"Like hell you don't." Sylvia shakes her head, taking her time with a final drag on her cigarette before dropping the butt onto the ground and grinding it into the dirt with her heel. She slides her pack of Kools from her pocket and shakes it toward Cherry.

"I don't smoke."

Sylvia shrugs and grabs a new cigarette with her teeth, lighting it in one fluid movement. She usually doesn't smoke all that much, but when she's heated, she chain smokes to calm her nerves. She sucks a few times on the cancer stick, lightly and casually until the embers glow, before slowly exhaling and locking her eyes back on Cherry's instead of stabbing the smoldering cigarette out into her creamy skin. She's hyperaware of the way Cherry's deep-set eyes flicker over her, when she thinks Sylvia can't see her. She can see Cherry picking her apart, reconciling the body in front of her with the reputation she's heard about. Sylvia might hate her for it if it didn't reassure her so much. She'd never admit it to a soul, but sometimes, she feels dead lost, and there's nothing like recognition - however laced in judgment and contempt - to bring her back down to earth.

"Look," Sylvia starts, casually. "I'm not worried about you and Dallas. Lots of girls look at him, sweetheart, they just aren't usually Socs. Like I told you, he just wanted a rise out of you."

"What are you worried about, then?" Cherry's got her arms re-crossed and lips pursed.

"I'm worried about you thinkin' you could fall in love with him. More specifically, I'm wonderin' why a nice girl like you with a boyfriend would think you could."

"God, I don't know, Sylvia." Cherry shakes her head. "It's…" She drops off and when she speaks, she addresses the chain-link fence between the lot and the road. "He seemed so real or something."

Cherry's body is an outline against the pink sky, and Sylvia watches the passing cars flash their lights over her face, illuminating her green eyes for a moment and then passing it back into darkness. "He is real." Her voice is cold. "He's the realest person I've ever met. Too real for you."

Cherry turns back to her, eyebrows knit. She's sixteen, same as Sylvia, but she's got these creases in her forehead whenever she gets upset that make her look worried and old as hell. "Why? You think I have to stick to my own kind because I'm some sort of a good girl, and you're -" She stops short.

"I'm what?" Sylvia tilts her head, eyes narrowed. Sylvia doesn't like to buy into the whole virgin/whore dichotomization of women, but yeah, she's a bad girl, obviously. She doesn't need Cherry Valance to fucking tell her that. And Cherry isn't about to; she's too well bred to do anything but shake her head and brush imaginary dust off her sweater until Sylvia continues.

"But no." Sylvia lets her smoke dangle between two long, slender figures, looking Cherry square in the face. "It's because I know why you think you want him."

"And why's that?" She can tell Cherry's taking care to sound so aloof, and Sylvia forces herself not to lick her lips; she'll get lipstick all over her teeth, and besides, this is Cherry fucking Valance in front of her. Not intimidating in the least, and certainly not anybody special. She might have a cool head and a daddy with a lot of money and, God, a curvy waist, but Sylvia's fucked and fought with better.

"You're just a poor little rich girl." Sylvia takes a step toward Cherry and speaks slowly, spitting every syllable with scorn. "You're living in your sophisticated little world, with your parties and your cool friends and your cool boyfriend, and everyone's cool and you're dying for something real. You're drowning in tuff cars and nice clothes, and you're looking for someone who's really drowning to come save you. And you think Dally's a real hero in hood's clothing – that he's your man, because he's some sort of rebel without a cause, because he's tough and genuine and all. But you don't want him. You want your idea of him, but you've got no goddamn idea who he is."

It's not until she says it that Sylvia really feels it. The temperature in the Dingo parking lot is pushing sixty, but her pale skin is burning with anger. She hates Cherry, hates her with a passion that makes her blood boil, hates her like she's going to explode – but she parts her lips and seethes instead, letting her hate simmer out with a tendril of smoke she draws into her mouth to keep her hands from reaching out to hit Cherry.

She could hit her, too. Cherry's standing terribly close, so close Sylvia can smell her. Her long, red hair is blowing in the wind, and Sylvia can smell shampoo, and a faint hint of something else. She doesn't smell strong, in the heavily perfumed way that the girls Sylvia knows do; she smells soft and sweet, but not weak. It throws Sylvia off for a split second, while Cherry crosses her thin arms and sets her delicate face into a combative stare. Sylvia shakes her head; she's going crazy or something.

"You don't know me, Sylvia. You think you do, because you've got some kind of chip on your shoulder and you think everyone from the other side of the tracks is the same, but you don't."

Sylvia lets out a cold, short laugh. "You're no mystery, honey. I can read you like a goddamn book."

"Really?" Cherry's got one eyebrow raised, and it's a dare.

