Savin' Me

The whole way home, I was almost running, and Pony was about to kill me. "Will you slow down?" he whined, scampering a little to catch up with me.

"Here I was, thinking that you were some sort of track star..." I trailed off as I rolled my eyes. "I feel like I've been lied to a little bit."

"I'm just not in the mood to run while I have a backpack with three different books in it," he retorted. He adjusted the straps of his backpack as he spoke, as if he was subconsciously accentuating his statement.

Sighing loudly, I opened the front door of the house. After throwing my bag across the room, I put my hand on the doorknob. "Hey, I'll be back, okay?"

"Where are you going?" Pony wasn't looking at me as I spoke, instead making his way directly to the kitchen to get some food.

For a second, I debated whether I should tell him the truth or lie, but I finally decided that he wouldn't suspect anything if I told him the truth. "I'm going to find Johnnycakes."

"Oh, I think he's in the lot. Want me to make sure you find him?" Pony had a handful of chips as he walked back into the living room, and I took a step out the door.

"No, no. I can find him. Don't worry." Before he could object again, I closed the door quickly and made my way to the sidewalk.

The paper was crumpling in my hand as I thought about worry after worry. What if Johnny didn't like it? What if he thought it was stupid and corny? He was a greaser, after all. It was totally possible that he would think that. Emotion was not his thing. Expressing emotion, at least.

Just like Pony said, Johnny was sitting in the lot, leaning back and looking at the sky, which was starting to turn colors as the day shifted to night.

"Hey," I greeted, smiling and sitting next to him.

"Zoe!" he grinned back at me. "I haven't talked to you in a while."

"I know. How come you haven't come by the house or anything?"

He shrugged. "No reason, I guess."

"Oh." Biting my lip, I tried to make saying the next part as not awkward as I could, but I failed. As usual. "Well, I got a paper here for you."

"Really?" He raised an eyebrow at me. "I can't read too good."

"That's okay, I'll read it to you. It'll be better that way anyway." I cleared my throat before reading the whole paper to him. At the end, I tacked on, "Johnny, thanks for getting me a place to stay at the Curtis'. Who knows where I'd be right now if you hadn't? I could be on the streets somewhere, or I could be back at home, getting beaten by my father. Maybe I woulda been dead."

He blushed a little. "It mighta not gotten that bad."

"One of those options would have happened," I replied. I put my hand over his, feeling a little butterflies in my stomach. "Thanks."

"It was no problem." He looked down at our hands, then back up at me.

Blushing something fierce, I took my hand back. "Sorry. I better go."

Without waiting for him to say anything else, I stood up and started to walk away. His hand clasped around my arm, and right as I turned around to face him again, he moved forward and planted his lips on mine.

Surprised, I pulled back and stared at him. "Wow, Johnnycakes. Who knew you had the balls?" My mouth spread into a wide grin.

When he realized that I wasn't going to kick him, he smiled at me. "I've kind of wanted to do that for a long time."

"I've wanted you to, too," I laughed. "It's about time."

"I just thought you liked Soda so..."

"I told you I didn't like Soda!"

"I thought you were lying..." He cracked a smile, and I turned away from him, expecting him to follow me. He did, and soon enough, we were in step.

"But anyway, I thought your paper was real good. What did that end part mean there though? Just that if you hadn't stayed somewhere, you could have been dead?"

"No," I answered automatically. I needed to tell Johnny the truth, especially if anything was going to come out of that kiss (which I hoped something would).

He just stared at me, waiting for an elaboration. Swallowing, I put my hand out in front of him. "Stop for a minute."

Before he could say anything, I lifted up the sleeve of my shirt, exposing all the scars that I'd made, the physical scars. Johnny's mouth opened to an "o" shape as he ran his fingers along them.

"Did your dad to that to you? Pull a knife on you?"

"No...Johnny, I did this to myself. I'm a cutter."

I never thought a human could look more like one of those small animals with the big eyes.