A/N: Turn The Page came to me while I was working on Let It Be, and wouldn't get out of my head, so I finally gave in and started writing it. This story will be told mainly from the POV of the OMC, Ricky Priest, and Ponyboy Curtis. There will be a few instances where Sodapop Curtis' and Darrel Curtis’ POV's will be used, but they will be later on in the story. I hope you enjoy it!

Turn The Page

Chapter One:

The sun was just beginning to set behind the trees and there was a slight chill in the air coming up from the river below me as I sat on the railing of the bridge and slowly pulled the pages from the book in my hand only to drop them into the water below. I could see the pages fluttering downward until they hit the water and were carried away on the current, and felt as if my whole life was going into the water with them. Losing Johnny and Dally had left such an empty place in my world that I felt as if I was being sucked into the hole they had left like an imploding star.

Off in the distance, I could hear what sounded like a motorcycle racing toward the bridge and I wondered who would be stupid enough to be riding that fast on the dirt road with its uneven graveling and washboard curves. The wail of sirens penetrated the growing gloom around the bridge, and I slowly turned on the railing to watch as a single headlight appeared around the curve and came roaring toward where I was sitting. What the hell?

Surely they can see me sitting here!

My eyes were so wide the light burned my retinas as the motorcycle hit the bridge doing about eighty miles an hour and roared on by me in a blue blur. Shock was coursing through me as I watched it make the hairpin turn on the opposite end of the bridge before veering off down the small walking path toward the swimming hole. Where the heck was he going? The cops would have him trapped down there.

Seconds later, the motorcycle and its lone rider reappeared on the riverbank heading straight for the water without a single tap on the brakes. Surely he ain’t gonna run it off into the damn water, I told myself while shaking my head slowly, the book in my hands forgotten as I watched this new development.

The rider grabbed a long rope that was hanging from the large oak near the edge of the bank just as the cycle went airborne, and swung out over the water while the motorcycle revved loudly and hit the water with a loud splash. I heard someone holler out a war whoop as the rope reached its pinnacle and started back in toward the shore once more, the guy hanging on for dear life.

I felt the sudden urge to clap like you would if you were at the circus when the rope swung inland and the guy dropped onto the shore gracefully and took off running back up the walking path toward the bridge. Whirling lights lit up my surroundings as two police cars roared onto the bridge and raced off down the road, sending clouds of dust spiraling into the air. I coughed loudly as the dust penetrated my lungs and almost fell backwards off the railing, just barely catching myself before I took a swim and hit the bridge’s hard surface instead.

“Are they gone?” The voice was low, but had a dangerous undertone to it that caught my attention quickly.

I raised my head and peered at the figure standing over me through blurry eyes from the coughing, nodding. All I could make out in the dim light from the streetlamp that was coming on above us was shoulder length brown hair and the startling fact that his eyes were different colors: one a dark emerald green and the other a stormy slate gray.

“Perfect.” He shifted his feet a little. “Ya gonna live, kid?” I flinched a little when he bent down to grip my upper arm and haul me up onto my feet in front of him. A smirk crossed his handsome face as he studied me. “Can’t ya talk?”

“Yeah,” I choked out as I finally got the coughing under control. I studied his harsh features closely now that I could see more clearly, and was riveted by the thin scar that ran from the corner of his left eye to just below his jaw line, wondering how he’d gotten it. “Was that yer cycle?”

He laughed then, and the hard lines of his face relaxed a little. “Hell no! Ya think I would’ve ditched it if it had been?” Without waiting on me to answer, he scanned the area with narrowed eyes. “Ya better get on home, kid. This place can get a little rough on the weekends.”

“My name is not kid,” I snapped as I stepped away from him and crossed my arms over my chest defiantly. “Ya can call me Pony or Ponyboy.”

His head jerked back around as he stared at me. “That yer real name?” When I nodded, he laughed softly. “Imagine that.” Flipping the collar of his black leather jacket up against the breeze that was beginning to blow around us, he dug in the pockets until he found a battered pack of cigarettes. “I’m Ricky Priest,” he said in a muffled voice as he lit one of the cigarettes, his eyes glowing with an animalistic light as the fire danced in

them. “Ya can call me Ricky or Priest.”

I just nodded since I didn’t think there would ever arise the need to call him anything. From what I could tell, he was definitely not the kind of friend Darry would allow to hang around me so there was no need to remember his name at all. And he appeared to be a few years older than me, too, so I doubted he would want anything to do with a fourteen year old.

“There he is!”

I spun around when my middle brother’s voice echoed across the bridge to me, and was almost relieved to see him and Steve as they came running toward where we were standing. I wondered vaguely how he knew where I was at since I’d not told anyone where I was going when I’d walked over here from school, and then I struck that thought. Soda always seemed to know where I was no matter how much I tried to ditch him. I guess it is a brother thing to always know where your kid brother is at all times.

Sodapop skidded to a halt beside me, his arm going around my shoulders automatically as he spotted Ricky. “Whatcha doin out here by yer lonesome, Pony?” he asked softly, his hand squeezing my shoulder lightly. “We were worried when ya didn’t come home from school with Two-Bit.”

