Chapter 6

Without any knowledge of how much time had passed, Virginia woke up to distant voices.

Her brain was still foggy. The fluorescents overhead did next to nothing to alleviate that. Instead, they hurt her eyes and shot a new pain through the headache she apparently already had.

She moved to sit up and felt nauseous. She leaned her head up the smallest amount she could, taking in the chemical smells and curtain that hid her in a white bed up against a window. It was night but there was no clock on the wall to tell her what hour specifically.

And then her arm brushed against her thigh, and it stung. Surely it should have felt worse. Maybe there was some medication doing the trick? Virginia gently pulled back the blanket on top of her, revealing a crunchy, blue gown, and under that a large, taped bandage. It was just below her hip bone, not too far off from the site of her appendectomy scar. She thought of how much more gnarled her stomach must have looked now.

Through blinking and bleary eyes, she remembered seeing the antique looking pocketknife half embedded in her skin. She remembered crumpling to the ground, one leg straight out and the other bent underneath her, either collapsing or being set down, she wasn't sure. Blood was on her hand, and she had no idea what to do.

She remembered shouting, tons of it from all around. Maybe it was some kind of shock, that she could hear shouting but not react. The most she could pick out was "Get outta here, kid!" and "Johnny, don't look! Get outta here." Somewhere mixed in with that were the sounds of car doors slamming and engines revving.

Someone had lifted her up by the shoulders at first and chastised "No, you gotta leave it in," before scooping her up the rest of the way. She saw, horizontally, Dallas climb over to the driver's seat from the only working door and a pair of grey eyes, both stern and panicked, look after her in the back seat. She had cried at the pressure on her lower stomach until she drifted off.

Tears prickled at the corners of Virginia's eyes again. How could she have gotten into this mess? Her, of all people.

Well, there was the drinking for starters, and staying out late at a bar.

She tensed up.

Her parents would know the whole story, without a doubt. Whether Dally or Two-Bit or whoever told the doctors flat out what happened, or they heard it through the grapevine, they would know something was up that wasn't as simple as "meeting Joann at a birthday party." Would the police get involved? She couldn't imagine any of the gang talking to the cops, even if those two men were the ones who started things, picking fights with teenagers and wrecking cars out of anger.

Had the cops already gotten involved?

"Listen! We didn't-"

Virginia's head whipped too fast in the direction of the door to her room, leaving a twinge in her neck. She couldn't see out into the hallway but she could plainly hear the voices now.

It was Two-Bit's voice raised, and it wasn't cops he was mouthing off to. It was somehow worse: her dad, spouting a "No, you listen, son-" and stomping across the tile floor. Her heart pounded as hard as her head. She wished she could tune out the argument completely, along with the thousands of other trains of thought she was experiencing in that second.

Surprisingly, someone shut the door, and it muffled at least one. The same someone then pulled back the curtain gently. It was Virginia's mother, a foldable chair dragged along behind her barely off the ground. She set it up next to her daughter's bed and, taking a careful hold of her hand, sat down.

The scattered nervousness was evident in her eyes.

"You're okay," Mrs. Campbell whispered, "you're okay. Concussion."

That explained the shifting vision and the pain in her head.

"What happened?" her mother asked innocently. It was like no one had clued her in at all.

"Someone started a fight. I got pushed. They threw a knife into the crowd." Simple sentences devoid of detail were all Virginia wanted to answer with.

Mrs. Campbell nodded, not looking fully convinced but letting it slide for the time being.

"And that boy out there?"

"He was trying to get them to stop and then drove me here." Still simple but Virginia could feel a rush to her words that betrayed her this time.

Another nod, this time accompanied with a forced half-smile.

"Rest," she told her daughter. "I'm going to ask about your prescriptions."

Instinctually, Virginia closed her eyes. Minutes, maybe tens of them, passed while her mother discussed medications and the healing process just out of earshot.

With the door open, Virginia was prepared to catch another argument between male voices starting again any second now.

Most of the words were muddled, but it sounded like she had predicted correctly.

"It's fine with family app-" that was all the nurse could get out before she was cut off by the sounds of someone barreling the rest of the way through the door. Two-Bit rounded the curtain, holding a sealed can of pop against his jawline. He had a fresh split across his eyebrow, both of which were turned down in a hard expression. He also looked fuzzy around the edges, but that one wasn't on him.

Virginia forced a smile.

She felt so small compared to him at that moment. Two-Bit was always over half a foot taller than her but standing next to the bed only exaggerated it. He had reached out to her and for some reason her first thought was how she could wrap her whole hand around just one of his fingers. She felt small, and sore, and fragile.

"Are you okay?" asked Virginia.

The question went ignored.

"Christ, Gin, this is all my fault," Two-Bit said, shaking his head. His dirty hand squeezed hers repeatedly. "I shouldn't'a dragged you out there. Shoulda known something would happen to you at a place like that."

"I'm fine, really," she tried to convince him. She told him the prognosis, how the knife wasn't deep enough to hit anything and that she hit her head too hard. The worst thing to come of it would be the number of aspirins she'd be popping in the coming days.

Maybe she'd convinced him, maybe not. The worry never did leave his face, and the firm line of his lips never quirked up into their usual expression.

"You fellas get beat up all the time," Virginia reasoned, trying to be lighthearted for him. "I'm just earning my wings."

"S'different," he muttered, "and you know it."

It was. She wasn't out looking for a fight- didn't raise herself on the energy it brought or the points it proved. If anything, she wanted to stop them.

