Chapter 9
It was the first day of Senior year and Virginia was up before her alarm. Her stomach fluttered all night with a cocktail of nervousness and excitement, so much so that she decided she might as well get an early start. She fixed a quick breakfast and enjoyed a tall glass of orange juice before brushing her teeth and getting dressed.
Somewhere around October she would get tired of putting on her best face for her classmates, like she did every year. The first day, though, she could be bothered to put in extra effort. She did her makeup and sifted through the new, exciting additions to her wardrobe. She decided on a sleeveless green top and a plaid skirt that matched. It wasn't one of her number one favorites, those were better suited for fall and winter, but seeing as it would surely remain in the mid-90s all week (and month), it would make do. Her legs would be cooler, too. The skirts they were selling sure got shorter and shorter every year.
Her wardrobe wasn't the only thing that received an upgrade. She finally decided to do something with her hair.
She got to work on the mess of curls atop her head. It came only to an inch or so below her shoulders now (which had taken some convincing towards her mother who was emotionally attached to the length) and the lack of weight kept it bouncy and light. It still wouldn't be in style, but that didn't matter to her. The very thought of waking up early on the regular to iron it and load it full of hairspray to bump it high and hold together turned up ends made her visibly cringe. She hated that texture touching her neck and it would be a nightmare to wash out at the end of a long day.
This was cute and manageable, and she could put a clip in the back and pull up half if she needed to mix it up.
And she did it for herself, not for him, despite what part of her brain kept chastising her for.
Despite being at peak self-confidence appearance-wise, Viriginia still felt silly riding the bus to school. It wouldn't matter in a year, sitting in the aisle surrounded by fifteen year olds, just like a lot of things wouldn't matter in a year. It made her nervous to think about the things that would.
She had had a lot of answers for the age old question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" over the years. Teacher, beautician, animal doctor; she had the ideas but realized she wasn't cut out for any of them. Now though, when it was most important, she was drawing a blank.
She wanted to be independent, she knew that much. She wanted to move out of her parents' house and pay for her own things. She wanted to fix her own suppers and decide on decorations and drive around town on her own time. None of those were included in specific job descriptions, though, unless you counted homemakers. There was no shame in being one, she knew, but she couldn't help but think she should aim higher, especially if the independent part was important to her.
The student counselor had urged her to aim for college. Apparently, you could still go and work towards something, even if you didn't know what that something was yet. Virginia guessed that would be her plan for twelfth grade. She prayed she would figure it out along the way, as promised.
That morning, Will Rogers High still stood unwavering for its twenty-eighth year.
In a matter of months she'd step through its halls for the last time, but for now, Virginia was heading inside to pick up her schedule. She said "hello" to random school friends (the type you could work on projects together with but not meet up with after hours) and shuffled around the many departments to scope out which classes she had at which hours. She noted some teachers she had had before for other subjects and some starting their first years in the district. She practiced her locker combination for as much time as she could spare after putting her bag and extra composition notebooks away.
And then, there he was, down at the end of the hall, palling around with one of the McCarthy boys. He didn't look any different than before (not that she had really expected him to), except maybe the remains of a sunburn across his nose and a visible peppering of freckles across his cheeks.
Virginia felt silly staring at him like she was, face half hidden by the door to her locker. He was coming this way and her mind went blank of anything she could possibly say. It felt like it was now or never to step out and come up with something.
She leaned past the door and matched eyes with him.
Two-Bit Mathews stopped dead in his tracks at the other end of the senior annex. He made that face, the one where his eyebrows furrowed and he was thinking long and hard about something, and it stayed that way while one of his friends elbowed him in the ribcage and Virginia offered a small smile. Then, he opened his mouth just a crack.
And then, the bell rang.
It shattered the moment and he shoved the other boy harder than necessary into the wall. Two-Bit raised his hand at her, pointing his thumb off in the other direction, offered a shrug, and turned away.
Virginia closed her locker a little too loudly after the interaction. She had no idea what to make of it, but her heart sank despite her swearing she wouldn't let it have that kind of power over her. She had no choice but to address her schedule for the new semester, readjust the folders and notebooks in her arms, and march in the opposite direction towards World History.
