Darry didn't really like my friends although he didn't say it. I could just tell by the questions he asked and the looks.

"Are you going out with that Mark kid again?" he said me while I was combing my hair in the bathroom.

Yeah I am and what are you going to do about it, huh? I thought

"yeah" I yelled. I quickly walked out of the house before he had a chance to say any more.

I'm not a kid anymore. I'm sixteen.

He just didn't like Mark because of his reputation. He stole sometimes, he was an expert at hot-wiring cars but he was a nice guy and we got along just fine. He promised to teach me how to hot-wire cars too- Just in case. I liked him most of all from the boys I hung out with. We both had something in common. Both our parents were killed but he never told me how his parents were killed and I never asked. I just expected that he'd tell me if he wanted to.

We were going to hang out with Terry Jones and Williamson and maybe crash a party afterwards.

On my way, I heard someone call me.

"Hey Curtis" I turned to see who it was. Angela Shepard. Great.

"How you doing?" she said running up to me.

"Good" I said casually, trying to think of a way to get away from her. Not only was she bad news but she was Tim and Curly Shepard's sister. She was beautiful, I had to admit that but she was one tough chick. Scary really. I couldn't figure out why she kept trying to make a move on me. Soda warned me to keep away from her. He heard that she was trying to get back at her ex- Mark's brother Bryon by going out with me. I assured him that I wouldn't go out with her even if I hadn't known that.

She grabbed me by my jacket and drew herself closer. "Where you off to in a hurry?" she said smiling widely.

Anywhere your not, I thought.

"Ah, I'm going to hang out with the boys" I said shaking her hands off my jacket.

"Curtis!"

Thank you God, I thought.

"Hey Mark" I said trying not to sound too relieved in front of him.

"Hey common, we gotta go meet the others" he said. Then he looked at Angela, eyeing her up and down with a big fat grin on his face. She gave him a death stare and walked off.

We started walking in the opposite direction.

"I think I gotta teach you how to act around tough chicks" he said suddenly. I looked at him, cocking my eyebrow like Two-Bit had taught me.

"What do you know about chicks?" I said laughing

"I know how to spot a good one" he said throwing his arm around me and laughing too.

After we walked a little longer I asked "so where's Bryon?"

"He couldn't come" Mark said simply

I didn't answer. I knew why. He hated my guts. I just couldn't figure out what I did to him. Mark had told me before its coz Angela dumped him to try to go after me but there had to be something else.

Mark suddenly stopped. "It's not coz of you Pone. He's going on a date ok?".

I just nodded.

He never called me Pone. No one did anymore. Pone, Pony, Ponyboy. All in the past. Only Darry and Soda and sometimes Steve called me that. Even the teachers stopped calling me Ponyboy. Everyone started called me Curtis after Mark had started saying it. I kinda liked it that way. I hated anyone calling me Pone at school coz that's what Johnny used to call me.