I'm Broken Enough

3

Y/n POV
"What's your problem!" "No, what's your problem!" "You! You are the problem!". I rolled my eyes at the sound of my mother yelling at Josh at the dinner table.

Why, may you ask?
Because after we came home from his practice, he dropped me off and left again with his friends. I don't understand what the problem was, but they despise me, so they wanted him to take me for as long as he could.

If they were lucky I would be gone for the rest of their lives.

But, it's a completely absurd argument, I know.
"Can you quit it already!" I shouted at them, and my whole family silently stared at me.

My little miss perfect act was starting to wear off again.

"Excuse me?" My mother shouted at me, "go to your room, now!". I slammed my fork down "fine! I'm not hungry to eat your shit dinner anyways!" I yelled at her and stormed upstairs to my bedroom.

They're just a bunch of assholes. Plus, the dinner did taste like shit, so I wasn't too mad about leaving. I sat on my bed and stared at the ceiling for what seemed like hours, and probably was, until I heard my family walking up the stairs and them going off into their bedrooms.

Perfect.

I got up off of my bed and opened my closet door. I started shifting all of my clothes over so I could get to the clothing at the end. My greaser clothes.
I put them on and opened the door that led to my terrace. I opened the latch on the bottom of it which lead to a ladder and I climbed down.

Then I ran.

The town was a couple of miles away since my house was in the middle of the woods, and running just made it faster. After five minutes of running I finally got into town, and it was on the greaser side. I shuddered as a gust of wind blew past me, it was chilly tonight. That was the excuse that I'll use to hide the fact that I was a little scared about being on the greaser side.

Alone. In the dark.

I walked through neighborhood after neighborhood, some houses with lights on, but most off. Some houses with yelling and banging, some with pure silence. I could hear gangs yelling and ran farther away from the noise, hoping that I wouldn't be their next victim. I passed an ally just before walking into another neighborhood.
I looked in, another gang.

They saw me too.

I turned and ran into the neighborhood, I could hear their foot steps running behind me. I turned my head back to see how far ahead I was, it was a good distance.

I turned the corner and suddenly I hit the ground.

I held my face in my hand and looked ahead, what just happened? I heard a groan and looked up, there was a boy sitting in front of me.
We must've run into each other.

I looked at him further, but there was something familiar about him.

He's that boy from The Dingo!

Steve POV
My folks were arguing again, so I decided to leave and go for a walk. I didn't feel like bothering the Curtis', although the look on Ponyboy's face would be priceless.

I walked to the end of the neighborhood and then turned around to walk to the other end again. When I arrived at the other corner of the neighborhood, I was suddenly knocked down.

I was on the ground holding my head. I groaned and looked up.

There was a girl there.
She looked- oh my god! She was that cute girl from The Dingo!

But something was different-

That thought was cut off by her saying "they're chasing me!" And getting up again.
"Come on then!" I said and grabbed her hand, and pulled her as we ran. Although from the time wasted from us falling, the gang caught up to us quickly after.

They pushed us to the ground and pushed a foot onto our backs to keep us down.
"Just what I need, to get jumped tonight" I groaned sarcastically and looked over at the girl, she looked terrified.

"Steve?" I heard someone ask from the gang and then walk towards me. He stood in front of me and told the guy to get off my back.
"Dally?" I asked looking up at him "what're you doing?" "Just with Shepard's gang man that's all, now what are you up to?". I sighed "I don't know, I was walking and bumped into her and you guys chasing her" I told him pointing at the girl. He looked at her and then back at me "you know her?" "Sort of" "she looks scared to death" he laughed and I rolled my eyes.
"Let her go" he demanded the gang and they did.
She got up right away and backed away from them.

"You never been jumped before or what?" Dallas asked looking her up and down, she shook her head. He laughed "makes sense", and then said goodbye to me and left with the rest of the gang.

The girl was still standing in the same spot, so I walked up to her "you ok?". She nodded, she was breathing really fast.
"You wanna sit down?" She nodded again. I sat down in the dirt and patted a spot next to me, in which she joined me.

"I'm Steve, what's your name?" I asked her finally. After a couple of seconds she answered "I'm y/n, we saw each other at The Dingo earlier, right?" "Yeah".

There was a silence for a minute.

I couldn't tell if either of us just didn't know what to say next, or if she just really needed to catch her breath.
"Hey are you alright?" I asked her again, "they didn't bruise you up or anything, right?".
"No no I'm ok" she replied with a soft smile.

I smiled back.
She seemed like a nice girl so far.

"Do you need me to walk you home or something? You know, a girl like you shouldn't be out here alone at night". She got up quickly "no I'm fine. I know what I'm doing I'm not just some stupid girl".

Well there's that soc attitude.

"I- I'm not trying to say anything like that, I just wouldn't want anything to happen to you, got it?".
"Yeah" she sighed "sorry".
"Hey, it's alright" I said standing up also, and putting a gentle hand on her back.

My hand touched rough denim.
That's what I was trying to think of before!

"Hey what's a soc girl like yourself doing out here anyway? Dressed like this?" I questioned her.She moved her back away from my hand at this comment "doesn't matter" she answered shortly.
"No, I'm sure it does matter" I spoke a little more calmly this time.
"It's nothing, just needed to get out you know?". She then paused and scoffed to herself for a second and then shook her head.
"No, you probably wouldn't get it".

She started to walk away now, back into the pitch black on her own.
"I'm sure I get it" I said stepping forward. She stopped and looked back at me, waiting for what I would say next.

"It's not like I have the best life out here you know, my life is far from perfect or even just good. So yeah, maybe I don't understand what you're dealing with, but maybe I do".

I breathed in sharply.
What was I even saying to this girl I barely knew?

She turned around, fully this time to face me, and took a few steps forward. She reached out and grabbed my hand for a second, hers were very soft. She looked up into my eyes and said "Steve, I'm sorry".

What was it with this girl?
I couldn't tell if she was about to kiss me or punch me in the face.

Wouldn't be the first time.

"If you need someone to talk to, just keep meeting me back here. Same place. Same time." She said to me, and then let go of my hand and walked away.

And that was it.

Who knows if I'll ever see that y/n again.