~Ponyboy~

Johnny, Cherry, Marcia, and I left the theatre and began walking. Two-bit was with us too. "H-hey, I'm sorry again. I don't know what was wrong with her, she's usually not like that." I say.

"Grace did that?" Two-bit asked.

I shook my head at him.

"Well that's totally like her, especially if Cherry pissed her off." Two-bit replied.

"I didn't do anything to her. She started it! That bitch!" Cherry said angrily.

"She's far from a bitch! So shut your trap, you Soc!" Johnny exclaimed.

Just because Johnny and Grace didn't really talk, didn't mean they weren't close. They were practically brother and sister. They understood each other, and they only talked about their parents. They were very protective of each other. They just didn't show the rest of the gang.

"What's your problem?" I ask Johnny.

"You're gonna let this Soc talk about Grace that way? You know her way better than any Soc! You messed up tonight..." Johnny says walking a few distances ahead of us.

We all got stopped by bright lights. We saw Bob get out of the car stumbling. He had a beer bottle in his hand. He was clearly drunk. The rest of the Soc's in the car got out. Two-bit broke his beer bottle and handed it to me as he quickly took out his blade. Johnny stepped back a bit, he was scared since he recent beat up with the Soc's.

"W-wha... why you hanging out with t-these greasers?! W- I drink a l-little and now you.. you.. y-you're hanging out with them?!" Bob shouts at Cherry.

"A little?! A little?! You call passing out in the streets a little?! You know I hate riding with you when you're drunk!" Cherry yells.

"That doesn't excuse why you're wearing a greasers jacket!" he yells!

Cherry slips it off and hands it to me, and I put on me. "Oh, you're the punk who gave your jacket to my girl!?" he asks pinning me to the fence.

I push him off of me and we push and punch for a bit till we stop at the sound of Cherry's voice. "Stop it! Stop it, alright! I'll go with you, just stop fighting! I hate fights!" Cherry yells.

"I can take him!" I exclaim.

"No! I hate fights, I hate em. Just come over here for a sec." She says pulling me away from everyone.

"Uh... I-I'm sorry. I have to go... look, if I see you at school and I don't say anything, don't take it personally. It's just..." she says.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." I reply.

***
~Grace~

I was sitting at the lot on the beat up couch, I wasn't ready to go home for some reason. I jump up to the sound of two voices. "So this is where you ran off to?" Johnny asks.

"You looking for me?" I ask smirking.

"Definitely not. My parents are at it again." he replies.

I frown at him showing him my sympathy. He and Ponyboy start a fire. "Hm, you got your jacket back." I say, making sound less like a question.

He nods at me and sits next to me, Johnny sits on the other side of me. "What was your problem tonight?" Ponyboy asks.

I sigh and look at him. "I don't know. I just hate the redhead so much. I didn't mean to act out, I guess, I'm sorry." I say.

"It's fine. You probably have good reasons to hate her. I'm not gonna hold it to you." he says.

I smile and lay my head in Johnny's lap and Pony pulls my legs onto him. They go sweet on me, they believe I don't belong in this life, that I have more to live for than just the gang. If it wasn't for the gang, I would've killed myself a long time ago. I've tried, but Dally, Johnny, Pony, Soda, Darry, someone catches me and stops me. I'm so surrounded by people that care about me, but I feel so alone.

"I'm getting tired. Your house is closer than mine, I'm sleeping over." I say to Ponyboy.

He nods and gets up. "Come on Johnnycake, I don't want you to freeze to death." I say.

He groans and gets up and we all walk back to Ponyboy's house. Ponyboy goes up to his room, Johnny sleeps on the chair in the living room. I shake Steve who fell asleep on the couch. "Steve! Steve!" I shout whispered.

He groans lifts his head up a bit. "What?" he says with his eyes half open.

"Scoot over, I'm sleeping with you." I say kicking my shoes off.

He scoots and lifts his arm up with the blanket. I lay down by him and he wraps the blanket and his arm around me and pulls me into him. "You're freezing." he says.

I turn facing him, "I was at the lot, it's windy outside." I say.

"Oh, you should've came here sooner." he said wrapping one of his legs around me and pulling me in closer.

***

"Wake up love birds." A voice right over my ear said.

I knew it was was Sodapop. He teases me and Steve all the time. "Wake up, you have work." I say shaking Steve.

He doesn't budge. I get up and go over to Johnny. "Coming over to mine today?" I asked.

He shook his head. Ponyboy was walking down stairs, he looked so cute when he was sleepy, I could feel my heart doing back flips. "Mornin' Ponyboy." I said sitting on the floor next to Johnny.

"Mornin' Grace." he said walking to the kitchen.

"You wanna head out now?" Johnny asks.

I shook my head and stood up. We both put our shoes until I felt someone's hand on my body. "Get your nasty little hands off my ass!" I demanded.

Soda walked in and laughed. "Bye, doll face." Steve said pulling me down into him and kissing me.

I smiled then got up. "Bye greaser." I said walking to Johnny at the door.

"Bye everyone!" we yelled.

We walked over to my house, I lived about 7 blocks away. It was pretty silent till Johnny broke it. "Whatcha doin' Grace?" he asked.

"Huh? Walking?" I said with confusion.

"N- I mean whatcha doing messing around with trash like Steve? Even though you like Pony." he said.

I took a big gulp at the sound of those words. I stayed quiet for a bit then finally forced my mouth to let out some words. "Steve isn't trash. Not to me at least. He's the only person that wants me, that enjoys having me around." I say.

"Now you know that ain't true. The whole gang loves having you around, Gracie!" he says grabbing my hand.

I jerk it back. "Don't call me that! And you know not one bit of that is true. Darry don't like me because I'm a bad influence on Ponyboy, Soda tolerates me because of Steve, Ponyboy don't like me because I pick on you every now and then, Two-bit knows I'm only in the gang because Dally wouldn't join without me, We're only close because of our tragic stories, we don't even talk around the rest of the gang, and Dally could care less about me." I say speeding up my walk.

"Now them are lies! You know I love you, and so does the whole gang! Now you shut your trap!" he exclaims.

"Fine! I'm sorry alright, I know y'all love me, but sometimes I just feel like y'all see me like my parents did." I say kicking the rocks in front of me.

"We don't, Grace." he says patting my back.

***
"Where you been?" Dally asks as me and Johnny walk through the dare.

"Like you care." I say walking to our room.

"Someone's feisty." Dally says to Johnny.

Johnny raises his eyebrows in agreement then meets me in the room. "I know you're still pretty tired so I figured you could use a real bed." I say fixing up the bed for Johnny.

"Thank you." he says kicking off the shoes and jumping in the bed.

I close the door and lay next to him. "Don't you dare say a word about what we were talking about on the way here to anyone or I'll cut our your tongue." I say facing towards him.

"Don't worry, I won't spill the beans about how soft you are." he says with a grin on his face.

I quickly cover his mouth. "Shh, Dally's in the next room, these walls are thin. Dally's the last person I want to know. Hell, I'd rather you tell Steve than him." I say taking my off of his mouth.

A few minutes after talking about random stuff we go to sleep.