Title: Trying to Stay Golden
Words: 150
Summary: Ryan's musings about life in Newport Beach.
Spoilers: Up to 1.16 - The Links
Disclaimer: I do not own either the O.C. or Ponyboy (S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders).
"Things are rough all over." – Ponyboy Curtis
He wants to hate them. The Newport crowd – the spoiled rich kids – for having everything while he grew up with nothing in little more than a shack, listening for the inevitable sounds of flesh upon flesh.
But he can't.
Their lives are nothing more than fortunate circumstances, the luck of the draw, and he can't begrudge them that. After all, he could just as easily have wound up one of them. (In a way, he is now.)
Then he sees Marissa's bloodshot eyes, glistening with unshed tears as she hides her pain behind a bottle (not at all unlike his own mother), Luke's violent outbursts after discovering the truth about his father.
Everyone's got a secret, a skeleton in their closet they don't want anybody else to see. It's all the same; things aren't much better on this side of the tracks either.
