Let It Be Me

Part 10

I had walked miles in the rain. I slept on the cold, wet ground. I went far enough with Ponyboy's best friend to feel horrendous guilt. I was bulldozed by feelings all of the sudden for a guy that I knew I could never pursue. And to top it all off, I never even got to tell Dally about Bob.

We were in the car driving back to the neighborhood. Dallas was up front with whatever girl he had spent the night with. Johnny and I were sitting in the back. I had my head dropped in my hand and I had been staring out the window to avoid eye contact with Johnny. I couldn't look at him now without noticing the most ridiculous things. Like how the morning sun highlighted his gorgeous features. Or how soft and inviting his lips were. It wasn't that I hadn't noticed these things before but suddenly I couldn't ignore them and I didn't know why. I normally only had two reactions to stressful thoughts. Panic attacks, which wasn't happening, or avoiding them altogether and pretending they didn't exist. But I couldn't get rid of this. It was beyond frustrating.

Johnny noticed that I had gotten quiet and he kept trying to talk to me but I was only giving him one word answers. If I gave him anything more than that I knew it would get weird. But apparently he was already picking up on "weird" anyway.

I felt his fingers playfully climbing up the side of my arm in an attempt to get my attention but I ignored it. He tried again and when I still didn't react his hand dropped to the seat.

"Cal", he nudged me. "Hey."

I gave in and turned towards him. The damn sun was glowing around his stupid angelic face. I groaned and leaned my head back against the seat.

"What?"

"What's with you?" I shook my head.

"Nothing."

"Callie" he tried again. I closed my eyes and sighed.

"What?"

"Look at me." I paused, wondering if I could just pretend that I was trying to go to sleep instead. I felt his fingers slide under mine though and he shook my hand back and forth a little. I bit my lip and opened my eyes.

"What?" I asked again, looking him directly in the chin. His perfect lips pulled into a grin.

"Why won't you look at me?"

The car slowed as Dallas pulled up to the front of the girl's house. I think her name was Lila. Maybe it was Lillian. I don't really remember. I don't think Dally did either. But he got out of the car to walk her to the door and then the two of them disappeared into the house without a word to either of us.

"What's he doing?" I asked impatiently. Johnny shrugged.

"Probably finding out if she has a sister if I know Dally." I sighed and pushed my head against the seat. I couldn't take much more of this.

"Oh my God. I just want to get...." I caught myself before I said the word 'home' and a strange kind of feeling came over me. It had been two weeks but I still wasn't used to not belonging anywhere.

"Can you just look at me, Callie?" Johnny asked again sounding a little irritated this time. His tone bothered me enough to put a little bit of that fighting spirit back in me. I sighed and opened my eyes wide, staring directly at him.

"Like this?"

His gaze rested on me for a minute. I could see that he had something running through his mind.

"Why are you bein' like this?"

"I don't know what you want from me, Johnny. You asked me to look at you so I looked at you." He shook his head.