(author's note):

Here it is! :) Have I been punished enough? I'm going to say this beforehand - read this (especially Ponyboy's part) with an open mind PLEASE. It needs to get worse before it gets better. And I think we should pardon Ponyboy for anything rude he does here. He is only a boy, afterall. ;)

(disclaimer/acknowledgements):

I don't own. Obviously. Hinton owns Outisders. Anberlin owns "Feel Good Drag" lyrics. Thank-you to DIVINE ENERGY again for beta'ing. She's quite amazing, really. And she saved me from being really really really really embarassed because of one little word. You know which word it was, Dee. Thanks!


x- Prayers that need no answer now.
I'm tired of who I am.
You were my greatest mistake
I fell in love with your sin.
Your littlest sin. -x


"Hey, Curtis! What was the hold up?" Terry greeted me, a bottle clutched in his right hand. He waved with his left, and I could already see he was pretty soused.

"Hi, Terry. And nothing, I was just at the post office." Greg was there, sitting on Terry's car, but looking over at some crowd of girls who were all giggling at these two guys going at it. I think they were waiting to see if they'd start racing. Both of them were greaser guys, which was pretty common nowadays. Socs stopped doing a lot of the jumping and fights with us greasers a while back. They became a lot more liberal and into human rights stuff, and treated us more like charity cases than anything. I'm not sure what was worse – being stomped on or being coddled.

"Hey, where's Mark?" I asked the both of them, and they shrugged.

"Not sure, Baby Curtis – I think he's with Cathy … " I felt my blood turn cold. "… And Bryon." Greg smirked at me, but said nothing. I could feel my face heating up, and I was getting really angry by that time. First for my face turning red as a cherry tomato, and two – goddamit, what had Mark told them?

Terry looked from Greg to me real quick, like he understood. He just grinned and said to me, "Mark's somewhere else. Said he needed to take care of something - "

"- Probably his bar tab. Him and Bryon are always scrounging up money for that guy, uh ... what's his name?" Greg snapped his fingers, looking thoughtful.

"Who? Charlie?" Terry asked, eyebrows raised. "Naw, man. Di'in't y'all hear?" Greg and me shook our heads. "Yeah, yeah. He got shot a while ago, Mark said."

"Well, least now he'll stop asking for money," Greg grumbled, glancing back at those girls near the road.

"Maybe you could stand to say 'no' once in a while, Williamson," I shot back, elbowing him lightly. "Hey, Terry - I didn't hear that. When'd Mark tell you?"

"Aw man," Terry started, shaking his hair into his eyes. "Mark di'in't tell me nothing. S'all over school how him and Bryon got those Texans in jail for shooting the guy." He looked at me exhasperatedly, but grinned again. "Don't tell me you didn't hear about that Curtis!"

"I've got stuff on my mind," I mumbled. I looked at Greg again and changed the subject. "Hey, Greg – you gonna just sit there, or you gonna go talk to one of those girls?" I jerked my thumb to the girls and Greg peered curiously at my thumb.

"Hey, who wrote on – aw, hell. Curtis – what chick wrote on your arm today?" he whooped, holding out my arm with Evie's number on it.

"Hey, Greg – lay off," I mumbled, trying to take my arm back.

"I think I recognize that number," Terry mumbled, taking my arm and examining it. I was getting real jittery. It was one thing to talk about some girl, another thing entirely when the girl found out. "Yeah … that looks like my neighbor's phone number; the crazy old bat with the cats and the ten-year old milk in her fridge!" He cracked up, and I punched him in the arm. He caught my arm, and soon we ended up fighting - but not enough to hurt each other. Well, we didn't hurt each other too bad.

"She cute, Curtis?" Terry laughed, holding me in a headlock. I smelt peanut butter on his breath. I broke out of it and sat up, brushing myself off.

"Quit it," I said slowly, enunciating each word. "So hey, what do you guys want to do?" I looked around and saw Greg talking to one of the girls who kept glancing back at Terry 'n me. I thought about telling Terry to hide the alcohol, but then Greg came back, crooking his finger to the girls to follow.

"Hey – guess what I found?" Greg said, smirking. I saw the gap in his mouth where one tooth had been knocked out during some fight. It wasn't noticeable unless you knew where to look though. "Why don't we take these fine ladies some place nice?"

Terry shrugged nonchalantly, which was funny seeing on Terry who was usually such the jokester. "Alright. What do you think, Curtis?" There were four girls – I wondered how that was going to work.