For better or for worse, Virginia discovered she didn't share any classes with Two-Bit this year. Instead, Connie was in plain view for three of them. She seemed to steer clear of the other girl, sitting on the far opposite side of the room and shooting Virginia a look every ten minutes. Virginia did her best to stare right on forward at the blackboard as long as she could help it.
A big surprise was seeing Ponyboy in English with her. If they put him up that much already, he was a shoe-in for AP his next year. Would it be weird to ask to sit next to him, and was she clinging to this group of boys more than she should have been? She knew how quiet he was and how no one else in their class had ever seen them interact before.
Luckily, Pony, from his seat near the window, looked up, pressed his lips into a half smile, and raised just a few fingers off the desk in a sort of wave.
She decided to take that invitation whether he had intended it or not. She took the spot in front of him. This could be her chance to be the one who initiated the note passing that got folks in trouble.
He beat her to the punch, though. As soon as the teacher started going over the syllabus, Virginia could hear scribbling on paper and then a sheet of folded looseleaf was passed up between her arm and the wall.
You okay?
The two simple words really meant a lot to her.
She hastily scratched back,
Just barely.
Then she decided it was best to add,
(I am though, honest)
That was the end of the conversation, even if Ponyboy was on and off writing something and flipping notebook pages without any direction from the teacher. He must have taken doodling to pass the time pretty seriously, she figured. That, or he was getting a head start on the next great American novel.
The rest of the day passed by with Mathematics, Home Economics, and a new typing course. Virginia had picked up a knack for hunting and pecking on the cash register number pad but the QWERTY-method was still mostly a foreign concept. Barbara, who was in that class as well, already seemed ahead of the curve on words per minute. She mentioned she wasn't opposed to going to secretary school if becoming a disc jockey didn't work out. It was a new decade but she still worried the only way she'd get on the air was if she applied to some Podunk Christian station, the kind that would have her playing "Keep on the Sunny Side" every hour, on the hour.
Barbara also mentioned that she was more than sorry she wasn't home to check on Virginia after everything that happened. She shared a few stories from her family's trip to Wyoming but was much more interested in what unfolded back in Tulsa while she was gone. Ginny unsuccessfully tried to joke it off with a "it was just a knife fight, you didn't miss much," and relented to telling the whole tale (minus some more intimate details) at lunch the next day. She also had to navigate around Barbara's questions about dropping off the face of the Earth for the entirety of summer.
Virginia couldn't get into it when she conceded to never fully understanding it herself.
On day three, Virginia ran into Johnny, literally, on her way into the library. Their shoulders collided and the girl apologized profusely, especially when she realized who it was and that he was giving her a skeptical look.
Before she could question it, Johnny addressed her in a voice softer than a whisper.
"You okay?" he couldn't meet her eyes when he asked it.
"Yeah, I'm okay." Virginia was more than grateful for everyone's concern but was admittedly feeling a bit like a broken record. She wouldn't let that show around Johnny though, not when she was acutely aware of his past stabbing-related trauma.
He nodded and she figured it would all be left at that, until Johnny muttered another question.
"D'ya dump Two-Bit?"
"What?" she spit out the first word louder than she should have before correcting herself. "Where on Earth did you hear that?"
"Nowhere," he said, readjusting the book in his hand. "Just sort of figured since," his voice got even quieter somehow, "it seemed like he was avoiding you, is all…"
"What's he thinkin'?" It was half to herself and half an actual question. That was a punch to the gut. Virginia didn't have time to explain the whole story with only a couple minutes left to get to next period.
"He ain't," Johnny offered, as that was business as usual for Two-Bit.
This whole situation was becoming frustrating in ways Virginia hadn't expected. The puff of air that escaped her lips was, once again, too loud for the current environment.
"Holler at him for me, will ya?" she asked, even if it wasn't Johnny's job to play telegram operator. "We gotta talk at some point."
The warning bell rang and they both were scurrying onward to class.
What a mess this all was. It left her with a hundred new things to worry about, like whether Two-Bit really was avoiding her on purpose or if the whole gang was under the impression she had kicked him to the curb. And she did worry about it for the rest of the day, until she could hunt him down at 2:30. At least, for better or for worse, she wasn't at the point where she was starting to think the trouble wasn't worth it. That had to count for something.
