Saving Dallas Winston//// A Dallas Winston Story

16: The Darkness

Love is never easy. It's takes work to be loved. Feeling like you don't deserve to be loved, now that's a kicker. It shouldn't be work to love someone. But that's not the case when you love a monster. It isn't easy loving the monster.

Maybe that's what makes me and Johnny so close. We both love the monsters in our life. Johnny loves his parents. Even though his mom is a drunk bastard, he still loves her. And even though his dad beats and wails on him, Johnny still loves him. Mark is my monster. He still lurks under my bed and in my head. He lurks in the nightmares that cloud my thoughts. I loved him. Soda is the only reason I don't anymore. Soda had to convince me he was a monster.

I guess that makes me a hypocrite. I tell Johnny that he's loving monsters and that they don't love him back. We love Johnny, the gang, and he doesn't need his monsters. I'd tell Johnny that they're worthless all the while I was loving Mark for beating me. I'd make up excuses in my head; he's sick, he's just stressed, he just does it cause he loves me. That's not love though.

Love is what the gang has. What they give Johnny. What they give me. Johnny has so much to live for; the gang, his bright future, his future family. What do I have to live for?

Then there's Dallas Winston. Dallas had to teach himself not to love the monster. Maybe that's why he's so close with Johnny. He sees a younger version of himself in him. What Dallas Winston sees in me, I don't know. But if I wasn't so done with life, maybe I'd stick around to find out. I'd always secretly admired Dallas Winston for that, for learning not to love his monsters on his own.

Most believe Dally is the monster. But what they don't know is that he fought them, not became them. Dally had pushed the monsters out of his mind and into the darkness. Dally became darkness, which is different than being the monster. Maybe that's what draws me to Dallas; the darkness.

Ponyboy and I walked into our house together. Soda and Darry were sitting in the living room, Soda half asleep, once again, and Darry was reading the news paper in his recliner.

"Where the hell have you been?" Darry yelled at me and Ponyboy.

"At Buck's. With Dally." I said back firmly. I walked straight to the medicine cabinet and popped two aspirins and one of my pain meds.

"Well, it's three o'clock in the mornin' kids." Darry said and Pony walked toward the bathroom. "Hey! And I can't even call the cops because you'd be in a children's home so fast, it'd make your heads spin!"

"Then stop worrying, Darrel. I was with Pony, he's alright!" I argued back.

"Stop walking away from me! Y/N Y/M/N Curtis!" he yelled as I kept walking.

"Get off my fucking ass, Darry!"

"Hey! I am just worried about you! Without Mom and Dad I-"

"Keep telling me what a pain in the ass I am, Darry. It's super helpful!" I shouted back sarcastically.

"I wasn't tryna-"

"Mom and Dad are dead! You can't bring them back and neither can I!" tears were streaming down my cheeks. "Yelling at Ponyboy doesn't change that! Putting Soda in the middle doesn't change that! And, I'm sorry that you have all this pressure on you Dar! And I'm sorry that I'm the screw up child that couldn't help out more! I'm sorry!" I sighed. "Fuck!" I yelled and walked to my room.

With the door locked, I pulled up my secret floor board and pulled out my bag of weed. I got the hollow, metal pipe I got off a shoe rack and put some tin foil on top. I made a little dip in the tin foil and poked a tiny hole with a safety pin. I put some of the weed in the top and packed it in. I grabbed my cig lighter and placed the other end to the rod in my mouth, before lighting it. The smoke floated down the hollow rod and into my mouth. I inhaled the smoke and started to get high.