Stumble
Chapter Twenty
Disclaimer - I do not own the Outsiders. Or Don't Go by Hope Partlow.
– He remembers how he's not supposed to feel –
Dallas had been avoiding me. For almost two weeks. And I didn't know why. Every time I saw him, he wouldn't look me and in the eye and make up some lame excuse about having to go do something-or-other.
And I was left behind.
Truthfully, it scared me a little bit. Why was he doing this? Had he given up on me? I didn't know what I would do if I didn't have Dallas to keep me grounded.
I decided I would confront him about it. I went to the Curtis house to see him sitting on the couch. He looked up at me and quickly looked away. "Dally, can I talk to you?" I asked, not giving him time to leave.
"Uh, yeah, sure," he said, trying and failing to sound cool.
He followed me out onto the porch and leaned on the railing. We were silent for a moment. It was the first awkward silence there had been between us in a long time. He just stared across the street as I stared at him.
"What's goin' on?" I finally asked.
"What do you mean?" he replied, still not looking at me.
"You know exactly what I mean," I shot back. "Why have you been avoiding me? You got another girl or somethin'?"
That's when he looked at me, shock present on his face. "No," he said forcefully. "There's no other girl."
"Than, what is it?" I persisted.
"Look, Morgan, I can't do this anymore," he told me.
I felt my stomach drop and my throat swell and my heart break. He was leaving me? Just like that?
I felt tears in my eyes and I took a deep, shuddering breath. He looked at me again. There was something in his eyes. Something I couldn't quite place, but it wasn't hatred or disgust or anger or even pity. It wasn't something you'd expect to see in the eyes of someone ending a relationship.
His arm moved and he almost reached out to me, but he clenched his fist and his arm dropped back to his side.
"Why?" I croaked. It was all I could say.
"Because," he seemed to be picking his words very carefully. "Because when people see me with you, they think things, and..." He trailed off, but he didn't need to say more.
"It's because of your reputation," I said. "It's because you're scared! You're scared that when people see us together they think you've gone soft! Well, you wanna know the truth, Dallas? It doesn't matter what they think because you're a coward!"
He didn't yell back. He didn't even look mad. He just left.