Author's Note: Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter up, and sorry in advance for the delay in getting next chapter up - I'm heading overseas next week to get married, so I doubt I'll have much time to update until I get back next month.

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 Beyonce's song, Rather Die Young. And the title of this fic comes from the song of the same name by The Beatles.


Monday, 13 January 1969

Boy, you'll be the death of me

You're my James Dean

"Nice hair," Bradley commented after a long moment of soaking Katie's appearance in when she climbed into his car on Monday morning.

"Thanks," Katie replied, giving Bradley a grateful smile as she touched the bangs her mom had cut for her yesterday before she left for work.

She had swept them a little to the side this morning, not liking the way the ends of her bangs tickled her eyebrows. They still covered the cut on her forehead, though, which had started to scab over.

"Where'd you go after Buck's on Saturday night?" he asked as he pulled out of her driveway and started off down the road, headed for the high school.

"Back to Susan's," Katie answered, leaving out the names of the people that had helped them get there. "Her sister's a nurse; she made sure the cut on my head wasn't too bad."

Bradley glanced at her as he drove, nodding thoughtfully. "We went back, y'know," he said, "to Buck's for you. Shit happened pretty quick with Rick and we had to get him outta there, but Jeff and I came back to get you."

"Oh," was all Katie said, looking down at her hands in her lap.

It hadn't crossed her mind that one of Rick's boys would have come back for her. Mind you, not much had really crossed her mind at the time except thoughts of Rick and how she had ended up in Buck's bathroom bleeding from her forehead.

"Craig Chambers was pretty pleased to tell me you'd taken off with two Shepard boys." Katie froze, a cold prickle of dread travelling down her spine as she sat up straighter, tenser. "Thought he was talkin' shit for a second 'til I noticed Curly and Dale were missin' from the party."

Had he or Jeff told Rick? Surely not, Rick would have said something to her yesterday. Katie forced her eyes from her lap to look at Bradley, who was staring straight ahead at the road, his mouth set in a hard line.

Talk, she told herself, explain, and when she spoke her voice came out croaky from her dry throat. "They gave us a lift to Susan's. I couldn't drive, and she had been drinking, too. I didn't know you would be coming back or we would've waited, but they seemed like they were our only way home."

Bradley glanced at Katie warily and nodded. "They didn't give you any trouble, did they?"

"No," Katie answered and silence fell between the two for a few minutes.

"Well," Bradley said finally, "I ain't happy it was them that helped you, but I'm glad you got outta there and checked out okay."

Katie instantly relaxed, relieved that Bradley wasn't going to give her a mouthful for leaving the party with a couple of Shepard boys. "You haven't told Rick, have you?"

Bradley shook his head. "Nah, you're safe for now. I don't think Jeff clued onto it and I didn't mention anything," he said as he stopped the car at a set of traffic lights and turned to look at her straight on. "Best not to stir the pot."

Katie knew all too well what he meant by that. "Yeah," she agreed, "Jodie did enough of that on Saturday night."

The car in front of them started moving forward and Bradley turned back to the steering wheel to start driving again. "You heard what she said?"

"Yeah."

"You believe it?"

Katie looked sharply at Bradley, who refused to look back at her. She analysed him for a few seconds, he was trying to look nonchalant but he wouldn't have asked her that question if he didn't have doubts himself.

"Honestly?" she asked, finally speaking.

Bradley shrugged. "I haven't told Rick who you disappeared with Saturday night, I ain't gonna tell him if you don't exactly agree with him, either."

Katie weighed his words heavily in her mind. He was one of Rick's boys; he might go running off to him first chance he got and stir up even more trouble. Maybe he was trying to confirm whatever suspicions he had about Katie and then dob her in to Rick. Those scenarios definitely crossed her mind, but there was a nervousness about Bradley that she was starting to notice. Like it was almost dangerous for the two of them to be having this conversation, but worth the risk if it meant he wasn't the only one doubting Rick.

"I don't know," Katie sighed. "I don't believe Curly or the others knew about it, but that's not to say the order didn't come from Tim," she added. "I know they've had problems for years now."

Bradley snorted. "Another thing stirred up by Jodie King."

"What?"

Bradley glanced at her, an incredulous look on his face. "You don't know that she and Shepard used to date?"

"No!"

"Years ago, when they were all still at school together. Jodie was goin' round with your brother for a while when he was a senior. Jodie and Shepard were both juniors, and I don't know what happened but somethin' sure happened and the next minute Jodie was Shepard's girl. It didn't last, obviously."

Katie stared at Bradley, her eyebrows creased at this new piece of information. Jodie and Rick had been off and on for years.

"So that's why Rick hates Tim?" she asked.

"I don't think it's the only reason," Bradley said, looking at Katie knowingly as he pulled into the parking lot at Will Rogers High School. "He's had a grudge ever since, though. Understandably, too, I guess; she was his girl first."

