Mood: Thank you for the birthday wishes! You too!
Mood: I'm glad you like the church sence and then Johnny and Wendy. More of them here.
Happier than Most: I'm glad you love the backstory on Johnny's mother. and of course the Church Sence...now that was fun to right. Wendy and Johnny's sence isn't done, so Johnny will be channeling more of his inner two bit and soda here.
lulusgardenfli: their inner thoughts and psychology...yes that to me is the bread and butter of the story -you can thank my love of Tolkien for that, and for my skill at putting spirituality into my work. Each charater I a soul that sees the world differently than the others. I try to subtly show that. Thanks for the birthday wishes!
Ishouldbedoingmyhomework01 : update comingup!
Lovetoread75 :More Johnny and Wendy coming up, from his pov!
bookgirl18 : hey book girl! glad you like it!
Chapter XIII
S*S
"-Would you," she rolled her shoulder, eyes hopeful but trying not to be. "Like to head down too the library? And work on the project?"
Johnny blinked. The library? As in the public anyone-and-their-grandmother could see 'em there? That library? And she wouldn't mind, wouldn't be embarrassed...not even after the church service from hell?
But in the moments it took 'im to try and unravel the knots on his tongue; Wendy started to fidget, more and more, hands tugging at her own fingers while her shoulders hunched.
"I mean, you don't have too..."
"Wait, no I don't...I mean sure I'd...I'd like ta, I just..." Johnny swallowed, hands running for the trenches of his pockets. Then he tried again. "Ya don't...ya don't mind any?"
She perked up, and bit her lip again; with a giggle her hand tried to catch.
"If I did, I wouldn't have asked you, right?" she said, wryly. And Johnny had to bend with that logic...and felt his neck warm up while doing so.
"Uh...right," he admitted sheepishly. "Yeah..."
They retreated to themselves after that, like the safe zone in the game kids played, shuffling like a New Orleans deck of cards. And somewhere in the corner of his mind, his conscious -which sounded horrifyingly like Two-bit- began to tug at his ear and kick him.
Come on, Johnnycakes, grow a pair...
Okay, okay. Well here went nothin'.
A whole lot of nothin'.
"So...you want to go..." he gestured, motioning with his head towards the door. And knots that had tightened in his gut loosened with relief when his partner beamed. At him.
"Love too," she answered, before following him out into the hallway, which by this time, was deserted as the Sahara. No kid in their right mind wanted to hang around after the bell sounded if they didn't have too, Soc, Grease or other. Which was good, as it increased his chances of getting to the library with all his primary limbs attached to their sockets, walkin' with a girl like Wendy. Nevermind if it was for school. Or to a place 'bout as excitin' as a Hank William's record.
None of that would matter -if he got seen, he could kiss himself goodbye. Honestly, he was little stunned at himself...and if the gang could see 'im now...
He snorted, grinned slightly. Well, they probably have to take another look, just to make sure it was him at all. Aside from Ponyboy, he was their most careful member -he didn't do this shit, didn't take the risks they did. Not at school, where it was only a milder form of what he dealt with at home.
S*S
I got to be some kind of yo-yo, doin' this...
And it was hard to deny that...it was crazy. Completely.
He gripped his notebooks tighter.
...But he ain't never been a coward. He'd of died from fear a long time ago if that had been the case. He'd died long before he ever let himself be one either.
Even if his gut was still squirming as they headed out into the sunlight, down the stone paths that bleed out from the school...though she gave him a odd look when she noticed him steering them 'way from the few Socy congregations holdin' court in the parking lot.
Hey, he planned on making it to sixteen. Passed sixteen, if he was lucky.
"Um...sorry we gotta walk," he finally said, fibbing to her unspoken question. "I don't got a license or nothin'..."
Or a car...
"It's okay," Wendy said. "I can't drive yet either you know..."
She smiled then, and smiled again -and somehow didn't notice him tripping over his own damn feet- while looked around them as the autumn trees, their tips starting to look like Ponyboy's freshly used paintbrushes, red and gold-green. "And it's nice out. Might as well suck it all in while we got it, right? It'll be gone soon..."
Johnny nodded carefully at that, following her gaze -which in an of itself felt odd. Normally, his eye level never even left the cracks in the pavement. Made it easier to disappear. To be invisible if ya needed to be.
