"No thanks." He didn't object, just tossed me my shoes. When I gave him a questioning look, he pulled the blanket off me.
"You've gotta see a doctor today, after I drop Soda and Steve off." The clock on the wall read 8:30. School'd started an hour earlier and Pony was already gone. I waited for Darry to tell me I'd be joining him right after the hospital trip, but he didn't say anything else. I followed him into the kitchen where the rest of the gang, minus Dally and Ponyboy were eating.
Steve choked on his glass of orange juice when he saw me. "Holy shit, kid, what the fuck?"
"Way to 'keep quiet about it,' jackass." Two-Bit threw the rest of his bacon at Steve in frustration just as Soda smacked him upside the head. I checked my pockets for a smoke, being used to Randall's bouts of unobservance.
Steve fought themoff with his fork. "Well, geez, maybe if you gave a guy some warning..."
"What the hell'd you think 'keep quiet about it' meant?"
Irritation welled up inside me. "Anybody got a cigarette?" I wasn't in the mood for their early morning shit.
"That's the last thing you need." Darry glared at Two-Bit, who'd reached for his back pocket. "We should get going."
Soda glanced at his watch and whistled. "Whoa, you're right." He grabbed the bacon Two-Bit'd thrown and jammed it into his mouth before he and Steve bounded out the door to the car. Darry fished around in his pockets for the keys while I stuffed my shoes on. Matthews wasn't far behind. He leaped into the back of the pickup with the other two.
The Curtis' old Ford had belonged to their dad. Mr. Curtis'd been a nice guy. He'd always made sure to say hello whenever I was over. I climbed into the front seat next to Darry. The dashboard was worn down from people putting their feet up and the passenger door stuck, but all three of them loved that car, and so did almost anyone who bummed a ride in it.
We were down the road past the first stop sign when Darry spoke up. "So." I listened to him struggle for words and wondered if he'd ever kissed a guy, ever thought about kissing a guy. I wondered what it'd take for him hate someone. "It'd be a lot easier to decide where to go from here if you told me what happened between you and Dallas."
The yellow lines in the road were more appealing than the conversation we were having. Saying nothing seemed less painful.
"Johnny."
"Yeah." Soda, Steve and Two-Bit were laughing in the back, throwing rocks they'd found in the truck's bed at passing mailboxes. It was hard to concentrate. "Sorry."
"Don't be sorry, just tell me what happened." Suddenly it was easy to understand why Ponyboy had the short fuse he did when it came to Darry's questions.
"I don't know."
"That's not an answer." Darry made me nervous, but not like Socs and cops did. He had more authority than my folks sometimes, when he had a mind to tell me what to do. I didn't like being the center of his attention.
"What're you going to do to him?" My shoes were untied. I tried to remember where I'd bought them. They were so old that it wouldn't come to me.
"Depends on what he did to you. Was he drunk, or did you just get pulled into one of his stupid fights?"
"Yeah."
"Which one is it?"
"Neither."
"Johnny."
I sighed, teetering on the edge. Remember what I said about needing a smoke in the morning? "We were both drunk."
We stopped at a red light. "Both of you?"
"Yeah." I could see the school from where we were sitting. Ponyboy was somewhere inside. I should've been, too, but no one was missing me. It almost felt like I didn't go to school anymore, I'd been absent so many days in a row.
"You're only fifteen."
"Sixteen." Green light.
Darry shook his head. "That's not much better."
We pulled up next to the gas station and Soda and Steve jumped out before Darry'd even stopped the truck. Soda came around to the window while Steve unlocked the garage door. "Thanks for the ride, Dar. Feel better, Johnnycake." I nodded without looking at him. Sleep sounded so good at the time.
"Have a good shift, little buddy." Darry gave a small wave as we backed out of the parking lot. Two-Bit threw one last stone at Soda before he was out of range, and we sped off down the street towards the hospital.
Two-Bit was making eyes at the nurse sitting behind the reception desk. She looked up from her paper work, uninterested. "Can I help you?"
"Hey, kitten." He leaned over the counter, an eyebrow cocked. "How about spendin' some of your nine lives with me?"
"Oh, for the love of..." Darry grabbed the back of Two-Bit's jacket and pulled him off the desk and out of the way. "We need a doctor."
