A/N: Hey everyone, what's up? It's Tara. I know that like it's been ages since I last updated but I've been really busy, and whenever I tired to get into my account to update, it wouldn't let me. Turns out I had the wrong e-mail/password combo, hee hee, I all like pissed that I couldn't remember my password but I was trying the wrong e-mail, lol, yeah I'm kinda slow but whatever, I'm updating NOW so there, if there are still people that want to read this, they will.

Disclaimer: The outsiders characters all belong to S.E. Hinton the rest belong to me.

Dear Diary,

Another two days went by, all I've done was to sit around the house and ignore just about everything that dad told me to do when he went to work. Little things such as taking stuff out of boxes and putting them where they belong instead I sat around and watched tv, sometimes glancing back at the boxes spread out in the living room, sitting there waiting for someone to empty them. I don't care though; dad thinks I'm so emotionally traumatized that I can't do any work. I mean maybe I am, but the other day I decided that I need to tough up. I can't live thinking back about how my life would have been if my mom didn't kill herself. I was looking at a picture of me and my mom on our porch and I realized, we wont be able to take any more pictures like that and realized that I have to stop feeling sorry for myself, so I wiped my tears away and swore not to ever cry over the stupidest things again. I flipped through the channels, there was nothing on. I suddenly decided that I wanted to go back to school. If I was going to change, then I might as well go to school and show it off. Anyways, dad should get home soon. I think we're going out to eat.

As always,

Tara

I didn't always like to write in that diary. But sometimes it was just something to tell my thoughts to, talk to, since mom's gone. I got up from the couch, and walked towards the kitchen. I picked up one of the boxes, which contained silverware and dishes, and started to place them on shelves. By the time dad got home, I had gotten more than halfway through all of the boxes. He walked in to the kitchen and his mouth dropped.

"I feel better today" I explained.

He sighed. Then a smile crept to his tight lips. "'atta girl" he said as he rubbed my hair.

"You know dad" I said just as he was about to leave the kitchen. "I think I might go to school tomorrow. I'm kinda bored all day at home."

I was half expecting him to dismiss me by saying "there is absolutely no way you're going after all you've been through" but instead he said something like "well, if you think it'll be better for you to go, then you might want to go to bed early tonight"

"Thanks daddy" I said and went back to cleaning inside the dishwasher. You wouldn't believe how filthy this thing was, this was my third time wiping it but the stains just wouldn't go away.

After three hours, I finally managed to get the dishwasher somewhat clean and get to bed. I walked into the bathroom, and took a long look at my face. It wasn't the same as it was 2 weeks ago. Now I just looked tired, and had bags under my eyes, because most nights I would wake up in the middle of the night screaming bloody murder because of a nightmare, and would never be able to get back to sleep. It's been getting better though, last night I actually got a couple hours of good sleep. I had the dream where that stupid soc raped me, the same one that kept me awake the day before and the day before. I lifted up my shirt just high enough so that I could see my stomach. It hadn't gotten fatter or bigger or anything, so I figured that I wasn't pregnant.

"Tara....dinner"

I jumped at the sound of my father's voice. Dinner. Suddenly I notice how thin my stomach had gotten. I was already really skinny as it is, now it looked like I had no fat on my bones. I looked down at my legs, they were pretty damn skinny too. This worried me, I had to eat more. I decided I would start tomorrow.

"No thanks, I had a big lunch. Goodnight." That was a lie. I hadn't eaten lunch or barely anything for breakfast. I don't think I wanted to not eat. I just wasn't hungry. It scared me how anorexic I looked though. I never liked to stereotype people but what would dad say if he ever noticed. He worked longer and more days now. It seemed like he was occupying himself with work so he wouldn't think or feel. I worried for him too.

Finally I decided to stop worrying and go to bed. I climbed into my bed and pulled the sheets over my body. Tomorrow I'd wake up a new Tara, start a new life. That night I slept like a baby.

