Chapter Text
Cherry POV
As far as Cherry could tell, everyone was faking, at least a little. That was simply the price you paid to be popular, to be well-liked, to move through the world with the sort of ease other people envied. And while there were some things she couldn't fake—the lovely, high cheekbones and thick red hair, courtesy of her mother, and the aptitude and grit required to make the Honor Roll every quarter, courtesy of her father—the rest was simply a matter of practice.
Take, for instance, her evening at the drive-in. Cherry had been looking forward to going to the drive-in with Bob, Marcia, and Randy all week. She'd finally convinced Bob to spend just one night away from his cohort of Soc guys, from the house parties and beer blocks that turned into Bacchanalian escapades around town that turned into scathing news articles disguised as concern railing against the 'corruption of the youth.' Cherry wanted nothing to do with any of it.
At the drive-in, she could sit and watch someone else's life unfold in front of her, without worrying about her own. She didn't even have to make conversation if she didn't want to—no laughing at one of Bob's buddies' crude, ill-timed jokes, or wracking her brain for the perfect comeback against some snooty Soc girl, or walking the razor thin line between friendly and flirty that never seemed to stay in one place.
So yes, she'd been looking forward to the movie. Some popcorn. Maybe a coke. And then Bob had pulled his booze out of the glove compartment and Randy had gone along, laughing at her when she kicked up a fuss, and she watched the peaceful night she'd looked forward to all week disintegrating.
"Come on, Cherry," Bob had said. "You really expect us to sit through this garbage movie sober?"
It certainly wouldn't kill you, she wanted to say. But she was Cherry Valance, and that meant something.
It meant she had to be level-headed, especially here at the drive-in, where she was surrounded by not only Socs but greasers as well. It meant that, despite being spitting mad and half-tempted to pick a fight with Bob over the whole thing, just to see how he liked it, she merely got out of the car with Marcia, applied a fresh coat of lipstick, smoothed out her skirt, and sat down on a bench to watch the film without the boys, as prim and still as the porcelain doll on her shelf at home.
And that might have been the end of it, had those greaser boys not sat down right behind them.
Cherry knew Dallas Winston by reputation, but she still managed to be a little shocked when he leaned forward and lobbed a string of dirty phrases at her with no provocation. Did he know who he was talking to? He must have; he made reference to her red hair explicitly, like he already knew how to push her buttons. If she'd been in a more forgiving state of mind, she might have been impressed by some of the more creative turns of phrase.
"Take your feet off my chair and shut your trap," she said, trying to sound cool and indifferent rather than terrified. She could never, ever have gotten away with speaking like that to Bob, but she didn't know how else to beat Dallas Winston at this little game of his. Dallas didn't seem put off in the slightest. When she turned to glare at him, he looked more amused than anything. She supposed he'd heard far worse.
He smirked. "Who's gonna make me?" he asked, his feet remaining firmly planted on her chair. There was a boy sitting beside him, probably a little younger than Cherry, and he looked like he wanted to sink through the bench and into the ground.
"That's the greaser that jockeys for the Slash J sometimes," Marcia murmured beside her, and Dallas grinned, like he was proud his reputation preceded him.
"I know you two,” he said. “I've seen you around rodeos." The thought of Dallas Winston noticing her sent a funny feeling up her spine, and she snapped back before she could stop herself.
"It's a shame you can't ride bull half as good as you can talk it."
Dallas appraised the two of them knowingly. "You two barrel race, huh?"
Suddenly, Cherry was done. She hadn't ditched Bob just to sit here and get harassed by someone with a rap sheet longer than the phone book. "You better leave us alone. Or I'll call the cops."
"Oh, my, my, you've got me scared to death," Dallas said, sounding anything but. "You ought to see my record sometime, baby. Guess what I've been in for?"
