PROLOGUE
The first time I saw Johnny Cade come and knock on my door, in the middle of the night, with a black eye and a bloody lip, I had just turned ten years old.
It was a few weeks before Christmas in 1961, freezing cold but no snow on the ground yet. Because it was Friday, I was up late, sitting cross legged on the living room floor and watching reruns of I Love Lucy on our old TV. The volume was turned down real low so that I wouldn't disturb my drunken big brother. Despite the quiet, I still just barely heard the feeble rap at the front door.
In a flash, I leaned forward and hit the power button on the TV set. It was silent now, but I was sure that I'd heard something. I got up and walked on my tiptoes to look out the window. Sure enough, standing on the front step looking like a lost little kid was Johnny Cade.
Two-Bit didn't like me hanging out with his buddies back then. He said he didn't want any kind of bad influence on me. (Which was ridiculous, because I was a greaser too. You really didn't had much of a choice in our neighborhood.) Still, I knew my brother's gang by name and face. Me and my own friends watched them at school, or through my bedroom window, which faced the vacant lot that they hung around in. While Beth just fawned over Sodapop Curtis, and Jennifer liked Dallas Winston's bad boy attitude, I had always had eyes for Johnny.
He was good looking, with his dark hair and black eyes, but that wasn't why I was so sweet on him. It wasn't uncommon to hear Johnny's mama yelling at him, or spot bruises on his face. It made me ache. Before my own daddy left, he liked to get drunk and smack all of us around too. I knew what it was like to try to put yourself back together without ever admitting that you were falling apart in the first place. I guess that's why the sight of him on my front step was almost more than my little heart could bear.
"Johnny? Are you okay?" I asked him quietly once I had swung the door open.
He was clearly surprised to see me. Even though one eye was swelling, the boy still widened them. "Rosalie? Uh... is Two-Bit here?"
"He came home from Tim Shepard's party and passed out. I think he got a little too drunk," I told him, very matter of factly. My brother was a big fan of alcohol too, but he was usually nicer when he drank, unlike our father. Or Johnny's dad. "You can still come in if you need a place to sleep though."
The dark haired boy hung his head. "It's alright, I don't wanna bother you..."
"It's no bother. Come on in."
I didn't want to tell him that Mama absolutely fretted over Johnny, telling Two-Bit and I both that we were to let him stay any time he wanted. She had bought a pillow and blanket just for him. I didn't want Johnny to think we felt sorry for him though, no matter how much we did. So I kept my mouth shut. I regret that now.
Johnny sat on the edge of the couch. His black eyes darted all around the room. I turned the TV set back on, mostly to fill the silence, before asking him, "Do you want any aspirin or ice? That looks like it hurts."
The boy flushed. "That'd be nice. Thank you, Rosalie."
I hurried into the kitchen before I said something foolish. Gosh, but I wished I wasn't wearing an old shirt of Two-Bit's that went past my knees. I had just turned ten a couple weeks ago, but I was still skinny and small. My friend Jennifer Price already had a boy ask her to go steady. They held hands on the playground. No boy had ever asked me though, probably because I still looked like a little kid. I'd never even been alone with a boy - until then.
Johnny was leaned back against the couch with his eyes closed when I returned a few moments later, a glass of water, four aspirin, and a bag of frozen peas in tow. Even all bloodied up, he was still awfully handsome. I couldn't tell if he was really asleep or just pretending, but either way, I understood. I set everything down on the coffee table where he could see it, then got his blanket out of the closet, tossing it gently across him. He was still wearing his denim jacket.
I crept down the hallway, past Two-Bit's snores, into my own bedroom. After locking the door behind me, I opened my bedroom window, the one that faced the lot. Under the bed was a rainbow pencil case containing about five cigarettes and a pack of matches. I didn't smoke regularly then, but it was still fun to swipe a smoke or two from my mama or Two-Bit. Seeing Johnny Cade's injuries up close made my fingers itch for one in a way I had never experienced before.
A few years previously, I had positioned a little wooden stool by the window so I could sit and watch the boys. It was here that I sat to smoke.
