This Ain't Home

"family"

Ponyboy is a Greaser, everybody knew that. The way he dressed, the way he greased his hair back, the way he walked and the way he talked. So, when he walked into the house and saw the way the home looked- something made him feel a bit more comfortable realizing it could've been Greasers he was living with; but he knew that Greasers were broke, they had barely any money to feed themselves, pay for bills- So if Darrel and his brother Pepsi or whatever was able to pay for another child? The idea of them being a "happy Greaser family" was very unlikely.

"Uh, well, our house is pretty small," Darrel started and Ponyboy hummed in response; he knew that. He wanted to scoff but "first impressions were always the hardest, but the key important!" He found himself quoting Ms. Stacey, right. His first impression had to be good enough to make sure Darrel and his brother liked him, liked him enough to at least stay for a while. Hopefully for a few months, if he was lucky it could be longer than just a measly two months. If he was lucky, maybe he'd be able to stay somewhere near six months! That's half a year, which he would take over a week or two... he wasn't sure how long he was actually going to be here, so he knew better to get his hopes up- but each time he stood in an new house with new people he couldn't help but wish that it would finally be a home he could call his own.

"But it's still cozy and comfortable. You're going to like it here." Darrel smiled as he led Ponyboy into the house a bit deeper, they stood in between the kitchen and the living room. They had a small television on the ground, it was turned off though. Hopefully he'd be able to watch the TV, he needed an escape from this house already. The air was musky, it was almost humid inside of the house but Ponyboy wasn't going to say that to Darrel; what if he saw it as rude? Ponyboy had time to be rude later, but not now... his eyes slowly wandered back up to Darrel, watching as he pointed to the kitchen.

"Here's the kitchen, the living room, we even got a workin' television which is amazing." The older man started, stating the obvious. Ponyboy already knew where the two places were, he just wanted to get to his room and read. He wanted to read just because it would be an escape from everything. While he was reading Great Expectations, his world felt so different. He could imagine every word they were saying to be a scene right in front of his two eyes. Ponyboy had read the book multiple times before, and he would continue to read it over and over again, but each time he read it; he'd figure something else out, a hidden detail he hadn't found previously.

"The bathroom is just down this hallway," Darrel's arm pointed down the hall to which Ponyboy nodded; he'd be lucky if he didn't find himself needing to spend nights in the bathtub again...

"This is room here, so if you need anythin' you can just knock on my door and I'll probably be awake, oh and this-!" Darrel explained everything, leading Ponyboy down the hallway; they had passed another room, when both of them passed it, Ponyboy felt his heart tighten up and then start racing again. He didn't ask what was wrong with the room even if he was very curious if something was inside, like what if they had another foster boy, well another foster kid, it could be a girl- but what if they had another kid living in there hidden away from the world? What if they had piled of dead bodies stacked up? Darrel sighed while opening the door to a bedroom. The room looked well loved, it had a messy floor of dirty clothes, maybe they were clean; but Ponyboy didn't want to ask, it felt like a weird question.

"Sorry, I knew I should've told him to clean this up." Ponyboy's eyes looked around the room more, there was posters and photos on the wall. A car poster and one with two girls in bikinis; Ponyboy scoffed but played it off as a clearing of his throat. It was funny to think about the poster of the girls, obviously he's seen multiple things like this but something about it this time was just, oddly funny. He played with the strings of his grey sweatshirt, while staring over the room intensely, he wanted to acknowledge anything that could've been important. There were very old looking shoes scattered across the floor, but no two pairs were put together neatly. Something about the floors of this room made him remember his first foster home, good parents but they had such an awful, evil kid who never cleaned up and forced Ponyboy to do all of his cleaning and organizing chores. A box of cards sat on a desk, which Ponyboy could only assume that most of the cards weren't inside of the box due to the floor having multiple playing cards scattered across it, the brown and wooden desk had pencils and pens and a few papers on top of it, well, Ponyboy definitely didn't want to call this home. Nowhere he ever stayed was going to be his house.