23When we arrived in Sasha's backyard after taking a shortcut through the woods, we noticed that the back door was locked. Fortunately, right next to it was an open, screen-less window. With a little help from Matty, I was able to climb through it. Being short does have its advantages, I noted as I opened the back door for Matty. Once we were both inside, we headed straight upstairs to Sasha's attic bedroom.
On the way there, I shivered as I looked at how neat and organized her house was. It reminded me of a museum because it was such a big house that was filled with expensive furniture, always had a center piece on every single table, numerous decorations lined up on each windowsill, hardwood flooring in every room, and no matter what season it was, the house was always cold. It was also similar to a museum by being a fake display; Sasha once told me that it was all set up to look nice for her fathers dates and not because he actually liked it. Judging by appearance, you would never be able to tell that a kid lived in that house. That was the way her father liked it.
But once we reached the stairs to the attic, it was definitely obvious because we could hear the radio blasting, a sure sign that Sasha was ditching school. Just as we were about to knock on the heavy wooden door, it opened.
Sasha let out a small, startled scream and asked us what we were doing in her house, in not so nice words.
"Me and Matty got together and decided to raid your house for money and jewelry, but you caught us," I said sarcastically.
"We kinda got into some trouble and we didn't know where else to go," Matty told her.
"What kind of trouble?" she asked suspiciously. Matty then proceeded to tell her the events that occurred that morning.
"Are you serious?" she asked, "You've got to be joking; Matty, you would never have the guts to do that!"
"Yeah, well, I did!" Matty exclaimed, "So are you gonna help us get out of this mess or not?"
"Are you sure the kid was dead?" Sasha asked while avoiding Matty's question.
"Well, we didn't stop to check his pulse, but he looked pretty dead to me," I told her in an annoyed tone. She was starting to sound like Simon, having to hear every little detail a million times.
"Dead or not, we are still in a lot of trouble. How do we get out of it?" Matty repeated.
"Well, if the other guy that was there told the cops or anybody, he might be arrested for whatever he was doing with the brown bag and the gun. So he probably won't tell. But somebody's gonna find the dead kid and there'll be an investigation and everything... But there's no real evidence that you guys were there, right?"
"If you mean evidence like this," Matty said, pulling the gun from his jacket pocket, "Then no. But don't you remember last year when we had to watch that stupid show on the Discovery Channel when they used science and technology and stuff to find DNA to catch criminals? What if they use that?"
"Wow, you were actually watching that?" Sasha asked.
"Guys, can we just figure out what to do?" I broke in.
"Right," Sasha said, "Well, if they do use that stuff, my advice is find a way to erase your DNA off the gun and get rid of it somehow. Then just act like everything's normal and nothing ever happened and no one will suspect a thing."
"That's the best you got? I could have come up with that idea!" I told her, "We came here for you to give us some sort of plan like you used to!"
"The only reasons those plans ever worked was because our school was run by complete idiots who'll believe anything. And we never tried to get away with murdering a student before..."
I froze at that last sentence. The reality of the situation hit me with that one word. Murder. It sounded so cold, cruel, and heartless to take a person's life away; Something done only by hardened criminals or evil monsters. Not Matty. And yet a kid not that much older than us was dead because of him. I knew it wasn't really Matty's fault. But that didn't matter. The kid- Amos, I think his name was- was still dead and nothing could be done to change that.
"... so the only other thing I can think of is if you two go into hiding, like they do in old movies," Sasha finished.
"I like the second option better," I told them as I forced myself to focus on the situation at hand.
Matty shook his head, "If we just go back to our normal lives, they can only suspect us. But we're already cutting school- our families probably even know that by now- so people will be looking for us and if we don't go home, you're brothers will probably call the cops and report you missing."
"No, they wouldn't," I said quietly, "I heard them talking this morning and after what happened last night, Simon wants to get rid of me and Josh agreed. So they wouldn't care if I went missing. And even if they did care, they probably wouldn't call the cops cause it'd be an excuse for Social Services to bother us. Besides, I like the idea of hiding better than doing nothing."
"Either way we'd be sitting around doing nothing," Matty pointed out.
"Yeah, but, it'd be hard to go home and act like nothing happened and hiding seems like fun," I replied, although it wasn't the entire truth.
