The next day, Bonnie and I were doing homework in the library after school when I decided to tell her what happened the night before.

"You met who last night?" Bonnie looked at me incredulously. Despite the awful surprise in her voice, she tried to keep it down for our sake of getting yelled at by the librarian.

I whispered, "Dallas Winston—I mean, Dally. You know, that guy who—"

"Of course I know that guy, everybody knows him!" Bonnie exclaimed, and the librarian "shushed" us loudly from afar. Bonnie shook her head and lowered her voice. "That kid is bad news, Lay. You better listen to what your father said and stay away from him. Do you even know what boys like that do to girls like you?"

"Yes, but—"

"Boys like that knock up girls like you!" Bonnie continued hysterically. "They play around with you all they want, slide their junk inside of you, and then when you're birthing their kid, they toss you back into the streets like they did with Sandra Mason."

"Bonnie!" I gasped, getting a glare from the librarian. "That's not funny!"

"But it's true!"

"I know!" I whined, then calmed down. "But trust me, nothing is going to happen. We barely know each other, and probably won't even see each other again. He doesn't even know my name," I assured her.

"Yeah, but he knows your face," Bonnie pushed. "Just be careful, okay? Hoods are everywhere."

I sighed. After we finished most of our homework, we gathered our things and headed out the double doors of the library, toward the football field behind the high school. Yesterday David had football practice, which meant that tonight—Friday night—was the football game. At school events like these, you could never tell that there was a brawl between the social classes. Maybe it was because the majority of everyone who attended these events were Socs, but then again, Greasers played for the sports teams as well. And if there was anything the students of Will Rogers High wanted more than the destruction of the East or West Side, it was to beat the other schools. It was like sports was the only thing that kept us united; we had to deal with each other in order to win the championships.

Bonnie and I lapped around the track to meet with the football players and cheerleaders. We saw the usual duo of David, Bob Sheldon, and Randy Adderson, all of whom were the most popular boys in the school. Then there were their girlfriends who were all cheerleaders, the most popular being Sherri Valance, but we called her Cherry because of her red hair.

Cherry wasn't a snobby, stuck-up Soc like every other girl on the West Side. Her best friend, Marcia Adams, wasn't that bad either, but she was a little dumb in the head sometimes which made it bothersome to have a conversation with her.

There was light conversation between all of us—Bonnie was more of a talker than I was—so we retreated to the bleachers as soon as it died down.

As usual, the game started at seven. This was how all our Friday nights were during the football seasons. Dad would have late-night shifts so he would be able to watch the game, and my mother, who rarely went out, would bring along a few of her friends, and they would coo over their sons as they played. Although my father was renown for being a proud police officer and pompously scanning the town on a daily basis, my mother was a different story. She was just like those rich housewives you see in the movies: tall, classy, elegant, beautiful, a reader at heart. Maybe you didn't see the reading part in the movies, but my mother was a classic woman. She was a stay-at-home mom and loved to read, and she passed down the love of reading to me. We thought alike—most of the time—and we had the same soft soul and a few of the same looks. Our hair was dirty-blond and our eyes were a bright, warm hazel. We even had the same cheekbones and the same emotion in our eyes when we smiled. If anything had happened to her, I wouldn't know what to do. We were the other halves of each other, and it was times like these where I thought all Socs were good.

When the game ended at nine, we had won thirty-four to twenty-eight and everyone was freaking out. Along with Bonnie, my parents and I immediately came down the bleachers and met with the boys, congratulating them.

Then the team and the cheerleaders went to the locker rooms to change their uniforms. After they were done, David came up to my parents, his dirty-blond hair damp from sweat. "Hey Ma," he looked at our mother, "I'm gonna hang around with the boys for a while before we call it a night. We might catch a movie or something. That alright with you guys?" he asked, then glancing at our father.

My parents would let David do almost everything. It was one of the perks of being a white, male rich kid on the West Side.

"Ma, I want to see a movie," I said sweetly, glancing at Bonnie and back at my mother. "I heard they're replaying Gone with the Wind at the Nightly Double for the next few days. Can we go with them?"

"Oh, I don't know, honey..." she said, looking at my father for assistance.

Of course. Mom always needed Dad's approval of everything when it came to me. I hated when this happened. David could do anything whenever, but all of my actions had to be parent-approved and monitored.

I turned to him. "Please, Daddy?"

"If Monica's parents are okay with it, then I guess you can go," my father decided.

I glanced at Bonnie. "They're cool," she told them.

"Alright," my mother said and glared at my brother, "Be home by midnight, David. No all-nighters! And please watch your sister."

"Yes, watch your sister!" Dad pushed.

David chuckled. "I got it, Dad. C'mon Leila." He turned around to meet up with Bob and Randy, and Bonnie and I followed him.

As we walked, David came up close to me and said sincerely in my ear, "You better not screw this night up for me, Leila. You know we're not actually seeing a movie, right?"

I shook my head. "Well, Cherry will probably want to see one."

