Author's Note: Hi. I have been reading fanfiction for a while, but this is my very first story, so please tell me what you think. Reviews and concrit much appreciated. I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own The Outsiders; S.E. Hinton does.

"Angel!" Curly pounded on my bedroom door. "Turn down the goddamn music!"

I pretended not to hear him, and Elvis's voice remained as loud as ever. This was the third time tonight he came over here, threatenin' to beat down my door if I didn't turn off my music. I learned a while ago not to take him serious.

"Angel, I mean it!"

I still ignored him. Boys just did not understand how much concentration it required to get ready for a date, and I would much rather listen to Elvis than the sound of my mother and stepfather screamin' and throwin' things at each other downstairs. I found myself wishing Tim had managed to keep himself out of trouble for once; him getting hauled into the cooler yesterday was probably the reason Mom was so pissed off in the first place.

I had to admire her, even if I'd never tell her. It couldn't be easy raising two hoods without a husband besides Frank, who really didn't count, and trying to keep them in school (it didn't work out so great with Tim, and Curly probably wouldn't make it either), not that either one gave a damn.

Why were my brothers so stupid?

Fine, maybe it was a bit of a stretch to call Tim stupid, but couldn't he see that we needed him at home? Well, Mom needed him at home. Because of Tim, she and ol' Frankie were probably chucking beer bottles at each other. In fact, I was surprised Curly hadn't joined in yet.

Soon the pounding on my door stopped, and I knew Curly had finally given up and stormed off, probably to swipe the car keys. He's got a date tonight too, though Lord knows how.

Smiling smugly to myself, I sat back down in front of my vanity, digging around inside my makeup bag for my eye shadow.

I wasn't even sure why I was putting so much effort into looking nice for Bryon. We'd been dating for three months, and I was growing tired of him fast. Sure, he was good-looking and all, but he was also dead boring and always getting himself into fights for my "honor" and stupid stuff like that. I hated guys who thought they were tough.

As I carefully applied mascara, I frowned at my reflection in the mirror and considered breaking up with Bryon. It would serve him right, for sure. He thought he was such a ladies' man. The guy had probably never been dumped in his life, and I was the perfect person to show him what it felt like.

Of course, I wasn't exactly accustomed to being dumped myself.

People told me how pretty I was all the time, and I knew it was true. Even my havin' overprotective idiots as brothers hadn't kept me from gettin' plenty of dates. Sometimes I wondered, though, what it would be like to go with an honest-to-God nice boy. I wasn't even sure they existed anymore.

No, I decided, running a brush through my long dark curls (my best feature), I would give Bryon a week or so. He was my date for Buck Merril's party next weekend, anyway.

Over the volume of my record and the shouts of my parents and Curly, I faintly heard the chime of the doorbell and knew that Bryon was outside. I lowered the volume and heard the door open, although the fighting didn't stop.

I stepped into my heels and stormed out of my room.

Bryon saw me first, and his eyes instantly lit up. I was immediately reminded of why I kept him around: he was crazy about me, and made no secret of it. At least he was willing to give me attention.

Ignoring him, I chucked my hairbrush down the stairs, nailing Curly in the back of the head.

He whirled around. "What the fuck was that for?"

"Can't y'all shut your mouths for a second?" I hollered, throwing in a few curses for good measure. My mother, of course, ignored me, as did Frank, but Curly remained where he was, scowlin' at me.

I disregarded this and made my way downstairs, grabbing Bryon by the hand and dragging him out the door.

A car I had never seen before was parked outside on the street, engine running. It was real tuff, a blue Thunderbird, and was certainly not Bryon's. Realization dawned on me, and I turned on Bryon.

"You brought Mark?" I snapped, glaring at him.

He scowled. "What's wrong with him?" he asked defensively.

I didn't know where to begin so, rolling my eyes, I let go of his hand, stomped ahead of him to the car, and opened the passenger door. Mark Jennings was sitting in the driver's seat, but when he saw the look on my face he scrambled into the backseat. I noticed that the steering column was open and a tangle of wires spilled out from underneath the steering wheel, confirming my suspicions. This car was definitely stolen (or at least "borrowed"), and I knew who had done it.

"Well, well, well," Mark drawled from the back of the car (once he apparently decided it was safe to speak without causin' my head to explode), grinning stupidly at me while his freaky gold eyes remained cold. He didn't like me and made no attempt to conceal it. "Nice to see you, Angel." I knew he wasn't being serious.

"And I suppose I shouldn't ask where you got this car?" I asked sourly, giving Mark a dark look as he continued to smile in that annoying way of his.

"I wouldn't," he asserted, making himself comfortable in his seat.

I turned to Bryon, who had settled into the driver's seat and seemed to be bracing himself for the explosion. I narrowed my eyes, not one to disappoint, and said through my teeth, "What is he doin' here? We're supposed to be on a date, Bryon, remember?"

Bryon started the engine. "Yeah, I remember," he said. "Mark picked up the car"—here, I turned my glare on Mark again—"on the way over here. He's going to Terry's party."

Terry Jones's parties were notorious, almost as much so as Buck's were, and he was throwing one tonight. It was all my friends could talk about at school today.

