Sorry it's been a while since I updated. I am working on two other stories right now. Thank you all for your continuing patience.

Same warnings apply

I do not own any part of The Outsiders

This story will be posted on my A03 account. I have the same name there too!

Please enjoy & comment

I am taking requests for future chapters

1. Give me a situation that has to do with poverty on here or on my tumblr:

2.The character, family, or gang you want me to write about

3.It can be a character I have already written about too

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Evie

I grew up in the same house as my mother and still haven't managed to get to know her.

She is always in and out. Of rooms. Of bottles. Of beds.

When she was home, she was partying.

It was not unusual for me to wake up to a house full of people I had never met before. Strange men and women who were too old and had too much responsibility to be drinking at noon on a weekday.

Strange men and women who didn't think they needed to be at home with their own children.

Strange men and women who thought it was okay to treat me, a child, like I was grown.

My mother never had much to say to me. Most of the time I believed she really did forget she ever had me. She's an alcoholic.

It has caused a lot of problems for me. It seems she never quite had enough money to put food into the house, but she always managed to keep the fridge stocked with beer. I try not to look too deep into things.

If I do, I'll start thinking again.

Thinking about how she used to at least hide the alcohol from me. To when she would have at least something to eat in the fridge. When there were no strange men and women littering and stinking up the house with their empty bottles, used cigarettes, and stray ash.

I tried so hard.

To help her.

To save her from herself.

But she would get so angry and start throwing things at me. Telling me I was useless. That she was on her own when she was my age. That one more smart word and I was out. One more time pouring out her hidden stash and I could just get my things and leave.

I know I have issues. Who doesn't?

I think sometimes the reason me and Randle work so well is because I have a deep-seated desire to take care of and rescue people, and he needs to feel needed. To feel necessary.

16 and already the products of our parents dysfunctional child-rearing.

We both have so much in common.

We tend to confuse pity with love. We avoid our own feelings while delving into each other's. We both have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility because we've had to raise ourselves.

Whenever I think about the times she was gone all weekend following a perpetual party, the times she would have loud sex in the room next to mines, when she would go on drinking binges and I had to stay in my room, I get so angry.

Fuck alcoholics for having children!

The alcohol always comes first and as time goes on it becomes the only thing that matters. The children are no longer second place. Now they have no place. The booze fills them up so much that there is no room for us.

They are not capable of caring about us.

I learned to cuss before I learned to read. I recognized beer labels before the alphabet. I could distinguish the smell of alcohol and identify what it was without having ever seen the bottle before I could tie my shoes.

What kind of mother lets so many people into their house that their kid has to learn to keep her door locked?

The men, and sometimes even the women, would look at me funny. Their eyes would linger too long.

I had to teach herself how to find food.

There were always so many bottles that I recycled them for change. It was enough for lunchmeat and bread.

I learned to fear sudden outburst.

I can't name how many times I broke into a cold sweat when someone started laughing randomly. It was hard being around people like Two-bit and Soda. Upbeat people who didn't fear impulsive emotion.

It's days like these that I think I'll never be able to forgive my mother for her problem. For our problems.

The woman who gave birth to me at 15. The woman who was kicked out with me at 16. The woman who got a beaten down apartment and worked 2 jobs to support us.

Then it's days like those where I almost understand.