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Maggie walked slowly up the step to the Curtis house. Two Bit was already holding the door open for her. She hesitated when she came to it and looked at Two Bit. Tears threatening to spill. But she wouldn't let them, she blinked them away quickly before stepping into the door. It took her eyes a minute to adjust to the light in the living room. Everyone was there. Dally, Steve, Soda. Everyone. And everyone would hear Two Bit's news.
Maggie gave Two Bit one more look, pleading with him with her eyes. But he just looked away, disappointment displayed clearly one his face.
"Darry." Two Bit said, trying to get his attention. Darry looked up from his paper, annoyed that Two Bit was disturbing his peace and quiet that he had going.
"We need to talk." Two Bit said as he motioned for Darry to join him in the kitchen. Maggie slumped down onto the couch, next to Steve, and watched as Darry sighed heavily and threw his paper on the table as he got to his feet.
"You might want to come too, Dal." Two Bit said, motioning this time for Dallas to join him in the kitchen. Dally removed his feet from the coffee table where he had rested them, took one quick glance at Maggie, piecing together that he was about to be told something about her, and then followed Darry and Two Bit into the kitchen.
The tears found there way back to Maggie's eyes. For some odd reason, she was getting this feeling that disappointing Dallas Winston was the last thing she wanted to do. Especially the way that he had been treating her. Besides Johnny, she was the only one that Dallas gave the time of day, too. And to Maggie that was important. Top priority important.
She turned a deep shade of red, from humiliation, sadness, and anger towards herself. She couldn't hear any sounds coming form the kitchen, she had no idea what Two Bit was telling them or what he wasn't. She sat there, tears stinging her eyes. It felt like forever, like time was in slow motion or had stopped moving all together. She drew a sharp breath and right before she let it out she heard a loud shout from the kitchen.
"SHE WHAT!" she hard Dally's voice right before she heard loud stomping. Before she knew it Dallas was standing right in front of her pulling her up by her shirt. He stood her up right in front of her and grabbed her by the shoulder, holding a finger in her face.
"Listen, doll, I didn't pick you up off the street and bring you here so you could get involved with people like fucking Curly Sheperd!" he shouted at her, his icy blue eyes glinting with anger. Maggie drew in another shaky breath and tried to ignore the searing pain that Dallas grip was sending through her shoulder. She was so upset and humiliated that she couldn't even choke one word out of her mouth.
"Dal, lighten up." Darry said sternly from the doorway to the kitchen. Dally turned sharply to look at Darry. His eyes still glinting.
"You stay out of it." Dally warned before he turned back to Maggie.
"What were you thinking?" Dally asked sharply as he still held tightly to her shoulder. Maggie drew in a shaky breath and tried to shrug off his hand from his shoulder, but he only tightened his grip.
"I was thinking I'm thirteen years old, Dallas." she said her voice rising slowly. Who was he to tell her who to hang out with? He was doing way worse stuff then her at the age of 13. She was an angel compared to him.
"I'm a teenager, Dallas!" she shouted at him before she reached up and removed his hand from her shoulder. "Would you rather it have been, Pony?" she asked as she motioned to Pony out the couch. He immediately turned a deep shade of red and started examining his feet.
"No, I would have rather'd it not happen at all." Dallas said sharply as he straitened up to his full height. Maggie felt the tears coming back again, she sighed and quickly brushed them away.
"Ok, Dallas. Whatever you say. I'll just go to school, come here, do my homework, clean, cook. You know the regulars. I'll just skip the fun part in my life." her voice cracked as she said the last part, the tears were starting to come faster and she could hardly brush them all away before they fell.
Dallas glared at her, his eyes starting to return to their usual icy coldness.
"You better keep it that way!" he snapped a few seconds later. Maggie nodded. She was almost better off on the streets. She was being contained by a hoodlum that didn't know anything about her. Who didn't try to know anything about her. He didn't even want to know anything about her. He just wanted to control her life and cut her off from anything that a normal 13 year old girl would be doing.
She turned to Darry, still brushing tears away. She stared at him, expecting him to give into her too. But nothing ever came. He just looked away, not wanting to meet her eyes. She nodded slowly, letting the tears fall now.
"I'll be back in a little bit, alright?" she said to no one in particular before storming out the door, and letting it slam shut behind her.