"This is a hospital, sir. Almost everyone here needs a doctor." She frowned, unamused by Two-Bit's advances. "You'll have to wait your turn." Then she peered around Darry and caught sight of me. Maybe it was because I look younger than I really am, or maybe the bruise on my face was worse than even Steve'd let on, because she changed her mind. "Fortunately, the ER is almost empty today, so you won't have to wait long." With that she asked us to follow her.
The nurse opened the door to a small, white room, identical to all the others in the building. "A doctor will be with you shortly. I'll let one of them know you're in here." I nodded, hopped up on the paper-covered examination table and pulled my shirt off. I knew the drill. You pick up on certain things when you go through them over and over. Darry and Two-Bit disappeared behind the door when the nurse pulled it shut.
I sat shivering lightly until I heard muffled voices coming from behind the door. The doctor walked in not long after.
He gave me a once over before speaking. "Hello..."
"Johnny."
"Johnny, yes. Your friend Darrel tells me you fell during a rodeo."
"Yeah." Darry'd been nice enough to spare me the trouble of making a story up. Just one more thing to add to the list of thank-yous I owed him.
The doctor peeled back the bandages Jake'd placed over the worst cuts. He didn't seem pleased with what he saw as he prodded gently around the edges of the bruises. His name was stitched into the pocket of his lab coat, but I couldn't make it out through the cursive. It didn't matter, anyway. A few minutes later he backed out of my personal space.
"Aside from several massive bruises and the cuts on your legs and arms, you managed to avoid any serious injuries. No broken bones, just a bruised rib or two." The creases around his eyes seemed to deepen. "You're lucky," he said, "many incidents involving a horse like the one your friend described result in concussions."
"Lucky's not the word I'd use." I mumbled. The clean floor reflected the fluorescent lights hanging overhead and I tried to pass time by counting the tiles.
"Strange, though." The doctor soaped his hands in the nearby sink. "Most rodeo horses don't wear leather boots."
I stared at him. He chuckled sadly. "I graduated valedictorian after eight years at the most prestigious medical school in the state, son. I know the difference between horse and human shoe prints." He didn't say another word, just dried his hands and applied new bandages to my cuts, and wrapped an ace around my chest. I sat still with my arms lifted so he could do what he needed to. I just wanted to get the hell out of there. I wanted to be grateful to Darry, I wanted to feel like shit for making spend money he couldn't afford to waste on hospital visits for someone he wasn't even related to, for someone he probably didn't even like all that much, but I could only think about how much I wanted to run.
Before I knew it, he was handing me my discarded shirt. "Rest up for a few days. Bruised ribs aren't life threatening, but they're no walk in the park, either. Understand?"
I did, and told him so. The doctor grabbed the door handle and was halfway out when he turned back to look me in the eye. "If I were you, I would quit riding before I ended up here again in worse shape."
I kept my mouth shut. Being a perfect stranger, he wouldn't've believed me even if I'd said anything against it, anyway. He cast a glance at the small crowd gathered outside my room, and nodded to Darry, who stood up to shake his hand. Then he walked away, into the next room, without saying anything more.
Two-bit got up when I came out, and patted my shoulder gently; or at least it was gentle for him. "You gonna be all right? Nothin' broken, yeah?"
I nodded my head as Darry took my shirt. "He says I'm lucky." Maybe a concussion would have been less painful. At least then I could blame the mess in my head on something I couldn't control.
Neither of them could think of anything to say as I turned to lead the way out to the parking lot.
He smelled like cigarettes and some girl's perfume that lingered on his shirt from who knows when. I was cold but his hands were warm, and he wasn't being selfish. So forbidden and dangerously familiar. Fingertips and smooth grooves of clothed skin. Moans and gasps, tongues and spit.
"Oh God..."
I sat up, sweating and miserable.
I'd never dreamed before in my life, or at least not that I could remember, but that night my mind just didn't want to settle down. I couldn't stay asleep. Usually after my dad knocks the shit out of me I sleep like I've been starved of rest, but all I could managefor days aftermy hospitalvisitwere short, fitfull naps.
I missed Dally. Despite the bruises and bandages I had to put up with because of him, I missed him. It wasn't just a physical thing, either. Once hadn't been enough, not after sixteen years of desperation, but it would have been so much easier to convince myself that the bruises were my old man's, that Dallas was still the same old Dallas I'd known all along. Unchanged, untainted. It seemed detatched, like maybe the whole thing was as unreal as the dreams keeping me awake. Jake, Darry, Two-Bit, Soda, Pony, the doctor; theyweren't enough to bring me around to reality. An extra pang of misery washed over me when I thought of how Dally must've hated me for messing around in his business, how he'd tried to ditch me.
