Author's Note: Sorry again for the delay in updating! I was so happy with this chapter, but then I wrote the next one and I can't wait to post that one now, haha!
Please be aware that all familiar characters and locations belong to S.E. Hinton and her book, The Outsiders. The chapter title and lyrics throughout are from Rachel Platten's song, Begin Again. And the title of this fic comes from the song of the same name by The Beatles.
Monday, 23 December 1968
I need a wrecking ball
I want the sky to fall
God, I feel so small tonight
It was a well known superstitious theory that bad things often happened in threes. The trouble was, though, that there was never any way of knowing when something bad happened if two other terrible events were to follow or if the one was just a fluke. Yet when Dale delivered the story on Tim and Curly's doorstep of his younger brother stumbling through their front door all beaten and bloody, Curly knew that it could only be a sign of bad things to come.
Dale's brother, Tommy, and a friend of his from school had been walking the few blocks home from the Ribbon the night before. Tommy had waved his friend off at his gate and continued on alone, not thinking at all that he might be in danger walking one more street over in his own neighborhood, not until a car pulled up behind him to let out three boys who had no business being on Shepard turf.
"He's not even a member, man," Dale told Tim heatedly, pacing back and forth on the Shepards' front yard, "he's a fuckin' kid."
Curly had to bite back a snort of derision. Tommy was no more a kid than Curly had been at the age of fourteen, and six months later he had wound up in the reformatory for stupid behaviour similar to what was always getting Tommy stuck in detention. His age might have suggested he was just a kid, but he was alot more grown up for his age, as most of the kids on their side of Tulsa were.
"I know, I know," Tim growled, lighting up a cigarette and shaking his head. "You think they were gunnin' for him?"
"To send a message," Dale stopped pacing and looked Tim square in the eyes. "Yeah, I really fuckin' do."
Silence fell between the two while Tim took a few more puffs of his cigarette. "Round up the boys and tell 'em to meet at Pete's tonight at six," he said finally, looking from Curly to Dale and then digging his keys out of his jeans pocket as he walked toward his car parked in the driveway. "I'll see ya tonight."
"He better have a plan," Dale said, turning on Curly as Tim pulled out onto the street, "'cause I ain't doin' this layin' low shit anymore."
"I think he got the picture when you started that brawl on Friday night," Curly smirked.
"I didn't start shit," Dale spat and Curly held his hands up in surrender as Angela came walking up the sidewalk.
"What's goin' on?" Angela asked once she was close enough to be heard.
"Dale's brother got jumped by a bunch of guys from Brumly on his way home last night," Curly explained, glad to have someone else to talk to while Dale simmered where he stood. "You probably shouldn't be walkin' round on your own, either. Where've you been?"
"Don't go worrying about my safety, brother," she told Curly sarcastically, "I got dropped off down the road. And where I've been ain't your business."
He noted her ratty hair and smudged eye make-up as she continued past him and into the house, slamming the front door shut behind her. Curly shook his head, wondering how on earth his sister could still be getting around in just a skirt when it was snowing on and off more days than not lately. He looked back to Dale, who was pulling a cigarette out of the packet he had just dug out of his jacket pocket.
"C'mon," Dale grunted once his cigarette was lit. "We'd better go find the guys."
Curly stood up from where he had been sitting in an old, wooden chair by the front door and followed Dale to his car parked out on the street.
"How bad off is Tommy, anyway?" Curly asked as Dale pulled the car away from the curb and started off down the road.
"Can't open his left eye, broken nose, few cracked ribs," Dale listed. "The whole deal."
"Shit," Curly muttered and Dale nodded.
"The guys are gonna be just as mad, too." Dale took a puff of his cigarette and exhaled the smoke. "Whether your brother wants one or not, we're at war already."
They found the rest of the guys fairly easily. A few were at work, but most of the others were at home since it was still only morning. The two they hadn't managed to find at home or at Bucks, and that they knew didn't have proper jobs, were quickly spotted when Curly, Dale and Glenn, who they had picked up in their travels, walked into Jay's that afternoon.
