Happy reading :)

I don't think Tulsa is a particularly attractive city, even now. After living in Manhattan, nothing else can really compare. But as I stared out at it from my porch that morning, it was sort of okay.

I stomped downstairs, still in my pajamas, and Dad was sitting in the living room with a morning program on the TV and the paper in hand. It was a typical weekend scene for the Stevens family. Whether in Tulsa or New York, this was what Saturdays had always looked like for the two of us. I made myself peanut butter toast and poured a glass of orange juice and wondered if it would always look like that, and if that was what it had looked like before me.

My mother had been on my mind a lot.

Maybe it was natural, considering what was going on, what I was going through. Sometimes, I wished she could be there so I could go to her with my boy problems, with my friendship problems with Vickie, and she and I could figure it out together. My mother had been a social butterfly, with lots of high society friends – women she had gone to camp with, school, synagogue, faculty wives – and every picture I had seen of her was of a glamorous woman who always seemed to have company. She would have known what to do.

But she wasn't there, and it wasn't like she had been able to solve whatever problems she had been having with her own marriage. She just left. And I didn't think that was going to be the thing to do in my situation. I couldn't just run away.

Which meant that I probably couldn't run from telling my father about my life anymore.

I went back out to the living room with my half-finished glass of juice and sat on the couch, my father sitting in his chair, and decided to jump in feet first. "Daddy?"

"Mmhmm?"

Deep breath. "Daddy, how did you know you were in love with Mom?"

He nearly spit out his coffee. "Come again?" He asked around a cough.

"Well…how'd you know? I mean, I get that she left, obviously. But you loved each other once. So…how did you know you loved her?"

This was obviously not a conversation my father was thinking he would be having that morning, and he had always been very hesitant to talk about my mother. Details about her had been doled out sparingly and carefully by him and my family, so I had gradually learned not to ask. My grandparents still kept a few photographs of her around their house and had more hidden in albums that I had long ago discovered, but her siblings barely spoke of her.

But she and my father had loved each other once. They had loved each other enough to get married.

"I don't know," Dad said, brow narrowed, and I was a little miffed because he always seemed to have an answer for everything. "I suppose…well, you meet someone, you're attracted to them, you get to know them – "

"Right," I nodded hastily, "but I meant you and Mom. What about her made you fall in love with her, specifically?"

Dad cleared his throat and laughed nervously. "Why the questions about your mother this morning, hm?"

"Dunno," I shrugged. "Guess it's just been on my mind. Because, well. Boys, and all that," I said sheepishly, and my father cleared his throat again.

"You mean…Jerry."

And I shocked both of us when I said, "No, not him. Someone else."

We stared at each other for a beat. "Oh," he said awkwardly. It was Jerry, at one point, but it wasn't anymore. I could never love him again. Thinking back on it, it was nice. It was nice being with Jerry because he was handsome and popular and treated me well. But that's all it was – nice. And dull. And Two-Bit was the furthest thing from dull. He drove me just about crazy. "So. Someone else, then. You think…you're in love with someone."

"I don't know," I said again. "Maybe? I don't know, that's why I asked how you knew with Mom. I'm all mixed up about it."

I never talked like this with my father, and he and I were both feeling the strangeness of the moment. I couldn't believe I had said even that much to him. Dad couldn't seem to believe it, either, but he took a deep breath, finally set down his paper, and leaned forward. "Bridget. Listen…you're young. You'll have time to figure all this out. There's no pressure for you to fall in love right now."

"I know," I whispered.

"And it's different for everyone. I think I loved your mother because she was so unlike me," he laughed, shrugging like it was nothing. "And I could see that the moment I met her. And I thought she…felt the same, but I suppose I thought wrong. That said, I guess the best advice I could give you is to be careful. And," he added with a warning finger, "to not stay with a person you don't love. Your mother did a lot wrong when she left, but that wasn't one of them."

xXx

You would think after knowing each other for months and months, Two-Bit would have at one point figured out what my phone number was and called me. But it wasn't until March when he finally called. My little pink princess phone started ringing, and I picked it up.

"Hello, this is Bridget Stevens," I said into the receiver.

"Bee?"

I would recognize that voice anywhere. I almost dropped the phone after hearing it, and my heart started beating so fast. "Yeah, it's me. Two-Bit?"

"Yeah. So - you free?"

I technically was. I also technically had homework, and technically my feet were killing me because of play practice the night before – all that dancing, you know. But I could forget all that for a while. "I'm free," I drawled. "Why?"

"Don't ask why. I'll be at your house in ten. Be ready."

