As Cherry finally made it up towards the outside of a hamburger joint, she had noticed that Dallas' car was parked right across the street. It was from this that she had remembered that Dallas had often crashed bars and friends' houses, since his father was abusive. There was no way that she'd catch him anywhere near his own house. As she parked her car, Cherry took a moment to breathe and construct a valid plan. Should she walk inside herself, or should she wait for him to come outside? What if he never goes outside?

Dallas was sitting at the bar while having a few more drinks. "Where'v you been this whole time, Dal?" one of the girls asked. Dallas took another slightly drunken sip from his cold glass, turned to her and muttered, "Places." All you could hear were the sounds of men yelling while playing billiards, and the amplified sounds of songs blasting out of the speakers from all corners of the room. Dallas was talking to the bartender, which had been a good friend of his. His name was Kris, and ever since Dallas had moved into town Kris had always had a soft spot for the kid, almost like he was a close nephew to him. Kris was sort of the " alternate dad" of Dallas' alternate home, which mostly took place at this very bar. He had always allowed Dallas to crash for several nights upstairs.

"Dal, how's everything? How are the boys?" Kris asked.

Dallas laughed, shaking his head, "Fuckin' great, man. Just great." Kris frowned, he knew that Dallas was out of his head; he wasn't talking to Dallas, he was talking to a drunken kid.

"I'm guessing you're staying here for the night?" Dallas didn't respond. His attention was drawn towards a girl who was eyeing him from across the room. "The fuck you eye'in me for?" he spat.

The girl walked towards Dallas and sat on the stool beside him. "Kris, what are you doing servin' this kid drinks?" she asked as she continued to stare at him.

"Jasmine, meet Dallas. Dallas, Jasmine" Kris introduced the two. Dallas looked her up and down, but he couldn't see anything. All he saw was a person sitting in front of him; nothing had turned him on. Normally Dallas never seriously picked up on girls, unless he had really observed something special about them. Otherwise, he enjoyed fooling around a bit; harassing plenty of girls that he didn't know, like Cherry, for instance. He always took pleasure in being a real asshole at times, but that was just him having fun; it was how he grew up. But right now, he was in no mood for discussion; he was mad.

Finally Dallas replied, "Yeah okay, and how old are you, sweetheart?". Jasmine responded with a short and simple answer, "Twenty-two.".

"Oh, so you're an older girl, huh?" he ran the word 'older' through his mouth slowly, giving a long emphasis within each syllable.

Jasmine laughed, "I guess you can call that old, for someone like you."

"Someone like me?"

"Yeah, you're young. And you're underaged." she smiled, grabbing the drink away from him.

"Yeah, yeah, then we're done talkin' here."

"What's eating you up?" she asked.

"I said get lost," he quickly responded. He got up out of his chair and took off his jacket, "fuckin' broad." he muttered.

Dallas began to notice others glaring in surprise at the front door entrance. At first he had thought that they were all staring at him, and it made him upset. However, he was nearly in shock to look behind him and see Cherry standing in the doorway. She had her eyes stuck on Dallas, and she continued to look straight at him from across the room. "What you doin' here?" Dallas said. Cherry walked towards him, ignoring the other men and women that had continued to stare at her form all directions. "You shouldn't be here," Dallas continued, "girls like you aren't s'posed to be here."

"You're drunk." Cherry said with a straight face.

"I'm not drunk, Cherry. So you need me to take you home, or what?" Dallas replied.

Dallas suddenly noticed one of the men open the entrance door to two greasers; one of them was young. "Dal!" Johnny yelled through the screen, as Dallas gave the man a nod, letting him know that they were okay to let in. Walking alongside Johnny was Two-Bit. Cherry continued to talk as the two of them walked up towards Cherry and Dallas, entering the conversation.

"No, I drove here, Dally. My parents kicked me out."

Two-Bit cut in, "My, my, you don't say! What for? Must've been somethin' real bad if they sent a little girl like you out on the streets!"

Dallas and Cherry looked at each other with sharp eyes. Dallas then turned back to Two-Bit, then back at Cherry. A short pause of silence was established between the four of them, until Dallas chimed in.

"Somethin' complicated, don't worry about it, man. Don't worry 'bout it." Dallas muttered quietly as he reached over, put is arm around Cherry, and pulled her closer to stand next to him.