"I guess your right," he said. And wince. That's the best he could do? Unfortunately, his inner Two-bit must've gone to sleep off his hangover, cause nothing else was coming.
But Wendy just nodded and was content to keep walking, as so long as that was the case, and she didn't mind, then Johnny didn't mind walking beside her nether.
S*S
The way to the library was a familiar one to Johnny, though he had to say, he was looking forward to this one more than normal. No offence to Ponyboy, but Wendy looked a lot nicer running up those stairs than his pal did, blue eyes matching the unrolled sky above.
"Coming?" she asked.
"Right behind yeah," he called back, following. Given a moment to get ahead by the wind pushing black hair in front of Wendy's face, he beat her to the door and pressed it open with his back.
"After you," he said, his inner Soda apparently up and running the show.
And he got that smile again. For him.
"Thank you," she said, going in, and waiting for Johnny to join her.
The public library of Tulsa wasn't anything special, just rows and rows of books as far as the eye could see, calming in its stillness and quiet; which was why he tagged along with Pony on his semi-weekly pilgrimage's here. So he ended up leading Wen to the spot he and Pony like, with comfy chairs around a low table that the rested their stuff on. And he watched her as Wendy began fiddling with her bookbag, pulling out the needed supplies.
He shuffled in his usual seat.
"Uh...Wendy?" he finally asked. "Can I ask you somthin'?"
She stopped rifling though her bag, and sat up, pushing hair behind her ear. "Ask me what?"
"After..uh...church..." and he could just feel himself heating up and turning red again. "How come you're still okay with me?"
She was staring at him. "Why wouldn't I be? You and the other boy weren't doing anything bad. And honestly...the craziness did me and my brothers some good...we had a um...hard weekend."
His head cocked. "When you went to your aunt's."
She started playing with her fingers again. "Yeah."
"What happened?"
Her eyes were on her bag again.
"...family trouble," she said after a moment, a hand going up to touch the cross necklace she wore. She said it softly, the way you said prayers on Good Friday. And that was more than enough to have him sitting back, and looking her over in alarm. He couldn't help it. In his neighborhood, "family trouble" was the polite way of saying someone in your house was beating the tar out of ya. It was a open, naked little secret that danced like an Apache round the fire in their streets.
On this brisk autumn day, Wendy was lightly covered, though she had slipped of her blue sweater one they had sat down. So he could see the olive length of her arms, smooth and unblemished with anything but a birthmark near her elbow. And her neck and her face looked fine too. Just a little bit lost...or like she lost or left something behind and couldn't get it back.
"Sorry about that," he said quietly, meaning it.
Wendy's entire posture softened, and the mantle of her hair waved while her head shook.
"Not you're fault."
"Then...things are better?"
Wendy seemed to think that over some, lips pursed, eyes thoughtful.
"I think they will be...it will just take some time. But they will be."
S*S
Wendy licked her finger -he hastily looked away- and flipped cleanly through the completed pages of the packet, on to the next assignment, brow furrowing as she scanned and read.
"By now you have gotten through chapters 1-5. In order to move on to the next assignment, read up to chapter 8. Then write a paragraph on the character that resonates most with you-"
Johnny leaned over and stared at the paper. "What the heck is resonates?"
"Resonates means something that agrees with you deep, deep down inside. It makes you feel something bigger than yourself, but at the same time part of yourself. You know."
Johnny pursed his lips and thought about it. Then he thought about the Curtis' and the gang. And then he nodded. "Think so."
"Okay...so I guess we just read and compare when were done."
"Sounds good."
Least it had, until their heads dropped and they started reading. And slow, uncomfortable blocks of ice started to settle in his stomach as Johnny followed Pip through another clash with his sister, up to the time-locked house of wedding wrapped -and plainly crazy -Miss Havisham. And watching the kid get turned around and upside down as the girl he meet scoffed at everything he was.
And everything he wasn't.
Reminded him of somethin' Ponyboy told him about...how in his science class, when his knife wouldn't cut, the kid had unthinkingly pulled out his switch blade...and had the girl next to him gasp like he was Jack the Ripper.
Or a "common laboring boy".
Funny...well not funny-funny, but...funny. More than a hundred years ago, but not all that different, was it?
Wow...
By the time he had finished, going slow, so he didn't miss anything, Wendy was already done, and waiting patiently for him. Which made him oddly feel good and not to hot at the same time. She looked thoughtful again.
