Disclaimer: After all these years, everything still belongs to S. E. Hinton, with the exception of any OCs, which belong to their respective owners.

Author's Note: I'm getting too old for this shit.

Prologue
1968

"I feel like I'm going to puke if I don't fucking sleep," Curly said, slumping against the kitchen counter.

I laughed; he could be so fucking stupid at times. Tim would've thrown a big ol' connipshit if he'd had any idea what Curly was doing last night.

"Have a coffee," I said.

He shook his head. "I've had enough coffee to last me the rest of my life," he said, and he hiccupped. "I've had so much goddamned coffee, Ange."

Oh well. I lit myself a cigarette and yawned. The house felt like some giant goddamned soul-suck since Ma had died. I couldn't shake the dampness. She was hardly cold and everything was going to hell in a tightly wrapped hand basket. Tim had cried, had cussed, had punched a hole in the wall, but it was Curly who was completely coming undone. He wasn't living, running around with his rat-faced friend Dennis Miller and that slime-ball Lane Cooper, and I hated them both. Curly was turning into something I could hardly recognize anymore, like there was always less and less of him and more of those two goofs. But I was just his grease-hag sister, so what the hell did I really know?

He filled a glass with grungy-looking tap water and guzzled it as if he'd never seen water before in his life. And he wiped that big ol' mouth of his and tried to smile. He could make me feel so sick sometimes.

"I know what you're thinking," he said. "Why don't I just stop? Why don't I just say 'no'?" He paused, snarled to himself. "I can't, Angie, babe. If I stop, I'll slow down, and who the fuck knows what'll happen then."

He wasn't right but he wasn't wrong.

"You're gonna miss so much of your life," I told him, and I was watching my cigarette burn away. "I don't wanna have to bury you next."

He grinned, and he looked all grey-tinged.

"When your number's up, you gotta go."

He was going and I was right behind him.

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