After a few nights in the kitchen, I managed to find ways to busy myself despite my insomnia. I had the train schedule down pat; I knew exactly when to expect the whistles. Between midnight and two there was one every twenty minutes. I didn't even need the clock, I could count to sixty twenty times in a steady rhythm and know to expect it.

This worked well to pass the time, until I would be distracted by a noise and immediately lose count, all my senses on overdrive. Every time I heard that whistle, I wondered who might be on that train, hiding, running away from something, like Pony and Johnny had, and I had, by mistake. It sounded appealing, running away. Then I would have nothing to fear, Steve would never know where to find me.

As tempting as it was, I knew I couldn't. I knew I could never again leave my brothers and make them wonder where I was, or if I was okay. I knew how that felt now, having worried about Darry, and I would never wish it on anybody. I had already put them through that once. That was simply not a viable option.

I also discovered that we had mice. After my first night in the kitchen, during which I must have been nothing but a suspicious stranger to them, they pretty much accepted me as one of their own, and scurried about, enjoying whatever morsels of our dinner had made it to the floor. Little souls, even if they were just rodents, they made me feel a little bit less alone, and managed to give me something else to think about when, truly, I was completely owned by paranoia. I learned to read their fear, and eventually I only really worried when they fled for cover in the safety of the space under the stove or refrigerator. Then my own fear heightened, wondering what they had heard or felt that I hadn't. I knew Darry would trap them if he knew about them, so we shared a secret. Neither of us were supposed to be hanging around in the kitchen at night.

As for school, it was just short of unbearable. It had been hard to go back after Mom and Dad died, to listen to everyone talking about us, but I hadn't been alone. I knew that Darry and Soda and Pony all were all going through the same thing. Knowing I wasn't alone helped more than I had even known, at the time. Now that I was going through something all alone, I wished more than anything that someone, anyone knew what I was dealing with. Everyone wanted to be helpful, but nobody knew how I felt. Absolutely nobody. I was alone. Completely.

…………………………

Saturday morning I just couldn't get up. Soda came in to get me for breakfast and I told him to eat without me. I heard Darry leave for work, and went right back to sleep. I awoke to somebody coming in. Soda again.

"Scout, are you all right? It's past noon." I didn't move. I could see how he would be concerned, thinking I had been still sleeping since the night before when I "went to bed," at ten; what he didn't know was that I hadn't actually fallen asleep until just after sunrise around five-thirty that morning. I just wanted to stay in bed all day. He came over and lay down next to me.

"Scout, come on. You have to get up. If you sleep this much in the day you'll never be able to sleep at night."

I was already familiar with that problem, and I didn't see any end in sight to it. Just let me sleep, Soda, I wished. This is the only time I can.

"Scout, come on, are you sick?" He put his hand on my forehead, which was, of course, freezing.

"Man, you're freezing," he said. Why are you so cold?"

"I'm fine." I was getting really convincing with that line.

"Well, you gotta get up. We gotta go get groceries. I promised Darry I'd take care of it while he was at work. He got a ride, and left us the truck."

"Why do I have to come?" I really wanted to sleep, all day.

"I'm not leaving you home alone. Not after…"

After what happened last time I did, I knew he was going to say, but he didn't. A week ago. It had been a week since I had become somebody else, this shell of myself.

"Where's Ponyboy?"

"He got Two-Bit to drive him to the movies. We're pickin' him up after shopping."

I just lay there, not moving.

"C'mon, baby, I don't wanna have to torture you awake, still bein' hurt and all."

I sighed and threw the covers back, sitting up.

"I'll be ready in five minutes," I said. He stood up and walked out.

"I'll be waiting," he called back.

I got up, went to brush my teeth and brush my hair, and threw on some clothes that had been tossed over my desk chair. They smelled clean enough. I usually kept my room fairly neat but the past week had brought about a fair amount of indifference toward many of the things I normally cared about, homework and keeping my room neat being just two of them.

I hopped into the truck next to Soda and leaned against the door, staring down at the floor as he drove. I couldn't think of anything to say, my thoughts were pretty much all about one thing, and it was the last thing I wanted to talk about.

"The car's gonna be done soon," Soda said. "I'm just waitin' on a few parts." I didn't answer.

"You wanna help me paint it tomorrow?" he asked.

"I guess so," I said, trying to sound even the tiniest bit enthusiastic but failing miserably.

