You Met at a Party

by AndThatWasEnough

"This is simple. It doesn't have to be any more than this." The fall of 1966 didn't make sense to anybody, and most would rather forget it. Vickie Harper spends years trying to do just that, to forget what she and Dallas Winston had shared. It's easier said than done. {One-shot.}

Author's Note: I get a lot of questions about what exactly went down with Dallas and Vickie Harper since I first published Don't Think Twice. This is me finally answering those questions!

Happy reading :)

XXXXX

You met her at a party.

She was all blonde hair and blue eyes and tan skin. Pointy elbows and rail-thin. White teeth in a practiced smile. Everyone knew who she was. Vickie Harper was the Queen Bee, and she wasn't about to let anybody forget it. You knew a lot about her, too, remember Two-Bit used to have a thing for her – from a distance, that is. What you remember him telling you was that she may have been a looker, sure, but just like all those other rich bitches, she was mean – the meanest of them all. Mirror mirror, on the wall, who's the bitchiest of them all? Oh, well that was her. That was her, alright.

That was all you had to know about her to be intrigued.

It was one of those big river bottom bashes that the rich kids liked to put on. Whole town always showed up. She was alone for just a moment, straightening out her royal blue dress and looking at her reflection in a little compact. There was no one around her for once, and it was as good an opening as any.

"Come here often?"

Vickie looked up at you, cool and confident. Nothing ever fazed her, apparently – another thing about her that pulled you in. You only knew about her from rumors, but it was enough. She sucked in her cheeks a bit and took in your appearance, eyes tracing you up and down. "Maybe I do, Dallas Winston." So she knew you, too. Who didn't? You were one in the same, you and her, two sides of the same coin. Good and evil were two horns on the same goat, after all. Which of you was which, though, was up for debate, but you were pretty sure you weren't good – you just weren't so sure if she was. "And you? By the looks of you, I'd say you bathe in that river."

You smiled wickedly at her, but it probably looked more like a snarl. "Mouthy, huh? Shoulda guessed. Pretty girls like you always got the dirtiest mouths."

She raised her eyebrows. "And you would know that from experience?"

"Sure do."

"You expect me to believe pretty girls would even bother to give you the time of day?" She smirked, eyes twinkling. "Goodbye, Dallas."

If it were any other girl, you wouldn't have let her walk off. Maybe it was just because you were horny and any piece of tail would do, but you had the feeling she'd be back.

xXx

She was.

It wasn't long after. You were sitting around Buck's, lounging around on his ratty old couch with a beer in your hand. Some nights, after being up on the horse and jockeying, your adrenaline would be pumping so hard that you weren't able to stop. Other nights, like this one, you were calm, almost preferring the company of the horses to the horde of people in the roadhouse right now. People knew better than to approach you when you were like this, knew you didn't want to be bothered – dealing with people just fucked with your good mood, and if people didn't know that about you, that was their problem.

Apparently, Vickie hadn't been warned of this.

God only knows why she was there that night. She stepped through the smoke and spotted you sitting there, beer resting lazily on your knee, and you both smiled knowingly at each other. The girl had guts, you had to give her that, as she slowly strutted over to stand over you, and you wondered just why the fuck she wasn't scared. Of this roadhouse, of Buck, of these people, of you. You also wondered what she was risking, what you were both risking. This greaser versus soc thing...politics, all politics. Tim had explained it well to you, and it was one of the few things you could agree on with the dirty hood. It was a game of images, too – that's what was on the line here, for both of you.

"We meet again," you drawled.

"May I sit?" You nodded, and she sat, not leaning against the back of the couch, and not too close. No one was paying attention to either of you in the midst of the celebration of a good night where a lot of cash had been brought in. "I only go to rodeos because my friends ride in them. Barrel racing."

A girly sport if you'd ever heard of one. "Good for them."

She fluffed her hair, then pulled a face, rolling her eyes. "I don't see how they do it. They fall all the time, and the whole place smells like cheap beer and horse shit."

You laugh into your beer. You'd been right, then, about her dirty mouth. Figures. "What're you doin' here, baby?"

Vickie stopped cold and stared at you, then after a minute said, "Whaddya think I'm doin' here?" She asked, sounding like a true Okie for a hot second there. "You wouldn't'a approached me at that party if you didn't want something from me. So what is it?"

You clear your throat. "You." She raised an eyebrow. "What, ya thought I wanted money? I don't even know you, I wouldn't ask you for that."

"You don't want me," she said smartly, smiling. "I know what you want." Coy, or playing at it real well, she leaned in and whispered in your ear, "That wasn't the first time I've caught you starin' at me before, hood."

