Disclaimer: I do not own The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, or "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley.
A/N: Apologies for the late update, but I did have a baby - I figure that's a fair excuse, lol. This chapter ties very heavily into chapter 15 of Sway.
CHAPTER TEN
January 1967
Well maybe there's a God above.
You've seen some shitty stuff in your life.
The first - and worst - was when your old man beat the shit out of your mom with a golf club, just because she wouldn't let him use the money in Curly's piggy bank for beer. He left an hour later; took off and never returned, and you were left to look after you mom - who could barely breathe without it hurting - Curly, and Angela.
The first time you knifed someone was the first time you saw any kind of knife wound, and - you'd never admit it now - your first instinct as a fourteen-year-old kid, was to apologise. You know better now, and hell, you know for a fact that the guy you knifed at fourteen deserved it, but there had been a hell of a lot of blood you weren't expecting.
Seeing your own face sliced open wasn't exactly great, either. In fact, seeing your own face mutilated like that had made your stomach turn. You still count it sheer luck and willpower that you didn't puke all over Mrs. Phillips while she stitched you up.
Then there's the other stuff - the minor stuff; guys in the gang getting the shit beaten out of them, Vinnie Mort in tears when he told you what Hamilton did to his sister and girlfriend, Anna with a gash on her face caused by her own dad, the Cade kid in the hospital, and that feeling in your gut when you heard about Dallas.
But this is worse. Maybe not the worst to have happened to you - you're not sure there's much that could beat what happened to your mom - but worse than everything else, and definitely turning into worst night of your life.
Danny's been shot. Fucking shot.
You fall to your knees next to him, pushing Steve Randle out of the way, and placing your own hands over the wound. The River Kings have gone, but everyone around you is panicking, and you can't fucking stand it. You take a low breath before looking up at Jack Hennings.
"Go to the nearest payphone and call for help."
Jack hesitates. "Are you sure, man? Calling for help means the cops will come -"
"Christ, Jack. Just fucking go."
He leaves. You don't care about the cops this time. Shit, you'll even do your fuckin best to cooperate with them if it means getting Hamilton locked up for this.
Pressing harder against Danny's shoulder, you tell the boys to get downtown and not leave until you tell them otherwise, you tell Randle he needs to let Anna know, and you tell Darry Curtis that it's okay, he needs to get his brothers home before the cops get there.
And then it's just you and Danny, and he's your best fucking friend, the only guy - the only person - who's never screwed you over. Dallas got shot. Dallas died …
Staring at the blood pooling over your fingers, you slowly begin to count.
xxxxx
"Shepard, can't say I'm surprised to see you're involved with this." Officer Jerome is a hardass, but he's always nice about it. Kind of makes it hard to hate him sometimes.
You shrug as well as you can in the cuffs they've stuck on you, and you can't say you're surprised about that. The cops turned up to find your buddy shot and you're the only one there - of course they put cuffs on you. But it's okay; you knew, even before Jack said it, that cops coming would cause problems, but you just didn't care. Getting Danny help was more important.
And now, now that Danny's on his way to the hospital, you have to decide what's more important; the don't-squeal rule of all gangs, or telling the cops the truth.
You haven't been honest with the cops since the day your mom got hurt so bad, and then it was mostly because you didn't know any better - your dad hurt her, and when the police asked who did it, you told them. They didn't do shit about it and you learned your lesson pretty damn quick.
This is different. You're nineteen, the leader of a gang, and more than likely the next on Hamilton's hit-list. But that's not even the problem. You'd much rather have the guy come after you than Danny, but it's too late for that - he's already shot your best friend, and you'll do anything to get him back for that.
You'd like to kill the bastard - or at least beat the shit out of him - but you decide against it. He'll be expecting that, and it probably wouldn't bother him at all. Being locked up for the next few years, though …
You look at Officer Jerome, and when you open your mouth, only the truth spills out.
xxxxx
Anna blames you. You expected her to be upset, angry, frightened, but this is something else, and you almost don't recognise her. You want to explain, tell her that it's not all your fault, but she won't believe you, and she's mad and worried and scared. And then she slaps you. No warning, no screaming and yelling, not even any tears. She just slaps you.
You've been slapped by girls before, but never by someone who mattered, by someone who you could actually stand to be around for longer than a couple of hours at a time, by someone who you've always cared about enough to look out for. Anna fucking Harris slapped you and you can't fucking believe it.
But then she's talking, her voice real low and accusatory, and as much as you want to defend yourself - as much as you try to defend yourself - there's not much you can say. And then she yells words you already know, and you think her slapping you is pretty fucking justified.
xxxxx
It's late. You don't know what time, but you left the hospital over half an hour ago, and you've just been driving around since - past empty playgrounds, houses with no lights on inside, locked up stores. You think about looking for Hamilton, but the cops warned you against it. It's not often you listen to them - nor is it often you're honest about what's been going down - but you think that maybe this time you should.