I got up at exactly 6:30, school starts at 7:45 so I'd have plenty of time to get ready. I took a shower, and put on clean clothes, jeans, a black kinda lacy shirt that used to belong to my grandmother, and a black hooded sweater. I looked pretty artsy. I decided that today I was finally going to ask the artsy group if I could sit with them at lunch. There's this really cool girl who hangs out with the whole group, her name is Hannah but she calls herself Star. She sometimes talks to me during art, which I have 1st period, and comments on my paintings, and tells me that however Mr. Hubert (our mean old art teacher) criticizes my art work, it just makes it prettier, and better, since Mr. Hubert knows nothing about art what-so-ever.

I got my stuff together, and was ready to storm out of the door, when dad stopped me. He usually goes to work around 8 so I was surprised to see him up so early.

"Don't forget your breakfast" he said quickly. Ah that's why. So he'd finally noticed.

"Oh yeah, thanks dad" I said as I turned back from the door and walked towards the kitchen. I grabbed an apple from the fruit basket, and a bottle of water from the fridge. I gave dad a hug. He gave me a weird look and frowned as he got a full look of me.

"I didn't realize you were growing up so fast" he said tiredly.

"What do you mean?" I asked surprised.

Then I remembered that I had put on some eyeliner and some perfume. I realized how different I must look to him. After all just 2 weeks ago, I was wearing baggy jeans, and baggy shirts, and no make up what so ever and my hair always in braids. I had let my hair down today. I had first realized this morning how shiny and silky and long and pretty my hair is, I had it in braids for so long.

"Oh yeah, don't worry, I'm still your clumsy, artsy, little girl." I gave him a kiss and flew out the door.

I got a weird tingly feeling as I walked down the steps of our new house. I took one bite of the apple and threw it away as I passed by a garbage can.

As I had predicted, everything was the same as I walked into my art classroom. The room smelled of oil paint and pastel, Mr. Hubert was sitting at his desk, legs up on the table eating his usual, a doughnut and coffee, the slackers were sleeping in the back, and Star was working on a painting. After standing in the doorway surveying the room for about 5 minutes, I worked up the courage to sit next to Star and chat with her.

"Hey" I said as I sat in the chair next to her.

She turned around to face me. "Hey, yourself. Where've ya been Tara?"

She knew my name! "Nowhere really, just at home, my mom she uh...killed herself so I decided to take advantage of the situation and stay home" I laughed nervously.

Her hard expression softened. "I'm so sorry Tars."

I nodded in appreciation, then laughed. "What did you just call me?"

"Oh, well I usually call my friends by a nickname" she said. "Hope you don't mind."

My jaw was still a mile to the ground when she gave up on me replying and went back to her painting. I was her friend. I, TARA L BAKER AM HER FRIEND!!! I had dreamed about this day so much, being accepted, being liked, being someone's friend who's friend I wanted to be.

"Uhh..." I managed to say "nice painting"

"Oh come on, you can do much better than that." She said without turning around.

I sighed. "Honestly?" I asked. She nodded. "I think it's striking, eye catching, intense yet dark, illuminating and has a million meanings as to what it is."

Her eyes widened. "Wow...well, what do you think it is?" she asked her dark eyes still wide behind her black framed glasses.

"Well it's hard to say" I began "it's not an object, yet it's not a person. It looks like a feeling or maybe you were drawing into your soul. It seems like you wanted to draw the fact that you're struggling with emotions, that it almost seems like your spirit has two faces." I stopped there after noticing her face expression.

She sighed loudly, enough to wake up one the slackers in the back. "I..."she began "that is deep. How can you get so much out of it?"

"I just explained your feelings. I put in words what you drew."

She laughed. Her laugh was quiet and sneaky like. "I can't even explain what I draw."

This time I laughed. "Because you drew it. I probably wouldn't be able to explain my paintings either. You put too much thought into it in the first place to put it into words later."

She sighed. "Man you remind me so much of Mandy."

I knew who she was talking about. Mandy Johnston. She was their group leader. She was the most intellectual one of the bunch. Probably because everyone else was too stoned all the time to think.

"Yeah" I said. Except for the fact that I'm not a druggie.

Just as I was about to ask if the painting was for a project or not, the bell rang. I moved to my seat which was somewhere in the middle of the class.

Mr. Hubert half heartedly explained that our next project would be to make a sculpture out of soap stone. It could be anything we wanted. Oh boy, I'd have to think about that a little before coming up with something.