"Um, alright," I said reluctantly. I was hoping that we could've just waited for Mark to come back, and maybe hang out with him, Bryon and Cathy - if he was even with them. We started walking in the direction of Jay's, and I heard fast clapping of heels, and suddenly there was a girl's arm looped around mine. "Hi."

She smiled at me. "I'm Mary Haden – yours?"

"Ponyboy Curtis. Nice to meet ya," I told her, nodding. She giggled and said she liked my name, and then commented on what a gentleman I was. I have to admit, it was nice having a girl give you so many compliments in the first five seconds you know her. I followed the rules that Soda had pretty much told me when we were younger, and I was trying real hard to be polite.

"I see you around school sometimes," she told me, twirling her blonde hair between her fingers. "But I don't think we have any classes together ... " Her nails were this deep red, like Angela's were that night of the dance. I still thought it was a cool color. "What?" she asked, a little worried.

"Huh? Oh, nuthin'," I said. "I like your nails – tuff color." She smiled, and raised nibbled on one of her nails almost self-conciously.

We talked a little more about school, and she would always nod and smile, like she was actually interested. I was feeling a little antsy, but I wasn't sure why. I figured it had something to do with being so close to the West Side. After the Dingo got bombed, greasers and Socs alike started coming to Jay's, and while the Socs didn't bug us too much anymore, I was always on the look-out. Terry and Greg had split up with the girls divided - Greg had two with him at the moment. I turned to Mary, who seemed to understand.

"You know … " she said slowly. "We don't have to go with those guys." She jerked her head at Terry and Greg with the three other girls. "We could go somewhere else … ?"

I might be dumb enough to not know when someone's flirting with me, but even I knew what she was talking about. I tried telling myself that I didn't want to fool around with Mary. I had just met her after all. But there was something I really liked about her. She was pretty – prettier than Evie was, and I felt like it didn't really matter too much if I didn't know her. We could talk later after all, I tried to tell myself.

We walked away from Jay's, down the sidewalk. She smiled at me coyly, and pressed on. "I hope you don't mind gettin' away from all that action. I just wanted you all to myself."

I was taken aback. I had gotten a first impression of Mary, and I knew she was a flirt and a bold one at that. I guess I was just surprised by how upfront she was with me. It seemed like a girl would do this to Sodapop, but not me. "Naw, it's alright." I felt my face heat up a bit, and I knew that something was going to happen soon.

We walked a bit farther, and she took my hand, sighing. "This is so nice."

I turned to her, and that strange feeling got a lot stronger. She was really pretty. Her hair was a nice blonde color, and it hung in little waves right on her shoulders. I had a little experience with girls, but this was the first time since I actually started noticing them that I've had one up close. Maybe it was the fact that I had started so late, or maybe I was still a little sore about the whole Angela dilemna. But for whatever reason running through my head, I kissed her right there.

I caught her lips on mine, practically missing her mouth the first time. She giggled again as she rubbed her forehead against mine, and deepened the kiss. We were still standing off on the sidewalk, so I inched slowly off to the side so we wouldn't bug anybody. She wrapped her arms around my neck, and I tried pulling her closer with my arms around her small waist.

She started making these groaning sounds, and I wasn't real sure of what I could do except to keep kissing her. She cupped her hand around my head, fingering my hair with those tuff red nails of hers, and continued with that for a while. We both had to come up for air eventually, and she smiled breathlessly up at me, pressing her nose to mine. "Hey, who's that?" She pointed to Evie's number on my arm. I shook my head. "No one." She cocked her eyebrow, but didn't press on.

She had this nice girl smell coming off of her that I can't really explain more than that. It wasn't a specific scent like soap or vanilla like people always say. She just smelled like a girl.

I laughed, and gave her a short peck on the lips. She travelled away from my mouth, and started kissing my neck where the jaw line ends. It was getting easier as we went along, and soon it became almost like a natural instinct. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time. I could feel all the adrenaline pumping through my veins, and the only way to let it out was to just keep on kissing her.

It didn't last that long, though.

"Hey, where'd Curtis go?" Terry.

"I don't know – he went with Mary somewhere. We shouldn't look for them, Mary'll get so angry." One of the girls was talking, and I took Mary's hand, and ducked behind some table, ignoring the protests from the guys there.

