𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐧 , 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬

twenty two.

MADELINE WINSTON

"where'd you get this?" i snatch the brown bagged alcohol from pony's hands, the bottle of—whatever that is that just made my eyes well up with tears from a small sniff—placed in a brown paper bag to disguise it as we sit in the lot.

"the cabinet." pony says, taking the bottle back from me.

darry's cabinet, no doubt. the one in the dining room, the shelf beneath the one with all their parents' old, fine china, that's where he snatched this heady liquor.

ponyboy doesn't drink, but i guess today he does. even if he's only stealing small sips from the bottle, i guess he felt he needed it.

his brothers are out picking up a pizza for dinner and that's why we're here, in the middle of an unused parking lot on the mattresses and other junk thrown around, freezing our asses off.

i bit my tongue this morning when ponyboy and i were the only ones in the kitchen for breakfast, i stopped breathing, too, i think. after last night, after he saw soda and i downstairs and got hurt from the sight of it, i feared facing him this morning.

i was worried he'd hold a grudge with me, too. a you-didn't-tell-me-you-were-dating-my-brother type of grudge. although, soda and i aren't even dating ... i don't think. i don't know what we are.

but ponyboy's more mad at the fact that soda lied to him, brother to brother, i guess that crossed a line. he seems to give less of a shit today about the fact that his brother has had his hands all over the girl he likes—me, and more of a shit over soda saying, "sisters of the gang are off-limits," while contradicting himself.

once again, me.

"can you believe that?" pony sinks further down into his angry, swarming thoughts. "telling me for years that two-bit's sister is off-limits, to not get any ideas, even though i never did because we've only ever been around her like, twice. yet here soda is, with you, dally's sister." he scoffs as if i'm not a subject of his ranting matter and just an innocent friend to listen to him instead.

"kind of a dick move." i choose to empathize with him. "but don't go too hard on him, okay? i kissed him first."

pony's face scrunches in disgust and he bellows out a sound of being nauseated by my words. i laugh.

"all the girls like soda." he shakes his head. "i can't believe you're one of them."

i laugh silently, smiling to myself as i look at the loose threads pulled through the top layer of the mattress i sit on the edge of.

"and his birthday is coming up." pony groans, running a hand down his face as if he just remembered the fact and wishes he didn't.

my eyes shoot up to him, "it is?"

"next week. i think, right? is next week the 18th?"

"yeah," i nod. the eighteenth of january, two days after my birthday. i guess i never brought it up, never felt the need to mention my birthday over the past month or so of living here. i'm not surprised dallas never mentioned it either. he's probably the worst person i know at remembering people's birthdays. "so is mine."

"what?"

"my birthday is next week, too."

"what?" pony sits up straighter.

i laugh again, "yeah. the 16th. i'll be 17 on the 16th."

pony's mouth is agape, and then his attention is drawn over to the street where darry and soda turn the corner in the truck.