A/N: Hey, I'm back! Anyone miss me? (crickets chirp) Fine, be that way. I decided to add in a chapter on what happened during the rest of Maya and Roxie's Halloween night. And if any of you are interested in good news, during the long and boring car trip (Eight hours!), I thought up of an idea for how everything will work out and such. The bad news: I DON'T KNOW HOW THE HELL I'M GONNA END THIS THING! How, you ask, is everything gonna work out? Well, you'll just have to find out. (Mob attacks RockerLane1110) Well, on with the story now! AAAHHH!
Disclaimer: Don't you know me by now? I'm not S.E. Hinton so I do NOT own "The Outsiders."
Maya's POV
8:30. There shouldn't be any more trick or treaters by now. I start putting away the extra candy in a safe place (i.e. my stomach). Saban and I are still on the phone. This is gonna be one large phone bill.
"Finally, no more little monsters," I said.
"Or comic book heroes or princesses or ninjas," Saban added.
"Don't forget no more silly string," I said.
"Says you. I'm still trying to get the last of the string off of me. Are you still multicolored?"
"Not really. I got most of it off." I start wondering what Kendi and Roxie are doing.
"You think everyone else is having more fun than us?" I said.
"Let's see, Roxie and Rawley are out watching a movie, Cam and Kendi are taking little kids trick or treating or are already done and are watching TV or something, Zonks is still on his drums, and Jarod is probably punching the wall. Nah, I think we got the better end of the deal." Saban was being sarcastic, but there was some truth in his voice. I probably wouldn't have gone to the movies 'cause I'd be going alone, and I don't know if I'd be able to take a bunch of kids around in the dark.
"Yeah," I said.
"Well…" Saban was unsure of what to say now. "See you tomorrow, I guess."
"Yeah, see ya." Then I hung up the phone. I knew Mom and Dad wouldn't be home for another hour or so. So I took another Kit Kat bar and turned on the TV. Around 9:50, almost 10:00, the phone rang.
"Who could be calling at this hour?" I said. Then I remembered that my little brother was staying over at his friend's house. He probably forgot his toothbrush or something.
"Hello?" I said as I picked up the phone. I was expecting my little brother's voice to come through the receiver, but instead…
"Hey, Maya. It's Kendi. I need to talk to you about something."
Roxie's POVGoing to the movies can be a lot of fun, especially when you're with your boyfriend. But some factors can ruin the movie going experience. For example, the couple making out in front of us has no regard as to the fact that I am eating Skittles here and I would like it if they stayed in my stomach.
"Rawley, give me another Skittle," I said. I'd hate to waste one of my favorite candies on these bozos, but I'd hate to miss the movie because of them.
"Incoming. Strawberry flavored," Rawley said as he popped the red candy in my mouth. I'm still in the straitjacket if you were wondering.
I concentrated on my target. I decided to go for the girl's shiny strawberry blond hair. Perfect. After a few minutes of "concentrating," I spit the Skittle at them. The couple immediately broke apart. The girl looked at me with a death glare.
"Freak," she said. I shrugged it off. I was a freak and if someone wants to call me one, then by all means let them. Rawley was trying to stifle a laugh. He didn't have to. The movie was pretty funny so no one would've thought any different if he started snickering in the middle of the movie.
I heard a bunch of boys laughing annoyingly from behind us. I tried to ignore it. Then their laughter got louder and even more aggravating. I turned to them.
"Would you guys shut up?" I said. That was when I saw Emmet with two other guys. One was this black haired prep. I couldn't really see the other 'cause it was dark and he was too far away.
"Make me," the black haired one said. Emmet snickered. I raised an eyebrow at him like I did Emmet when he called me a bitch.
"Idiot," I said before going back to watch the movie.
I felt a popcorn kernel hit my head. I ignored it this time. Then I felt it again along with the sound of snickering from the boys behind me.
"Will you just leave us alone?" Rawley said to them. Then his expression changed as if he saw a ghost.
"Rawley. Didn't expect to see you here," the black haired guy said.
"Hey, Jed," Rawley said bitterly.
"Who's he?" I whispered to Rawley.
"Some guy who used to bully Cam in middle school," Rawley whispered back.
"Jerk," I said this time to Jed.
"Hey, Rawley, what's with your demented girlfriend? Doesn't she know how to show respect?" Jed said.
"The only demented one here is you," Rawley said coolly. I gave a slight smile at this.