He put his arm on my shoulder. I knew he wanted it to be some sort of comfort but, the truth was, there was no comfort. For some reason, Ben was the only person who made me able to relax even a little bit, and take my mind off things for more than a second, which was weird, since any one of my brothers would probably be able to physically protect me better than Ben.

He parked and shut off the car and I looked up. I hadn't been paying attention to where we were going, and I was horrified to see that we were at the DX.

"What are we doing here?" I wondered if I sounded as panicked as I was.

"I gotta pick up my check. C'mon, come in and I'll buy you a candy bar."

"I'm not hungry, I'll just wait." My heart was going to explode out of my chest, or I was going to throw up, I was sure of it.

"It might be a couple minutes," Soda said. "Depends if the boss wrote 'em out yet."

"I'll stay here." Just knowing Steve was in there was causing a physical response in me. There was no way I could go in. I wanted to ball myself up in the seat but I forced myself to sit normally.

"Okay," he said, giving me a puzzled look. I was not normally one to pass up chocolate. He slammed the door and headed into the shop.

I stared, despite myself. As Soda entered, Steve came through the door from the repair shop into the office, wiping his hands with a rag. Soda blocked my view of him for a second, but as he moved to go through the office door behind the counter, Steve was revealed, looking straight ahead out the window, directly at me.

Oh God. The back office door shut behind Soda and he was gone, leaving Steve and I staring at each other through the windshield and the office window, maybe fifty feet between us.

I was frozen. Zero at the bone.

I don't have any idea why those words came to me at that moment, but they were exactly what I was feeling. It was the last line of some poem I read the previous year, by some lady who hated snakes. At the end, talking about how she felt when she would see one, the last line was:

But never met this fellow

Attended, or alone

Without a tighter breathing,

And Zero at the Bone-

I never identified with the author about that line, because I am not particularly afraid of snakes, but, right then, I knew exactly what she meant. Steve was, to me, the proverbial snake. The tighter breathing was happening, as well- I think I might have actually stopped breathing for a second or two, but, literally, I was frozen. My body temperature felt like it had dropped from already freezing to zero in a split second. I was not sure I could have moved had the devil himself reached out to embrace me. It may have been just a few seconds before Soda came back through the door and Steve turned to him, breaking our eye contact, but it had felt like hours. I saw no reaction from him, seeing me. Nothing. He had just stood there, casually wiping his hands with the rag, looking out. I wondered how I had looked, whether he had seen me turn to pure ice. A human ice sculpture built of fear.

At that moment someone knocked on the passenger side window and I screamed. I looked over to see none other than Tim Shepard at my door. He opened it up, apologizing.

"Jesus, kid, sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. Christ."

I was still shaking and breathing heavy.

"Shit, I shoulda known better," he said. Soda was on his way over, having seen the whole thing. Steve was heading back into the repair shop, for which I silently thanked God.

"What the hell're you doin', Shepard, scaring the life outta poor lil' Scout?" Soda joked. I was almost mad at him for thinking it was funny, as much as it is possible to ever be mad at Soda, anyway. He climbed in and threw his arms around my shoulder. When he noticed I truly was shaking, his tone turned to concern.

"Shoot, he really did scare you, huh? You okay?"

I nodded, probably unconvincingly.

"You know I wouldn't hurt you, kid," Tim said.

"I know, Tim, you just scared me. I didn't know you were there." I looked over and his car was parked right next to the truck- I hadn't even heard him pull in. I guess my senses had been frozen, as well.

"I just wanted to see how you were doin'," he said. "And if you got anything else on the asshole who hurt you. I see, as far as how you're doin', maybe still a little edgy, huh, kid?"

Yeah. A little. A little short of completely losing my mind.

"I don't know anything, Tim," I said.

"Well, my guys all got their ears open. We'll get 'im. That's a promise." I remembered Tim telling me he didn't make promises to girls that he couldn't keep, the night Darry had been missing.

He's in there, I wanted to scream, pointing at the repair shop. He's right there! But my mouth stayed closed.

"Well, you let me know, if you think of anything else," he said, shutting the door.

"I will."

"Seeya, Tim," Soda said, starting up the truck.

I don't think my breathing or body temperature returned to normal until sometime after dinner that night, and as I sat in the kitchen counting my way through the whistles, I had a whole new terrifying moment to dwell on.

And I hadn't even had to talk to him yet.

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

A/N: Sorry, kinda short. These things take time, people.

The poem is "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass," by Emily Dickinson. I swear to God, I don't own it, at all, I just really like it. Please don't sue me for using it.

Love your reviews, keep 'em coming…