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The truth was a strange notion because it always relied on perspective. Virginia often wondered if the two could ever be separated. In the absence of truth, comfort was her delusion. Could it be good or bad? Well, she wouldn't realize it but it was rooted in true love, bound by the chains of fate.
Virginia always believed she was unlucky in love. It was her tragic woe, the sorrow of her sweet life. She's had a penchant for drama as Darry mentioned several times in his twenty-eight years. So it didn't shock anyone when she burst through the door to the house, with a burning question seared into her mind:
"Who knew about Dallas Winston joining the Tiber Street Tigers?!"
Ponyboy peeked his head through the doorway of the kitchen, his brown tufts of hair bobbing as he nodded affirmatively. It was just him and Johnny, much to her relief. She needed time to think and though she missed the rest of her family and friends dearly, they insisted on catching up every minute of the day and hearing about her travels. Johnny was probably staying the night again, she assumed. Ever since he turned eighteen, his parents threw him out, claiming they didn't need to take care of them anymore. Reading it in a letter from Ponyboy made her cry a while and though she was usually picky about someone occupying her bedroom, Virginia held no arguments against Johnny using it to crash. It didn't matter to the gang— Johnny was their family, blood or not and they would pull through for him.
"When's the last time you've seen him?" Virginia questioned her little brother.
"I dunno."
She looked to Johnny expectantly and he shook his head. If Johnny Cade didn't even know... Stupefied, Virginia sat on the couch and watched the dark-haired boy scarf down a ham sandwich while she held a cup of hot tea she brewed out of anxiety. Her little brother's eyes were fixed on some papers he was filling in while she bit on her lower lip incessantly.
"Where is he?" she questioned softly.
"I dunno."
"You know, for an English major, you don't have a good vocabulary," Virginia huffed, leaning back in a slouch. For a moment since her return, she forgot about the etiquette classes she was forced to take in Paris. Johnny held out his cigarette for her and she shook her head, smiling.
"Boy," he remarked, sticking it in his mouth, "before there wasn't a day you went without smokin' a cigarette 'cause you were nervous or thinking— and you were always thinking."
"Ponyboy—"
"Okay, maybe last week!" he groaned, looking up from his documents. "He's busy, Bluebell, not dead."
Virginia was pacing now, thinking long and hard. Some things never changed. Could this be the reason why Dallas was so upset with her leaving? She felt a twinge of guilt. Her departure was rather quick and things were just getting heated up between the River Kings and the Tiber Street Tigers. Now the Tigers owned most of the Northside. They clutched her home between their claws.
