Darry Curtis and Grace Micheals had to grow up faster than most. With working all the time and keeping the gang out of trouble, neither of them have time for romance.
Things get worse when Johnny kills a soc and has to go on the run with Ponyboy. In...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
1963 ♡ Will Rodgers High School
"Come on team pick up the pace!" Coach Goldberg shouted, encouraging the football team to speed up on their laps of the field. They had been training more than usual, in preparation for the big game against John Marshall High that Friday.
Over on the empty soccer pitch, the cheerleaders practiced their routine. Shelly Oakes, the cheer captain, stood at the front as she watched, trying to decide where to place people on the pyramid.
Dotted around both fields were the yearbook photographers, trying to take some last-minute pictures of the sports teams before the planners decided on a final layout and sent them to print next week.
One of those photographers was Gracie Micheals, she was stood to the sideline taking pictures of everything from the cheerleaders, to the girlfriends of the football players who were sitting and talking on the bleachers, to the football players themselves.
After a while she got distracted and instead, took photos of different things around her like a snail she saw moving across the grass. So focused on taking the perfect shot, she didn't even hear Sally sneaking up behind her.
"Boo!" She shouted, grabbing her best friend by both shoulders and shaking her slightly. Gracie jumped forwards in fright, accidently crushing the snail under the foot of her converse.
"Ugh no!" Gracie exclaimed, looking at the sole of her shoe at the crushed-up snail remnants. "You made me step on my muse!" She joked, lifing her foot up to show Sally, to which she fake-gagged.
"Get any good shots?" Sally asked, nodding towards the camera in her friends hand.
"Yeah, I think I took a few good ones of the team," Grace replied. "But I gotta go develop them before I know for sure,"
Sally cracked a smile. "Of the whole team or just of Darry Curtis?" she nudged her friend teasingly with a giggle.
Gracie's mouth fell open and her voice dropped to a whisper. "Would you quiet down? Someone could hear you, yanno?" She said before looking around to see if anyone heard.
Sally just rolled her eyes "Don't flip your wig girl, there's no-one listenin'... I gotta go before the water break is over, Shelly's already mad at me for forgetting my back-handspring," she explained before walking back over to the other cheerleaders on the soccer field.
Gracie shook her head with a smile before going back to taking pictures. Sally was the only person that she trusted enough to know about her growing crush on the captain of the football team and if anyone else found out, she'd be embarrassed for life.
♡
Darry and Paul ran together on their second lap of the field. As they ran past the bleachers, Paul's eyes were drawn to one of the photographers who was standing at the sidelines.
"Hey Curtis, isn't that your girl over there?" He asked, pointing in the direction of the girl with the camera.
Darry looked in the direction that he was pointing and shook his head. "Gracie? I've lived next door to her my whole life but I wouldn't consider her my girl. We're just friends,"
Paul let out a smirk, knowing he was lying. "Oh, so you wouldn't mind if I asked her to prom then?" He asked, watching Darry's face for a reaction.
Darry turned his head to see if Paul was joking. When he realised that he was, he let out a light chuckle. "You better watch where you step, Holden. You know she's off-limits,"
Paul laughed weakly and his breath got heavier as he had to run faster to keep up with Darry's pace. "You know I'm only kiddin', Curtis. But I gotta say, she's a real looker, so you better stop pretendin' that you don't like her before someone else asks her out,"
Darry thought about that for a moment. It had never occured to him that Gracie could go to prom with someone else and the more he thought about it, the more he hated the idea.
