East West Sunset - A Darry Curtis Fanfiction

Chapter Ten

"Diana! Hey, DIANA!" a voice shouted above the din in the hallway.

I was still standing in the middle of the hallway, almost in shock. I was sure I had just saved a girl from a possibly brutal beating, and yet she had just walked away without so much a word of thanks for what I had done. She hadn't seemed inclined to show me any gratitude at all; in fact, it seemed as though in standing up for her, I had made her my enemy. I had made her look weak. I doubted she would forget that anytime soon. I remembered the hard look in her eyes and felt some pity for her. She had probably gone through her entire life shunning weakness and loathing it so much that she had never learned it was okay to ask for help sometimes.

"Diana!" Ponyboy panted, dashing up next to me. "I've been looking for you everywhere! I haven't been able to find you at all today!"

"Oh, um," I muttered. I shook my head to snap out of my reverie and focused on him. "What about at lunch? I saw you at lunch, but then you just disappeared. What was that about? Don't want to be seen with a 'Soc' like me?" I teased him.

He ducked away from my gaze and rubbed the back of his neck with his palm. I started to follow him back to his locker. "Naw, Diana, I just don't eat in the cafeteria. I grab my lunch and leave. There're too many Socs down there. And girls."

The last bit he said almost to himself, but I caught it. I looked at him wryly. "Girls, you say?" I asked.

"Yeah, some of those chicks down there can get pretty wild if you're not careful," he explained, somewhat sheepishly.

"Surely a cute boy like you's got a steady girl, though, right? Don't they know you're taken?" I asked dryly.

Ponyboy shrugged and shook his head. "I don't got a girl, actually. Cathy Carlson and I were going steady for awhile, but... since she used to go out with Bryon, it was causing weird tension in the gang, so I told her it wasn't working out," he finished. "Now she and her friends always come at me and stuff, wanting to go steady or somethin'. Angela Shepard, too, though not as much now as she used to."

"Angela Shepard?" That was the girl I had just stood up for, I realized! "Isn't she married? What's she doing flirting with you?"

"I don't know!" Ponyboy sounded truly stymied, throwing his hands in the air in apparent confusion and resignation. "Girls are weird like that." He stopped and peered at me hard in the eyes. "Wait, how do you know she's married? She's a year younger than you, and she wouldn't be in any of your classes..."

He sounded suspicious, so I thought it would not be wise to tell him about how I'd protected her from those two boys, since he didn't seem to think she was a good person to hang around. "I just heard someone mention it as I was passing by," I lied smoothly. 

"Yeah, well she's a crazy one," he sighed. "She's the craziest one of 'em all, I'd say."

I smirked and eyed him out of the corner of my eyes as we continued to walk. "You know, you're not a bad-looking kid, Pony. I'm not surprised that all these chicks are gaga over you," I pointed out slyly.

"Not you too!" He huffed in frustration. "I'm not that hot stuff, not compared to Sodapop. Even Darry's better-looking than me! It's just cuz I'm in school. There are more girls at school to pick on me," he grumbled.

"Well, I'm sure Soda gets all the ladies' attention at the DX, but are you sure Darry gets any?" It almost hurt me to imply that perhaps Darry was the least good-looking of the Curtis boys, but I supposed it made me look less interested in him. "Or maybe he does, and I just don't notice it as much." I closed my mouth before I could say anything else stupid.

Pony gave me a sly look but said nothing about it. "Darry gets more ladies than you'd think. When he gets roofing jobs on the west side, the Soc girls will watch him and try to give him lemonade on hot days and stuff."

"That's weird," I said, wrinkling my nose, full of jealousy.

"I know. He hates it," Pony told me. "But he never really talks to them or anything. He's too serious to go steady with anyone. He works too hard to settle down."

"That's kind of sad," I murmured as we arrived at Pony's- and now my- locker. 

Pony looked at me sharply but said nothing, turning away and unlocking the locker quickly. He flung it open and gestured to the upper shelf. "You can put your books up there, I usually just toss mine on the bottom," he said.

I tossed all of my schoolbooks up on the thin metal shelf. I didn't have any homework, so I wouldn't need to bring any of them home with me. My arms immediately felt extremely sore from lugging them around all day, but I was so relieved that I could finally set them down that I didn't care. "Where to now?" I asked Pony as he swung his backpack onto his back.

"We walk home," he said, setting off down the hallway. "Unless one of the gang who has a car sees us and gives us a lift."

"Oh. Alright," I said. I was a little nervous that we would run into some bullying Socs or other malicious people, but I hoped that they would be heading in the opposite direction as us, back to the west side instead of deep into the east side. I stuck close to Ponyboy as we exited the school, though I realized that against a large group of Socs he would probably be outnumbered. I forced all thoughts of fights and Socs out of my head as we walked through the bright September sunshine. It wasn't as chilly as it had been yesterday, but there was a slight breeze. I felt it flipping up the hem of my already short skirt and flattened it down with my hand nervously. 

Pony loped along, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his old purple sweatshirt, his greased back hair bobbing with each step. He looked perfectly at ease and completely in his element. On the streets he wasn't the shy, scared boy that he was at school; instead, he was more confident and relaxed. I even caught him checking out his reflection in the house windows we were passing by a couple times. He ran his hand through his hair every time he did this, vain to the extreme. I smiled and rolled my eyes at his antics.

"Whatcha doing?" I asked him slyly the next time I noticed him do this. He had tried to strike a pose this time without me noticing. "Trying to be a movie star?"

"Oh-uh-" he stuttered sheepishly. His cheeks were tinted a bright pink in embarrassment, and he couldn't look me in the eye for a long time. We walked in silence, a grin on my face, and embarrassed grimace on his.

"I'm not judging," I said, looking straight ahead and struggling to contain my smile.

"Sure," Ponyboy scoffed good-naturedly. He gave me a playful punch on the arm. "And I'm not judging you for having a crush on Darry!"

"Ponyboy!" I protested, giggling. "I don't!"

He rolled his eyes; now it was his turn to conceal a grin. "Sure, and I'm the Queen of England. Come on, Diana, admit it. It's totally obvious you got the hots for him."

That almost made me cringe. "Pony, you must be imagining things. There's no way-" I started to retort.

Pony held out his hand to cut me off suddenly, a look of fear in his eyes. He had stopped in his tracks and grabbed my arm, forcing me to halt too. "What's wrong?" I asked him urgently. The scared look haunting his green eyes made me very concerned and afraid myself. "What's going on?"

He was staring at something over my shoulder. I turned and saw a gorgeous, red '67 Corvette at the curb behind me, its curves flashing in the sun. It was a beautiful car, all clean lines and elegantly rounded edges. Its sloped roof encased the cab and partially masked the people inside. It looked extremely clean and probably brand new. But it wasn't the car that Pony was so afraid of; no, it was the people inside it that made my blood turn to ice water in my veins.

Four boys stepped out of the car, shedding their preppy sweaters as they came. I immediately recognized them as the boys who had terrorized us in the hallway that morning, and they did not look happy to see us. Their eyes were angry and their arms were crossed. Only their leader, the big brawny guy in a letterman jacket, had a big goofy grin on his face. It didn't make him seem any more inviting; in fact, it made me even more frightened of him. I took a tiny step behind Ponyboy, dread sickly sweet in my stomach, congealing into a bitter pill of hopelessness. There was no way we could escape a fight with these four, and we were hopelessly outnumbered. The both of us would probably not escape without being badly injured.

"Hey, girlie. What are you doing in such a bad neighborhood?" the lead Soc snarled, taking a step towards us. "Why don't we escort you to a more respectable part of town, and teach your boyfriend here a lesson?"