"Maggie!" she could hear Dally and Darry call after her but she ignored them. She didn't stop running until she reached the park. She stopped at a swing and slumped down into it. Letting the tears flow freely now. She could here the smacking sound of heavy foots on the road, following the same direction she had token, but she ignored it.
She whipped away the tears again and tried to suck it all up. She really had no reason to cry. All she really needed was a place to sleep and food to eat. She didn't need to have fun. She would probably be having a lot less fun if she were still living on the streets or at her sister's house. At least she had the guys in the gang to help her out a little and at leas they were there for her in her time of need. She didn't need to have fun. She could live without it. Pony did.
She looked up at the sound of someone's heavy breathing. She could make out Steve's figure in the dark, moving towards her. Right behind him was Soda.
"What do you guys want?" she asked sharply as she turned away from them to brush away more tears.
"Wanna talk." Steve got out between gasps of air.
"You guys are really out of shape." she commented as they both continued to breath heavily. Steve snarled at her and took the swing next to her, leaving Soda to sit in the wet grass.
"You guys have more funner things to do then sit here and listen to a thirteen year old girl vent about her feelings." she said as she started slowly swinging in her swing, making sure to hit Soda's leg a couple of times. Not hard enough to hurt him, but just hard enough from him to move them.
"Well, we actually just wanted to make sure you didn't get jumped by any Soc's out here." Steve confessed, finally having caught his breath. Maggie nodded. Of course.
"Besides, we thought you could use some company." Soda added. "Dallas over reacted, don't worry about it." he tried to comfort her. Steve glared at his best friend.
"Dallas didn't over react, Maggie. He's right. You can't be hangin' around guys like Curly Sheperd. You get caught with Curly when he jacks a car and you'll go to jail same as him. And chances are nobody will have the money to bail you out either!" Maggie nodded, seeing his point. But that didn't mean Dallas had the right to use force.
"I know what your thinking." Soda said as he pointed to her shoulder. "He didn't mean anything by it. He just gets so mad sometimes he doesn't think about what he's doing."
"I know." Maggie said slowly. "It did hurt though."
Maggie woke up the next morning, her shoulder still aching. She sighed heavily and lifted herself up off the couch. She looked around, no one from the gang was there yet and she couldn't here Darry up. She slowly got to her feet and rubbed her shoulder a little bit before going over to her little corner where she had stashed some clothes. She looked threw them all before deciding on an old DX shirt that had been Steve's and a pair of hip hugger jeans. She walked towards the bathroom and checked down the hall to see if Darry was up yet. When she was satisfied he wasn't she closed the bathroom door and started the shower.
She ran the water until it got to the temperature that she liked it at. She hoped in and washed her self quickly before jumping back out and drying off. She towel dried her hair and let it hang curly and wet at her shoulder's. Her hair was starting to darken now that it was winter. Her once light brown hair was now a darker brown. Her eyes were some what happier, too. But only by a little bit.
She threw on her clothes and put on a little foundation before stepping out of the bathroom, steam following behind her.
She met Darry on her way back to the kitchen. "Shower's open." she told him quietly as she moved to let him by.
"Thanks." he said shortly before walking by and to the bathroom. Maggie sighed and walked to the kitchen. She went strait to the frig and pulled out everything that gang loved to eat for breakfast and got to work on cooking it all. When she was only half way done everyone in the gang started showing up.
"That looks good on you." Steve commented when he came into the kitchen. "Little big but it looks good." Steve added. Maggie smiled and nodded.
"Tell the guys that breakfast is almost ready." she yelled after Steve who gave her a little wave to show he had heard her. She shook her head. Sometimes she felt a lot older then she was. They were the ones supposed to be taking care of her, and here she was cooking breakfast for all of them. It was a vicious circle.
About 10 minutes later a swarm of guys came threw the kitchen grabbing at any kind of food they could get there hands on and shoving it on there plates in huge piles. Maggie hung back in the corner waiting for all of them to leave before she got her own.
"Hey, Mags, get me a beer would ya?" Two Bit called as he juggled two plate fulls of food.
Maggie smirked. "You can get your own beer this time, Two Bit." she said as she finally moved to get some food.
"Hey, it wasn't my fault you decided to take a swig of it." Two Bit said before moving into the living room with his piece of chocolate cake and a beer.
Maggie smirked and started to spoon herself a little bit of eggs.
"How's your shoulder?"
