For those of you who experience a little déjà vu, the opening part of this chapter is Evie's POV of my one-shot 'Hearing the Truth'. Sorry about that, but that's where we've been heading...(If you haven't read it, it will tell you what's going on in Steve's head.)

Wednesday.

I was so buzzed to come out into the service alley and see Steve waiting. I hadn't had a chance to tell him I was going to work overtime so it was a real nice surprise that he was there to pick me up. I remembered the first time he'd done it, when we were just getting together and that made me smile.

"I was passin' by," he said, real casual. And he'd looked so cute, leaning on the car in his work shirt. And he'd waited there for me. Steve Randle, tuff as hell, and there to pick me up.

I ran over to hug him hello. He was like a statue, didn't hug me back, didn't speak to me, something was obviously wrong.

A dreadful, frightening thought hit me. I could hardly bear to ask.

"Steve? What's the matter?...Oh, God, did something happen with Soda's little brother?"

All kinds of awful things were going through my mind, all the things that could have happened to Ponyboy and Johnny. But before my imagination spiralled completely out of control, Steve spoke.

"Nah, they ain't heard nothin'."

Now I didn't know what to think. He'd been strung out since Ponyboy disappeared, but this icy calm was something else.

"You seen Sandy today?" Steve's voice was hard as stone. His face was very still.

Oh, shit. She told Soda. Poor Soda. I bit my lip.

"Florida, huh?"

"What did Soda tell ya?" I asked quietly, because I had no way of knowing what exactly Sandy might have said, when she confessed. And I was still selfish enough to want to know if she'd told my part in it all.

"How 'bout you tell me what you know, an' I'll let ya know when it sounds different?" Steve sounded bitter, nasty. He was obviously mighty pissed with her.

I knew he would defend Soda past any point of reason. He would take up for him like a brother. I'd admired him for that before, it was one of the things that made him special. But equally, Sandy was my friend and I had a sense of loyalty to her, in the same way. He would recognize that.

I wondered how bad Soda had taken it. I really wished that Sandy would have spared him, on top of the worry about Ponyboy. I guessed her mom finding out about the doctor's appointment had rushed everything, in her panic to ship out Sandy and her shame.

Like nothing else, I wanted to tell Steve all of it. But I couldn't bring myself to. Sandy and I had been friends since kindergarten. She'd trusted me. She'd begged me not to give out the details. And it was the tip of the iceberg, reagrding what I'd been keeping from him.

So I stupidly tried to claim I didn't know anything, but Steve snapped at me, jumping across what I was saying.

"Bullshit! Don't tell me you didn't know, Evie. You two were tight, no way you didn't know."

I jumped when he snarled. Of course it made it worse that he was partly right. But I'd only just found out. If I could make Steve see I was caught in the middle, he would understand. So I told him that I'd only found out myself this week.

"She told me Monday, when she found out from the doctor. That's all. Then her mom figured it out an' all Hell broke loose, an' they're packin' her off to Florida..."

"Monday was two days ago. We went out last night." His tone was so cold.

I didn't understand why he was hacked about that. When we were out last night, it was all real. It was nothing but real between us. This was horrible for Sandy and for Soda, but it wasn't to do with how things were for me and Steve. We were different.

Perhaps it was that I'd known before Soda? If that was the problem, I could explain, that Sandy had asked me not to tell, until she'd had a chance to confess.

"I couldn't say anythin', baby, how could I? She still hadda tell Soda, I couldn't..."

He yelled, didn't let me finish, anger flaring in his eyes. "She had to tell Soda? Ain't nothin' to do with him, is what I hear. How about, she had to tell whichever little prick she's been running around with?"

So she hadn't told Soda all the details. I was so ashamed for Sandy and so angry at myself, for not stopping her from going to that first party.

I wanted to hug him, but Steve walked away from me.

"How long was she two-timing him?" He was shaking with fury now, firing questions at me."Who was it?"

"I don't..." I tried to explain.

"Don't fuckin' lie to me!" he yelled and I jumped backwards, catching my breath. Couldn't stop myself flinching.

Oh, God. It's not Sandy he's pissed at, it's me.

For a second, just a second, I'd seen something in Steve that chilled my blood. I'd seen that look in his eyes before, when he got mad, before a fight, but never directed at me. Not ever at me. God help me, he looked like...Ricky, in that moment. My heart was pounding. I felt sick to my stomach.

His next words made me shiver."I swear to God, Evie, if you don't tell me the truth..."

I saw the two of us clearly on the steps outside Buck's. "I don't like secrets. I don't like that it feels like you're keeping something from me."

Oh, shit. I tried to remember that was also when he'd sworn he would never hurt me. I wanted to believe that. To hold onto that. But my reaction had come from deep in my gut, it wasn't rational, it wasn't something I could control.

"I don't know who it was. I don't know!" I heard myself saying. I sounded desperate and I was. "Baby." I tried to reach out to him. If I could hold him, show him how much I loved him, he would know this wasn't about us. "I'm sorry she did that to Soda, but it ain't gotta come between us, does it?" Because we were different, he knew that, he knew how good we were together, it wasn't the same.

But he looked at me like he hated me. Really hated me. Oh, no. No.

"Steve...baby, I love you."

He had to remember that we had something special. Me too, babe. I willed him to say it, heard his voice in my mind. Saw him looking up at my window, that night, when he'd first said it. "Evie. What you said. Me too." Oh, please, please...

His face was completely calm now. That was more frightening than when he'd yelled. Because I could read in his eyes what he was going to do next.

"Steve. Please. Listen to me." I had to make him understand. Don't, baby, don't do this, don't.

He walked away from me, back to the car. Don't.

"We're done."