They sat around and drank their Cokes while they waited for their burgers to come out, and once their food had been devoured in a matter of minutes the boys retreated back out into the frosty afternoon air to have a smoke. As they lit up, Curly noticed Craig and a couple of Tigers crossing the parking lot. Craig caught sight of him at the same time and flicked him a nod, which Curly returned.
"Sad day, boys," Craig said as he came closer to the group of Shepard boys standing nearby the front doors of Jay's. "Did ya hear about The Dingo?"
Curly glanced around him and saw blank faces reflecting his own.
"What happened?" Glenn asked, pushing himself off the wall he had been leaning against and straightening up.
"You don't know?" Craig scoffed. "Oh man, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but..." he trailed off, rubbing his hands together for heat and grinning around at a couple of his buddies.
"Just spit it out, Chambers," Dale ordered, not yet fully recovered from the mood he had been in that morning.
"The Dingo got bombed," Craig told them, "went up in flames late last night."
Curly remembered Craig wondering aloud just a week or two ago how long it would take for The Ding to go out of business.
"You do it?" Curly asked.
"Nah," Craig answered, "I reckon it was probably a dodgy insurance thing. There was no way they weren't gonna go under after the shooting anyway. It's a shame, though; I got into my first fight there," he grinned widely.
Glenn grinned fondly, "Yeah, with me when we were ten."
Laughter rang out around Curly and he joined in. The Dingo had been around a long time and so it had a lot of history, plenty of afternoons spent skiving off class there, chatting to girls and getting into fights. All that and more was discussed and reminisced on for the next hour or so until it was time for Curly and the guys to say goodbye to the Tigers and head off to Pete's for the meeting Tim had called.
When the whole gang was finally gathered around together in Pete's living room, Tim gave the gang the go ahead to stop holding back, just as Curly had suspected he would. Like Dale had said, whether Tim wanted one or not, they had been forced into war and their options were to either let beatings like Tommy's happen and hope they would eventually blow over, which was unlikely, or to start fighting back.
"They're comin' onto our turf now," Tim explained, "and not just to sell their shit once in a blue moon. They're coming into our territory and seekin' out us and our own, and we ain't gonna stand for that." Tim paused and looked around at his gang. "One step over the boundary and you jump on them. One word out of line and you kick 'em back into place, you hear? But watch your backs 'cause they're obviously gunnin' for us and they're gonna be even more so soon enough."
All around Curly, the guys in the gang were nodding their heads along with Tim's instructions, except for Dale, who just sat a few boys over from Curly, his lips pulled thin and his eyes set hard. Curly shared an anticipatory look with Glenn beside him. The pit of his stomach felt heavy with something he didn't think he recognised, but he sure as hell didn't like.
I need a tidal wave
Come and wash away
All the mess I made
To make it right
Christmas came and went without much excitement as it did most years on the east side of the city. The snow fell the heaviest the day after Christmas and then stopped altogether the day after that. Rain drizzled lightly all day just a couple of days later on Saturday, forcing everybody indoors until it finally slowed to a stop as the afternoon turned to dusk. Tim and Curly, who had spent most of the afternoon at home playing cards and drinking beer with Pete, were well and truly bored, a little bit soused, and ready for some action when the telephone started to ring.
Curly answered the phone to hear Dale on the other end. He was calling from a public phone not far from the pool hall to tell Tim about the two Brumly boys he had seen hanging around out the front of the pool hall on his way back from Jay's. The pool hall was only a couple of blocks away from the Ribbon and close to the heart of Shepard territory.
Tim, Pete and Curly were out of the house and in Tim's car not a minute after Curly hung up the phone, and five minutes later they were pulling into the parking lot of the pool hall. Dale sat on the curb not far from where they parked, and with fingers blue from the cold he took a drag of his cigarette and threw it on the asphalt to grind it out with his foot before heading over to the three boys climbing out of Tim's car.
The boys didn't need to ask Dale where the two Brumly boys were, they had spotted them as they pulled into the parking lot clear as day, gathered with two others underneath one of the lights down the side of the pool hall.
"How long have they been here?" Pete asked Dale as the four guys gathered around in front of Tim's car.
"No idea," Dale responded, "I called as soon as I spotted 'em."
