"Hey, knock-knock!" Two-Bit started. Oh great. This couldn't be anything other than a crack at my new skirt or new haircut, which I loved. I'd be changing it the next day, however, when Two-Bit made me look bad in it and everyone would laugh at me.

"Who's there?" Johnny asked, sighing. With his sigh, I followed it up with a sigh of my own. I was still madly in love with him, but he still hadn't admitted that he loved me.

"Orange," Two-Bit continued.

Fabulous, he was using orange. He'd follow it up with something like, "Orange you glad you didn't see that skirt first?" or "Orange you glad you don't have Kelcie's haircut?"

"Orange who?" Ponyboy asked, groaning along with everyone else. Here it came, and that gave my license to kill the one who made the joke.

"Orange you glad you didn't see Lucy and Dallas eating each other's faces off?" Two-Bit ended his joke with. Lucy and Dally together? They were kissing? She hadn't flirted with him since she was thirteen, and even though we all knew that Dal felt the same way about her, they never acted on it. Until now, I guess.

I started to look at Johnny, wondering why he hadn't kissed me yet. The age difference between us was three years, which is one year less than Lucy and Dally. She's eighteen and he's twenty-two, which is obviously a four-year difference. Suddenly, I became extremely jealous and wanted a guy all for my own, and of course Lucy had to be the first one to have that.

"Wait a minute," I said, making sure the sharpness intended was in my voice, "you guys were kissing?"

"Yeah, what did you think it meant?" Two-Bit asked. "You feel like giving in a whirl with me?"

"In your dreams," I barked back. So, he was physically attracted to me, but Johnny couldn't care less? Things were so confusing when you're as different as me.

"We didn't want to come in and just start screaming about it," Dally explained coolly, "because then you all would have charged at us."

"So, did you kiss or not?" Jacklyn asked. She obviously couldn't understand the deceit behind this, and how I was still angry that yet again, Lucy beat me with her love life as well. Poor underdog Jacklyn was still interested in how "cute" of a couple Lucy and Dally would make.

"Yes, Jacklyn!" Becky snapped. "I thought we established that when Two-Bit started hitting on Kelcie."

Two-Bit seemed to mouth something to Becky, and she nodded. Hitting on me? A guy who was so evil and cruel to me was hitting on me? Why me?

"Shut up!" Johnny piped up from out of nowhere. He said shut up! It could mean that he couldn't take the arguing, or that he didn't want Two-Bit hitting on me because he wanted me for himself! I was already taking bigger steps in one day!

"Just so you all feel satisfied," Lucy started, "Dally and I did kiss. Twice, as a matter of fact. Two-Bit, which kiss did you happen to see?

"The one where Dally told you he loved you and you told him you loved him. That one lasted about five minutes," Two-Bit clarified.

Five minutes? God, I hadn't even gotten five minutes alone with Johnny to TALK! This wasn't good for anyone's health! It was also (not to mention) uncomfortable for me, because Lucy had to get the hot and heavy romance before I did!

"Do you have any idea how long of a kiss that is?" I scolded. "Five SECONDS is a long enough kiss. But five minutes? Goddamn it, Luciella!"

Luciella is Lucy's full first name. No one ever uses it, unless we're using an official title, teasing her, or someone's mad at her. In this case, I was mad at her.

"Wait a minute," Sodapop interrupted, "Dally, you told Lucy you loved her?"

I saw Becky gawk at Sodapop. She's been in love with him all her life, and I knew it wouldn't be long before he told her that he felt the same way. Based on the way things were going with Dally and Lucy, things would heat up between Becky and Sodapop soon enough.

To be honest, I hadn't really noticed the fact that Dally told Lucy he loved her. The thing that got to me was the kissing, but now that they've proclaimed love to each other? Lucy gets the big kiss and falls in love first and the guy she loves happens to love her back. It was so unfair!

"Yeah," Dally muttered, "and I meant it. I still mean it. I said it once and I'll say it again. I love you, Lucy."

Lucy looked like she was going to vomit. Her face was as white as a ghost, and she just looked scared. Maybe she wasn't ready for this sort of thing. I convinced myself of that, until she steadily replied:

"I love you too, Dal."