The car came to a stop in one of the vacant parking spots, but Bradley made no move to kill the engine. Katie was still looking at Bradley, having trouble comprehending such mind blowing information. She could vaguely remember the abrupt end to Jodie's visits to the house when she had been almost thirteen years old, but she hadn't had as good a relationship with Rick back then as she did now. She had still been a child and her brother had been dealing with his girlfriend cheating on him. Well, she assumed Jodie had cheated. It would fit pretty well into the puzzle and it sounded like something that was too out of character for Jodie King.

"I hate her," Katie muttered, shaking her head incredulously as she made to open her car door.

She climbed out of the car and then looked back to find Bradley still sitting at the steering wheel, the engine still running. "You coming?"

"Nah," he answered, "Jeff and I have a few things to do today. I just wanted to make sure you were alright after the weekend you had. I'll pick you up, though. We can grab a milkshake."

Katie knew that the things he had to do today were most likely jobs Rick had given him and Jeff, and for the first time she felt curiosity begin to stir inside of her.

"Sure," she said, nodding her head and closing her car door.

She stood back and watched him pull out of the parking spot and then turn out of the parking lot onto the main road. Once his car had disappeared she looked around the parking lot for somebody she knew. Pam and Janet were standing off with a few other girls not too far away, but Katie wasn't sure she wanted to try and involve herself in the girly conversation they were likely having right now. She wanted to talk to Susan about what Bradley had just told her, and sure enough she spotted her standing by Dale's car with Dale, Curly and Glenn.

She hesitated for a moment before deciding that if she could spend a night on a couch in the same room as Curly, she could handle being around him for five minutes before the bell rang.

"Hey," Curly was the first to greet her, nodding at her inquiringly from where he sat on the hood of Dale's car.

This was new; Katie being the one to seek Curly out.

"Hey," Katie said, coming to a stop beside Susan and giving a weird, little smile to everybody else. "Are you ready for class?" she asked, focusing her attention on Susan.

Of course. She had come over to see Susan, not Curly. He didn't know why he had even assumed that to begin with.

"Yeah," Susan nodded, glancing down at her watch. "We still have a couple of minutes, though."

Katie looked around at the three boys and figured it wouldn't do much harm for them to know what she had just found out about Jodie. In fact, they might have already known about it. Katie had gotten the impression that it wasn't exactly a secret – it was just something she had never taken proper notice of.

"Did you know your brother went round with Jodie King?" she asked Curly, trying not to notice the ease with which he sat up straighter, his eyes holding hers attentively.

"Years ago," Curly answered with a shrug of his shoulders, not sure what Katie's point was.

"Really?" Susan gasped, clutching Katie's arm, excited at the prospect of gossip.

"Yeah," Katie answered, looking away from Curly for a moment to address Susan, "and apparently she was with Rick before that."

"So that must be why he was so pissed when it came out that she and Tim had been talkin'," Glenn chimed in, reminding Katie and Curly of what had happened as a result.

"Partly," Curly added, remembered the crazed look in Rick's eyes as he had come at Tim with a knife.

"She's trouble," Katie said, looking back to Curly, something intense in her eyes.

Curly analyzed her, not sure what he was meant to say back to that and not sure what it was Katie was clearly trying to say. He could tell that there was more to it, could see it in her eyes that she was trying to stress something to him.

He noticed the dark circles under her eyes and wondered how much sleep she had gotten – clearly not enough. Perhaps she was just looking for somebody to blame everything on; the problem with Rick and Tim, the war being waged between their two gangs, Rick pushing her over on Saturday night... She still didn't want to believe that it was her brother who was responsible for his actions, not some stupid, meddling girl.

"What's new?" Susan scoffed. "If she wasn't trouble she'd be able to hold down a steady relationship, and I don't think that's ever happened for her." Katie looked away from Curly to acknowledge that Susan was speaking and had to bite her tongue so as not to point out that Susan herself had been the source of trouble between Dale and Jeff only a few weeks before. "I like your bangs, by the way."

"Thanks," Katie answered, lifting a hand up to her hair self-consciously as the warning bell sounded, ending any more conversation about Jodie.

The group started making their way to their first class of the day together, conversation turning to the poker game Glenn had won at Buck's after the other four had left. Katie walked between Curly and Susan and when they entered the classroom and she separated from him to take her normal seat on the other side of the room, she realized that she had just walked the whole way from the parking lot to their first period class without any ill feelings toward Curly or the other two boys. In fact, it had almost felt like it had before Mike had died.

Back then it had been so easy to divide her time between Rick's boys and the Shepard boys she went to school with. It had never been a problem when she walked to class with Curly and his friends, bickering and bantering back and forth like the kids they were. But for as normal as things suddenly felt again, Katie knew deep down that it wasn't. There was a heaviness inside of her now that she hadn't possessed before, and at the back of her mind was Rick and how he would react if he knew that she no longer harbored the same hard feelings against some of the Shepards that he still did.

As Susan and Katie took their seats, Katie wondered if it was the same for Curly, too. She didn't know if he was as worried as her about how Rick or even his own brother would react to them getting along like nothing had ever happened, but she figured he probably felt the same heaviness to a certain degree. She knew he wouldn't be missing Mike like she was, but when somebody witnessed something so terrible, it was bound to change you. It had certainly opened Katie's eyes to how quickly things could change. One minute Mike had been laughing, the next a hole had been shot through his head.

