Disclaimer: I do not own the Outsiders or the song "Secrets".

A/N: "It's Halloween, everyone's entitled to one good scare." Halloween (1978)

I need another story. Something to get off my chest. My life gets kinda boring. Need something that I can confess. 'Til all my sleeves are stained red from all the truth that I've said. Come by it honestly I swear. Thought you saw me wink, no. I've been on the brink, so

I grip my stomach. It's hurting again and I think I'm going to throw up. The feeling won't stop and the images won't get out of my head no matter how hard I beg them to. Being around all this food isn't helping matters. I know it's not the food though. It's never just the food.

Jennie's running in circles trying to wait on tables. I'm standing up front, getting up the strength to walk to my table and write down their orders. Somehow, my feet aren't moving and I can't make them.

"What is wrong with you?" Jennie hisses into my ear as she passes by. "Your table has been waiting for ten minutes for their drinks! What are you doing?"

I turn away from her and run into the bathroom. I open the nearest stall and fall to my knees, letting out my stomach.

Once I'm finished I sit on the floor. Just long enough for me to catch my breath and to make sure I'm not going to upchuck anymore. I flush the toilet and wash my hands before going back out and facing Jennie.

She's gotten my table their drinks and turned their order in. She gives me a glare. "Are you ok?"

I wipe my mouth off and grab my note pad along with a pen. "Fine."

"If you're sick just tell Mrs. A. I can cover for you."

I shake my head. "I'm not sick. I'm fine. Really. It's just some kind of nerve thing I think."

I go and make my rounds at my tables, apologizing for not waiting on them properly. Soon the diner is near empty and I find myself standing beside Jennie behind the counter again and this time, there are no distractions.

"You gonna tell me what's going on or am I going to have to make a scene?"

I rest my head on the cool counter. My face is red hot and I'm sweating. The coolness calms me down for a minute and my stomach rests. "I feel like shit, Jennie. I feel like complete shit."

"Tell me what happened, Dan." She puts her weight on her elbows as she leans across the slick counter top.

I pull the string to my apron, not wanting to make eye contact with her. "It's about last night...about Peter. We had a date."

She glares, fully standing up slowly and popping her back. She gives me a worrisome look and pays closer attention. Her eyes glare at me as I stand straight up. "What did you do?"

I shake my head again and again, not wanting to live, or retell, the moment. It's embarrassing enough to have to think about it, let alone have to say it out loud. There's a saying: nothing's ever true unless you say it out loud.

"Tell me you didn't," she pleads. She narrows her eyes. "Danni tell me you didn't-"

"No...we didn't."

She stares, still observing me as I pick up a tray and take it to a table. I can feel her eyes burning into my back and I know what she's thinking and what she's wondering. I leave her alone with her thoughts.

"Danni, come on!" His feet shake the ground under me. The leaves on the tree fall in front of me. "Please come out."

Here I'm safe. The darkness hides me and the width of the tree protects me. Here, I can breathe. I can let my stomach settle and I can be alone with my evil thoughts. I can throw up in peace and silently cry alone.

"I'm sorry!" he yells through the woods at no one. "Danni, just come out and talk to me. Please!"

My chest is so tight. There's a hammer beating against my head telling me how stupid I am. There's someone screaming at me and telling me how stupid I always was. That no matter where I turn or what I do, the past keeps coming back up.

I've pushed it away too fast. Maybe that's it. Maybe it was too soon to even try to be intimate. What happened was just some stupid accident. Something that I didn't have any control over. It's not my fault.

I'm so tired. I'm so tired of lies after lies. Peter is lying to me. I could feel it on his breath and on his body. Everyone lies. There are too many to keep up with. We all say things to make everyone feel better and to hide the truth. We lie to ourselves and that may just be as worse as lying to people's faces.

There's too much that's unknown in this story. Someone needs to start telling the truth.

"What is wrong?" He's found me. He's touching me and looking me over to make sure I'm ok. He's hugging me and telling me how sorry he is and he hopes he didn't hurt me. "Jesus, Dan. What happened, babe?"

"I need to go home," I say into his shoulder. "I need to be alone."

He lets go of me. He looks at me and I can't bear to see his face. "Is it something I did?"

"No," I say with a sniffle. "I thought it'd help. It just fucked everything up again and now...I don't know what to do."

He steadies me. He's confused and hurt. "What are you talking about?"