Oh, that was for sure. You'd seen her loads of places, at loads of parties – girl got around. "Then what is it I do want?"

In the back of your head, you think this is disgusting, this sugary banter, but there's something easy about the roles the two of you are playing here, and maybe that's part of the appeal. She can be the so-called good girl, coming over to the bad side of town to slum it with you, an asshole. Like some sort of fucked up roleplay. There's not a single good intention to be found here, not a pure thought, and not a good thing to come of it. Maybe nothing bad will come of it, either, but this can only end one of two ways, you and her: as mundanely as it began, or in a raging shitstorm. You find yourself open to welcoming both.

"Let's go to your room," she suggests, but not really. What the hell is this, you wonder again, letting her grab your hand and lead you upstairs like she owned the place, like you weren't heading for your room, and how the hell did she know you had a room here, anyways? What else did this broad know?

"Usually I'm the one takin' broads to bed," you say, and Vickie smirks as she kicks off her heels and starts undoing her blouse. She's got great tits, you've gotta admit, and that bra makes them look rock-solid, consistent with all the rest of her hard edges – and yourself.

"This place is a pigsty," she tells you, ignoring your comment. "That blanket looks like I could crack it in half."

"Prolly can."

Her eyebrows shoot up in saucy surprise, and then she sits on your bed, crossing one leg over the other so you can peer up her skirt a bit while she held her chest up proudly like maybe Daddy had paid for them and she was taking them out for a test drive, like she would a new convertible. You have to admire her for that, at least, but to be honest, you're admiring her for a whole lot more than just that. Kid's got...she's got something about her. Hard to put your finger on, but she's like a magnet.

You throw your overshirt on the ground, pull your T-shirt over your head. Still her eyes are on you, but you think to yourself that it can't be because she likes the way you look. Even Sylvia thinks you look like a greaseball. But your looks have never been what's gotten you girls, so it's not like it bothers you. Vickie probably knows this, anyways. It doesn't seem to bother her, either.

She reaches out and takes your hand in hers. Her fingernails are bright red. "This is simple," she says. "It doesn't have to be any more than this."

That was good enough for you.

xXx

You didn't exactly get to know Vickie in that time. Or, you try your best not to. The two of you weren't exactly a thing, after all, so why bother putting in the time. Though, Sylvia was officially your girl, you supposed, (cheating whore or not), and while you knew her, if someone pressed you on what her favorite color is, you would come up blank for sure. So, you weren't going to start with Vickie.

But she had been right – it was simple. It didn't make any sort of logical sense, but it was easy, and was never more than what it already was. Over time, though, she would end up staying a little longer after each time, the two of you just laying there together, sometimes sharing a cigarette, but never really saying anything besides the usual post-coital platitudes. That was fine by you.

One time, though, after the main event, Vickie rolls over and asks you, "Why do you live here? Don't you have a house you could be livin' at?"

You shrug. "Sure," you say. "I could be livin' at my old man's, but I'd rather not. So here I am."

That's it. That's all you say, and that's all she asks. But that one question seems to make her think that she can ask more, talk more, and while you know that's just gonna complicate things, you don't stop her.

You learn that Vickie has a younger brother and a cousin named Beatrice whose father was a state senator. Vickie was a cheerleader, and a member of the student government and homecoming committee. She went to church on Sundays, something you haven't done in years. She had taken dance lessons at the Pink Barn, and had been presented when she was fifteen years old. Her favorite movie was Some Like It Hot. Her favorite band was The Monkees. You didn't really care about all that, but you know it now, and you can't un-know it. What perplexed you most was that all of that sounded pretty goody-two-shoes to you – but instead of Betty Cooper, you got some twisted version of Veronica Lake who looked at you like she wished you were dead when you met on the street, but like she loved you when she was in your bed.

"Don't you got a boyfriend you could tell all this to?" You ask.

"Sure," she sighed happily. "But George already knows everything about me. He's great and all, but he's sort of a bore. But boring's good in a husband." You didn't know about that. You didn't question it. You really didn't care.

xXx

By November, the two of you had your routine down. She would waltz right in, maybe let you order her a drink, but you would quickly ascend the staircase so the two of you could get to what it was you really wanted to do. Nobody at Buck's seemed to care that Vickie was there, if they even noticed her – so many people came in and out. Vickie always looked like Vickie, not bothering to try to dress down and blend in, which made you appreciate her all the more. There was no one on the planet who was going to change Vickie Harper, and she let everybody know it. You were the same. So while none of this made sense, she had started to make sense to you.

