Miss Marley |The Outsiders|

17. Seeing Red

Johnny Cade's seventeenth birthday seemed to be a grand success. At least, that's what the Curtis gang thought until they heard a door slam at half-past four.

Darry was the first to wander down the hall, frantically wiping the sleep from his eyes. He stumbled through the dark blindly, anxiety pumping through his veins with every step forward. The kitchen was bathed in harsh white light once his fingers found the light switch. The four boys asleep in the living room groaned in protest, but Darry ignored them.

For a second time, he recognized the slim rays of light shining from beneath the bathroom door. The angry muttering of teenage boys died as he knocked the back of his hand against the wood. "Marley? You alright, hun?"

Her voice was thick with exhaustion and heaving breaths. Even with the door separating them, Darry could hear his sister swallow her tears. "Darry?"

"Yeah, Marls, it's me. Can I open the door? What's-"

"C-can you get Momma? I...I think I'm sick."

One simple request was all it took for the breath to be pushed from his lungs. The house fell silent as the girl's desperate beg echoed off the walls, filling the home. It once felt comforting, how the walls came so close together, now it just felt sinister. In the living room, the boys' whispers drowned out Marley's heaving. "What's goin' on, Dar?"

Sodapop looked too young for seventeen. His eyes were tired and kind, the same forever-innocent smile on his lips as he leaned against the wall to his right. That's when the rest of the boys began to stir, whispers turned to quiet voices, turned to shouts of alarm. "What the fuck are you doin' here, Shepard?"

Immediately, the eldest brother whipped his head to the left, watching the shadows for the greaser clumsily pulling on his shirt and flipping off one of the silhouettes. His eyes shone through the dark hall, slowly illuminated as he came closer. Striking blue eyes stuck out against his tanned face, heavy with sleep, his lisp twisted in a snarl. Before he could curse, Sodapop rose to his feet and walked towards him. The force of his hands colliding with his chest was enough to send Tim stumbling back half a step. "You better have a good reason for bein' here-"

Tim waved him away impatiently and continued down the hall, eyes fixed on the closed door and the person in front of it. He came to a halt beside Darry. With his hand tiredly running over his jaw, he tilted his head back against the wall. "Well? What's going on?"

"You tell me," Darry snapped suddenly. He turned back to the greaser in front of him, furrowing his brows while Tim ran his tongue over his teeth. "What the hell were you doin' in her room?"

"As of ten minutes ago?" He asked rhetorically, "fuckin' sleeping!"

The sound of a toilet flushing tore the boys' attention from each other and back to the door. Carefully, Darry rapped his knuckles against the wood again. "Marley? Are you finished?"

"This is ridiculous, open the door, Darry." Tim crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorframe while he listened intently. Sighing, Tim yelled, "come on, doll, don't you wanna go back to bed?"

A quiet string of nearly inaudible curses answered. Tim rolled his eyes, Darry dug his teeth into his bottom lip. Slowly, the rest of the boys made their way to the hall, each leaning on the other groggily. "Are y'all gonna fight, or can I go back to bed," Steve mumbled against Two-Bit's shoulder. "Darry would beat your ass," Dallas concluded.

"D-Darry?"

He turned his attention back to the door, his forehead mere inches from the wood. "Yeah, honey, I'm right here. What do you need?"