when i met you | the outsiders

✰ nine

I searched everywhere for Pony until I finally went back to his house. When I arrived, it was only Dally, Steve, and Two-Bit.

"Hey, where's Pony?" I asked and Dally rolled his eyes. I had, after all, completely interrupted their conversation.

"He's on the roof, Aury." Steve said and smiled. He had developed that nickname from the first part of Aurora.

I headed upstairs and looked in Pony's room, where there was an open window. That must've been where he got up.

I peaked out and looked down in the roof atop the back deck, hopping down to it and climbing the ladder to the higher roof.

I popped my head up and Pony's head snapped towards me, his chestnut hair blowing in the wind majestically.

"Hey." I said quietly but strongly, sitting down next to him. He was watching a..what do you call them..sunset? Sunrise? I get them confused.

"Hi." He smiled, something I didn't expect him to do.

"I'm sorry again." I said after bitter sweet silence.

"No, don't be. I was just a little mad, that's all. For you to be my girl, you don't need to say I love you just yet." He said and hooked his arm around my waist.

Our knees were both up and his arm was around me as my head leaned on his shoulder.

"Beautiful sunset, ain't it?" He said. The silence now was much more comfortable.

"I've never taken the time to really see one." I shrugged. He glanced over at me shocked by then locked his eyes onto the sunset.

"I'll show you more often." He said quietly and smiled.

After a comfortable silence, he began to speak. It sounded like he was reciting a poem.

"Nature's first green is gold.
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day,
Nothing gold can stay."
He finished with a mysterious look in his eyes, that were gazing into the pink and orange sky.

I don't know why, but I burst out laughing. He looked over in a surprised manor and I contained myself.

"Where'd you get that? Shakespeare?" I asked through laughs.

He smiled himself, "Robert Frost, actually."

"Well it doesn't make any sense." I leaned back into the roof, but my butt raised up and I began sliding towards the edge.

My heart raced and I was about to fall as I felt Pony grab onto my biceps and help me up. 'Accidentally,' I landed in his lap. It wasn't my doing.

I moved my head back and looked at him, since I was sitting on his lap facing outwards. The wind was blowing our hair back and I pressed my lips onto his.

The happiness flowed through my veins like a dolphin in a wave. I loved the feeling, like you were finally cared for.

It wasn't like the magazines described it, though. My whole body didn't feel like it was on fire. My heart, maybe. But not my entire being.

✰

Those next few weeks of Pony and I, were fantastic. He treated me no more or less than royalty.

The whole gang approved, it seemed like. Although Johnny and Dally didn't seem to take a liking to it, they approved.

Darry loved having me around. I was around so much he started treating me like his kid sister!

It made me laugh how they put 'kid' in front of sister or brother, but it didn't get to me that much.

Ponyboy met a girl awhile back, a Soc actually, named Cherry. They met at the drive-in and although Johnny doesn't necessarily like Pony and I going steady, he did warn me that Cherry hit on Pony.

Ever since them, whenever they see each other she can't stop flirting. I only can have faith we in our relationship to redeem itself.

But she's content with her perfect Soc life, although Bob isn't in it anymore. So why would she want a Greaser to ruin it? That is what they think of us, right?

These thoughts drifted over my mind some nights. Some nights Pony would sneak out and we'd watch stars or got back to Bucks and sleepover.

He would always return early and never get caught, even though it was only on weekends.

Pony really had changed me. I didn't go around getting arrested, drunk, high, or in trouble with Socs.

He had convinced me violence against the world wasn't the answer to everything, and I was grateful for that.

I was grateful for him in general, even if he didn't make me feel like the girls do in books (Yes— he had even convinced me to read a few books).