You went to the Nightly Double at the Twin Admiral one Saturday with Pony and Johnny. Not your usual scene – most Saturdays ended with Vickie – but you liked the kids, so you went with it. Too bad that redheaded broad had to go and ruin your fun. Get lost, hood. From her, it was a genuine insult. By this point, Vickie said it as something of an inside joke. You didn't exactly joke back, though. She didn't seem to mind.

That Saturday, however, ended not with Vickie, but with murder. That was one of the few lines you had yet to cross. You'd seen plenty of dead bodies, sure, back in New York, but the idea that Johnny Cade could ever kill anybody threw you for a bit of a loop.

xXx

Vickie was a better lover than Sylvia. Syl was a spitfire, would try just about anything, wasn't afraid to get down and dirty. But Vickie, though more vanilla, for all that her presence and what the two of you were doing made no sense, suddenly made all the sense in the world when you were together. She just sorta…well, the two of you clicked. Physically, that is. It wasn't something you could really explain, and doubted she could, either. It did make you wonder, though. Your mind would briefly wander, wonder if you were a different person, living a different life, if you could like her as a person and not just a fucked-up sort of playmate.

xXx

A few days after Pony and Johnny go missing (well…they're not exactly missing if someone knows where they are, but…anyways…), Cherry Valance – the pretty redhead from the Nightly Double – comes over to y'all's side of town and offers to be a spy, like this a James Bond movie. It's stupid, sure, but you and the guys take advantage of it and the information she offers to give you.

Your mistake, however, came when you asked her on a date.

xXx

That night before you go to Windrixville, Vickie makes an appearance at Buck's. She's not happy.

"Her boyfriend is dead and you asked her on a date," she lectures, like she has any right to. "You're disgusting."

You throw a couple things into your dresser, using some of the shirts you have laying around to cover up your earnings from your last race at the bottom of your drawer. Buck has a bad habit of pinching a few dollars here and there even after he takes his share of the earnings. You briefly consider throwing some of it at Vickie and tell her to buy herself something pretty, but you're pretty sure that wouldn't even faze her at this point. She'd probably just stuff it into her bra like she'd rightfully earned it.

"I didn't know that," you say, and you're pretty sure that's true. The paper didn't say anything about that Sheldon kid being Cherry's boyfriend. Well – live and learn. "'Sides – thought you liked that about me."

The line doesn't work. "You know what she told me?"

"What."

"She told me she's already half in love with you," Vickie says bitterly. "She really did."

You smirk. "Yeah, thought she kinda liked me."

But Vickie looks hurt. You don't know what to do with that at first. She was the one who said this was all simple, didn't mean anything – it was just sex. There. It wasn't supposed to be any more complicated than that, she had said so herself, and you had agreed to those terms. This was confusing, then. "What about Sylvia?" She asked instead, and you laugh.

"Sylvia? Who cares about Sylvia. She went behind my back while I was in the slammer, ya know."

"I didn't," Vickie says. "But you went behind hers. With me. So – I guess I'm really asking what about me, then."

You watch her closely as you head over to the desk against the window. "What about you?"

Her expression doesn't change. "Do you care about me? Even a little?"

Oh, Vickie. "Uh. I guess? I wouldn't want you dead or anything. Why do you care? Thought you just wanted to fuck."

"So – no, then."

You should have been more worried about this happening. But it was Vickie. Vickie Harper. Queen Bitch. She was as cold and calculating as you were, just wanted to play the part. She was going to be prom queen and marry George Washburn and have clothes sent to her from department stores in England because Macy's and Talbot's weren't always good enough for her. You didn't want to agree to what she said, but you didn't want to disagree. It just made no sense anymore – now you could see in her what you saw in Cherry Valance: that she kinda liked you.

That maybe Vickie was half in love with you, too.

Jesus God.

"I don't know what it is about boys like you," she went on, fire in her eyes and rolling off her tongue. Boys like you? She probably meant no-good hoods like you. "First Cherry, then Marcia, and then Bridget Stevens – "

"Huh?" You ask, confused. Vickie gives you a pitying look.

"Guess you hadn't heard. Your friend Two-Bit Mathews has a couple of admirers. But if you ask me, he's the one who's in real trouble, because he likes one of them back."

You shake your head and promise yourself to bug Two-Bit about that later. "Bee Stevens is an idiot," you mutter instead. "You're friends?" You'd think Vickie was smarter than to be friends with the girl who offered to buy you a pack of cigarettes like she was doing you a goddamned service.

Vickie nods. "Oh, yes. Good friends. She'd kill me if she found out I was here with you. Probably because I'm a hypocrite," she said, a bit self-aware. "But she hasn't lived with this like we have. She's not an idiot – she's naïve."

"If she did find out," you start, "would she tell?"

"She won't find out," Vickie insists.

