A/N: Hey, guys! I try not to do notes in my stories often, but I had a friend ask me recently if it was okay to do fan art for my stories, and the answer is a huge YES! I wanted to share that with y'all because I would love to see fan art if anyone ever wanted to make any. Just credit any characters of mine to me and send me a link to my PM so I can see. Anyway, carry on! :)
As much as the Socs liked to call us stupid, they were the ones who couldn't understand a simple peace treaty. After Tim found out what had happened to Soda and Steve, he and his boys had taken matters into their own hands. Tim Shepard was many things, but gentle was not one of them. Those Socs they got their hands on got a beating but good. The only problem was that it didn't scare them into stopping like Tim had planned. Instead, the Socs just changed their tune.
It was mid-June, so there was plenty of free time for their pranks. I had heard that a Soc had flipped Angela Shepard's skirt up as she was walking. He had leaned out of the car window while his buddy drove and just stuck his hand up there, flipping the skirt up for all the world to see. Of course, Angela wasn't the type to just let that happen so she gave that car a good working over with Curly's switchblade the next time she saw it.
Then there was the day Karen was walking home, wearing a white blouse. A group of Socs had driven by and thrown a bucket full of water on her, so that her blouse became see through and you could see her bra beneath it. She picked up a rock and threw it hard enough to knock one of them in the head in their stupid convertible.
We figured it was a one-off, like Angela's skirt or the day one of them smooth talked a young greaser girl into thinking he wanted to take her on a date and then stood her up while he and all his friends hid nearby and laughed.
But no. This whole soaking girls wearing white became their favorite pastime.
I was wearing a white sundress, and the thing with white clothing is that it's fine when it's dry but when it gets wet it turns pretty see through. But summers in Tulsa were so humid and hot, especially if you're walking around town or to the movie house like I was with Ponyboy. He wanted to see a movie based on a book he'd helped me with in English class. Pony was still keeping to himself a lot, so no one said no to him when he actually invited you somewhere.
We were walking when we heard the usual "Hey, greaser trash!" calls. But then I felt something cold splash all over me, and I realized it was water.
My dress was sopping wet and it stuck to my skin. Except I was also wearing a nude colored slip underneath, because I always wore slips under my dresses. My mother always had, and so did Aunt Dolly. I could hear the Socs laughing, rough and mean just like the way they talked, and I realized they were dumb enough to think I was naked under my dress, and it made me mad.
Mad enough that I ignored Pony's hand on my arm and him asking if I wanted his shirt. The Socs had stayed to see the show, but all I could think of is when I was younger and my dad had told Dally to teach me how and where to hit someone to hurt them.
It hurt like hell when I punched the closest Soc in the face, the one that happened to be holding the empty bucket. I didn't know if my knuckles or his nose was worse for wear, but both were bleeding.
The Soc that I had punched reached out for me, I'm sure because he'd have liked to pummel me. Ponyboy was quick, though, and he grabbed the Soc's arm and threw it back at him at the same time I felt someone's hands on my shoulders pulling me back.
"You should get a better handle on your girl, Curtis," the Soc I had hit spat. Soda looked calm and collected as he coolly helped me into his DX work shirt and started doing up the buttons for me. But when Soda spoke, his voice was low and scary.
"Big words for someone who got a broken nose from a girl," he said casually. "But if you bother her again, that's not the only thing that will be broken."
The Soc made a not-so-nice hand gesture at Soda and Ponyboy before his buddy driving sped off.
"Where'd you learn that, Brooklyn?" Ponyboy asked while Soda was taking a look at my hand.
"Dally," I said to Pony, and then to Soda, "Ow, don't do that!"
He was moving and bending the fingers and it made the busted skin on my knuckles stretch and burn.
"Gotta make sure they're not broken." When he seemed satisfied, he motioned to Ponyboy with his hand.
"C'mon, little brother. You're gonna be an honorary DX worker so I can clean this up."
Soda left Ponyboy at the counter and took me into the garage in the back, where he laid a clean towel across a work bench and then lifted me up onto it.
"You are such a handful," Soda said, only now he was smiling, all signs of anger from earlier gone. Giving me his work shirt had left Sodapop in the wife beater he was wearing underneath, and when he reached up for a first aid kit on a high shelf it pulled the thin material tight against the muscles in his shoulders. The sight made me blush, but don't let that fool you. I fully enjoyed the view.
"Hey, you chose to deal with it," I reminded Soda while he poured some peroxide on a cotton ball. He took my right hand gently, but I still had to grit my teeth against the burn of the peroxide. Soda took a tube of some kind of disinfectant cream out of the kit and spread it over my knuckles with his finger.
"I did for a fact," he said while bandaging up my hand. Once he was done, he picked up my hand and looked up at me with those brown eye of his before lightly kissing each of my busted knuckles. It made me blush again, and then Soda took my face between his hands and gave me a real kiss.
