"So how was your day?" Jacklyn asked as we walked home from school to the Curtis house, like we always did. When Jacklyn asked how our days were, I moaned on the inside. She's always been known to start really stupid conversations. I swear, she's actually used that, "What did you think of the pop quiz today?" desperate conversation starters.

Lucy, the missing girl from three years ago (now we were high school sophomores, fifteen and sixteen) tossed her long dark brown hair across her shoulder. It made me want to gag. Why did she have to act so perfect all the time?

"Fine," she said in response to Jacklyn's question, "and the pop quiz was really hard, because I knew that'd be your next question."

Great. She was clairvoyant too. There was nothing she couldn't do, but I just knew I'd be better than her one day!

"Why does math even have to exist?" Becky complained. She and Lucy were the perfect ones, always getting favoritism from teachers and the guys, and everyone loved them. No wonder they were best friends. I now had two people to overrule when I took over their throne as the better ones. And Jacklyn, poor Jacklyn was just the underdog. I'd have her be my personal assistant, just so she could look better. What guy wants a girl who cries at sad AND funny movies?

"You should learn how to add, subtract, multiply, divide, configure fractions and percents, and then just have literature through the rest of school," Becky continued.

"I agree," I confirmed, mainly because I did, "Math is torture, and I hate it!" We laughed at each other, because none of us were very good at math, especially Lucy. There, that was one thing I had over her. Because of my conciseness, I had an A in math, while Lucy had a lowly C. Numbers would be what makes the world go round in the end, and words will be long forgotten.

"What can I say?" came a guy's voice from behind us. "None of the Greasers are good at math." It was Ponyboy.

Wow, I had to admit, over the last three years, he had gotten pretty cute. His hair was dark again, as opposed to that blonde he had to dye it when he was in that "spot", and his blue-green eyes were a good look on him, but the eyes on Lucy just made me want to give her my ugly, pale blue ones.

Some time last year, Lucy said that if Ponyboy weren't her brother, she'd date him. How dare she do that? There was no way she could get a boyfriend before me, and he'd be my first because I was still ready to make Johnny jealous.

"Hey Ponyboy," Jacklyn said, batting her eyelashes, "do you want to join in on one of my stupid conversations?"

Oh gosh. She had turned around and now she was in love with him. Nice going, Jacklyn. Once he falls in love with you, I'll have no hope in trying to make Johnny jealous. No one could see what I wanted around here!

"No thanks, Jacklyn," he declined, laughing. "I'm too intelligent for that."

See that? Flirting! I wanted to flirt like that with Johnny, but he was too quiet and too afraid to start acting like he was in love with me.

They trailed behind us, and I walked in between Becky and Lucy. But instead of thinking of how stuck up and awful they could be, I treated them like they were my friends, which they were, but it's hard to be friends with perfect people. For Greasers, you can say that these two girls have it made. Both of them had gorgeous guys falling at their feet (whether they noticed it or not), and those guys just happened to be the ones they were interested in themselves! But that really wasn't what I was getting at. We were gossiping about the budding romance going on between dear Jacklyn and Ponyboy.

"I had no idea she liked him," Becky whispered.

"Neither did I," Lucy added.

"She didn't until about five minutes ago," I spat back. "Though, I did know it was going to happen sooner or later. It's Jacklyn and Ponyboy, for Pete's sake, they've always looked like they were kind of into each other."

"You know what, Kelcie?" Lucy asked. "You're right. Beck, turn around and see what they're up to."

Becky nodded and joked, "Aye-aye, boss." She turned her head to look at Jacklyn and Ponyboy, slacking off behind us.

"They're taking turns shoving each other to the sides and laughing at each other. I wanna know what's so funny!" Becky informed.

For someone so smart, Becky really didn't have a clue what was going on. "She's not laughing because he's funny, she's laughing because he's cute!"

"Well, I mean, I kinda knew that," she defended herself with. How couldn't she know that?