"But if she did," you push. "Would she tell everybody?"

Vickie thinks about it for a moment. "No," she finally says. "She's too nice."

"Good," you spit. You sigh and slam yourself down at the desk. "Good."

Vickie clears her throat and fluffs up her hair. "There's one more thing, Dallas."

"What's that."

"I'm pregnant."

xXx

You write a letter, but end up ripping it up and leaving it in pieces in your desk. It'd be best if you just took her yourself when you got back. How could you have been so stupid? As few people as possible needed to know about this as possible. Then you and Vickie could pretend like this never happened. Maybe even pretend like the two of you were never even in the proximity of being a thing. It was all getting so complicated, anyways. It would be for the best, even though you had to admit you'd miss her a little.

You head for Windrixville, and never see Vickie again.

XXXXX

Tim –

Got myself into a bit of trouble with a girl. You still know of that doctor? Out in OKC? Think she and I are gonna need his help. Her name's Vickie Harper, you've probably heard of her. But don't tell anybody that it's her or I'll kick your ass when I get back. Take her out there and get it done with. I'll pay you back. I just don't know how long I'm gonna be gone for and this needs to get done ASAP.

If you've heard of her, there's another girl called Bee Stevens that Mathews knows. If they find out, we're screwed because Bee Stevens & Vickie Harper know each other. Here's to hoping Vickie won't tell that big mouth about what happened – god knows she'd spill the whole damn thing. And if she doesn't, Mathews will. So make sure they don't.

XXXXX

When you read about Dallas Winston's death in the morning paper, you know immediately you're on your own. You can't tell your parents – they would disown you in a second – and you're not going back to Buck's to hunt down one of his friends. No, you've got a car, and you can find a doctor, and take care of this on your own. Mother and Daddy put money into your account each month, and they hardly monitor it, so it should go off without a hitch.

It's not that easy, though, to keep it to yourself.

You hear about a funeral, but you don't go. Of course you don't go. If you went, that would just be a huge red flag to everyone in Tulsa. Cherry goes, Miss-I'm-in-love-with-Dallas-Winston-even-though-his-thug-friend-killed-my-boyfriend. And Bridget goes! The world simply doesn't make sense anymore. Cherry and Bridget are going to Dallas Winston's funeral, but you're the one pregnant with his baby.

You miss him, a little.

He didn't want you to keep the baby, and you didn't want to, either. There's something a little wrong with that, probably, but it's not even alive yet, out in the world, and what would you even do with a baby? Raise it? No. You're too young, and your parents would hate you, and George would hate you because he's a prude and won't even have sex with you no matter how many times you ask, so he'd know immediately you'd cheated on him.

That's probably part of why you went to Dallas in the first place. He'd taken notice of you, and you of him, and he could give you what you wanted. And you know what? It had felt right.

But now everything was just – wrong.

xXx

"Bridget, I really have to tell ya somethin'."

It was the winter dance, and you'd come alone because George had gotten kneed in the balls at the basketball game last night, and his left testicle had swollen up so much he could barely walk. Just one more thing, right? First you get pregnant, and then your boyfriend gets a swollen testicle. It's poetry. Also, Bridget had won Snow Queen, and was walking around in her tiara looking a little spacey and like she was floating on air. When you had finally gotten her attention, she'd given you an absent little smile at first before noticing that you weren't exactly happy, and then she raised an eyebrow and cocked her head in confusion.

"What is it, Vickie?" she asked.

"Remember how I asked you a while back if you were a virgin?"

It was at her house. You were doing each other's nails. Regular girl talk.

"Yeah, I do. Why?"

"I've done such a bad thing, Bridget," you whisper. "Oh, Bridget. I went and - "

And suddenly, you're starting to cry. You didn't expect this. You haven't gotten rid of his baby yet, and you miss him. You miss him! It's ridiculous. And every time you try to get in your car and drive out to the doctor you found to take care of it, you stop. You can't make yourself do it. And you still miss, and maybe it's because you miss him that you can't get rid of it just yet, but it's a vicious cycle of wanting to get rid of it and not being able to.

Dallas Winston was dead, and you missed him. All because you wanted some dick.

"Did you really?"

You're amazed Bridget picked up on what you were alluding to, she's usually such a space cadet, but you don't pay that any mind. "And with the absolute worst person!"

"Who?" she whispered, leaning in so she could hear you over the music.

When you tell her, she freezes. Her brow furrows, and she starts to slowly shake her head. "O-oh..." she mumbled. "Oh. Well, I ought to find Jerry now."