"You're a hopeless romantic." Sylvia's voice is cool, but she can feel her eyes blazing. "I think you'd fall in love with anyone who gave you the time of day. What the hell else would a east-side cheerleader want with a guy like Dallas Winston?"

"I told you I don't want anything to do with him."

"No, you don't." Sylvia's speaking in a horribly agreeable tone, the kind of measured, patronizing voice that she uses more to calm herself down when her blood is threatening to boil. "That's the whole point. It must be nice to have the privilege to go fallin' in love with ideas."

"I'm not in love with anyone!" Cherry's voice is rising to a yell, and it's bouncing around the vacant parking lot, heated and going straight to Sylvia's head. Dally was right about something; the bastard – Cherry Valance's polite upbringing cracked under pressure. She was fiery as hell. "It was a dumb comment, for God's sake. It didn't mean anything!"

"Cherry, I'm just curious. Have you heard a single goddamn word I've said?"

She's frowning, indignant, and her green eyes are deep set under her high brow bone and nearly sparking in anger. Sylvia buries a smile when she sees her squeeze her manicured hands into fists – with her thumbs tucked inside her fingers, as if they wouldn't snap if she ever actually tried to throw a punch. Sylvia's allows herself to be vaguely entertained by the idea of Cherry in a real fistfight; it distracts her from her own urge to knock the redhead out, for a minute.

"I'm not in love with your boyfriend, Sylvia." Cherry's managed to uncurl her fists and pulled herself into a semblance of calmness, but her voice is tinged with anger, and her eyes are locked on Sylvia's own. "I don't ever want anything to do with him. I'm not – I was just upset that night. About Bob, and how everything goes in this town, and he was so… so unlike me, and Bob, and everyone I hang around with, but he's-"

"He's a lot more than that!" Sylvia's voice is hateful, but she has the strange feeling that this conversation is a live wire, and with every word, she's losing grip on any hints of sophistication, any upper hand, any idea what words to say. "He's – he's not a goddamn dream."

Sylvia is taking care not to glamorize him - God knows he doesn't deserve it. She's not here to stick up for Dally, and she's certainly not an idealist like Cherry – once upon a time, Sylvia might have owned some rose-colored glasses, but she put her romance-fantasies for life away in middle school. Now she wears dark black cat-eye sunglasses and reads Ginsberg and wants to knock Cherry the fuck out.

Cherry is looking back at Sylvia, curiously quiet for a minute before she says, "Sylvia, I'm sorry." Her voice is soft and trained and dripping in faux-empathy, and it grates of Sylvia's nerves more than screaming ever could. "I just don't know why you're making this into another social war. It was just something dumb I said, and you're making it into some Soc and greaser conflict, just like all those guys who kill each other for nothing do. And it's got nothing to do with that, Sylvia. You know that you're the one who keeps saying I'm a Soc, and I haven't called you "greaser" once? I won't say a thing about Dallas Winston or anyone else from the West side ever again if it makes you feel better, but I think it's dumb to make everything about class or territory or whatever when it didn't have anything to do with that in the first place."

Cherry Valance looks dead serious. Sylvia looks at her intently through narrowed eyes, searching her up and down for a fake molding in her façade of genuineness, gaze traveling from her milky-white skin and peach lips and cheeks, to her narrow shoulder and gently curving waist, and back again to her dark red hair, and finds nothing. Cherry's arm disrupts her vision, rising nervously to tuck a strand of the hair behind her ear, and brushes Sylvia's arm on the way down. It's a light touch, barely there, but it makes her jump.

Sylvia's been dying to hit Cherry all night, and half-scared of what would happen if she touched her. She's too pure in her immaculate blue sweater and pale, cool countenance. But now, suddenly, she just looks bright and clean; a pop of color in the night, a bright blue clad teenage girl with cherry snow-cone lips and clear eyes. And Sylvia…Sylvia looks like a fucking painting; she's got fading, yellowy bruises on her hips that she'd rather not think about and purple half-moons stamped under her eyes from a week of staying up late either bar-hopping or propped up in bed reading till the sky turns pink and she falls asleep and then waking up for school at seven in the morning. She can never sleep right when she's broken up with Dally, and she gave up trying a year ago –the restless, chain-smoking, finger-tapping high sets in no matter how many times they split up and get back together. But Sylvia feels dirty, stained in all the wrong ways, and she's half surprised when she squints at Cherry's knuckles and they look the same as they always have. They're clean and pink and monochrome, and they drag Sylvia back to earth, seething.

