I was in a trance. My mind had left its vessel, and floated into the air, away from the grandmother, the belt, my body and its dirty and impure suggestions. Instead, It reminisced on home and my dad before he had died. I thought of how he would come home from work and wrap me up in a bear hug; what I wouldn't do to feel his arms around me now. I thought of our house and how much I ached for it; it wasn't in a nice neighborhood or anything, but the inside was filled with well-loved and well-used furniture and the people I adored. I wished more than anything for the nightly noises of the fridge and the old house. Thinking back to when we'd first come here, I remembered the lack of noise at night and how I hadn't been able to sleep. More than any of these things, I thought about myself before. I had been in love with childhood instead of boys. I had been loud, loquacious. I had loved riding bikes with my friends.

The belt snapped my back for the last time and my mind returned to my body soon enough for me to feel the snapping pain and the repercussions of the beating. The expanse of my back burned and itched; it felt like it had been dipped in oil and lit on fire. I wanted to scratch it, but knew that it would only get worse.

This pain did give me a strange satisfaction though; now the outside of my body matched the way that I felt on the inside. I knew that loving my brothers the way I had was a sin, but now that was rectified and everything could be normal again. The boys could call me sweetie pie and my brothers would not want to kiss me. Steve would give me noogies and drags of his cancer stick simply because I was an alright kid. Everything would be okay, I was a good girl again.

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The door creaked open and Soda appeared.

"Ally-Bug? Oh god, what the fuck did she do to you?" His voice caught on the prongs of his emotion and I could see tears in his eyes.

"It's that bad?" I croaked out, and now the pain felt even worse.

"No, it ain't terrible." Now the rest of the boys were in my line of vision, and I gave a weak smile to Steve as my mind told my body to lessen its pain.

"I'll kill her." Dally said and then left.

"Oh god, we wanted to get to you, but we just couldn't do it. I don't know what stopped me. Oh god, Ally. I'm so sorry." Darry was kneeling on the ground next to me and Soda. Ponyboy joined the three of us on the ground and Soda took the bandages and salve.

"We need to get you in the bath or something." Darry's brow was creased in worry and Ponyboy got up.

"Can you guys leave for a minute?" Johnny, Steve, and Two-Bit left, closing the door after them. Soda help me to get up and my body felt like it had been trampled by a stampede.

"Lets get these clothes off. Pony, can you get a bedsheet?" Ponyboy rushed off quickly and when he came back, Soda wrapped it around me while Darry and Pony helped me to undress. My shirt was torn at the back from where the grandmother had split it open to whip me, so that was easy to take off. When I was naked between the bedsheets, they lowered me into the warm bathwater. As soon as my back touched the water, my cuts rejected it and I jolted out. Darry supported me before I could fall and forced me back in.

"Darry please, I don't want to. It hurts, let me up, it hurts so badly." I could not stop the sobs from wracking my body, this was by far the worst of the pain.

"Ally, I'm sorry.. it'll get infected if we don't clean it."

"Soda please. Pony. Please tell him I want to get out. I want to go to bed, please let me out of here." My brothers all had haunted looks in their eyes and didn't answer me for awhile.

"I'm sorry Al." Soda shook his head in regret as Ponyboy helped him to remove the sopping sheet from around me. They had filled the bath with some aloe vera, so it wouldn't burn me and so that the bubbles it created would hide my body. I closed my eyes and tried to leave again, but it wouldn't work and so I felt every second of Soda carefully and slowly sanitizing each slash. My already hoarse voice became hoarser as I filled the room with whimpers and soft cries. They echoed from the walls and came back to me, the pain was relived for each cry and for each whimper.

Eventually, I did fall asleep in that tub, and later I felt myself being carried out.

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A slant of sunlight shone from behind the curtains and I rubbed my eyes. Swinging my legs over the side of the bed sent waves of pain through my body and acted as a painful reminder to the events of yesterday. Looking down, I realized that somebody had helped me to dress into a satin nightgown.

Other than the pain that I was feeling, I felt very relieved and refreshed. The new leaf which had changed my whole life, had blown away and now the old leaf had been uncovered.

I felt the need to pee and so I limped to the bathroom and tried the knob. It gave easily and I walked in. Pony was in there and I was just about to apologize profusely, and then walk out blushing. But something wasn't quite right. I realized in a split second that the scene seemed so familiar because he was doing what I had caught Soda doing. But instead of Sandy's name, or the name of any other girl, he was saying mine.

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"Oh god." These words ran through the gate connecting my thoughts to my words and luckily closed on many more that I could have said.

"Oh geez, Ally. Get out." My brother jumped off of the toilet and scurried to the door, slamming it in my face.

