Disclaimer: S.E. Hinton owns all rights to The Outsiders.

Chapter One

Breathing is hard when you've got a boy sprawled out on top of you. Giggling at the nonsense he's whispering in your ear and being tickled by his breath on your exposed skin makes breathing even harder when he's where he is. There's nothing sexual about it really, because you can't feel anything moving in his pants and his heart and your heart are both beating at a normal pace, but it's still a nice feeling … even though you can hardly breathe. I mean, I enjoyed it.

Izzy said he didn't see how being laid on was comfortable when the person lying on you was twenty pounds heavier than you, but I really didn't mind so much. Soda had this way of not lying completely on me and tucking his one arm under mine so that his full weight wasn't on me. Heck, even if Soda did put his full weight on me, I don't think I would have cared. Even I died from suffocation, I'd be okay with it.

Maybe that was just me getting stoned off his scent. I don't think I'd ever like to die, really, but I guess if I had to die by being crushed by a hunk like Sodapop Curtis, it'd at least be an interesting story that my brothers could tell to their kids.

Your-aunt-died-by-being-laid-on-by-this-guy-she-used-to-go-with.

I could see them now. Birdie's kids would have the same blond mop on their heads as he does now, and their tanned faces would be full of laughter just like his. Izzy's kids would be the exact opposite of his doped up ways, with their hair combed to the side, nice and neat. The girls would wear proper dresses and the boys would wear collared shirts, so that they know how to act when the time is right and can break free when they so choose to. Izzy had it all planned out. Said that was how it worked out—with irony—so he might as well make it happen.

"Quit lying all over my sister when you aren't even going steady."

I groaned, my face heating up in embarrassment as Soda rolled off of me. "Iz-zy!"

Soda chuckled and pushed me playfully as he sat up. We'd been sort of seeing each other for a few weeks now. I'd met him through my younger brother when Birdie decided he wanted to take me over to the drag strips one night. I had a beer in my hand; Sodapop didn't. I remember I thought he was already three sheets to the wind and worried myself senseless when he got into the driver's seat one of the many souped up cars. I later found out he was stone cold sober. That was after he blew the doors off the car he was racing, and I forgot I'd even been worried in the first place. I tend to do that when I'm soused—forget things, I mean.

I didn't see him again until he came into the bookstore I work at with his kid brother about a month later, and even then we just barely had a conversation.

"Yer Birdie's sister, ain't you?"

I took the book from his brother and rang it up. "Yeah. You're Sodapop, right?"

He grinned, and then I grinned, and then I awkwardly told them how much it was, and then his brother handed me the money. That was it.

Soda and I were leaning against the couch when Izzy came back out of the kitchen with a bowl of cereal, shirtless, and wiping milk off his chin. "What're ya'll watchin'?"

"Birdman," I answered and closed my eyes as Soda absentmindedly played with my hair.

"Ain't that a kids show?"

"Yep."

Izzy came around and sat on the sofa, careful not to spill anything, and relaxed. He did this every Saturday morning. I guess he really didn't have much of a choice when he worked all week and then bartended on weekend nights for extra money. He wanted out of this tiny apartment and into his own, but I didn't see that happening anytime soon really since our dad was having a real tough time with the bills ever since the divorce.

Mom still sent Birdie a few dollars here and there, but that was because he was the baby of the family and I was almost nineteen now. He'd always be her little Duncan, but she wanted to do what she had to give up when my parents first had Izzy. She wanted to be a photographer. So off she went with some real gone cat to do just that, leaving us with a dad that was always working. I kind of envied her.

Soda turned to me. "Feel like getting out of here, Andy? Like down to the Ribbon or something?"

I ran my fingers through my hair and shook out my waves, smiling. "Sure.

Soda stood up and pulled me to my feet. "We're cuttin' out, Izzy."

He gave me one of those looks he always gives whenever someone points out the obvious. "I heard," he said, and then turned back to the TV as he shoved another spoonful of cereal into his mouth.

XX

"So let me get this straight. You're named after the Queen that liked cake, and have brothers named Izzy and Birdie?" The boy that I had just come to know as Two-Bit Mathews sat before me with a comical grin slapped on his dumbfounded face, eyebrow cocked.

I giggled. "Basically." It was kind of odd to be asked about my name since no one ever really did, but from what Soda had told me about Two-Bit before, I had to guess this was just the way he acted—like a complete ditz with a goofy smile. I was in fact named after Marie Antoinette, but that was because my mom craved cake when she was pregnant with me and Dad thought he was being funny by saying, "Let them eat cake!" every time he brought her a slice.

"Ain't Birdie a movie or somethin'?"

"Yeah."

Two-Bit slapped the table suddenly and looked Soda in the eye. "Wellup, I think it's safe to say that there's finally a set of parents out there as weird as yours were, Soda."

