DISCLAIMER: The Outsiders doesn't belong to me, but it does belong to S.E. Hinton.

Chapter One: Femininity

There was blood everywhere.

I pulled my last pad out of my backpack with regret, but I knew I needed it now more than ever.

Karen was waiting outside the stall when I was done.

"That," I said as I turned on the sink. "Was my last pad."

"Your last? What do you mean?" she asked. "I have one in my backpack if you – "

"No, it's – I'm going to have to deal with this eventually," I said. Karen still looked confused, so I clarified: "There hasn't been a new pad in my house for eight months."

"Oh," Karen said. Realism dawned. "Just ask Darry; he's not going to make things awkward." I turned off the tap and stared at her until she realized the lie in what she'd said. "Okay, he'll make things incredibly awkward, but you're gonna have to."

"I know," I said. My shoulders slumped; this was the most brutal task I'd even been faced since my parents died. It was an inevitable thing, but I was an excellent procrastinator. I missed my mom more than even in times like these.

"How many pads did you have in the house? Geez, I can't make, say, a hundred last me one month, much less eight," she said.

"I stole some from your house," I confessed. Karen just laughed.

"Stolen pads?" she found this incredibly funny, and after hearing Karen's sweet high-pitched giggle I did too.

I dried my hands with a paper towel. "I can't do it alone," I admitted. "Can you come?"

"Of course," Karen said, still in fits of laughter. "I can't wait to see the look on his face – "

"That's not why you're coming," I said as I pushed open the door to the bathroom. We walked to the front of the school; the hallways were already mostly deserted.

"Okay," she said, but from her tone I knew she didn't mean it. Best friends were hard to come by, and caring and understanding best friends even more so.

By the time we got to the front of the school, Ponyboy was already gone. He must have started walking, not wanting to bother to wait for me.

"Nice of him to wait," I muttered as we began the walk home.

Karen also looked visibly disappointed, but she looked like she was trying to hide it. She sped up, as if she hoped to catch up to him, even though that was virtually impossible when Pony's runner's stride and my short, chubby set of legs were taken into consideration. Karen wasn't the fastest either.

"Is there something you're not telling me?" I asked. Gum littered the sidewalk, and Karen avoided every piece, even though they were old and crusty and never could've stuck to her ballet flats.

"Nope," she answered too quickly. I didn't bother pressing the subject; I'd find out soon enough – Karen was a broken vault. There was a reason I didn't tell her everything.

"While you tell Darry about the – um, feminine issue, maybe you could ask him for some shopping money?" she asked. She was clearly trying to change my train of thought, and it worked.

"I've asked him for too much already," I said.

"You haven't gone shopping in, like, a year," Karen complained.

"Yes, I have. I went with you last weekend," I said.

"That didn't count. You didn't buy anything," she countered.

"We're not exactly rolling in cash, Kare," I said.

"I ain't either."

"I don't have a mother who tries to please me every second of every day," I said. Karen's mother had Karen when she was seventeen with some ex-boyfriend, but she married Brad at twenty. So far they had seven kids and counting, but Karen couldn't stand the little brats. Brad worked a lot, and Karen couldn't stand him either. Her mother felt bad for marrying him against Karen's wishes, but he brought in money and gave her the one thing she wanted – kids. So Karen got whatever she wanted, but she never seemed happy with that.

"You don't want my mother," Karen said. "You don't want my siblings, either. I'd take your family any day of the week."

"I'd take yours," I said. "Let's switch."

Karen smiled. "Still, ask Darry."

"No," I insisted. "He works so hard, and I feel bad asking for more and more of him, I mean, I feel bad asking even for money for the pads – "

"How can you feel bad asking for something like that?" Karen asked. She didn't get it, and she never would, not until she was old and it was too late.

I shook my head. "I won't ask for the shopping money," I said.

"You do need new clothes," Karen pointed out. "I think I saw that sweater on you in seventh grade."

"Not that old."

"There's a hole in the sleeve."

"You can barely tell."

"Oh, c'mon," Karen raised her golden eyebrows and let her long lemon blonde hair fall onto her back. She'd been shaking her head this whole time; she finally stopped. I looked like a shrimp in comparison to Karen's body and confidence. "You'll be saying that next year. And the year after. Don't kid me, Audrey. I know you want some new clothes. You want to impress Bryon."

"Oh my God, Karen," I huffed. "I do not like him."

"He likes you," she replied. "He flirts with you all the time."

"He only wants sex," I persisted.

"No," she said. "He's sweet and sensitive – "

"No, he's not," I argued.

"You still want to impress someone," she reasoned. It was true; I wanted to impress somebody, somebody I hadn't even told Karen. "You can't go around impressing people in clothes like that."

But this was Karen Manley talking - this was the most stylish girl I knew. This was the girl who knew exactly how to flirt and never looked like an idiot. I was a tomboy; I wasn't stylish.

I didn't know how Karen and I became best friends. We're total opposites; Karen's the drama and gossip queen with an amazing body, and I was the gawky and ugly tomboy. We were quite the pair.

"Imagine how you would look in a v-neck sweater, and – oh, my – we could actually show off some cleavage! And you could wear a bra that actually fit!" Karen said; she'd begun giggling again. She loved making fun of my lack of femininity, and for the most part, it didn't hurt my feelings.