"My brother is cute?" Lucy asked, wrinkling her nose. "Please, I can understand why girls have fallen for Sodapop, but Ponyboy? Maybe it's because we're so close in age that I can't see it. But ever happiness to the both of them!"

I laughed, and it was actually pretty funny. "Lucy, you don't know that they're gonna last forever. It's Jacklyn, it'll pass."

"Kelcie, I wouldn't be so sure about that," Becky contradicted. "I mean, I can't remember any time where Jacklyn has been in love, and I'm not so sure it'll pass. Think about it. Love hasn't passed over you, me, or Lucy."

Lucy's eyes got wide, and then they narrowed at Becky. "Love hasn't passed over me? Since when am I in love?"

"You've been in love for three years, don't deny it," I clued Lucy in on. "We all know you have."

"I still don't get what you're talking about. If you're talking about Dal, I'll have you know it lasted for no more than one week, and I'm completely over it. Well, other than when I see him and sometimes the feelings come back, but I'm over it. In fact, I was never on it. Once Michael broke up with me, I swore off men for the rest of my life."

"You can say what you want but we all know that's not true," Becky teased in a singsong voice. "I think I'm gonna go tell Jacklyn to run up here with us."

She did, and in a blink of an eye, Jacklyn was slowing down her jog to walk with us. But she didn't come alone! Ponyboy was running next to her, and they were hand-in-hand. So even though he was an older man, he was willing to make a move on Jacklyn, but Johnny wouldn't make a play for me? What the hell was wrong with him?

There was a lot of flirting before we got to Lucy's, and then we called one of our girl talks. We needed to pump Jacklyn for all that information! Why? When? Where? And then, of course, we had to re-ask why!

"I hate girl talks," Ponyboy complained when we told him we were leaving, "for some reason, I'm never included."

Lucy called him a dumb ass, and we trailed into her room. I started my interrogation with my W questions.

"Spill!" I shouted. "Why? When? Where? Did I ask why?"

"Only twice," Becky muttered, and I shot her one of my famous dirty looks. That shut her up.

Jacklyn told us that she didn't know when, and then Lucy and Becky told her that they'd make a great couple. I said nothing because I had no idea how good of a couple they'd make. Finally, something happened that made me know that Lucy wasn't perfect. She was in denial.

"It's not going to pass," Becky said in between her laughs when Jacklyn said that she'd wait it out.

"What do you mean, it's not going to pass?" Jacklyn asked. "I'm fifteen, I'm gonna have plenty of crushes. Who knows if he's really the one? How am I supposed to know?"

"The same way Lucy and I knew," Becky explained. Hmm, I noticed how she didn't include me. Did she really think that I wasn't truly in love with Johnny?

"Wait, Beck?" Lucy asked, being that fake-friendly that she hardly ever was. "What did I know?"

"Oh, don't be stupid, Lulu, you know what you knew."

"No, really, I don't."

"Stop playing dumb and accept the fact that you're head over heels crazy in love with Dallas Winston!"

Yep, there's a guy in Lucy's life, and his name is Dallas Winston. He's the Dal mentioned earlier, and it's clear that she's had feelings for him since that day Michael the Soc dumped her. But that proved that Lucy was a little naïve, which proved that she wasn't perfect!

"Becky, stop," I offered. "If Lucy wants to play naïve, which she's not, let her. She'll come to her senses sooner or later." There, I added the "which she's not" because I didn't want them to know that this was what I had against Lucy now. This could be my secret weapon.

"We should probably go outside," Jacklyn suggested. "The guys are probably looking for us."

"Yeah, maybe Soda will be there to proclaim his love to Becky!" I mocked her.

"Oh, Kelcie, don't you wish Johnny would say the same?" she came back with.

I said nothing to that, because I was wondering what I could do to make Becky believe that I was in love with Johnny and he was in love with me, just not showing it.