I had lived on the corner of Chickasaw Street my entire life. When my mama found out she was pregnant with my big brother, my dad married her even though she was only seventeen and he was twenty-three. He managed to talk the bank into giving him a mortgage on one, little run down house - the one I grew up in.
Mama was the one paying on that mortgage now. Daddy ran off when I was seven and Two-Bit was twelve. According to Mama, he had never really wanted a family. We were lucky to have him for the years we did. Daddy was a drunk, for certain, and a mean one, but he had good moments too. Even I remembered his booming laugh, the way he teased us all and made us smile. I guess that's why it messed all three of us up so bad when he left.
Two-Bit followed in Daddy's footsteps and started drinking. Dallas Winston had just moved to town, and the two of them began to raise hell together. My brother was already thieving, so they went around town and stole cigarettes and conned guys into buying them booze. By the time he turned fourteen, he was rarely home, and if he was, he was usually crocked. It made me angry, to tell you the truth. Mama and I both loved Two-Bit to death; he had no reason to do all that running around. Maybe Dally, with his wild reputation, but not my big brother.
Me, I began fighting. I was an absolute demon to the other kids at school, let me tell you. I'd been watching Two-Bit and his buddies wrestle my entire life, so I knew how to throw a punch, and how to dodge one. I liked throwing them better though. Because of this, I got suspended pretty often in elementary school. I made really good grades, so the principal didn't want to kick me out or anything, but he had to punish me somehow. I kind of liked being sent home for a week anyway. And I really liked clobbering the hell out of any girl or boy who looked at me wrong.
As for Mama, she began work at the very same bar her husband once wasted his life away at. Monday through Saturday, she was there from three or four in the afternoon till six in the morning. Even then, we still just barely made enough money to get by. Two-Bit learned to hustle, but I was still a little bit too young for that at the time. I'd just learned how to get by without, how to do without asking. That was just part of growing up in our neighborhood.
I liked living here though, despite all of that. My best friend Carla lived three houses down, with the Curtises' just past her and across the street. Johnny was only two doors away. I knew everybody in this neighborhood. Even if we were all poor, we were all real nice to each other, and took care of each other when we could. I liked that a lot.
When my cigarette had burnt out and my eyes hurt from staring at the street lamp, I threw the butt out of the window before closing it back up, drawing the curtains. Once I had crawled into bed, I dreamed of black eyes and timid smiles for the first time - but not the last.
It was silly, but after that one night, I worshipped Johnny Cade. I doodled his name in the margin of all my notebooks, and dreamed about the day that I was old enough for him to love me back. It didn't matter that we'd exchanged maybe three sentences that night, or that he was gone by the time I woke up. I truly thought that I was in love with him.
For the first few years, Johnny didn't come to my house as much. The Curtises usually let him sleep over there. But then in the beginning of 1965, Mr. and Mrs. Curtis died in a car accident.
God, it was absolutely horrendous. Mama had forced Two-Bit and I go to the funeral, despite both of our protests. I sure wish I hadn't. I'll never forget the look on each Curtis boy's face; Darry, his tall frame shrunken somehow, looking so lost and so afraid; gorgeous Sodapop bawling like a broken child; and Ponyboy, with his sweet face, trying so hard to be strong and still sobbing. I wept at the sight of them more than anything else. I still think about that funeral.
After their parents died, Johnny stopped going to the Curtises as much. Which was great for me, because my house was really the only other option. Two-Bit was boozing more than ever, and Mama worked every night, so that usually left me as the one to clean Johnny up.
There was a brief, beautiful few months there when I could talk to the boy, and make him smile. He didn't really say much back, but he laughed at all my jokes, usually about the people on TV or kids we knew. I was thirteen, and all I wanted in this world was to make Johnny Cade happy. It seemed like I could do it too, for a little while.
And then Johnny got jumped.
It was May. I was supposed to go to Carla's after school, but she was sick, so I stayed home instead. I had just pulled out some homework in my bedroom when I saw Johnny kicking around the football in the empty lot. I couldn't take my eyes off of him. What would happen if I went out there and talked to him? We'd never really spoken outside of my house, let alone in the light of day. Would he finally talk to me? Could I at least get a smile?
