*Hey, guys! This is the sequel to Rebel Yell, that I've spent a lot of time thinking about! I don't know how much you'll like it, but I really hope you do! In each chapter, there will be a tiny part of a song that made me think of how I want to do this sequel. I don't know if that makes sense, but you'll get it by the end. Okay? And…so…I guess it's sort of a songfic…
DISCLAIMER THAT I WILL ONLY POST ONCE: I DO NOT OWN THE AMAZING OUTSIDERS, I OWN CARRIE ANNE AND OTHER CHARACTERS THAT ARE UNFAMILIAR. I DO NOT OWN THE AWESOMELY TUFF SONG BY YOUR SIDE BY TOKIO HOTEL. (Seriously. If you haven't heard it, YouTube it. It's tuff and it's really sweet) I ALSO DO NOT OWN THE INCREDIBLE MONKEES OR THEIR SONG LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE. I WISH I OWNED DAVY JONES BECAUSE HE WAS REALLY HOT IN THE SIXTIES.(If you don't believe me, YouTube or Photobucket the Monkees. He's the smexy short one :D)
And after my random rambling about hot people and the songs they sing…Here is the first chapter of By your Side, the sequel to Rebel Yell!*
I remember that day. Christmas Day, 1965. I remember how I felt on that day. I remembered thinking; No one who ever lived knows how I feel right now. Well, something about me is that I'm honest about my mistakes. And now I realize how wrong I was to think that, and how that was almost nothing in compare to what would happen to me later.
No one knows how you feel,
No one there you'd like to see,
The day was dark and full of pain.
Sunday
"Carrie Anne, I thought you'd be glad about going back to Tulsa!" My mom remarked as we loaded boxes of our things into our car.
I sighed. "Mom. It's been almost a year. Not even ten months. I don't understand why we moved in the first place if we were going to move back this soon."
I had never really been able to start over in the last year since we moved from Tulsa. I didn't have any friends in Michigan; Char, the little social butterfly, had tons. But the weird thing was, I wasn't exactly envious of her. I had my dreams of Johnny, my friend and boyfriend, and of his friends, or the ones I'd got along well with and considered sort of friends. My Michigan friend was my journal, in which I poured out my heart to, wondering when we'd return to Tulsa.
Don't get me wrong, I was so happy about going back to Tulsa. But I was afraid. I missed Johnny so much, and I was afraid something had happened to him, or that he didn't like me anymore. If I didn't have Johnny or any of his friends, or Dawn…my life in Tulsa would be the same as my life here in Michigan.
My mom stopped me when I turned on my heel to go get another box. "Come on, Carrie Anne, you know the answer why we left already! I just had to take a break from Tulsa. You should be happy, you get to see Johnny! Can you give me a smile? You haven't smiled in so long!" I turned up the corners of my mouth the best I could, and she seemed to be satisfied.
"Good enough. We have a few more boxes, and then we can go get Char and we'll be on our way."
It felt so weird to smile. Before, back in Tulsa and even before that, smiling was a part of me. It was a rare moment when it left my face. But ever since we had moved back to Michigan, it had been the opposite. It had been the norm to see me with no smile on my face, and almost nothing made me smile. I hoped that would change.
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"Welcome to Tulsa" the sign practically screamed as we came in about ten hours later. Well, that's what it said to most people. To me it said "Welcome back to Tulsa."
We weren't living in our original house, of course. We were living more on the East Side, a little ways' away from the Curtis house, if I remembered correctly. The next day, I was going to be going to school. And I'd see Johnny, hopefully.
"Carrie Anne, it's the Monkees!" Charlene exclaimed. "Listen!" she began to sing. She loved the Monkees. They were okay, I guess, still kinda new. I kinda liked Davy Jones. "Take the last train to Clarksville, and I'll meet you at the station. You can be there by four-thirty, cos I've made your reservation, don't be slow. Oh no no no, oh no no no…!" Char sang along, and my mom did too. The 60's were changing. The Beatles were going into this new thing called the hippie movement, and in the bubblegum magazines, things were slowly going from posters of Paul McCartney's face to Micky Dolenz's. I knew that in just a year, things had changed. But I wasn't all that sure if they had changed for the better. I still had to figure that out.
But it scared me.
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Monday
The next day, I made my way into school. The first person I ended up seeing was good ol' Noel Herbert. I've always been so lucky. And I could tell she recognized me by the way she just glared at me, and she knew that I recognized her because I laughed. Yes, I laughed. It felt so good to laugh again.
But when I walked in, I saw Dawn right away too. She nearly tackled me! "Carrie Anne! What are you doing back?" she asked me, holding me at arms' length. I have an aunt that likes to do that. It annoys me when my aunt does it because she sees me often, but I hadn't seen Dawn in forever.
