A/N: I used lines from the actually movie, just cut out some words, see if you can remember the missing words. I didn't want to copy it all. I've got Greasers and Socs on the brain. I'm reading The Outsiders (amazing read it.)
We didn't talk on the way back to my house and when we got in the front door my mother was there in her bedroom robe. She asked us about the movie, about the girls. We told her how nice they both were, and that we were glad to get out of the house.
She gave me a hug and surprisingly gave Chris a short one as well, said goodnight, and headed to bed. Chris and I stood there awkwardly in the dark. Hot air lay heavily around us, the house settled and creaked. The way that used to scare me right after Denny died. When I would hide under the covers even though I was a bit too old to believe that would save me from seeing his ghost. Sometimes I still did, even though I was too old to believe in his ghost.
I could hear us breathing and crickets off in the distance, I heard his voice in my head. What he told me, 'Gordie, I needed to know. You didn't talk about it you just went along. Gordo you hafta talk about it.' Didn't he realize it was embarrassing? It was wrong?
"Do you think I'm weird?" Chris' voice broke through the dark. I shifted to face him.
"Definitely." I'd asked him the same thing when we went to see Ray Brower.
"No, seriously. Am I weird?"
"Yeah, but everybody's weird." He grabbed my hand and held onto it so tight it hurt.
We had climbed the stairs, and I had settled down onto my bed. We had shed our shoes, and changed into pajamas, well I did. Chris changed into cut-off blue jeans. I didn't realize how tired I really was, my eyes stung from all those stupid tears. Where boys supposed to cry? I never saw my dad cry, or Denny, and I couldn't imagine men tough as nails as Chris' old man or Ace (even if he did back down from a loaded gun). But, I'd seen Chris cry, but that was when we were kids. When we didn't know anything.
I scooted over and gave him room to fit next to me on my bed. It seemed to be narrower with two almost full-grown boys on it, almost men. I closed my eyes to give that stinging a rest.
"Gordo?"
"Hm Chris."
"I'm sorry."
I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, my head felt full; I couldn't open my eyes if I wanted to. "Why?"
"For kissing you, guys don't kiss guys."
"I know."
"I mean, if I'd never done that we'd be Chris and Gordie. Checking out girls like the ones we took to the movie, you wouldn't be calling your self a jealous faggot. Gordie you're not a faggot." I could hear his voice low, in my ear. He knew my mom wasn't asleep yet.
"Then what am I?" I snapped a little too loud, I lowered my voice, "What am I, Chris?"
"I dunno, Gordie. It's not like you're out looking at guys."
He was right. I didn't look at anyone; I didn't look at girls, or guys after the little incident in the woods. I opened my eyes to see him right there. His eyes level with mine.
I wanted to be normal. I sure as hell knew Chris wanted to be normal. He wanted to make something of himself for forever. Be more then one of those no good Chambers kids. He suffered through the 'smart' classes, had me help him study. He was trying.
I needed to be normal. I wanted to be good at baseball like Denny, make my dad proud, make it seem like he didn't hate me so much, then I grew up and noticed he just missed my brother so much just couldn't love me enough.
Normal. Chris and I would never be normal, it was something we thought we saw everyday and we couldn't reach out and grab it.
"Yeah." I finally said. My throat felt dry, I felt like crying again, but I wasn't a girl. If I was a faggot, I wasn't a girl. I clenched my jaw. I acted more submissive with him. The way I got jealous, I knew him and I couldn't huddle in the backseat like him and Judy had.
Anger twisted in me. "You know what makes me madder then hell?"
He just looked at me, as if his eyes were saying yes for him.
"The fact that this isn't right? How come men and women can be all over each other and it's okay? Why is it wrong!"
Wrong floated out into the darkness of my room, I half expected my mom to come in and see what was the matter, but she didn't.
"'Cause it's in the bible, Gordo, 'cause men ain't supposed to be with men. It's how it is." The way he said it, it sounded like he wasn't talking about the thing more then friendship between us, it was like we were at the dime store and had seen a newspaper talking about it.
I thought back to walking down those paths, him tackling me to the ground. Everything changed that day. It made us older, made us strange. Made us a different Gordie and Chris, or was it 'Gordie and Chris'? Our names had seemed to follow each other's since grade school, what changed it? In one summer afternoon the whole foundation of a friendship had been rocked, and the future changed. I thought too much for my own good.
Always going. Always making up stories. Stories that had entertained my dead brother, two lost friends, and the guy next to me who I didn't know what in the hell he was anymore. What would happen when school started?
I had too many questions for my own good as usual.
I nodded; the tears I was fighting disappeared. My eyes weren't wet, my chest didn't hurt, and I just lay there looking at the ceiling. "Chris, we'll never be normal." I looked back down towards him, his eyes were closed and he didn't say anything.