Maggie turned to stare up into Dallas' cold blue eyes.
"Its fine." she snapped. "Thanks for asking." she added sarcastically. Dally grunted.
"Your more like Steve then me." he told her as he made his way over to get some food. She shrugged. Like being like Steve was a bad thing?
She turned around and grabbed a glass of chocolate milk on the counter and headed towards the dinning room table where Pony, Johnny, and Darry were eating like civilized people. She set her food down and started eating, occasionally looking up to look at Darry and Pony. Two Bit had slipped it to her that Darry and Pony had had a fight last night while she was at the park, with Soda and Steve, about Pony's grades. She could feel the tension in the air almost thick enough to cut with a knife and Maggie was secretly thanking God that she wasn't there to witness the fight. She knew how heated Darry could get about things like that. She felt so bad for Pony even though he was older. He had to be a class ahead just like her and Darry expected him to get all strait A's. Sometimes it just didn't work that way.
She finished her food about 10 minutes later and got up from the table and placed her dishes in the sink. She sighed and leaned against the counter, sipping the last of her chocolate milk as she thought about life. She hadn't had that much trouble with her disease lately. At least no pains anyway. Besides that life was doing ok. But then again there was Curly Sheperd and the huge fight she had had with Dally last night. She couldn't tell if it was worth it or not. Getting in a fight for wanting to have some fun. Maybe she had actually token it too far with Curly. He was 3 years older then her.
She looked up quickly at the sound of footsteps. "Hey, Johnny." she greeted with a small smile. He nodded to her and put his dishes carefully in the sink.
"Your ok, right? I mean, Dal, didn't hurt you or nothin', did he?" Maggie shook her head.
"Its just a bruise. Its not going to kill me." she explained with a shrug and she turned around and washed out her cup. She turned around at the sound of more loud footsteps except this time it was Dallas.
Maggie moved away from the sink so she could stay out of Dally's way. He looked at her, his eyes glinting from the morning sunshine coming threw the window. She gave him a weak unsure smile but all he did was nod. She blew air out of her mouth in exasperation. He was the one that hurt her yet he was still mad? Screw that, she thought as she pushed herself off of the counter and walked to the living room. She weaved her way around all of Two Bit's body parts on the floor before sitting down on the couch next to Steve, who was sitting on the arm rest. He gave her as much of a smile as Steve Randle could give and rested his arm on her shoulders as she set and watched in amusement at Soda, rushing around the living room looking to his shoe.
Steve leaned down to whisper in her ear the same time Dallas came back from the kitchen. "Look over there. Beside the couch." Steve whispered to her, his hot breathe tickling her ear. She looked slightly over to the edge of the couch. And sure enough, there was Soda's gray high tip Converse shoe. She held in a giggle and looked up at Dallas. He was glaring at Steve, who was glaring right back. She rolled her eyes at the both of them and looked around the room. It was the same as every morning. She was almost getting tired of it. She sprang up from the couch suddenly, almost knocking Steve off of the arm of the couch. She needed to do something, something to keep herself busy.
She moved into the kitchen and looked around, the only thing to do was dishes. So, she moved on. Just as she had moved on to Pony and Soda's room to see if there was anything to do in there Dallas yelled to her from the living room.
"Time to go, Maggie." he shouted and she could hear his heavy footsteps headed towards the door. She sighed heavily and left Soda and Pony's room, headed for the living. When she got there she saw that the whole living room was almost completely deserted except for Dally, who was waiting by the door for her. She grabbed her books and headed over to him.
"Is it safe to get in the car with you yet?" she asked sarcastically, referring to his heated temper lately. She just wanted to make sure he was going to try and swing her all over the car doing 70 or 80 miles per hour or something. He glared at her before turning away and opening the door. He walked slowly down the stairs, Maggie right after him.
5 minutes later Maggie slide out of the car and waved to Dally before heading up the steps and into school. Another boring day, she thought as she threw her books in her locker and exchange them for her first period Language book.
WHAT'S UP, PEOPLE? I'm back again! Lol. I'm really glad I updated and this chappy is longer, too. I was going to make it even longer but then I decided not to leave you guys waiting any longer. And about the gray high top Converse shoes. For some odd reason I can just picture Rob Low wearing those kind of shoes when he was that age. I dunno why though, lol. But anyway. R&R for me people. Let me know if this story is getting better as I go along or if its getting worse.