Katie shook her head free of that thought as she opened up her textbook and the History lesson began to go much as it usually did. Their teacher gave them a lecture for the first half of the class and then asked them to work quietly among themselves coming up with appropriate answers to some of the questions in their textbooks.

Katie twisted parts of her bangs around her fingers – still not used to the idea of having hair that hung down over her forehead so much and very aware of the gash it was attempting to hide – as she and Susan worked through their questions. At one point she felt eyes on her and when she looked up she found Curly looking over at her, as she had grown to expect by now.

She remembered his words to her before she had fallen asleep on Susan's couch on Saturday night. He had told her that she was easy on the eyes, which was why he had been keeping such an eye on her over the past week at school, and the memory of how unashamedly honest he had been with her made her smile a little. He grinned back at her for a moment and then they both looked away, Katie looking back down at her notebook.

While her mind was on the topic of honesty, she had to also acknowledge what he had said about her brother. She knew Curly didn't like Rick, partly because of what had happened on Saturday night at Buck's, but she knew there was more to it. Curly didn't like him as a person for more than the fact that he had pushed his little sister on the weekend. There was something more to it, something that Katie hadn't ever cared to know about and that everybody else had kept from her out of what she could only think was respect.

I just don't think you should bury your head in the sand about the kind of person he is when he's not bein' your brother.

Bradley clearly knew about what Rick was up to when he wasn't at home with Katie, and Curly clearly knew about some of the trouble Katie didn't doubt Rick tried to cover up from time to time. Even Susan had alluded to knowing things about the situation with Rick's gang in the past. Katie was the only one that didn't have a clue what her brother really did with majority of his time, and the more she thought about that the more uneasy it made her feel.

What could she do, though? She could find out what her brother was up to or continue to ignore things. And she was terrified of what would happen as a result if she chose either of those options, not to mention that she didn't know what she could really do if she did find out that her brother was involved in some kind of unfathomable trouble. She hadn't even been able stop him from getting into a fight over the weekend.

"You okay?" Susan asked, watching Katie twirl a piece of her bangs and frowning.

Katie looked at her and forced a smile. "Yeah," she said, "just tired."

The two girls went back to their notebooks and Katie thought that maybe she should have used that opening to find out what Susan knew about Rick and his gang, but she quickly decided that Susan probably wouldn't be able to tell her anything except rumor and what she'd heard from the Shepard boys.

If Katie wanted the truth, she would be better off going to somebody who knew what was going on first-hand and somebody who wouldn't go straight to Rick and tell him she was asking questions. Her conversation with Bradley on the way to school that morning floated through her mind and she made a mental note to feel the situation out with him a little more.

When the bell rang, Susan and Katie packed up their things and joined Curly, Dale and Glenn to walk to their next class together. Susan walked hand in hand with Dale, laughing at the story Glenn was telling them about the drunken state of Two-Bit Mathews during the poker game on Saturday night.

Katie and Curly were walking beside one another, Curly half listening to Glenn's story when he picked up on how quiet Katie was being. She was walking with her notebook and textbook hugged close to her chest, not really focusing on anything particular, like she was off in another land.

Wanting to bring her back to the present and maybe to have a little contact with her, too, he bumped the side of her waist teasingly with his elbow.

Katie glanced up at him, a laugh escaping her lips at how absurd a gesture it was. "What was that for?"

"I caught you lookin' at me again in class," he replied, giving her a cheeky smirk.

"That would be because you were looking at me first," she answered, trying not to grin back at him and failing miserably at it.

"Not because I'm so easy on the eyes?"

"Don't make me regret that," Katie laughed. "I was concussed."

"I wasn't, though," Curly said back and Katie looked into his playful blue eyes, holding his gaze for a second too long before looking straight ahead of her again as warmth started to spread up her neck and across her cheeks.

"Lucky," Katie commented, "or you would've been in a world of trouble if you'd crashed Kim's car."

"Someone had to look after you," Curly shrugged, puffing his chest out heroically as they reached their next class, making Katie laugh.

"Oh really? I thought that was what Susan was doing mopping up all my blood," she said as she came to a stop outside of their classroom and Susan, Dale and Glenn continued on inside, not noticing that they were leaving Curly behind as Katie's only company.

"Without me you would've been stuck there, though," Curly responded, standing in front of Katie and crossing his arms across his chest. She pretended not to notice the way his lean muscles stood out more through his shirt when he did that.

"Not true," Katie argued, "Apparently Brad and Jeff ended up coming back for me."

A silent beat passed between them, Curly tensing up a little at the mention of Bradley Simons. "I bet he wasn't happy I got you outta there instead of him, or your brother, for that matter."

Katie shrugged. "He didn't say anything to Rick, and he said Jeff didn't catch on that it was you and Dale that drove us back to Susan's."