There was no sight of him at the lockers or in the parking lot.
She'd catch him tomorrow, for sure.
It was the fourth day when Virginia told herself here goes something as she became part of the stampede that flooded out the doors upon the final bell. It took the minute to cross campus until history was repeating itself. There he was, halfway across the parking lot, leaning against the same beater with his hands in his pockets. He was talking to a boy Virginia didn't know, who started to walk off when she got closer.
This was the moment and suddenly all strategies of approach vanished from her mind. She had to think fast. Two-Bit was opening up the Plymouth driver's side and about to duck inside.
She whistled, a shrill one, and picked up the pace. It was the first thing that popped in her head.
Apparently it worked, and Virginia could see his eyes light up when he turned back to look at the sound. All of the outside noise seemed to hush in that moment.
"Howdy," Two-Bit offered carefully. She could follow his gaze, looking her up and down with a mix of intrigue and suspicion.
"Hey," she greeted back, matching his tone.
The moment of truth.
"You wanna go for a drive?"
He had a thumb pointed back and tilted his head towards the car.
Of course she did, expectations of being home soon be damned. Virginia nodded and acted before any force of nature had a chance to get in the way. Rounding the Plymouth to hop in the passenger seat and curling her legs up beside her still came as a familiar motion.
The interior may have been picked up, floor mats cleaned and litter scarce, but it still made the same jarring noises upon the ignition starting. They pulled out of the school parking lot, turned right, and drove on straight for a long while. The crispy radio tunes and the whoosh of each car passing in the oncoming lane filled the silence but it was still… silence. Virginia Campbell knew silence. She fiddled with the ends of her hair and picked at the pilled fabric of her book bag to pretend the silence wasn't there, much like she had become accustomed too. Two-Bit Mathews, though, he'd never known the definition of the word. That's why it was so strange when he could hardly muster up a conversation.
"So, uh…" There was a long pause while pulling up to the next stoplight. It turned green as soon as they got there and they picked up speed. It took a couple blocks before he finally spit it out. "You sail away to China after everything went down or did'ya get yourself a new boyfriend I should worry about?"
It was as lighthearted a phrase from him as ever but Virginia could tell he'd been sitting on the words for a while. He must have, given all the time. Two months was ages to teenagers like them.
She hadn't planned to be anything but honest with him. The real challenge, and a genuine fear she suddenly had, was whether or not he'd believe her.
Virginia spilled everything, instantly, the words waterfalls from her mouth. It wasn't graceful or subtle in any means but (she hoped) it was getting the job done. She carried on about the headaches, the doctor's appointments, and how she was doing better now. She explained the visit from the cops, the being kept indoors, the lack of phone calls, and the incessant yelling from her dad at the mere suggestion from her mother that Virginia might need to get some fresh air.
If Two-Bit was holding a grudge against her father already, this only made it worse. He looked perfectly pissed off. He kept shooting glares out the windshield during the story. Before too long, he picked out a gas station and sped full force into a parking space. When Virginia finished explaining, hoping it would be the last time she had to relay her humiliating summer to someone, Two-Bit said he would be right back before he addressed anything else. He closed the car door harder than necessary and left as Virginia's heart beat heavily against her chest.
She spent the five minutes alone with Merle Haggard on the radio trying to calm down.
There it was, all out in the open. If Two-Bit decided the explanation wasn't good enough, or if he had already grown accustomed to life without her in it, there was little more she could do. Her heart would hurt for different reasons but at least she could move on at some point, and stop worrying so much about all of this.
The front door to the shop swung open and Virginia could tell by the way Two was walking that he was sneaking something out in the hand pressed against his body. He couldn't be all mad, she realized, as he plopped back into the Plymouth, passing a cold glass of Pepsi in her direction. And then he leaned in further, the closest he'd been in ages, to fish a bottle opener out of the glove box. When he retreated with it, Virginia noticed what he'd really swiped: a glistening Coors bottle.
She'd never really addressed his drinking before, or thought too much about it. Even if she didn't partake, it was so normal to see everyone and their mother indulging that she'd never given it much thought. But after last time, after two belligerently drunk men caused all this trouble for her and everyone else…
"Share with me," she offered, gently taking the opener out of his hand and popping the top off of the cola. He shot her a confused look, to which she glanced between him and his own bottle and hesitantly added, "Just not in the car, okay?"
