The Outsiders Fanfic: Where Does the Time Go?

Chapter 25- Good riddance

Disclaimer: I do not own "The Outsiders" nor do I own any of the characters.

Arie's POV-

I stomp up the sidewalk and onto the porch of Edward Brandess. If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it now, I think. I'm still enraged from my argument with Cherry, which is good since it'll give me confidence to do this, but bad if I wanted to try to let him down gently.. I pound on the door and wait until the boy himself opens it up.

"Hey Arie!" Ed says happily.

"Ed, we need to talk," I say.

"Sure, what about?" he asks.

"Us." I say. The look on Ed's face changes drastically. The energetic, cocky boy that once stood before me is no more, in his place is a sheepish boy with sad eyes.

"Why don't you come in?" he asks.

"No.. I can't.. I can't stay for long." I look over to a bench outside his house. "Why don't you come out," I say. We sit on the bench, and I try to gather up what I'm saying.

"Ed, we need to break up." I've never been the type of girl to evade a topic, I just like to be blunt. "And it's not you, it's me.. well no actually it is you."

"Woah, back up, you want to break up with me?" Ed says.

"Yes I thought I made that clear," I say, kind of annoyed that he broke my speech.

"Arie.. but.. but what happened?" he asks, stumbling over his words.

"Well if you wouldn't interrupt I could tell you," I say. Ed makes a mouth zipping motion. "Good. Okay. Well honestly things just haven't been perfect and I know that in relationships you can work through the imperfections, but the one thing I just couldn't handle was your violence. Especially towards Spencer.." I say.

"Spencer?" he asks, unzipping his "locked" mouth.

"Yeah, Spencer, the greaser girl you beat up," I say, glaring a bit.

"Arie! This is over that? We do it all the time, it's a soc/greaser thing! Sometimes they get the best of us too! Just last month I had a greaser fight me good in a jump!" he says.

"Yeah except you were the ones doing the jumping.. that's why they fought back..." I say. Ed stays silent, I got him there. "How would you feel if a greaser jumped me, started beating up me. How would you feel?" I ask.

"Well they wouldn't, you're a soc girl," he says.

"And they're nicer," I mumble.

"Huh?" Ed asks, clearly having not heard what I had said. Probably for the better.

"Well all that aside, what if that happened, how would you feel?" I ask.

"I would be mad that they got one of us, that they would even think about that. And I would be mad that it was you, but I mean slightly less mad cause now you're breaking up with me," he says.

My immediate reaction is to just shout every foul word I know at him, but I do something better.

"Okay," I say, and walk away.

"So we're over?!" Ed shouts from behind me, still on the bench. I turn around, giving him an answer. Happily up is my two middle fingers, doing what all those words never could. I turn back around and keep walking.

"Good! I was gonna break up with you anyway! And you're not even a perfect soc if you think a greaser is ever right! And you-" Ed screams, though I am too far away to hear any more of the complaints.

Good riddance.

The first place I head is that little shop on the corner, with the laughs and smiles of the boy who works there. I'm going to the DX. I'm going to see Soda.