"Don't," Lucy warned me, and I stopped thinking about what to do with Becky for a while. I saw Johnny and my whole thoughts changed on a dime.

I walked up to him, acting pretty sweet, and said, "Hey Johnny. How're you?"

"I'm okay, I guess," he answered, looking at the grass instead of me. Great, not only had he spent his time staring at Lucy, he was now more interested in the lawn than me.

"Socs giving you a hard time?" I asked, even though I probably shouldn't have. Oh well, we needed some conversation if he was going to be my husband in the future.

"Always have, always will. Not to mention always are. Things are pretty hard for me you know that? My parents either ignore me or hit me, and the Socs never give me a break either. You think they'd catch on, think that I'm a little more dangerous than I look, but no. They think the way I killed that guy was just a fluke."

Yep, that's me, in love with a murderer. It's not as bad as "I killed him because his eyes scared me" like in "The Tell-Tale Heart", but it's still murder. Anyone would have been charged because the Socs almost killed Ponyboy, but Johnny beat them to the punch. But the fact that he would only talk about himself made me so mad!

"Ugh!" I shouted. "Johnny, can't you talk about anything other than yourself?"

He just sat there, looking at me, then back to the ground. What was it about me that made him ignore me so much?

"Sound familiar, Kelcie?" someone asked. Shit. It was Two-Bit Mathews, the guy in our gang who's always giving me an awful time. He teases me nonstop; mostly about the way I see things. So what if I'm a little high-maintenance for a Greaser? That sure is better than bumming around and drinking all the time like he does.

"Shut your face, you dumb ass!" I screamed at him. He walked over to me, laughing like the drunken idiot he was. Why he couldn't just like me the way everyone else did escaped me.

"Yeah, when are you gonna start shutting yours?" he taunted.

I glared at him, and then looked at Johnny in that ever-so-sweet look I hardly ever gave. He looked away and then called for Ponyboy. It just wasn't fair that he was into the guys and the other girls, but not me. I knew one day Johnny was going to notice me, but when and how? I didn't know what his opinion of me was going to be after a bit of an explosion I had later on. But other things happened with my other relationships, the ones with my friends.

"Johnny makes me so angry!" I groaned when we got back into Lucy's room.

"Johnny get angry, Johnny get mad!" Becky sang. It was some song that was popular a few years back, and when we first heard it, the girls gave me the worst time.

"Shut up, Beck," I snapped. "Don't you guys care why he makes me angry?"

"Okay," Lucy offered, "why does he make you angry?"

"Because he only wants to talk about himself to me!" I whined. "I mean, all I hear is 'I have it so hard' and it's all basically 'me, me, me, me, me!'"

"People like to talk about themselves," Becky replied.

"Again, shut up! But Johnny is so annoying when he does that! When he's not talking about himself, he's too quiet! He needs to get tough if he ever wants to get a woman, especially if he wants me."

"Well, maybe he doesn't," Lucy said. "If you loved Johnny, you'd take him in any way, shape or form."

If I loved Johnny? How could she believe that I didn't love Johnny? I had talked about him all the time forever, and I didn't love him? For someone so smart, Lucy obviously couldn't see the obvious.

I looked at Jacklyn, who hadn't said anything. She just sat there on the floor, rocking back and forth slightly and looking like she was going to upchuck everything she'd ever eaten in all her fifteen years.

"What's wrong with you?" I asked.

"Nothing," she answered. "Just really tired. I've had a pretty eventful day, if you know what I mean."

"Come on, let's go back outside," Becky suggested. "Those guys are like grass- you become addicted!"

"Ha-ha," Lucy said sarcastically, "but Becky is right. Jacklyn, let's get you out there to my brother, who is surprisingly the love of your life now."

Sure, Ponyboy was the love of Jacklyn's life, but Johnny, the love of mine, wasn't giving me the time of day. But I just knew it would get better as time passed!