"I think I'm gonna do Miss Havisham," she said. And Johnny blinked.
"Really?" he said, before he could stop. Her head tilted.
"Why not?"
Johnny rolled his shoulder and wetted his lips, wishing he'd just kept his mouth shut. "Well it just...I...the thing said pick somethin' that resonates with ya...and ya not like Miss Havisham. Not to me at least."
Wendy shuffled, pushing her knees together under her skirt. "Well...resonates doesn't have to mean agree with, or even like it...it just means you get it, you know. That you get where their coming from. And for that character...I do. She's hurt. And she's hurt so badly she wants to hurt others just to feel something. But it can't undo what was done."
"And I get it, I understand it..." she shrugged up a shoulder. "Even seen a few people like that. How 'bout you. What are you doing?"
Johnny tapped his pencil against his leg.
"Don' know yet...I think maybe Joe or Pip. One of those."
"Why?"
Now it was his turn to shrug. "I just...I get them, both of them. They both got it rough, but try to make the best of it...and make the best of themselves. They don't bother nobody...but nobody leaves them alone."
Wendy nodded. "That's...really good Johnny. I like it. Now we better get it down before we forget. It saids we need a paragraph, so that about five to seven sentences. shouldn't be so hard."
S*S
By the time they were done, there homework looked like this:
Pip's kinda a dreamer, and holds onto stuff, first like how he lingers 'round his parents' gravestones. He thinks the world of Estella. Even though she's colder than ice. He takes her cruelty—"Why, he is a common labouring-boy!"—without defending himself because he thinks she right. Heck, he only cries when he is forced to leave her. The differences between their classes manifest themselves even in small things; while playing cards in Chapter 8, Estella remarks disdainfully, "He calls the knaves, jacks, this boy!" Then he starts looking at other people differently.
The mad, vengeful Miss Havisham, a wealthy dowager who lives in a rotting mansion and wears an old wedding dress every day of her life. It is an image of what happen when a person can not forgive others...or themselves. She is certainly one of the most memorable creations in the book. Miss Havisham's life is defined by a single even -being left at the alter. She is one of the most strange and grotesque characters in the story, the "wicked witch" of the fairy tale. She is morbidly attached with what happened to her, and see no harm in causing Pip the same pain she felt.
Wendy nodded, satisfied, as she folded up the packet and tucked it back away.
"Well, that about does it," she said happily, smiling some more, so he was powerless not to kinda grin back. Though when her eyes caught the clock on the wall, and that smile faded, and her shoulders dropped.
"Wendy?"
Breathing out, she let her mouth twitch in a Whatddya-gonna-do like way and shrugged again.
"I got to get going Johnny," she explained softly. "My brothers will be home from school soon."
Oh.
"Oh," he said out loud, before clearing his throat and nodding, "Okay."
He stood as well, gripping the hair on the back of his head, feeling the grease coat his fingers and the cut on his cheek. "I gotta be headed back home too, I guess."
And wouldn't that be fun? It was always a pattern -first his mother would lose her shit, give him a slap or a scratch, then start in on his dad to "do something about this Ragazzo..."
Which would build for a day or two, and lead to a real licking, just to shut her up. Rinse and repeat.
And the longer he stayed away, the worse it would be, might as well just get it over with. Wendy didn't have to know that.
"See you tomorrow, right? In class?" she asked, holding her bag tight -looking hopeful but trying not too.
Johnny got that awful tugging in his gut. So she noticed when he wasn't there. He nodded.
"Sure."
Tonight probably wasn't gonna be good. But short of having two broken legs, he damn well was gonna show up tomorrow.
After all, he never been a coward.
He held the door open again, on their way out. The light was mockingly bright. But glory she looked good when they parted ways -there were a few autumn leaves caught in her hair, like bit of gold from sun, matching well with the sky in her eyes as she smiled -for him- and waved a happy-sad good-bye.
Reviews make me happy, so I hope you tell me what you think.
Well, Johnny's got it bad, huh. I've always thought of him as the type that would go above and beyond for somebody if he thought they cared about him. Hope that got across. How do you like his view on Wendy -boys thoughts on crushes are very different than girls after all.
P.S -Johnny calling himself a yo-yo for daring to talk with Wendy comes from the karate kid Daniel Laruso, played by Ralph Machico.