"Ally? Are you feeling alright?" Johnny was behind me and he had a cup of water. "This is for you. How's your back?" In that moment I did forget what I had just witnessed and I felt both grateful and sorry for Johnny. This new world that was simply a nightmare to me, had been Johnny's entire life. His parents always fought, his mom always yelled at him and his dad always beat him. Those were the three facts of Johnny's life, the only forms of consistency.

"Yes, Johnny. Thanks." I took the cup and drained the water. I had never talked to Johnny much, but now I felt like I would sit on the roof with him and like we could just talk about nearly anything; I knew that Ponyboy had deep conversations with Johnny often.

As soon as the water was gone, I remembered Ponyboy in the bathroom and a hot flush covered my face. "What's wrong Al?" Johnny looked concerned as he peered at me from under his long and greasy bangs.

"Umm nothing.. I.." At that moment, Ponyboy opened the bathroom door and came out.

"Hey Ally, will you go down to the attic with me? I wanna talk to ya'. " I rifled my brain for any sort of excuse I could give and, finding none, I nodded. I mean, I guess I could have said my back ached but maybe Pony wanted to reassure me that we had both done wrong and he wanted to go back to just being my brother again.

Johnny walked down with us but climbed onto the roof with the other guys, while Ponyboy and I ambled randomly down some spare corner of the attic.

"God Al. I'm not a big talker..." he stopped and then tried again, "I'm not a big talker, but I know that you'll understand, ya know? You're like Johnny or Soda that way, I feel like I can tell you anything and you'll understand or try to understand."

I smiled, anticipating his next words. But my body was still in overdrive and my heart beat hard enough to escape my chest. My palms were warm and sweaty.

"When I look at the sunrise, I feel like nothing's ever been that beautiful before... ya know? It has no time to make any mistakes that can't be fixed overnight and it always comes out the next day more glorious than before. I know its not very tough, talkin' bout sunrises and beauty and all... but I feel like that's you. And that's why I love you. You're just like the sunrise Al."

I was really confused now... so he had called me beautiful, compared me to the sunrise, how could we get back to being brother and sister at this rate?

"Ponyboy I-" I stopped and closed my eyes, wishing and hoping with every atom in my body, "I just want it to be the way it was before. I want us to go back to being brother and sister again." I kept my eyes closed and heard nothing.

"I don't want to be brother and sister again... I just wanna, god, Ally I just want to feel you."

I opened my eyes now and felt my newly constructed world coming down, one block at a time. I guess I had been like a sunrise; all of my problems had been fixed overnight and I was new yet again.

"Pony, its a sin. I was punished for kissing you, I was bad and now I'm good again."

"You weren't punished for kissing me, it was for leaving that book in plain sight of the servants. Ally, I just can't- a brother doesn't feel this way about his sister..."

I was so, so frustrated now. Didn't Pony see that I was trying to fix everything? To rectify his sins and mine both?

"Pony," I hissed, nearing his face, but not in the same way I had last time, "God saw and he told the Grandmother. He told her what we'd done and so she punished me accordingly. I don't want to sin again, I don't want you to keep sinning. God will see and he'll tell her; she'll beat you too."At this point I was sobbing and backing up from my brother as my feelings hadn't changed. I had tried to deny them, build a foundation and lock them out the night before, but I still burned with a need I'd never had.

"Please, Pony." I pleaded, hoping that this plea could reach him and that he could build up a house in his mind and lock away all feeling.

"Ally, don't you feel the same way? I know you do. Ponyboy seemed to be reassuring himself, he looked more desperate than I had ever seen him.

"No, its not right. Its sinful." I was able to get these words out, but knew that my tears would allow no more to leave my mouth.

"Ally." Pony grabbed my arm as I turned to leave, and now his voice had changed from desperate to demanding. "Ally, my heart aches because I can't hold you.. you are so beautiful, and I just want to look at you every second of every day. How can that be wrong? How?"

I cried some more and he propped me up against his chest where I clutched his cotton t-shirt. "It just is, its wrong Pony. You can't love me this way. I can't love you this way. I-i-i-it-it's just so wrong," I stuttered out, trying to breath deeply and stop the tears.

"Just kiss me again and tell me how you feel afterwards. Ally, just once. Just for me." My heart filled with want and with pain for Ponyboy for a few seconds. I thought of him burning up on the inside the way I was and I thought that a better comparison for the way I was would be a forest fire. Burning everything in its path, leaving Pony burning the way I was and then leaving disaster in its wake. After, when my mind registered what Pony had said, I pushed myself away and kept my hands in front of me to ward him off.

"Its a sin! Pony its a fucking sin!" I never cursed, and so Pony looked surprised and then hurt.

"Al, come here. Just, god I'm sorry. I won't kiss you, just let me hold you."

My anger flared and the roof of the house in my mind came flying off.

"Don't ever touch me again, I don't wanna ever see you again." But what I really wanted to say was don't ever stop touching me.