So he tries to pacify her

Because what's inside her, it never dies

— He Can Only Hold Her, Amy Winehouse


Dallas nudges him hard with the toe of his boot to his calf; Soda knows it probably left a stain of mud and horseshit on the leg of his good jeans, but you don't mention Dallas's general lack of consideration unless you're itching for a fight. "Look at that piece of ass."

Soda scans the sea of cars at the Dingo with one hand over his eyes, shielding them from the neon lights, and lets out a low whistle once he finds his target. Ain't nobody really here to watch some movie. "That piece of ass is Tim's ex, you're outta your damn mind."

Yeah, he can't deny that Bonnie Jacob is fine, prettier than most of the girls who flirt with him at the DX counter or sidled up to him in the halls at school— she's got dark eyes and hair like Audrey Hepburn, but the rest of her, it's all Marilyn. But rumor has it she messed around on Tim when he was in the pen and he doesn't need that kind of trouble, he's heard enough about it from Dallas to live vicariously through him.

Dallas gives him a liquid shrug, like Tim's wrath is something he's never feared, and it probably isn't. "He ain't exactly fixin' to fight for her honor, man, they been done for months. 'Sides—" this time it's an elbow to the ribs— "wouldn't be me gettin' decked."

"Hell nah, not my type, sounds more like yours." The tough, loud kind of girls, spilling drunk out of car doors like their bones are made of water, eyeliner smeared down their faces— Dallas prefers female versions of himself, is too damn narcissistic to want anything else.

"Only type you got lately is your right hand," Dallas says with his usual tact, but there's some genuine concern there and Soda hates hearing it. He wants to start acting like his old self again, shed the sadness and insecurity like snakeskin; summer stretches out long and endless in front of him, sharp grief faded into a horrible, numb monotony, and the thrill of chasing broads on a Friday night isn't doing much to help. He should've gone out with Steve instead, doesn't take a lot of emotional energy to play a hand of poker or nick a couple hubcaps. "Think about it this way, you can finally get back at Tim for stealin' Mom's watch."

He already broke Tim's nose and stole it back, but he flips Dallas the bird and walks over to her anyway. Bonnie's standing around a '62 Mustang with a few of her girls, none of them distinct enough for him to differentiate between them, no man in sight; there's a faded blue star painted on her left cheek, glittering every time she laughs with her mouth wide open. What the hell. Why the hell not. He's not out here looking for love tonight, and neither is she.

"Hey, baby." He leans over, taps her on the shoulder, grins like grease spreading across a skillet when she turns around to face him. "How'd you like to wrap them pretty pink lips around my—"

She punches him in the arm with more force than he thought a 5'2 broad was capable of; he actually takes half a step back, rubs the spot where her fist connected a little. He supposes he should count himself lucky it wasn't the solar plexus, or worse, the 'nads. "Hey, hotshot, what would you do if some guy talked to your sister like that?"

His response is instantaneous. "I'd knock his teeth out."

She smiles the tiniest bit and leans close to his ear, close enough that he can smell the rum and coke she's been downing from the flask in her hand. "So you better hope I don't tell my brother and get him to knock out yours, pretty boy."

He could go for the jugular and mention Tim, that she doesn't have much of a right to demand she be treated like a lady, but the whiskey he swigged on the drive and the blunt he and Dallas shared has made him too lazy and he likes Wayne too much to keep pushing the issue. "You got any single friends?

"None I'm willin' to throw out to you and your crew, y'all are like dogs on raw meat, 'specially Dally Winston." She tosses her hair over one shoulder, puts a hand on her hip, for the benefit of her girls. "Get lost, hood, we're busy."

He laughs a little behind his teeth and considers stumbling back towards Dallas in defeat, considers getting back in the truck entirely and driving home before Darry notices he split; he sounds like a caricature of himself, one of the dumbest Brumly boys trying to get his dick wet for the first time. Getting turned down by a complete slut like her, shit, he never thought he'd see the day.

"Hi."

She's pretty like one of the china dolls Jasmine used to play with as a kid— soft blonde curls he can clock as natural, cheeks rosy without blush— but her poodle skirt brushes the tops of her knees while all the other girls are wearing tube tops and shorts in the sticky Oklahoma summer, and he wonders if she's religious or something, real Baptist. God knows he doesn't need that kind of trouble, either from a broad who won't put out before the altar or her shotgun-toting daddy.

"Hi," he says back, intrigued enough to keep this going for a little bit, but lights up the rare smoke so he doesn't look too intrigued. "Ain't seen you 'round here before, baby, where'd you spring from?"

"I'm Sandra, Sandra Thomas," she says like she's introducing herself at the front of the class, all it's missing is her sticking her hand out for him to shake. "We're the same grade at school... I just don't come to drive-ins much."

"Probl'y not 'cause you don't get invited."

He smirks at her, maybe the first genuine one since his parents died; she gives him a shy smile back, like a flower unfurling in the early morning sun, and ducks her head. "My stepdaddy, he's real strict, he don't want me out at night." The smile morphs into something entirely different, fanged. "Well, fuck him."