"Yeah, well," Curly began, glancing up the hall as he realized that Katie talking about Bradley was the reason he was suddenly feeling so worked up, "if he hadn't left you behind in the first place you wouldn't have had to get help from me."

"I'm glad he did, though," Katie said and Curly looked back at her, his eyes confused and searching for something she didn't want to admit was there. "He probably would have taken me to Rick," she explained quickly to cover up what she hadn't meant to imply, "and I don't think it would have been a good idea for me to see him that soon after everything."

Despite her wanting so desperately to see Rick right after what had happened, she was glad she hadn't. It had been difficult enough to take in his beaten appearance on Sunday morning, and the disagreement they had might very well have been worse if it had happened the night before when emotions were running even higher.

Curly nodded and pursed his lips like he was in pain as the bell sounded from the speaker on the roof above them. Katie glanced at the door to their classroom and any chance Curly had of continuing their conversation was gone. He took her cue and walked into the classroom with her at his heels. He took his seat with Dale and Glenn in the row of desks behind her, and apart from the one time Glenn made Curly kick the back of Katie's chair to get her attention so that Glenn could get the answer to one of the many equations he couldn't solve, Curly spent the class staring at the back of Katie's perfect, blonde head, still a little pissed at Bradley for a reason he didn't even understand.

The rest of the day continued without anything else of noticeable importance. Katie and Susan spent lunch with Pam and Janet and the next time Curly got to see them was during their last class of the day. They walked down to the parking lot with Curly, Dale and Glenn once the bell went to signal the end of the school day. Curly had almost shaken his mood from that morning by this point, until he noticed Katie glancing over at Bradley's car in the parking lot and quickly saying her goodbyes to Susan and the guys.

He watched her cross the lawn and open up Bradley's passenger door to climb in, shooting him a happy smile and telling him something Curly couldn't make out before they sped off out of the parking lot.

"Where're we headed?" Glenn asked as they made it to Dale's car. "Who's up for a game of poker? I feel like I might be on a winning streak."

"'Cause you figured out how to cheat most likely," Curly chimed as he climbed into the backseat of Dale's car.

"I ain't a sore loser like you, Curly," Glenn quipped back, flipping Curly the bird and eliciting a giggle from Susan.

Curly cussed at him and continued to stew in his bad mood the entire drive back to Dale's place, where they did indeed play a half-assed game of poker that Glenn won.

You drive too fast, you smoke too much

But that don't mean a thing

'Cause I'm addicted to the rush

"Are you alright?" Bradley asked Katie from where he sat across from her at their table at Jay's.

She had gone from talking animatedly one moment to staring into her milkshake the next with her eyebrows furrowed, apparently deep in thought.

Katie looked up at Bradley, shocked. "Sorry," she said, giving him an small, embarrassed smile, "I guess I'm still a bit tired from the weekend."

"You did have a big one," Bradley agreed. "Is somethin' on your mind, though?"

Katie looked at him, so open to anything she could say. And there were plenty of things she could say. He hadn't brought Jeff with him to pick her up from school and take her for this milkshake, and he could have brought him easily since he had supposedly spent the day doing a few things with him.

Was this a date? Or was Bradley hoping to continue the conversation they'd had that morning on the way to school? Maybe it was both, but the thought of this being a date brought Curly to mind and the way he had tensed when Katie had mentioned Bradley earlier that day.

Not knowing how to put her thoughts into words and too nervous to bring up their morning's conversation about Rick, Katie just shook her head and tried to give him another believable smile.

Bradley narrowed his eyes at her and dug a little further. "I saw you comin' out of school with Shepard and his buddies. I guess their help on the weekend changed your attitude toward them a bit."

Katie didn't miss the annoyance in the way he spoke.

She shrugged at him, trying not to make it seem like too big of a deal. "I got along with them fine before everything went upside down."

"Before they killed Mike, you mean," Bradley corrected, leaning back in his seat and staring at Katie.

"If I recall correctly, I wasn't the only one doubting they were involved in what Arnie did this morning," Katie responded, not sure where Bradley's sudden certainty had come from.

Bradley shook his head and looked away for a moment before sighing and exhaling out whatever bad energy he'd been holding in. "I don't know what to believe anymore," he muttered, looking down at his own milkshake and stirring his straw around in it.

Katie watched him play with his straw and noticed for the first time how tired he looked, too. Apparently Katie wasn't the only one losing sleep over what had happened in the last month and a bit.

"What did you do today?" she asked, wondering if his gang jobs were adding more to his plate than she was aware of.

"Just some stuff with Jeff," he answered, and when she continued to look at him expectantly he added, "Gang stuff."

"Stuff I can't know about, right?" Katie asked resentfully and Bradley gave her a strange look.

"You've never been interested before," he said, sounding confused as he spoke. "It wouldn't do you any good to know, anyway."

"It's really that bad?"

"It just ain't anything you need to know about," Bradley responded.

"If Rick's getting into trouble, I think I need to know about it," Katie said, pushing a little, but Bradley just laughed at her and took a sip of his milkshake.

"When isn't Rick gettin' into trouble?" he meant it as a joke, Katie knew, but it didn't make her feel any better.

