Everytime Steve kisses her in the car, Evie feels as if someone is watching her.
To say that outloud would be crazy, she knows that as she kisses him back, her fingers threading their way into his brown hair, pulling him closer. Crazy because who is watching them in the car, when it's just the two of them and a movie? Crazier still, given how much she's wanted to see Steve since her father died.
It was a bad thing to be happy your parents died, she knows that. Maybe if her father had been an easier person to get along with in life, she'd have felt different. It him who had grasped her arm and dragged her away from Steve, refusing to let her date a hoodlum — a white one, at that. He'd been the one calling her names as they'd flown down the road, taking her back to the right side of town, the one who forced her to always be at the top of her classes even though she'd rather have played with her friends, the one who switched her to a school she hated that put her in a uniform, and he'd been the one she had been running from ever since she could climb out of her window, stick out her thumb, and leave.
She just hadn't left for very long. After awhile, hearing guys think they could bag you with Hey, you look like a Ronnette! or worse wore on you. Not when the boy you wanted was still at home, with friends you wanted to be with, with a place that was still home.
When she'd gotten the call that he'd been hit, Evie had sworn to herself that the moment he made it into the ground, she'd be back. When he had died, she had done just that.
All she had dreamed about for ages, going through boys that were dissatisfying at best, and disgusting at worst, was think about Steve Randle and that hair of his. Sandy never understood him, and a lot of the other girls found him mean.
She found him honest, smart, and as his hand reaches up to caress her cheek, she wants to melt into it. Forget about fights she started on purpose sometimes to rile him on, forget about the news on the television that seemed to tell worse and worse things, forget about the fact that they had to sneak in here to even do this.
And, to forget about this stupid car. This stupid car that had taken up so much of his time, that he had slaved over. A car that had been beautiful when it had come to pick her up, complimenting how tuff he looked.
Except the more they kiss, the more his hands roam and hers, it feels as if the car is getting hotter by the second, and as if something is pricking at her neck. It's a sort of stare she'd grown accustomed to as a child given the way she didn't resemble her sisters. Only there was a level of animosity to this stare, this thing pricking at the back of her neck that felt entirely different. Something about it felt more concentrated, more hateful, and as Steve's hand pushes up her skirt, the feeling of hotness sweeps over her and Evie finds herself pushing, twisting back.
"Hey, hey," She pulls away from his hand, from his burning bright gaze, trying to get herself together, "Why uh — Why don't we do this outside of the car?"
"The whole point of coming out here was so we could be in the car, Evie," his words are short, annoyed. Outside, the movie plays on and Evie can feel some of the heat has lessened. "You know going out there isn't gonna be great. Not here."
Irritation washes over Evie, and she can almost swear the car feels smug. "I – Okay, okay I just —" She pushes Steve entirely away, and he retreats to the other side of the car with a scowl. "I don't know, Steve, okay? Making out here isn't like... like it used to be." She straightens her skirt, looking at the glowing dashboard. "It's uncomfortable."
"Christine is bigger than the old one," Steve rolls his eyes, and Evie scoffs. "What? What's wrong with me calling her —"
"Cause 'she's' a car, Steve," Evie emphasizes her point with her fingers in quotes, annoyed at how downhill his was going already. " 'She' isn't the one getting felt up, but I feel like 'she' —" Steve snatches at her fingers and she pulls away out of reach " – is third wheeling the both of us!" Frustration creeps into her voice. "I don't want to make out here, in this car." She jabs the dashboard in irritation. "We can go somewhere else, anywhere else. Or you can just drop me off at my apartment — I'm not doing anything else in your precious little Christine."
Steve glowers at her.
Evie glares back, folding her arms over her chest. She'd threaten to walk if it were safe enough for her. As it was, this was all she could do to exert some control over her situation.
Sometimes, Steve was like this: somewhere else entirely, needing to be forced to refocus. Sometimes it was a project, and often — way, way too often — it was Sodapop that Steve paid too much attention to. The way they acted around each other, especially after Dallas died, was something that Evie found herself suspicious of at times even if she knew that was crazy.
This, however, was worse: Steve was almost trying to console the stupid car, running his hand over the wheel defensively. "Look, she's the best car I've ever had. What's wrong with me trying to keep her in good shape, show her off? You used to like cars as much as I do." He sneers at her in a way that makes Evie's skin crawl for a moment. "I remember how you got in the ninth grade in the back of that Chevy."
"Oh, fuck you," Evie reaches for the passenger side door, and that seems to get Steve's attention, arm reach out, his hand on her elbow.
She yanks, he pulls her hard enough to make her let go. "Look — I'm sorry, okay? I'm just – no one —" He struggles with words, and Evie doesn't know why she just doesn't get out of the car when his expression drops some of the bravado there. "It's mine, and everyone's acting like it's the worst thing I've gotten. I just wanna enjoy her. Don't you get that?"
No, she doesn't. She doesn't get why he cares so much, she doesn't get why he's so attached.
He still looks like the Steve who talked to her in the seventh grade for the first time in a way that made her smile, though as he looks at his lap.
"Just take me to my apartment, and we'll have a better time there," Evie drops her arm, folding it in her lap. "That's all I want, Steve."
Steve pulls his arm way. Evie averts her gaze, and they sit in silence for a moment. She looks outside the window, at the skyline that seems inches away from a storm. "I'll go get a drink before we go."
"Fine," Evie says.
Steve opens the car door, climbs out, shuts it. Evie watches him walk out, looking at the slouch of his shoulders, his stormy features. Great. What a fun date.
She reaches to the bag they'd gotten – burgers, half eaten. Finding hers, she takes a bite out of the starting to grow cold sandwich, chewing on it pensively. Just who was he fooling? Why was he doing all of this, getting so attached to this old car for?
She swallows down the bite, peeling the wrapper more. "You know, Christine, if I were you, I'd be shaking in my boots. As soon as he sees the new Chevelle, I'm thinking he might trade you in for the younger model." She takes another bite of her sandwich, trying to suppress a laugh.
Instead, she finds suddenly that the burger won't go down her throat. Evie's eyes grow wide in her face, and the radio flares to life in an acidic green as a song begins to play: You're mine / Your lips belong to me / Yes, they belong only to me / For eternity.
Evie flails in the car, tries to stop the world from narrowing down, from the burger lodging itself in her throat, refusing to go down. Her hands beat at the dashboard, the windows, trying for the handle and nothing works.
She's dying. She's dying and the car is bragging about it! About being with Steve!
The world lights up around her in an eerie white. Evie chokes, gags, slams her hand on the window harder, and harder, her nails clawing at the glass until one of them breaks, leaving a streak of blood.
Help, no one was going to help —
The door gives. People are yelling. She flails. An arm wraps around her middle.
Her vision goes blurry, but the burger finally is forced out of her throat. She's on her knees, coughing, spitting, and all she can think is: The car tried to fucking kill me!
Evie doesn't know how she gets on her feet, or how hard she hits Steve in retaliation. All she knows is that despite everything, despite knowing she shouldn't, she's grabbing her things and running as far away from Steve and Christine as she can get.
She was never, ever climbing in the car again.
And the only person she could trust now was Sodapop Curtis. He was the only one who was going to believe her.