Marcia nudged Cherry then, widening her eyes ever so slightly, a silent plea for her to back down. And Cherry couldn't explain it, but as scared as she was of Dallas, she sort of enjoyed the verbal sparring match. Maybe because he acted like he expected her to fight back. It was almost flattering, if she could see past the lewd comments and the arrogance and pretty much everything else about him. Still, she tried to reign herself in for Marcia's sake. "Please leave us alone. Why don't you be nice and leave you alone?"
"I'm never nice," Dallas replied, and for one heart-stopping moment, she saw a flash of Bob in the reckless grin that split his face. "Want a Coke?"
"I wouldn't drink it if I was starving in the desert," Cherry snarled, forgetting her silent promise to Marcia entirely. "Get lost, hood!"
And he did, without another word. As soon as he had gone, Cherry whipped her head toward the boy who'd come with Dallas. He'd watched the whole scene go down silently. He hadn't encouraged Dallas or anything, but neither had he stood up for her. She couldn't decide if she appreciated this or not.
"Are you going to start in on us?" Cherry regretted her tone immediately. His eyes went wide and he shook his head, looking scared. He was younger than she'd thought at first glance. Too young to be hanging around with the likes of Dallas Winston.
"No."
She offered him a reassuring smile. "You don't look the type. What's your name?"
And that was how she met Ponyboy Curtis.
Friendly, polite Ponyboy Curtis, who could hold a conversation with her real well once he'd stopped looking at her like she was some kind of painting or sculpture on display in a museum. She was right that he was young for a high schooler—he informed her that he'd been put up a grade—but wrong about almost every other snap judgment she'd made about him, to a degree that was almost shameful. Because while he styled his hair slicked back in the way of other greasers (and was clearly proud of it) and wore a worn out sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off and jeans with holes in both knees, he also spoke more earnestly than anyone she'd ever met, about everything from sunsets to books to his big brother, Soda. She might have felt embarrassed for him had his feelings not been so genuine, so obviously real. Socs simply didn't talk about things that way—every word they spoke went through a filter first, until they were cool and removed and impersonal.
She particularly liked watching him interact with his friends. The soft, understanding smile he gave Johnny, who wouldn't quite meet her eye, and the playful banter he exchanged with Two-Bit when he arrived. There was a sense of history between all three of them, of inside jokes and long years of camaraderie, and something stirred inside her as she watched them interact that she would only later recognize as jealousy.
The only holdout was his clear allegiance to Dallas Winston. Even after she'd thrown her Coke in Dallas' face, earning the greasers’ grudging respect, Ponyboy had defended him. "He'd leave you alone if he knew you," he told her, and she found that she believed him, even if she didn't like it.
"Well," Marcia replied, "I'm glad he doesn't know us."
"I kind of admire him," Cherry said, voice pitched low so Marcia wouldn't overhear, and Ponyboy gave her an odd look. Marcia had said once that Cherry always went for boys who were no good for her. She hadn't clarified any further, but Cherry knew what she meant—boys who were messy and complicated and, it seemed, perfectly willing to leave their girlfriends at the drive-in to go get boozed up with their friends. Marcia had stopped saying things like that when she'd started dating Randy—he was Bob's best friend, for goodness' sake—but Cherry had always felt the need to defend herself against such accusations. Now, feeling that same inexplicable pull toward Dallas Winston she'd once felt toward Bob, she wondered if Marcia had a point.
Well, so what? Marcia didn't get it. She didn't understand that Cherry was plenty good already, all straight-laced and picture perfect and ready to snap at any moment from the pressure. She didn't need a perfect boyfriend. She needed one who could balance her out. She needed wild and reckless and alive. And Bob, for all his starched polos and neatly creased chinos, could give her that.
"Ponyboy, will you come with me to get some popcorn?" she asked eventually.
"Sure," he said, standing. "Y'all want some?"
They collected their friends' spare change and went to join the end of the concessions line. Cherry resolutely ignored the looks thrown their way, from both people she knew and complete strangers.