"C'mon, we should go," I told her, wondering how she was going to explain the makeup smears and the wild hair. I felt guilty all of a sudden - like I was a little kid caught with my hands in the cookie jar. I knew how girls felt about guys taking advantage of 'em, and I always never really paid much thought to it. Didn't think it'd happen to me. I looked back apologetically at Mary. She pulled her hair back, and smiled.

"No, let's just stay here," she purred, pulling me back. "They'll stop looking after a while."

"Really," I said slowly. "Mary, c'mon. We don't want them to think that we're … " I broke off, and she looked at me impatiently.

" 'That we're doing what," she said, snapping on the 'what'. I winced. "exactly? My friends know me better than that."

She stood up, and I bit my lip. I hadn't meant for her to take it in such a bad way. I was beginning to understand that girls were difficult to understand. It made me wonder how people actually got married and could stand each other for more than a year.

"Let's just go," I mumbled. I pulled her up, and we walked out to the sidewalk again - it was one of those open food joint places. I felt a little less attracted to her now. She seemed to get a lot less pretty, and I just wanted to find the guys and get going.

"Oh, fine," she huffed. "I'm going to go get freshened up. And by the way," she said crossly, "you can stop looking at me like I'm trash – I haven't even done it yet." She walked away looking really hacked off, and I felt bad. She mumbled something that I couldn't catch, but looked close to hitting me or crying. I couldn't tell. I figured I'd wait outside for her and then I saw Mark coming up.

"Hey, Mark!" I called out. He didn't look up. "Mark! MARK!" I yelled, and he saw me. He walked over to me, and grinned.

"Curtis – hey, Terry and Greg are looking for you. You with someone?"

"Yeah," I told him. "You know Mary Haden?" He whistled.

"Hey now, you got lucky, didn't you? She's a real fox. See, I was telling Bryon you're not as clueless as he thinks. You know when girls dig you – you just chose the sane ones over the … well, insane ones." I knew he was talking about Angela.

"Hmm," I grunted.

He nodded, and slid down. "I ran into him with Cathy, and just said hello. Could tell they wanted to be alone. Cathy was getting annoyed at some fight going on, and Bryon left with her I think."

"Yeah … " I said softly. It reminded me of Cherry a bit – how she hated fights. I wondered why I kept connecting those two together. They just seemed a lot alike. It made me wonder what Cherry might've been like if she lived on the East Side. Would she be like Cathy? I slid down next to him.

"Anyway. Need to figure out my ride home. Bryon left with the car." He shook his head. "Phew. Man, Bryon sure digs her - I don't get it, actually. She's not that great." He looked down frowning, one eyebrow cocked. His yellow eyes were gleaming with something I don't think I've ever seen on Mark before - jealousy. He shook his head and laughed.

"I don't know," I mumbled. "Whatever works for him, right?"

He looked at me as some guy gave us the stink-eye. Like we were breaking the law by sitting down on the side of a building. Mark frowned. "You still dig Cathy, don't you?"

I pursed my lips. "No."

He sighed. "Sorry, man. There's nothing I can do though. My brother really likes her and – "

"Good for him," I shot back. I was sick and tired of hearing about Bryon. He was just going to break it off with her for no good reason like he always did. "She goes after your brother, then I definitely don't want her."

"Hey!" he said sharply. "Leave him alone, alright?"

"Sorry," I mumbled. "It's just been a bad week."

"Bad week. How about – " He stopped, and smiled weakly. "Yeah, alright man. Everything's just changing too fast – it's fucking weird."

I nodded. "Hey, where's Terry? I should get – "

Mary appeared at the door again, and I waved. "Over here!"

I was really loathing her coming over, but when she did, Mark just smiled. She seemed to brighten up again - Mark had that affect on people; he could make anybody smile, and convince anybody to do stuff for him. He was like Soda in that way, but Mark was different somehow. I always knew that, I think. Mark was different. "Hey there, Mary – you were in there an awfully long time. Ponyboy here was going to come in and get you."

She looked at me, cocking her brow. "He was? Well, he is the perfect gentleman, isn't he?" I had a feeling she was making fun of me.

"Sure am – let's get going. Mark has to get back to Cathy and Bryon, right?" I told him. I didn't make any sense, but I didn't want to be with Mary. But I didn't want Mark with her either. And what was this 'gentleman' joke about?

He nodded. "Yup. Oh, hey look – there's M&M … " He frowned. "Who're they?"

