Author's Note: Okay, so it's not a one shot any more, too many good ideas just waiting to get out. You don't mind too terribly much, do you?
Disclaimer: snorts They're all Susannah Hinton's, why would I bother stealing anything from her works? All I've got is a vivid imagination.
PROLOGUE (kind of, can you have a prologue in the second chapter?)
Weeks passed; slowly a month went by, then a month and a half, two months. She had appeared in his life, a glorious spot of brightness, and then disappeared from his very world. She just vanished off the face of the Earth. She was completely gone. POOF! Darry didn't even see her around town. He hadn't thought to get her number. He thought to go to her house, but somehow showing up on her doorstep and saying "Hi. I saved you and now I can't stop thinking about you. By the way, where the heck have you been!" just didn't seem like a good idea. Slowly he stopped thinking about her smile before he went to sleep and stopped hearing her laugh in his dreams. And then...
Darry's POV
I woke up to classical music, piano music, the kind Mom used to play. But Mom wasn't here. The boys sure as heck never listen to classical music. It was always rock and roll. Rock and roll booming from the radio like they wanted to go deaf. They played it so loud that the windows sometimes shook, not very often mind you, and never in the morning. No one was ever up in the morning before me. Ever. Soda and Ponyboy might as well be zombies in the morning. But this music was on before I was up and I could only hear strains of it coming from the living room. I couldn't figure it out. The door had banged in the middle of the night, but the guys would never, ever be caught dead near a piano, much less listening to classical piano music. I left my room rather confused.
My confusion turned to shock real quickly. There, standing in front of the only decorative mirror in the house, was Angel. I have never felt my heart turn over like it did when I laid eyes on her again. She didn't hear or see me, and I saw her touch her cheek lightly and a single tear fell from her eyes, leaving a track on her skin. I wanted to reach out to her, to see her smile, but I couldn't move. I just stood there, gapping. My heart went racing a hundred miles a second at the sight of her. That's how she saw me when she turned around. I heard her sharp intake of breath and then she half smiled a bitter-sweet smile.
"Hi," Her low voice was whispery, but the word broke the trance I was in and made my blood pump faster. I stepped toward her.
"Hey," I then saw why she had been in front of the mirror. There was a thin cut from her cheekbone to her eyebrow, surrounded by a large green and black bruise. I stopped dead in my tracks and it was my turn to gasp.
"What happened?"
She absently put her hand to the bruise and her eyes filled with tears. She lowered her face, her hair falling around it like a curtain. I was shaking now, madder than heck, afraid to go near her, yet wanting to hold her and make it all go away.
"What happened!" She shook and looked up at me incredulously.
"He hit me." There was disbelief in her voice that I didn't pay much attention to. A hard knot formed in my stomach.
"HIT YOU! Who hit you?" She shook her head, meeting my eyes with ones so hurt and sad that it made my heart ache.
"My daddy hit me." It was like she couldn't believe it. Her voice was oddly detached.
"He came home and I wasn't there and when I came back he yelled at me, and I yelled back and he hit me." She shook her head again. "He hit me! I don't believe it."
Flashback
"Don't yell at my brother!" I turned around and slapped him, hard too. I looked at him, clutching his cheek, his eyes wide with shock. I looked at my offending hand. What had I done?
"Ponyboy, I didn't mean it."
He was gone. Soda looked at me dubiously. I ran to the door to go after him, but Soda grabbed my arm.
"Don't, he'll be back once he's cooled off a little."
"But Soda—-"
"No buts."
"Soda, I hit him."