"Karen," I said. I was laughing too. "One, I have overprotective brothers. They'd never let me out of the house with cleavage. Two, my bras fit fine!"

"Yeah, right," she said. "What size bra are you wearing? A C?"

"B," I mustered. I didn't look her in the eyes.

"Jesus, you must be suffocating!" she said. "You do realize that you're at least a D, right?"

"Yes, I realize that," I said. "I'm not at least a D; I probably just a C."

"No, you're not," she argued. "You're a D. Either way, A B bra doesn't work."

"You're right about that," I admitted. "But – "

"No buts," Karen said. We'd reached the metal fence surrounding our house; Karen unlatched the gate and I opened the front door.

Ponyboy was sitting at the kitchen table.

"Thanks for waiting," I said.

"You were taking ages," he explained. He was eating chocolate cake and drinking milk straight from the carton, which was behavior quite unlike Ponyboy. Soda would do that, but Pony was usually much neater. However, today he chose to practically inhale the cake.

"In a hurry?" I asked.

"Yep," he said in between mouthfuls.

"Where ya going?" I asked as I opened the fridge.

"Out," he said shortly. He finished the cake and took one last swig of milk. "If Darry's back before I'm home, tell him I'm at Kevin's doing homework."

"But you're not going to Kevin's," I said. "Where are you going?"

Pony threw his jacket on. "Nowhere," he muttered.

"You tell me, or I'll tell Darry you went to go rob a bank," I blackmailed.

"Audrey," he made my name sound long, like he used to when we were three years old. He clearly didn't want to tell me, but he knew I'd tell Darry just that. He stole a glance at Karen. "I'm going to go see Allison."

"What?" I asked. I almost dropped the loaf of bread in my hand. "Ponyboy Curtis with a girl?"

"Oh, shut up," he said. "Just tell Darry I went to Kevin's." He was out the door in the next three seconds, but not before stealing a glance at himself in the mirror by the door.

Karen sat in the chair Ponyboy had recently vacated. "That was weird," she huffed. She slouched in her chair, and Karen never slouched.

"Who," I began as I put two pieces of bread in the toaster, "stuffs their face with cake before having sex?"

Karen didn't answer with a sassy remark like usual, instead, she quietly asked, "You don't think he's actually going to have sex with Allison, do you?"

I turned around fast. "Shit, Karen, you like him!" I had to hold onto the counter for support when Karen nodded. "He's not your type at all!"

"What's my type?" she asked defensively.

"I don't know, someone more…social," I said. "Someone more boyfriend-y. Not my brother."

"He's not my brother," Karen said. "And if you tell him – "

"I won't, I won't," I replied. "God…Ponyboy…."

She nodded again, but remained slouched in her chair. "But – you don't think he's actually…?"

"This is Ponyboy we're talking about, right?" I asked. "No, I don't. Honestly, I don't think he even knows what sex is."

"He's a fourteen-year-old boy, what do you think?" Karen asked. She shook her head. "I didn't think he was like that either."

"I can't believe you like a guy who stuffs his face with cake before – "

"Oh, stop, Audrey," Karen said. "You just can't see where I'm coming from because he's your brother. But he's really sweet, and he actually cares about girls."

"Whenever you start talking about a guy, you first mention their personality in one sentence, and then you launch into a paragraph about their body. Please, let's not go there," I begged.

Karen laughed. "You know me too well."

We heard the front door slam shut. Sodapop strolled into the kitchen a few seconds later. He pulled off his hat and placed it on my head without breaking stride.

"Hey, Aud," he said, and then pretended to just notice Karen. I knew he'd known she'd been there the whole time; nobody could misplace Karen. "Hey, Kare." Karen smiled at him. She'd flirt with anyone. "Hey, where's Pony?"

I took off his hat and placed it on the counter.

"Getting laid," Karen grumbled.

Soda fumbled the carton of milk he'd been holding. "What?"

"Karen!" I hissed. She had no idea what she was getting me into.

"He told us not to tell Darry," she said. "Didn't say anything about Soda. You won't tell Darry, right?"

Soda looked like he was having trouble digesting this. I didn't want Soda to know about this; what was Karen thinking, telling him? Sodapop would worry his head off about it. He always worried.

"Who?" Soda asked.

"You probably don't know her," I answered. "Allison Mitchell." I picked up my plate of toast and made my way out of the kitchen. I had to find some way out of this, and the easiest way appeared to be physically.

"Wait a minute," Soda said. "When did he tell you this?"

"A few minutes ago," I said. "Me and Karen are gonna be in my room, okay?"

"No, not okay," Soda said. His milk was long forgotten. "Ponyboy's fourteen!"

Karen said something so suggestive that I wouldn't have dared. But Karen had confidence, and she had the most outgoing personality of anybody I knew.

"Were you getting laid at fourteen?"

Soda looked startled at the question, but realization dawned. His eyes widened slightly and he appeared to lose his footing, although he was standing still and was braced against the counter. "You two are fourteen – you're not – "

"Got to go," I insisted, and dragged Karen out of the room. As we walked to my room, I muttered, "Why'd you say that; you gave him ideas! And Pony's gonna kill me when Soda - "

"It was worth it to see the look on his face," she replied. I looked at her blooming grin and had to laugh with her. I laughed because I was genuinely happy; something funny had occurred.

There wasn't much to laugh at nowadays.