"Them's dirty words outta such a nice mouth," he says, his throat rough and dry from the nicotine, and struggles against the urge to cough. He barely ever smokes, he doesn't like how much it reminds him of his mother. "Best part of bein' an orphan: ain't no one tryna get me home before curfew."

He didn't want to wait for her to bring it up, like a sword hovering above his head in every conversation with everyone who wasn't there the night of the accident, so he cuts the tension himself. She puts a hand on his forearm, genuinely more comforting than flirtatious. "I'm real sorry."

"You don't wanna talk about my parents, do you, doll?" He tries to make it sound teasing and instead it comes out like a warning shot. "Shit, we don't have to talk at all."

(Darry, back when things had just fallen apart with Judy and he was out playing the field again, was the patient type; he never would've been so direct with a girl whose panties weren't already halfway down her legs, much less one who approached him all of five minutes ago, it's the chase that thrills him and not the capture. Soda got all of his daddy's patience, which is to say: none.)

She steps closer to him; that's all the motivation he needs to press her up against the car, cup her hip with one hand to see how she reacts to it, and for the first time in four months he isn't thinking about anything except the warm slide of her mouth and the tacky sweetness of her cherry lipgloss. When she pulls back to undo a button on her blouse, he knows he clocked her right: no matter how her stepdaddy tries to dress her up, this broad is as easy as it gets.

After a couple minutes of clumsy kissing, thumbing her nipple through the skimpy lace of her brassiere, he slides a hand up her skirt (not easy, he has to fumble around a little). Her panties are damp, and he can guess it's probably not just with sweat; Dad's been telling him since he was thirteen to always keep a rubber in the console, so he's all set in that department. "You wanna get out of here?" he whispers into the shell of her ear. "Take this up a notch?"

She doesn't even bother to tell Bonnie where she's going before she gets into his passenger seat. Doesn't take any convincing to get her into the backseat, either, once he's driven them up towards Lover's Lane.

"You gonna brag to all your friends 'bout this?" she asks once they're done, settling her skirt back over her thighs; shit, she's even got a cross around her neck, he hadn't noticed until now. The intensity of her stare startles him, like a look you'd get from a feral wolf before it tore your throat out, but it vanishes so quickly he wonders if he didn't imagine the whole thing.

"Nah, I don't kiss and tell." Actually, he's downright renowned for just that in bull sessions— he's even fucked some of the girls he's claimed to— but all of a sudden, it seems like the more mature thing to say, like he's alchemized from a boy into a man in the span of a few seconds. "Don't worry 'bout it none... I'll drive you home."

"I've never done that before." He pulls a lukewarm beer out of the console and she takes a swig once he pops the tab, sloshes it around her mouth like disinfectant; the familiar numbness is creeping over him again, something right on the border of embarrassment. "Bonnie, she told me to just get it over with, quit waitin' for Mr. Right, y'know? But I don't feel any different."

"The earth didn't move for you, huh?" He's surprised to hear it, that some neighbor boy or kid at camp hadn't had his way with her by now, a pretty girl like that; she must be at least sixteen, if she's in his grade. "Well, guess I'll tell you somethin' too— I ain't never had a steady."

"Trust me, I heard." The corner of her mouth twitches up. "You're real popular... half the girls at school wish you'd give them your class ring, 'specially now that you've dropped out."

"You want it?"

He's lonely and impulsive and more than a little drunk. It's a lethal combination.

She sputters a laugh, drinks some more of the beer; he wishes he'd picked up better than Pabst Blue Ribbon, worn a T-shirt that didn't have sweat stains at the pits tonight. "You don't know the first thing about me, I can't have been that good."

"Been feelin' strange since my mama and daddy died," he admits, glad the light in the car is too dim for her to get a clear look at his face. "Sick of sleepin' around with all them girls... they're just more people who end up walkin' out of my life."

He couldn't tell that to anyone else, not even to Ponyboy when they're sprawled on their mattress at night and get more honest in the dark— he can't really tell anyone much. But she doesn't judge him, doesn't call him a pussy or nothing, and then he wonders if maybe, he could tell her worse, thoughts that both disgust and entice him in turn. About how much he likes being able to stay out as late as he pleases every night, come home in whatever state he comes home in, without any real fear of consequences. About how he's pretty sure that the guy in the eighteen-wheeler wasn't the only drunk one driving that night, or else Darry would've let him see the autopsy report.

About how sometimes, when he wakes up at six A.M. in a cold sweat and then remembers he never has to go to school again, he feels a sagging, terrible relief that his mama is dead.

"Okay." She takes a deep breath and agrees, just like that; he hadn't really expected her to, and the new development is as shocking as it is welcome. "Okay, why not."

"Hold up." He sweeps a lock of hair behind her ear, out of her perfectly heart-shaped face; she shivers like she had an electric current go through her. "Sandra's awful stiff, ain't it? You look more like a Sandy to me."

Her eyes are real, real blue. Deep enough to drown in.


This is going to be a two-shot, I think?