The rest of the night brought an endless barrage of phone calls. I was glad that my coach was the first to call; I knew that if he hadn't been, I would have been badgering Soda to get off the phone whenever Sandy called, which was next to impossible. Soda and Sandy inhabited their own little world on the telephone. Soda had actually been the one to answer the call, and was annoyed that it was for me, handing it over with a mouthed "hurry up!" I stuck my tongue out at Soda, telling my coach that Darry had said yes, and setting up my visit for Sunday. Afterward, Darry talked to him for a while, asking a few questions about where he lived, getting me to and from his house, and finally ending up in a discussion about sports. I wasn't exactly sure how old my coach was, but it seemed to me that he and Darry were pretty much peers. I liked that.

Next up was Sandy was calling for Soda. Pony and I tuned out all their lovey-dovey nonsense while we watched TV. About two minutes after Soda finally hung up, the phone rang again, and I picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Hey Scout. It's Anna."

"Hi," I said, surprised to hear from her so soon. I had assumed earlier when she said that she'd call that she'd meant later in the week. "What's up?"

"I miss you already!" she joked. "Actually, I do miss you. I had to eat my Thursday night pizza all alone! When your big brother comes around in the day, it messes up my social time with you!"

"What are you talking about? Today?" Darry hardly ever took a real "lunch break" at work, he preferred to eat quick and get home early, and, especially after already having to pick up me and Pony at school, I was surprised he would have taken the time to go to Angelo's. But that did explain why we hadn't gone there for dinner. I had completely forgotten that it was Thursday in the first place.

"Yup. He came in at lunchtime. And he asked Ali out for Saturday night!"

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. She's all goofy-happy about it, she's so in loooove!" I heard Alison yelling at her to shut up in the background and giggled.

"Yeah, well, you can tell her the feeling is mutual." That certainly explained Darry's unusually good mood.

"So… I wanted to see if you wanted to come over, when Darry picks Alison up, like last time? My dad said he'd drive us to the movies. Think Darry'll let you go?"

"I'll have to ask, but I don't see why not." I didn't see any real reason for Darry to say no. If he trusted me to be responsible enough to babysit, I couldn't see how going to the movies on a summer night would be a problem.

"Cool. Is he there? Alison wants to talk to her loverboy." Alison protested loudly in the background, as both Anna and I laughed.

"Yeah, hang on." I called for Darry and handed him the phone, announcing for everyone to hear,

"It's that girl from your lunch date today."

I winked and he grabbed the phone, flicking me hard enough on the head that I yelled out.

Then it was him laughing, and I could hear Ali laughing on the other end, as well.

"Who is it?"

"Darry had a lunch date?"

Pony and Soda both asked their questions at the same time.

"It's Alison, you idiots! I didn't think you guys were that gullible."

Pony threw a pillow at me, but I ducked and it hit the lamp next to the couch, almost knocking it to the floor before Darry grabbed it with his free hand, shooting Pony a look that made me laugh. Pony glared at me, I glared back, and with a start he was off, chasing me out the door into the front yard. My plan was to make it all the way around the house and then run back in the front door, locking him out, but he was just too much faster than I was, and before I even made it a quarter of the way around, he had tackled me and was preparing to pin me down and make me holler uncle.

I knew exactly what his plans were, all along, but the second his hands were around my wrists, my mind immediately reverted to Steve, holding my hands back over my head, his weight pinning me down. I knew it wasn't Steve; I knew it was Ponyboy, but my subconscious apparently didn't care. It equated my hands being held down with an act of aggression, and, before I knew it, I was screaming bloody murder at him to get off of me - to let me go. I was crazed to get him off of me.

At first, he must have thought I was just kidding, because for a minute he continued to hold me down, forcefully, despite my struggling. Finally, the genuine fear in my voice, along with the fact that Darry had come running from our house and both Ben and Kevin had emerged from theirs must have hit him, and he heard my yelling for what it was: true fear. He immediately released me, jumping off and sitting down next to me, his hand on my back, leaning over me to try to find my face, which was already covered by my hands in the middle of my balled up body.

"I'm sorry, Scout, I forgot. I just forgot."

I wasn't crying. I was shaking like a leaf, and my heart was about to explode out of my chest, and I couldn't breathe, but I wasn't crying. I saw that as some sort of progress, at least.

"Jesus, Pony, what the hell did you do to her?" Darry was kneeling next to me, trying to pry me out of my fetal position.

"I just tackled her, and was gonna pin her down and tickle her. Same thing we've done to her since she was born, practically."

"I'm okay," I lied.

"No, you're not, but c'mon, sit up." Darry pulled me up into a sitting position. Soda had slowly made his way outside by then, and as I looked up into the faces of all three brothers, as well as Ben and Kevin, I felt completely, immeasurably stupid. My brother play-wrestling with me had caused me to scream like a banshee, bringing out half the neighborhood in an absolute panic.

"I'm really sorry, you guys," I said, my voice shaking nearly as much as my hands.

"No, I'm really sorry," Pony said. "I just totally forgot. That was stupid of me. I didn't mean to scare you. I actually can't believe I did scare you like that. I mean, you knew it was me, Scout. You know I would never really hurt you. At least I hope you do…"

"I know. It wasn't your fault, Pony. I can't explain it… It's just… my hands. Having my hands pinned down, I just…" I didn't finish. I didn't want to talk about that night anymore, because every time it seemed like it had started to fade the tiniest bit from my memory, something brought it all rushing back.

"You don't have to explain it, baby," Darry said, kneading my shoulder, and adding quietly, "I'll never forget those bruises." I looked down at my wrists, half-expecting to see them again, the purplish marks trailing halfway up my forearms. Darry saw me looking, and took my hand, pulling me up to standing. I allowed him to pull me into a sideways-hug.