"I'm not the one in the straitjacket," Jed remarked.
"If she wasn't in a straitjacket, she'd kick your sorry butt. Unfortunately, there's nothing holding me back," Rawley warned.
"Is that a threat?"
"Yeah, it is." Okay, it's great that Rawley is standing up for me and all, but I'm not that into having them fight in the middle of a movie theatre.
"Rawley, it's okay. Why don't we just move up a little?" I said.
"Yeah, Rawley. Just run away why don't ya?" This was only making Rawley even madder.
"Why don't you just shut it?" I said.
"Ah, it's not like I would've fought your boyfriend there," Jed said, "He ain't worth it. I'd rather fight Cam. Where is the little blondie anyways?"
"He's not blond anymore, Jed," Emmet said, "Dyed his hair black a couple weeks ago."
"Figures. He's always been a freak."
"Cam's not a freak," I said, "And he's out with another girl if you care."
"He got himself his own girl? Well, that's amazing. She must be a freak, too."
"Excuse me? That's my friend you're talking about, creep!" I said.
"Kendi's with him? Cam must've been desperate for a date," Emmet said.
"How did you get out of the girls' bathroom?" I asked. Emmet turned red in the face.
"Wait, Kendi Curtis?" Jed asked.
"Yeah," I said suspiciously, "How'd you know?"
"Her dad's my teacher," Jed said.
"You go to Guinesborro, huh?" I said. No wonder the guy looked like such a prep.
"Yeah. So you know her?" Jed seemed too curious about Kendi.
"Yeah, she's my friend, which means she can kick your ass, too," I said, hoping he gets the message.
"I knew her longer than you!" Emmet said.
"No you don't," I said. How could Emmet know Kendi longer?
"Yeah, I do. She and I were in the same fifth grade class. She was friends with this guy, Demitri."
"How come she went to our middle school then?" I said hoping I'd trapped him.
"She moved to another foster home after her sister committed suicide," Emmet said.
"What?" Kendi never told us anything about a sister. We knew she was adopted, but she never mentioned any other foster homes. Maybe this is why Kendi's so down all the time.
"She had a sister?"
"I don't know. I think it was her best friend who was older or something. Her name was Diana or something like that."
Diana. Doesn't ring a bell. Why would Kendi keep something like this? I promised that as soon as I got back home (and out of this straitjacket), I would call Kendi and find out. We went back to watching the movie. After a few minutes, we heard snoring. It turned out to be the other guy that I couldn't see because it was so dark.
Cameron's POVAfter Kendi left, I watched the rest of the CSI episode. I couldn't watch Drake and Josh knowing what happen the first time Kendi and I saw it. And as a matter of fact, I'm not talking about the kiss. I'm talking about Kendi meeting my dad.
Dad's asleep right now so there shouldn't have been any interruptions. I forgot to factor in Kendi's dad showing up. Stupid me.
Okay, I'll admit, sometimes I don't mind when Kendi and I are alone. Sometimes, I don't mind being around her. Actually there are times I do but only if there's a chance of me making a fool of myself or something like that.
Am I sick? Maybe I should just ask Rodney about it. It's not like Dan would care. Dan and I haven't been showing any brotherly love lately. Not that it matters. Dan and I haven't gotten along that well ever since Dad lost his job. Actually, we haven't gotten along that well ever since our mom died. I don't know how, but ever since that day, Dan somehow put himself in charge of things as if he was left to do mom's job or something. It's almost as if he's depriving himself from being a kid. Maybe that's why we don't get along. I haven't gotten along with many adults lately.
Anyways, I went downstairs to talk to Rodney. He was on his guitar playing the riff for "Smoke on the Water." I still remember when his band used to rehearse here. I always wondered why they broke up. They made awesome music. Rod told me it was because they disagreed a lot. Can disagreements really break up a band?
"Hey Rod," I said. He stopped playing to pay attention to me.
"Hey, Cameron. What's up?"
"Nothing much," I said, although that was far from the truth. Rodney studied my face.
"Something you want kid?"
"No," I said.
"Don't lie to me. What do you need?" I knew what I needed.
"Five minutes of your time," I said. That was usually a signal that one of us needed some advice or something. Rod got the meaning of it.
"I'll do you one better and give you ten. What's on your mind little bro?" I tried to think of how to form all the junk in my head into words.