She dropped the topic, though, and instead told him about what he had missed in English that afternoon. She offered to lend him her notes so he could catch up, but she knew even before he declined that he wouldn't be interested in catching up on schoolwork.

Bradley drove Katie home when they finished their milkshakes, and when he pulled up in her driveway he let the engine idle so he could slip his arm around the back of her seat and lean in slightly closer to her to say goodbye.

"I ain't goin' to school tomorrow again," he explained to her, "but I'll come pick you up and drop you there, so you don't need to worry about a ride."

Katie nodded slowly and looked at Brad, noticing that his face was only a few inches away from hers. If this afternoon was a date then he might be hoping for a kiss right now, or anything the slightest bit encouraging, really.

"Gang stuff," Katie said stiffly, "right?"

Bradley looked at her a moment and Katie hated the awkwardness in it. "Yeah," he answered, leaning back in his seat again, dejected. "Somethin' like that."

Katie bit her lip, feeling guilty for the second time in a week at disappointing him, but she didn't know how else not to lead him on. "I'll see you tomorrow," she said.

She hesitated slightly before squeezing his arm quickly and climbing out of his car.

When she made it to her front porch she turned around and watched as Bradley's car pulled out of her driveway and took off up her street. "Some first date," she muttered to herself as he went.

You're the first one I ever seen

That burns like gasoline

So light a match, turn off the lights

"So since you haven't mentioned anything about Saturday night, am I safe to assume that you didn't have any problems with Brumly after you left Buck's?" Tim asked Curly as he scooped some soup that their mom had made for dinner into a bowl from the pot sitting on the stove.

They were the only two in the kitchen, with their mom already having left for work and Angela painting her toe nails in the lounge room.

"Yeah," Curly said as he spooned some soup into his mouth and swallowed. "No trouble."

"How messed up was the Thomas girl?"

"Fine," Curly shrugged, "got a nasty gash on her forehead, but she's tough enough."

Tim nodded, seemingly satisfied with Curly's answer. "I got home pretty early yesterday mornin' and you weren't home. Where'd you stay?"

"Susan's place," Curly answered, and when Tim gave him a blank look he added, "Dale's girl."

"The trouble-maker?"

"Yeah," Curly answered, laughing a little at the memory of how differently Dale's night had ended compared to Curly's. "The break-up didn't last long."

Tim frowned. "What, is he dumb? The girl flirts with one of Brumly's boys and her best friend is Brumly's sister."

"Says the guy who was talkin' up a storm with Brumly's girlfriend on new years eve," Curly said as Tim crossed the kitchen to sit down at the kitchen table with him.

"Shut your mouth," Tim barked, smacking the back of Curly's head as he walked past him. "We were just talkin'."

Curly knew he probably shouldn't, but he snorted anyway. "You were standin' pretty close to just be talkin'."

"I said shut your mouth," Tim growled, giving Curly a deadly glare.

"Alright," Curly responded, raising his hands in surrender, "I'm just sayin', she seems about as much trouble for you as Susan is for Dale."

Tim rolled his eyes and slurped some of his soup off his spoon. "Don't lecture me, kid. You don't know the full situation. She's about as happy with her boyfriend as I am right now."

Curly pictured Jodie King afraid of how quickly things between the Brumly and Shepard gangs were spiralling out of control and not knowing how to handle the monster Rick was turning into, but in his head all he could see was Katie, desperately trying not to lose sight of the good in him, but unable to completely deny the bad after the way he had knocked her down.

And I wanna say

Nobody understands what we've been through

It was Rick that took Katie to school a couple of days later on Thursday, instead of Bradley. Jeff and Bradley hadn't been to school all week and with each day that passed Katie felt more and more curiosity build up inside of her.

Perhaps Curly had planted a seed in Katie's mind over the weekend, but she couldn't help the desire she now had to know what it was that was keeping Bradley and Jeff from school and bringing Rick home at all hours of the night. She had only spoken to Rick once since Sunday morning and that had been at ten-thirty last night when he had come home and grunted a hello at her as he walked past her bedroom on the way to his.

She had been finishing up homework at the time and when she climbed into bed a little while later, her mind had been too wired to sleep. She had spent majority of the night dissecting Rick's words to her on Sunday and his moods ever since, and had only gotten a couple of hours sleep as a result.

When she met him on the front porch the next morning she noticed that she wasn't the only one who must have gotten hardly any sleep the night before. She took in the bags under his eyes and his tired expression as they drove in silence toward the school.

She wanted so badly to ask him what it was that was preventing Bradley from taking her to school like he usually did. Where he had been last night and the nights before that, and why he was giving her the silent treatment – God forbid she disagree with anything he said!

But she bit her tongue and remained quiet, not allowing herself to voice the millions of thoughts, suspicions and fears that had been going through her mind all week. She didn't want to make anything worse, and the rigidity that he held himself with despite his obvious exhaustion was enough to make her feel like she might as well be treading barefoot on eggshells.