I scowled at Bryon. "But Terry's house is the other way."

"Well, I was thinkin' we could go to the party instead."

"What?" I could hear my voice getting shrill, and Mark snorted from the backseat, where he had been surprisingly quiet; usually he liked to throw in his own opinion in the form of mindless chatter. I turned and glared at him.

This was happening more and more. When we first started dating, Bryon only ever wanted to spend time with me, but lately Mark had been taking more and more of his time. Last week Bryon canceled a date so Mark and him could drive down to the Ribbon instead. I almost dumped his sorry ass when he called to tell me.

"Come on, Angel," Bryon coaxed me. "You were sayin' jus' last week how much you wanted to go."

"Well, that was then," I said stubbornly.

Bryon sighed as he steered the car around a corner, and he exchanged a glance with Mark in the rearview mirror. "I just thought that—"

I interrupted him. "Thought that what? I was just going to adjust my plans to fit yours? Again? You know, I didn't even have to be here tonight. I had—"

"—plenty of other offers, I'm sure." Now Bryon was mad too, though I knew he wasn't being sarcastic. "Well, maybe next time you can take one of them up instead of sittin' here whinin' like you always do."

"Excuse me?" I knew he didn't mean it; he told me so at the end of every fight. But still, it ain't exactly fun being talked to like that.

I could tell Bryon wanted to say something else, but we had reached Terry's house and we both knew I was coming in. I could never resist a party, or free booze, which there was always plenty of at Terry's parties. Still, I waited right where I was sitting, knowing an apology from Bryon was on the way. Our record fight time so far was fifteen minutes, and he was always the first to cave.

Sure enough, Bryon climbed out of the car and hurried around to my door to open it for me.

I led the way up to Terry's front door and knocked; I could hear the music loud and clear from the moment I got out of the car, and now the sound was almost overwhelming. But it wasn't like the neighbors would care about the noise or anything. In fact, all the kids were probably inside right now.

A guy I didn't know opened the door, and the roar of music poured out from behind him, ten times louder than before. I pushed past him, barely glancing in his direction, and Bryon followed me, his hand placed protectively at the small of my back the way it always was when other guys looked at me.

The second I was inside and Bryon took my coat (something he only did after we fought), Kenny Robinson stepped forward with a cold beer in hand, which he offered to me with a wink. I took it, smirking my thanks.

"Careful, Kenny." Mark stepped forward threateningly. "You know she's taken."

I knew this was no favor to me; Mark made it pretty clear to me that he thought I couldn't be trusted and would leave Bryon for the next good-lookin' boy to come along.

Glaring at Mark, Kenny took off after the next thing in a skirt, and Bryon returned to my side as I took a sip of the beer.

Mark gave me a suspicious look before saying something in a low voice to Bryon and wandering off.

Terry stumbled over to us, looking drunk off his ass. Sure enough, as soon as he arrived he draped an arm over Bryon's shoulder, leaning heavily on him. "Hey, buddy," he slurred, grinning stupidly.

Shaking my head, I went off in search of my friends as Bryon supported Terry's weight.

"Angela!" Libby was waving from across the room, where she stood with Lisa Anderson, Debbie Sanders, Brenda Williamson, and some girl from my biology class, Susan something-or-other. Kenny moved in behind Libby and put his arm around her, but she swatted it away with a toss of her auburn hair.

I made my way over to where she stood. Libby had been my best friend—sort of—for years, ever since we were in grade school together, and she was the closest thing to a true friend I had.

"Where's Bryon?" Libby asked once I was within hearing range (about two feet away, due to the blasting music).

"Who cares?" I shot back with a grin, and Libby and Debbie giggled.

"Hey, if you don't want to date him, I sure wouldn't mind," Lisa said with a sigh.

I immediately bristled, wanting to tell her to back off, but instead I shrugged like I couldn't care less. "Be my guest, really," I drawled. "I'm gettin' pretty tired of him anyway."

Lisa said something back, but my attention was caught by a boy standing across the room, talking to Mark and a few other guys. Glory, he was good-looking. I admired his clean-cut features, thoughtful green eyes, and shiny reddish-brown hair and wondered why I hadn't seen him before.

Libby saw where I was looking and leaned closer. "That's Ponyboy Curtis. He's a doll, ain't he?"

"You're not kiddin'." My eyes never left him. I had heard his name before, I knew, and I vaguely wondered why. "He the one Margaret's always talking about?"

The other girls stopped talking and looked, too. Susan and Debbie began to giggle as Brenda said, "Yeah, he's the one. He hangs around with my brother sometimes, and he's real sweet, too. He's got some manners on him."

A nice guy, huh? Well, that would be a welcome change. I knew the whole reason Bryon liked me was because of my looks. I was tired of dating players, and if Ponyboy was really so sweet, he might actually be worth getting' to know.

I felt someone watching me and turned to see Bryon looking straight at me, completely ignoring the guy he was talking to. He had seen me, and he was gonna be mad.

Well, he could be mad all he wanted, I decided, making my way over to where Ponyboy was standing.

We were basically broken up, anyway.