~Emily~
When they called me down for early dismissal at school on Monday, I was pretty confused on why I was leaving and why Dally hadn't told me before.
It's whatever, though. The day had been going by so, so slow. Ponyboy was absent today. None of us were really sure why. I left before math class, which was good because I can't stand math. Johnny told me I could look at his notes from today's class later if I needed to. I told him I would definitely need to.
When I arrived at the office with all my belongings, Dally had this weird look on his face. He was smiling. Woah.
"Come on," he said excitedly. "I need to show you something."
We walked out of the school and I tossed my bag into the backseat. I climbed up front next to him and he started the car up and pulled away.
"What's going on?" I asked him.
"You'll see," he said.
As we kept driving, Dally looked ridiculously excited about something. Finally we arrived home.
He turned off the car and opened his door. "Come on!" He said happily.
I hopped out of the car and he grabbed my hand and pulled me inside.
"What, Dally?" I asked, still highly confused.
He smiled widely as we walked into the house. He grabbed a box from the table and slid it over to me.
It was nothing special, just a plain black box with a light blue ribbon tying it closed. I furrowed my brows. "What this?"
"Open it!" He replied.
I shrugged and slipped off the ribbon. I then lifted the top of the box and peeked inside. It was a super fancy switchblade. The handle was a deep red color, dark as blood. The blade was obviously brand new, no rust at all and freshly sharpened.
It resembled Two-Bit's switchblade in a lot of ways, and that thing is his prized possession. Dally has always been sort of jealous about it, not that he would ever let anyone know.
I looked up at Dally, still kind of confused. "What's this for? Where did you get it?"
He rolled his eyes. "It's for you, stupid." He pulled out one similar to it from his own pocket, the handle being navy blue. "And you will never believe who it's from."
"Who?"
He smiled. "The gang in New York."
"Really?"
He nodded.
Back when we lived in New York, Dally had a gang like we have now. We haven't seen them since we left there.
He tossed me a crumpled up letter from them and let me read it. I never realized how much I missed New York.
***
Everyone came over a few hours later. Kinda weird, because we usually are always just at the Curtis', but there was going to be a part at Buck's later so I guess they wanted to hang out before.
Johnny insisted that he let me study his math notes right then. I had told him about how I was really struggling in class and he offered to help me. I couldn't turn him down, I really did need the help.