"You know what they're doin'?" Tim asked, his eyes squinted suspiciously as he glanced at the corner of the building that the Brumly boys were on the other side of.
"Somethin' that required privacy. They were just comin' out of the pool hall when I saw 'em, and then they walked 'round the side."
Tim nodded and cracked his knuckles. "An eye for an eye, right?" he said to Dale, whose brown eyes darkened to something closer to black, shining maliciously in the light from the nearby streetlamp.
"Yeah," Dale replied, clenching his fists by his side.
With another nod, Tim popped up the collar of his leather jacket, dug his hands in its pockets and set off for where the two Brumly boys were partially hidden. Pete, Curly and Dale followed close behind him, hunched over slightly as if that would hide them from the frozen night's air. They rounded the corner and one of the Brumly boys, who Curly vaguely recognised from last year's graduating class but whose name he had never bothered to learn, caught sight of them almost instantly, shoving his friend, Dennis McKay, hard in the side with his elbow. The two other boys they were standing with looked up, one of whom pulled his tongue back into his mouth quickly, but not quickly enough for Curly to miss the little white square on it.
Tim reached the boys in a couple of long strides, and pulled his hands back out from his pockets to roughly grab the kid with the blotted paper in his mouth by the collar of his shirt. Upon a closer look, Curly realised the boy could only have been sixteen at most.
"The fuck is in your mouth, kid?" Tim asked gruffly, shaking him slightly by his shirt.
The kid shook his head and looked up at Tim with wide eyes. When Tim pulled his fist back and slammed it into the kid's face, Curly couldn't help the sick feeling that rose up in his stomach. This kid had nothing to do with it. People could get trips almost as easily as they could get grass these days, the kid just happened to be in the wrong place with the wrong people at the wrong time.
The other guy – the kid's friend – made a run for it and nobody bothered to go after him. Instead, Pete and Dale pounced on Dennis' buddy, while Tim dropped the kid and grabbed a hold of Dennis with Curly's help.
"Fuck off!" Dennis spat at them as he struggled against their hold, his face twisted with loathing though Curly didn't think he and Tim had really ever said more than a couple of sentences to him in the past. "You ain't gonna like what comes to you for this!"
"No," Tim growled back, catching his chin and holding it still so that he could look directly at him while Curly held him in place by his arms, "you ain't gonna like what comes to you for not only beating one of our boys on our turf, but for also sellin' this shit," he dug into Dennis' jacket pocket and pulled out a sheet of blotter paper, "to kids on my fuckin' land!"
Tim balled the paper up and shoved it in his own jeans pocket before breaking Dennis' nose with one hard punch. Blood spurted from his nostrils and he cried out and struggled harder against Curly's hold. Tim hit him again, this time in the gut in a move that mimicked what Dale was already doing to the other guy. A minute later Dale landed a hit to the side of his guy's head that turned his body rigid before collapsing. Pete didn't bother to try holding him up anymore and let him fall to the ground in a heap. Tim hit Dennis one more time in the face and then motioned for Curly to let him go.
Curly tossed him face first at the ground where he gasped for air and tried to pull himself to his feet, conscious still, unlike his friend. Tim kicked him back down into the concrete ground when he was on his knees though, and he rolled onto his back to glare up at Tim.
"You're gonna die for this," he threatened and then spat in Tim's direction.
Tim laughed menacingly. "You and your pathetic gang can't touch me, but I can promise you that you and your buddies won't be this lucky next time I catch y'all on my turf." He smirked, "Now be a good, little bitch and pass that on to Rick."
Tim flicked his head to Pete and Dale, who began retreating back around the corner the way they had come. Curly followed them, and a moment later after hearing Tim spit at Dennis, Tim caught up with him. The four boys walked back to Tim's car in silence and climbed in. Curly and Dale sat in the back with Pete riding shotgun, but they didn't go anywhere for a minute or two. Tim sat in the driver's seat and clutched the steering wheel tightly, staring straight out ahead at the street beyond the parking lot. Curly watched him, analysing and wondering what he must be thinking; if his slow and deep breaths were the only thing keeping Tim from going back for round two.
