Chapter Text
Tonight, I had gotten permission from Darry to hang out with Johnny at the diner since I didn’t really feel like going to the drive in this week, and I was allowed to go because of my ‘good behavior.’ Whatever that meant. It was around seven in the afternoon as I left, saying bye to the Darry and Soda and walking down to the lot where they were supposed to meet up and sees the black haired boy waiting for him.
“Hey, Pony!” Johnny yelled, calling me over and I jogged towards the boy. “Darry finally allowed you out, huh?” He asked, shoving his hands in his jean jacket as we walked side by side.
“Yeah. Said I was allowed to because I had ‘good behavior’ this week, and because it’s you.” I said, looking up at the setting sun as we continued to head in the direction of the diner.
When we finally got there, we got a booth in the corner of the diner and ordered food. Johnny got a milkshake and I got a glass of Pepsi, like I usually would, and we got a basket of fries to share. While we ate we just sat and talked, like about his Curly was sent to the reformatory again, but then he brought up the same topic for a third time.
“C’mon, Pones. You can’t keep avoiding the question forever.” He said, taking a sip of his milkshake while he continued to stare at me. “I mean, are you gonna get therapy like Darry and Soda want you to?”
I didn’t answer him at first. See, I need therapy because after the whole death of bob, Windrixville fire, and Johnny ending up in the hospital, my nightmares that I can’t remember came back and I had started cutting myself again. When I say again, I mean I used to after mom and dad’s death, but I stopped a while after. But since the Windrixville incident and my nightmares started back up, I couldn’t take it anymore and fell down a hole that I was devastated Darry and Soda had to pull me out of themselves.
“I’m fine, Johnnycakes. I don’t need therapy, I’m fine.” I said as nonchalantly as I could, popping a fry in my mouth. I was fine, and there was all truth to that.
“Seriously, Pony? You starved and even tried to kill yourself after everything that happened, you could at least talk try to someone about this?” He said popping a fry into his mouth himself.
“I’m not trying to talk about it right now Johnny, okay?” I spat at him in a sharp tone before seeing the look on his face and calming myself down and speaking to him in a calmer tone. “I just don’t feel like I need to talk about it that much, ‘kay?” I said, popping the last fry into my mouth and pulling out some bills from my back pocket that Darry gave me and put them on the table, standing up, ready to leave.
Johnny stood up right after me and gave me a supportive clap on the back as we walked out together. “Yeah, I get it..”
The walk back wasn’t too quiet, but we sure weren’t talking. He would ask me questions every once in a while, I guess trying to get me to talk, but I just responded with short and simple answers. Johnny had told me he was gonna sleep in the lot again since his folks were fighting, per usual, so I walked back home on my own.
I had time till my curfew that had gotten changed to ten-thirty, so I just walked around the block for a while till a black Chevrolet Corvair that had been stalking behind me as I walked around the block, and I had so desperately tried my hardest not to acknowledge it when it came to a stop, and after everything that happened, I knew better than to argue back with whatever bullshit they were gonna spout at me.
When the Corvair pulled to the side of the road, three socs got out and I noticed two more in the backseat, but I kept walking, ignoring them as some yelled and called me a ‘dirty greaser!’ and other obscenities I possibly couldn’t say. I was only forced to acknowledge them when one walked in front of me, forcing me to back into the one that was following me.
“Well look at this dirty little greaser here, y’all!” He spoke out to his buddies, who all laughed when he suddenly gripped me by my hair. My auburn roots were coming back in, but I still had the bleach in my hair.
“Hey, isn’t this the grease that helped kill bob?” The one who was in front of me asked. His hair was a dirty blonde and that smile was all over the place as he looked down at me with a wicked grin, holding my chin in his hands with a tight grip, but it wasn’t tight enough to hurt.
I quickly swatted his hand off my chin snd side stepped away from the both of them. “Alright, listen. It ain’t my fault your friend got killed that night, okay? Shit happens, the incident is over with, god..” I said, starting to walk off before the dumb brown headed soc standing behind me had grabbed my arm and shoved me up against the fence.
“No, I don’t think you understand. You see, we aren’t here to hurt and hit on you, we just wanna have our way with you..” He spoke, a terrifying grin on his face that signaled all sorts of trouble.
My eyes darted around at the whole group, and before I could get the words out my mouth to ask him what he was talking about, he slammed his lips against mine so fast, the reaction I got was delayed.
I scratched at his neck hard enough to make him pull off me, and I only heard him call me something like a ‘dumb little fag’ as he slammed me down into the concrete and got on top of me, straddling my hips as he slugged me in the face a few times and then crept his hand up my jacket and sweatshirt.
His punches were blurring my vision and I could feel some of the other socs stomping and kicking me, but the second he lowered his face towards mine a seconds time, I built up just enough strength and punched him deep in the nose, hard enough to crack my own knuckles from the impact, and for him to fall off of me. The second he did, I was up as fast as I fell and sprinted as fast as I could.
I don’t know how I was running when I was feeling battered and bruised all over, but I was running, and it wasn’t home since those socs were chasing after me, but thank god I did track, because they sure got out of breath as I just kept running until I didn’t know where I was.
Everything was kind of like a blur to me as I walked around a field of tall grass with smoking the last cigarette I had from the pack. I didn’t know how late it was, but it was dark out, and I didn’t know where I was, but the nearest street light was definitely a little more than twenty feet away from me. God, those socs had me run pretty far, I sure wasn’t anywhere close to home by now.
I had stumbled over to the street light by now, snuffing my cigarette beneath my foot as I leaned on it. I saw a few houses, so I knew I wasn’t in the middle of nowhere. And besides, I was fast, but not that fast to the point I could’ve ran to the country. I slump down and sit next to the street light, my face throbbing and my body hurting everywhere from how bad those socs hit me.
I tried to fight the sleep coming over me, but I soon succumbed to it as I rested my head against the street light and closed my eyes to enter a deep slumber.