Young Blood ⏤ Ponyboy Curtis | ✓

01 | dread

Billie lets out a sigh after zipping her backpack shut. Turning to face the sink overflowing with dirty dishes stained with dried leftovers from dinner, she knows that she needs to make a start with the dishes. If she doesn't do it, nobody will.

Leaving her backpack hanging by the strap on the chair behind the small kitchen table made for four, Billie walks around into the compact kitchen. Her parents were not ones to plan ahead, always leaving things too late and justifying it as 'living in the present'. The box-sized kitchen was proof of this.

Rolling up the sleeves of her shirt, Billie turns the silver faucet, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth at the angry screech it makes as it turns on. Sighing again, she knows the faucet will never get fixed. Water spurts angrily into the sink, filling dirtied dishes and splashing out onto the white-tiled splash back that her parents had decided would be a crime not to put around the sink and bench as well.

With the amount of dishes that needed to be washed, Billie wishes that her parents had included a double sink. She starts to scrub out the sauce stain of the closest dish with a worn-out sponge that had yellow yellow foam falling like snowflakes every time she gripped it.

After scrubbing out the sauce stain, she grabs a multicoloured tea towel with various shades of blue and red stripes and begins to dry the dish. As she does this, Billie looks out the window, having a clear view of her neighbours, with their window open in hope to catch some relief from the stifling August air.

Through the window, she sees neighbour sitting down on a cracked brown leather sofa, a game show blaring loudly. She catches the sound of a female contestant cheering victoriously as the game host announces joyfully that she has won.

Feeling as though she is intruding, she turns away, even though her neighbour cannot see or sense her looking through her own window into his house. Placing the now dry dish onto the bench, Billie reaches up and pulls the pale blue curtains shut, blocking out the sounds of the game show, which was coming to a conclusion.

Billie focuses her attention back on the dirty dishes in the sink. She grabs another dish and repeats the same process. She was going to be here for a while, and she knew her siblings were not going to be back anytime soon to help. They would most likely come back after she went to bed, stumbling drunkenly around the house in a pitiful attempt to not wake up their sleeping sister.

The night drags on, and eventually, Billie finishes clearing the dishes she neglected. There weren't many nights she neglected her chores, but her mind had been on the upcoming school year, and she had forgotten about everything else. She knows that this can't happen again; the next time she forgets to wash up or do the laundry, the routine her and her siblings have fallen into will collapse.

Billie wishes she could adopt the attitude and outlook on life her siblings have. They are content with what they have. They wake up, eat the same measly cereal day in and day out, run off with their respective friendship groups to wreck havoc and add even more names to the growing list of enemies they have gathered.

Billie is not like her siblings. She can't deal with being a walking target, and never being allowed to walk alone due to brainless Socs wanting to jump her as a result of being a Greaser from the East Side. She can't deal with hushed whispers of her name as she walks past, both in awe and in fright of the weight her surname carries in the east part of town. She can't live with the title of being Tim Shepard's little sister.

She likes to dream of a place where social classes don't exist, where nobody cares about which part of town you live in, or how much money you have, or what your family members have done or haven't done. She knows a place like that doesn't exist and she knows it is pointless to dream about a place like that. Tim has told her that her imagination could get her into trouble one day.