"What does it mean, when you're with someone and you kind of like being with them but at the same time you get nervous and sick in the stomach?" I said. It sounded stupid to me but Rodney's the kind of guy who can understand stupidity. Not that he is. Stupid, I mean.
Rodney looked at me and said, "Well, either you ate too much of the Kesata High cafeteria food, or you've got yourself a crush."
"Should I start bring my own lunch from now on?" I said trying to avoid the other possibility.
Rodney gave me an exasperated look, and said, "You better be kidding me."
"Yeah, I guess I am. But this isn't how I felt when I liked Kapri," I said.
"Maybe it's love then," Rod said as if it didn't matter. But it mattered. Love. I'm fourteen. I'm too young to know that kind of thing.
I left Rod with his guitar and sat back down on the couch. But my mind wasn't on the mystery unfolding in CSI. Instead, I thought about how I ended up asking Kapri out last year. It was on a dare.
Flashback (A/N: Sorry I didn't warn ya about this)
It was the middle of October. I still had blond hair and I was thirteen. I didn't like school. I got good grades but I still didn't like it. I only went because Dan forced me to and because Kapri Somers was in my first period class.
Kapri Somers is the prettiest girl in the eighth grade. She was blond, green eyed, and a cheerleader. Every guy had a crush on her, including me. Hey, I wasn't perverted if that's what you're thinking. I liked her 'cause she seemed nicer than most girls I knew. I didn't know that many girls.
I've talked to her before. Sometimes during class when there's a partner project or a science lab we'd be talking. But usually I just said hi to her in the halls. Or she would to me. My friends already knew I had a crush on her. They didn't need me to tell them.
"Dude, why don't you get it over with and ask her out?" Jarod said. I just looked down and played with the food. Cafeteria food was never worth eating.
"Why should I?" I said.
"Because if she says yes, you can go celebrate or something and if she says no, you can get on with your life," Saban explained.
"And you can say that you had a girlfriend in your middle school life," Zonks added. I just went on rearranging the food on my tray.
"Ah, Cam's too chicken to ask her out," Jarod said. This set me off.
"I'm not chicken! I just don't know how I'd ask her," I said.
"Liar. You're just too scared to." Jarod was trying to bully me into asking Kapri.
"Shut up," I said.
"You know what? I dare ya to ask her. If you do, I'll shut my mouth and never call you a loser again," Jarod said.
"And if I don't?"
"Then I get to choose a different band name. How's Jarod and the other Stupidheads sound?" We all knew Jarod wasn't too thrilled with the name, Residents of Mangled City, for our band but Zonks and Saban seemed to like it. I had to like it since it was the name I thought up of.
I knew Jarod was only kidding but Saban and Zonks didn't seem to see that.
"Don't let him Cam!" Zonks said.
"You're on," I said to Jarod. What have I got to lose? Oh, yeah. My self-respect. Ah, I don't have that much anyways.
"Hey Talon! Aren't you going to eat that food? Oh, I see. You're an anorexic. That's why you're such a skinny hobo!" a voice behind me said. Jed.
"Running out of insults, huh?" I said without turning around to face him. I already knew that his little redhead friend would be right behind him laughing away.
"Why don't you just off yourself already? We all know you want to anyways," Jed said. That was a big blow. I felt my face grow warm. Jed was always accusing me of being suicidal. I'd probably say something back if I didn't know he was right.
"Shut your trap, Jed!" Jarod said. He didn't have a clue that Jed wasn't lying. Jed didn't even know that he wasn't lying. He just liked to cut me down.
Jed sneered at us and left.
The next day, I saw Kapri in first period again.
"H-hi, Kapri," I managed to stutter out. She looked at me with a smile. She has a nice smile (Remember this is thirteen year old Cam, he hasn't exactly learned about Kapri yet)
"Hi Cam," she said. I had to say it now. Just say it.
"You… you…" I stammered. Just call me the world's biggest loser.
"Huh? What is it?" she said.
"You wanna go out with me?" I said. She gave me an even bigger smile. This one showed her beautiful teeth. (No! We need to save Cam! Where's my Avenged Sevenfold CD?)
"Sure, Cam!" she said. She gave me a quick hug before going to her seat. I overheard her talking to her friends.
"Guess what? Cameron Talon just asked me out!" she said. Then I heard them squeal in delight. I hope that's a good sign.
"Who's the chicken now?" I said to Jarod when I saw him in the halls. He only looked at me wide-eyed.