Needless to say, I was sitting outside my house in my sweater and an actual pair of pants, anxiously waiting for that familiar truck to pull up. And when it did, I didn't bother to wait for Two-Bit to come up the front walk, I just stood myself up and walked down to his truck, hopping in.

"Why're you here?" I asked bluntly as he drove off.

Two-Bit smirked. "I didn't feel as though we left on particularly good terms the other night. I just felt like maybe we could talk better on our own, without Curly Shepard insertin' his usual bullshit," he explained. "That okay?"

I felt as though maybe we didn't leave on too bad terms – we kissed, after all. But I nodded anyway. "It's fine. We just gonna drive around then?"

"Naw, I've got somewhere we can park." My face went bright red when he said that. I knew what it meant when you parked with somebody: it meant making out, and I couldn't believe Two-Bit and I were willing to at this odd stage in the game. "Don't be gettin any ideas, Bee. It ain't like that."

"I didn't think so," I muttered.

"Yeah you did."

"Oh! – shut up."

Two-Bit clamped his lips together and pretended to zip them shut. We stayed silent the rest of the drive, and I wasn't the least bit surprised when Two-Bit parked at an overlook. I had never parked with anyone before, not even Jerry, but the view was nice. The late afternoon sun was just starting to go down and turn the world all orange and yellow. We both sat and watched for a moment before Two-Bit said, "C'mon – let's get outta the truck."

Two-Bit opened his door, grabbed a brown paper bag from the cab floor, and stepped out onto the grass. Then he got on top of the truck, banging against the metal. I poked my head out the window and looked up at him, and he stared right back at me.

"The hell do you think you're doing?" I asked, sounding oddly cavalier.

He smiled down on me. "Just get your butt up here," he commanded, banging on the spot beside him, the clang of metal the loudest thing for miles. "C'mon! It's a great view."

"Oh, I don't know…"

"C'mon, Stevens – live a little. Come exist with me, darlin'."

Exist with me? I had no idea what Two-Bit was referring to, and I grumbled about how confusing he was as I got out and joined him up on the roof. It was a tight fit, shoulder-to-shoulder, and we were sort of high up, but you could see the city really well. And for once, the place looked kind of beautiful.

"It's nice up here," I said softly.

"It is," he agreed. "Bee?"

"Yeah."

"I've liked you a real long time."

Woah. I turned to face him. "Then do something about it," I suggested, and I meant it. Two-Bit laughed and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

"You're real funny, ya know. Wouldn't your parents worry about you runnin' around with a hood like me?"

"Parent," I corrected boldly. Maybe I was feeling brave. I had never told him about my parental situation.

He raised an eyebrow. "Whaddya mean?"

"I mean, I have one parent. One. My dad."

Two-Bit nodded absently as he stuffed something into his mouth. "Chewin' tobacco," he told me, seeing the question written all over my face.

"Oh." I cringed when he spit. "That's disgusting. How can you stand that stuff?"

"I dunno. My buddy and I have always done it. Ain't so bad – just that they say my teeth are gonna get real yellow."

Two-Bit smiled, and I shoved him back in disgust. "I can't believe you."

"I know you can't."

We were quiet again, just the sound of the city below us and Two-Bit spitting occasionally. And I thought we were supposed to be talking. "So your mama left you?" He eventually asked, trying to sound casual.

"Yeah. She did," I whispered.

"I get that. I'm in touch with the whole abandoned-by-a-parent feeling."

I remembered him mentioning his mother before, so…"Your father?" I guessed.

"Bingo."

"Oh." His father left, and my mother left. It was funny, but it really wasn't. Two-Bit offered his chew to me. I wrinkled my nose, shaking my head. "What'd we do to deserve something like that?" I wondered.

Two-Bit shrugged – he didn't have any answers, same as I didn't. "I dunno. But I like to think the three of us – my mom, sister, and I – are better off without 'im."

Better off. Were we really better off? I doubted it, seeing how the two of us had both refused to speak about the matter until now. "It's always just been the two of us," I whispered, not looking at him, just looking out at the cityscape in front of us. "I've never known what it's like to have a mother – and sometimes, it's the worst feeling in the world."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It is. Sometimes, I can hardly stand it. I wish there was someone besides my father I could go to for certain things." My mouth twitched like it wanted to smile. "I mean, I had to explain to my dad the importance of buying a dress for homecoming a while back. And I'm gonna have to explain to him that I can't wear it again for prom. Moms get that sort of thing. Dads don't."

Two-Bit playfully, gently tugged on one of my curls. "I s'pose they don't."