I sighed. "My mom decided to move back a week ago when things weren't going well for us in Michigan." Or, at least, that's how I see it.
She nodded, but she seemed to be distracted. "Dawn?" Her blue eyes snapped back to me. "You're okay, right?" She nodded quickly, and then muttered she'd see me at lunch.
But what made me feel weird was everyone who recognized me was giving me strange looks. I didn't understand why they were until about two-thirty when I went to the bathroom before walking home. And I heard someone crying.
"Um…hello?" I asked as I slowly walked in. I saw a redheaded girl in the corner of the bathroom, sobbing. "Hey…what's wrong?" I asked her, walking over to her and kneeling down in front of her. She looked up at me, and I saw the face of Cherry Valance, who I'd met briefly a few times. She had been in my biology class last year, and I remembered vaguely going to a party with Noel that first week I moved here and she was there.
"YOU! Your boyfriend killed him!" she cried, pointing at me.
I was taken aback; had Cherry finally snapped? I mean, I wouldn't have been really surprised, considering Socs weren't always normal, but still… "Cherry…what are you talking about?" I asked her.
She shoved a newspaper in my face that she'd been crying over, I knew, because I could see the marks of dried tears. And I read an article:
The night of Saturday, October 18, a young man named Robert Sheldon was murdered at a local park. The suspect, Jonathan Cade, and his companion Ponyboy Curtis, according to witnesses, are reported to have stabbed him seemingly out of random. No one knows where Cade or Curtis are, as they went missing that night. There was a picture of a Soc. I hadn't been in on Soc who-dated-who things, so I had no idea if he was Cherry's boyfriend or not. But of course, if she was crying over him…
"No…Johnny can't have stabbed him, this can't be true…" I glanced at Cherry and she nodded. I ran out of the bathroom, out of the school, and down the street. I remembered Soda worked at the DX gas station…he would clear this up for me, I would know that Johnny didn't do it…There had to be some mistake!
But when I walked into the gas station, the person I saw wasn't the Sodapop Curtis I remembered. His appearance was almost the same, just minus the smile; a tired, sorrowful expression had taken over his handsome face as he aimlessly flipped through a magazine. One of those boring ones that talk about the war that adults read. I couldn't imagine why the Soda I always knew would be reading something like that, but he looked like he wasn't really concentrating on it. I went up to the counter, feeling suddenly awkward. What if it was true? That thought crept into my head, but I shook it off. Soda would tell me.
"Soda?" I uttered softly. He jumped, and looked around, seemingly disoriented, but then looked up at me, an expression of confusion settling on his face. I know my hair got longer, but he wouldn't forget about me, would he? I was over at his house a lot…I was his little brother's best friend's girl…Soda always seemed like a friend to me…right? I asked myself. "It's me, Carrie Anne West."
His eyes got wide. "Carrie Anne? When did you come back?" he asked me.
"Just yesterday. And…uh…" I looked around nervously. I saw the newspaper on the stands, and I saw that same article I'd seen before. He seemed to understand. Ponyboy told me once that Soda understands everything and everybody.
"Yeah, Carrie Anne. It's true."
I gasped, and my eyes filled with tears. How did this happen? Johnny could never kill somebody…that's insane! At least…he couldn't kill somebody and mean it…and what about Ponyboy? Where was he? Those Soc boys had to have been lying, Johnnycake couldn't hurt a fly…they had to have been lying, that's it…Thoughts were running through my head like a track meet, I couldn't think straight. Flashes of Ponyboy and Johnny went through my head, and memories…I didn't believe it.
"Oh, Soda…I'm so sorry…" I wanted to hug him so bad, he looked terrible. "Do you have any idea where they are?" I couldn't let Soda know I was so scared. He had enough going on.
"No," he answered softly his hand tightening into a fist. He was avoiding my gaze, but his eyes were glistening. He answered so softly that I could barely hear him. I couldn't imagine how hard this must be on Soda and Darry, having Ponyboy run off…and how hard it must be on the whole gang, because Johnny was gone too.
Then, Dallas Winston walked in. "Hey, Superman's at home, feels like crap…" he said casually, as if he was saying, "Hey, how's it goin'?" He then saw me, and a weird expression that was a mixture of recognition, annoyance, and anger took over his strangely elfish face that I normally would have laughed at. "What are you doing here, you little-"
"Dallas, shut up," Soda started.
"You left Johnny, do you know how he felt, do you know, broad-"
"Dal! It wasn't her fault!" Soda defended me, which I wasn't exactly expecting. I looked at Dallas strangely; Johnny…he was upset? Upset enough for Dallas to care about anything that had to do with me?
