Title- The Return of Jess

Chapter Title- Chapter 19, I'm Not Good with Naming Chapters

Disclaimer- I do now own The Outsiders

Note- It's a lot of talking, I know. I just had these different conversations planned but I couldn't get a lot of information to go with them. Maybe next chapter there will be some.

"What are you talking about? I never said anything about paste." I turned my attention to Soda.

"Forget I mentioned it," I told him and looked at my feet.

"Are you going to have dinner?"

"I'm not very hungry," I lied. I didn't want to bother them and I wanted to go home.

"Do you think I'm crazy?"

"Uh, well, yeah, but, I like you crazy. I love you." I smiled.

"I love you too. Can I go home?" He sighed.

"I told you, you're staying here tonight. Why aren't you hungry? You ate nothing all day today."

"I'm just not. Is Steve coming?"

"I think so." I don't know why I wanted to know. I wanted to stop talking about me. I didn't want anybody to know about Peter. If I ever saw the kid again I'd have to kill him. He's causing me all this pain. It's his fault I'm not comfortable with the name Jessi.

When I went to New York, it was different. I acted differently, so I wouldn't be called names. I was instantly tuff and I became friends with Danielle, who was the most popular girl. It was so different to be popular. I made fun of kids, even though I knew it hurt.

"I'm a little hungry, what's for dinner?"

"I have no clue; it's Darry's turn to make dinner." The door opened and I hoped it was Darry. It wasn't, it was Ponyboy. The door opened another time, this time it was Steve and Two-Bit.

"Two-Bit, I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said, I was mad. You called me crazy and you didn't know the whole story."

"Sorry I called you crazy. I'd hug ya or somethin', but your boyfriend is right there." I rolled my eyes and hugged Soda.

"Are you jealous?" I asked him.

"Of you? No." Why would I care if he was jealous of me?

"No, I meant are you jealous of Soda?"

"For what? I'm 10 times better looking then him." I wasn't saying that because he was in the room and my boyfriend. I thought he was really good looking the first time I saw him.

"Better looking than Soda? You're the crazy one, nobody can beat him." I kissed Soda's cheek.

"Well, your blonde friend doesn't think so." He was talking about Sara.

"Sara? Have you seen her?" What did he do? If he hurt her, I'd tear him apart.

"Not since last night, after you dragged her away from a good time." It wasn't only me, and she had no idea what she was doing.

"Hey, his girlfriend did too," I said pointing to Steve.

Darry came home and threw some chickens in the oven. They came out okay, and even though I was hungry, I didn't eat much. After dinner, Soda got some quilts out of the closet and a pillow. Then I watched him bake the chocolate cake. I didn't bake; I'd burn down the house if I did. He put too much sugar in the frosting. Now I knew the difference between his cakes and Darry's. Darry's tasted better.

"That's too much sugar," I said finally. He looked at me.

"You put too much sugar in the frosting. It makes it too sweet"

"You make it."

"Do you like your house?"

"Yeah," he said wondering why this had anything to do with cake.

"Then I won't. I'd burn your house down."

"My frosting isn't too sweet. I happen to like sweet stuff." I shrugged and went into the other room. I laid down on the couch and pulled a blanket over me. I fell asleep quickly.

I woke up before everybody else and I put the quilts away. I walked out of the house, it was still dark. I went home. Sara was on the couch and Michelle and Anna were in the beds downstairs. Their sisters occupied the other four beds so I had a bunch of blankets piled on the floor. It was about 4 in the morning so I went to take a walk.

It was quiet and I liked it like that. I walked around the east side for a while and it started to get light out. I walked home again to see if Anna was awake. I had to see what she knew. I found out that if you mentioned Lisa's hair she would hurt you, most likely kill you. She didn't like to be called Lease. That was all she knew for today. I really wanted to know what Lisa's hair looked like, but I would have to wait 3 hours. The phone rang and Michelle picked it up.

"Lemme see if she's here," I heard her say. She looked at me.

"It's Soda, are you here?" I shook my head 'no'.

"No, I'll tell her you called." She hung up the phone and looked at me.

"Did you guys have a fight?"

"No, I just don't wanna hear him be mad at me for leaving."

"Oh, 'cause if you did, Anna doesn't have a boyfriend."

"In her dreams," I told her.

"Yeah, I know. How did you know?" I smacked her with the pillow. She gasped and hit me over the head. When Sara woke up she looked at us like we were crazy.