David scoffed, glancing away. "Who cares what she says, Lay. Me and the boys got plans tonight, and you are not going to mess it up. All you have to do is don't tell Dad, got it? Or else." He glared at me.

I sighed. "Yeah."

"Good," he said, and he immediately jumped over to slap Bob's back. "You ready to go, boys?"

"Yeah! Let's go!" a few of them roared, and they ran up with their girls toward the exit of the field and into the streets.

Bonnie quickly met up with me. "What was that, Lay?"

"What was what?"

"David. Did he threaten you again?'

I sighed. "Yeah, but it's fine."

Bonnie shook her head. "No, it's not, Leila. You know, if you keep letting people push you around, you're going to end up really hurt someday."

I laughed a little. "Bonnie, stop! It's fine. Trust me. That's just how my brother is. You know, protective and stuff."

"Mmhm," Bonnie hummed with disbelief.

I shook my head and shook it off. Yeah, David sometimes threatened me a lot, but it's not like he hated me. I mean, sometimes I felt like he did kind of hate me, but you just can't hate your own sibling. You just get occasionally irritated. Right?

We all got in two cars. Bob flew into the front seat of his cool blue Mustang, and he was accompanied by Randy, Cherry, and Marcia. Then Bonnie and I hopped in the backseat of David's car with the other boy they brought with him. I think he name was Freddie. I had no idea if they were going to drag race in the darkness of the night or go honking their horns all over town to annoy everyone, but I was going to find out now.

David started the car right after Bob's bolted down the street. A few minutes into the drive, I heard the unusual clicking of liquid in a bottle. In the darkness of the night, I managed to spot David's right arm picking something up from the bottom of the car. It was a small, reflecting dark square.

A liquor bottle.

My eyes widened and I gasped. "David! Where did you get that?"

David seemed so unfazed at the situation. "Shut up, Leila. It's only one bottle."

"One bottle?!" I choked. "I don't care if it's one or one million bottles! Dad is going to kill you! Put that thing away!"

"I said shut up, alright? God, let me live," he chuckled to Freddie, and both of them took a quick swig from their liquor canteens.

I felt the blood drain from my face. "If this is your plan of having fun tonight, I want no part of it! Let me out of this car, David, right now!"

The car suddenly stopped. I pulled on the door handle but it didn't budge. It turned out that David didn't hear me—instead, he had rapidly stopped the car because Bob, on the right of us, had signaled for a drag race. I felt it in the back of the car where Bonnie and I were sitting. The rushing noise of the engine scared both of us out of our wits—this couldn't be happening. This couldn't be happening...

Suddenly, David rapidly sped off at the speed of light, just when Bob did.

This was actually happening.

I didn't know how far they were traveling. Two, four, twelve miles—I didn't know. I was covering my eyes in protection from the wind burning into them, and also because I didn't want to see the world whipping around in circles around me. I was screaming. Bonnie was screaming beside me too, but she loved the thrill of things. I couldn't tell if she was hyped or afraid. But I knew that I was afraid.

Eventually—I didn't know how much time had passed—our car was slowing down, and I heard David enter a coughing fit. When the car stopped, Freddie was laughing hysterically, and David had opened his door and gotten out of the car, still coughing.

However, David's coughs had turned into laughs, and he took a drunken gulp of the liquor in the bottle that was shaking in his hands.

This wasn't my brother at all. This wasn't like him. This wasn't the David at home, the David our mother had raised.

Bonnie and I stepped out of the car just as Bob's mustang parked in front of us. I looked at David with fear. "David, are you okay?" I questioned, my voice really soft and scared.

The driver's door of Bob's mustang slammed. Bob slugged an arm over David as my brother calmed down. "That was fun as hell! Probably scared the shit outta all the town!"

"Yeah," my brother agreed, "Them Greasers prolly're scared, now aren't they?"

"Oh, don't bring them into this!" Cherry scolded. "Bob, please. Let's just go home."

"Come out, come out, wherever you are, Greasers!" Freddie yelled out into the cool, night air, giving me chills down my spine. "Show yourselves, ya rats!"

I hardened my voice, as hard as I could make it, at least. "David, please," I said, "Enough of this. We want to go home."

David suddenly yelled at me in front of everyone. "I said shut up, Leila! Didn't I tell you to shut up before?"

If I didn't shut up before, I definitely did it then. David never yelled at me. At least not in public.

"Don't take this out on her!" Cherry stuck up for me, thankfully, and then she faced her boyfriend. "You promised me a movie instead of this, Bob. You promised me a good night and that you weren't gonna—"

"Aw c'mon, Cher, we were only having a little fun!"

"A little? Really, Bob?"

"Yeah, a little! The real fun hasn't begun just yet," Randy butted in, and after taking a swig of his liquor, he threw up his hands and shouted around us, "C'mon, Greasers, we know you're out there!"

"Randy, don't do that!" Marcia whispered to her boyfriend calmly.

"Uh, guys, we should really be getting home!" Bonnie suggested sternly, but nobody listened to her.

"Come out, you dirty pigs!" David added to the boys' commotion.