"Jesus Christ," Soda muttered. I hated it so much that it had been his closest friend that had hurt me, because, I swear, it felt like he had hurt Soda every bit as much as he had me. I saw him ask Pony for a cigarette and knew he was upset.

"I'm okay, Soda, really." Darry had released me from his hug but was still rubbing my back. I had stopped shaking, pretty much.

"I'm sorry," I said, turning to Kevin and Ben. "I guess that must have sounded pretty dramatic. I didn't mean to scare anybody. But thanks for running to my rescue, anyway." Kevin laughed.

"I'm just glad we saw it was only Ponyboy before we laid into him," Kevin said. I realized that, in the dark, they wouldn't have been able to see who I was screaming at. I was glad they had figured it out; if they had hurt Pony I would have felt awful.

"I appreciate it, too, guys," Darry said. "It's nice to know the neighbors are looking out for us."

"Oh, c'mon Darry, you know we've got your back," Kevin said.

"Same goes for you guys," Darry said, punching him good-naturedly on the shoulder as Kevin turned and headed back to his house. Darry turned to me.

"Let's go inside, huh?" Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ben staring at me and could tell he wanted to talk to me.

"You go ahead. I just want to talk to Ben for a minute. I'll be right in, okay?"

Darry looked at me skeptically, trying to figure out if he should leave me. He must have decided yes.

"Just a couple minutes, okay? I don't want you out here in the dark alone."

"I'm not alone," I said, motioning to Soda and Pony, who had relocated to the front porch and were sitting there, smoking.

"Alright. Five minutes. And don't make me come get you."

"I won't."

Darry gave my shoulder a squeeze and headed inside, stopping to talk to Soda and Pony and, no doubt, telling them to spy on me.

Ben took my hand and led me over to sit on some cinderblocks Soda had been using to hold up an engine while he and Steve had been working on it a few months before. The engine had disappeared, but the cinderblocks never had.

We sat down and Ben looked over at me. I waited.

"Are you okay?" he finally asked.

"Yeah, now I am. I just… getting my hands pinned… I can't handle it. It's just… too scary, because I can't fight back."

"You know I would never do something that scared you like that, right? I didn't know… until now. I mean, any thing that I know scares you, I would never do it."

"I know."

"You scared me," he said. "When you were yelling… I've never heard you sound so terrified. I mean, I knew what happened to you was bad – that he hurt you - but I guess I never thought about how much he really scared you."

"A lot. He scared me a lot, Ben."

There was a long silence, while he thought about his response. What he came up with didn't surprise me.

"I'm sorry." It was easy to tell from his tone that he truly was.

"I know. Thanks." He put his hand on my cheek and turned my face to his, pressing his lips against mine and rubbing his hand gently up and down against the back of my neck as he kissed me.

"Samantha Scout Curtis! Put your hands up where I can see 'em!" I was startled into breaking the kiss. It was Soda, trying to embarrass me, which he did. I had actually forgotten for a second that the boys were watching.

"Sorry," I whispered.

"That's okay," Ben replied. I'd better go inside anyway, I'm supposed to clean up the kitchen before my mom gets home. We have a whole summer anyway, right?" He squeezed my hand.

"Right," I said, standing up. "'Night Ben."

"'Night."

I walked up the porch to a giggling Pony and a playing-it-straight Soda.

"Grow up, you two," I said, as I walked between the two of them, feeling my cheeks flush, straight through the door. I could hear them burst out into full-fledged laughter as I passed from the living room to the kitchen.

Darry took one look at my face from where he was standing at the counter and knew what had happened.

"Boys… they just take a while to grow up. Ignore them," he advised.

"I did."

He glanced over my shoulder at the doorway and looked back at me. He just had that look on his face, like he was going to say something big, and didn't want the boys walking in on him.

"Scout?"

"Yeah?"

"If you needed something… I mean, if you were really hurting, or scared, would you tell me?"

"Darry…"

"Scout, just answer me. Please?"

I didn't know what to say.

"I'm worried. Because you definitely are not done… dealing with… what happened. I just feel like I should be doing something; doing more, to make you feel safe again - to get better. But I don't know what to do."

"You're doing good, Darry. Really. I don't know what else you can do." Switching my bedroom to between my brothers' was a good idea; beyond that I just didn't know how someone "got over" something so bad happening to them.

"I still think you need to talk to somebody."

"What?"

"Talk to somebody, tell them what you aren't telling the rest of us. You have nothing to be ashamed of, baby, but I know you don't want to talk to us about it. But I think you need to talk to somebody."

"I did," I said. "I told Soda." I remembered that night, in the car, telling him through tears what had happened. A rite of passage in a way I hadn't even understood at the time. Maybe it had been finally telling that story that had sent me onto the path toward womanhood.

"You did?" he sounded relieved.

"He asked me… He wanted me to tell - he just wanted to know, so he could maybe feel like he knew what happened to Sandy, a little. So... I told him." I was staring at the floor where it met the base of the cabinets.

"Scout, I…"

"If you need me to tell you, Darry, I..."

"I don't," he interrupted. "I need you to do what helps you get better. It isn't about what I need. I just want you to get what you need."

"I don't know what that is, Darry. I don't know what I need. Really. I just wish it would go away."

"I wish that for you too, then. But… promise me something?" He wasn't usually one to ask me for promises.

"Okay."

"If you do need something, you'll tell me?"

"I promise."

"I want you happy, Scout."

I walked over to him, putting my arms around his waist and leaning my head against his chest, so I could hear his heart beating through his shirt.

"Me too, Darry. Me too."

..................................

A/N: Huh. This chapter took a totally different direction than expected. I guess Scout just had more to deal with than I had been planning to write. Hope it was okay.