Savin' Me

"Rachel," I sighed, pulling my daughter's arm so she came back toward me, "will ya slow down for ten seconds? Your hair is sticking up like Alfalfa."

"Mom! I have to meet my friends! You're embarrassing me." Her face turned beet red as she turned her dark brown eyes to glare at me.

"Alright, go ahead." I chuckled slightly as she composed herself, pulling her jacket down a little, before standing up straighter and walking out to meet her friends, calm-as-you-please.

"She's a crackup," I snickered to myself.

"That's how teenagers are," Soda whispered in my ear before planting a kiss on my neck.

"That's how some teenagers are," I corrected. From the front kitchen window, I watched as Rachel and her friends walked down the street, laughing and gossiping. "It's good to know that she'll never...end up like me."

Soda rolled up the sleeves of my long-sleeve shirt, running his thumb gingerly along the pale scars, long since healed. "I think you turned out alright." His reckless grin made an appearance across his face, and I rolled my eyes.

"Of course you do. I cook for you every day. And I gave birth to Rachel. What more could you want from a wife?" I stuck my tongue out at him lovingly before going to the living room and lying down on the couch.

"Hey, Soda," I questioned, my eyes fixed on the ceiling as I ran my hand through my slightly-graying hair.

"What?"

"Do you ever wish that...you could go back and change something? Maybe not everything, but just one thing?"

He plopped down next to me, wearing a very concentrated expression. "Not really. But if I could change anything, I would have met you sooner...or asked you out sooner, before Johnny got to you. Seeing you all..."

"Conflicted?" I suggested.

"Yeah, conflicted. Seeing you like that wasn't easy. I probably didn't help matters by telling you to get lost."

"Not a bit. But that's alright. I ignored you, anyway."

"Yeah, you did. You're not much of a listener."

I smiled at him before sitting up. "There's so much I wish I could change, given that I got the same outcome. I would have run away from my father earlier, not stuck around so long with him abusing me like he did. And I never, ever..." Forcefully, I ripped my sleeve down over my lower arm. "Would have cut myself."

It was quiet for a second before Soda ran his hand up and down my upper arm, his voice assuring as he told me, "Well, look at it this way. You remember when Rachel was three and she saw your scars?"

Nodding, I bit my lip. How could I have forgotten? That was such a traumatic day, for her and for me. "She'll never cut. And she'll have parents that love her. She won't go through what you did."

"You're right," I agreed. "So there's one upside of my emotional issues, I guess."

Soda snickered when the door opened. Immediately, I knew it was one of the gang, since none of them had ever attained that decency of knocking. I had, however, after I accidentally burst into Darry's house a couple of years ago and found him and his wife just about to have sex on the couch.

Needless to say, I was kind of scarred and never sat on that couch again.

"AUNTIE ZOE!" Baby Carolina exclaimed, her blonde hair flowing behind her as she ran into my arms. "Hi."

"Hi, baby," I grinned, kissing her on the forehead. She was only three, a far cry from Rachel's fourteen, even if her mom was my age.

"Hey there, Zoe," Lily grinned at me, Ponyboy in tow behind her. "How's it going?"

Ponyboy and Soda migrated into the kitchen while Lily and I caught up on the couch, Carolina running around us. Listening to us talk, the normal person would have thought that it had been months since we'd last seen each other instead of two weeks.

It made me grin, knowing that Lily and Pony had ended up together, after all her creeping around originally, and his lack of interest. But, as Lily always has, she charmed him until he finally warmed up to her. And the rest was beautiful history.

"So how's Johnny doing?" I asked, my voice noticeably lowering. Last time Lily filled me in on what was going on (she still lived in Tulsa, though in the middle-class area, while Soda and I moved into a town about a half hour away), Johnny hadn't been seeing anyone, which made me worried. I still felt protective over him and wanted him to move on, even though we didn't talk too much.

Lily smiled broadly as she informed me, "Johnny's seeing a cute little Spanish girl named Maribel. They seem to getting along really well."

"That's great to hear," I sighed, feeling like a small weight had been lifted off my shoulders. "So...do you want any chicken parm? I made some last night and there's some extra."

"You asked the right girl," Lily laughed, standing up from the sofa. "I haven't eaten since eight this morning, and I'm starving."

Soda and Pony stopped talking the second I stepped foot into the kitchen, so I figured that I didn't even want to know what they were talking about. "Hey, guys. You want some chicken parm, too?"

"No thanks," Soda answered before looking Pony.

"Yes, please," Pony smiled.

I started making the food while Lily filled me in on everyone else: Dally was still slumming around. Two-Bit was dating a couple of different blondes and having trouble deciding between them. Steve had moved to Montana so that he could be closer to the girl that he fell in love with, whom he'd met while she was vacationing. Darry and his wife were still trying to for a kid, but they were having some issues, so they were going to a doctor the following week.

While Pony and Lily were eating, I filled them in on everything on Soda's and my home-front, about how Rachel had just confessed that she liked a boy in her group of friends and she was hoping to God that he asked her out. I was rooting her on, since I'd seen his picture in her yearbook, and he was quite good-looking. Not that I wanted my daughter to base her relationships on looks, but...it didn't hurt.

"I can't wait to see her. I'll wait here all night if I have to. I want to be that annoying nosy aunt that tries so hard to be in her business!" Lily expressed excitedly, dropping her fork so it clanged on her empty plate.

After chuckling a bit, I took her plate from her. "Have fun with that. She's a teenager. I only found out about that boy because she needed another opinion on whether he might like her or not. Though...I couldn't give her much, since I didn't actually know him."

"And if he does ask her out," Soda piped up, "then I'm going to beat the shit out of him."

"No you're not. I don't want our daughter to grow up to be a cat lady, thanks." I rolled my eyes before settling back at the table, having put the dishes into the sink to be cleaned later.

"I didn't say that she had to be a cat lady...I just meant that she should be older. Like thirty."

"Think about that. When I was thirty, Rachel was six."

Soda shut his mouth, not really knowing how to respond to that.

There was a creak from the front porch, and I knew that Rachel was home. "SHH!" I ordered before sneaking around to the living room window, where I could see Rachel without her being able to see me easily.

Of course, the rest of the gang decided that it would be a super idea to crowd around me to watch.

Ever-so-slowly, the boy from the photo leaned forward and planted a kiss on Rachel's lips. Her face flushed, and she said something before they both laughed.

"AWW!" I exclaimed, putting a hand to my chest.

"That's it?" Lily pouted. "I was hoping there would be some real action!"

"Don't talk that way about my daughter," Soda said, narrowing his eyes slightly.

"Look natural!" Pony demanded, seeing that Rachel was starting for the door, her crush going back toward the sidewalk.

Everyone threw themselves onto furniture to look as natural as possible. "Hi, guys," Rachel greeted with a smile, her face still red a little.

"How was the time with your friends?"

"Eh," she shrugged. "It was alright. I'm gonna go upstairs to do some homework."

"Okay, sweetie." She ran up the stairs before Lily and I looked at each other and giggled.

With all the shit that I went through in my life...I was glad that my life had turned out like it had.