Chapter One
Disclaimer: This story is based on events and characters from S.E. Hinton's story The Outsiders. This story is purely for entertainment; all credit goes to S.E. Hinton.
It all started on a Friday. Friday, July 17th, 1984 to be exact. It was my sixteenth birthday and all I could think about was the new boy moving down the block, the fact that I had grown a whole cup size bigger, and that I was finally old enough to get my drivers license. I was lying on my bed listening to Cyndi Lauper's new song, Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Mom couldn't stand modern music; she said it made mush of your brain. Can you believe her! She's still stuck in the '60s – that's when her and my dad met. I knew that my father was head over heels for my mom, but sometimes I wondered if she felt the same way about him.
"Rosanna Grace Curtis! I want you to turn down that racket right this second!" my mom shouted, stomping into my room with her hands on her hips. She had her short light blond hair pushed out off her forehead with a headband and had an apron around her waist. Her turquoise eyes, which happened to be the same exact shade of turquoise mine, shone with anger. Like I said before, she hates me listening to popular music.
"That music will surely turn those lovely young brain cells to mush!" she scolded me. She huffed and walked over to my radio-cassette, making the music come to a halt. Usually I would've yelled at mom about how this was my room and I could listen to whatever I wanted, but I didn't feel like starting an argument today.
"Oh, and happy birthday darling," she told me, giving me a kiss on the head. Bipolar much? "I have to go to work now though; I'll be back later, okay?" I nodded and waved her out of my room. Mom and I definitely weren't as close as we used to be.
"Your father and I have something we want to talk to you about later on, okay honey?" she asked. "All right mom. Can I please get some privacy?" I asked, trying to be patient.
"Okay sweetie. Wear something pretty for school!" she told me. Mom was an all around girly girl; she hadn't grown up with a lot of money, and now that we were finally out of debt and doing well in the money department, she wanted me to have all the luxuries that other normal teenager would have.
She left my room and I proceeded to get ready. I wore pink tights with black spandex shorts over them and a loose white off the shoulder shirt over that. Under my shirt I wore a lime green tank top, letting one of the straps show. I scrunched up my long white-blond hair with mousse and put a headband around my forehead. Perfect.
I grabbed my schoolbag, skipped down the stairs and into the kitchen and grabbed my lunch. My dad was sitting at the table getting ready to go to his job. Since the owner had died 3 months ago, my father was now the proud owner of the DX gas station he had been working at since he was just sixteen years old.
"Hi daddy!" I greeted, kissing him on the cheek.
"Hi baby. Happy birthday," he said, grabbing his DX hat, "I gotta go to work, me and your mama have to have a chat with you tonight."
"You don't seem all too happy about that," I told him, noticing the glum look he tried to hide.
"Well Rosie, to tell ya the truth, I'm not looking all too forward to this chat. It was your mama's idea," he said. "Why she's doing this on your birthday, I'll never know." Obviously this was not something I would particularly enjoy hearing.
"Well, I gotta go to school. How do you like my outfit? Groovy or what?" I asked, trying to lighten the mood. Daddy looked up at me and smiled.
"You look exactly like your mother did when she was your age. Twice as beautiful though," he winked. "Oops. Don't tell her I said that." I laughed.
"My lips are sealed," I jokingly assured him, "See ya later Daddy," I walked out the door, waving.
School was a drag. I got wished happy birthday about 5 billion times, when the day ended I was glad to get out of there. If someone uttered the words "happy" and "birthday" in the same sentence again, I think I'd go crazy.
After a birthday dinner with my parents, I was left wondering what on earth they had to tell me. I was kinda scared after my talk with Dad this morning.
"Rose, could you come in here please!" my mom shouted at me from the dining room. I had been in the family room watching MTV. I sighed and got off the couch, walking into the dining room and sitting across the table from mom and dad. Dad looked like he had been crying.
"Yeah?" I asked, starting to panic. Dad crying was not a good sign. Never had my father cried in front of me before.
"Honey.." my mom started, then paused, looking like she was trying to find a way to phrase what she was about to say. As she opened her mouth to talk again, the phone rang. I let out the breath I hadn't realized I had been holding as mom went to grab the phone. When she left, I looked up at my dad.
"Dad.. How bad is it?" I asked, gulping.
"Bad. Real bad." Was his reply. He looked down at his hands and I sucked in more air. Mom walked back into the room.
"Who was it?" I asked her. She had a girlish smile on her face.
"Uh," she hesitated, "Wrong number." She told me, sitting down. I didn't believe her.
"So, you were saying?" I asked impatiently. I was tired of waiting for her to tell me what was up. Mom reached across the table and took my hand in hers.
"Rosie, sweetie. You know the story of how me and your father met, right?" I nodded. "Well, when we met, I.." she paused, sighing. "I loved him so much. Right from the start. But as time went on, I realized that I wasn't the only one who felt that way about him. Girls loved your father, and I had a hard time dealing with that. I was so self conscious and I didn't think I was enough for him," she looked at her lap, getting teary eyed.
"I had turned to.. other men that I thought were good enough for me.. to make me feel better," she hesitated, waiting for my reaction. I just blinked. "I'm just going to get to the point." She looked up at me. I nodded, waiting for her to continue.
"You're.. not your father's child. Your dad agreed to marry me after he found out that I was pregnant with another man's child, and I agreed." She told me. Wait, what?
I blinked. What did she expect me to say to that?
"And.. I have recently been talking a lot to Joe, he's your father, and I have decided that I've been grateful for everything your father has provided for us, but.. I want to be happy. I'm.. going to get back together with Joe." She told me. I didn't know how to react. I wanted to slap her. "Now that all of our money problems have been put to bed, I thought this was a great time to break the news to you."
"How.. how could you? How could you do this to us?" I asked, looking at her with disgust. "And on my birthday?"
"Honey, I want to be happy," She told me. "And I want to be happy as soon as possible."
"You want to be happy? Hah. It's all about you, isn't it?" I asked, standing up and slamming my hands on the table.
"It's not like that Rosanna, and you know it," she told me, standing up as well.
"Mom. It's EXACTLY like that. It's ALWAYS like that!" I shouted. Dad just sat there, staring at his hands. "I can't even look at you." I told my mother.
"Rosanna Grace Curtis! I am our mother and I will not tolerate being spoken to like that!" she shrieked.
"Mother? I would not call you a mother," I told her. I could feel hot tears running down my face. "Mothers care for their children and their well-being. You're not a mother – you're simply an old lady that I share a house with. You're like a roommate. Only worse." I stood up and grabbed dad's hand. "C'mon, Daddy."
He wouldn't move. I pulled his hand harder until he had stood up. He gave one last sad look to my mother before following me upstairs.
We ran up the stairs and into my room, locking the door behind us.
"I didn't want to tell you this way." He said quietly.
"Daddy.. I was gonna find out eventually," I assured him. He nodded and looked at his hands again. I hated seeing my Dad this way. I walked up to him and wrapped my arms around him. This triggered his tears.
"Rosie, I love your mama so much. Don't you ever think of her as a bad person, she just wants to be happy," he told me. I nodded, even though I would never think of what my mother had done to us in such a positive way.
That night, my father and I lay in my bed together and cried. It was so painful knowing that my family was falling apart, and having this told to me on my birthday? Bonus. I will never forgive her for doing this to us. The only thing that ran through my mind before I fell asleep was, I wish I had some way to go back and tell Sodapop Curtis to never fall in love with Sandy Jones.