Adelle looked behind her and wondered if she were being a bad friend. Emma sat in her car, tapping the steering wheel, probably considering if she actually needed the gas that she was paying Soda to pump. It wasn't really fair to her that she'd been brought all the way to the DX and had to sit there by herself. Though, if she were really a good friend to Emma, she wouldn't have brought her there in the first place.

Adelle was pretty sure that both of their lives were somewhat ruined. Emma's parents would be home within the next two days, and they would most likely hear about the little interaction at the school. It was almost definite that her own parents would hear, and when Adelle got home, she would find her belongings sitting on the front porch. They would know that both girls had walked off with the so-called Greasers. Plus, Emma would be shunned when they showed up the next day, same as she was. Adelle was used to it, but Emma didn't deserve to be dragged down with her. So, on the whole, she figured that she wasn't a very good friend, at all.

As bad as she felt about it, though, Adelle couldn't focus too hard on that. Not at the moment. Yes, it made her a bad person in that second, but she hoped that Emma would forgive her. Everything was so up in the air in her life right then that she didn't know what she was doing. All she knew was that everything moved so fast the second Cherry Valance came over and started running her mouth. The second that redheaded harpie came over and proved that Adelle was truly invisible to all of those who had once mattered.

And yet, she wasn't invisible to the one who mattered, now. She didn't know what would happen when she walked over to Steve. Most of her mind told her that he was going to walk off with his friends. That he would leave her standing there, embarassed and humiliated. She would have thrown her comfortable life away on a boy that she thought was the world, but only thought of her as the immediate thrill. There was no way that the Socs would take her back after where she had been, and that would have left her alone.

But, he didn't walk away. She was so relieved that he was actually touching her in front of his friends that she couldn't hear a word that he was saying. Even as he drove her car to the gas station, she was sure he was explaining why he didn't have a ride, or maybe just saying that he would have walked, but she couldn't hear any words. All she heard was the sound of her breathing rocking back and forth between her ears. She had handed the keys over to him with shaky hands and slid into the seat.

Everybody was watching her. She was sure that Emma was going to follow them to the station without a word, but she didn't know what the others would do. Would they run back to her parents? Would they instantly start spreading more rumors? "Adelle Landry puts out for the Greasers," she'd heard a million times. She never cried over rumors, but she was always mad. She had never put out for anybody, and unlike the Soc boys, Steve had never actually asked her to put out. They kissed and he felt places that boys in her previous social circle had never felt, but he'd never tried to force himself on her and never made her feel bad for not going all the way with him. The only thing that he'd ever done to make her feel bad was to ignore her in school, and she was pretty sure that it wouldn't happen anymore.

"Adelle, come on." She blinked away thoughts that were worth over a thousand pennies and looked at Steve. She hadn't even realized he'd come back from putting on his coveralls, but there he was, sitting on the hood of her white convertible. "You didn't say a thing all the way over here. You gonna tell me now what's goin' on?"

Her mouth opened, but no words came out. Until last night, he'd only ever seen the happy Adelle, the bright and shining girl that was squeaky clean except for the little spot of motor oil that he smudged onto her cheeks. Until she walked up to him in school, he'd never seen her cry. How was she supposed to spill out everything that had been going on in her life when she'd held so much inside?

"Why don't you ever talk to me in school, Steve?" She figured she could put the burden of the conversation onto him. If she got him just defensive enough, he might forget about the other questions and focus on that long enough. Maybe he'd try to do something to make her forget her problems, and in the process, forget them himself. "Are you ashamed of me or something?"

"Aw, come on, Adelle." He rolled his eyes and swung his legs. His heels hit lightly against the side of the car. Not hard enough to dent, but enough to scuff, and Adelle was going to make sure he cleaned that scuff off. This car was hers by right, it said so on the papers when her grandmother left it to her. It was the one thing besides her grandmother's money that she knew her parents couldn't take away from her. "You know I ain't ashamed o' you."

"Then why don't you ever talk to me at school? I know you don't go all that often, but when you do, it's like I'm not even there. I'm invisible to a lot of people, Steve. I never thought I'd actually be invisible to you."

That wasn't entirely true, but there was no need for him to know that. Her biggest fear was that he'd look right through her and walk on as though she weren't even there. It was the whole reason for the catastrophe they were currently in. She wanted him to see her, and that was why she stood in the hallway with Emma. She just wanted him to look her away and smile or wave or anything that would show that to someone besides the one person she knew would always be at her side knew she existed. She knew Emma would always be there, but love with boys was so much different, and so often one-sided that she just couldn't be sure with Steve.

"How come you never come over to talk to me, huh? You scared the prissy Soc boys aren't gonna wanna talk to you anymore if they actually gotta see you with a greasy bum like me?"

"That's not fair, Steve!" She blinked at him, shocked that he'd actually say that. Hadn't she been thrown out of her social club for him? She may not have said it outright, but he had to know that being with him was why they kicked her off of the cheer team. "I don't come talk to you because I don't know that you want your friends to see you talking to me. You've never done more than flirt with me same as you flirt with every other girl that comes around this gas station when we're anywhere but at the Curtis house. How am I to know that I'm not just your Soc plaything? Is it some kinda bet you have with Soda to see just how many Socs you can upset by smiling at one of their girls?"

"Now, you wanna talk about unfair? That's just downright wrong o' you to say, Adelle. Don't I take you around with me to my best friend's house? Don't I get on Two-Bit when he starts shit with you and Emma? I don't give a rat's ass or a gallon o' gas what anybody at that school thinks. If they got a problem with me likin' you, then they can all kiss my ass, that's what they can do." Steve sighed and slid off the hood. His hand, miraculously clean, slid along the side of the car. He stooped down at Adelle's door and sighed again. "I just don't wanna cause you no more trouble, alright? I know I ain't no good, Adelle."