And then she just walks off.

xXx

It's bullshit, her reaction, because you see how she watches Two-Bit Mathews when you're walking together in the hall, trips over her own feet just so she can stare a little longer at the rusty-haired delinquent. She's crushing on him, but you…you can't quite describe what it was exactly that you and Dallas had, because by the end, you had looked at him differently. At first, yes, it was about the sex and the opposites attract thing, but while you didn't love him, Dallas Winston interested you far more than George ever did, or any of the other so-called nice boys, by leaps and bounds. He was a mystery, really, and for as much as you despised those boys from his side of town, he was the exception. You hated him so much that you couldn't stay away from him.

You could see why Cherry could have fallen in love with him. He was so…so…so much his own man. A little better than the rest. And now he was just gone, like a quick-burning fire. Just like that. And you had a living link to him within you. That was probably what was stopping you.

But you couldn't choose Dallas over yourself. He was gone, and you were here. This was your life, and you were foolish to ever let yourself believe he could have been a part of that.

Dallas Winston was not going to fuck you over from beyond the grave.

xXx

After school one day, you wait out in the parking lot, leaning against your car with a cigarette and wait for Bridget to come out of the school. She's got some skip in her step, but you're gonna put a stop to that real quick. She spots you and cocks her head. "Didn't take you for a smoker," she said, joining you.

"Yeah, well, there's a first time for everything, isn't there?"

"Think you could give me a ride home?"

You nod, short and sharp. "I have something to talk to you about anyways. Get in."

"What about?"

"You know as well as I do that I can't come to school..." You wave a hand, "indisposed the way I am. So help me." You sound more desperate than you mean to, but you can't help it. It's the end of January, and hiding this baby is going to get hard fast.

Bridget's eyes widen. "I don't know how to help you," she admitted. "I've never known anybody that this happened to."

Oh, fucking of course. The girl apparently barely had a life before she got here – why should you be surprised? You shake your head miserably. "I can't go to school like this much longer, but I sure don't want to go through with it. I guess I'll figure something out."

"I'm sure you will," she agreed, perky and reassuring, and you want to smack her, scratch up her face with your bright red claws. Bridget's sweet and all, too sweet, and frankly? It's damn annoying. She's such a try-hard. "If you need anything, you know where to find me."

You pull up beside her house, and try to give her a smile that probably looks pretty condescending. "Thanks, Bridget."

"Um. Right. Uh…when…when did it happen?"

You weren't quite sure. You and Dallas were together just about every Saturday, so any time in late October or early November. You knew as soon as your period turned up late – in fact, it hadn't turned up at all. "That party at the river bottom, we met there. And then I sought him out. At Buck Merrill's just before he died." Bridget doesn't say anything, just nods. "I need to get going. I'll see you around, Bridget."

xXx

You finally did it that afternoon. You're not quite sure what the final push was, but you drove to Oklahoma City in record time and paid in cash.

As you drove home, you do your best not to think about it. Any of it. Not the baby, not Dallas Winston, not Cherry Valance or Bridget Stevens or any of it. You don't feel anything about it, you don't feel sorry or sad. You just do your best to move on and pretend none of this ever happened.

And it's easy. Like Sunday morning.

xXx

No.

No, it's not that easy.

At school, it's easy. You just play the part you've always played. It's not so easy when you get home, and it's just you, and you take off your makeup and see what's left behind, how the stress has etched itself onto your face, all because of some stupid hood you'd dared to slum around with. Every afternoon, you see a girl you don't recognize staring back at you in the vanity mirror. You wonder why in the hell you told Bridget Stevens this big secret, when you promised Dallas you wouldn't. Then you wonder why you're beholden to a dead boy, that you didn't even love, and that you should be able to tell your friends these things. You didn't tell Cherry, of course, because she loved him or whatever and that would have fucked her up even more than Bob being dead, but you had to tell somebody. Bridget seemed the obvious choice because she was so naïve, and didn't even really know you. She was too worried about impressing people to actually tell anybody else your secret. That's what Dallas hadn't known about her – she was so scared, and Vickie had given her everything. She would never betray her.

Never.

xXx

"Are you alright?" Bridget is genuinely concerned for you, but you wish she'd just get the hell off your porch. She's like a fly you keep having to swat at. You don't even know why she's here.

"No. No, not really," you reply. You know you look like shit. Dallas Winston did this to you. You'll never forget that. You'll never forgive him for it.

You'll never forgive yourself for it. What in the hell had you been thinking?

"I-I just came over to see how you were doing," Bridget stutters out. "Have you...come up with an idea yet?" She can't even say it. She has to pussyfoot around it.

"You could say that," you drawl. "Ask me about it."

She raises her eyebrows, and you smile at her, but it stretches your face in a way that feels uncomfortable and wrong, like it's just not natural anymore. "What's your plan?" she asks.

