Chapter two.

Sorry I didn't update for a while. I kept meaning to but never got around to it. Please R&R.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Outsiders.

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Another day. Another fucking day. Jesus, I needed to stop cursing. I needed to stop staying up all night studying my ass off. Oh, there I went with the cursing again…. Maybe the studying was actually a good idea. It kept my mouth from pouring dirty words.

"Calli, come downstairs, sweetie!" I heard my mother calling my name. I almost wanted to slap her—she sounded so sweet and caring. It was sickening, in a way. It made my stomach ache. I was too serious most of the time—I knew that—but I couldn't stand the way my mom acted, pretending as though everything was all right. She knew I'd inherited insomnia from the countless all-nighters I'd pulled. She knew school and I had this blurry sort of relationship—I hated it but yet I loved it. I was proud of my grades and the six honors classes I took, but I couldn't stand how exhausted I was the whole seven hours. It was only a short step away from torture.

"Calli, you need to get down here, baby, you're going to be late!" I groaned on the inside and dressed myself in a blouse, short and powder pink. But it wasn't the smutty sort of dress some of those girls at my school wore. It was long enough to be considered appropriate, but not so long that it made me look like a prude. I wasn't a prude. I just didn't go out much—there was too much homework and studying that came before guys. Guys weren't going to get me into a decent college.

"Calli Baker!" My mom was screaming now, so I figured maybe I should hurry up and go downstairs. So I rushed, and soon found myself face-to-face with my mother in the kitchen.

"Sorry," I apologized, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. I didn't even have to look at my face to know that I had purple circles indented into my skin.

"That's all right." My mom handed over a granola bar and a glass of milk. "Finish that up and I'll drive you to school, honey." She gave me a pleading look. "Unless you'd rather walk." I knew she wanted me to walk. My mom wasn't a college graduate. She was currently attending to experience the education she never had, and I knew she wanted me to walk myself to school so she could get an early start in the library.

"Well…mom, I really would walk…but tutoring and all…." I went to school an hour early each morning to tutor. I was teaching some boy from my class today—Sodapop Curtis, I think his name was. Our session had previously been scheduled for afterschool, but then a last second dentist appointment had come up and I'd had to switch it to the morning. I hoped that this "Soda" guy was an early bird. I sure wasn't, but that was only because I hardly slept at night.

"Oh…all right, baby cakes." My mother made a face—it looked sincerely disappointed, and I felt sort of guilty. My mom worked so hard and she accomplished only a little. The good thing was that when she finally completed her college education at the borderline of May, she'd be doing so much more with her life. At the moment, my mom was only a simple waitress at a diner—but she was becoming a doctor and I couldn't be more proud of her. She deserved it so much, despite the fact that her artificial cheeriness made me cringe.

"Thanks, mom." I offered her an empathetic smile and devoured the granola bar and glass of milk. She returned my grin, although hers was now noticeably weaker. When our morning affairs were complete, each of us ran out to the car and she drove me to school. She was competently disobeying the speed limit the entire time, but there were no officers in eyeshot—so she was safe.

I left the car and waved goodbye to my mom as she dropped me off. She called "See you later, honey!" and sped away. I easily ignored the crows of laughter that came from the immature peers around me, which was obviously their response to my mom's concern. I cared about my mom and I actually appreciated when she wished me goodbye before school each morning.

My whole body was trembling as I entered my institution. It was extremely cold outside, which happened to be no surprise—considering it was the middle of November and all. But I'd always disliked the cold. Warmth was what made me comfortable—I was actually hoping to attend a college in an all-year warm state once I graduated.

I passed the cheerleaders on my way to my destination, room B305 on the second floor, and I winced in jealousy. I'd always envied the cheerleaders. Their beautifully puckered and glossed lips. Their silky, easily manageable hair that flowed freely to their waists. Most of them were blondes, too. The group reminded me of a pack of robots, moving in perfect, step-by-step synchronized motions with each other. I liked the idea of order, but when it came to cheerleaders, it just seemed down-right creepy to me.

The reason I envied them so much was mostly because of their looks. Although I wasn't the biggest fan of guys, I couldn't help but to feel painful aches whenever I saw them, the opposite sex draped over their laps—drooling all over them. It didn't seem fair. Sure, I wasn't ugly—but I'd never thought of myself as beautiful, either. I guess I was good-looking enough—my eyes were pretty appealing, at least. They sparkled, usually on those rare occasions when I was happy or in the sunlight, and were a light, turquoise sort of blue color. I liked them. I wasn't the hugest fan of my hair—it was fiery red and fell below my neck, but it just didn't flow as well as I wished it would.

Finally, I reached my stop. Room B305 was just in reach, and I could faintly see the shadow of a seventeen-year-old boy inside. I wasn't expecting anything unusual, but once I turned the knob of the door and entered, it felt like an invisible force had slapped me across the face. Holy shit.

Now, like I'd said before, I wasn't into guys as much as most girls my age were. I didn't usually see them as sexually appealing, but instead just separate people. But there were those rare occasions when I just had to stop and say to myself wow, and this was definitely one of those moments.

The guy—who was obviously Sodapop Curtis—was gorgeous. Like movie star gorgeous, except that his face wasn't photo shopped. It was completely real, and lit up when he smiled a goofy grin in response to my entrance.

"Hi," he chimed, waving his hand at me and retrieving a pencil from his back pocket. "I'm Soda. You must be Calli."

"Yeah…" I walked over to Soda and carefully took a seat across from him. I was happy to know that my voice wasn't shaking or anything. How couldn't I have noticed this boy before, if he supposedly shared classes with me? Was I really that distant from the rest of my peers? "That's me," I continued, "I'm Calli. So…Soda. That's a unique name."

"Thanks." Soda brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. "Yours, too."

My name? My name wasn't unique, was it? Well, I guess Calli wasn't the most common girl's name in the world.

"Thank you," I answered, with unusual coolness. "Now…" I paused momentarily, staring at the books piled along the desk. Math—algebra and geometry. Literature—character interrogation and reading comprehension. Science—physics and photoelectric effect. Oh fuck, this was going to be a long hour.

Soda's grin faltered when he noticed my gaze, set on the massive stack of books.

"Sorry…" he murmured, assuming what I was thinking. "I'm kind of dumb…." By the broken look on his face, I could tell that he actually meant extremely when he said kind of.

"No…" I disagreed. "No one's dumb. I'll show you…. Let's get this tutoring session started."