Pulled up against a curb down some silent street, you stare at the clock in the dash. It's been broken since before you got the car, but you stare at it and silently count the seconds anyway. One, two three … you should really just go home, get some sleep. Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six … then again, if the cops don't have Rex yet, that's probably the first place he'll be looking for you. Forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one … you couldn't go home even if you wanted to and didn't have Hamilton to worry about. You're too fucking wired to sleep.
You get to 362 seconds before you make up your mind - work up the courage? - and step out of the car and into the rain. You've parked six or seven houses away, in hopes that, if Hamilton does come across your car, you won't be making things dangerous for anyone who matters. You hope you're not making things dangerous for anyone …
The house is dark - of course it is, it's got to be close to 3am - but you knock anyway, and hope like hell her old man doesn't hear it. If you knew what bedroom was hers, you would just go to the window, but you don't. You don't have a clue, and it bothers you more than it should.
When no one answers, you knock again, and again. If you didn't know she had younger siblings, you would probably start tapping at windows just to see what happened, but then the door opens and she's right there, staring at you with dazed eyes.
Her hair is messy, and you like it.
"Tim, what are you doing here? It's three-thirty in the morning," Shelley asks.
"Can I come in?"
She glances behind her before opening the door wider. "I guess, but stay quiet, okay? Everyone's sleepin'."
You walk over the threshold, and she leads you to the living room. It's simple enough, no bigger than your own, but nicer - cleaner and warmer. There's pictures everywhere, and you stare at one in particular of Shelley and a woman who must be her mom - must have been her mom. You tear your gaze away, and look at Shelley. At her mouth, at her hands, at her feet - anything but her eyes.
"What're you doin' here?" She sounds accusatory, just like Anna did, but it's different with her. You deserved it from Anna, and you're not sure yet that you deserve it from Shelley.
Still avoiding her eyes, you stare at her a moment - pink flannel pyjamas, arms crossed over her chest, pink painted toenails on her bare feet - and you think she looks devastatingly perfect. You lick your dry lips, and stumble over your words.
"I just … there was - uh, a rumble tonight."
"Yeah, I know. Everyone knows it was happening tonight."
"Danny got shot."
Her arms drop. "He … oh hell. Oh hell. He got shot?"
"Yeah. He's gonna be okay, but, well, I guess I thought you should know."
She steps closer to you. "Are you okay?"
"I ain't the one who got shot."
"No, your best friend is."
You meet her gaze for a second, then swallow back the sick feeling. Your best friend got shot … because maybe Anna's right and you didn't have his back. You cough. "I'm fine. I just … I thought you should know."
"That's why you came here?"
"You're his ex-girlfriend"
But you both know that's not why you came here.
"Tim …" Her voice is a breathy whisper, and when she says your name, it's probably the best thing you've ever heard.
"I just needed somewhere to go," you say. "The cops are lookin' for Hamilton, and he's lookin' for me, and it was probably really stupid of me to come here - really dangerous."
"Tim."
"I shouldn't be here. There're kids here. I should just go."
"You don't have to go."
You look at her again, and she's standing so much closer than you originally thought. "I just needed somewhere to stay."
She smiles and reaches one hand out. Her fingers touch yours, and you let her tangle them together. "Stay here. With me."
You nod because you can't do much else, because you can't disappoint her when she gives you that smile, because you just want to stay there with her even though it might ruin everything. And when she reaches up to softly kiss you, your whole body trembles, and you just don't have the willpower to stop her.
xxxxx
She sleeps next to you - pale, naked, fucking beautiful - and you remind yourself to call Hands Off once Danny's well enough not to just roll his eyes at you.
But for now, you need to fix what you've done, because you've either just messed everything up, or you're about to. And, the simple fact is, you're not willing to wait around and find out. You don't know what Shelley's going to think or feel or say when she wakes up in the morning, but you're sure it can't be good.
So, as hard as it is to tear yourself away from her warmth, you move to get out of the bed. She doesn't stir, not even when take your arm out from under her head; she just keeps sleeping, looking peaceful and cosy and happy. And you hate yourself for being such a shit.
The storm's finished, the sun's coming up, and you can't stand to stick around and keep watching her. Even as you leave you know that this is how you're going to ruin everything. It wasn't by sleeping with her, it's by leaving her now. But you have to do it. You try to tell yourself it's so you can give Anna a ride to the hospital once she's up, that it's too unsafe to have a girl while Hamilton is out to get you, but you can't even lie to yourself.
This girl terrifies you almost as much as Rex Hamilton.
xxxxx
She must hate you. You kind of hate yourself sometimes. A lot of the time. Possibly more than she hates you.
That's a long shot, but you hope it's true. You really can't stand the idea of her hating you, though you know it's likely, and that you made it happen. Anything that's happened since the night Danny got shot, anything that's going to happen from now on - it's all you're doing, and you really fucking hate yourself for it.
But you still do nothing about it. When you see her at the Dingo, you pretend you don't. When you see her at Buck's, you take another girl home. When you see that she's back with Robbie, you don't say a fucking word.
It only takes a few weeks for her to go crawling back to that fucker.
You want to hate her for it, but you can't. She waited, you just know it, and you never went back. You're a piece of shit, and you know it as well as she does. Probably better.
A/N: Reviews are loved.