"I got rid of it."

"You what?" she cries. "Are you saying - "

"It's gone," you whisper bitterly. "No baby, no sir."

"Oh, Vickie -"

"Don't!" you snap. "Do not. I didn't need the constant reminder of him hanging on me, depending on me. When I have a baby, goddammit, it's gonna be with the right guy - not some east-side hood!"

Bridget staggers back a bit. She's not used to people yelling at her, but you don't care. She gives it, she gets it. "I can't believe you," she spits.

"Can't believe what? That I got rid of it?" You hope to God your mother doesn't hear. You don't feel like explaining this. Bridget shakes her head.

"Not that, Vickie," she says thickly. "No. You don't know any of those east-siders. You don't! So who're you to judge?"

Oh, that's rich. Bridget looks down her nose at you like she's so much better than you, and you again want to knock a couple of her teeth out (maybe you and Dallas were more alike than you thought.) You sneer at her. "And how would you know?" You ask. "What're you hiding, Bridget Stevens?"

You know what she's hiding. Of course you know what she's hiding. She's not as good as she thinks about her sneaking around, and she clearly has no idea what people say about her and Two-Bit Mathews behind their backs. It's really only in the speculation phase, but you figure you can whip it up into a frenzy with almost no effort.

"I'm not hiding anything," she finally said unconvincingly.

"Bullshit!"

"I'm not!" she cried, and it's your turn to stumble back at the force of the assertion. "I'm not hiding anything, and dammit, Vickie, if you tell me one more time that I am, I will tell everybody about you and Winston." She took a step closer, and now you're practically nose-to-nose. "I could ruin everything for you. You do not scare me, Vickie Harper. Maybe you did once, but I have since come up against far scarier things than a conniving little whore like you."

Oh, how dare she. Maybe she had more fire in her than you thought. Bridget is absolutely livid, and you get the idea that maybe – just maybe – if the two of you calmed down here and behaved like the civilized young ladies your mothers had raised you to be (oh – oops – you forgot that your dear, dear friend was motherless, so maybe that was why she was behaving like a wild girl right now), then the two of you could come to an agreement and find some sympathy for each other.

But fuck that.

"Get off my goddamn porch," you snarl through your teeth.

She doesn't say another word, just glares at you and stomps off to her car, and you watch her drive off, thinking you've won, that you have the upper hand.

You couldn't be more wrong.

xXx

The night of your junior prom, it all goes to shit.

You walk in on George Washburn's arm in an emerald green satin dress, with a glass of wine sloshing around in your belly, burning – but it's a good burn. Because you're going to do it; you're going to save yourself. You're going to put all of this to an end. If you tell everyone at this dance about Stevens and her boytoy Two-Bit Mathews, then anything she said would look reactionary, and no one in a million years would believe a thing she said. You and your secrets will be safe: Dallas, the baby, the abortion. None of it will ever surface.

"George, sug', mind gettin' me something to drink?" You ask your date. He's a big lug, not the brightest bulb, but you don't mind that because it means you're in charge. Dallas…he was so much more complicated.

But you liked that about him.

You push Dallas to the back of your mind, and as George wanders off to get you a glass of probably-spiked punch, you start to float through the crowd, chin held high, looking for your first target. You know just about the whole school, but the tricky thing is figuring out just how to fit your little bit of gossip in naturally to the conversation, which means you need to find someone you converse with naturally. Cherry, Marcia, Missy, Penny – all obvious choices, but not the right place to start. They'll know something's up immediately.

Just as you decide on starting with Leigh Ann Barton, you hit a snag. You're crossing the dance floor when you see Mathews himself, resplendent in sport coat and wavy auburn hair, eyeing you. He used to be head over heels for you in junior high, and you wonder when his taste in women suddenly got so bad. You raise your eyebrows, and he raises one right back, smiling that smile of his that people either love or despise. Then more eyes start to turn on you. Just a few sets, but it's enough to raise your hackles. That's when you spot her moving through the crowd, towards him, and for some reason, it makes you think of yourself and Dallas, always drawn to each other, and it makes your blood boil. You stride towards her, a woman on a mission to stop another woman on a mission.

"He's doing your dirty work for you?"

Bridget spun around and saw you glaring daggers at her, and she swallowed hard. "I didn't even know he was coming," she choked out. "I didn't even know!"

"Like hell you didn't!" You spat. "Don't lie now, Bridget Stevens. It won't do you anymore good."