"You don't understand anything, do you?" Sylvia's voice comes out barely in a whisper, hot and sharp in the cool night. "You're flirting with the idea of Dally because you think he's some glamorous escape from your perfect life. You don't know a goddamn thing about him. You don't know a goddamn thing about any of us. You only want him because you've got everythin' you want, but you don't need him."

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Sylvia bites her tongue. Her implication hangs in the air, heavy and naked, and she wants to grind it into the dirt. Sylvia isn't one to be caught dead admitting she needed anyone, however indirectly – and now she's standing in the Dingo parking lot with Cherry fucking Valance of all people, the suggestion lingering in the November air like toxic smoke.

Cherry looks at Sylvia, quietly and strangely, like she can see into her, and Sylvia doesn't know the last time she felt so desperate, so fucking helpless, and she mentally kicks herself, hard. She's been in fights before, with boys and girls who were really dangerous, with knives and chains and wicked vengeance - people who posed real threats; she's been confronted before, stuck before, hit before – ended up in a lot of horrible places before. But she's never felt so trapped, without escape, in a wide-open parking lot by an upper-class cheerleader who doesn't even know how to throw a punch.

"Sylvia, I'm sorry." When Cherry speaks, she's still looking at Sylvia curiously, but all the fire is gone from her voice, and she's exuding empathy that Sylvia wishes she could call contrived. "Listen, I'll let all of this go if you will."

Sylvia jerks her head up in a nod, raising her eyebrows in acknowledgment that she hopes is contemptuous rather than weak.

Cherry shifts her weight from one foot to the other, lifting her bag onto her shoulder. Sylvia turns – she's going to be the one to leave Cherry in this parking lot if it's the last thing she does – before she hears Cherry's sincere drawl, loud in the quiet lot despite car horns and tires squealing on the pavement on the other side of the fence.

"Sylvia?"

"Yeah?" Sylvia turns halfway back, raising an eyebrow.

"Dallas is real lucky to have you."

"What?"

"It sounds like you love him a lot. I'll see you in English class, Sylvia." Cherry gives a small nod and looks at her for a minute before turning and walking to her car. Sylvia watches her get into the driver's seat, hears the engine rumble to life, and watches as she backs out of her parking spot, kicking up dust, and drive towards the Dingo exit.

Sylvia has never wanted to punch Cherry Valance in the face more – not tonight, not ever. Hell, she's never wanted to punch herself in the face more. Instead, she drops her cigarette butt to the ground, grinds it into the dirt with her toe, and gets into her car. She sinks into the cold leather seat and doesn't move – not smoking, or turning the key into the ignition, or even bothering to glance around the darkened parking lot for anyone who could break into her ancient car and do God knows to girls who hang around in empty lots late at night. She doesn't particularly care.

There's a whole lot that Sylvia would never tell Cherry Valance. She's not sure she could convey it even if she wanted to. She'd sound like the romantic herself – or just like she'd lost her mind. She's at a loss for words to explain in even to herself, which doesn't make any sense, because Sylvia thinks of Dally – not Dallas Winston, the boy Cherry thinks she met, but Dally - in terms of poetry; ugly poetry that mostly just exists in her head, occasionally scrawled onto the backs of school assignments and tossed into a gutter somewhere or used to stub out cigarettes. It's not even all in her own words. She doesn't romanticize a thing; she just writes it how it is: the fighting, the fucking, the parts in between and beneath the surface that no one else seems to notice, and she's barely even able to put into words. But they're not bad. Not bad, and not good either. They just are. It can't be romance, if that's just the way it is. She isn't making it sound nice, or romantic, or even like it's easy. Sylvia doesn't want easy. So long as they're screaming at each other, she can tell herself that he's with her because he wants her, and not just because he wants somebody.

Dallas Winston is hers. He's been hers for nearly two years, and he'll always be hers, no matter how many times they break up and whoever else they both fuck around with. And she's his. There's a reason they're together, and it goes a lot deeper than his preference for blondes and her sweet tooth for trouble. She wishes Cherry Valance could see her with Dally at Bucks, on one of the rare occasions that he dances with her, or hear the words he whispers into her ear while they're walking the ribbon, or feel the weight of his arms around her when he falls asleep, drunk and unguarded. Instead, she's sitting, catatonic, out in the Dingo parking lot, out of her mind. It doesn't matter what she sees. Dallas Winston could never love Cherry Valance. It would be a damn miracle if Dally loved anything.

Sylvia sits up and slides her key into the ignition. She opens a compact and catches herself staring back and decides not to reapply her lipstick. Instead, she lights a cigarette and rolls down the window to let the smoke out, letting the cold air turn her face numb as she looks West to pull out of the Dingo parking lot.

Cherry Valance is an okay girl; she just wishes she knew a damn thing about love. And Sylvia – Sylvia wishes she didn't.