When Tim finally gunned the engine, he leant back a bit in his seat as he pulled out of the parking lot and lifted his left arm up to rest against the car window while he drove one-handed. The mood dissipated immediately, and soon the boys were pulling up out the front of Jay's and heading inside with grins on their faces and laughter spilling from their mouths.
I need a big move
I need a sharp knife
I need to cut these scars
Right out of my life
Katie sat in front of her mirror in her bedroom and watched as Susan curled her hair up into rollers, her eyebrows pinched together slightly in concentration. Susan had always loved how long and thick Katie's hair was and had somehow managed to convince Katie to let her curl it for the party tonight.
"Why are we even going tonight?" Katie asked, still feeling somewhat apprehensive about going into a party without anybody but Susan really by her side. "We're not really gonna know anybody."
"Sure we will," Susan responded, rolling her eyes at Katie in the mirror. "We're going with Pam and Janet for starters," she said, mentioning two of the girls they sat with in a couple of their classes at school. "And Dale will probably be there," she added, a sly grin creeping onto her lips.
Katie pinched her lips together like she had tasted something sour at the sound of Dale's name. "Really?" she asked dubiously. "He's not a nice guy, Susan."
"You only think that because he got into it with Dennis and Jimmy," Susan bit back, "never mind that they had no business hanging around on Shepard territory."
"They should be able to hang around wherever they want," Katie grumbled. "We all should."
"Yeah, in a perfect world, but nothing around here is perfect. I know you don't like bein' involved in the gang stuff, so just trust me, this whole thing seems pretty fair to me."
Katie looked away from the mirror and focused on her hands rested in her lap. It was true; she didn't like knowing what went on with her brother's gang. The ignorance was bliss at times because she was afraid of the worry she would have on her shoulders if she did keep better tabs on Rick and what he was doing. She didn't want to stress everyday about whether or not he would come home that night. But at times like these, when she heard hints and whispers about what her brother and his gang were getting up to, it made her worry regardless.
She felt Susan pull up another handful of hair and curl it into a roller, and she looked back up at her friend in the mirror, who didn't appear to be holding any ill feelings against Katie despite the silence that had fallen.
"So, you think you can get Dale back tonight?" Katie asked, choosing to push her worries for Rick to the back of her mind. "You better not leave me stranded."
"There are going to be people we know there," Susan laughed. "I don't know about Dale, he's so hard to read sometimes, but I'm going to try."
"Have you seen him since last week?"
Susan shook her head, "Not since he told me where to go for causin' that fight at Terry's."
"So now you'll admit to causing it?"
"I'll admit to playing a part."
"Are you sure you don't like Jeff?" Susan shot Katie a revolted look and Katie laughed. "Well you do always seem to like him more when you've been drinking; maybe deep down you actually like him."
"I don't think so," Susan replied quickly. "He's never been anything but a jerk to me."
"He's not that bad."
"He's a hood."
"So is Dale."
Susan frowned at Katie and bit her bottom lip for a moment before saying decisively, "They're not the same."
An hour or so later after the sun had set, the two girls descended Katie's stairs and waited by the front door for Pam's older sister's car to pull into Katie's driveway. Rick, who had just come out of the kitchen holding a half eaten apple, looked his sister up and down.
"You're gonna freeze out there," he said, sauntering over to lounge in the armchair in front of the television. "It's started snowing again."
Katie glanced out the window near the front door and saw that it was indeed snowing lightly outside. She didn't doubt that Rick was right, her coat might keep her arms warm enough, but her legs below the hem of her dress were going to be covered in goose bumps the moment she set foot outside.
"You sure you don't wanna come to Buck's?" Katie asked hopefully.
Her brother had celebrated every new years eve at Buck's, and last year Katie had even been allowed to join him, but this new years eve was different, just like everything else now.
"Nah," he said, examining his apple for a good chunk to bite into, "I'm heading off to Dennis' in a minute." One of the guys had gotten out of the penitentiary just yesterday, so the gang was gathering at Dennis McKay's house to celebrate and bring in the new year together as a gang, with one member rejoined to make up for the one they'd lost - in numbers at least.