"Your friend," she asked Ponyboy after a minute or so in line, "the one with the sideburns—he's okay?" She wasn't all that worried—he seemed like a good enough guy—but he'd been hanging onto Marcia's every word all night, and she felt it her duty to make sure Marcia didn't get mixed up in anything she shouldn't.
"He ain't dangerous like Dallas if that's what you mean," Ponyboy replied. "He's okay."
Cherry smiled a little at the confirmation, then moved onto the real reason she'd wanted to talk to Ponyboy alone. "Johnny…he's been hurt bad sometime, hasn't he? Hurt and scared." She hadn't missed Johnny's reaction to Two-Bit's sudden appearance, but she hadn't wanted to bring it up at the time, and neither, it seemed, had the boys.
Ponyboy glanced around. "It was the Socs," he said in a low voice, then told her the story of Johnny getting jumped, talking faster and faster until he got to the end, looking a little sick. She didn't blame him. She felt a little sick herself.
"All Socs aren't like that," she said. "You have to believe me, Ponyboy. Not all of us are like that."
He gave her a skeptical look. "Sure."
"That's like saying all you greasers are like Dallas Winston. I'll bet he's jumped a few people."
Cherry's heart lifted a little as he considered what she'd said. She needed to get through to him. She needed to know he didn't see her and her friends as some kind of monsters.
She closed her eyes briefly against a barrage of unpleasant thoughts: of the night she'd spent comforting a sobbing Marcia, who was terrified that their other friends would ditch her when they found out Marcia's dad had lost his job; of the spring break when she was thirteen that her mother hadn't left her room for nearly the whole week, and when she finally did, she barely spoke; of the whispers that had begun following Cherry down the school hallway, whispers about the girl who'd been seen running her hands through Bob's hair at a party, the note he'd slipped into a different girl's locker after she'd left for homeroom.
"I'll bet you think the Socs have it made," she said, trying to keep the bitterness from her voice. "The rich kids, the West-side Socs. I'll tell you something, Ponyboy, and it may come as a surprise. We have troubles you've never even heard of. You want to know something? Things are rough all over."
"I believe you," he said, his voice soft. He looked like he wanted to say something more, but he just continued, "We'd better get back out there with the popcorn or Two-Bit'll think I ran off with his money."
They returned to their seats, popcorn in hand. Marcia and Two-Bit were still getting along like a house on fire, but she and Ponyboy sat in silence the rest of the night, eyes forward, watching the film.
Looking back, Cherry couldn't pinpoint exactly when her thinking shifted—whether it was when Ponyboy's face lit up as he talked about his older brother, or when she watched him and Johnny communicate just fine without a single spoken word, or when he solemnly said, "I believe you," after she informed him that things were rough all over—but by the end of the night, she knew with startling clarity that they could have been real friends, had they lived anywhere other than the dueling sides of Tulsa. What would their lives have looked like if Cherry had grown up on the other side of the tracks with him? If Ponyboy was heading home to a Soc house that night? It was probably just wishful thinking. Maybe the sincerity she admired in him only existed because he had no fancy clothes or nice house to hide behind—maybe that's just what happened when you came from nothing. She would never know for sure, and it bothered her more than she thought it should.
A peculiar ache set up shop in her throat as the boys walked her and Marcia back to Two-Bit's car. Even as she bantered back and forth with them about what musicians were in or out, or listened to Ponyboy's story about his brother's horse Mickey Mouse, she couldn't help feeling regretful that the night was drawing to a close, and that it could never be more than that: one singular night, an unexpected blip in her otherwise ordinary life. How could it be?
A startled gasp pulled her from this disheartening train of thought. She followed Marcia's gaze down the street, where Bob's blue Mustang was heading toward them. It sidled past them at first, and Cherry relaxed, thinking they'd gone unnoticed, but several minutes later it approached again, from the opposite direction, and there was no denying it. "Well…they've spotted us."