"You know," he said once he'd pulled away from me, "you really shouldn't go around punchin' guys in the face. Some of them will hit back, even if you're a girl."
"I kind of didn't think before I did it," I told him honestly. And I hadn't thought of what might have happened if he and Ponyboy hadn't been there.
"You shouldn't go walking alone for a while." I rolled my eyes, but I knew he was right. The Socs really didn't care if you were a girl or not, they wouldn't stop at just throwing water at us.
"Yeah, yeah," I said and gave him a little push. "Whatever you say, Mr. Protective."
Ponyboy walked me home after that so I could change into something dry and we went back to the movie house. The way Pony watched movies was the same way that he would read books: he was in his own little world and no one else existed.
"What happened to your hand?" My dad asked when I got home that evening. He must have gotten home sometime while I was gone. Dad's crazy work schedule was one of the reasons Dally didn't like staying at our actual house. It meant that Dad could come home at any moment, and one thing Dally hated was surprises.
"Punched a guy in the face," I said, taking a fake swing towards him. Dad laughed so hard he had to set the pan of mashed potatoes he was making down.
"No, really. What happened, Baby Doll?"
"What, you don't believe your daughter?" I asked, faking being offended. "I really punched a guy, Dad. For throwing water on me 'cause I was wearing white earlier."
"This is what kids do around here these days?" He asked, color rising in his cheeks.
"Only the rich ones!" I called down the hall. I took my shoes off in my room and went back to the kitchen to get some juice.
Dad muttered about stupid kids while he finished cooking dinner and I watched TV.
"As long as his face looks worse," Dad said over dinner after he asked me to take the bandage off so he could see.
"Would you expect anything less?"
But the summer wasn't all bad. Steve's cousin Michelle came to visit during June like she did every summer, so for a little while there was four of us like there used to be. She only stayed a few weeks, though, and we were all sad to see her go.
"Do you ever miss Sandy?" Karen asked me the day after Michelle left. She was laying in the sun in my front yard with Dulce. Karen adored Dulce and always wanted to help me when I babysat her.
"Yeah," I told her, pulling a weed from the garden I was working on. The flowers had all bloomed and were reaching towards the sun, but a lot of weeds had popped up, too. "Is that wrong?"
Karen rolled over onto her stomach and Dulce tried to copy her. Aunt Dolly said she had been trying to roll over for a few days. Dulce laughed when Karen pulled her dress up to blow raspberries on her stomach.
"No, I don't think so. She was our friend, even before she dated Soda." I shrugged. Karen was right, but it still felt kind of wrong to miss her since I was dating Soda.
"I dunno," I said. "Life is all so different now." I didn't just mean Sandy being in Florida and me being with Soda. I meant Mr. and Mrs. Curtis being dead, and Johnny and Dally, and even Aunt Dolly being here now instead of New York. Everything had changed in less than a year.
"You can say that again. You're going to that party with me and Evie tonight, right?"
"Yeah, but I don't know what I'm gonna wear," I told her, which was really bait. I was hot and I could feel the part in my hair burning from the sun, and I wanted to go inside. I knew clothes was the way to go.
"Well, let's go look!" Karen said, picking Dulce up. "We'll be the judges, won't we pretty girl?"
What this meant was that I had to try on every skirt, blouse, and dress I owned and twirl around for Karen to see.
"Oh, that one's nice. It looks nice with your eyes," Karen said. I had just pulled on a light purple one Aunt Dolly had given me. It was nice, because it had come from New York. The dress was soft cotton and had a flowered Swiss dot pattern, with short sleeves and a boat neck.
"I'll bet Soda will like it," she added with a playful smile.
"Okay," I said. "I guess I'll wear it, then. Did you still want me to curl your hair?"
Karen's hair was thick and auburn, like Two-Bit's, and even longer than mine. It fell nearly down to her hips, it was so long. Even though it was only 3 in the afternoon, if she wanted me to curl it we'd have to start early.
"Oh, yeah!" She said. So I put Dulce to nap in my bed and pulled Karen into the living room and sat her down in front of me while I sat on the couch.
"Do you love Soda?" Karen asked. I felt myself blush. I was pretty sure I did, but I hadn't told Soda that.
"You're full of questions today," I said, my face burning with the blush.
"It's a good question. 'Cause he loves you, I heard him tell Steve so." Karen sounded smug, so I tapped her on the head with my hair brush.
"Oh, did you now?"
"Yeah, I did, you abuser. Steve asked him if he loved you and he said yeah, and he got this big goofy smile on his face. And Steve said, 'More than Sandy?' and Soda said 'I never loved her. I know that now'. So basically you should just marry Sodapop Curtis."
"Mhmm," I said, trying to stay calm despite how hard my heart was beating against my chest. "I'll keep that in mind."