"Hi Johnny," Cherry quietly said with a sweet voice. Johnny grinned and waved back. "How's Marcia, Two-Bit?" Cherry continued. Dallas became slightly annoyed that Cherry was keeping conversation between the two of them. He wasn't here for small talk, he wanted to get everything over with; he was already upset and annoyed of her not admitting to Dallas being the father of their child.

"Why, you guys haven't seen each other lately? She's good." Two-Bit replied.

"Hey so uh, did you guys need somethin'? What's up?" Dallas became impatient.

Johnny and Two-bit looked at each other, then Johnny replied, "No, we were just droppin' by 'cause we thought you might be here. And besides, we're waitin' on Ponyboy to hangout. We were just lookin' for somethin' to do."

Dallas nodded, "Alright, cool. Uh listen, if you guys don't mind I gotta do somethin', but maybe I'll see you around tomorrow, yeah?"

Dallas took Cherry upstairs to the room that he crashed in daily. As he closed the door behind him, he said, "So what happened?"

Cherry sat on Dallas' bed and explained, "They just…they just didn't care what I had to say. They threw me out.".

"And what about Bob's parents now? They mad too?"

Cherry looked up at Dallas, she had realized that at that time, Dallas was still under the impression that Cherry had lied about him being the father. She had to tell him what happened.

"I didn't lie to them, Dally. They know you're the father." Dallas just continued to stare back at Cherry, "What?" he asked.

Cherry stood up and began walking towards him. "I'm such a jerk for even thinking about doing that to you. I don't want to ever hide you from anyone. I was being selfish, I wasn't thinking about how much that would hurt you. I'm so sorry, Dallas."

She stopped and stood right in front of him. Cherry expected Dallas to go on a rampage, or even to just simply ignore her apology. However, he had surprised her by immediately taking her into his arms and quietly stating, "Don't worry 'bout it, don't worry 'bout it. As long as you're okay, you gonna be okay?"

Cherry remained in Dallas' arms and mumbled, "Yes.". She could smell his scent on his shirt, the Dallas scent. It was warm, it was comforting, and it made butterflies turn within her stomach. His breath had smelt of alcohol as he kissed her on her cheek.

"Dallas," Cherry looked him in the eyes, "if I ask you an honest question, do you think you could give me an honest answer?"

"Sure, what's up?"

Cherry guided him towards the bed to sit down. She took his hands, but his body language began to tell her that he did not want to sit down. Standing in front of each other, Cherry continued,

"I can tell that there's been something bothering you lately, and I just wanted to know if there was anything that you wanted to talk about with me."

Dallas looked around the room confused, and then back at her. He then responded with a firm, "No." Cherry knew that Dallas was lying. Deep down inside, Cherry had a hunch that Dallas was having many doubts and insecurities. She just needed to find a way to bring them out of him.

Realizing that there was no way of doing this, Cherry simply nodded with an "Oh," and sat down on his bed. Dallas took a long pause to look at her, and then suddenly felt a strange feeling come over him. He began to sit next to her and grab one of her hands gently, as he replied, "Are you ever gonna be allowed back with your parents again?"

"I don't even know right now, I'm trying not to think about it. Probably not for the next couple of days, but maybe after."

"I'm sure they'll want you home soon, no parents like yours are gonna send their daughter out when she's pregnant. Your folks aren't like that."

Cherry looked up at Dallas with narrowed eyes. "You don't know my parents, Dallas. You've never met them once."

Dallas tucked Cherry's hair behind her ear and stared into her eyes. He could see that she was worried, he knew Cherry's eyes like the back of his hand.

"Yeah, so? I know they care 'nough about ya' to put a damn roof above your head." he pointed towards his chest, "They care enough about you to make sure you're never around guys like me, or make sure you're never hurt."

"Dallas, stop it with that!" Cherry lowered her eye brows.

"With what?"

"You always do that, that thing. You say things like 'guys like me' and always imply that you're the worst choice for me. And you're not."

"You don't think I've ever heard it all before? You think these assholes, these parents, you think they all go handy-dandy over a greaser like me? You think people look at me like- like how they looked at Bob? Or Mike? Nobody, not even my god damn father and blood; nobody gives a shit, Cherry. They don't give a shit, and neither do I. I take pride in my record, in my friends, in what I do. Period. And because I don't fly with any of their bullshit, they know that I'm no good."