End FlashbackThinking about that made me gag. I was definitely not that smart for a thirteen year old. At about 10:15, the phone rang. Who the hell calls this late?
"I got it!" I said as I picked up the phone. "Hello?"
"Hey, it's Kendi."
"Oh, hey. What's up?"
"Uh, well I thought I should tell you that I told Roxie and Maya about…" she faded.
"About what?"
"Dana." Her voice turned quiet.
"Oh."
"Roxie bumped Emmet today at the movies. He let it slip. She also saw this guy. Jed, I think his name was. Did he really bully you?" How did Kendi find that out?
"Yeah. But why did you tell Maya if Emmet told Roxie?" I said trying to avoid talking about Jed.
"Well, Roxie called me up and asked about it. I told her and then I thought that if Roxie was going to know, then Maya might as well."
"Makes sense." Then I remembered Kendi's scars. "Are you still, you know, cutting?"
The line was silent for a moment. "Yes," she finally said.
"Can you stop?" I asked.
"I don't know."
"You're not gonna kill yourself like Dana are you?" I had to ask.
"Do you want the honest truth or the sugar-coated lie?"
"Truth."
"I'm not sure." This scared me. Really scared me. The possibility of losing someone else didn't make me want to jump for joy.
"Please. Don't. We need you here," I said.
"I can't promise anything." I wouldn't hear it.
"Try."
"Okay, I promise I'll keep myself alive to enjoy this messed up world," Kendi said.
"Are your fingers crossed?" I said.
"No," she said, "I promise." I could almost sense that Kendi was smiling on the other end. This made me believe her.
We hung up a few minutes later and I went back to the couch.
I thought about my own thoughts of suicide during middle school. I remembered starting farewell letters but then crumpling them up and throwing them in the trash. Once I'd even attempted to swallow pills, but Dan caught me with the bottle of aspirin before I could even open it. He yelled at me for even thinking of taking my life. I told him I'd rather die than deal with Dad and him always putting me down. Dan shut up and even looked hurt. I didn't care. I was horrible back then and that was only last year. Rodney, though, sat me down and gave me this whole lecture that I shouldn't just kill myself because of Dad and a few bullies like Jed. That meant I was letting them win. I haven't had that many suicidal thoughts after we started the band. But hearing about Dana brought them back.
Dad came down looking flushed.
"Isn't it time for you to go to bed?" he said roughly. I ignored him. I didn't feel like starting another fight.
"Didn't you hear me boy? Go to your room!" he yelled.
"Dad, leave him alone!" Dan said from the dining table. He was about ready to stop us from fighting. I simply got up and went to my room to change and go to sleep. For some reason Dan saw something strange in this.
"Cam?" Dan said as he opened the door to my room. I was already in my bed with the covers over me.
"Yeah?" I said my voice muffled by the blanket.
"Is something wrong? You seem… quiet tonight."
"Yeah, so? Maybe I don't feel like fighting with Dad," I said hoping he'd go away.
"Cam, if something's bugging you, you can always talk to me and Rod," Dan said.
"Yeah, yeah," I said disdainfully.
"Okay, then. Good night." Dan waited for me to answer but I didn't give him one. I pretended to be asleep even though we both knew I wasn't. Dan finally left me alone.
As I was lying there in the dark, I was wondering if I stayed under the covers long enough if I could suffocate myself.
A/N: No, Cameron! Okay, please don't get too angry at him and Kendi. We still love 'em! And if you were confused by the whole Kendi telling Roxie and Maya thing, here's how it went. Roxie called Kendi after coming back from the movies (and coming out of the straitjacket) and Kendi told her all about Dana. Then Kendi felt that she needed to tell Maya so she calls her up around 9:50 even though it's late. Then she calls Cam to let him know that Roxie and Maya know. Did you guys get all that? Sorry this took so long to post up. I want to thank all my reviewers for letting me know what they think and for making sure I get this story updated. And if you haven't reviewed this chapter yet, there's this purple button around the corner that will help you solve that (Jay, I saw this from a bunch of other fanfics).
Kapri: Cameron's suicidal? NO! This skit wasn't supposed to be funny unless
anyone wants to tell Kapri to shut up.
Dan: I hope he's okay.
RL1110: (pats Dan on the back to comfort him)
Don't worry. Pony talked to Darry so Cam should be able to open up
to you soon.
R&R if you want to see another chapter! (I
need the reminders to update.)