I couldn't just go back home and act like nothing happened this morning other than I didn't want to go to school. I couldn't just go about my normal everyday routine knowing a kid was dead and it was my fault. I was the one who went looking for Matty this morning, kept him from going to school, and it was because I couldn't run well and chose a different path that we got caught. Matty may have been the one to pull the trigger, but I was the reason he did it. How could I just act like none of that had happened? It seemed a whole lot easier to just hide. At least then I would be admitting that I had something to hide.
"I'm in for hiding out as long as it gets me away from home. Any ideas are where we would go?" Matty asked, looking at Sasha.
"Why do I have to come up with all the ideas?" she asked, acting annoyed although me and Matty both knew she loved it, "Okay... the one good hiding place I know of is this cabin, but it's deep in the woods and I don't think either of you should be going back there. And even if I knew other places to hide out, I'd wish you good luck getting there without running into anyone who would report you for ditching school or being missing or something. So the only other solution I can think of is if you both stay here."
Matty and I both found this an acceptable solution, seeing as Sasha's father is oblivious to everything other than his date of the week and we both had faith in her ability to cover for us incase anyone came looking for us.
For the rest of the day, we avoided discussing why we were there. Instead, we played board games while talking about school and our lives in general. I felt a little left out since Matty and Sasha knew a lot of the same people and swapped stories while I had no clue who they were talking about, but I didn't say anything about it.
After a while, I started telling them about what was going on in my school, the school which was once theirs. I told them everything from my becoming an outcast since they left to the latest horrible thing our most hated teacher has done to make us miserable. Eventually, we got to discussing our schools rivalry.
"But why do the kids in your school hate us so much?" I asked them.
Sasha shrugged, "Probably because you make us look bad. Most of the kids in your school are rich with designer everything and the latest cell phones and laptops and stuff and there aren't that many rich kids in our school who can afford all that."
"We aren't all rich!" I protested, "There are a couple kids that are but most of us are middle class. And Matty went to our -my- school and he's certainly not rich! And how does your father afford everything in this house if you guys don't have a lot of money?"
"Gee, thanks," Matty muttered.
I blushed and apologized but Matty didn't seem too hurt by my thoughtless comment.
Sasha rolled her eyes, "Well, Matty doesn't even go there anymore so he doesn't count. And I went to that school, I know how it is. And as for my house- my mother bought this house years ago and let him keep it when she got a bigger one. And the stuff he shows off are pretty much all gifts. But anyway, apart from you, all the kids in our class were preppy snobs!"
"In our class, maybe, but have you ever even talked to kids in other grades?" I asked, "There are only fifteen kids in my class and they are kinda snobby to me, but I don't think they act like that all the time. Or at least not to each other. But the other day I was talking to a group of fourth graders and they aren't like that. And you can't tell me that there aren't any kids like that in your school!"
"Well, there are a bunch of preps in my school, but that's one thing my school has over yours," Sasha said, "Because we have more kids, we have a lot more different groups of people and it's not separated by grade. Our school as jocks, band geeks, goths, nerds, punks, druggies, emos, preps, everything! What's great about having a lot of kids is that there's always a group of kids like you to hang out with. In your school, either you have to be like the majority of kids in your class or you're a loner. The only reason the three of us even became friends was because we didn't have much of a choice!"
For a moment I just stood there, letting Sasha's message sink in. Then I whispered, "So you mean we were never really friends in the first place?"
I didn't wait for an answer. I picked myself off of the floor I had been laying on and exited first Sasha's room and then her house. For that one moment, I had forgotten the reason I had gone to Sasha in the first place and the rest of my troubles. All that mattered in that one moment was that who I thought was my best friend turned out to be a fake friend. Another person I couldn't count on.
I was angrier with Sasha more than I had ever been angrier with anyone- even Simon. It's one thing for a sibling or a rival or even a complete stranger to say something that hurts. But it's different when the harmful words come from a friend- no, more than a friend; a best friend. Best friends aren't supposed to hurt you and if they do it by accident, they're supposed to apologize immediately. But Sasha had said the worst thing of all, the kind of thing you can't forgive. She had denied our best friendship completely by saying it had been forced. That's about the worst thing a person can do... make you think you have the perfect friendship and then yank it out from under you. Fuming, I walked away from Sasha's house, certain that I would never forgive her.
Author's Note: I know, I know, I took a ridiculously long amount of time to update and this chapter definitely wasn't my best. I'm sorry. I kind of hate this chapter (which is partially why it took so long for me to write it) but it's necessary for the story. I'm sorry none of the original Outsiders were in this chapter but they WILL be included later. Ponyboy will most certainly be in it... just not quite yet.