After a few seconds of confusion he got the message, and tucked the glass between his seat and the floor for the time being. Then, he leaned forward to steal a sip of soda, the mist of a freshly opened bottle rising to his lips.
"I missed you," said Virginia as she watched, adding to the list of honest explanations.
"I really figured you'd had enough of me," Two-Bit admitted, passing the bottle back and forth. "Figured you realized you can do a hell of a lot better."
"D'you think I hate you or somethin', Two-Bit?" she nearly quoted.
She caught the hesitation followed by a smirk hiding behind the rim of the glass.
"I can't shake ya," she added.
This time, when the car pulled away from the Serv-Ur-Self station, Virginia felt as light as the hand she dangled out the window. She picked up on Two-Bit watching her, too, staring anywhere but the road in front of them. Finally, she turned to him and pointed directly out the windshield to divert his attention. It wouldn't work.
"Just can't help myself," he mused, looking at the road for all of five seconds before looking right back at her, up and down. "You somehow went and got even more gorgeous."
"Thank you," she replied, unable to do anything else but beam.
Two-Bit and Virginia spent another hour or more just driving. They'd ventured so far west that Two-Bit turned them around in a big circle across town to get back to their designated side. He had pointed out nice, shiny cars and sneered at them all the same until they'd returned to a more familiar locale, to which he kept driving. They drove and talked, not that there was a whole lot more to catch up on than what had already been discussed. They even drove through "Vipers' Territory" on the far side of town, which Two-Bit told her to steer-clear of unless explicitly under Curtis Gang supervision, and even then it would be a crapshoot for the sort of mood their fellas would be in.
When dinner was soon approaching, Virginia was obligated to interrupt their conversation.
"It's probably 'bout time…" she muttered, figuring he'd get the hint.
"Nah," Two-Bit verbally waved off, quickly too. Now his eyes were dead set on the road in front of them. His profile held a mischievous look with no signs of slowing the car to turn back around.
"What d'ya mean, 'nah'?" Virginia couldn't help the heat that rose to her cheeks at the banter.
"Well," he began, "it's a matter of fact that I never got any of those 'yeses' I was promised from this Summer. So, I'm cashin' some in, starting now."
"I don't remember saying anything like-" she was trying to play it off but there was no escaping it.
"Guess you didn't promise so much as I told you so," he carried on, shrugging, "but I figure I deserve somethin', seein' how you led me on and all."
Virginia gave him an incredulous look, not that he met her eye to see it. She repeated the three key words "led," "you," and "on" back to him in disbelief.
"That's what I said," he confirmed. He'd officially crossed the threshold, ready to turn the whole situation that had been eating Virginia up inside into a big joke. "Despite what you might've heard, I ain't some lady of the night. You can't just use me like you did and run off, leaving me high and dry. Legally speaking, if you do that to a man then he-"
He hadn't lost any ability to rile her up. If anything, he'd gotten worse.
"-Okay, okay!" she laughed, burning bright red at whatever direction that speech was going. In addition, she was worrying about how sinister his request could turn out. "What do you want?"
"I get more than one," he reminded. "'Yeses,' that's plural."
"Ah huh. Give me a chance to start keepin' a coupon book for you first."
"I collect enough receipts, you give me a bona fide, genuine Pyrex set?"
"I was thinkin' more like your choice of movie or a night of bowling, but I can make the dishes work, too," she joked. "Oh, but it's just one at a time. You gotta keep coming back. One week's silverware, next one's a casserole dish. It's a whole ordeal."
"Forget it," he played off, "your first idea's better."
"Alright, spit it out," sighed Virginia, "what's your first yes going to?" She'd hardly noticed, but the car had slowed down and drove unevenly over gravel on the side of the road. They were hardly in town anymore, but instead somewhere they could see golden, overgrown farmland in the distance. The Plymouth never shut off, only shifted into park.
Two-Bit was finally looking her in the eye as he turned, left arm across the steering wheel and the other stretched along the back of the seat.
"Kiss me," he dared.
She wouldn't say it outloud, but that wasn't something she would have turned down in the first place. With a fluttering heart, she sat up on her knees and leaned across the front seat. He better have been counting his lucky stars there was no other traffic coming this far out.