"Steve…" She put her hand on top of his and looked at his fingers. His nails were still dirty, but the rest of his hand was clean. In fact, the back of his hand was still slightly damp, signifying that he'd just washed his hands. Adelle almost pouted at the thought of him scrubbing his hands as best he could, knowing that it had to have been for her benefit, because left to his own will, he would have been covered in oil from head to toe.

"Girls like you… they don't stick around me, Adelle. Girls like you go for Soda 'cause he's so cute and Darry makes him stay clean. Or they go for Pony 'cause he's all smart and poetical and stuff." He paused and Adelle held her tongue, though it almost hurt to not tell him that poetical wasn't a word. "I ain't no good. No good at all, and if it wasn't for you, I'd probably end up like Dally soon. I like to fight and I like to get in trouble, but there's gotta be some good in me if you like me, right?"

"There's good in you, Steve. Darry wouldn't let you around his house if there weren't any good in you. You'd be in jail if you weren't any good. And… you're finishing high school when a lot of people would have just dropped out. You're not all bad."

"But, I'm bad enough, and I know it." He stood up, hopped over the hood of the car, slid off, then jumped into the passenger seat. He laid on the seat with his head just to the right of the gear shift and most of his legs hanging over the rolled-down window. Adelle reached out to him and he took her hand, resting it against her cheek. "So, I figure, the longer you're around, the longer I'll stay not so bad, ya know? So, I don't wanna cause you no more trouble 'cause then you'll go away and I'll be no good all over again."

"Steve, I…" She paused, unsure of what to say. It was more emotion and just… reality… than she would have expected from Steve. She thought he would have been aloof or that he'd joke the situation off. She didn't think that he'd actually give her an honest answer. "I'm not going anywhere, Steve. And any trouble I've got, it's all because of me, okay? I made the choice to go out with you. I made the choice to spend time with you and your friends. I made the choice to walk over to you."

"If you'd have cried over there, I'd have had to come over there and kick some Soc ass right there in that school, and ain't no way they're gonna throw me out 'cause all I did was fight, which means I'd be back and they'd be stuck with me longer."

Adelle laughed and after the day she'd had, it was nice to feel a smile stretching her face. "That's nice, Steve, but you didn't have to because I walked to you first. And you didn't ignore me." She sighed and let her fingers drift over his face. At his forehead, she jumped to grip the gear shift. "Just remember, any trouble I get now is all my fault, alright? It's not your fault."

Steve pulled his legs inside the car and sat up. He turned eyes on her more serious than she could ever remember seeing. "What's goin' on, Adelle? What trouble you say you got yourself into?"

Adelle shook her head. "It's nothing, alright? Just…" She sighed. "I should probably get going. Emma and I have homework, and if I leave her over there with Soda too long, she's liable to lose her head." Adelle giggled. "And you've gotta get to work, so I'm gonna go and I'll see you later."

"Tonight?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. Depends on what I've got on my plate." With a smile, she leaned over and gave him a kiss. It was a quicker kiss than she would have liked because the gear shift dug into her stomach and forced her to sit back down. What she really wanted to do was grab hold of him and never let him go, because she didn't know what her life would bring when she walked through the doors of her South side home. "If not, tomorrow. You are going to school tomorrow, right?"

"And miss the chance to show off in a Socs face? You gotta be kiddin' me."

"You're cute sometimes." She smiled at him, then leaned back onto the seat. "You'll sit with me and Emma at lunch tomorrow?"

Steve sighed. "If I gotta have lunch, I guess I can eat yours."

"Funny. Just go, else I'll never get out of here." Steve was resistant, but he finally got out of the car. Adelle drove around, stopping on the street in front of the pumps. Honking her horn made Emma turn away from Soda as he walked towards the garage and look at her. "You ready to go?"

"Yeah." She sighed and Adelle thought she wouldn't have minded if they stayed a little bit longer. "Everything okay with Steve?"

"Yeah. He really likes me." A shy grin stretched her lips and she bit her bottom teeth. "He's really a sweetheart, and I'll tell you all about it later. But right now, I gotta get home."

Whatever Emma was going to say about Steve was lost as her face went solemn. "Do you need me to go with you? I could follow you and…"

"No, it's fine," Adelle told her. "I have to do this myself. I got myself into it, so I have to take the consequences on my own. But… I'll call you, okay? I just didn't want to abandon you here, since it's because of me that you came. And… I'm really glad you came, Emma. I know I probably messed things up for you real good at school, but out of everybody, you're the only friend that I have left. I guess I should've let you go on with Cherry if you wanted…"

"I didn't want to go with Cherry. You're my friend, Adelle." She sighed. "Probably the only real friend I have, and I'm not going to let you go through this alone. If you need me, you give me a call, and I'll be there, okay?"

"Thanks, Emma. I really appreciate it."

"Stop thanking me. Let's just get gone from here before I go and do something foolish like tell Soda that I'll let him take me to the drive-in. Even though I'd be driving, thus I'd be taking him, but…" She shook her head. "It's all stupid, anyway, but you get the point."

"Yeah, I do." Adelle smiled at her, then with a few more words, pulled off slowly down the street. She watched Emma follow her in the rearview mirror until they reached her street. Emma turned off and Adelle kept going. Whatever happened in the next hour or so was something she had to go through alone. She knew her parents would yell at her. She didn't need them yelling at anyone else. Besides, she'd been expecting this. She knew it was coming. She could handle it. She hoped she could handle it, because if she couldn't, there was no telling where she would end up by the time the sun went down.