As my twin brother and I stepped out of the darkness of the movie house, two things were on our minds, Paul Newman and a way home. Ponyboy looked over at me and nodded meaning yes we were walking home. And so began our hike home, but let me take a minute and introduce myself.

My name is Adelina Nicole Curtis, but everyone calls me Addie or Adds. I'm fourteen years old and a freshman in high school. You're probably thinking how is she in high school, right? My brother and I ended up skipping a grade because we had such good grades. I have light brown hair that falls naturally down to my shoulders. I don't curl it or put tons of hair spray in it like other greaser girls. That's right I'm a greaser and proud of it.

I was snapped out of my thoughts as Ponyboy roughly grab my forearm.

"Pony what are you doing?" I asked pushing his hand off.

"Shhh, Addie look," he whispered pointing ahead. A car full of Socs sat at the corner goofing around.

"Oh, Ponyboy what are we going to do? I don't want to go near them."

"Come on we'll go down the ally, plus it's a short cut."

He grabbed my hand as we hurriedly ran to the ally without being seen. Well we are not too good at that because the next thing we know the Socs are after us. We started running as fast as we could. Pony was holding back, I mean come on the kid is a track star, but I knew he didn't want to leave me behind. The car pulled up in front of us and they started to get out. We turned to run the way we came but they grabbed us.

"Ponyboy!" I screamed as they pulled us apart. They started beating him up as one held me back to watch.

"Hey greaser time for a haircut," one of the Socs said.

"Leave him alone, he never did anything to you!" I shouted.

"Tony shut her up. Better yet put her in the car, we can have some fun with her," he laughed as he returned to Ponyboy. The one holding me started dragging me to the car.

"Darry! Soda! HELP! Somebody help, please!" I screamed.

"Shut up!" the one holding me yelled. Fed up with me, he threw me at the car. I hit with a bang and collapse to the ground. He threw the door opened and shoved me in, but not without punching me in the stomach and face to get me to stop screaming.

I heard distant yelling coming and then soon the other Socs were running into the car. I knew the gang had come and were scaring them off. I fought to get out of the front seat, but the Soc holding me had a good grip. They started to drive away and I started to panic.

"You better let me go right now," I demanded. They started laughing.

"Why is that sweetheart?" asked the driver.

"Because my boyfriend is Dallas Winston, that's why. He will tear you apart from the inside out if you ever lay a hand on me."

"You're Winston's broad?" a Soc in the back asked.
"Yes, now let me go."

"Man we can't be messing with Winston's girl, this is suicide."

"I know," said the driver, "push her out. We got to get out of here."

While the car was moving they threw opened the door and pushed me out. I screamed as I landed on my left arm. Pain exploded through my wrist as I laid on my side crying.

The sound of running footsteps met my ears. Strong, soft hands lightly touched me to turn me over.

"Oh Baby Girl, what did they do to you?" Darry asked. Recognizing his voice I sat up and attached myself to him with my good arm and cried into his shoulder. A hand landed lightly on my back.

"Oh Adds," Dally's voice echoed in my ear. The only times he uses that voice was with me.

"Dally," I cried as I threw myself into his arms. I wept silently in his arms. He truly was my rock and my strength when I'm down like this. I would have never made it through my parents' death and the court decisions without him.

"Its okay baby, they ain't going to get you. Don't worry, I've got cha." He rubbed my back as I broke down.

"Where's Ponyboy? Is he okay?" I asked.

"Yeah Soda and Darry have him."

"Is he okay?" I asked.

"Just a little shook up like you but he is fine."

"Okay," I said relieved.

"Come on, let's get you home and get you cleaned up." He helped me stand up and helped me walk home. I could already hear Darry yelling as we were coming up the street.

"Why were you two walking by yourselves in the first place? You're the oldest Pony, why don't you ever think? They could have done a lot more damage than what they did," he yelled.

"I was thinking!" Pony yelled back.

"No you weren't. If the gang wouldn't have shown up you would have been worse off then you are and Addie wouldn't even be here right now."

"Darry!" I yelled intervening. Soda and I were the peace keepers of the family. We were the ones who stopped all the between Darry and Ponyboy before anything got too out of hand.

"What!" he yelled turning around to see me.

"Leave him alone. It's not his fault. All we did was go see a movie. Those jerks were on our turf when we were walking home and decided to pick a fight with us."

I pushed past him and ran into the house, slamming the gate with my good hand. I ran into the bathroom and locked the door. I turned to the mirror to inspect the damages from the Socs. Tiny cuts covered my face and arms from falling out of the car. My arm was already turning black and blue which was not a good sign. I wet a towel and began to clean the cuts. Halfway through a knock came on the door.

"Come on babe let me in," Dally pleaded.

I unlocked the door and slowly pushed it opened. I walked over and sat on the toilet as he followed me in and shutting the door once again. He took a piece of my hair that fell and tucked it behind my ear to inspect my face.

"You don't look too bad in the face," he laughed.

"It's not funny Dal," I hit him lightly.

"Okay, sorry. Here let me see your arms."

I held up my right and let him inspect the cuts and clean the ones that I hadn't gotten to yet. When he got to my left hand his facial expression changed from worry to anger in seconds. I quickly pulled it away from him.

"Dal it's nothing," I resorted.

"Nothing. Addie your arm is black and blue and you call that nothing."

"Dal I told you I'm fine. Calm down please. I don't want my brothers to know okay. They worry enough as it is."

"Adds this could be seriously messed up."

"It's fine Dally."

"Okay then move your arm around."

"Fine!"

I lifted it up and bent it back and forth at the elbow.

"See."

"Now move your wrist," he instructed.

I smiled and brought my hand up and twist it just lightly. Pain shot through my arm and I quickly brought it up against my body.

"Okay that's it. I'm telling Darry." And he turned around and started to head out to the living room.

"Dally! Come back."

"Addie they need to know. You can hate me all you want but you need to get that checked out," he protested. "Darry!"

"Ughhh," I exhaled as I followed him.

"What's going on Dal?" he asked from sitting in Dad's old arm chair.

"We need to go get Addie's arm checked out."

"What's wrong with her arm?"

"Show him?" he ordered turning to me. I slowly lifted my arm up for him to see.

"Jesus Addie! How did this happen?" he yelled as he got up to look at it more closely.

"When the Socs pushed me out of their car I kinda landed wrong."

"Those bastards!" Two Bit cursed from the kitchen. The guys all started yelling other comments.

"Guys calm down I'm okay. We don't have to go, I'm fine."

"Adds we're going and that's final. Go get your coat," Darry ordered.

"I got it," Soda put in as he rushed off to my room to get it.

"Pony come on, help me out here," I asked turning to him.

"Sorry Adds I'm not getting into this one."

"You're suppose to be my twin. What good are you?"

"Yeah, yeah," he waved me off and returned to the book he was reading. Reading is pretty much all Pony ever does. That and running. Sure he hangs out with the gang a lot, but when he is by himself, that's all he does.

"Come on Addie," Darry called walking out the door. I followed obediently. We got in his truck and he started to drive toward the hospital.

Here's the reason why I'm freaking out so much. I hate, let me rephrase that, I'm terrified of hospitals. I haven't mentioned this yet but I was actually in the car when my parents died. We were in the country and we were crossing a railroad track and a train came out of nowhere and hit our car. Mom and Dad were killed instantly and I somehow miraculously survived. I was in the hospital for two months and those whole two months Dally sat by my side. I've never stepped into a hospital since.