Next I had math. I hated that class. I was never really good at it. My mom on the other hand was really good at math. Well, she was good at everything, and always got A's in high school, but she actually liked math. I didn't. Our teacher Mrs. Sibben, a fat, bitch who always had French manicured toenails (gag!) made math such a pain in the ass that each semester at least half of her class would attempt to drop her class. I did everything in my power to try to convince my counselor that I should be in a different math class. I'm a sophomore in pre-calc, one of the only three that are in pre-calc in our whole grade. This kinda scared me and also the fact that I would have to stare at Sibben's French manicured toenails everyday. This thought made me want to puke. Thankfully I got through the class without doing so although I left with four weeks worth of homework with a dateline of 4 days from today. It was near impossible.

I barely made it to third period for I felt like I was going to faint. I had no idea why. As soon as I stepped out of Mrs. Sibben's room I felt like someone just suddenly dropped a ton of weight on my shoulders. Maybe the devil has effects on you like that. I snickered to myself. It's wrong to say but she kinda looked like the devil too, all red all the time, probably because she weighs around 500 lbs.

Third period, I had science. The whole day I was very excited to get to this class, because Ponyboy was in this class. I hadn't seen their whole gang in nearly 5 days, and it was killing me, I really wanted to get to know them not to mention some of them were quite cute.

I walked into the classroom, and instantly I felt everybody's eyes on me. I managed to look up and nearly died when I noticed that the soc that raped me was in this class. Him and his buddies were fallowing me across the room with their hungry eyes. As sick as I was at this, this was really the first time I noticed a bunch of guys, let alone one guy looking at me like I was gorgeous. This made me feel good. I searched for Pony. He was sitting in the corner reading a book. Just like me, Pony gets put into advanced classes along with socs, so we really don't have anyone to talk to. Suddenly he turned around and his eyes met mine. Then he turned back around and went back to reading. I was kind of offended. I walked up to him and took a seat in the chair next to him.

"Hey Ponyboy"

He looked up and down and up again real quick, his jaw dropped to the ground. "Tara?" he nearly screamed.

I laughed. "Yeah."

He blinked and closed his mouth. "Sorry! I almost didn't recognize you there for a second. You look so....so...different."

I laughed at this. "Yeah I kinda look different without cuts and bruises all over my face."

He dropped the smile on his face and hung his head. "So...how are you?"

My smile faded away. "I'm....better"

He smiled again, put his hand over mine and squeezed. "I'm glad."

His hand was warm. I felt like squeezing it back for a second. But I was afraid he might think I like him or something. Not that I didn't. Just not in that way. I was crazy about someone else...

A/N: So what do you think!??? That is if anybody reads this. It's been so long since I've updated you guys had probably given up on me. Well either way. If you get a chance please review and tell me what you think. I think I've finally gotten the whole thing together, and it can basically take its course. I did notice something tho, in like the one the chapters, I said that Tara has red hair then I said that she has brown hair (just to clarify she has reddish brown hair), also, I got really pissed at myself because if I hadn't have Tara tell the gang that she was raped, and reveal it slowly in the fallowing chapters, it would have been more exciting. Anyways, what's done is done, I'll write the chapters more carefully from now on. So I apologize to anyone who noticed my mistake in the earlier chapters. I'll be more professional from now on, lol. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and don't forget to drop a review before you go. Oh, and I really don't know who to give feedback to for their reviews, because I have totally lost track of that, but I promise to update sooner, oh wait nvm, I just found all the review, hee hee, thanks to;

Skyla13, jack4, Grease Girl, Tourmaline, Banana4422, steves-girl, Two-BitGortez, Hopeless Romantic (as for Tara and Johnny, I dunno, maybe, I'm not sure yet. I gotta think about who Tara's crazy about, keep reviewing.), Tidus'luvr99, LilBratyChild, movielvr,

You guys are great and keep reviewing please!

Special note to Tensleep: Omg, you're hilarious. In all seriousness, I didn't appreciate her calling me an ok writer either. I mean, I know I'm not a top seller novelist, but if I was so bad, people wouldn't read my fics, so there. Thanks so much, I seriously laughed my ass off, about your comments.

As Always,

Tara