"Take me home Peter. Just take me home."

"You wanna talk about?" She's found me. She's cornered me this time. "Just tell me what happened."

The phone sits in my hand. I've called three times. I don't know why I continued or why I started. Something inside of me just wanted to hear his voice and that's all - to be reminded of what he sounds like. I never planned on saying anything, or maybe I did. He was the only person that I wanted to talk to and he's not there.

As bad as I hate him, all I want to do is talk to him. I'm not sure why and I know it's wrong and I'll probably regret it in the morning anyway.

He doesn't answer though.

"Tell me what happened!" Jennie says loudly. "Danni, I will force you to tell me so you might as well try spilling out your guts willingly or I swear-"

I swallow hard. I take a deep breath and I shake my head. "We were right there. Then I pulled away...I fucking pulled away and then I ran off like some kid. I...I looked at Peter and I didn't see him. You know who I saw, Jennie?"

She's silent which gives me my answer.

"I didn't mean for it to happen," I say. "I kept my eyes closed but then I opened them and...he was there. I dunno, I got scared so I ran. I couldn't get the image out of my head and I felt like I was broken and the world just fell on me."

I turn my back to her and go wait on the table that just came in.

"Have you talked to him?"

"He's called," I tell her. "He's called a million times but I don't answer or just tell him I have to go see Darry or that I'm sick. He's probably caught on by now. I avoided him at school and I think he thinks that I hate him and...I don't.

She puts her arms around my shoulders and holds me there. She smells like flowers and sunshine. I never understood how I person could smell like sunshine, especially someone like Jennie, but that's all I smell right now and I can see her beautiful golden blonde hair through my tear filled eyes.

Her hand holds my back. She doesn't say anything or move. She only sighs. "I don't know what to do anymore," I say into her shoulder. "I wanted to do it with him so badly. I wanted to do it for myself but I just...I couldn't."

"People act like sex is the most important thing in the world. Who even gives a fuck about sex? I know you don't so why try? Sex is just sex, Danni. It's not declaring love for someone anymore."

I shake my head, pushing her away. "It's not even about the sex! It's about the fact that I can't show love for someone I like anymore! I do care about sex! Okay! I just do!"

Her eyes go dark. "You know why I haven't had sex with your brother? It's because I think sex is just a symbol society throws on us and forces us to do it. It's not love, the smallest animal can do it. I'm not going to have sex with someone just to show affection when real affection lies in the heart. How late you'll stay on the phone with someone when they are so upset that they can't sleep. Or running to the grocery store after a long day at work because your boyfriend can't leave his sick brother to get food for his sister and brother. Or holding him for hours after he just feels like a failure. That's true affection."

I press my lips together and scowl. "You just don't understand what it feels like to finally feel free and then to be sent packing back to the very same place you were before. A place full of hurt and pain! I had that true affection before and then it was gone before I had time to act and I still don't know what I did to deserve it!"

"Do you know what it feels like to be someone new? Do you know how it feels to swallow a small pill and be transformed into someone other than yourself? You don't, Danni. Because there's no magic pill that can change who you are. Dating someone you're not interested in won't stop you from having feelings for someone who is bad for you. Pushing back issues won't make them go away. Pretending like nothing happened doesn't mean it didn't happen."

I shake my head over and over again. "You don't understand."

"I've tried to change who I was more times than I can count. You know what my childhood was like? I had a father who drank, who didn't work, and who spewed venom at me every hour of everyday, who was involved in some deep shit. You don't think I tried to black all that out? You don't think I moved up here so I could be someone new? Someone who wasn't involved in what I was involved in? You can't make your problems just disappear. No matter where you go, who you're with, they'll follow you. You can't change the person you are and you can only change feelings if you yourself are able to change them. You can't force yourself to feel a certain way."

"You know how I feel, Jennie? I like to pretend that there'd be one morning where I'd wake up and not think of the past and how happy I once was. I'd finally understand why he left me, why he did what he did, and I'll be at peace. But that doesn't happen. I wake up every fucking morning with the same questions, with the same thoughts and I wonder what it was I did that made him...that made him do what he did. Every morning it's the same thing, and I pray that one day it'll stop but it doesn't."

"You're not over him. You never were. I can't tell you what to do from here, Danni, but I do know that you can't keep up this game with Peter. You need to figure out what you need and move on. It's killing you and you need to figure out where you stand before someone gets hurt."

