A Boy Named Pony - A Sequel to East West Sunset

Chapter Three - Ponyboy

It was strange, how it all started out. Hell, she didn't even know my name! Maybe that's why she gave me her full one, and let me choose which parts of it to call her. I liked calling her Betty Anne. It gave me that thrill of flashing cameras, old Hollywood glamour, but also something sweeter - something that I could taste on the late summer wind and smell in the wind-tossed hay grass. 

Betty Anne. It tasted good on my tongue when I said it out loud. It rolled off with the soft gentleness of the sunrise in the country. It gave me a little thrill when I said it, brought a smile to my lips even when, later, I threw it back at her, tears streaming, throat raw.

When I first met her, everything about her had the warm, beautiful taste of waking up in the middle of nowhere, but part of me was afraid that I was too far gone. I didn't want to get lost again.

When I first met her, I didn't quite know how lost I was going to get.

Darry pulled up alongside the curb in front of a small but well-kept house. The windowboxes were brimming with the last petals of soft pink flowers, and short lawn seemed to ripple in the shadows cast by the sturdy oak tree arching above. It was a nice house, nicer than any of the ones you could find in our neighborhood, that was for sure. Not a Soc house quite, but solidly middle class one. I could hear the roar of traffic coming from the Route 66 expressway a couple blocks to the north.

"This the one?" Darry asked the quiet girl, glancing at her through the rearview mirror.

Betty Anne jumped a bit at being spoken to. "Yes, this is it!" she squeaked. "Thank you very much!"

"No problem. Maybe now you'll remember Pony's name."

I rolled my eyes at Darry - he was far too amused at her not knowing who I was - and turned around to give her a grin. As I did so I noticed her cheeks had flamed bright red with embarrassment.

"Sure, yeah," she said. "I won't forget."

"Don't say it so annoyed-like!" I protested.

She curved her small lips into a surprised smile. "Okay - I'm sorry. Okay."

"Here, I'll open the door for you."

I swung out of the car, a smug feeling spreading like honey in my chest, and pulled open the back door of the car for her. I ignored Darry's utterly bemused quirked eyebrow and held out my hand to Betty Anne.

"You might want to take my hand. This old boat can cut you if you're not careful," I advised her.

Her eyes widened, and she nodded. Her hand felt knobby and soft all at once against mine. The side of her little finger was smudged with ink, silvery and almost ethereal with pencil lead. My mouth ran completely dry at the sight of it for some reason; all of the sudden, it felt as though I had done a  somersault and emerged, somewhat confused and disoriented, into a completely different universe than the one I had been in for the previous part of my life.

Uh oh. I was in trouble, all right.

"Thanks," she said and dropped my hand as though it had given her a painful electric shock. I saw her eyes dart nervously across the scars and ridges on the back of my knuckles.

I tucked both of my hands into the pocket of my sweatshirt, my stomach tumbling over itself as if I were still somersaulting. "I'll walk you up to the door."

"Thanks," she repeated.

It wasn't far from the curb up to her front door, and I stood at the base of the front stoop as she bounded up. I noticed that her backpack was red, covered in little clay pins of ladybugs, bees, and flowers. I wondered if she had made them herself.