"How is he?" Katie asked, her stomach flipping at the thought of how badly he had been beaten a few nights ago.
Rick shrugged and glared darkly at his apple, "Seen better days, but he'll live."
Light from the window caught Katie's attention and a second later a horn was being honked outside. Susan opened the front door to find that their ride to Buck's had arrived.
"Have fun," Rick waved them off. "And keep an eye on Jodie if she's there!" he called out as Katie gave him a quick wave and followed Susan out onto the front porch.
Feel paralysed
Like I'm frozen in time
Just wanna close my eyes
Make it go away
Katie was never more relieved to be at Buck's than she was when she finally made it inside after having followed Pam, Janet and Susan in from Pam's sister's car, which they had to park further away than ever before. It was going to be a big night, and the walk, which only took a couple of minutes, had almost frozen her solid. She inwardly cursed herself for not wearing stockings over her legs, but every pair she had were getting old and the little holes in them were starting to grow with every wear.
It was warm inside Buck's, though, thanks to the dozen people just inside the entrance alone giving off enough body heat, and it was even warmer in the main area near the dance floor and bar, thanks to those dancing and the heater in one corner. The four girls made their way to the bar, discarded their coats to the side of it and grabbed a few beers, laughing and chatting away over the music playing somewhere nearby. The place was packed and much to Katie's surprise she did recognise a lot of the people there. Some were just people she had seen around Buck's before, and others were people she knew personally, like some of the Shepard and Tiber Street Tiger boys yelling and laughing raucously on the other side of the room, and a few of the River Kings and Jodie King who stood not too far away from the bar.
Choosing not to acknowledge the Shepards like she was mostly used to doing by now, Katie turned her back on them to tune into a conversation Pam and Susan were having when she caught sight of Jodie making a beeline for her through the crowd, a clear bottle three quarters full of something dark in her hand.
"Hey," Jodie greeted with a boozy grin when she was within earshot, "I take it your brother ain't with you?"
Katie shook her head, "No, he's hanging out with just the guys tonight."
Jodie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Grieving and all that," she said and held her bottle out for Katie, "here, drink."
Katie hesitated and held up her beer, "I'm fine, thanks."
"No, you're not," Jodie said, squinting her eyes a little at Katie, "and if you're anything like your brother you're gonna need some of this, so drink." Again, Katie hesitated. "Relax, I'm not gonna poison you, little sister," Jodie teased and shoved the bottle of spirits into Katie's free hand as she took the beer from her other hand.
The bottle's lid was gone, and Katie considered it for a second before tipping the bottle up to her lips and taking a long gulp that burnt all the way down her throat to her stomach. When she pulled it away from her lips with a grimace, Jodie was looking at something over Katie's shoulder, and when Katie made to hand the bottle back, Jodie told her to hold onto it for her and disappeared past her.
"Rum?" Susan asked, nodding at the bottle still in Katie's hand.
Katie nodded and Susan took the bottle from her, took a much smoother swig and handed it back. Katie hardly noticed the spicy burning when she took another gulp of the rum, Jodie's reference to Mike's death swirling around in her mind. She couldn't escape him no matter where he went. Especially not when all around her she could see the ghost of him pulling her onto the dance floor at last year's new years eve party, or handing her a beer where she stood now near the bar, his green eyes light, happy and a little bit buzzed.
Katie turned away from the bar to take in her surroundings and quickly spotted where Jodie had taken off to. She stood on the other side of the room in a corner, looking up at a man with dark hair through her eyelashes. For a second Katie thought Jodie was looking up at Curly, but he was just a little bit too tall to be younger Shepard brother.
"Don't mind my sister," Troy King said from beside Katie, causing her to jump a little at his sudden appearance and also the realisation that the person Jodie was talking to was none other than Tim Shepard. "She's an idiot when she's drunk, but she's harmless."
Katie frowned at Troy, "I can't keep track of her and Rick, one minute they're on and the next they're off."
Troy laughed and said, "I hear ya," before clinking his beer bottle with Katie's spirit bottle. "Cheers."