Soda's here every day. He comes by after work with Ponyboy and leftover food from Dairy Queen where Pony is now employed. He sits on the end of Darry's bed and eats and they watch baseball and cartoons. The three stay until dark.

I'd come more often. I should. It's the feelings I get when I step foot in the building. The smell is overwhelming. It brings back memories I'm not ready or stable enough to relive. Death is everywhere in the air. It stinks and hurts.

Right now, there's an elder woman sitting on the bench by the phone. She's here every evening. She keeps waiting for a phone call. She says someone is calling for her but she won't say who. Then when the phone finally rings, she gets really excited, but then her face falls as she finds that the call is never for her.

Doctors push and shove through the halls. They never look up and make eye-contact or even smile. They don't apologize when they pump into someone. They act like they are going somewhere important when really, they're not. They keep their eyes on their clipboard, and keep piling through like a bull, not caring who they stomp over.

Sick people are everyone and no one bothers to cover their mouths when they sneeze or cough. When you round a corner, you can see another person crying. Someone new just died and in another five minutes, studies show that someone else will too. It's a never ending cycle and this is the root of it.

Darry doesn't belong here with all these people. He's become them though, right down to the appearance.

"Nice to see you here."

Some days, when he's so drained from treatments, he doesn't know who I am. Sometimes he calls me Kat or Jennie or once in a blue moon, Mom. It doesn't take him long to correct himself but sometimes he just goes along with it and so do the rest of us.

There's a dresser on the wall furthest from his bed. I go to it and prop up against it. He gives me a small smile as he twists the cord to his IV around his finger. "Kathy working tonight?"

He nods a little, too weak to fully do it. "You don't gotta come visit me like I'm some old person in a nursing home."

"I'm not," I assure him. "That's why I'm here. And I'm bored."

He smiles softly. He's tightly wrapped in his baby blue blanket and you can't see the how frail his body has gotten. There are pictures all over his night stand. Kathy brought them in the day doctors recommended Darry stay here until the surgery.

"Remember when we were kids?" he says, pointing to one of the pictures. "Soda and I taught you how to swim in the bathtub. That was after he pushed you in the lake and you got scared of the water."

"Mom was real mad about all the water on the floor."

He grins and he looks like an old man. "Yeah. There's still a water stain on the roof. I need to fix that when I get out…I wasn't around much when we were kids, was I?"

"You were busy," I tell him. "You had football and school. You were a teenager."

He coughs into a handful of tissues. "Yeah. Times were good then, huh? We didn't know how good we had it. Now look at me, in a few weeks these fucking legs won't work."

I turn around and look at the collection of gifts Darry has on the dresser. Most are from his work buddies and old friends of my parents. There's an old ratty football from Two-Bit and a card from Evie and Steve. There are balloons and flowers and more stuffed animals that are too girly for Darry to own.

"Where'd this one come from?" I ask him. I did a good job at keeping up with who brought what. Darry insisted that he thank everyone in person once he got better.

He raises up a little to look at it. A small smile appears. "Dally brought it by here yesterday."

My grip around the bear tightens. Why would he be here? "He did?"

"Yeah," he clarifies. "I think he stole it and it's for a new mom but it's the thought that counts, right?"

The little black buttons almost pop off the more I squeeze the plush toy. Dally didn't show any interest in Darry's situation. They stopped being friends a while back. He didn't care about Darry. Did he? No. Why would he show up here?

"You ok?" Darry asks. "Dan?"

There's always a symbol for everything. That's why people give gifts. It shows how much they care. It's the thought that they are thinking about you and your situation and to show love.

It shows who cares and who doesn't.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm gonna take a walk, k?"

"Sylvia!" The water splashes from the bottom of my shoes. My heels click against the cold ground and shake as they land back down in the puddles. "Hey, wait up!"

She's gained weight since the last time I saw her. She has color on her skin and eyes and cheeks. "Ms. Curtis. Why might you be running in the street to chase little ole me? Thought you'd be out with your new beau after all."

I'm panting once I get to her. She hands me a fresh cigarette and presses her lips together. I know she's pissed. I always knew Sylvia was clingy. I just never thought I'd be in this situation. I never meant to ditch her. I ditched everyone.

"I'm sorry about that." My fingers shake as I put the cigarette up to my lips. "I didn't mean to blow you off. Listen though; I really need to talk to you. Do you know who Dale is?"