Hearing things like this always reminded Cherry of what had made her love Dallas over the other guys that she could have chosen. He was an individual, and he had no desire to change for anybody. She loved when Dallas had opened himself up to her about things like this, but it broke her heart when hearing many of the things that he had said. Some of the stories she had heard, like stories of Dallas' father, or his past, for instance, it always made her cherish the life that she had. Cherry hated the way her parents ran her life, but Dallas' stories always brought out the gratefulness within Cherry. Hearing Dallas talk had always made Cherry have a little more respect for him, especially looking back at what she had thought of him beforehand, when she used to judge him only as a greaser. Behind all that tough exterior, there was a human boy.

Dallas let go of Cherry's hand, and placed his hands onto his knees. He leaned forward and took a deep breath, almost as if he were preparing to say something that took a lot of thought. Finally, he sighed, looked right at Cherry, and continued: "I don't want you pretending like you belong with me; I want you to know that you belong with me, regardless of how much of a fucking mistake this was. Because you wanted an honest answer, and my honest answer is that I'm sick of being the 'greaser that never takes you places' or 'the guy that made your life go downhill' or some shit. People think they know me, they think I treat you like shit. But they don't know shit. And fuck what they know, because I know that you've become my world, and you mean more to me than anything I've ever known."

Cherry wanted to cry. Not of sadness, and not of happiness either. Well, maybe happiness; all she knew was that she had never heard or felt anyone love her as much as Dallas had expressed his feelings for her at this very moment. Cherry knew that she had loved Dallas just the same; if not, then probably more. But all she knew was that he had deserved to know how much he had meant to her.

Cherry wished that she could have come up with something more passionate and specific as Dallas had said, but instead she could only release three words that were on her mind at that very moment, "I love you."

I love you, she both said and thought at the same time. Three simple words, and she meant every syllable. She wanted Dallas more than anything that she could ever think of, or know of. Cherry wanted to scream at the top of her lungs so that everyone could hear her, her mother, her father, her friends; she wanted to scream I love Dallas Winston to all of them. All this time, she had constantly been living for the people who surrounded her; but what about Cherry? Why couldn't Cherry love who she loved, no matter what? Why couldn't Cherry live for Cherry, and nobody else? Perhaps that was why Cherry had found such bliss within Dallas' lifestyle; she had hoped to become more reckless and careless, just like he was. She saw qualities in him that she had only dreamed to possess ever since the day she had realized who she was. Cherry loved Dallas.

Cherry placed her hand on Dallas' cheek, and then leaned her head forward until her chin was resting upon his shoulder. When she talked, she softly spoke right by his ear.

"I wouldn't change a thing about that night, at the drive-in." she smiled. She continued, "Even all the shit that Bob's death put me through, I wouldn't change a thing as long as I knew I'd get you in the end."

Dallas softly spoke back, "For real?"

Cherry gave Dallas the longest kiss on the lips, and when she released him, they allowed each other's faces to caress with one another. "I love you," Cherry said. Dallas replied, "And I love you."

Cherry hadn't felt this passionate for Dallas in a while; for the past several days she had been awaiting in fear, waiting for her future to collapse right in front of her. She backed away from Dallas' shoulder to look into his eyes. And before she knew it, Cherry had begun undressing herself, one article of clothing at a time. She continued to look Dallas in the eye as she lifted her sweater above her head. She slipped off her shoes and undid her shorts. As Dallas watched, he slowly pulled her closer towards him. The both of them sat side by side on the edge of the bed, and Cherry began to lift Dallas' shirt above his head. He quietly looked her up and down, at her face, at her body; he grabbed her hand as she began to stand up in front of him, just before sitting on his lap. His hands slid from hers and appeared just above each sides of her waist, feeling her soft skin.

"You know," Cherry said, "after the baby, I'll probably never look like this again."

Dallas smiled, and he didn't let go of her. She slowly sat down in his lap as Dallas began to feel himself enter her. Cherry slowly moved up and down, as Dallas developed a firm grip on the sides of her waist. He cradled her back, allowing her to lean backwards away from him, as he leaned his face inward towards her breasts, kissing her passionately. He then pulled her back in, allowing him to kiss her neck, and then her lips. He then calmly spoke between kisses, "Cherry baby- you're gonna be beautiful- for as long- as- you -live."