Disclaimer: As usual, we don't own any of The Outsiders. Only Susie does. We also don't own "Nothing New" by Ashlee Simpson.
I find myself home again,
Waiting for the after call
From a fallout that feels like such a mess
Wedging his fingers between the sill and the bottom of the window, Dally eased the window open and peered into the dark bedroom. The bed was made, and she definitely wasn't there.
Taking a quick glance around, Dally pulled himself through the open window and closed it once he was through. He hadn't been in her room in a long time, but as far as he could remember, it was exactly the same. Clean and organized and there wasn't much else to be seen in the dim light shining through from the streetlight.
Down the hall, he could hear her worthless mother bitching at her even more worthless stepfather and they both sounded like they'd been drinking since the sun went down.
He walked around, poking through a stack of records.
"You gotta be kidding me, princess," he muttered, picking up a Beatles' album. "The damn Beatles."
Shaking his head disapprovingly, he set the record back down and noticed the pile of discarded clothes in the corner. They were thrown there in haste, probably when she was trying to figure out what to wear on her date with Tim. That was the whole damn reason he was even here.
It was almost two in the morning and she still wasn't back. He left Buck's after seeing Tim's car and no sight of either one of them anywhere on the main floor. He wasn't about to go banging on doors, so he decided to scare the shit out of her when Tim dropped her off.
Falling back on her bed, he realized he didn't know why he was doing what he was doing. He broke up with her, even though it wasn't his intention when it happened. He knew as soon as she found out about him sleeping with Sylvia behind her back that she'd try to do something to get back at him, but he'd sorely underestimated her. He never once expected her to go out with Tim. And now he couldn't believe that she was spending the night with him.
Dally didn't want her back, but he sure as hell didn't want Tim Shepard to have her. He never expected this charade of hers to go on as long as it had. She wasn't supposed to fall for someone else; she was supposed to forget about all of it and let things go back to the way they were. Why didn't she know that?
I can only be myself,
I'm sorry that's hell for you
Sunday meant homework time, and Ellie usually needed Ponyboy's help when it came to her math homework. Pony wasn't so interested in helping her because he'd already finished his Friday night, so he was busy talking to the others. After finishing five problems, Ellie decided she was too tired to finish and snapped her book shut.
"You guys wanna play cards or something?" she asked, walking into the living room just as Dally walked through the front door.
She tried to ignore him, but it was hard with the vicious grin he had aimed at her.
"What?" she asked, suddenly uneasy. He was about to do something she wouldn't like. She knew it. He wasn't all that hard to read sometimes.
He shrugged and sat down on the couch beside Steve.
"You guys should ask Ellie here what she did last night," Dally said with a grin.
Six pairs of eyes turned to her at once.
"What'd you do, El?" Two-Bit asked, an eyebrow cocked with intrigue.
"Yeah, what?" Steve asked.
Darry walked out of the bathroom and sat down in his chair, looking at her like everyone else.
"Everything okay?" Pony asked.
"Everything's fine. I didn't do nothin' last night," she said, trying to shrug Dally's smug stare off of her.
Dally leaned forward, a shit-eating grin on his face.
"That ain't true, El. Why don't you tell them how you fucked Shepard last night," he said, mockingly.
Everything fell deathly silent, and all she could hear was her heartbeat throbbing in her ears. The rustling of newspaper snapped her out of it, and she finally found her voice.
"What the hell are you talking about?" she blasted.
"You and Tim. Did you think no one would find out?" he asked, sitting back with another smug look on his face.
"Ellie …" Two-Bit said, looking at her seriously.
"Shut up," she demanded. "Dally doesn't know anything. Nothing happened last night."
"Is that why Tim's car was parked at Buck's all last night, and you never came home? Because nothing happened?" Dally asked.
That was true enough, but she didn't feel like she needed to justify the reason she was out all night with Tim. It wasn't what they thought, not that they would believe her after Dally's announcement about something he knew nothing about.
"Did you even bother looking for him or me? Or did you just see his car there and wait for me to come out of Buck's all night long?" she asked, wanting nothing more than to lunge over the coffee table and go right for his throat.
"El, you're gonna get your feelings hurt if you start sleepin' with guys like Tim," Steve said.
"So what's that say about Evie?" she answered, crossing her arms and feeling satisfaction with the scowl that crossed his face.
"Yeah, El," Dally returned. "You can't go sleepin' with guys you don't got feelings for. You're supposed to love 'em and shit like that, ain't that right?"
Her insides twisted with his words and she once again forgot that there was anyone else in the room. He'd broken her heart and he seemed hell bent on never letting her forget it.
She walked towards him, ready to give him a piece of her mind, but no words would come to mind. As she stood there silently, Dally grinned at her and she could only think of one thing to do. The sound of her slapping him echoed in her ears, but it only made her feel slightly better. Expecting the backlash, she backed up and moved toward the door.
"Love and feelings and all that got me so far the first time, didn't it?" she asked, admitting to herself for the first time that she did, at one point, love him.
She couldn't stand there any longer with everyone watching her fall apart, so she bolted out the front door and walked toward home. With the way her hand was stinging, she wished she had punched him instead.
So what's my damage today?
Don't let me get in your way
This stupid broad had turned him into such a chump. Here he was chasing her across lawns, trying to catch up to her before she could make it home and slam the door in his face.
"Wait up, Ellie," he shouted, running to close the distance between them. "Slow the fuck down!"