The sound of footsteps made me realize someone was comin' down the hallway. I sat there on the couch, listening to them moving around, waiting to see if I could figure out who it was before they came around the corner.
There was a sudden crash as whoever it was ran into the Curtis' coffee table. "Ow, dammit!" Definitely Soda. I reached over and turned on the lamp sitting at the opposite end of the couch, and he froze like a deer caught in the headlights of a car, in the middle of nursing his shin. He stood straight when he saw me looking at him. "Oh, hey Johnny. Did I wake ya?" Darry must've told him to let me sleep, 'cause he gave me a guilty look.
I stifled a yawn to keep him from worrying. "Can't sleep."
He stretched lazily, convinced. "You hungry yet?"
"A little." Orange pancakes popped into my head and part of me wished I'd said no, so I changed the subject before he could say anything else. "Where is everyone?"
"It's early, man. Pony's at school, Darry's at work... Dunno where Two-Bit is. Steve took the day off, so you can come down to the station with me for awhile if you want." He casually shrugged into a button-down shirt. "Whaddya say?"
A Steve-free Soda is pretty hard to come by, maybe even harder than Sandy-free. "Yeah, sure."
"Cool." My stomach tightened when he smiled. It ain't what you're thinking, though. Everybody gets butterflies when they talk to Soda. Somethin' about him makes you feel like you'd do anything to keep him happy.
A glass of orange juice--forced down on Soda's orders after I refused a slice of chocolate cake--and one of Pony's clean white shirts later, and we were out the door and down the front walk towards the car.
The drive to the DX was the only thing I'd been able to tolerate in days. Soda didn't ask me any questions, didn't treat me like a five year old with a paper cut. He just turned on the radio and let the music do it's job. We reached the gas station too soon for my liking, in the middle of one of my favorite songs.
Once Soda unlocked the back door to let us in, he flicked the switch and the main room was flooded with light. In the middle of the garage floor sat a Mustang. A brand new, bright blue Mustang.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw me mesmerized, a knowing look on his face. "She only needs an oil change, but she's ours till this afternoon. Go on, get in."
I curled my fingers around the handle and pulled; it clicked and the door swung open, bouncing against its hinges. I pressed my back against the smooth leather seat, both hands on the steering wheel. The tips of my shoes touched the peddles when I reached. "Wow."
Coming around the other side, Soda plopped himself down in the passenger seat. It wasn't the Mustang, Bob's Mustang, but it was damn near exact.
Awe kept me quiet. It wasn't that the car was worth more than anything I'd ever make in my life; that wasn't news to me. But being there in that seat... I'm no good with words and I know I'd only fuck it up if I tried to explain it.
"You don't have to tell Darry what happened, Johnny."
Soda's words fuzzily buzzed around in my head until I realized he'd said them. You can't hide much from him. He must've known Darry would interrogate me the second he got the chance. "I know."
"I know you know, but he don't have to."
"You don't know, either." I thought to ask him whether or not he was serious about marryin' Sandy. He loves talkin' about her.
"No, but I can take a pretty good guess." There was that knowing face again. I remembered Jake's smug look, the comments he'd made.
"I don't really wanna talk about it." It was the truth. I couldn't see what telling Soda that Dally'd fucked me would do to make the situation any better. If anything, it'd just make things worse.
His face fell. "Johnny..."
Something in me snapped. "I said I don't wanna talk about it!" Without thinking about it I jammed my palms into the wheel and the horn blared, echoing angrily off the garage walls. Soda jumped, startled by the sudden noise, and I felt my face go hot. I stared ahead through the windshield, wishing I was anywhere else other than in a blue Mustang, like the one Bob owned; or rather, the one his parents'd bought for him. I could picture his ringed fingers grasping the wheel. The idea of it made me sick.
"I gotta go." The door was locked when I tried the handle so I skipped the whole ordeal and climbed out.
"Johnny, wait." Soda flipped the lock and pushed his door open. "Johnny!"
I ran out the back door. After doing nothing but think about it since it happened, I was tired of all the dead ends I kept slamming into.