A new day began without my notice, slowly filling my room with soft orange light. I'm awakened when this light shines through to the far corner of the room, where I'm buried underneath a mass of white blankets. I stand up quickly; I'm never groggy in the mornings. I walk over to the window where my book, dog-eared and lying open, awaits. While walking over to the window, I see pictures of me, when I was normal, when I had normal friends and a normal life. Those pictures are covered in dust now, though, and the friends are either dead or embarrassed to come over to a crazy person's house.
Mother cracks open the door to my room slowly, frightened, I think, of what she thinks her crazy daughter's up to. We used to be really close, my mother and I, but now we're kind of embarrassed of each other. She asks me if I want to go to the grocery store with her. I contemplate this for a while; obviously I don't want to go, so I debate between pleasing myself or herself. I choose her, tell her so, and close the door so I can get dressed, leaving her mildly pleased in the doorway.
The situation at the grocery store is awkward, to say the least. I'm even more introverted than usual in public. I try to put up a face of indifference, but fail miserably. I probably look miserable, trailing behind my mother and not bothering to answer any of her questions. She doesn't give up, for more her sake than mine, I suppose trying to fit the role of perfect mother with a moody daughter.
My eyes alight on someone. Ponyboy! He's with some guy with rusty-colored sideburns, and he looks normal. I suddenly wish I was talking to my mother, laughing, looking normal. Since that's not possible, I ask Mother if I can go to the restroom the grocery store provided when it was also some old guy's house. To try to hide. I try to squeeze myself between the produce and fast walk to the restroom. After a while, I walk out, and the coast seems clear. I walk normally then, with my mother's face in sight, a few aisles away.
Someone says hi. I walk quicker, because I know no one so he couldn't be talking to me. Suddenly a hand is on my shoulder. I turn around, and it's Ponyboy. He must have been popular to purposely make contact like that. He questions if he knows me, and I feel smaller as I reply with a yes. We strike up some sort of conversation, not a normal one, but a conversation.
The guy with the rusty sideburns asks who I am. Ponyboy replies I'm a friend from school and I admire his tact. Saying a friend from
school sounds allot better than a person who in all my classes at the psycho ward. My mother stares at me wide-eyed so I manage a good bye and take myself from the conversation.
At home, my mom is happier, humming and the like. When I go to my room she deflates a little, I guess she thinks I'm suddenly going to regain my social life or something.
I finish my book after a couple of hours, and decide to go outside for a walk. I don't bother telling my mother because I know she'd disapprove. Sneaking out the window on the first floor, I feel a kind of rush that I haven't felt in a while. I won't go far, I decide, just to the train-tracks and back.
I don't notice the gang of boys with switchblades until it's too late.