Like it was the easiest thing in the world, Ginny kissed him. It was sweet and sticky like the long empty pop bottle. She could also tell he wasn't doing anything to help, making her fully lean towards him, as he relaxed against the cushion and driver's side window. She could hardly complain, though. Thank God for this death trap, she thought, lack of seatbelts and middle console and all, for making her job easier.
She left it at just the one kiss, despite the knowledge that she could have gotten away with more. His smirk didn't fade away when she leaned back to the passenger's side and set her legs on the floorboards properly. She did her best to leave it at just that for now, to play it cool and composed, even when his hand had reached out to possibly press itself in her hair and when her brain was too busy screaming that she'd did it! The first time, under the influence of neon lights, hadn't been a fluke!
"Okay?" she asked for confirmation nonchalantly, despite the fact her chest was beating a mile a minute.
"Shit, I missed you." It wasn't the answer she expected, and it came out more quietly than he'd ever said anything.
Virginia tried not to smile too hard, but still reached over and linked the hand now lingering in the middle seat with her own.
"Tomorrow," she offered, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, "fresh start after school? Pick me up around 6?"
"Don't have to ask me twice," Two-Bit agreed, and peeled out into a U-turn aiming back home.
That Friday, Virginia was notably brighter. It was no different than any other day, but she was in a good mood and couldn't be bothered to let it get dragged down. Even when Connie eyed her suspiciously as she sharpened pencils before the bell rang, Virginia wouldn't let it get to her.
"Haven't seen you in this good a mood in forever," she had muttered, cheek resting lazily in her hand, elbow leaning forward on her desk.
That was the first thing Connie had said to her in eons, which normally would have touched a nerve, whether because of how long this silent treatment had lasted or the fact that she was speaking to her at all after Virginia had told her off for the final time. This time she was able to take it in stride.
"Yup!" Virginia agreed with the sentiment and kept on moving.
Back at her seat, Virginia passed Ponyboy the pencil she'd sharpened for him. He murmured a thanks and then carried on in his usual hushed voice.
"You really want those soc girls to hate you," he remarked. He might have kept his voice low but half the things he said, Virginia noted, were awfully sassy.
"I don't want anyone to hate me, I just have a newfound low tolerance for bullshit." She had whispered while enunciating the syllables in the last word and it got the closest to making Pony laugh in class as she could. She'd seen him outside of school, around his friends, and knew it was possible, but here he was a tough cookie to crack. She leaned in to add quietly, "And you're one to talk, Mr. Glares-At-Cherry-Valance-From-Across-the-Room."
He refused to dignify that with a response.
As if continuing a tradition, Two-Bit and Virginia went to the Admiral that evening. They stayed in the car this time, windows rolled low and welcoming a perfect breeze to flow through.
They were seeing Alfie this time around, something neither of them had heard of and something they were hardly paying attention to. For the first ten minutes, Two-Bit was challenging himself to mimic the lead's Cockney accent but after that he had fully checked out. He had much more important things to figure out, like fully convincing Virginia to see his way of thinking.
It didn't take much. She'd settled it already.
She would be having fun, at the very least for this semester. If she had to buckle down and work harder for grades and focus on college applications, she would, but not until later into the school year. That could wait for future Virginia. Currently, she wasn't too worried about it.
She guessed what people said was true: Two-Bit Mathews was a bad influence. But it wasn't like he was pushing her to get hooked on pills or drop out. He just encouraged her to de-stress and live life. Taking it easy was so tempting, with or without him present.
She swore to make her best effort and he made her shake on it.
It was nice having a partner in crime. Two-Bit was more than happy to help draft up a scheme for getting as much undivided Virginia-time as he claimed to need. So far, they'd settled on Virginia joining a club. She wasn't really going to, but that was for them to know and for her family never to find out. Now, they were working on picking out which club exactly. They needed one that took up a lot of after school hours, but not one Mr. Campbell was going to be interested in seeing the results of.
Currently, yearbook committee sounded like the winner. She'd just "have" to go to school games to take pictures and write articles. Those would obviously keep her out until nine o'clock some nights, maybe later. And, if her parents needed proof, all she'd need to do is flip to a random page of the Lariat and point to a printed photo and say she took it.