They drank together and when an Elvis hit started playing, Troy managed to coax Katie into a dance, which quickly became three before Katie finally broke away from him, a little warm and breathless, and needing to find another drink to replace the last of Jodie's rum that she had swigged back during the last song. Standing by the bar, she breathed in deeply and waited for the spinning room to calm down a little as she looked around for somebody she knew. She glanced over at the space some of the Shepard boys occupied, simultaneously hoping and not hoping to find Susan sitting with Dale, but she was nowhere near them. Instead, Jean Farrell was sitting beside Dale with his arm around her shoulders as he spoke to Craig Chambers. Katie's stomach turned over at the sight of Craig, who was grinning along with whatever Dale was saying, as she remembered how she had caught him kissing Jean outside of this very building just over a year ago. She had been unable to hide her tears from Mike when she had asked him to take her home and the night had ended with Craig beaten black and blue.
Shaking her mind of that memory, Katie looked from Craig back to Dale, and a moment later Dale's dark eyes met Katie's for just a second or two and then moved past her to a doorway not far from where Katie stood. Following his line of sight just in time, Katie spotted Susan and Janet disappearing through the doorway and she quickly followed after them to find them in the kitchen.
Susan looked up at Katie when she entered the otherwise empty kitchen and gave her a glum little smile as Katie came to stand beside her, "I don't know whether to cry or throw my drink in his face, or hers."
"He's just trying to get a rise out of you," Janet insisted as Susan slumped against the kitchen counter.
"Well he's doin' a good job of it," Susan muttered miserably as she leant her head down on Katie's shoulder. "He knows I don't like Jean, not after the way she got around with Craig last year."
Katie bent her head slightly to rest against Susan's soft light brown hair for a few moments. A sense of calm washed over her as she drowned out whatever Janet was saying and just sat with her best friend. It was the only way she knew how to comfort her without talking about the matter and making it worse. But golly, Jean was a piece of work - moving in on Katie's boyfriend last year, and now having the nerve to be getting cosy with Dale when he had only just broken things off with Susan. And Susan had wanted so much to try and patch things up with Dale earlier that evening when they were getting ready. She had walked through the front door of Buck's confident, and now here she stood, defeated and sniffling back tears.
"Hey," Katie said, lifting her head up and pulling away from Susan so that she could look at her properly. "Jean's a piece of work, that's clear," she said, not entirely comfortable with how bitchy that sounded but a little too drunk to care, "Dale clearly still cares enough to want to get a rise out of you, so don't let her win."
"Easier said than done," Susan said, blinking a couple of times to rid her eyes of the tears that were welled up in them.
"You're here, aren't you?" Katie asked. "You're not out with Jeff tonight. You're here because you wanted to see Dale, not him. So go see Dale. Tell him that."
Susan stared at Katie for a couple of seconds, her eyebrows creased slightly as the simplicity of Katie's instructions sunk in.
"What if he doesn't want to talk to me?" she asked, slowly and unsure.
"Then he's a fool," Katie grinned, and a moment later Susan grinned back as somebody called out Katie's name from behind her.
"I'll leave you to take care of her," Susan said quietly and walked past Katie, giving her arm a quick squeeze as she went.
Katie watched Susan and Janet go as Jodie came in, walked over to the fridge and retrieved two beers. She twisted the tops off and handed one to Katie before jumping up a little to sit on top of the kitchen counter that Susan had been leaning against a minute before.
"I'm a bit drunk," Jodie giggled as she swayed slightly and took a sip of her beer.
"Good thing I drank the rest of your rum then," Katie smiled apologetically as she jumped up to sit beside Jodie.
Jodie shook her head, "Wasn't even mine," she laughed, "Someone gave it to someone who gave it to me who gave it to you."
Jodie leant back against the wall behind the counter when her laughter died out, and she sighed, closing her eyes and frowning. She looked disoriented to say the least and as Katie took her first sip of the fresh, cold beer in her hand she made a mental note to stop drinking after she finished this one. She was fine with the spinny effect the rum and beer was having on her now, but if she continued she'd soon be burning out like Jodie in no time.
"Are you alright?" Katie asked uncertainly.
"How do I help him, Katie?" Jodie moaned, her eyelids opening again to show her bloodshot, light blue eyes.
