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A clear mind was a luxury that would fail Virginia Curtis. Her mind was a canvas of colors, shaped and shadowed by experience. What was once a hunk of marble, chiseled and carved into an intricate psyche of impeccable wisdom became a maddening hurricane in less than an hour.
The autumnal rains struck Tulsa, a cruel match for the disorientation that her body was plunged into. Virginia felt the cold water douse her tattered dress, soaking her skin and dampening her hair but they didn't have a chance to get completely drenched before she, Johnny Cade, Ponyboy (whom Darry forced to go back home), and the other girls had crammed into the Curtis residence.
"Glory, the roads oughta get flooded or something," Johnny mumbled, shaking off his dripping jacket outside. Ponyboy nodded, wringing his suit jacket out on the porch. The men flinched as a crack of thunder echoed, companied by the flashes of lightning streaking through the murky clouds above. The chainlink fence rattled from the force of the beating rain.
Johnny poked his head inside the living room to look at the baffled women gathered. "You all okay?"
"Fine, Johnny, thank you," Roseanne sighed, carrying a stack of towels in her arms. She flung two at the young men who took them graciously.
Ponyboy's brows dug together as he popped a cigarette between his lips out of nerves. There wasn't much argument when it came to him returning home. After that rumble nearly ten years ago and the chaos that followed his adolescence, Ponyboy Curtis was vehemently against fights.
"Where's my sister?" he inquired, doing a quick scan of the room.
"She came inside, I saw her," Evie Green blurted out. It was hard to tell whether the wetness on her cheeks was tears or raindrops but they all figured she was terrified for Steve who had left with the other men.
The day he came home with that scar, she hadn't stopped crying for the rest of that night, and rightfully so. They had all felt a bit of fear upon finding out, knowing things could've turned out much worse for Steve if he wasn't associated with Darry. Virginia herself felt a knot of dread tighten in her stomach as they actively navigated her brother. Was he truly that influential to have one of the worst gangs outside the city be wary of him? And knowing what he owed them...
Virginia most certainly was inside but she may have been stuck under an enchantment as far as she knew. Her feet carried her to the fridge and she grabbed her father's old bulbous glass decanter. Darry had found it one day and decided to store his fancy whiskey inside of it, out of everyone's reach except hers. He was a lousy secret-keeper. Her eyes remained almost bugged out of her head, her face twisted in disbelief as she poured out whiskey into a glass from the matching set.
The sound of heels clicking against the tiles didn't detract from her moment of cognitive solitude.
"There you are," Roseanne sighed, peeking into the kitchen. She did a double-take when she saw the younger girl by the decanter. "How did you find it?"
