Miss Marley |The Outsiders|

18. Here To Stay

Marley stood in her bedroom alone, carefully staring at the chipping yellow paint on her suitcase. The last few hours had been a whirlwind of nausea and anxiety. Worst of all was the feeling of the Earth slowly sinking away under her feet as Tim crossed his arm around her waist and walked her home.

It was just after six, and her heart had been racing since she stepped inside. On the other side of her bedroom door, her older brother paced in the kitchen, occasionally running his fingers through his hair. Sodapop and Ponyboy watched closely, chewing at their lips and dirty fingernails.

"She said the test came back negative," Tim told them, "it's a lot more common than we'd think, I guess."

The rest of the gang made themselves scarce after they noticed the ugly bruises coating the greaser's face. Marley pushed past them quickly, whispering quick apologies under her breath as she fought to keep the tears at bay. Steve, Two-Bit and Johnny quickly ducked out of the house, quietly reminding Sodapop about the Nightly Double and the girls waiting for them.

"That still doesn't explain what happened to your face," Darry sighed tiredly. Tim rolled his eyes in response, slowly bringing his gaze to Ponyboy. "Haven't seen you around, kid. Curls keeps askin' bout you."

"I uh, I s-saw him at school the other day," he started to explain awkwardly. Despite having known Tim Shepard for years, the guy still managed to give him the creeps.

"In case you forgot," Darry cut in angrily, "I'm still pretty pissed at you for sneaking into my house in the middle of the night. Now walkin' in with your face beat in an' my sister crying, sure as shit ain't helping your case."

Carefully, Sodapop wrapped an arm around his brothers' shoulders. The slight distraction gave Ponyboy enough time to slip away back into the hallway.

"Just take a minute," Sodapop asked his eldest brother. "Come on, Tim, what happened?"

Ponyboy paused at the threshold between kitchen and hall, his eyes fixed on the sliver of light escaping from the bottom of his sister's door. With his back still turned, he heard Tim sigh and Sodapop drop his hand from Darry's shoulder.

"Jamie's got a couple buddies in town, alright? I guess he don't really appreciate me runnin' around with her. Jamie doesn't like the fact that she left him, either. He's comin' to town on Saturday."

Ponyboy could sense the tension growing in the room as he stepped over the threshold and made his way to Marley's door. For a moment, he felt twelve again. Waking from a nightmare and lying awake in his bed, only to realize Sodapop's snores wouldn't send him to sleep. Not the way his big sister's stories did.

He felt the floorboards creak under his feet as he raised his fist and knocked against the door three times softly. On the other side, he could hear his sister move around the room frantically, muttering to herself before the doorknob twisted and pulled back.

Sodapop looked the most like their mother. It was solid fact, he was her twin and Darry couldn've passed for their father any day of the week. But as the door slowly swung open, Marley's frail fingers resting against the wood, she looked more like Momma than anyone had ever noticed. She spared a kind smile as she wiped at her eyes. "Hey, Pony. What's up?"

He didn't know what he wanted to say. What was he supposed to say? As he searched his mind, Ponyboy's eyes peered into the room, via the gap between his sister and the door. There, sitting on her bed just like the night she left, was her suitcase. Panic forced the words over his tongue before he had time to think them over,

"You said you were gonna stay, Marley."

Her eyes, identical to his own, went wide as she glanced down the hall. Biting down on her lip, Marley pulled the boy into her room by the collar of his shirt and shut the door behind him.