I felt my heart break. Oh, God. He means it. He really means it.

I called out to him. He ignored me. I told him I loved him, one more time. As I said it, I knew he wasn't hearing me. He might have heard the words but he wasn't hearing me.

He looked like he hated me.

He turned over the engine. He drove away.

XXX

If I been capable of rational thought, I'd have turned around and walked back to Marian. But I wasn't thinking at all, I was just hurting. I felt like I should been leaving bloody footprints behind me. Like every time I breathed out, the air should have been red mist. How was it possible that I hurt this much without my body actually having something to show for it?

He looked like he hated me.

I walked and I walked. Some part of me was equipped with homing sense because apparently I was at least going in the right direction. I was probably passed by several buses that I could have caught.

I saw her, sitting on a low wall, at the edge of a small lot with a rundown grocery store and a boarded up unit, wrapped bottle in hand. I ignored her. I was almost home. When she called my name I kept right on walking. But Sylvia ran after me.

"What the hell happened to you?"

He looked like he hated me.

Something snapped and I pushed her, hard. "You!" I screamed. "You fuckin' happened. You and your fuckin' parties and Sandy and her fuckin' lies and I hate you, I hate you both!" Sylvia let me push her again, but I'd lost my energy. I couldn't even cry any more.

"What'd he do?" she asked, in a tone that sounded almost as defeated as I felt. I didn't even feel surprised that she assumed it was to do with Steve. Wasn't everything in my life to do with Steve?

I thought it might make me vomit to say it, but I dredged up the words and told her he'd ended it.

"Why?" She seemed genuinely perplexed, but what did I know about gauging people any more?

"Because I knew about Sandy, running around on Soda."

"For that? He's so in love with Soda, he picked him over you?"

"Shut your fuckin' trap. You don't know him."

"An' he don't know you. Holy Christ, Evie, if he knew what you did to keep me an' Dally off his back, what you did to fix that guy and good...He don't fuckin' deserve you, the sap."

"Shut up." I barely had the energy to reply.

Sylvia shook her head. "Ain't one of the fuckers deserves us." I realized she was half crocked. I wondered why she'd been sitting there, drinking on her own. I decided to fix part of that. I snatched the bottle from her hand and took a long swig.

I coughed. I'd been expecting vodka, but under the paper bag was a bottle of whiskey.

"I tried to see Sandy," Sylvia said with a sigh.

"Me too. Her step dad wouldn't let me in." It seemed like a long time ago now. I told her how Sandy's mom might have let me in, but her stepdad called me a cheap slut and barred the way.

"Ha. I got the same welcome. Although I believe I was a 'Godless whore'," Sylvia scoffed, taking the bottle back. "I'm thinkin' that trumps 'cheap slut'." She let out a peal of laughter. It wasn't a happy sound and she shut up abruptly. "Poor little bitch, gonna have that in her ear, all the way to fuckin' Florida," Sylvia said quietly.

"Shit, Sylvia. Why'd you take her to those parties? Why'd ya let her do that?"

"I never held a gun to her head. She asked to come with me."

As much as I wanted to blame Sylvia, I suspected that was true. Sandy had always wanted more out of life. More excitement, more stuff, more than we ever had.

"She must've been real unlucky. Those college boys usually know what they're doin'."

Oh. She didn't know that Sandy had been playing a far more dangerous gamble. I kept quiet.

We'd walked half a block or more without noticing. There was a junk shop, with crappy furniture piled on the sidewalk. Sylvia and I sat on a broken down couch that was pushed against the side wall of the building.

I took another swig of her booze.

"So. We gotta work out a plan of attack. Get Randle back for you." She was almost upbeat.

I shook my head.

"I promise you, it can be done. He's just a guy, they're too damn predictable."

"Is that right? How predictable was Jack? 'Cause I seem to remember you saying he'd be taking you away by now." I twisted the words, knowing they'd hurt. Why shouldn't everyone hurt like me?

Sylvia smiled wryly. "D'ya wanna know something funny? I actually believed that when I told you." Her beautiful face lost its mask for a second, looked young and vulnerable under all the makeup.

"And now?"

She didn't answer me, which was answer enough.

We drank some more.

"Randle'll come round. He ain't that much of an idiot," Sylvia commented. I closed my eyes briefly because I wanted that to be true. But he looked like he hated me.

"Bullshit. That boy just needs to be reminded what he's thrown away."

I didn't realize I'd spoken out loud. I shook my head again.

"He ain't like Dallas."

"Evie, darlin', they're all like that. An' we all keep letting 'em be."

"I ain't the same as you."

"You keep tellin' yourself that. As often as you like."

I stood up. I'd had enough. I started walking again.

XXX

It took me a moment to work out what was wrong. I dumped my purse on the kitchen table, listening. Too quiet. No TV. What the hell?

"Ma?" I was worried. As I went into the front room, Sarah sprang up. The TV was on, but the sound was off, just the picture flickering in the background. Almost as much of a shock as if it was actually switched off. Ma smiled at me. What the fucking hell?

Sarah danced across the room, waving her hand under my nose.

"I thought you'd never get back. Look, look! Tony asked me! We're engaged! His uncle's opening another store and Tony's goin' to be the manager and...Evie? Are you crying?"

She stood still, her finger with the ring on it still held out in front of her.

"Evie? What's the matter?"

The End.

I can't tell you how happy all your views, reviews, follows and favorites have made me. Thank you everyone. I really mean it.

If anyone has an overview of the story as a whole, please PM. I'd love to know if it had dips in interest or continuity, or what your favorite parts are, looking back. Anything I missed, that you wanted to see?

Because...

Although this was always intended to be the end, I find I'm not finished with Evie. The story continues in 'Our Kind'.