When Rick finally pulled up in a parking spot out the front of Will Rogers High School, he turned to her for the first time all morning and spoke. "You can catch the bus home, right?"

Katie furrowed her eyebrows at him. "You or Brad can't pick me up?"

"We ain't your personal drivers, Princess," he told her, sarcasm dripping from his lips. "You'll be fine; just don't get off 'til you're on our turf. You can keep yourself out of trouble for one afternoon, can't you?"

"Yeah," Katie answered slowly, confused by his accusatory tone, "sure."

She climbed out of Rick's car and watched him peel out of the parking lot, almost hitting a girl a couple of grades below Katie as she attempted to cross the parking lot to reach her friends. Katie watched him go, her confusion quickly transforming to annoyance. What had she done now to deserve that kind of hostility from him? She hadn't even seen him properly since Sunday!

"Katie!" Susan called out and Katie looked over to where the call had come from, her eyes landing on Susan and the Shepard boys hanging around Tim's car, which Tim had been letting Curly borrow for the past couple of days and was currently parked a few cars down from where Katie had gotten out of Rick's. "He didn't look happy," Susan commented as Katie walked over to them and came to a stop beside Susan.

She gave Katie a concerned look, which drew the attention of the three boys who had stopped talking to hear Susan's words, and Katie wanted to crawl under a car and stay there. Katie knew Susan was just concerned and that it was better to have a friend that cared than one that didn't, but the attention had quickly shifted to Katie and her brother, attention that she didn't want around people who clearly had their issues with Rick already.

Katie glanced at Curly, who was giving her a hard stare from where he stood leaning against his brother's car, and then looked back at Susan.

She tried to shrug nonchalantly, "He's fine."

Susan held her eye contact for a moment, clearly not believing a word of it, before leaving the matter alone and reigniting a conversation Dale and Glenn had been having about Glenn's car.

Katie tried her best to focus on what was being said around her than what had been said in Rick's car, but found it difficult to take in the boys' words. She stood there trying to look interested in the conversation, all the while thinking about Rick and feeling the burning sensation of Curly still looking at her.

She was grateful when the bell rang and the group began moving toward the school building.

Curly took up his position walking beside her, but didn't say anything to her. He could tell she wouldn't be able to hold a proper conversation about anything because despite what she had said, Curly knew just from the glazed look in her eyes that nothing was fine, especially not with her brother. He didn't know what the problem was with Rick now, but the look Rick had shot him as he drove past had been a filthy one. For a moment he thought that maybe Rick had found out about Katie spending Saturday night with him in Susan's lounge room, but quickly dismissed that possibility. If Rick had found out about that, Curly probably would have gotten more than just a dirty look from him. Rick had started a fight with Tim just last weekend for less.

During their first class of the day Curly looked over at Katie a couple of times, but she only looked back at him once and failed terribly at returning his grin. Her mood seemed to lift somewhat in their next class, though, as she quietly tried to explain how to solve a couple of equations to Susan beside her, and she didn't even roll her eyes at Glenn like she normally did when he asked her for a few answers.

By the time lunch came and she and Susan met back up with the boys, Katie seemed to almost be back to normal. She showed more interest in what was being said around her, even adding her own thoughts here and there, but she still hesitated a moment before agreeing and getting in Tim's car to join them down at the grocery store a block over from the school.

Once again, Rick crossed her mind and she thought fleetingly about whether or not he would like that she was going somewhere in Tim Shepard's car with his younger brother at the wheel, but she stubbornly thought to herself that she didn't much like being spoken to so nastily by her own brother, and wound up in the back seat with Susan and Dale a minute later.

When they arrived at the grocery store a few minutes after that and climbed out of the car, she told the others to go ahead of her. She wasn't hungry at all, she realised as she leant against the car and watched Susan, Dale and Glenn walk off across the parking lot and into the store, leaving Curly behind to finish the cigarette he had lit up while driving.

"So," he said, lifting himself up onto the hood of Tim's car, his cigarette bobbing between his lips, "you wanna tell me what your problem is today?"

"What?" Katie asked, coming around to the front of the car and crossing her arms across her chest defensively.

Curly realised how his words had sounded at the same time that he noticed the way her chest looked fuller with her arms crossed like they were. He quickly pulled his eyes up to her face again, removed his cigarette from his lips, and tried to fix his poor word selection.

"You don't have to," he said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "But I know something's wrong."

Some of the tension eased in Katie as she looked over at the grocery store. She couldn't see Susan or the two boys through the front windows and figured they would probably take a while in there, as they did with most things.

Sighing, she moved forward and jumped up onto the hood of the car to sit beside Curly. She looked up at the blue sky – almost completely cloudless compared to the dark skies of the week before – and let the words fall from her mouth.

"Rick just isn't being too nice," she glanced at Curly and quickly elaborated when she saw his lips pressed into such a hard line, "he's just not really talking to me." She laughed a little bitterly, "I don't even know what his problem is."

"What was he sayin' to you this morning before he tore off outta school grounds?"

"Just that I had to catch the bus home," she answered. "First thing he's said to me all week."

