Five for Fighting
Rated: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing except my own creativity
T.W.E.N.T.Y. T.H.R.E.E.
Boy was I in trouble.
The two weeks that followed my talk with Ponyboy had flown by in a jumble of school, cheering and helping Johnny while trying to figure out who I was and who I was becoming.
I was lucky if I made it home in time for dinner these days and that bugged my brothers something awful, dinner was our together time and they didn't like me missing it.
But my sessions with Johnny were steadily improving and I was convinced that we would be successful, and I wasn't willing to give up now.
Instead I urged Johnny to work harder and longer until I barely had time to drag the furniture back into position and run out of the house before his mother came home and my own dinner was set on the table.
True to his word Johnny had helped me change my appearance, something else that didn't seem to sit well with my brothers for reasons unknown to me.
I changed myself to be like them, but on the first day when I skidded into the kitchen breathless, yet twenty minutes late anyway, wearing the attire of a well-dressed Greaser as opposed to an even better dressed Soc, they just stared at me without comment.
Johnny had said to prevent shock I should start slowly, just like him and his walking, so I traded in my knee-length skirts and heeled shoes for a pair of cropped pants and a pair of tennis shoes I had used until then for exercise only. I had kept my blouses but tied the two shirttails together exposing some of my bare midriff to the warming temperatures that came with March. Holding off on makeup and leaving my hair natural I didn't think I looked half-bad for looking so different.
My brothers thought differently but kept their mouths shut.
I didn't want to admit it to anyone but I was desperate to fit in, now that I knew how much I really didn't
Dallas had been right that first night, I didn't belong, not in my Madras and with my private school background.
I knew I had to change if I wanted to be seen on the same level as my brothers, really and truly become one of them and become a Curtis.
I knew I had to change if I ever wanted a chance with Dallas Winston too, I had seen the girls he went after.
With the exception of Cherry Valance, the girls he ended up with were cheap looking and fake, but they were greasers and that put them on the same playing field.
Dallas knew the score and after his brief relationship with Cherry and her unwillingness to acknowledge it, he was done with Socy girls forever.
I wanted to be in Dallas' league so that he could see me as an option.
At the time, I really thought changing was my only chance so I set to it enthusiastically.
I guess the problem was that while I changed my appearance, I changed my attitude too and that's when things started spiraling out of control.
But I couldn't admit that either, I was so stuck in between two worlds that I didn't know how to really fit in either.
So I struggled, trying to fit in and be like the greaser girls I saw in the halls at school.
The same girls who ditched class to smoke outside, who drank on the weekends and went home with boys like Tim Shepard.
I couldn't get Ponyboy's words out of my mind about Dallas not being able to love me.
I figured I would just change myself until he could, until he would.
Johnny looked at me differently now, it was no longer the admiring gaze it had once been but I ignored his change of attitude.
He tried to talk to me once, in his quiet manner, begging me to stop and go back to how I had been.
I shook my head, my eyes blazing with a new found bitterness that came with renouncing the things in life that had made me, me all along.
At school he passed confused and hurt looks with Pony and Two-Bit and I almost felt bad, but then I reminded myself that greaser girls don't feel bad about self-preservation.
It was like a diet and all I needed was willpower.
But I missed my brothers, I missed Two-Bit and the rest of the gang, I missed Johnny's adoring looks and hell I even missed Steve's snide comments. The whole gang had taken to ignoring me until I came out of what they could only imagine and hope was a phase.
Ponyboy tried to talk to me once too, tried to ask me why and I really did try to explain it to him in a half-hearted hope that I could somehow in the end manage to combine my old personality with the new person that I had to become to get the boy I loved.
And he did try to understand, but I barely understood it and I couldn't explain the desperate feeling that was growing so quickly inside me.
Darry and Soda tried to understand too, they even tried to be supportive, until the night that I got so fed up with trying to lead a double life that I told Darry I was going to the movies with Cherry and went to a beer blast on the river bottom instead.
It was the third Friday of my working with Johnny and he had made such amazing progress that he could wobble his way from one end of the couch to the other where I sat waiting, barely holding onto the two tops of the sofas.
I clapped my hands in joy beaming at him.
He smiled back, a real proud smile, and one filled with relief, I had been moody lately and was prone to taking out my bad moods and personality swings on him.
He allowed himself to collapse down onto one of the couches to rest and looked up at me, "Thanks again for all your help Amber, it's only a matter of time before I'm up and walking on my own."
I moved over so that I was sitting next to him, "Yeah, I can't wait to see the expression on the gang's face when you show up walking," I said smoothing out my skirt which was becoming increasingly shorter as the days went on.
"We should do something really shocking to surprise them," He said his eyes shining bright.
I shrugged, as carelessly as possible, "What do you have in mind?"
