A/N: Hey guys, if you could stop here and not go on to the next chapter, that would be amazing since I'm rewriting this story from the beginning. Thanks!

Darry stared at me like I just spouted out perfect French, "what?"

"We broke up." I said with gasps for air between each word. I was going to drown in my own tears.

He looked at me like he wanted to ask for every detail and then his expression changed to murderous. He looked around the room to see if Dally was still there, but he wasn't. Darry put an arm around my shoulder and ushered me out of the police station, giving a small wave to the officer I talked to. He opened the passenger door of the truck and put me safely inside before rushing us home.

Soda was on the front porch when we got back home and rushed the truck as soon as he saw us pulling up, "What happened?" He shouted at me as he opened my door for me. I could barely see him through my swollen eyes. The tears had mostly subsided and were now replaced with a soul crushing emptiness. I opened my mouth to tell him the whole story, but Darry interrupted by clearing his throat and cutting off any more of Soda's questions.

I walked past both of them and directly towards the couch. I turned on the TV and plopped down, not caring what was on.

"Jill, don't you want to go to bed or something? It's been a long day." Darry suggested.

I stared blankly at the screen, "No, I'm fine here."

"Are you sure, because you look like you could take a nap." Soda said gently.

"God dammit, you two! I'm fine! Sure, Dallas and I broke up, but it's no big deal! He breaks up with girls all the time, what makes me any different from them? I guess it's a little different since we were each other's first real relationship and I was basically in love with the guy, but this kind of stuff happens and I just need to get over it."

They looked at each other and back at me, "Uhh, okay then." Darry said. They might have kept talking to me, but I zoned out. Dally is a murderer. And a heartbreaker. I'm not sure which I was more upset about, which sounds ridiculous. I should think that killing a guy is more important than breaking up with me, but I was torn in half by us not being together. I wasn't going to be one of those mopey girls that cries for weeks after they get broken up with though, I had my meltdown at the police station, and now I needed to hold it together.

The next couple of days were horrible. I kept up the appearance that I was fine, but I know the guys could see right through it. They all looked at me a little differently and they were just a little bit nicer to me. It was all wrong, I missed the jokes at my expense and the playfulness. None of them would mention Dallas, and it really bugged me. I wanted to know if he was okay and where he was staying nowadays, but I didn't want to come off as creepy and desperate for asking.

I was trying to find things to keep my mind off of him, so I started visiting Soda and Steve every day at work. They started to take their breaks when I was there so we could catch up on stuff and they could distract me. They were both after a girl that came in a lot and they needed a way to settle who got to ask her out.

"Steve, you already have Evie. How do you think she's gonna feel knowing that you wanna ask another girl out?"

"Nah, she's trying to get with Shepard. I think we have an 'open relationship'. At least that's what she told me." He laughed it off.

"Well, I still think that this girl should be Soda's because you already got a girl." I smiled at Soda who was looking triumphant.

"That's no fair, Jill! You just said that because he's your brother!" Steve whined.

I shrugged my shoulders and hopped off the counter that I was sitting on, "So what if I did?" Soda laughed and I waved goodbye to them as I walked out the door and went towards town. I didn't like to sit at home nowadays, too much time to think.

I walked down past the candy store and went into the malt shop. I had a dollar in my pocket, so I decided that I would treat myself to a chocolate shake. I sat down on a barstool and ordered my drink before looking around at the other customers. There were a few members of Shepard's gang and the rest were Socs. I recognized a couple of them from school, but that was about it.

As I was waiting for my shake, I started doodling on a napkin. I was doing anything to keep my mind off of Dally. It generally worked, my life had started to go back to how it was before my birthday and everything was going great. I had my moments where I would lapse into thinking about what went wrong, but I always had my brothers to distract me. They would see me get that glazed over look in my eyes and they would bring up something about school starting soon or what movies were playing. They were being really great through this whole thing.

The women behind the bar set my milkshake down on the counter in front of me and I smiled up at her. I reached for my pocket to get out the 50 cents that I owed her when a guy sat down next to me and slapped two quarters on the counter.

"It's on me." He smiled at me.

I stammered, "Uhm, thank you." I took a sip and I swear I died a little. It was the best chocolate shake I'd ever had.

"I'm Charlie, by the way." He stuck his hand out at me.

I shook his outstretched hand and introduced myself. He had on a nice pair of blue jeans and a polo shirt, so I couldn't really tell if he was a dressed down Soc or a greaser in his Sunday best. He made himself comfortable on the bar stool next to me and ordered himself and cherry soda.

"Are you new here?" I asked him, not wanting to be rude and outright asking him why he was talking to me.

He watched as the waitress set down his drink and said, "Yeah, I just moved here from Austin. I don't know anyone here and you looked pretty."

I stared at him. Did her really just say that I looked pretty?

He stuttered and then blushed, "Approachable. Uhm, pretty approachable."

I laughed. Loudly. People turned to look at us because of how loud I was laughing, and pretty soon he was laughing along with me. As my laughter died down I said, "Smooth. Real smooth."

"I'm sorry." He laughed.

"No, no. Don't be sorry. I haven't laughed like that in a while. Thank you." I smiled.

"Well, in that case. It was my pleasure." He made a lame attempt at a bow. I laughed again, quieter this time and he sat back down. "So you look like you know this town like the back of your hand. What kind of stuff is there to do around here?"

I thought about his question, "There's not really a whole lot to tell you the truth. There's the Nightly Double drive-in, and depending on what side of town you live on, there's a couple places that the kids go to hang out. Where do you live?"

He thought about it for a second, "Sorry, I'm that new. I live down on Patrick Street."

"That's only one street away from my house!"

"Decent" He drew out the word and nodded his head slowly. I had to admit, he was really good looking. Dirty blond hair and green eyes. Ponyboy would hate him because of those eyes. His nose was kind of big for his face, but somehow he made it look good, and he had dimples to die for. He was downright gorgeous. "So tell me, Oh Wise One, where can I hang out?"

"Right. You can come here, obviously. This is kind of the middle grounds between the Socs and the greasers, along with the Nightly Double, you can al-"

"Wait, what are Socs and greasers?" He asked, looking very confused.

"You don't know?" He shook his head, "Okay, well, you see those people over there? How they look really high class and like they own the world?" I made sure he was following along, "they are Socs. The rich kids. They don't like to be associated with the greasers like me or them." I stuck a thumb out towards Shepard's gang.

He looked flustered, "Okay, I guess that makes sense. What does that make me?"

"Well, you live on the greaser side of town, but you're towards the middle of town so it could really go either way. You could fit in with the Socs if you really wanted to, or you could stick with me and the greasers. I can introduce you to a lot of people." I flashed him a grin.

"That decides it, then! Greaser it is. I can't lose my only friend now!"

I high-fived him, "Awesome."

"So where else do we hang out?"

I smiled at his use of 'we'. "Well, we go to the Dingo. It's a really grubby diner, but they have decent food. We also go to this guy named Buck's house for parties…" Oh, well maybe not anymore. "Okay, Buck's is out now."

"Why, what happened to him?" He asked, curiously.

I blushed slightly, "Uhm, he kind of… died."

Charlie's jaw dropped, "Seriously? How did he die?"

"He got into it with this guy, and he got stabbed in the park." I said quietly.

Charlie looked slightly worried but snapped out of it, "It looks like you're going to need some protection then!" He flexed his bicep and grinned at me, God he was hot. "I think I can be of some assistance with that."

I laughed nervously, "Yeah, maybe."