The Mustang's front doors were thrown open and Bob and Randy spilled onto the sidewalk. Cherry stepped forward the slightest bit, placing herself between Bob and the two younger boys, as Marcia took a subtle step away from Two-Bit.
Bob was staring daggers at the two of them. "Cherry, Marcia, listen to us," he started, and Cherry crossed her arms, immediately on the defense. The words she'd spit at Dallas earlier had come so easily, yet she couldn't think of a single thing to say now as Bob went on: "There's no reason to act like this. It was just some booze, nothing crazy. Just because we got a little drunk last time—"
"A little?" she snapped, the words coming to her at last. "You call reeling and passing out in the streets 'a little'? Bob, I told you, I'm never going out with you while you're drinking, and I mean it. Too many things could happen while you're drunk. It's me or the booze."
He just stared at her like she was speaking a different language; like they hadn't had this exact conversation countless times already.
Randy turned to Marcia, taking a gentler approach. "Baby, you know we don't get drunk very often," he said in a wheedling tone, and Cherry was gratified when Marcia glared at him, not even justifying him with a response. Randy's face hardened. "And even if you are mad at us, that's no reason to go walking the streets with these bums."
The greaser boys had been letting them hash it out themselves until that point, but at Randy's words, they came to life again.
"Who you callin' bums?" Two-Bit asked, putting an elbow on Johnny's shoulder.
"Listen, greasers, we got four more of us in the back seat…"
"Then pity the back seat," Two-Bit replied, and something dark glittered beneath his usual easygoing smile.
At last Randy began to look uneasy—Ponyboy did too, and Johnny downright terrified when she risked a glance over at them—but he continued, "If you're looking for a fight…"
"You mean if I'm looking for a good jumping, you outnumber us, so you'll give it to us? Well—" Two-Bit grabbed an empty bottle, smashed one side off, and thrust it toward Ponyboy, then reached into his pocket, pulling out and flicking open a switchblade in one smooth motion. "Try it, pal."
Something had changed in his voice, and she knew all at once that if any of the Soc boys tried anything, he would put the switchblade to good use. He might even enjoy it. It was enough to jolt her out of her paralysis.
"No!" she said. "Stop it!" She turned to Bob, who had been watching silently while Randy threatened Two-Bit. He hadn't moved an inch when the switchblade came out. "We'll ride home with you," she said, barely managing to meet his eye. "Just wait a minute."
"Why?" Two-Bit asked. He held the switchblade up a little higher. "We ain't scared of them."
Maybe he wasn't, but Cherry was a little scared of all of them in that moment—she was scared of Bob's tense, dangerous silence, and of how quickly Randy had escalated the situation, but mostly, how easily the greasers she'd just spent an unexpectedly pleasant evening with had slipped into violence, like a second skin.
"I can't stand fights," she managed. "I can't stand them…"
She felt a hand on her elbow, pulling her away from Bob and Randy. It was Ponyboy, his voice low and urgent when he spoke to her. "I couldn't use this," he said, dropping the bottle into the dirt where it had come from. "I couldn't ever cut anyone." She believed that, she really did, but he'd also wielded that jagged bottle like he'd done it before. And she doubted Two-Bit would have given him a weapon he didn't know Ponyboy could handle.
"I know," she told him. "But we'd better go with them." Her eyes cut toward Bob again, where he was watching them talk with an expression she could only describe as barely suppressed fury. She could only imagine the consequences if she was seen talking to Ponyboy—or any of his friends, really—after this night. "Ponyboy…I mean…if I see you in the hall at school or someplace and don't say hi, well, it's not personal or anything, but…"
"I know." He wasn't even angry, which was the worst part. He was…resigned. Like she'd just confirmed his worst fears about how she really felt about him.