His eyes literally twinkled and I saw the devil himself sneak into them as he outlined his plan.
When he finished I sat there shocked that he had come up with something so…lurid and shook my head turning down his idea to lure my brothers into my bedroom with fallen clothes, having them find us in bed together, still dressed in our underclothes of course, but implying the dirty deed all the same.
"Unless you want them to put you right back into the chair Johnnycake, I think you better come up with something else," I said with a strained laugh for he was looking at me funny now, really deep like.
I jumped up, "Ready to start again?"
He pulled me back down to him with a strong, firm grip on my wrist so uncharacteristic of him.
"What is it?" I asked looking down at his hand circled around my wrist in genuine surprise.
"Amber, I created a monster and I consider it my responsibility to stop it,"
"Stop what?" I asked dumbly.
He looked down, studying his shoes before turning back to me, his hand moving from my wrist to my thigh. He stared deep into my eyes and I knew there was no ignoring him, his look went straight to my soul and it put me on edge.
"When you said you wanted to change I thought you only meant your appearance, and I didn't even like that much. Now you've gone and changed your whole personality, we can't even recognize you anymore." He said softly
I squirmed under his look and became indignant, "Are you saying you don't like me anymore?"
"I don't like the person you've become, it's like it took over your other personality, your sweet one that we all know you for, it still comes out sometimes, like just before but in a few days I bet even that will be gone."
"You're talking crazy Johnny," I said standing up, "You just don't understand."
"Make me understand," he pleaded
"You couldn't," I said spitefully not caring if I hurt him, "You're one of them, you know where you belong, even if your parents don't want you, at least you fit in with the gang, my parents didn't want me and I don't fit in anywhere. So you guys can tell me all you want that I 'looked fine' and I belonged but I know that's not true!"
"Amber, that's not right…" he started, but didn't get any farther before I ran out of the house slamming the screen door behind me, leaving Johnny sitting on his mismatched couches in the wrong position knowing he'd get a whipping from his mother when she got home and saw.
I ran to my house, tears threatening to fall the whole way but I managed to hold them back and even to put up a happy and carefree front when asking Darry if I could go to the movies that night, just a double date with Cherry and two of our friends from school.
He agreed because it was the most like my old self he had seen in nearly two weeks and I could see he was hopeful that the phase was over despite my shorter skirt and tighter top.
I thanked him and started making dinner, meatloaf and potatoes and to Soda's displeasure, greenbeans.
I changed into one of my old skirts and tops, pulled on the heeled shoes and looked at myself in the mirror, I really did prefer these clothes, I just wasn't comfortable with my body. But just add that to my growing list of insecurities.
My brothers seemed glad to find me at the dinner table on time and dressed in my old attire and they didn't hide their satisfied glances.
I smiled and laughed the whole time but my heart wasn't in it, not while I felt like it was being ripped in two.
I left shortly after pausing at the lot to roll the top of my skirt over a few times to bring it up to a shorter and riskier length and unbuttoned my blouse to reveal a tighter and more form fitting top. I shivered in the cold and hated how the material clung to every curve but I shook it off and crumpled my blouse leaving it tucked behind a rock.
Cherry had told me about the beer blast that was taking place at the river bottom that night and told me she had no intention of going, there were rumors going around that a couple of the greaser gangs from the area would be stopping by to cause some trouble, and I planned to be one of them.
I caught a ride with Curly Shepard that night, I'd been hanging out with him more often, running with his crowd and he had taken to slinging his arm around my waist and bragging to anyone who would listen that I was his girl.
I denied these allegations, claimed we were just friends, which was the truth.
But it wasn't the truth that made its way back to my brothers, it was something they didn't know how to approach since technically I wasn't doing anything wrong.
I was home by curfew and never got myself into trouble.
At least not until that night.
We arrived at the river bottom with four other guys crammed into the backseat of the car Curly had 'borrowed' from Tim.
We were parked a few yards from where the Socs had gathered, music was blaring loudly from someone's car stereo and the smell of alcohol was already strong enough to reach us.
Other souped-up and rusted cars were gathering near us, headlights turned off so as to not give away our spot.
I couldn't help but notice that among Tim's gang which had shown up shortly after us and the other JDs that were also there, no one from my brothers' gang had shown up, and I knew automatically, that they were too good for something like this.
Tim gave Curly an approving nod in my direction after cursing him out for swiping his car, "Glad to see one of us gets to make it with her" He said regardless of the fact that I was standing right there.
My face burned.
"What do you say we trash this nice little gathering, the filthy…"
I looked at the boy who had spoken, he had a trashy girl attached to his arm and my eyebrows raised at the shortness of her skirt. It looked more like a belt.
"You wait here, don't need you getting busted up in the action," Curly said picking me up and placing me on the hood of his car, leaning in and roughly pressing his lips up against mine.
