A Boy Named Pony - A Sequel to East West Sunset

Chapter Nine - Ponyboy

And just like that, I, Ponyboy Curtis, and Betty Anne Kay started going steady.

When I hung up the phone that night, I stood in the dark kitchen for a moment. Soda was still at work, and Darry lay fast asleep in the next room, his snores rumbling softly through the wall. Outside, the late September moon hung heavy over the housetops, like the last golden fruit waiting to be plucked from the bough of an apple tree. It bathed everything in a weird, half-asleep warmth that starkly contrasted with the rapid beating of my heart.

I slipped a cigarette out of the pack in my pocket and lit it with shaking hands. Why the hell was I sweating - as if I had just run a hundred miles in the summer heat? And my heart. Less of a beat, more of a thrum, it sped beneath my skin, filling me with that excited vigor of being truly alive. The corners of my mouth turned up almost without me noticing. 

God, if I could have tasted that luckless happiness on my tongue and breathed in that sweet smoke of dreamland forevermore, I would have. That moment was life itself. I thought, from now on, everything will be this way. I'm going steady with Betty Anne, and that's all right!

Before long, I remembered that Darry would skin me alive if he woke up to find me smoking in the house. I hastily snuffed out my half-smoked cigarette.

For now, I'd have to be content with going to bed and dreaming of Betty Anne until I saw her again at school tomorrow. Jeez, what a lily-livered sap I was turning out to be! I felt my face break into a full toothy grin as I realized that, surprisingly, I didn't really care.

I slept more soundly than I had in a while. The next morning, after I went for my daily run, I pestered Darry into driving me to school a little bit early, just to be sure I'd be there when Betty Anne's bus arrived. Luckily, I managed to get there just as the yellow school bus was pulling up to the curb.

Instead of calling out her name, I waited for her near the front doors of the school. For some reason my heart was still thrumming in the same feverish way it had been the night before; my knees felt strangely quivery. 

Her dark eyes lit up as soon as she saw me lounging by the doors. "Pony," she said, her cheeks relaxing into an easy smile.

"Hey, Betty Anne. Or should I say, my girl," I greeted her. Yeah, I could get used to calling her that. 

The tops of her ears turned a faint pink. 

"Am I embarrassing you? I can stop if I'm embarrassing you," I said quickly.

"No, no, it's okay, I - I like it," she stammered and ducked behind her hand, almost as if she were confused.

"Are you - I - okay," I replied, internally cursing my awkwardness. What the hell was I doing? Why were we acting like we'd never met each other before? We were dating now, for Christ's sake! I rubbed the back of my neck with my free hand.

"Sorry I'm being so awkward," she apologized after a pause. "I don't know, it just - it feels kinda - kinda - you know - strange. It's not you or anything."

I chuckled. "I get it. You're my girl now. But that don't mean we can't just keep on, just how we were, you know? It's only the label of it that's changing, you get me?"

She nodded, the curls of her ponytail bobbing along with her. Tentatively, she looped her arm through mine. "I'm glad you said so. That's kinda how I'd like it to be, too. But I don't know, I'm just not used to being anyone's girl - I've never gone steady with anyone before," she admitted, following my lead as I headed down the hallway towards her locker.

"Yeah, me neither," I confessed. "I mean, I've had a couple dates here and there. But you're the first girl that I, uh, that I, felt like I could go steady with."