She was desperate to explain before she had to go. Before she, in all likelihood, never spoke to him again. "We couldn't let—" She didn't want to invoke Bob or Randy when they were right there, well within earshot— "our parents see us with you is all. You're a nice boy and everything…"
"It's okay," he said, in that same defeated tone. "We aren't in the same class. Just don't forget that some of us watch the sunset too."
She thought of Dallas suddenly. Had he ever watched a sunset? She wanted to ask, but she didn't know how. Instead, she opened her mouth and the truth fell out: "I could fall in love with Dallas Winston. I hope I never see him again, or I will." She watched Ponyboy's features cycle through a number of conflicting emotions, and despite everything, had to fight down a smile. They were only a couple years apart in age, but he seemed so much younger. She didn't mind, though. She preferred this version of him to the one that had brandished that bottle as easily as holding a pencil.
She left, climbing into the back of Bob's Mustang before she could say something even worse, and when Bob sped away toward the West side of town, she didn't look back.
…
"I'm going to kill him," Bob muttered. He'd been doing a lot of muttering on the drive home, and enough weaving back and forth across the lanes to make her glad the streets were mostly empty. His eyes were unfocused and unsettled, darting from the windshield to the rearview mirror to the guys in the backseat, who were equally intoxicated and more than willing to egg him on.
She tried, several times, to talk to him from where she was pressed up against the window, but he either couldn't or wouldn't listen to her over the sound of angry, slurred threats coming from the rest of the guys in the car. Bob had always been good at this. At taking his personal problems and rallying his friends around them, turning it into a public crusade. He was a natural leader, really. It was one of the things she used to admire most about him.
It wasn't until they arrived at Cherry's house after dropping Marcia off that she had the chance to speak to him alone. He always—always—walked her to the door when he dropped her off, so he couldn't get out of it now.
"Bob," she said, stopping him before they got up the porch steps. "Whatever you think happened tonight with Ponyboy—it didn't. All we did was talk. There were tons of other people from school around, they'll tell you."
"It's never just talking," Bob growled. "Guys always want more. You're just too naive to see it." When she started to protest, he held up a hand. "And why did that greasy little hood think he could talk to you, anyway? Who does he think he is?"
"It was my fault," Cherry insisted. "I invited them to sit with us. Not the other way around. And it doesn't matter anyway, because nothing happened. But if you're going to blame someone, blame me."
Bob looked at her a moment longer, then shook his head. "It wasn't you," he said. "I know you, Cherry. You wouldn't have done that. You're just trying to protect him, although I don't know why."
"I—"
"You've always been too good. Too good for me, too good for this town. You're like a good angel on my shoulder." He was rambling a little, the way he did sometimes when he'd been drinking. Her stomach squirmed, but she let him lean forward to kiss her temple. His breath was warm and fermented.
"Just promise me you won't do anything stupid tonight," she said, a little desperate now. "Promise me you'll go home and go to bed." Maybe if she could get him to agree, she could fall asleep with a clean conscience. They could revisit the issue in the morning, when she at least knew he would remember the conversation after.
"I love you so much," Bob murmured into her hair. "Too much to let him get away with this, you know?"
"Bob—"
He pulled away suddenly, careening back to the car on unsteady feet, but he managed to stay upright. "I'll see you tomorrow," he called over his shoulder.
Cherry leapt to her feet too, rushing after him, but he'd moved impressively fast, and was behind the wheel of the car again before she could get very far. "Where are you—Bob, wait—"
She could hear hooting and hollering even through the closed car doors, and she watched, helpless, as Randy pulled a bottle from the glove compartment and passed it to the guys in the backseat. They handed it to Bob when they were done, who took a drink before turning and saying something to Randy with a deadly, serious expression on his face. Then the Mustang roared off again, leaving Cherry alone in the driveway in a cloud of exhaust.