Katie glanced around her at the kitchen; unsure of whom Jodie was referring to. "Who?" she asked once she was certain there was nobody else in the room with them.
"Rick," she answered. "He's so angry."
"Not always."
"No, when he's not angry he's just quiet and I don't know which is worse." Jodie was exaggerating, Katie thought. Katie lived with Rick, and she had seen him plenty of ways recently, not just angry and quiet. Though the few times Katie had seen Rick angry or quiet had been enough to scare her, like on the night of Mike's funeral. "He can't see that dwelling on what happened is just hurtin' everyone more."
"It's a bit hard not to dwell when his best friend just died in front of him," Katie bit back defensively, anger boiling up in her blood and coursing thickly through her veins.
Jodie laughed and grabbed Katie on both shoulders to shake her lightly, "See? Just, let it go."
Katie swatted Jodie's hands away and jumped down from the kitchen counter. "You don't know what you're talking about," she said, turning to face Jodie, "you weren't there." Her vision began to spot with red so deep and rich in colour that it made her think of blood - Mike's blood - and through it she could see that Jodie looked about as sick as Katie suddenly felt.
Jodie swayed a little and jumped down from the kitchen counter. "I think I might be sick," she mumbled and pushed past Katie to head out the kitchen's back door.
Katie sighed heavily once Jodie was gone and placed her beer down on the countertop before her hand shook so hard that she lost grip on the bottle altogether. She clenched and unclenched her fists as she tried to steady them and her breathing. She checked her watch and found that a couple of hours had passed since they had arrived at Buck's. In fact, it was almost midnight, and Katie wondered if Susan was going to get the new years kiss from Dale she had been hoping for. She wasn't sure that the advice she had given Susan was very smart, but in that moment she had hated seeing her friend feeling so defeated... She hoped she hadn't made things worse.
Katie ran a hand, still slightly shaky, through her curly mess of hair and sighed again, looking down at her beer and deciding to chase away Jodie's ignorant words with the drink.
Katie guzzled back the rest of her beer in a few long gulps and then put it back down on the counter top, shaking her head and telling the empty room, "She's just drunk."
In her own way, Jodie was trying to help, though she didn't realise that her help was more a hindrance than anything else.
"Who's drunk?" somebody asked from the doorway and Katie jumped.
Curly Shepard grinned smugly at her as he walked toward the fridge to grab a beer from Buck's backup stash.
"Leave me alone," Katie groaned, glaring up at the roof exasperated.
"I haven't even done anything yet," Curly laughed.
"Not you," she said hastily, "actually, yes you, and everyone else." She groaned again. "This night was meant to be fun." She turned to where Curly was stealing a beer from the fridge and slumped back against the kitchen counter again.
"You're not havin' fun?" he asked, popping the top off his beer and taking a sip.
"Dale's trying to upset Susan by being all over Jean, who was all over Craig when we were dating last year, and Susan has been all over me miserable about it and Jodie's outside being sick and I don't blame her after the drivel that just came out of her mouth, and I –"
"Just wanted a good night," Curly finished for her with a smirk on his face. "And instead you're having to deal with everybody else's drama."
Katie stared at him a moment, shocked at how much had spilled from her mouth – how much she had told him. She sighed, suddenly feeling exhausted.
"I should probably just call it a night," she said quietly, glancing at the kitchen doorway where she could see people dancing out in the heart of the party.
Curly followed her gaze as The Beatles started singing a song he hadn't heard in a couple of years.
"At least stay for a dance," he said, looking back at her as he put his beer down on the counter top, admiring the purple shadow on her eyelids, or more so, the way they made her hazel eyes glitter.
"I have," she said, "I had three dances with Troy earlier." She didn't know why she made a point of telling him who she had danced with, maybe to keep him at bay. A feeling of nervousness niggled away in her gut, the same way it had when she'd talked to him at Terry's party.
"Before everyone else's drama got to you," he tried to convince, "you should at least leave in a better mood than what you're in now."