She'd started running to get away from him, but Dally wasn't about to let a girl beat him in a race. He caught up to her on her own front lawn and grabbed her arm.
"Let go of me!" she cried, struggling against him.
"If I let go of you, are you gonna bolt again?" he asked.
She considered it for a moment before she finally shook her head. When he let go, she swung a fist toward his face and he grabbed her wrist again.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" he snarled.
"Why are you so damn grabby? I'm not your dog so quit yankin' me around!" she shouted, trying to pull her wrist free. "Y'all think that's the only way I'm gonna listen to you."
"Seems to be all that's workin' now," he pointed out. She had a determined look on her face, and he let go when she stopped trying to free her hand. He wouldn't put it past that damn broad to try to kick him again.
When she reached the front door, he was only a step behind her. He grabbed the doorknob and yanked the door closed.
"What are you doing?" she asked, frustrated.
"I'm tryin' to talk to you," he said.
She rolled her eyes and said, "You don't talk to anyone, especially not me. What you want to do is piss me off and make everyone believe it was me that cheated on you 'stead of the other way around. Ain't that right?"
"Well, since you fucked Shepard last night it seems kinda true to me," he said.
She let out an exasperated cry and tried to push by him. Dally pushed her back, keeping her pinned between him and the door.
"You are so full of shit," she said.
"Then where the fuck were you last night? Tim's car was parked at Buck's all night and you didn't come home," he told her.
"How did you know I didn't come home?" she asked.
"I just know that you didn't come home," he answered.
Slowly her jaw dropped open as she started to realize something.
"That's why my bed was all messed up when I got back earlier. Wasn't it? You snuck into my room, you perv!"
Ellie stomped down on his foot and though Dally knew he should have been expecting it, he still fell for it and moved enough for her to slide by him. She was stomping along the weed-filled flowerbeds toward her bedroom window.
"You know, I never said we was quits. So doesn't that mean you're the one doin' the cheatin', princess?" he called. He knew it would stop her dead in her tracks.
"Excuse me?" she blasted, turning around and taking a few steps back toward him. "What?"
"When did I ever say we was done?"
Her face turned bright red, and he could almost see the steam rising out of her ears.
"When you took that whore of yours to bed, that's when it was over," she said. "And when I threw that stupid medal at your head, that was when it was really over."
Sylvia wasn't anything. He didn't sleep with her to break up with Ellie; he slept with her because the damn broad was teasing him all night. She was an easy lay and he was pissed at Ellie, but he wasn't done with her. Ellie wasn't supposed to know, and she wasn't supposed to react the way she did.
"Well, you moved on pretty fast, didn't you, El? You thought it was over with us for what, two fuckin' days, and you were at party with that bastard? You gotta be fuckin' him 'cause I know Shepard wouldn't keep some broad around that won't put out," he said.
"Go to hell," she suggested.
"I'm already there," he replied, walking toward her again. She backed up a few steps but didn't turn to leave. "How long are you gonna hate me?"
Crossing her arms, she looked away. Dally didn't care if his parents or God hated him, he didn't want her to hate him and he didn't know why. He did know that it was eating him alive that she seemed to like Tim better than she liked him, and it pissed him off more that he even cared.
She looked up at him again, rubbing her arms as though she was suddenly cold. The animosity drained between them when he asked that.
"I don't hate you. I should but I don't," she confessed reluctantly. "And that's the problem."
That caught him off guard.
"What?"
A car pulled up on the street before she could answer and her mom got out.
"Well, well," she said. "What have we here?"
"Nothin'," Ellie said.
Abigail stood on the lawn, looking between him and Ellie with her eyebrows raised and a suggestive smile on her thin face.
"Is this your boyfriend, Ella?" she asked.
"No," Ellie replied firmly.
"Mmmhmm," Abigail replied, looking him up and down. "That's okay, baby. You could do better."
"Like you're one to talk," Dally observed.
"Mom, please go away," Ellie pleaded.
"I'm going, darlin'. I gotta go get ready for work anyway," she said.
I listen to you complain and then
I bite my tongue in vain again
Abigail sashayed into the house and Ellie didn't miss Dally checking out the length of her mom's skirt as she did so.
"You're such a pig," she said.
"And you're full of shit," he accused, focusing on her again.
"That's it. We're finished here," Ellie told him, following her mom inside. He grabbed her arm as she walked by and swung her around so she was standing in front of him.
"Are you kidding me?" she demanded.
"What did you mean by that?" he asked. He was holding her close enough that she could smell the menthol on his tongue from his last cigarette.
"Mean by what?" she asked, wanting to get away from him.
"Why's it a problem that you don't hate me?"
"I just meant that I don't hate you when I have every reason why I should," she tried to explain. She should have just told him that she did hate him, and that's all there was to it.
He didn't say anything; instead he tried something that in her mind seemed so completely desperate that it took her by surprise. Dally held her against him and leaned down and kissed her.
She yelped in surprise, and he let go of her. Ellie stumbled backward, tripping on a broken brick in the flower bed.
"What are you doing?" she cried, glaring up at him. "Are you crazy?"
Struggling to her feet she didn't even wait for an answer. She bolted for the front door, let herself inside and slammed the door in his face.
Let it out like you always do,
The trouble between me and you
Is nothing new.
A/N: A kiss?! What does this mean for Ellie and Dally? Or Ellie and Tim?
To find out where, in fact, Ellie was last night, check out our sidefic to Tender, called Front Page Drive In News. See the facts Dally is ignoring . . .