On the way up to the Curtis' house, everybody had so many questions to ask me, most of them were about Ethan, my parents, or Melanie.
"What happened to your parents?" Johnny asked.
"Wait, Ethan's your guardian?" Ponyboy added to the mix.
Then Soda piped in, "Who is Melanie?"
Darry was the only one that didn't ask me anything, I guess he knew that those were tender subjects and didn't feel that this was the right time to interrogate me beyond belief.
"I never knew my mother, but my father always used to tell me that she was the most amazing and beautiful woman you could ever meet. He always told me that I looked like her. But my father left us for some chick he met who just wanted him for his money. The shallow little bitch…" I continued on my rant until Darry cleared his throat.
"She's had a long day, everybody just back off with the questions for tonight," he told them, and the three shut up instantly as we pulled into their driveway.
When we got out of the car, Ponyboy looked over at Johnny and asked, "You wanna stay here or are you gonna go home?"
Johnny looked uncomfortable for a moment, un-sure of what to say, "Uh, let's go check to make sure that they haven't killed each other, wanna come with us, Esra?"
"Sure, why not?" The boys nodded and we headed east to Johnny's house.
"Esra, what can we call you?" Ponyboy asked me as we were half-way to Johnny's.
"Huh?" I was confused, probably because I was over-tired. Today had been a pretty eventful day for me.
He repeated the question, "What should we call you? I mean, for a nickname," he told me, "You can call me Pony." He and Johnny waited patiently as I thought long and hard.
"Um, everybody calls me Ez. You could call me that or Ezzy, ha. It you find something better just tell me."
The boys nodded, agreeing with that statement. Everything had been quiet until we started hearing yelling coming from a house just a bit more down the road, even though it was fairly far away, we could make out exactly what they were saying. Johnny got tense.
"Whoa, where's that yelling coming from?" I asked unaware that it was Johnny's parents yelling at each other; Pony glared at me then leaned in to whisper something in my ear.
"That couple fighting is Johnny's parents, he's neglected and abused at home and his parents fight all the time. Don't bring it up," he scolded me. I instantly felt bad; I knew what it was like to be neglected. My father had started to neglect me the day Melanie met my brother and I.
I just looked over at Johnny, he looked like he was ready to just bolt in the other direction, "C'mon, Johnnycake, let's go back to my place," Pony said, turning Johnny around and pushing him back towards the direction we just came from.
We walked back to the Curtis' in silence, the yelling eventually dissipated about half a block away, man, they could really scream at each other. When we got back, Darry was gone, but Two-Bit and Steve were sitting on the couch watching TV with Soda.
Steve was the only one who acknowledged our arrival, Soda and Two-Bit were too interested in what they were watching. "Where's Darry?" Ponyboy asked him.
"He went to bed already, he has work tomorrow at six," Steve answered, looking back at the television.
I looked at Pony, shocked, "He has to wake up at six in the morning on a Sunday? Why?" I asked.
Pony and Johnny sat around the three older boys who were so into Mickey Mouse that you could explode something next door and they wouldn't even notice; it was actually pretty funny considering how different they were from the guys in New York. "He has to work all the time to take care of Soda and I."
"Oh," I said, sitting down next to Two-Bit on the couch where he patted it with his hand, not taking his eyes off the television. He and Soda were enjoying themselves too much. I loved it.