Now, as David and his friends were expressing their true colors through their drunkenness, it was clear what David meant about the boys' "plans" for the night. They were pacing around pompously, laughing and roaring in victory and selfishness, and of course, making disgusting remarks about the Greasers.

"Them Greasers so greasy they slide when they walk!" Bob shouted for the whole world to hear.

Cherry, her cheeks as red as her hair, gasped. "Bob! Knock it off! Please, can we just go home?"

"Calm down, Cher! We're only saying the truth!" Bob continued, and Randy and David cackled with him.

"The truth about yourselves, assholes," a snarky male voice abruptly entered the conversation. I turned around toward the sound. There was a gang of about four to five Greasers coming from ahead of Bob's car, towards us. When they entered the light, you could clearly see the heavy grease shining through their dark hair—except for one.

It was white-blond, no grease added. I could tell by that and the grim, bitter look on his face that it was none other than Dallas Winston. Now I was scared. I swallowed hard, catching myself in the view of his icy blue eyes, but I doubted that he would give a dime if he even recognized who I was.

"You got a problem, grease?" Randy challenged the boys, just as Bob taunted, "Hey look, it's the Greasers!"

"Yeah, I've got a fuckin' problem! Y'all got some big fuckin' nerve to trespass onto our side of town," the catlike one in front sneered. He had curly, jet-black hair and deep blue eyes. He was tall and built like Dally, and they both had the same sinister look in their eyes, the same hardness balling up into their fists.

"You wanna fight, grease? Are you lookin' for a fight?!" Randy snapped.

"We are if you are, ugly!" a smaller greaser yelled, looking identical to that of the catlike one. I figured they must be brothers.

My eyes widened. Fearful of David's fate, I gasped. "No!"

"Randy, please!" Marcia held onto her boyfriend's arm, but he pushed her away.

"No! I think these Greasers are lookin' for a fight!"

Bonnie raised her voice. "Can you guys just—"

"Come at me, grease! Come at me! Let's go!" Bob yelled, now threatening his switchblade at them. "Come on!"

"Bob, no!" screamed Cherry, who was right behind him. "Bob, stop it! You're gonna hurt someone!"

"Shut the hell up, Cherry!" Bob suddenly yelled at his girlfriend, which stunned me and all the girls. He only continued threatening the Greasers and yelling. "Come on, rats! Come on! Come at me, ya little fuckers!"

"Hey, fuck you, man!" Dally yelled at us, a thick New York accent escaping from his deep, hoarse voice. "Y'all ain't nothin' but a couple of white trash!"

"Fuck you, Winston! Come fuckin' at me, I dare you!" Bob yelled again, and he pointed his blade at Dally. "I can take you, hood! I can take every single one of you bastards! C'mon!"

Dally's voice got louder, and the two boys got closer. "You wanna mess with me, cowboy? You wanna fuckin' mess with me?" he hollered. "I dare you to come at me, asshole! Before I fuckin' beat your ass!"

"Imma fuckin' beat your ass right now an—"

Dally had swung his fist right into Bob's face, and all the girls—including myself—screamed. As an instinct, I lunged into David and held him tightly, fear tumbling throughout all my bones.

"Bob!" Cherry yelped, covering her mouth, but Bob wasn't a wimp. The popular Soc, though a little knocked off his feet initially, came back at the hoodlum and punched him back, and immediately the two went into a heated brawl.

Quickly, Randy jumped in to help fend off Dally, but then the little catlike Greaser swooped in and pushed him. The girls freaked out again as now Randy and the little one began fighting.

Cherry was afraid but angry. "Randy, stop! Stop! Everybody—"

"Stop!" I screamed at the fighting boys, just as I was trying to hold back my drunk brother from joining them. It was no use, though, because David was stronger than I was and he quickly pushed me away and escaped my grasp. "David, no!" I yelled, wanting to cry, and I watched him jump into Bob's fight with Dally.

I started yelling now. "Stop it! Stop! Please stop fighting! Stop!"

I stared at the four boys fighting with wide eyes. Five. Six. Soon all the boys were fighting in front of my eyes, and my mind began to spin. He's drunk! They're all drunk! They could kill them! They could . . . they could . . .

Before I knew it, I was struggling to breathe. All the nerves in my body had woken up all at once and were now running laps throughout my stomach and up my throat. I suddenly felt lightheaded, and it felt like I was standing on a boat. This made my vision seem to blur, and I swallowed hard, stepping backward but almost tripping over my feet. I was still trying to breathe when I turned my head toward my left and saw a blurry figure that looked like Bonnie.

"Bonnie?" I asked for her, knowing what was about to come despite that I really couldn't think straight. "I-I think I'm—"

"Leila!" I heard her shout, and it echoed throughout my mind until everything was absorbed by the darkness.

A/N:

*doesn't know how to end the chapter so just makes the character pass out*

Hi everyone I'm sort of back in business!!! I had this written a while ago but junior year was literally making me dig a grave so I had to abandon this account for a while until the year ended. Summer just started though, so thanks for sticking in there. <3

I hope you enjoyed this chapter!!

Amanda :)