"Good deal," said Two-Bit when it was all sorted.
In the lull of conversation, Virginia tried to catch back up on the movie to no avail. The plot was lost with how much time they'd spent talking and the only thing she was piecing together was that she did not care for the titular character at all. Instead, she decided to fuss in her head over whether she could get away with making a move. This time it was, without a doubt, a date (even if no one was using that word).
Virginia slid into the middle seat, and, as if in reflex, Two-Bit was throwing an arm around the back of the seat and her shoulders.
"Now, we paid good money for this cinema experience," he smiled cheekily as Virginia got comfortable. "I really don't think you're cherishing this opportunity."
"I'm not," she shrugged, because he was correct. She was looking at him, for the first time fully invited to take him in this closely. Sure, she had his grey eyes (they were grey now, she was sure of it), rusty hair, and laugh lines memorized, but there was always more to discover.
"You always have this?" Virginia asked. She raised a hand gently to the side of his face, tracing a faint, peach line across his cheek.
"Thought it woulda been gone by now," Two-Bit answered nonchalantly, raising a hand to feel for himself. "You look too close you're gonna see I get uglier by the minute."
"Not possible," she shooed away the idea. "Makes you look tough."
If there was one thing to inflate a man's ego it was saying he was tough.
"If you like those, get a load of these."
He effortlessly entwined their hands and lifted them, flipping them back and forth in the sliver of moonlight and flickering of the projector until the angle was just so. He pointed out his knuckles with the other hand. Sure enough, they were rougher than the rest of the skin and riddled with sporadic white lines. It was even more notable as Virginia ran her thumb across them.
"Yeah they were from…" Two-Bit hesitated, staring intently at their hands. "-the last big rumble, after Johnny killed the soc. We thought we were gonna lose Johnny, too, so we fought like hell."
"'Bout how long d'ya think it'll be until another one springs up?" she asked it quickly, so he didn't have to talk about 'losing Johnny' any longer than necessary.
"Ohh," he puffed air out his lips as he thought, "people've been thinking the West Siders learned their lesson since last year's. Boys get jumped still but it's not like before. Doesn't seem as life or death as before. Don't take me for an expert, though." Virginia nodded along and Two-Bit's expression twisted with a flash of bitterness. "They'll all have the luxury of pickin' up the whole 'Peace and Love' schtick once it hits town, so I expect it's only a matter of time 'til they're not fighin' back but us boys'll still be getting the blame."
"Peace and love doesn't sound too bad," she said, even if she didn't fully grasp the concept and all it entailed. "I'd like it if there was a way to get you boys out of fighting." They deserved better than a life of stitches and busted knuckles.
"Shoot, I think we'll be fightin' one way or another until the day I die," he shrugged like it was nothing to him. "Got this one fighting a commie spy last year." He changed the subject and pointed to some small scrape on his wrist.
Virginia actively rolled her eyes at that claim.
"Alright, but honest to God, I'm riddled with these things." He thought about it for a second and then awkwardly brought his leg up in front of the steering wheel. It was a wonder he didn't press the horn with his shoe. He rolled up the cuff of his jeans and hunted down a light patch of skin above his ankle.
"Bike riding," Two-Bit titled it, then rolled up the same pant leg even higher. This time it revealed a longer, discolored patch. "I was helping Darry practice for football tryouts a little too close to the front porch. And this one," he put his leg back in place and showed off his elbow, "stuck it right in broken glass at the end of Buck's bar.
"Old news here," he moved on to roll up the sleeve on his shirt. It showed off a puckered scar on his upper arm about the size of a penny. It was old news, nearly everyone had one, Ginny included, only hers was smaller and not as deep set.
Two-Bit carried on with a few more insignificant sightings; scrapes from climbing fences, wrestling with friends, or junior high fights.
"Alright, come on," he pulled his sleeve back down. "I showed you mine, you show me yours."
"Oh no," she laughed, thinking about it. She had piddly little scars from scraped knees or playing with the neighbor's cat, nothing with good stories attached. "Prepare to be bored."
Virginia lifted her chin high and pointed to the general area he never saw from his height. "Ran into the bed frame corner as a kid." She wasn't sure if Two-Bit could even see anything since it had faded over a decade ago.
