♡ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ꜱᴀʏ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ♡

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(Pony's POV)

"Man," Johnny started as he shook his head, "I just...I feel like she's mad at me." His eyes were pointed towards Cary as we watched her go into the girls' bathroom with Cassie, her best friend. Even from across the lunch room, I could see she looked awful: shaking, pale, and blank-faced, she was anything but herself.

I turned to face Johnny. "Mad? At you?"

He nodded, his eyes glazed over as if deep in thought. "Yeah."

"Did you do something to her?" I said, instantly regretting it. He's Johnny, of course he didn't do anything. I just don't think sometimes, don't use my head.

"No, man," he said, "I-I mean, I don't think so..."

"What do you mean?"

He turned towards me, his eyebrows slightly furrowed in thought. "She just hasn't been talking to me."

I sighed. The poor guy was so wrapped up in Cary that he obsessed over every little thing she did or didn't do. "Stop overthinking it." I said, dipping my spoon in my soup. "She's not really talking to any of us."

"I guess you're right." He sighed, tapping his spoon on the side of his bowl. "It's just that we—" he stopped himself abruptly, silence filling the air between us.

I looked up at him, waiting for him to continue, but he just sipped on his soup as if he said nothing.

"You what?"

He bit his lip. "Nothing."

"Johnny, you can tell me."

"Nah, man, it's nothing, really." He looked at me, his eyes telling me I should leave it alone. "Promise."

I shrugged. "Alright, man. If you say so."

Just then, Two-Bit approached, tray in hand, laughing about some snarky comment he probably said to someone in the lunch line. He obnoxiously sat at the table and I did my best to pretend like nothing was wrong. I knew that Johnny didn't want him to know about his liking Cary, but him and the rest of the gang were going to find out when they went to homecoming together. I understood why he wanted to keep it a secret, but at the same time, I was dying to tell Soda about it.

Johnny didn't do such a good job of acting like nothing was wrong. He was real quiet as he ate, but then again, Johnny was always quiet. Two-Bit was too engaged in a conversation with some Greasers at the table next to us to pay us any attention.

I kept an eye on the bathroom the whole time, but Cary never came. For all I knew, she could be passed out in there right now. My stomach got more and more sick with time thinking about it, and I wondered how Two-Bit wasn't doing the same. Maybe he was and was just covering it up. He was always real good at that. He was a true Greaser, and Greasers weren't supposed to show emotion other than being hard and tough as nails. Of course, Two-Bit covered up his emotion with jokes that were sometimes too vulgar for even my liking, but then again, no one wants to be around a buzzkill.

I hated myself for not being tough like him and the rest of the gang. It was something I battled with myself often, and even though Cary told me not to worry about it, I couldn't help but look at Soda and the rest of the guys and wish I could be like them.

My stomach grew more sick at the thought of Cary. I didn't talk much for the whole lunch, neither did Johnny.

As lunch went on and I still didn't see her, my foot tapped nervously on the sticky tile floor. Johnny must have noticed, because he glanced at me knowingly from across the table, his eyes as worried as I felt.

When lunch ended, I got up to put my tray away. I didn't eat it all, but was too sick in my stomach to finish it. As I came back to my seat, I was relieved to see the girls' bathroom door open, out walking Cary and Cassie. Her eyes looked red and puffy on top of her pale face, making them look like swollen cherries. I tried to make my way through the crowd to get to her, leaving the guys behind and ignoring the many insults thrown at me as I swerved around people, calling her name. She disappeared in the crowd, but I hoped I was close enough to where she could hear me.