I tried to smile, but it faltered that time. "Are we gonna become our parents, Two-Bit?" I asked miserably. That was the thing I was most worried about. It was probably part of why I was so upset about Jerry wanting us to just become carbon copies of his parents. "Is it some sort of trap, a cycle that we've been sucked into?"

I wasn't sure I really wanted to know the answer to that.

"I hope not. But I'd be real stupid if I didn't say I was already turning into my old man."

"Why would you say that?"

"'Cuz it's true," he said pleasantly. "Listen – I could say that I'm not gonna run away from my problems, that having a coupl'a kids isn't a burden. And maybe I don't think that yet. But I can tell. I can just tell that I got a little more than these eyes from that bastard."

Two-Bit said it like it was just plain, hard fact, like there was nothing he could ever do to change it. That's what was scary about him.

"Maybe you won't be like that," I tried, but he shook his head.

"Maybe. Hey – can I show you somethin'?" I nodded. "Good. Thanks, Bee."

xXx

He pulled up to a little house out on the side of the road. It was clear that it hadn't been occupied in a long, long time. The overhang on the porch was sinking, and many of the windows had shattered panes. The yard was in horrible condition; what wasn't just plain dirt was crabgrass and weeds. Or gravel. The cement on the porch and sidewalk was cracked, and the mailbox had been knocked off its pole.

"What is this place?" I asked as we stepped out of Two-Bit's car and out into the warmish almost-spring air, lip curling a bit.

"I used to live here," Two-Bit said simply, leaning over to pick up a rock and tossing it into the air. "We moved after Sadie was born."

"Oh," I whispered.

And then I just stared at that old house for a while. What had happened while he was living there? When I heard the unmistakable sound of glass shattering, I jerked my head and saw Two-Bit getting ready to launch a rock at it, having obviously thrown the first one. He wound up and released, hitting another pane of glass and shattering it as well. He had a good arm, that much was clear. Really good. He had good aim and was able to get it far – and fast, too.

"What're you doing?" I squealed, as if it wasn't obvious.

"I'm throwing rocks at windows," he drawled.

I rolled my eyes. "Why?" I pressed.

Two-Bit gave me a guilty smile. "Just, uh…just letting out some pent-up emotion, I s'pose. Most of those other breaks are from me too," he explained, pointing out the other breaks. "I come around here a lot. Something about it...the time I had to spend here ..." He cut his eyes to mine. "We should go inside."

"What?" I blurted out. I did not want to go into that house. "Two-Bit, that's a horrible idea! It's gonna cave in any second…" But Two-Bit just grabbed my hand and led me inside. Guess I didn't have a choice. The door squeaked as he opened it, letting it slam behind us.

"Welp, here it is." Two-Bit spread his arms apart in a grand gesture. "Home sweet home, am I right?"

It wasn't funny. My scowl told him as much. "Did you drag me out here to kill me, Two-Bit?" I asked, to see how he liked a joke like that. Two-Bit rolled his eyes to the ceiling and gave me one of his Are you fucking serious? looks before we both dropped it.

We were in what I assumed to be the living room. There was dust covering the floor, there wasn't any furniture left behind, and a large crack ran down one of the walls.

Without a word, Two-Bit turned down the hall, and I followed him. He opened a door, revealing a tiny room. There was an old bureau pushed up against the wall and a metal bedframe. The floor creaked beneath us as we moved. I kept wringing my hands, worried the floor would cave any second. Dust covered everything in there, too, and the windows were broken as well. Guess Two-Bit had gotten to them.

Two-Bit sidled up next to me, and my breath caught when I felt his arm slip around my waist – that was the first time he had ever done that, at least since we had danced on New Year's Eve. But this felt different, somehow. It felt right, and from the way we kind of leaned into each other, I think he thought so, too.

"The stuff in here is just about in the same place as I last saw it...'cept the bed had a mattress, of course," he grinned. When I didn't even pretend like that was funny, he sighed. "I dunno what it is about you, Bridget, but you're the first person I've brought here. I mean, everyone knows about this place. But I don't want people knowin' I lived here. I guess there are just some things people are better off not knowin'."

He cast his eyes down to the ground and didn't say anything for a while. I was confused about why he didn't want people to know he lived there at one point. It was just a house, and people move all the time – I know that for a fact. But I couldn't help but think that something bad had happened there.

Or maybe they just moved because there was a new baby. Plain and simple. Just needed more space.