She was crying, which made me even angrier with her. Great, now she loved someone so much she was moved to tears. Not fair, not fair, NOT FAIR!

Jacklyn, the first to "aww" led everyone on to it except me.

"Come on, Kelcie," Steve Randle urged me. "Don't you think it's adorable?"

"I guess I'm just used to romance," I suggested.

"How can you be used to something you haven't had any of?" Two-Bit, again, mocked me. Why did it have to be him that did this? If it was Johnny, I'd say, "Oh Johnny, the reason I haven't had romance is because I was waiting for you!" And then he'd say, "Well, let's start now!" and then we'd kiss. But it wasn't Johnny, it was Two-Bit.

"Will you just shut up?" Ponyboy asked.

"Yeah, just shut up!" Lucy snapped. That was confusing. If Lucy hated me so much, why was she standing up for me?

"Well, I'm happy for you guys," Johnny said. "Dally loves Lucy and he doesn't love nobody. You sure about that Dal?"

Of course he was sure! Apparently, Dally knew how to love, and Johnny was just oblivious of my flirting with him for as long as I could remember.

"Yes, I'm sure about it!" Dally said sharply. "Why can't just believe it? I'll say it again! I love you, Lucy. I love you!"

Oh, bullshit. So he loved her. All that meant was that we were wrong about Dally and Lucy got something before me, yet again.

"Dally, please, not now," Lucy begged him. Not now? She didn't want it to be public? Of course she wanted it to be public! She loved all of this, and she especially loved that she was making me insane.

"He loves her all right," Sodapop assured us. There was more, but I wasn't listening. I was staring at Johnny, and he could have just admitted he loved me even though I was seventeen and he was twenty. And why did age matter? After all, Lucy was eighteen and Dally was twenty-two, which was a bigger difference than the one between Johnny and me!

"What the hell is going on in here?" Darry asked, coming in from work. Great, maybe he could talk some sense into their heads. But then I realized that he'd be happy for Lucy, considering she's his little sister.

"A lot of drama!" Jacklyn called to him.

When he asked what we were dramatizing things for, Lucy explained everything smoothly, honestly, and perfectly. There was no reason for it not to be perfect, because Lucy was talking. I hated perfect people.

Then, when she finished, Darry laughed. He laughed! Could it be that someone was actually siding with me on this one? No way! Johnny, I thought, wait until you see me with someone on my side. Then you'll want me for sure!

"Lucy," he said, "it seems so weird for you to be with a guy, especially Dallas, but why do you have to turn it into such a big deal?"

Good, it was my time to shine.

"Because it is a big deal!" I screeched. "Darry, Two-Bit said that Dally and Lucy were kissing on the porch for five minutes! That was just one kiss! I mean, I thought five seconds was a pretty long kiss, but five minutes is crazy!" They kissed on the front porch where everyone could see it!"

I turned to Lucy, narrowed my blue eyes at her and sneered:

"I still don't know what the hell is wrong with you, Luciella."

Shit, I probably shouldn't have done that. Now Darry, Sodapop and Ponyboy would go crazy on me. They hated it when anyone gave Lucy a hard time or scolded her in any way, even if it was a member from our gang.

"You shut your mouth, Kelcie Valentino!" Ponyboy yelled at me. "There's nothing the matter with my sister and you know it! Why is it that whenever she's got something you want, you treat her so badly?"

Damn, he nailed that one. I did treat Lucy pretty badly when something happened to her first, but she didn't treat me like peaches and cream either.

"Kelcie, leave Lucy alone! She's beautiful, smart, and just amazing!" Sodapop told me off as he started to cry. "Just because you feel inferior to her for some reason doesn't mean that you can go around making her feel like shit all the time!"

Sodapop cursed, and no one seemed to believe it. He hardly ever cursed because he was an angel. It was hard to believe considering he's a Greaser, but he hardly ever swore and had an angel reputation.

"Listen and listen good, Kelcie," Darry snapped at me. "Lucy is a great girl, and you need to stop belittling her when something good happens to her and not you. You're not five, so I'm not going to make you apologize, but I think you're wrong."