She held out her thumb, showing a sliver of once damaged skin on the side. "Somebody told me, when we were kids, they were making soda bottles so you could pop the cap right off. Nearly lost the tip right there in the QuikTrip."
Lastly was a circle between her collarbone and shoulder, patterned with half-faded dots. "Spider bite. It never got bad enough to get it looked at but-"
Two-Bit had his face scrunched when she looked up.
"I told you it was-"
"Boooo," he dragged out at a volume that held no regard with the cars their neighbor. They got shushed by someone in the next row.
"I told you!" she tried to defend in a whisper-scream.
"Sweetheart, you were the main witness to a genuine redneck knife fight," Two-Bit drawled. "I know you can do better than that."
"Just 'cause I can, doesn't mean you get to see it," Virginia exasperated. She knew exactly where that scar was, all gnarled and deep. It was an ugly thing she had the misfortune to be reminded of every time she took a bath or changed clothes. She was not about to let him see something like that, no matter where it was- and where it was was underneath the band of her skirt. "Especially," she added, "not at the drive-in."
"Chicken," Two-Bit taunted. He got closer to her ear to repeat it and Virginia squirmed to get away, to which he only wormed his way back closer. She could feel the hand that once rested across her shoulder creeping its way down her side and then toward the hem of her shirt.
"If you touch me, so help me God," It was all Virginia could let out, in her voice as non threatening as it ever was and holding in laughs as she did. She had to cover up the part of her mind that would have let him do it, joking or not. Sure, there were probably twenty other girls getting felt up at the drive-in that night, but she couldn't let herself be one of them. That wasn't something she was ready to think seriously about…even if she couldn't help but think about it in the first place.
She knew…enough. It wasn't something formal education or her own mother (thank God) had ever gone into, but she was a teenager. It was impossible to make it out of a single school day without hearing something about who was fooling around with who and putting the pieces together herself over how it all worked. It must have been a natural instinct; the same instinct that made her like Two-Bit at all and that sent flashes of his hands on her skin into her brain.
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding," Two-Bit assured, hands put back where they were welcomed. That didn't stop him from adding a quick "Rain-check," under his breath, which earned him a nudge and a roll of the eyes.
Only about fifteen minutes of movie passed by in silence. Virginia was baffled by the change in tone, and even more caught off guard that they'd actually planned an abortion in the film. She didn't know a movie like that would be allowed to be shown at any old movie house.
"Gin," Two-Bit's attention was back on her. She was thankful for the distraction.
"Yeah?"
"You my girl?"
It was the question of a lifetime. Virginia knew her answer but instead lead with,
"Who's askin'?" She fiddled with the curls in her hair and pretended to look absentmindedly around the car all to avoid her rosy cheeks becoming the center of attention.
"You know damn well who's askin'," he raised his voice playfully. "C'mon, I'm doing you right. Ain't putting it off any longer."
Virginia smiled. She was going to give him a straight answer this time, but he kept on rambling.
"There's a hell of a chance your reputation is goin' to take a nosedive if folks see us out together. I know you ain't like those soc girls but that ain't gonna stop people from talking."
"We've already been out together Two-Bit," she told him. No way they had driven together as many places as they had this year without someone their age spotting them. And she hardly had much of a reputation to begin with. Word getting around that she was going steady with anyone would only raise it, not that that mattered. "Nobody's said anything."
"Your old friends were saying things since day one," he argued. He was right on that account but Virginia was so preoccupied with getting what she'd been hoping for for so long that it was the furthest thing on her mind.
"I'm your girl!" she assured him. There was no more room for arguments or warnings or what-ifs. It was final.
"Well, alright then." He said it so casually, though, his pleased as punch expression said differently. Ginny couldn't take it in for long, as Two-Bit pulled her back in to kiss her atop her head and let her snuggle into his side to finish the film. Of course she didn't take any of it in. She was too preoccupied with the butterflies caught in her throat, the feeling of each stroke of his hand through her hair, and the satisfaction that his heart was beating just as hard as her own.
This was it.
This chapter might have been a little all over the place, but I couldn't find a place I was happy splitting it up. Hopefully if you've been reading for a while, you enjoy this long one after my absence!