But looking at Two-Bit's face, I knew there was more to it than that. I wanted to tell him right then that I loved him, that I had for a long time. That all I wanted right then was to tell him that we were okay, that we weren't as fucked up as we thought we were. Your parents shouldn't be allowed to fuck you up. Parents shouldn't be allowed to leave, either, but they do.

"I'm sorry your father left you," was what I said, my voice barely a whisper.

"And I'm sorry your mama's gone. But hell, kid, if anyone can put up with somethin' like that, it'd be us."

"Why?"

He pulled me closer but wouldn't look at me. "'Cuz we're puttin' up with it together. That's why,"

And I cried. And I mean cried. It was like that was all he had to say to get the floodgates to burst open, and then I was off. I sobbed into Two-Bit's shoulder and didn't even try to stop. I think I was crying for us, but mostly for him. I dug my fingernails into his flannel and buried my face in his chest, making it damp and his T-shirt stick to his skin. This was crying on a cosmic scale.

"Hey, hey," he soothed. "Why're you cryin'? There ain't anything wrong. Nothing's wrong."

"You don't get it," I sobbed. I tried to gather myself but failed spectacularly. "What made this house so bad for you? You gotta tell me."

Two-Bit clearly didn't want to answer that, but he let go of me and sat down right in the middle of the floor. "Siddown," he said. "It's a bit of a story."

I sat down. I swiped a hand under my nose and sat down right beside him. Two-Bit was picking at his fingernails and continued to do so as he spoke. "My dad wasn't a good guy. But that ain't exactly unusual for dads on my side of town. He was gone a lot, and when he came home, he got here real late. It don't take a genius to figure out what he was doin'. My mother was no exception. She, uh...she tried to talk about it with him, but…um. Well, uh, it didn't exactly go how she thought."

"Did he hurt her?" I asked, knees pulled tight to my chest.

"Yeah," Two-Bit muttered, obviously not liking thinking back to it, but for some reason needing to dig it all back up. "He did. Anyways, my mom's smart. And she knew, and he was pissed that she figured it out. So he got her real good."

"How old were you?"

"I was nine. God – my sister wasn't even a year old yet. Wanna know the worst part?" I nodded – I didn't and I did. "Ya know how you can see the living room from here?" He asked, craning his head and pointing. "Kinda saw it all happen from here. I heard somethin' going on, cracked that door open, and there it all was."

I didn't know what to say, just stared at him with my mouth open. That was worse than my sob-story, hands down. All my mother did was abandon us. "I'm sorry, Two-Bit."

"It's okay."

"No. No, it's not. Wanna know something else?"

"What?"

I scooted over so we were sitting face-to-face. "I'm sorry that I was so awful to you. At the beginning of the year. I'm so sorry. I was an asshole."

Of course that made him smile. "You were, that's true. But I wasn't much better. And lookit you now!" He gestured to the room. "It's got you here! To my shitty old room in my shitty old house!" He shook his head. "I meant it when I said I like you, Bridget. And I think I have a solid answer as to why now."

"What is it?"

"Not tellin'. But...I'll tell you someday, Bee."

I snorted softly. "Fair enough. Can we go?"

"'Course."

Two-Bit stood up and offered his hand to me, and this time, I actually took it and let him help me up. "Thank you," I whispered. "Hey, Two-Bit?"

"Yeah?"

"You've got a good arm, Two-Bit," I told him.

He scoffed, nodding like he already knew. "Yeah. Yeah, I get that from him, too."

We walked out, shoulder-to-shoulder still, back to the truck. "Tell me somethin', Bee."

"Shoot."

"What would you do if you found out your mother had died? Like, would you be upset?"

I furrowed my brow. "I…I don't know. At least, not upset in the usual way. I wouldn't be upset that she had died, per se, but that her dying was another way to disrupt my life. You know? And that I shouldn't have to care that she's dead because she didn't care enough to stick around for us…but now I'm expected to care about her death for some reason. It would just…I think it would throw me off. And I've had enough of that lately. Why do you ask?" He stared at me without saying a word, and I realized I had probably missed something. "Did something happen, Two-Bit? Or, is something going to happen?"

He sighed through his nose. "Bee. My father died. Yesterday, or somethin'."

"Really?" I asked. "Are…are you okay?"

He shrugged. "I think so. Um. To be honest, it feels kinda good, knowing there's no chance he'll just show up on our front porch or somethin'. Sadie's a bit confused about the whole thing, I think, and I think I am, too."

"Of course you are. Do you know what happened?"

"He, uh…well, you know how I told you he got himself in some trouble with some mobsters? Well, turns out he owed some big boss a couple thousand dollars. He threw them off his trail for a while, but I don't know what they told him out there cuz I guess he freaked and took the coward's way out."