I remembered Johnny telling me a long time ago that all of the guys in the gang were like his brothers. Of course at least Dallas would be angry at me for just leaving him like that, only technically, it wasn't my fault. But I didn't blame them for being mad at me; I would be mad at me too.
Dallas still gave me a dirty look and he looked like he wanted to kill me. I automatically stepped back. "Uh…I better go." I went up to Soda. "Soda…I have a question for you. Was Johnny mad at me because I…er…"
He sighed. "I remember what happened. We didn't seem him all day. Later on, we found him in the lot, and he told us what happened. He's been sad, and a couple times you've been mentioned and he wouldn't say anything about it, but yeah. More sad than mad."
I paused before answering. "Do you think he would forgive me?"
He nodded. "Yeah, Carrie Anne. I think he would."
I smiled a little bit, reached over the counter, and hugged Soda, who seemed sort of surprised. "I'm praying for you, man." And I left.
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A few minutes after I walked out of the DX station, I recognized Dawn and her brother Jesse coming down the street toward the Curtis house. "Hey, Carrie Anne!" Dawn greeted. Jesse was holding a huge bowl of something, and I looked at it strangely. Dawn's face colored. "Oh, my mom wanted to make something for the boys. She feels so bad for them…and we have to drop it off. Wanna come?" She invited. I shrugged and fell into step with them.
"Alright. It's on my way, I live down here now."
Dawn paused, and then remembered. "Oh, wait…do you know about…? Carrie Anne-"
"I know already. Cherry Valance," I replied.
Dawn's brow furrowed, as Jesse was, for once, silent, just looking straight ahead and pretending he wasn't listening when he really was. "Cherry Valance…what about her?"
I explained my encounter with her in the bathroom to Dawn, and that was where Jesse finally acted like he was listening. "The Cade kid killed Cherry's boyfriend." He shook his head. "Man, don't know what she ever saw in him. All those guys…they get drunk every night, pass out in the streets. Cherry ain't a girl who'd like someone like that too much."
I stopped him right there. "One: Cherry was crying her eyes out over him, and I hate saying this, but he must have been decent SOMETIMES. And two: that Cade kid has a name. His name is Johnny and he was my boyfriend, okay?"
Jesse nodded slowly. "Oh…okay." We approached the Curtis house and were debating on whether to knock or not. We were all used to just walking in, but because of the times…finally, we just walked in. It didn't seem like that big of a deal after that.
"Darry?" Jesse called in. There was the sound of a door opening, and someone shuffling out. Just like there had been with Soda, there was something really different about Darry. He looked terrible. There were huge bags under his eyes that were red with crying, I concluded. He looked dead tired. His eyes flickered from Jesse to Dawn to me, and then back to Jesse, then almost immediately to me.
"Carrie Anne?" I can't say he said that, he sort of croaked it. I think he might have been coming down with something.
"I just moved back. I heard what happened." I couldn't help it, I had to hug him. He just looked so…helpless. I hadn't known Darry Curtis all that well, but I knew that he had a lot weighing him down. His parents dying, taking care of his two younger brothers, growing up too fast…and now his baby brother's best friend was wanted for murder, and both of them were missing. "I'm so sorry, Darry. I'm praying."
When I pulled away, Dawn stepped up, holding out the big bowl of soup. "From my mom. She said to tell you and Soda that she loves you and we're praying too." She gave him a tiny smile, and he nodded.
"Thank you." Was all he said. The tension and awkwardness was building up in the room, so Jesse, Dawn and I decided to head out. "Bye Darry," I called over my shoulder. He held up a hand in a wave to our retreating backs.
Once we were out of earshot and almost to my house, Dawn sighed. "It's terrible. They don't deserve it at all."
When we got to my door, Jesse finally spoke. "Keep praying, Carrie Anne. Johnny…he'll come back soon." He clapped me on the back, and I went inside.
"Hi, Carrie Anne, how was your first day back?" my mom asked as I stepped on something on my way in. The paper. Of course. I saw the article, and my eyes filled up with tears. My mom forgot the paper…she didn't know. I tried to stifle a sob. "Carrie Anne? What's wrong, honey?" I handed her the paper, and she scanned through it.
As if on cue, Char came bounding down the stairs. "What is it?" she asked, coming over to us. My mom finished the article and she hugged me.
"Oh, Carrie Anne…" my mom uttered. Char took the paper from her. She was in second grade, she could read well enough to understand…at least I hoped. If not then there were serious flaws in our educational system.
All she said was, "Johnny?" She joined in our hugging circle, as memories washed through my head like a wave. "Let's pray for them." And we did.
*Kind of a strange first chapter, really. I hope you liked it. I tried to make it as emotional as I could. And Cherry may have been a tad OOC, but…I had that idea from the start when I decided to do this around chapter ten of Rebel Yell. Please review, I need a few before I go on!*