Rolling my eyes, I moved out from under his arm. “I just walked out here, Soda. No big deal.” I don’t know why my brothers thought they had to be so damn protective of me now. Nothing had changed when Johnny and Dally died except that I spend a lot of time by myself now, so why did they have to follow me around all the time? “And I’m not alone as ya can see.”

“It’s a big deal when ya have to walk through Soc territory to get here, kid,” Steve growled as he joined us, moving up between Soda and me. “Ya could’ve got jumped, ya know.” His dark blue eyes shifted to where Ricky was watching us with an amused expression, and he nodded to him warily. “Hiya.”

Soda finally decided to acknowledge Ricky now, too, and shot him a patented Sodapop smile. “Hiya, Priest. Whatcha doin out here?”

I couldn’t believe my brother would know someone like Ricky Priest since he was so obviously in the category of a hood and Darry had been adamant that we not hang with anyone like that, Dally being the exception to that rule since he’d been a family friend for almost as long as I could remember.

Ricky gave me a shuttered look before answering my brother’s question in a bored tone. “Just taking a walk and admiring the river, Curtis.” When I snorted, he glared at me warningly and added, “And thinking of tossing something into it.”

I felt Steve’s eyes on me and shrugged. Let them think what they wanted to. I didn’t have to explain my actions to anyone. He stared at me a few moments before turning away, and I breathed a sigh of relief. We’d never gotten along very good, and I didn’t want to have an argument with him here in front of my brother. They were good friends and it would hurt his feelings to see us fighting like that, and hurting Soda was the last thing I wanted to do.

“We better get the kid home before Superman hits the roof, Soda,” Steve said in a low voice to my brother, his eyes still cutting to me every few seconds like he expected me to bolt off into the night. “It’s getting late.”

Rolling my eyes exasperatedly, I turned away to pick my book up from the pavement near the railing where it had fallen earlier. Trust Steve to make me sound like a baby in need of a sitter. Sometimes I wondered if he even remembered what it was like to be my age, or if he even knew how old I was.

“I gotta be goin, too,” Ricky said, his eyes moving to the road uneasily. “I’ll catch ya later, Curtis.” He nodded to Steve, a strange expression in his mismatched eyes. “Randal.”

“Sure, Priest.” Soda slung his arm back around my shoulder, ignoring the glare I shot him. “Ya know where we live, and the DX is my home away from home.”

A faint smile tilted his lips and he snapped his fingers before turning his back on us and strolling away toward the road. Soda laughed as he disappeared into the twilight and moved his arm down so I was trapped in a headlock against his side. “Let’s go, Pony. Darry will be wondering where supper is, and it’s yer turn to cook it.”

I whacked him on the back with the book when he started rubbing my hair all over my head. “Leggo, Soda!” He grunted when I stomped on his foot and finally let go of me. I shoved my hair out of my face and glared at him. “Whatcha do that for?”

“Cause I can,” he replied with a wide grin. His gaze dropped to the book in my hand, a frown taking the place of his grin when he zeroed in on the missing pages. “Whatcha doing out here anyway?”

Shrugging, I dropped my eyes from his worried features. He would flip if he knew what I was doing, and I knew it. “Nothin. Just thinking.” I jumped when the book was snatched from my hand. “Hey! Give it back!”

Steve opened the book to reveal the ragged edges of the missing pages before looking up at me with shuttered eyes. “Ya ripped’em out, Pony,” he said in a low voice, his eyes darkening slightly. “What were ya doin with’em?”

“None of yer business,” I snapped angrily, taking my copy of Gone With The Wind back from him before he could say anything else. “Just leave me alone!” Spinning around, I stalked away from them toward the end of the bridge and the path that would take me back into town. It was none of their business what I was doing. The book was mine, and I could do whatever I wanted to it.

I heard my brother calling my name, but I kept walking. I didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, and if I had to I would run. They obviously figured that out, and knew they couldn’t catch me if I did because the hollering stopped as I lifted the tree limb and entered the pathway. They would trail me to make sure I got home safe, but neither of them would interfere.

My gaze moved to the half empty book in my hand and I sighed. It was the only thing I had left to remind me of the events of four months ago, and I wanted to get rid of it piece by piece just like my soul had been eaten away. Only then could I be free of the black thoughts that plagued me night and day, and chased me in my dreams.

I frowned thoughtfully as my mind turned back to Ricky Priest. He seemed vaguely familiar to me, but since Soda and Steve seemed to know him I chalked it up as just being introduced to him at some point by my brother. He was a strange one that was for sure. I’d never have had the nerve to run a motorcycle off into the river like that, but he’d done it without even hitting the brakes.

Shrugging to myself as I stepped out of the woods onto the sidewalk of Arden Street, I filed him away in the back of my mind since I’d probably never run into him again. He just didn’t run in the same group I did, so it was slim to none that we would ever see each other again.

How wrong I was would come back to haunt me later on.