Golden Slumbers ↠ The Outsiders (O.H.)

01. the broken boy

CHAPTER ONE
( the broken boy )

─────── ❖ ───────

trigger warning: mention of blood, violence

IF Grace climbed high enough up the tree, the one rooted in a particular emerald green park, she could see the East Side of Tulsa. Maybe only the tip of it, of course, but it felt like her best-kept secret — something no one else should know about. Perhaps she loved the view for how it blurred the line between East and West. Almost as if it were irrelevant.

That afternoon the sun was on its way to set over Tulsa, bringing the first inklings of warmth in a while on the cusp between April and May. In this suburban park adorned with slides and swing sets, the shadows of young children danced as they played until their imaginations wore out. Parents, mostly mothers, stood around with their beehive hairdos or their long coats wondering when they should get home. In the meantime, the girl sat in the tree captured their attention — whose daughter was that? Do her parents know about this? Is it proper for her to be dangling up there like that? Meanwhile the older mothers, the ones who have frequented this park for longer, let her be. The sixteen year-old climbed up there most days, much to the disdain of the mothers with their impressionable children.

     If they could see what she saw, maybe they would understand.

     Grace leaned her head back, feeling her chocolate brown hair tangle itself in the tree bark. Her legs dangled comfortably over the thick branch she sat on; something that has taken years of practice to master this balancing act. One time she paid the price, falling off and breaking her arm when she was thirteen — although broken bones healed, her mother's sanity did not. "You could have been killed, had you landed on your head!" Mrs. Bergmann had cried, to which Grace had simply thought that she would just be more careful next time. Indeed, there was no containing her.

     The setting sun reminded her of the time, something that usually escaped her. Damn it. She should have brought a watch. The whole reason Grace was here now is to wait for her friend, Donna, so they could go to the pictures and see 'Girl Happy' — even though Elvis was out and The Beatles were in, there was no turning down anything starring the King. Just when she started to wonder whether she should seek out her companion herself, the voice called out from below:

"Good view up there?"

Stabilising herself by planting her hands on the branch, Grace craned her neck down to get a bird's eye view of her best friend — she looked even smaller from down here. Donna's arms were folded as she squinted back at her, her light pastel cardigan and skirt gently flapping in a spring breeze.

"Great one, actually," she replied. "It would be even better with a bowl of popcorn, a certain Mr. Presley—"

"Yeah, I know, we're running late," Donna sighed, embarrassed.

Grace grinned cheekily and dropped down from the tree. Her saddle shoes had sat neatly by the roots — thankfully one of the kids hadn't stolen them — and she remembered this now, her white ankle socks now slightly dirtied and damp on the grass. Great. Brushing down her skirt, she noted the mothers ogling at her from far away, and gave a slightly gauche wave which Donna copied. Then she lowered herself down and started tying her laces.