Too Bad to Die [The Outsiders fanfiction]

7. Losing the Game

Dallas Winston was dangerous, and so girls loved him.

To them he was an impossible rebel, a tragedy, a loner with a chance of redemption. He was none of these things. But Dallas let people believe whatever they wanted about him.

Girls, greaser and Soc alike, followed his trail of broken glass and smoke and hatred until they caught him. And then they stuck to him, and Dallas hardly cared if they stayed.

They left the minute they realized they couldn't change him. The moment they looked in his eyes and they finally understood that he was not the bad boy of their fantasies; that he was nothing if not cold, that the place where his heart should have been was empty, and his veins ran sharp with ice.

But before they saw his truth, they willingly fell for his lie. They saw only his passion and not the rage that caused it. They saw only his frosty outside and not what had caused him to freeze over- and they thought they were ready to help him but they weren't because Dallas had passed the point of help long ago. They dropped like flies when he had time to spare a devilish wink, devilish because he belonged in Hell, yet they forgave him for his sin and he didn't try to stop it. Perhaps that was the worst of all, that he let girls fall in love with him when he knew he could never love them back.

He wasn't movie star handsome like Sodapop, not handsome at all like any of the Curtis brothers. His attractiveness laid not in the symmetry of his face- rather, the asymmetry- he was scarred and had been in more fights than he could count. Dallas wasn't a hero, and he didn't look like one. In a movie, he'd be the rebel, or the convict, or the villain. Attractive, sexy, but not good-looking because he wasn't. He didn't look good.

He looked bad. And that was his allure. His danger, his mystery, the pain that he'd probably buried deep inside to lie in wait for a girl to dig it out and make it better.

No girl had ever gotten past one layer of Dallas. Eventually, it became too perilous for them to venture further. Girls left Dallas for better opportunities, or parental disapproval, or because they had even less fidelity than he, but mostly, they left him to save their own lives.

That was a smart decision.

He'd dated a lot of girls. The one he found himself going back to was Sylvia, who was smarter than him and just as disloyal. Why he was still with her he'd never know. Perhaps it was because she was dangerous, as well- she was wild and would do anything on a dare. But to be like Dallas was not an asset; Sylvia, like him, only wanted was she didn't have. She'd get with him, see other boys behind his back, hang on his friends while he was in jail, cry when he broke up with her for the last time, kiss him once or ten times when they got back together, and do it all again. Maybe that was why Dallas kept going back to her, because looking at her was like looking at himself. Sylvia thrived in the skill of manipulation and he admired her for that- the way she wrapped people around her fingers with those lacquered nails. She truly was art, just not the kind he preferred.

When she cheated, he badmouthed her to his friends and kissed her with that mouth later. Her disloyalty didn't really upset him. If it did, he could have ruined, wrecked, marred her. But no, if he found her with her tongue in another boy's mouth, he felt nothing. He didn't love her. Sylvia was just another game; girls were just another game that Dallas played, like his game of breaking laws or his game of slowly killing himself.

The only time Dallas had felt something at mention of Sylvia's infidelity was when he came back from some time in jail. He'd been talking with Steve and Steve had said, "Oh, yeah, and Sylvia was goin' behind your back again."

Dally, smoking, had barely even looked up. "When?"

"A few weeks ago I caught her hangin' all off Johnny..." Steve was saying something about getting angry at the two; making sure they'd both learned their lesson, but Dally couldn't hear him clearly anymore. Johnny. Sylvia was with Johnny.

There was a great rushing sensation in his chest, like a part of him was falling through space but his feet were still planted. It felt like how he felt when he saw the Socs' money next to his own undeniable poverty, only redder, and hotter, and much more painful. It was anger but deeper, deeper than his skin and his fists- it was anger that was a fist punching him in a newly rediscovered heart. Cracking that heart.

"Johnny?" Dally said and Steve visibly paled. Maybe Dally had said it in the way that meant he was going to kill someone. Maybe Dally had said it in the way that meant he wanted to kill himself.

"I told 'em..." Steve said fearfully. "I told 'em real good that it weren't good for 'em to be sneakin' around with you in jail and everythi-"

"Did anything happen?" Dally hissed, his eyes blazing.

"What d'you-"

"You know what I mean." Dally said, and now he was ice again.

"I don't think so-"

But Dally was already walking away. He threw his cigarette to the dirt, ground it in with the worn toe of his shoe. A dark cloud could almost be seen above his head- a storm was brewing.

"Where're you going?" Steve called after him.

"I didn't go and see Johnny yet." Dally said with deadly calm, his face turned away from Steve. "He thinks I'm still in jail."

"Wait a second!" Steve squeaked, afraid to confront Dally as he knew it was potentially fatal. "You can't do somethin' to Johnny! You know he's the pet, you can't just go hu-"

Dally moved so fast Steve didn't even have time to scream. In what seemed like a second he grabbed Steve by the collar and was now holding the front of his shirt so aggressively that it nearly lifted Steve off the ground.

Dally's eyes were two switchblades excited to cut. His rage was tangible but unstoppable, a tornado or an apocalypse or something else that could wipe out a town, and Steve was just a boy. He hated this, hated losing the game he thought he played so well, and all because of the mention of one name. Johnny. It hurt.

Dally was Dallas now, New York Dallas, the kind that liked almost killing people just for the rush.

"I would never hurt Johnny." Dallas said, a near growl at the back of his throat, a raspy certainty in his mouth. "You hear me?" He shook Steve. "Never."

Dallas threw Steve on the ground like his dead cigarette, and Steve didn't even try to get up. "You think I would?" Dallas said. "You think I'd hurt him?'

He turned away, his temper still smoldering, but his eyes nearly broken, "Johnny's the only thing I'll save."

Dallas left Steve on the ground, too scared to stand up. Dallas left and part of him knew his anger was nothing about Sylvia's betrayal and everything about Johnny's involvement.

A part of him wished he cared less about Johnny. It was unhealthy. He knew he shouldn't feel this way. He lit a cigarette as he walked but didn't smoke it. He wanted to do something reckless. He wanted a beer. He wanted to die.

Another part of him wished he didn't care about Johnny at all. That would make things a lot easier.

But Dallas Winston didn't do things the easy way.

He did them the illegal way.

He ended up back in jail four hours after he got out. Only for a week; his offense was minor, and he hadn't put up a fight. Smashing windows was exhausting, and he'd meant to get caught. He didn't know why the only way he had feelings was by defacing things with them. He hated everything.

He didn't know that Johnny had been waiting for his release for a month. He didn't know that Johnny was crying in the bathroom and hoping his parents didn't hear.

Dally didn't know that Johnny would lay awake every night that week thinking about him. All he knew was that he himself wasn't sleeping well. He couldn't get pictures of Johnny out of his head.