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Chapter 3
Their ride was quiet as Dally closed his eyes trying to ignore how awful he felt. When Darry's truck bumped the curb in front of the house, Dally couldn't help himself ... he let out a small groan and hissed in pain. Darry shot him a worried look, but the moment was quickly brushed aside as they got out of the truck and started walking toward the front porch.
"Man, I wonder if it's ever gonna get easier?" Dally thought to himself as he glanced up at the house.
Today he was sick as a dog and his stomach was killing him, but that had nothing to do with the uneasy feeling he had welling up inside him. It wasn't just today. It happened everytime he arrived at the Curtis house and the gang had no idea. It would pass when he got inside ... it always passed after awhile.
At first he thought he'd just stay away, steer clear of the place as much as possible so he wouldn't have to deal with it, but that was an unrealistic notion from the very beginning and Dally knew it. So here he was again trying to drum up the courage to go inside and face how empty it felt without her. Without Mrs. Curtis.
What Darry had said to him earlier about how Dally was special to his mom ... that was true. But what most people didn't know was how special Mrs. Curtis was to Dally. Not in some weird, romantic kind of way, but in a 'mom he never had' kind of way. He hadn't intended to, but Dally loved her. He respected her. And his heart broke the day she died. Dally wasn't about to share that with the world. No one would understand what she'd meant to him. A cold, heartless hood doesn't become attached to anyone let alone somebody else's nice, stay-at-home mom. But he had ... and it was her fault.
He'd met her a couple of weeks after moving to Tulsa. His drunk, asshole dad had kicked him out of the house and he'd had a run in with some socs. He was walking around downtown with no where to go, sporting a swollen, split lip and a black eye. Mrs. C had spotted him in front of the grocery store and she'd read him perfectly - even right from the beginning. Instead of insulting him by asking if he was ok, she asked him for his help. She told him her grocery bag was too heavy for her and she was nervous walking in the neighborhood by herself so would he please walk her home. She knew a proud boy when she saw one, and she had played this one just right. An hour later Dallas was sitting at her kitchen table.
As Darry opened the front door for them now, the memory of Mrs. Curtis putting an ice pack on his eye and her smile as she set a warm plate of food down in front of him washed over Dally. No one before had ever taken care of him that way ... he had no reason to believe anyone ever would again.
It would pass when he got inside ... it always passed after awhile.