"Sometimes you're thicker than a five dollar malt, Two-Bit." Soda blew a straw wrapper at him and chuckled. "They're nicknames."

Two-Bit threw the wrapper back at him. "Tough luck for you then," he said and turned back to me. "So, your highness, what's the story? Your brothers as groovy as you?"

I paused. I wasn't sure if he was hitting on me or making a comment about how I looked. Based on the way Soda reached over and started a slap-fight with him, though, I guessed it was the latter.

"I ain't never seen Soda with a hippie broad before, but it would explain why's he ain't been as greasy lately."

I opened my mouth to protest but closed it a second later and vaguely listened in as Soda and Two-Bit teased each other.

"Ain't my fault you seem to have overlooked everything around you," Soda said.

Two-Bit slickly ran his palm over the side of his hair, looking cockier than I than I thought possible with a grin like his. "You're just jealous of my classic good looks."

They went on, but I quit paying attention.

I wasn't exactly sure what I was. I definitely bought into hippie lifestyle, but I wasn't one hundred percent into it. My friends Randy and Mary were really into it. They went around in the van and tripped a lot, and they were always smoking grass. I was all for getting stoned and blitzed, but if you wanted to know the honest truth, protests and LSD scared the shit outta me. I liked to be in control.

That was kind of why I envied my mother. She wandered around wherever she wanted to, with a guy she didn't have to stay with, and she didn't have put on any appearances or stay for any reasons. She could just leave. When things got bad or boring, she could just leave. She controlled her life now; no one else.

Some girl plopped down next to Two-Bit and gave him a long kiss. "Hey," she said, not bothering to even acknowledge Soda and I.

Soda cleared his throat and grinned widely, tipping an imaginary hat. "Afternoon, Sarah."

She forced a smile at him. "Sodapop." Then she looked at me in disdain, sat back, and blew her bangs out of her eyes. "Who's the chick?"

Two-Bit slung an arm around her shoulder comfortably. "Her majesty, Marie Antoinette, at your service."

I smiled. "I go by Andy."

Sarah twirled a piece of hair with her finger and studied me for a moment. "What's your last name?"

My head jerked back slightly out of confusion. "… Bird," I answered slowly.

"You're Birdie's sis, ain't you?"

Well, that made her question make more sense, I guess. Birdie was always out and about meeting people. "Yeah."

She smiled genuinely for the first time since she'd sat down. "I thought you looked familiar."

"You know the moviestar?" Two-Bit joked, making Sarah roll her eyes good-naturedly at him.

"He's in my math class."

Two-Bit shook his head. "Ya'll gotta be makin' him up. I've never met no Birdie in my life, but here you go telling me he's in your math class,"—he motioned to me—"and you go telling me he's your brother,"—he waved his hand at Soda—"and you go telling me that he shows up at the drag strip a lot. Ya'll are messin' with me, aren't ya?"

Soda laughed. "Maybe 'f you weren't so soused and pickin' fights while you're there all the time, you would've run into him."

Two-Bit tried to reply but Soda kept throwing things at him left and right, and every time he did almost manage to get a word in, Sarah quieted him with a kiss. It was a real good time until the time between kisses got shorter and shorter until eventually Soda pushed me out of the booth and led me out of the diner.

"We'll let them pick up the tab," he said, grinning and grabbed my hand.

I smiled at the warm feeling it gave me. Our relationship wasn't anything official-like, and he'd only kissed me a couple of times since he first asked me out on our first date a month ago, but I wasn't complaining. Of course, I kind of did want it all to be official, to kiss him more deeply and for him to test his limits—not that there were many—but it may have just been Izzy's nagging getting to me.

You-hang-out-too-much-for-it-not-to-be-more-baby-sister.

I liked having one foot in the single realm and one foot in the relationship realm. Call me indecisive, I guess.

Soda pulled me down an alley suddenly and stopped five feet in, pulling me to him. I giggled before I could stop myself from sounding like a little girl. "What're you doing?"

"I had this urge," he started to say, but I interrupted him before he could finish explaining.

"I can't help you with that in an alleyway, you know."

His eyebrows shot up suggestively, making me blush in realization that that wasn't what he'd meant. He placed his finger under my chin and tilted it upwards, leaning in. "Yer cute when you get embarrassed an' all," he said, then kissed me.

My hands fisted at his t-shirt and I pressed my body into his, wanting the kiss to deepen when we suddenly broke apart at the sound of a gunshot.

We ran.

A/N: I realize that Soda isn't all over the place like I tend to see with a lot of writing, but I kind of like to think he feeds off of excitement, so the more people he's around, the more excitable he gets.

Please review. I'd really appreciate some feedback on this story as I've never written this kind of story before. Feel free to tell me I screwed up. I'm pretty sure I can handle it.