It's going to be okay, she told herself as she finally made her way inside the dim, quiet house. She'd seen Bob like this before. He'd go out with his buddies, clown around for a bit, drive his stupid car too fast, and come crawling back the next day with a hangover, begging for forgiveness. And sure, he'd been known to rough up a greaser or two on the rare occasion, but she'd left Ponyboy and Johnny and Two-Bit safe in their own territory on the East side. It was late enough by now that she hoped they'd long since returned to their own homes. It was fine. Everything would be fine. So why wouldn't the pit in her stomach go away?
Her mother met her in the front hallway, like she'd been waiting for Cherry to get back. "Hi, sweetie. How was the drive-in?"
"It was alright." Cherry wasn't about to worry her mother over any of this. Both of her parents loved Bob—though she kept the stories of his wilder escapades far away from them—and she hadn't been lying earlier. Her parents probably would have hit the roof if they found out who she'd really been hanging out with at the drive-in that night, and Cherry wasn't in the mood for a lecture.
"Did you like the movie?" Cherry thought back, trying to remember a single detail about the movie they'd watched, but it had been wiped away entirely by all that came after.
"It…wasn't very memorable."
"Oh. Well, that's too bad. Listen, honey, dad's still working in his office, so don't make too much noise going to bed."
She never did. "I won't."
"Good girl." Her mother patted her cheek absentmindedly and disappeared down the hall, leaving Cherry to line her shoes up neatly by the door, hang up her sweater, and head up to her room in silence, where she tossed and turned and eventually fell into a fitful sleep.
Hours later, Cherry bolted awake to a frantic pounding on the front door. She turned on a light and squinted at the clock beside her, still half asleep. Almost three in the morning. Who on earth was at their door at this time of night?
Muffled cursing came from down the hall. Her father must have woken up, too. The pounding continued, even louder now. Whoever it was was going to wake the whole neighborhood if they didn't stop. Her father must have had the same thought, because Cherry's closed bedroom door rattled as he stomped down the stairs. Cherry pulled on a bathrobe and crept out of her room to follow him. She was halfway down the stairs when she caught the sound of her own name.
"—need to talk to Cherry."
Her first thought was that it was Bob, sobered up enough to come back and check on her after their argument. But he wouldn't show up at her house in the middle of the night like this. He knew all about her father—the drinking, the late nights working or out around town somewhere, the eggshells she walked on at home, lest she set him off.
"She's asleep, son," Cherry heard her father say. "And you should be, too. What in the devil are you doing here at this hour?"
Cherry leaned down over the banister and finally caught sight of the late night visitor. "Randy?"
"Cherry!" She hurried down the rest of the stairs, stepping around her father to throw the door open the rest of the way. "I need to talk to you. Alone." Cherry felt her father stiffen.
"Hold on." Cherry shut the door partway, turning back to her father. As suspected, he didn't look happy. "I'm sorry, dad. Let me talk to Randy for a couple minutes and then I'll come right back inside."
Her father cast another suspicious look at Randy, who, Cherry could admit, didn't look entirely right. He was white as a sheet and shaking all over, but it was the barely suppressed panic written all over him that really put her on edge. "Is he drunk? Cherry, if these are the type of boys you're spending time with…"
"He's not drunk," Cherry said quickly, though she had no clue if this was true. He certainly hadn't been sober when she’d left him in Bob's car. "Dad, it's fine, please, just let me sort this out and then I'll come back to bed. I promise."
She waited, heart fluttering, until he said finally, "I'll be waiting inside until you come in again. And we're going to have a talk in the morning."
She let out a breath. "Thank you."
The second the door closed behind her, she pulled Randy off to the side of the porch, away from the front door. The wooden planks were cold and dusty beneath her bare feet. "What are you doing here?"
"Something happened," Randy said. His eyes were wide and almost manic, and unease coursed through her again. She'd never seen him like this—not just shaken, but utterly terrified. In the glow of the porch light, she caught a faint smear of what looked like blood on his collar.
"What?" she said, crossing her arms, as if that could protect her from the blow of whatever news he brought. "What did you boys get into now?"
"Cherry…it's about Bob."