"His buddy can't pick you up?" he asked and it took Katie a second to realise he was referring to Bradley.

She shook her head. "He said, 'we ain't your personal drivers, Princess'."

"Coulda fooled me with the way he's been dropping you off and pickin' you up every day this week when he ain't even comin' to class himself," Curly responded, taking another drag of his cigarette as a quick wave of regret washed over him from remembering the way he had called her a princess, too, not even a week ago. "Why isn't he comin' to class?"

Katie shrugged. "I'm not allowed to ask questions," she huffed at him, leaning back a bit further on her elbows and looking up Curly, "all I get is 'gang stuff'."

Curly was surprised to hear that she had been asking questions at all and almost commented on it, but forgot about it when he looked down at her lounging across the hood of the car, her stocking covered legs hanging over the edge. Though the frown on her face suggested turmoil, the rest of her body language seemed more at ease than it had all day and he didn't want to ruin it by making her talk about her brother any more.

"You look like you belong on a sun lounge with a book in your hand," Curly teased as he flicked his finished cigarette onto the asphalt ground.

"The sun's nice today," she replied, looking up at the sky again.

"We talkin' about the weather?" he asked, leaning back and admiring the sky with her.

She laughed softly, "Well it's better than talking about my brother being a jerk." She looked at Curly the moment the words were out of her mouth, biting her lip at having said something bad about her brother to someone he considered his enemy. "I shouldn't say that," she said and Curly shook his head, looking intently at her.

"If he's bein' a jerk you can call him one," he told her and she bit her lip some more before finally nodding.

"And you don't need to catch the bus," he said. "I'll drive you wherever you wanna go."

"Somewhere that isn't Tulsa, please," she joked and he laughed.

"Wherever you want," he said again and she gave him a smile. It was only a small one, but it lit up her features more than the sun had during their entire conversation. The sun did do wonders in making her blonde hair shine, though, like some kind of halo illuminating her head. "The bangs look good; I don't think I've said that yet."

"I still don't know if I like them," she replied, smoothing a hand over the hair on her forehead, "but I guess they're better than the huge cut on my face being on full display."

"How is it?"

She lifted her bangs up to show him, not worried about his reaction because it didn't look anywhere near as bad as it had when he had seen it fresh. Curly leaned in closer and saw that it was still bruised and a sore shade of red rimmed the edges of it, but the cut itself was scabbing over and didn't look as bad as the cuts he'd had before and left to get infected. It looked like she was taking care of it properly.

"That's nothin'," he said as she laid her bangs back down over the top of it. "Hardly a scratch."

"You're lying," she responded, looking up at him through her eyelashes and bangs, "but thanks."

Curly didn't say anything back and they both seemed to notice at the same time how close they were, staring at each other warmly. Their faces were only a few inches apart and looking up into his dark blue eyes Katie recognised the look that had been in them on new year's eve when they had shared a dance in Buck's empty kitchen.

She thought she ought to pull away, to leave like she had last time, but this time it wasn't worries about what her brother would think that were pushing her that way, it was just nerves at being so close to him. anticipating what might come. But that wasn't right; she should have been worrying about what her brother would think. He had treated her like rubbish for hardly any reason at all, she didn't want to know what he would do if she allowed Curly to kiss her.

"You can't try to kiss me, Curly," she breathed, unable to break away from his eyes despite knowing that she should.

"Why not?" he asked, his eyes flicking down to her lips as he leaned in a little closer. "You don't want me to?"

He knew that wasn't the case, he knew that if she truly didn't want him to kiss her she would have put a stop to it already, but he didn't expect her to close the distance between them the way she did a moment later, pressing her lips to his before he had a chance to even process what she was doing.

She was kissing him. Her lips were soft and light against his, hesitant, like every single nerve in her body knew this was wrong and that she should stop. But she didn't, and for a few glorious moments she allowed him to bring his hand up to her neck and push harder against her lips, opening her mouth to deepen the kiss as his hand tangled itself in the hair at the back of her head.

And then as Katie began to run out of breath her self-control broke back through and the reality of where they were, what they were doing, and who Curly was came crashing down on her. She finally pulled away and quickly looked over at the front of the grocery store, horrified at the thought of anybody having walked out and seen them.

"I'm sorry," Katie said, looking back to Curly, who was leaning back on his elbows again.

"I'm not," he teased, grinning at her like a fool. "I knew you wanted to kiss me."

Katie shook her head at him, astounded that he was making a joke of something so seriously wrong. "You're a little bit arrogant, you know that?" she commented, sitting up properly on top of the car hood as she noticed Susan, Dale and Glenn finally coming out of the grocery store.

Curly shrugged. "Can't be too big a problem if you were just makin' out with me."

Katie shot him a dirty look as Susan and the two boys came closer with various kinds of candy and food in their hands.

"Don't you dare tell anyone," she warned him.

He could tell she was trying to seem threatening, but he couldn't help but laugh at how disgruntled she was about what had happened when it had been her to make the move and kiss him, right after telling him not to kiss her, no less.

