THE COLOR RED | DALLAS WINSTON

iii. A NEW YEARNING

HE CALLED HER. The time on the grandfather clock that stalked Charlotte and her mother in the living room of their house read 4:47 on a Sunday afternoon when he called. Something in the telephone call made Charlotte feels tingles. Both good and bad. Listening to Dallas's voice made Charlotte taste the aftereffects of his hangover, the only reasonable explanation for Dally groaning in obvious pain when he heard her speak, or how pained he was to hear his own voice. Listening to him talk almost felt like the taste of vodka when swallowed. It felt like a burning hell, but it was a flavor anyone with a liking for liquor just can't get enough of.

Charlotte's mother was asleep. She too had a night of fun and had only gotten home three hours prior. She was disheveled and hungover, but despite all that, Alice took the time to kiss her daughter a hello, saying something along the lines of being happy the house wasn't covered in war paint, and trudged to her room. Charlotte and her mother were never close, but they still looked out for each other. Charlotte got the good grades she would need to get into any willing art school and Alice put food on the table. It seemed like a reasonable exchange.

Even with the faint sounds of her mother tossing and turning, hearing an occasional snore, Charlotte thought of the wild boy with looks to make any girl with half a brain fall, even if they only got to meet him once. She tried to imagine why he would leave a place like New York to even consider this town as a new home. The only thing she could imagine was that he did something wrong in New York and needed a place to lay low until he was killed when one adventure went too far.

She twirled her platinum blonde hair, wishing there was more colors with hair than just blonde, brunette, ginger, and black hair. Charlotte knew everyone earned a backstory at some point and could only wonder what the cigarette fiend's was. Like the vodka aftertaste in his hangover that Charlotte smelled over the phone, it was bitter, and it burned. It was tragic and intriguing, something to make the people that felt nothing, something.

It seemed like even going to see him would lead somewhere dark and thrilling. Something gloriously wicked that made cold and dry bones shiver upon sight. Something that spelled out a new life reborn as a should-be convict on the run. Hitch-hiking and zig-zagging, one-night crimes in every town that cared enough to prosecute.

And there was only one way to find out, to see the boy named Dallas Winston once more. But it couldn't... shouldn't be intentional. It would only be a trap to willingly comply with the game Dally wanted to play with Charlotte. She didn't like him, boys like Dally Winston, a 17-year-old hood with a menacing glare and gave the worst beatings to the men that looked him the wrong way, she didn't want to. He seemed like a snake that would wrap itself around its prey, making it putty in its hands until they were completely submissive to him.

The thought of talking to Dallas again after he went as far as retrieving her number from the phone book seemed like the wrong thing to do. He rolled a senior citizen when he wanted his skull ring. Mothers and fathers alike kept their children close when he was walking about. Whether you were a Soc or a Greaser, you had to respect his menacing glare and if there were no empty seats, someone had to give theirs up for him.

Charlotte groaned and went over to her tv, turning it off with a sigh. What a wonderfully terrible thing it would be if he had interest in Charlotte and vice-versa. She was the wrong kind of girl for him to have any sort of interest in. She blended in with the crowds almost perfectly. With this kind of knowledge, Charlotte knew his interest would fade out like a bonfire in the wind and rain. Any sort of new yearning he had to have contact with Charlotte would disappear like the sun at sunset. The days would go on, the Earth would still spin, life would continue.