AN- Thanks to all my followers,Kennyboo, DeaDea96, HelloMrSunshine, Jolienolastname, Missy Sparkles, Snowbro, SuaveSwayze, Theonlyredhead, TigerrChan, XAllThatGlittersIsn'tGoldX, XxChesireSmilexX, Yeastbaron, gnarley,only girl on the outside, GreaserGirlie, Oninja, Shedaises, and phoebequintero, love you guys! (By the way, this is only about half of this chapter. I've been super busy lately so this one isn't done, I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm still here and I'm still writing!)

Chapter Seven

Darry's POV

"How can you have something like this happen and be so calm?" I wondered out loud. Marilyn basically had just been brutally attacked by her own mother and she didn't seem to be affected in the slightest. The pain was palpable when I had to pull that shard of glass out of her shoulder, just watching what my hands were doing made me feel sore, yet, as soon as it was over she went make to her normal cool demeanor. Even now with blood running down the front of her shirt she was completely emotionless, you could have paid me a million bucks to read her expression and I all I'd be able to come up with would be "Eh."

"That's the thing. I'm not calm. I'm pissed off, I'm confused, I feel like I could run for miles on all this adrenaline, but all I want to do is collapse and sleep… but I know I can't do that which just gets me pissed off again and then all I feel like doing is punching something as hard as I can." Marilyn began yelling, beginning to sound like she was on the edge of hysterics. This may sound mean or crazy or rude, but I was so incredibly relieved to hear her say all those things. I had heard so many rumors about her being totally heartless, cold as ice. I was so happy to find out that she could react to an event like this like a normal person would, to know that she had feelings, that she wasn't just a hollow robot. Before I could think about the mean or rude aspects of this though, that one idea popped out of my mouth before I could stop it.

"Thank God!" was all I said before comprehending what I had just done.

Marilyn's hair flew around in a whirl of gold as she snapped her head to look at me, now clearly fuming with anger. "You think all of this is funny? I know you hate me but you don't have to be so freakin' open about bein' happy at my expense!" her volume had now grown so much that it was hard to have her that close to my ear.

I then did the worst possible thing I could have done in that moment.

I laughed.

And laughed and laughed and laughed. I hadn't laughed that hard in what I knew had been years, and it was like all of those years had completely built up to this one moment. Everything just came out, I couldn't stop laughing, I tried and tried but I was cracking up. I knew I should be angry and upset or at least maybe a little shook up after what had just happened to us… but I didn't. I just didn't. It felt so good.

I tried to explain to her what was happening, "God! You have real feelings! I could never crack you. I never got what the hell was going on in your head! I thought all you were was sex and a cold heart, I can't believe there's another side to the infamous Marilyn Montgomery!"

Yeah, that felt good, until I looked back at Marilyn.

All of those emotions that she had been talking about earlier were clearly flashing across her face. Her fists were balled at her sides and I could see them slowly turning a pale white. Marilyn's face went the exact opposite of her knuckles, she was flushed up to her ears and had her lips clamped together so tightly I thought they might be stuck like that forever. I could already feel the sore spot on jaw from where she was sure to punch me any second now.

Completely out of the blue her lips puckered, her eyes got wide, and it sounded like she was trying to blow very poor raspberries. I stepped back into the grass behind just as a precaution, I had no idea what was happening and was confused beyond all belief. Then, I took a step back to where I was when I realized what was actually going on with her. The understanding came to me in a blink of eye and it all made sense to me now.

She was trying not to laugh herself. Marilyn bit down on her lower lip and I could hear her breath going in and out in small spurts. She finally let loose, her mouth opening to form a giant "O" and she began whooping like nothing I had ever heard before. It wasn't that awkward little tinkling giggle that was so often heard from the Soc girls at school, this laugh was all alone in its own category. Her face was slowly turning an even deeper shade of red than it already was and I could see tears forming in the corner of her eyes, glinting in the sunlight. Of course all this did was get me started up again, I couldn't put my finger on it, but something about this moment was infectious. I honestly had no clue what was happening, but it gave me such a care free, easy feeling. I felt happy.

By this point we were close enough to the house that we could see it easily from where we were. We slowly started up walking again, and I really mean slowly, we were both holding our guts, already feeling the satisfying soreness of laughter in our bellies. We finally managed to swing through the screen door of the house, still with a few breathy chuckles escaping our lips. Jill was sitting on the couch flipping through an old magazine and her head flew up to look at us the moment we entered. The very first thing her eyes connected with was the large blood stain on the front on Marilyn's shirt, she was up off the couch in a second, coming to inspect the wound.

"What is this?!" Jill shrilled with serious panic in her voice.

"What? It's nothing, don't flip." Marilyn told her, nonchalantly blowing off her concern.

"DON'T FLIP?"

"That is what I said Jill."

"How the hell can you expect me not to flip?! This looks really serious Marilyn!"

"It's fine! Really, no big deal."

"No big deal?"

"Are you just going to keep repeating everything I say?"

"Just…" Jill breathed deeply through her nose, "just tell me what happened."

Marilyn took a turn repeating Jill and took a deep breath herself. She walked over to the couch and plopped down in the same spot Jill had just stood up from. Her eyes wandered up from the floor to focus on the group of people that had now formed around her. The others had come from different parts of the house when they heard Jill screeching like she was.

"Well…" Marilyn began.