Dale, Glenn and Susan stopped and gathered around Tim's car, continuing a conversation that Katie and Curly hadn't been around for the start of. They both tried to catch up and focus on what was being said, but neither could really follow the conversation as they sat beside one another quietly, Katie sitting up properly and Curly still lent back on his elbows, their minds consumed by what their friends had very nearly interrupted.

Not a word was said between the two of them during the drive back to school and as Curly sat in their last class of the day, sneaking glances over at Katie, who seemed determined not to return the looks, he realised that maybe it hadn't been too bright of an idea to kiss her...

It clearly made things complicated for her with her relationship and loyalty to her brother, and Curly couldn't say with much conviction that Tim would be happy about what had happened. Tim had always been of the belief that girls shouldn't be involved in gang feuds and Curly figured that was part of the reason Tim hadn't minded Curly and Dale getting Susan and Katie out of Buck's last Saturday night. He had been thinking of Katie as any normal girl who'd had a rough night and needed to get home safely, but he might start thinking of Katie as Rick's kid sister if he found out that Curly had kissed her, because if Rick found out about it Curly could bet what little money he had that he would retaliate against the Shepard gang for it.

So Curly decided to give Katie her space. He didn't know how long he would be able to do that, since she had been almost magnetic to him all week, but he was going to try for today at least. He didn't regret the kiss, and he didn't truly think that she did either, but he knew they both were regretting the circumstances around them.

When the bell signalling the end of the school day rang, the group walked down to the parking lot together where Katie pulled up short as they reached Tim's car.

"I'm, uh, gonna catch the bus," she told Susan, glancing very briefly at Curly as she spoke.

"Don't be stupid," Curly cut in, tossing Tim's keys up in the air and catching them, "I told you I'd drive you home."

Katie looked at him for a long moment, trying to telepathically tell him to drop it and let her go without drawing attention to the problem between them, but it was already too late. Susan was looking between Curly and Katie and Dale was tapping his foot, clearly impatient to get off the school grounds.

"Fine," Katie muttered, conceding all too quickly and hating the smug smirk on Curly's face.

Katie sat quietly beside Susan during the drive home, only half listening to the boys throwing around ideas of how to spend the afternoon until they started to agree on a game or two at the pool hall. It was then that Curly's eyes flicked to Katie in the rear-view mirror.

"How 'bout it, Katie?" he asked, eying the uneasy look of her and wanting to give her a way out of the situation. The pool hall was on Shepard turf and regardless of the fact that she was a girl and should be allowed to go wherever she wanted, if she was having a problem with having kissed Curly because of his gang affiliation, then chances were she would have a problem crossing into Shepard territory, too. "Feel like a game of pool?"

"Not really," she answered, crossing her arms over her chest grumpily. "That's not exactly a part of town a girl from Brumly should be in."

"Aren't girls meant to be kept out of your stupid gang stuff?" Susan asked the group.

"Yeah," Curly answered, looking at Katie in the rear-view mirror again, "but not for the kid sister of Brumly's gang leader, right?"

Katie looked back at Curly in the mirror, her mouth opening to say something and then closing a second later, not even knowing what she could say back to that. The only thing that was stopping her was her brother and how unhappy he would be to hear she had spent her afternoon on Shepard turf. Curly was right, but she looked away from him and out the window instead, not wanting to admit it.

Curly did as Katie wanted and dropped her home before heading off to the pool hall with the others. Katie spent the rest of the day sitting at her desk, staring down at her English notes and rereading the same words over and over again. Nothing would sink in, though, probably because her mind wasn't focused on the notes in front of her.

Instead she was focused on Curly and how stupid she must have seemed telling him that he couldn't kiss her and then being the one to lean in and kiss him. She honestly couldn't understand what Curly even wanted with her anyway. They had spent the majority of the last few weeks ignoring each other or arguing with each other, and even though a lot of that tension had eased this week and been replaced with some flirting, it didn't erase the fact that nothing good could come of the two of them interacting with one another that way. She already got the feeling that Susan was starting to clue in to something going on between Curly and Katie given that a week ago Katie still had nothing good to say about Curly and the Shepards and now she was going to the grocery store with them on their lunch break and getting lifts home in Tim Shepard's car.

Her stomach felt heavy at the thought of Rick somehow finding out that Curly had taken her back to Susan's on Saturday night, that they had spent the night together in Susan's lounge room – no matter how innocent the sleeping situation was – or that they had spent the week at school talking and laughing together.

She had been more than relieved to find her driveway and house empty when Curly had dropped her home, that was for sure. And that just drove home even more the idea that nothing more could happen with Curly again. She had genuinely enjoyed regaining a bit of their friendship over the past week at school, and it had made her realise that she didn't want to lose it again, but the moments of attraction between them had to stop. If not to spare herself and Rick something that could turn their home into a warzone, then definitely to spare Curly whatever horrible thing Rick would do to him for it.

That was it, she thought to herself as she leant back in her desk chair and stared up at her roof. She couldn't give Rick another reason to hate the Shepards. It wouldn't be safe for anybody involved.

I rather give up everything

Than to live my life without you