I looked where Mark had looked and saw the hippy boy that Curly had been making fun of. "Hey, I know that kid…"

He looked at me and grinned. "I was thinking of introducing you two – y'all are a lot alike."

"Who is he?" Mary intoned curiously, and I was annoyed again.

"A hippy – Cathy's brother. M&M? That his real name?" I asked Mark. He nodded. Mary nodded.

"I like that - but why would his parents name him after a candy?" She giggled, and I must've glared or something because she stopped. I was in a real crummy mood. I was getting like that more and more lately. I sighed and put my arm around her.

" 'Dunno… hey, I better go see him for a minute; y'all want to come?" Mark turned to walk to the kid before even hearing our answer.

The kid was talking to these two older hippies. He was practically swallowed up by them. They were tall and heavy looking, and wore the same Birkenstock sandals and loose clothing. M&M was just a small, skinny black haired kid who was stroking his peace medallion absent-mindedly. "Yeah," I said without thinking. "Sure."

Mary made a noise in the back of her throat. "Sorry," I told her. "I think I see the guys over there – you could … ?" She shook her head, looking like she was embarassed that I had heard her.

"I'll go with you guys," she said quietly.

We caught up to Mark, and I looked up closer at him, and saw that he wasn't looking too hot today either. Just like Two-Bit. What was going on with everyone? We walked over to M&M, who hadn't realized we were there. One of the older hippies nodded and flashed a V sign. "Peace."

Mark did the same, and then addressed M&M. "Hey, M&M," Mark said slowly, drinking in the sight of the two other hippies. "How's it hanging?"

M&M looked up at Mark with those grave, fixated eyes. It surprised me about how open they were, and how focused he seemed to be on Mark. "I'm alright. How are you?"

Mary chuckled a bit to herself at the formality. M&M looked at her, and blinked. Mary introduced herself and M&M nodded. "I'm M&M. These are my friends." He pointed to the two hippies.

"Yeah, I can see that," Mark mumbled.

M&M turned to me before I could say anything, "I know you. You helped me when Curly jumped me. Your name is Ponyboy, isn't it?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I'm Ponyboy. Nice seeing you again, M&M."

He turned his head, but kept looking at me with those gray eyes – it was surreal. If I were to tell anybody about this kid, or write it down ever, it might seem like he was high on something. You had to be there - physically talking to him - to understand how he was just dead serious about everything. It's funny how we take the simplest sentences and make assumptions out of them when we hear them from somebody else. All I can say is that if you'd have to meet M&M Carlson to actually gain an understanding of him. It was weird having such an open, blunt kid. Especially on the East Side. It was spooky.

"You with anybody, M&M?" Mark asked casually.

He shook his head.

"Well, take care of yourself kid, ya hear?" Mark told him. He took one more look at the hippies, but they already seemed to be moving away from us.

"Thanks, Cat," one hippy said to Mark, nodding. Mark gave a quick glance to Mary and me before nodding to the guy.

"Alright, well I better get goin' ... " Mark said, trailing off.

"Hey, Mark," I mumbled to him. "I could give you two a ride home if you want ... ?" I thought, wished foolishy for a moment that maybe we'd see Cathy if I drove her little brother home. It wasn't the deepest thought, but I can admit I was pretty desperate.

Mark leaned in again. "Didn't catch that. What'd you say?" I blushed.

"Do you," I said slowly, pointing to him and M&M, "need rides home? Bryon left with Cathy didn't he?"

"Oh, yeah. He did," Mark realized casually, bobbing his head. "Yeah, do you mind? M&M, need a ride home?"

M&M nodded. "I don't have a car."

"Well, that settles it then," Mark said as seriously as he could, but I could hear the strained laughter in his words. "Thanks, Curtis."

"Ponyboy," Mary whispered, tugging on my sleeve, looking uncomfortable. "Let's go now, okay?"

"Okay," I told her. "I'll drive you home?" She smiled and looped her arm in mine again while Mark and M&M followed in our wake.


Forgive Mr. Curtis for being so passe with a girl - he's just very confused and a little scared because of what just happened. (-cue the 'D'AWW. POOR PONYBOY' chorus-) Haha. Will he redeem himself in the next chapter? Perhaps. ;) We'll be seeing Ms. Haden a little while later, too.

Happy July 4th (hey, it's actually a holiday now!), my readers. Read, review, critique - do what you must, and do it well.