"So…he killed himself," I figured softly.

"Yeah," he sighed. "Leavin' it all up to us up here to clean up his goddamn mess."

"You said you got your arm from him. You mean, he taught you?"

"Taught me everything I know about the game," Two-Bit said, seemingly proud. "Why?"

"No reason."

Maybe, but it seemed to give him an idea.

"One last stop?" he offered.

"Where?"

"Well – I lied. Two stops. I gotta get somethin' from my place, and then we'll go to the real last stop."

"What do you have to gotta get?"

When Two-Bit came out of his place a few minutes later with a baseball bat, my eyes went wide.

xXx

"Hips then hands, honey."

Standing behind me, Two-Bit's arms wrapped around mine to help me guide the bat; the only sounds we could hear were the kid feeding balls into the pitching machine, and the crack of wood against white leather.

"I feel stupid," I mumbled.

"Don't," he said simply. "No one here cares. 'Sides – with my help, you're hitting all of these."

We moved together as the next ball came at us, flying over Crutchfield Park. The kid tilted his head up and watched it fly. Seemed that it was all coming back to Two-Bit, and I felt a funny sense of pride on his behalf as the kid turned back to us, impressed, and yelled, "I ain't gettin' that!"

xXx

We both had stupid smiles on our faces when Two-Bit pulled up to my house.

"Wasn't expecting that," I murmured. "This whole day, really."

"Well, I didn't know I was gonna drag you out there."

"Not what I meant. I mean…yeah, can't say I saw myself hitting a baseball for the first time ever when I woke up this morning, but…" I trailed off for a second, trying to figure out what to say. "It was good. All of it."

I think we shared what you call a significant look. The good the bad and the ugly – it was out there now. We didn't even have to talk about Dallas and Vickie, and I didn't think of them until just then. Just me and him. I wanted to tell Two-Bit right then that I loved him. It felt like the right time. But something stopped me.

"You really had a nice time?" Two-Bit asked.

"I really did," I whispered.

He leaned over and kissed my cheek. I blushed, which always seemed to make him smile. "Can I see you again sometime?" he asked, and I turned my head so we were nose-to-nose.

"Of course," I said softly. "You know you don't have to ask."

"It was a joke, honey."

"Oh, was it?"

I raised an eyebrow, and he fondly shook his head. "Good one. Night, Bridget."

"Goodnight, Two-Bit."

xXx

"Bridget."

I looked up from my homework and saw my father standing at my bedroom door. I hadn't even heard him approach. "Yeah, Dad?"

He pursed his lips, then entered my bedroom fully and sat down in my rocking chair. He could barely look me in the eye, but I got the feeling that maybe he had something important to say. It was so rare for my father to say anything to me that had any real gravity. It was usually about work or school or something unimportant like planning a visit to the country club to play tennis. But then there were conversations like the one we had the day before, and he had the same look on his face then.

"I'm afraid I haven't been completely honest with you," Dad admitted. "And I would like to ask in advance for your forgiveness."

I put down my pencil and sat back in my chair. "Depends on what you're asking forgiveness for."

He took a deep breath. "What if I told you I was seeing someone?"

xXx

Bridget -

I know about you and Two-Bit Mathews. Just know that.

- Vickie

It had been in my locker. My stomach became upset when I saw it. I just knew Vickie was going to do something with that information, and it made me wish Dallas Winston was around because I would be able to threaten her with the same thing.

But then I realized.

I showed the note to Two-Bit in history class.

"Vickie knows."

It took all I had to not start crying because I was genuinely scared and ashamed of what I was going to suggest to him. But I had to stave Vickie off. Both Two-Bit and I knew no one could find out about us, because I knew Vickie would exaggerate the whole thing to the proportions of what she went through with Dallas.

But that didn't make me feel any better about it.

"Knows what?" Two-Bit asked, looking down at the note in confusion. I needed to explain all this quickly, before Missy and Jimmy showed up.

"About…I don't know, us? I don't know how to put it. She left it in my locker. But you know what I mean! She knows."

He leaned forward across his desk, working to keep this quiet "What're we gonna do, then?"

"I have an idea, but I'm gonna have to explain some things first."

Two-Bit nodded solemnly, but I got the feeling he was joking around a bit, which I didn't appreciate just then, but decided not to point out. "What is it?"

"I can't tell you now," I hissed, looking around at all the people.

He smirked. "Well, then. Don't screw us over, Bee."

I rolled my eyes. I had fallen for a fucking idiot.

"There's my girl."

Thanks for reading!