Disclaimer: I do not own The Outsiders or the characters. I'm not making any profit with this, everything belongs to S.E Hinton. If you recognize something, it probably isn't mine.
I breathe out a deep sigh as I slump down in the uncomfortable chair at the drive in. There's a movie playing that I haven't seen before. I might as well have, though, because they always play the same kind of movies here: some dumb and giggly blonde goes to the beach and meets "the love of her life" and they fall in love in a matter of a day. I never really liked these types of movies for two reasons.
One reason is that you don't fall in love in the matter of a couple of days. You may meet someone who you like and go on a date in the matter of a couple of days, but you don't fall in love in that matter of time, not truly.
The other reason is that the girls always act so dumb and stuck up, they never use their head for anything but to fix their hair and put on 20 pounds of makeup, and I can't stand girls like that. The worse part is, everyone expects me to be like that. Honestly, I couldn't care less if my hair's a mess or if my face is broke out, I hate makeup and I'm not going to spend hours putting my hair into place so that not a single strand sticks out. The girls in these movies always act like that, and I can't stand that.
It doesn't matter much, anyway, because I never really come to the movies to watch the movie, if that makes sense. I usually come to get out of the house and do my favorite thing: people watch. For some reason, watching the behavior of the people around me has always interested me. I love to see how everyone puts up a mask when they are with someone, only to watch that mask slip away and morph into something else entirely when they think no is watching. You can always tell what kind of person someone is by watching them when they think no one is paying attention.
I'm a pretty good judge of character, and I love meeting new people, so if I watch someone and like what I see, I'll go strike up a conversation and try to make a new friend. Tonight though, my heart isn't really into it. My brother and I just had a major fight. Ugh! Just thinking about the whole situation makes a pit of anger boil deep in my stomach.
"Bye, Mom! I'll be back later!" I yell to my mom, who's cleaning up after dinner.
"Ok, honey, you know the curfew!" She calls back.
I pull on my jean jacket and converse and head out of the house. I start my slow walk to the drive in. It's a beautiful day, bright and quiet, and I couldn't be more excited to go to the movies tonight. As I pass an alleyway between two broken down brick houses, however, my excitement leaves me when I hear the telltale sound of fists hitting flesh and pained grunts. I start to just keep walking, but then I hear a small voice, one obviously belonging to a child, whimper and say, "Please! Stop! Pl-" and then the voice dissolves into sobs. I feel anger boil in my stomach, who would hurt such a small child?
I kneel down and dig into the side of my converse, finding my small pocket knife that I carry for defense. I flick it open and start a slow ascent between the houses. It's dark in the alley, shadowed from the sun by the two buildings, and I can barely see anything, so I'm more than startled when I hear a pained gasp not ten feet in front of me.
The sun happens to shift just a little, maybe coming out from behind a cloud, and a stream of light illuminates the alley. What I see angers me: there's a little boy, no older than 9, laying on the ground taking a beating and a half. There's one older kid standing over him throwing punches back and forth. The older kid turns slightly, and I gasp as I see my older brother: Kyle.
"Kyle! What the hell are you doing?" I yell.
He jumps, surprised that someone else is in the alley, but relaxes when he sees that it's me.
"Butt out Jayden! This is none of your business." Then he draws back his fist for another punch.
I rush forward and grab his arm before he can throw the punch. He turns around and shoves me to the ground, and I hit hard. I stand back up quickly and face him.
"If you hit him one more time I swear I'll call the cops!" I tell him.
"You wouldn't!" He exclaims back.
"Try me!" I tell him.
"Psssh! Whatever!" He says and starts to walk away.
"Why did you do it?" I yell to him.
"Cause he's a Greaser! It's what he deserves! It's what they all deserve!" He yells viciously.
I look down at the whimpering little boy, he's curled in on himself, sobbing his heart out, and mumbling "Please stop!" over and over again.
I kneel down next to him and out a hand on his shoulder.
"You're okay now. I'm not here to hurt you, I promise. Is there someone I can get or someone I can take you to?" I ask him kindly.
He sniffles and wipes a stray trail of blood from his nose. "My- my momma and poppa are a- at the movies, I was just walking to- to the gas station to get a soda and he p- pulled me into the alley. Who was he?" He asks me.
"That was my brother, sad as it is to say. But that's not important. Come on, I'll walk you to the gas station." I tell him.
He stumbled to his feet and I walked him to the gas station, but even throughout the walk there and even when his parents thanking me for helping him, the pit of anger in my stomach boiled continuously.
Now, here I am, and I still can't stop the anger towards my brother from ruining my night. Ugh! I hate him, he's a bully and abuser, and I can't stand being related to someone like that.
I'm broken from my train of thought as I hear a heartfelt laugh from a few rows down of the seats. I look down and see a boy who everyone around here knows: Dallas 'Dally' Winston. I've observed him many times, and he's a pretty alright dude. Everyone thinks that he is terrible person, but he just puts up a bad boy front, you know, the tough guy who spends time in jail, but underneath it all is a caring older brother type of guy, The way he takes care of some of the other younger Greasers is really heartfelt and touching.
Dally is the one laughing the loudest, but there is another, almost timid laughter beside him. I look beside him, expecting another regular of the movies, but then I see him.
He's short, but not too short, he has dark tanned skin, dark, almost black eyes, black hair, and a big grin on his face. The grin adds a beautiful sparkle to his eyes, and I just can't look away. The way he looked at Dally was the way most kids look at the superheroes in comic books: like there's no one else in the world who was better.
"I'm gonna go grab us some cokes alright? Sit tight, alright?" Dally said to him.
"Yeah of course!" The boy assured him.
When Dally left, the boy just sat there, looking at the movie. He didn't change the way he was acting around Dally, he was the same kind of person. Most people put up a mask around others, particularly with their friends, but this boy held the same personality, a personality that I liked for a reason I couldn't place. I have to talk to this boy, I have to. Just to get to know him.
With that thought in my head, I stand from my seat and walk over to him, almost turning around when he turns his head and makes eye contact with me. I freeze for a second, and then he smiles a kind and friendly smile at me, and it's like nothing else in the world matters.
With my confidence regained, I stride over to the boy, sit down in the seat next to him, hold out my hand, and say, "Hey, I'm Jade!"
The boy kind of looks at me for a minute grinning, then he places his hand in mine and says, "Hey, I'm Johnny, it's nice to meet you!"
And as I sit there, staring at this boy, Johnny, with a goofy grin on my face while he smiles kindly at me, I know that things are about to change, and there's no backing out now. For some reason I can't explain, though, that doesn't seem to bother me.