"Sick and tired of people endin' up in hospitals," said Two-Bit, more to himself than anyone else. He raked a hand through his hair and scratched along the back of his neck. Virginia really took in just how much of a mess he was now. For the first time his hair wasn't combed to perfection. He wore the flannel Dally had on earlier that night to cover some of the dried blood that spackled his cut-off.

"You okay?" Virginia tried asking it again. "And Dallas?"

"Yeah, we're okay," he said. He set the sweating Veep can down on the side table and lowered himself down into the chair Mrs. Campbell had brought in. He then leaned forward and laid his arms across the metal bed rail, settling his chin atop them. "Dal dropped us off and had to bolt. He's gonna lay low until the cops stop circling Buck's. They get a hold of you yet?"

"No," she said, eyebrows furrowing. "What do I say to them if they do?"

Two-Bit blew out a big breath of air, like he had been thinking on the topic and didn't have the best answer.

"You were in the wrong place, wrong time," he said. "Don't go out of your way to mention the drinking; they'll figure that much out on their own. It'd mean a whole lot if you could keep our names outta it, but if they won't take no for an answer, put the blame on me. I dragged you out there, I joined the fight; it don't hurt to put another mark on my record."

She wouldn't do that to him. She'd keep everyone's names clean and keep talking up the two drunks who had banged up the car and started the fight. The same ones who pulled out a blade. She'd keep Two-Bit's butterfly knife and the fact he and Dally were the winners to herself.

"Think they'll find those guys?" She was trying really hard to go over their faces in her head: one wider one with a messy bush of a beard, hairy arms, and lines on his forehead, and the other one, taller with big ears and a now busted nose.

"No idea," Two-Bit sighed, and then he got real hushed and leaned in even further. Barely over a whisper he changed the subject. "I met your father."

Virginia was quiet for a minute. She knew it, the telltale sounds from the hallway of the two men's encounter clued her in. Two-Bit was still alive after it but that didn't mean it went well. How much badmouthing did they sling at each other until someone broke them up? How long was she grounded this time?

"He still got all his teeth?" she quipped.

She had finally said something that got Two-Bit to crack a grin.

"No thanks to your mom stepping in," he shook his head, giving an imitation right hook with a fist smacking into his opposite open palm. "He's a real piece of work. Hasn't even come in to see you."

"I prefer it that way," Virginia was whispering too now.

"Sick of hospitals and sick of lousy parents…" Two-Bit was repeating it to himself while chewing on his lip. Virginia wished she could read his mind. She was missing a puzzle piece here. Though, even after everything, she still wasn't sure if it was her place to ask.

"Look," his attention was back on her, "I probably ain't gonna be seeing you for a while, I imagine. He was out there going on and on about keeping you in for the rest of summer. I don't wanna get you into more trouble as is.

A terribly girly part of Virginia wanted to reach out and tell Two-Bit that she'd get in trouble a hundred more times for him, that she didn't have to listen to her parents and would do what she wanted. She wouldn't though. That was a one-way street to embarrassing herself. It sounded clingy, like she was trying too hard.

But she did want to stress upon herself that at this very moment, even with a harsh punishment on the horizon, she had to start caring more about herself, and by extension Two-Bit, than about rules. She'd been lying her pants off the past few months to hang out with him after all.

Or maybe this night had finally been the big comeuppance and it was different now.

"Gin," he pulled her out of her thoughts with that serious face he had a habit of making in the quiet hours, "if it ever gets too much, you call me. I'm not home, you call the Curtis's or you call the Dingo. You call around until you find me. Call til' you're blue in the face. And if he ever puts a hand-"

He was interrupted, and it might have been for the best that he was because Virginia was feeling sick processing every word.

There was the gentlest of knocks at the door. Two-Bit shot up from his seat defensively.

It was Virginia's mom once again.

"They said you can go home," she said quietly. "Discharged." Her charcoal eyes danced between her daughter and the young man standing at attention.

Virginia nodded and watched her mother size Two-Bit up. After a moment, the woman patted him gently on the arm and nudged her head off to the right, as if to motion for him to head home as well.

Two-Bit gave both of them a firm look. Virginia prayed the next time she saw him, whenever that would be, it would be under lighter circumstances. He deserved to be back to his usual, upbeat self with a smile on his face, like he had been all evening as he paraded around the roadhouse.

He gave Virginia's hand another squeeze and offered a "Ma'am," to her mother before heading out the doorway.

Luckily, Mrs. Campbell didn't speak a word of it. She asked Virginia to get dressed into the change of comfortable clothes she had brought along and said that she would be on the other side of the curtain if she needed help.

Getting out of bed was surprisingly the hardest part. Whatever cocktail of medicine they had pushed into her body was mostly working.

After a final meeting with a doctor, Virginia apologized to Mrs. Darby, her brief hospital roommate that she didn't know existed until that moment, for all the commotion so late. Her words were waved off with the woman's wrinkled hand, hooked up to an IV and all, and a smile.

A nurse had to wheel Ginny out to the car. Any more than the five steps to the doorway proved too much for the stitches to handle.

She thanked the entire Trinity for the ride home. She didn't get chewed out or screamed at. Her father stewed to himself in the driver's seat, not bringing up a single word about bars or boys or injuries. For better or for worse he kept to himself, even as Virginia hobbled her way inside and to bed with her mother under her arm for support.

If she had the energy to stay awake a moment longer, she would have been up all night with thoughts of her first kiss with Two-Bit Mathews and how Dallas Winston was genuinely scary when he had a reason to be. Instead, at 3:17 A.M. on the dot, Virginia's head hit the pillow and she passed out.

At least the yelling waited until morning.