Again, you know you're a hypocrite. Love and sex…the two of you are young, but these are strange circumstances that you have found yourselves in, so it makes sense – at least to you – that maybe people in this town are fast-tracked, made to grow up faster and realize things sooner than a girl in Omaha, or a boy in Gary. You'd think that Bridget Stevens, born and bred New Yorker, would have had a bit more of Dallas's street smarts and wit, but she doesn't.

Or, she didn't. She came here and you carefully molded her, put time into being her friend because you've always liked a project, so you shouldn't be a bit surprised that she's become a bit like you. She made the same mistake you did, confirmed by the fact that she glances over her shoulder at a certain greaser standing behind you, then slides her eyes back to you and gives you a coy, careful smile. "You're right, Vickie," she says slowly. "It won't do me any good. That's why I'm sure George will just love to hear about you and Dallas Winston."

"Don't you dare. Don't you dare!"

Her eyes say Oh, yes I would, but what she says is, "Maybe I won't - but I know someone who will."

xXx

School is shit for a while after that, but summer comes soon enough and wipes everything away, and you recover. George is dumb enough to believe you when you tell him that the whole affair happened before the two of you even got together, and you get to keep him. Small victories, you suppose. Your parents never find out, because high school gossip rarely reaches adults – unless Mrs. Janine Johnston, author of the society column, gets involved, but either she hasn't caught wind of this, or she knows better than to stick her nose in this one.

Things get almost back to normal. You find new friends. After Cherry found out, she now only gave you confused, hurt glances, like what you had done wasn't so much wrong as a betrayal to her. You hadn't even known when the whole affair began that she was so attached to Winston; hell, you figured she hadn't even supposedly fallen for him until that night at the drive-in. But still, there was no going back. You start hanging around your cousin Beatrice and her clique, and you work your way back up the ladder. The other people at school still fear you enough that they know better than to bring the whole incident up. Best to pretend it never happened. You've become almost untouchable.

Almost.

Bridget pretends as if she's never met you. She returns for senior year with her shiny new boyfriend, which hardly anyone bats an eye at. As you all transition to fringe and brighter colors and bold prints, she suddenly becomes the school's silent fashion guru. She got to keep all your old friends, the one's you've had since at least junior high, and while you know just about everybody, they had been your real friends for years. Or maybe they hadn't been. Maybe they'd never liked you, only feared you.

When she beats you out for prom queen, she congratulates all her fellow nominees, even you, but there's nothing in her expression or her tone to suggest she had ever given you a second thought.

xXx

The night before you leave for Ole Miss, you find yourself walking through a graveyard.

It's a beautiful late summer evening, and you've still got some light, so you can easily wind your way through the headstones until you find who it is you're looking for. It's a simple grave, with nothing written on it but the name and dates. There really isn't anything to differentiate it from any of the other graves, and it's not exactly in a scenic spot. It's just off one of the paths, not even shaded by a tree.

You don't often visit places like this, but as you're about to leave Tulsa behind for the next four years, it feels like the thing to do. You stop in front of Dallas Winston's grave and you stare down at it (him?), and search for something to say. (You also don't exactly talk to the dead, either, but again – this was the last chance you'd have for a long while, and there's something nagging at you, something that brought you here tonight.)

"So," you begin. "You…come here often?"

"Are…are you talking to me?"

You whip around, already feeling embarrassment pool in your stomach and hotly creep up your neck, coloring your cheeks a bright red. There's a boy standing there, looking as awkward as you feel, and you're initially too shocked to even recognize him. You take a deep breath and try to recollect yourself, putting a hand over your heart as you try to calm yourself down.

"Don't do that!" You cry breathily. "Goodness. You shouldn't sneak up on people like that."

"Sorry," he mumbles. "Were you talking to me, though?"

You sigh and roll your eyes. "How could I have been talking to you if I didn't even know you were here?"

He looks down at the ground and scuffs his toe into the stone walkway. "Guess you couldn't. You're Vickie, aren't you?"

You pause, lower your hand from your chest and hold it in front of you. "Yes. And you're Ponyboy."

"Yeah," he confirms, giving you a small grin. "I didn't mean to interrupt you. I can leave."

You sigh. "No, it's – fine." It is. It's not like knew where you were going to have gone from there, and this was already mortifying enough, being caught talking to a grave. Much easier to talk to someone alive, even if you barely knew them. "Do you come here often?" You ask.

He shakes his head. "Not really. Just every now and then, to make sure the graves are staying cleaned up. Do you?" You shake your head, too. You've never been here before, not once. Didn't even go to the funeral, remember? Ponyboy seems to think for a moment, then gets brave and takes the steps to stand beside you. You barely know a thing about this boy; you know he was there the night that other delinquent killed Bob Sheldon, and you'd ready the stories about him in the paper and knew a little of his family, his friends. Nearly all of Will Rogers had hated him after that, including yourself. But who even thinks about that fall anymore? It all seems so far away now – Bob, Cherry, Dallas Winston…a lifetime ago, really.