She didn't say anything back to that; she just looked at him, her face slack, but her eyes wary. Yet when he stepped toward her, she didn't make a break for it and leave him in the dust. And when he put his hands on her waist, she didn't shove them away. After a moment she even reached up and placed her own timid hands on his shoulders, and they began to sway along with the music playing distantly in the other room.
Katie realised as she leant into him, her head resting ever so lightly on his chest, that he smelt like cigarettes, just as he had a couple of weeks ago at Terry's party. Her dad had always smelt of smoke. Rick still did, and that had rubbed off on Mike while he was still alive, too. Curly smelt like contentment, and safety, and when he wrapped his arms further around her she lost herself.
She forgot where she was, who she was, who she was dancing with and all the reasons why she shouldn't have been dancing with him. And she was happy with that. She was happy with forgetting about it all, even if it would only last the length of a song.
And Curly was happy to let her stay the way she was for as long as she needed. They were alone and surely a dance couldn't be too harmful. He had a feeling it was calming her, too, and he knew she had been the furthest thing from calm when he had found her here in the kitchen, clenching and unclenching her small fists. He learnt from his mum a long time ago that not much couldn't be solved by a hug for women. Men were another story.
When the song ended and the music was replaced by shouted numbers, Katie pulled back slightly and looked up at Curly. His eyes were dark and analysing as he looked back at her, and she admired the way his long, black eyelashes cast shadows under his eyebrows. His eyes flicked down to her lips and, realising the question they were asking, she took a small step back out of his hold. The bubble they had formed around them broke and she felt the sudden urge to rewind the past couple of minutes so that the song didn't have to end, thinking that if it were any other boy she knew making her feel like this she probably would have kissed him by now.
"I should go," she said, just loud enough for him to hear her over the shout of the final number in the countdown to the new year.
A second later she was gone, leaving Curly to wonder if he had dreamed it all or if he'd really just been a second away from kissing Katie Thomas. When he realised that he had indeed been that close, he swore under his breath and grabbed his beer and chugged some down.
"Curly!" Glenn called out, rushing into the kitchen. "Angel's out front askin' for ya."
"What's she want?" he asked, rolling his eyes at having been summoned.
"She's sick, man," Glenn said and Curly put down his beer and followed him out the front of the party.
As he walked through the entrance he managed to get a glimpse of Katie tugging her coat on over her dress and saying something to a girl they went to school with. He followed Glenn down the steps of the front porch and down the side of Buck's a little way until he saw Angela, leaning up against the tyre of a car with her head in her hands.
"You've gotta be kiddin' me, Angel," Curly groaned, crouching down in front of her to look at her evenly.
"I'm sorry, Curly," she cried, her black eye make-up trailing down her cheeks with her tears.
"Go get Tim," Curly told Glenn, who took off back inside as Curly turned back to Angela. "He's the one you're gonna want to apologise to," he warned.
"I mean it," she sobbed, grabbing the front of Curly's shirt to pull him closer and holding on for dear life. "I didn't mean to, I messed up."
"What're you talkin' about?" Curly asked, annoyed as he glanced around him and caught sight of Katie again, this time as she walked past him with another girl beside her, presumably headed for their car. Their eyes met for one fleeting second, and then she was walking away and he was looking back at Angela.
"If I had've known, I wouldn't have. I swear," her whole body shook something fierce between her sobs. "I didn't know Arnie would, I didn't think."
Curly felt as though something hard had hit him in the face as it dawned on him that his kid sister was in this state because she felt guilty. She blamed herself for what had happened, and Curly couldn't say he hadn't blamed her himself either. But she was tough; he hadn't expected it to faze her so much.
Softening, Curly moved to sit down beside her and slung an arm around her shoulders. She leant into him and cried into his shirt. For the first time, he considered holding Arnie responsible for his actions instead of his sister for manipulating the situation.
"It's okay," he said quietly, squeezing her shoulder in a way that he hoped would be reassuring. "It ain't your fault."
She cried even harder at that as Tim approached the scene. He came to a stop in front of the car Curly and Angela were leant up against and cussed under his breath.
"Let's get outta here," he said, fishing his keys out of the pocket of his jeans, "this night blows."
When did everything fall apart?
When did the nightmares start?
Why is it so hard
To find a way to begin again