He looked excited, his eyes glowed yellow and I could tell he thrived off of violence and it made my stomach churn.
I offered a weak smile ignoring the nagging feeling inside of me that this was not who I was, nor would it ever be no matter how hard I tried.
He smiled again and reaching in through the open window retrieved a chain the glittered in the moonlight.
I only had a second to reflect on the fact that this particular group of boys had no problem riding in rusted cars but took the time to make sure their weapons were shiny and new, and then Curly smiled again, felt in his pocket for his knife and disappeared into the night.
The only noise I heard for a minute was the music and the girl sitting on the car next to me cracking her gum loudly before the sound of screams and yells were heard.
Girls started flooding through the trees and up the hill, scrambling in their heeled shoes and long skirts for cover.
I closed my eyes tightly wishing I was home again, safe and warm.
Wishing I could be someone different.
It started to rain and I shivered, the kind that racks your whole body and doesn't let go.
Boys were fleeing now, blood streaking down their faces and onto their expensive sweaters and jackets.
Their eyes lit as they saw us girls sitting on the cars, they couldn't whip our boys with their chains and knives, not when they were unprepared, but they could take their revenge, in us.
I wasn't expecting the first blow, but I remember as I lay against the now soaked grass being surprised when a second didn't follow.
Daring to look up I saw in a haze the girl with the short skirt struggling against two guys who were trying to drag her into the wooded area.
A tall figure loomed above me and I screamed as he roughly grabbed me by my elbow and hauled me to my feet.
"Shut up, and go stand behind that tree and wait for me, and for god's sake put this on," He said throwing his large leather jacket at me.
It took me a minute to realize it was Dallas and once I did a warm glow filled me and I followed his instructions oblivious to my throbbing cheek where I'd been hit.
I watched from my tree as he pried the two boys off of the girl and somehow managed to knock them both out cold with the help of some of Tim's gang who had finished their work on the river bottom.
The rain was beating down by then and thunder sounded in the distance.
I was glad for Dallas' jacket, but more so for his presence, he filled me with a warmth I can't even begin to describe.
The socs were all running now and the greasers started to call out to each other the names and addresses of parties to go to now that their main entertainment for the night was over.
I waited while Dallas talked to Tim and they shook hands and as he made his way back to me I tried to smooth my skirt and unknot my tangled, wet hair.
His look was stern though as he took me by the elbow again and ushered me to his car opening the passenger side door and pushing me in without so much as a word.
The heat was on full blast and I could see my hair start to regain its whispy curls before either of us said anything.
He was driving me home quickly and I shuddered to think what he would tell Darry.
"Thanks for helping me," I said after ten minutes of driving in silence.
He grunted, never taking his eyes off the road and the fast thrashing of the windshield wipers.
"You won't tell Darry will you?" I asked.
He stopped the car in the lot, I could see the glow of the light from my house, the TV was flashing, reflected in the front window.
He looked at me really hard like, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
I looked at him dumbly, "What do you mean?"
"I mean, what makes you think it's ok to run around and drive your brothers wild when they bent over backwards for you, what makes you think you can be an ungrateful bitch?" He asked.
My face flushed brightly, "I…I'm not ungrateful," I sputtered.
He glared at me, "You are a spoiled little bitch"
Tears clogged my eyes as I got out of the car and slammed the door, "Leave me alone! You don't know what I am, or what I've been through," I yelled, my voice barely being heard amongst the rain that was pouring down over me.
He got out of the car slamming his door so roughly he made the whole car shake, "What you've been through?," He said scathingly, "if you'd open up your eyes you'd see how damn lucky you are, you have a family in there that cares about you," He countered.
"I have brothers in there who care about me," I corrected, "My parents are dead, and they didn't want me."
My voice was shaking as the tears started to fall down my face and I was happy for the rain so one could not differentiate between the two.
He sneered at me, "Join the club, your parents did what they thought was right, mine are alive and see me everyday and they don't give a damn if I'm dead or alive, and I ain't got anyone who does."
"That's not true," I protested.
He glared at me and I swallowed hard, the tears still falling freely down my face mingling with the cold rain, "I care."
"I don't need your pity," He said in a hard voice that made me cringe and want to throw my arms around him all at the same time.
"It's not pity you stubborn ass, I changed myself for you, I changed my whole appearance so you'd notice me, I made my brothers hate me, I did it for YOU,"I yelled, before adding in a voice barely above a whisper, "I love you."
He looked at me then, harder than ever before, really steady for what seemed like an hour.
And then I knew, by the expression on his face that he believed me.
I'll never forget how as we both stepped into the light radiating from the headlights of his car, I could see his eyes changing from a hard deep blue to a softer shade more the color of the sky right before dusk, real soft like, the last thing I saw before his lips embraced mine