She arches a pointed eyebrow. "Dale who?"

"I dunno, just Dale. Big guy, cheesy smile, really charming..."

She thinks for a minute. I know she's holding out information because she's punishing me. I've left her and she doesn't like to be left. You'd think she'd be used to it by now. She's been kicked around her whole life but she still takes is so personal when people go off and abandon her. It's rather sad.

"Please," I beg. "I really am sorry about not calling. Do you wanna go get some coffee or something? I'll buy it! I just really have to ask you some questions, Sylvia please!"

She lets the smoke slowly roll off her lips as she happily looks at my begging. She doesn't hide the curl of her lips. "There's a coffee shop down the block. I like mine black."

Steam rises as she presses her dark red lips against the pearl white mug. She slowly takes a sip and closes her eyes as she enjoys the flavor. There's a red stain on the glass as she pulls away.

"Dale is Dally's friend. You're right about that. Well, they're friends now apparently," she says with a shrug.

I trace the edge of my mug with my finger, letting the steam warm my hands. "What do you mean 'now'? Where they not before?"

She takes another small sip before speaking again. "Dale is younger than him. When we were dating, he used to sorta follow Dally around and he'd hate it. Dale new names in high places though so Dally played nice most of the time but as Dale got older, they had a few fights and visits down town. Dally had to play nice to some extent."

"Why are they friends now?"

She shrugs as she leans back. She crosses her arms over her chest and carried her mug in her hand. "I only know what I know. I'm not a fortune teller."

"Ok, so who is Dale?" I ask. "Why has no one heard of him and what does he have to do with Dally?"

She smiles and takes another little sip of the steaming hot coffee. "They have one thing in common - a guy - Maggot."

"Maggot? I've heard that name before."

She licks her lips over with her sharp, pointed tongue. She soaks in the taste that's still on her big red lips. "Dally's probably mentioned it before. I can't believe you don't know all this."

It's supposed to be an insult Like why didn't Dally, the guy who loved me, tell me things he told her. I ignore her snide remark and get back to the point. "So who is he - Maggot?"

She clears her throat and sips the edge of her cup. She's calmer than I've seen her in a while. There are a lot of people here and that usually makes her jumpy but she's cool. She told me about the pills she has to take now but they'll kill her if she takes them with alcohol so she hadn't been taking them. It looks like she has now.

Her fingers trace the lining of her purse as she digs for a cigarette. Her legs are crossed and from afar, she looks like model or a business woman. She's dressed cleanly and put together. It's hard to tell if it's really her under there.

"He runs a big gang out of New York," she goes on. "He has side people in states here an' there. He's very successful from what I've heard. Dangerous too. He has that raspy over toned voice you know only means trouble."

"Side people? So Dale?"

She shrugs again as the smoke runs out of her mouth. "Like I said, I only know what I know. If I were guessing, I'd say yes, but then again, I'm just guessing."

"But who is Maggot?" I ask. "What does he have to do with anything?"

She looks around quietly. Her eyes search for listening eyes and ears. She's been on the other side of this many times. She knows how all this works. Her eyes dart back and forth like a dog eating a bone.

She leans in closer and speaks softer. "You know how much trouble I could get in for telling you all this?"

"I'll give you anything," I tell her. "Money, food, just name it. I just really need to know. Please."

She shakes her head. There's an ash tray on the table that she dabs her cigarette in. "Why do you want to know so badly anyway? You and Dally are done, right?"

"I'm tired of the unknown. I'm tired of unsolved questions lurking over me. I just really need to know."

"I don't know much. He's a bad guy. His crew has been around for a long time. He was handed down the business but he made it grow. His partner in crime, well, you know him well - Dally. Or so they were partners at one time. Maybe they still are. There is something going on we don't know about."

I get in closer so I won't miss anything. "What happened? Who is this guy everyone keeps talking about?"

"I don't know. I do know what Maggot says, goes. I know he's the reason Dally got arrested at ten and sent down here. And I know he has a lot to do with to do the murder of Dally's mother."

Tell me what you want to hear. Something that will light those ears. Sick of all the insincere. So I'm gonna give all my secrets away. This time, don't need another perfect lie. Don't care if critics ever jump in line. I'm gonna give all my secrets away.

A/N: Dun, dun, DUN! Any predictions in the works?

Thank you for reading and please review!