I glared at Lucy, hoping she'd get the message. She didn't seem to be responding to that, because she was looking at Dally longingly. Even when she had him, she looked perfect wanting him to look at her.

"How did all of this go from Dal and Lucy from Kelcie being jealous of Lucy?" Johnny asked. Oh, fabulous. Johnny thought I was jealous. Well, I wasn't jealous, I was just angry that Lucy had to be perfect.

"Can we all just get along for two minutes?" Johnny asked.

"We can and we have," Becky said briskly. "And I think we should all stop before someone sets someone else on fire."

I wanted to kill her. You never said the word fire around Johnny, Ponyboy and Dally. It's a long story, and it scared me so shitless I never want to talk about it again. But you never say it around them! We call it "The Deathly F Word" now, which is actually worse than the real f word, which not even Dally likes to say.

A lot more happened, and I just want to skip to why I hate perfect people part two. Becky said that she was happy for Dally and Lucy and then she said, "I love you, Lucy!"

Then Two-Bit made a joke that ended with, "But this whole Becky in love with Lucy thing? All these years I thought you had a thing for Soda."

Which she did, of course! But how could he have known? The only people that knew other than the Greaser girls were Johnny, Darry and Ponyboy, and there's no way that even Ponyboy told him about it.

A little more time passed, which I passed by looking at Johnny and wondering when he'd run up to me and kiss me so passionately that even the Socs he hates would feel pleasure. But then another perfect person interrupted me.

"Hey Soda?" Becky asked.

Oh great. She was really going to do it, wasn't she? She was going to ask Sodapop to be her boyfriend. I'd love it if he rejected her.

"Yeah Becky?" he asked nervously.

"You know how Two-Bit said he thought I was into you? Well, the truth is that I am into you. Are you into me?"

"Becky, I've always loved you," he admitted, and pulled her in for a soft, short kiss on the lips. That was acceptable, but why did they both have to get boyfriends before me?

Darry said that if one more couple got together that night, he'd quit his job and Lucy and Ponyboy would have to make livings on their own. Jacklyn stared at Ponyboy longingly, and I was more discrete and looked out the window rather than at Johnny.

"Keep on, Jacklyn," Lucy encouraged. She was the guidance counselor too, how uncanny!

It got late, and Two-Bit got drunk within each hour. He tried to make out with me a lot, but I knew he knew I'd never let him. One, I hated him, and two, my heart belonged to Johnny even though I knew his heart didn't belong to me.

"I ain't taking him home," I told everyone. "Somebody else will have to. I ain't waking up next to him tomorrow morning. Chances are he probably won't even know how he got there."

"I'll take him home, Kelcie," Darry assured me. "It's one in the morning, did your mom know you'd be out this late?"

"I told her I'd be home around two or three, so she'll be glad I'm home earlier. Plus, most kids who go out on Friday night don't come home until five or six in the morning on Sunday, and I mean the Sunday that's actually Monday."

"I'm surprised you don't go home at nine-thirty like a good girl should," Becky asked, getting herself a can of Diet Pepsi from the fridge.

Like a good girl? There was no way I was a good girl! I could be out all year and never come home if I wanted to, I just didn't! That was what Dally did, and I knew his relationship with Lucy would never last, because he'd be out beating people up. And she'd be alone at home, knocked up, and waiting for Dally to come home, if he ever did. Johnny would be devoted, so I knew that I'd win in the end.

"Well, if you're insulting my ways of life, you can go fuck yourself, Becky!" I cried. There, I actually had the guts to use the word, and I never did.

"Becky doesn't accept the offer," Two-Bit began. "She's got Soda to help her with that one now!"

I smoothed out my skirt, which he hadn't made fun of and took off. I don't know where I drove off to that night, but I spent most of the night thinking. Not once did I stop driving to sleep, but I did feel the temptation to many times. I thought about Lucy and Dally and how they'd probably end up getting married and might last because of how incredibly lucky Lucy really is. Then I thought about how I had insulted Becky and what they could be saying about me right now, and I knew they were calling me a bitch. At last I thought about Johnny and how he would never fall in love with me, and everything I had ever hoped for might as well drown in the millions of tears I must have cried that night. Through them I couldn't see very well and I almost ran into a stop sign. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, they got better.