Just as I was about to abandon my text books, a blue Cadillac slowly cruised down the street. It idled to a stop at the lot. I held my breath as four Socs filed out of it, smiling coldly.
I knew what they were gonna do. Socs liked to drive around this side of town and look for trouble; this wasn't the first time they had cornered somebody like this. But I didn't move from my spot at the window.
From the look on his face, Johnny knew what was going to happen too. He kept cool though. When they started hitting him, he hit back. For a while.
It was my deepest secret, my biggest shame. I watched those boys jump Johnny Cade, and I couldn't move. I didn't know why. My window was closed, but their voices were still loud and clear as they threatened and swore at him. They took turns beating him, blacking his eyes and cutting up his face. And I just watched, sick and paralyzed with terror. The girl who had won more fights than anybody else my age, the one who broke Angela Shepard's nose in seventh grade. I didn't understand it. I still don't.
Eventually, Johnny stopped getting back up. The Socs, their nice sweaters not even mussed, got into their car just as stoically as they'd gotten out of it. They drove oaway like nothing had even happened.
Time felt funny after that. It took me a minute or two to process that it was over, but once I did, my body felt the horror before my brain. I tore straight for the bathroom, dropping to my knees and very nearly not making it in time. Sick for several minutes, I clutched the toilet with white, shaking hands. I couldn't stop heaving, even when there was nothing left.
When I could finally stand up, I brushed my teeth and tried not to look in the mirror. I was crying, and my makeup was smeared everywhere, but I knew I looked like picturesque compared to Johnny right now.
I grabbed the first aid kit from underneath the sink. On my way out of the door, though, I saw through the living room window that the gang had already beat me to it.
Steve Randle was clutching Johnny's denim jacket, stained with blood. Two-Bit had hopped out of his car with it still running. It was one of the only times I thought we looked alike; my brother and I wore blind shock the same way. Dallas Winston was swearing, I knew, without even hearing it. Darry Curtis looked grim and tight lipped. Soda held Johnny while Ponyboy just stood there, watching. He had that same look on his face from the funeral.
I knew I couldn't tell the gang, who would kill and die for each other, what I had seen. They couldn't understand that there were things worse than being beaten. Hell, I could barely understand why I didn't help. If I came out of the house, at least Two-Bit would know. And they would never forgive me for not helping Johnny. I never really forgave myself.
So, feeling lower than the dirt beneath their shoes, I shakily went back to my room. I had my own pack of Kools now, because I could steal them from drugstores when my friends and I went out on the weekends. It took a minute to light one up though because my hands were trembling. I was still crying too. From my spot in the window, I watched the boys load Johnny up into Two-Bit's car. For a split second, Ponyboy looked up at me, making eye contact through the glass. He looked away quickly though. I wondered if he knew, somehow.
After that, I swore that I'd be better to Johnny. He started coming to spend the night a lot more often, even though he had always slept in the lot during the summer. He was different, though. He almost never spoke, or laughed. Most of the time, he just went right to sleep, or acted like he was.
This gave me months to agonize over a way to tell him how I felt. I thought surely, if he knew how I loved him, it would at least make him feel a little better. And maybe then he'd finally notice me too.
Johnny died before I could tell him, though. And that fucked me up worse than anything.
A/N: Hello everyone! I really hope you enjoyed this prologue and getting to know Rosalie. :) I haven't written in years, but I found my old account on here (popping-champagne) and was really inspired by a one shot I did based off Ponyboy and Two-Bit's kid sister called Irresponsibly. It's still up if you want to read it, but I have no access to that account anymore, and that story is in no way connected to this one. Anyway, now I'm nearly ten chapters into writing this and enjoying so much that I decided to post. I'm trying to keep things as canon as possible, and it ties in with TWTTIN in places. Please please let me know what you think! Concrit is welcome, I know I'm a little rusty. (And sorry for the paragraph of an author's note.)