"Um," he starts up again. "I can leave, if you want some time."

"No, it's fine," you insist once again. You eye the kid. "What was he like?"

"Who? Dallas?" You resist the urge to roll your eyes and nod. "Um…well, you mean you didn't get to know him when you were…together?"

"We weren't together. We just…I don't know what we were," you admit. "But, yes, what was he like?"

Ponyboy tells you about the young hood from New York who his brother and his brother's best friend met at the drugstore, stealing an entire carton of cigarettes. Dallas loved jockeying and did it honestly, was a loyal man in a fight, Tim Shepard's best friend, and had a rap sheet a million miles long. He smoked Kools, liked Miller Lite best, and cheated on Sylvia less times than she had cheated on him. He was mean, but he was the kind of mean that people respected.

You figured you could relate to that.

"Well. I'm sorry about his death," you say blandly, but you do mean it.

"Me, too," Ponyboy sighs. He shifts awkwardly again. "So…what they said, about you and him…"

"It's all true," you say. "All of it was true."

"Then I'm sorry, too."

"Thanks." You purse your lips and stare down at Dallas Winston. He's probably just a skeleton now. The boy whose bed you crawled into every Saturday night that fall until he left, and you never saw again. He apparently died some delinquent hero. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. You're eighteen years old, and you already have a dead lover and his dead baby on your conscience. "You're the first person who's ever said that to me."

That was true. You're not much for self-pity, and you deserved most of what you got – you could own that – but not even Beatrice had expressed any sympathy for you. Guess what you had done was just too taboo, all of it. But Bee Stevens could get off with loving Two-Bit Mathews like – what? Like it was okay? Times really had changed.

"Uh. I hope you have a good school year, Vickie," Pony says, and he's holding out his hand to you like he wants to shake yours. You stare at it for a moment. You don't know this boy. He doesn't know you. You have this dead boy beneath your feet in common, and you realize the two of you share a tragedy. So many people you never gave a second thought, and you're more connected than you know. The thought makes your skin crawl; it is not a comfort. But this boy, who had every right to hate you, was treating you with kindness.

So you shake his hand.

"You, too. Junior year is real important. But I've heard you're smart, so you probably shouldn't worry."

You shake on it, and he gives you a nice smile, and your own lips twitch upwards just a bit. "Have a nice night, Vickie," he says, and then he starts to walk off. But then he stops. Turns around and squints against the sun so he can see you.

"Cherry said she loved him. Did you?"

"No," you say, but then you add on, "It's hard to explain."

He accepts that. He's a nice boy.

You hope you never see him again.

xXx

Years later – not too many, but a handful, after you and George have returned to Tulsa and become husband and wife – you're reading the paper in your new updated kitchen when you come across an announcement from a Dr. and Mrs. Stevens that their daughter has married. You hadn't even known that Bridget and Two-Bit were still together – last you'd heard, she'd dumped him. Guess not.

You set the paper down on the kitchen table, pour yourself a glass of wine, head into the living room where the TV is playing one of your soaps, and start to cry. You don't cry as a rule – it ruins your makeup and makes you look red and splotchy – but you can't help it. The dam finally bursts, nine years after he died, and looking around your family room that you and George have yet to fill with any sort of family of your own, you think of the baby you once carried and the father of that baby.

Bridget Stevens got her happy ending. Everything worked out all peaches-and-cream for her.

You got what you always expected you would get.

Then you think to yourself that, well, maybe you did love Dallas, a little. You had denied it for so long. But what else could explain it? Why else would you have kept returning to him, time and again? It was only a matter of time before the two of you collided. The truth, that neither of you had ever acknowledged, was that you had danced around each other for years, circling each other, and the fall of 1966 had simply been the culmination of that dance. That was a simpler time, too, before anybody had died and you were still Queen Bee, on top of the world, in charge of your world. Everything about him that night – from his wispy blond hair to his leather jacket to his dangerous eyes and smile – from the moment the two of you laid eyes on each other, you had known there would be no going back.

Sometimes, there are no real explanations for why things happen. They just do. And you try to bring yourself to be content that there was a brief, brief moment where the two of you – the worst pairing anyone could think up – made perfect, perfect sense. And you could hold onto that forever.

xXx

You met him at a party.

But you had been waiting for him for years.

xXx

AN: Hope that filled in a few blanks! Maybe…? Anyways, it was fun to write again. Expect more.

Stay home, stay safe, and thanks for reading!