SOOO....Yep. New chapter. This one may not make much sense...I wrote it when it was late, but I'm so busy I haven't had the time to proofread it. Hope you enjoy though!
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Angie wasn't quite certain when she decided that there was only one way out of this horrific situation she'd gotten herself into. The obvious jail time she would have to do seemed nothing in comparison to carrying a child she didn't want.
She gripped the steering wheel tighter in an effort to brace off the thoughts and concentrate solely on driving. Her tendons grew white. Chill bumps slithered like a snake up her arm. Sodapop didn't notice the growing tension. He'd been brooding silently, staring out into the blackness for about an hour or so.
He just wanted to be home. He felt like a bird whose wings had been clipped. It was like he was suffocating under her tyrannous control. Before it had been bearable…he'd been cooped up inside her basement. But now he saw the world. He saw kids laughing, couples holding hands, people smiling. Never once had he thought that it'd come to a day when he'd be thinking why can't I be like them?
Sometime in the early morning Sodapop dozed off. He woke with a start when he heard the car door slam. Angie was stepping back into the car.
He rubbed his aching hand to the side of his face in frustration. He could've so easily just slipped out into the night…
"Sodapop…"
He looked up. She was vulnerable again. He was going to take the chance, he was going to beg her to free him. Something in her eyes told him she would. But she stunned him yet again.
"I…I want you to watch the sunrise with me. Just…one last thing."
One last thing…
The words rang through his mind like gun shots in a distant mountain. He couldn't dissect the words, he couldn't read Angie. He became stiff out of fear of what she was going to do. Would she drive both of them over a cliff? Would she kill herself?
The car rumbled to life once more and then continued down the ribbon of black road.
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"Mark…how could she do this?" Judy was no longer panicking. She was no longer alert, no longer trying to dodge, dig, or lie her way out of the truth. At last she had accepted it.
Angie had lost it, or perhaps, never even had it.
Mark only half listened. He was too busy listening to the low chatter of the police who were poking around in his basement.
"Honey?"
"Hm?" Mark turned to his wife. She was kneading her hands and staring into his eyes expectantly.
"I don't know how much longer I can stand this." She rose from the floral print couch that had once been her mother's and paced around the room.
"They'll leave soon enough, dear."
"That's not it Mark, I just can't take it any longer! There has to be something wrong with me. I was given two perfectly normal girls and I've lost both of them. This…Angie is our fault Mark."
Mark only shook his head, still refusing to believe her. There was nothing wrong with them, they were perfectly sane…but Angie, she'd always been a little imp. Oh, he'd never say it, but he was almost sure it had been her who'd killed her sister.
"What she did to those boys is our fault."
She had stopped pacing. She stood in front of Mark with her hands in her hair.
Mark moved to speak with her, to console her, but she backed away like a frightened kitten.
"No, don't touch me. I'm going to apologize to those boys, if you're coming with me, tell me now."
They both knew there was more meaning behind this phrase than was on the surface.
Mark still refused. He loved his wife, just not who she was becoming.
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A knock sounded from the door, something that was unusual. Darry parted his way through the clutter and the rambunctious boys and went to the door. He took a swift glance at Ponyboy, who laid sickly on the couch. He was watching a television show that Two-Bit had turned on.
"Excuse me I just…"
The woman with the large round brown eyes and the copper colored hair was strikingly pretty for her age. Darry wouldn't have hesitated to let her in if the house had been presentable.
"I'm…oh goodness. I don't know how to begin."
"You can come in, if you like." Darry offered after giving her a strange look. She bore a slight resemblance to a certain someone that he'd rather not be thinking about.
"No, no…out here will be just fine. Can we sit down?"
They both sat. Judy sighed and rubbed her hands together. It was cold, but that didn't matter.
"I'm Angie's mother."
And the she launched into the whole story of Angie's childhood. She then rambled on, and after every sentence, threw in numerous apologies.
"We just didn't understand her…we…I'm sorry about all of this."
When she finished, Darry's face was solemn and pale. He had been through so much shit in that girl's basement, and he wasn't about to pity her when she had his brother. But something inside of him told him that he should pity the girl. He decided at last that a miserable life was no justification for her cruel deeds.
He let Judy go after she had told her story. He didn't want to talk to Judy. Had she been anyone else's mother he could've listened to her for hours. She just simply looked too much like Angie.
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"If you can hitch a ride back, you can go home." Angie said at last. The sun had tainted her face a bright orange. Her hair shimmered gloriously under the light. Sodapop didn't dare to object. He sprinted off.
Freedom at last, he thought. He didn't look back at the lonely figure in the meadow.
She sat in a surreal golden meadow. When she drove by she knew it was the perfect place. It was the last time she was going to see the sun. It was the last time she would ever see Sodapop.
She didn't look for him when she headed back to her vehicle. She took the bottles of liquor and headed back out to the spot in the meadow. She sucked in a whiff of the musky scent of pines. For a short moment as she reminisced, she could almost hear his soft breathing. Just a moment ago he had been sitting next to her…
But not willingly, she realized at last.
So she gave in. Maybe she'd staved off the urge for what seemed like forever, but there had been purpose then, and there was none now.
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"Is she still breathing?" The anxious bystander asked.
"I don't know…" The man replied worriedly as his fingers searched through the dark for a pulse.
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Ooooh! Cliff hanger! Is our beloved Angie dead? I don't know yet. :)
