anyway, don't be a stranger
in which everyone is growing up and leaving Tulsa for good, except for three.
âď¸ authors note: in honor of the obc's final show today (majority of them) here's a fic to send them off. happy trails, the jacobs will miss you dearly.
Tulsa had a way of holding ghosts.
Not the kind you sawânothing that rattled chains or whispered in the darkâbut the kind that lived in places. In the empty booth at the DX where someone used to sit. In the dirt lot where boys used to fight. In the old movie theater where laughter used to echo.
By the late summer after everything happened, Tulsa was quieter.
The Curtis house didnât look the same anymore.
The porch light still flickered sometimes, and the screen door still creaked when the wind caught it, but the boys who filled it had started to disappear one by one.
He was seventeen when he got a scholarship out east. Some college back in New York liked the essay he wrote about everything that had happenedâthe rumble, the church, the fire, the boys he lost.
Tulsa had never fit Ponyboy anyway.
The night before he left, he stood on the Curtis porch staring out at the street like he was memorizing it.
âWrite us,â Soda told him, grinning even though his eyes were a little red.
But everyone knew the truth.
Once you left Tulsa, you didnât really come back.
He couldnât stand the garage anymoreânot after Dallas and Johnny.
Too many memories lived in the grease stains and the cracked concrete.
So when a buddy offered him a job down in Texas working on a ranch, Sodapop packed a duffel bag and left before he could change his mind.
He hugged Darry so hard it knocked the breath out of him.
âTake care of the house,â Soda said.
âYou take care of yourself.â
Darry stayed a little longer.
He always had responsibilitiesâwork, bills.
But Tulsa had taken too much from him.
Eventually even Darry left.
A construction company in Chicago offered him steady work and better pay.
The night he locked the Curtis house for the last time, he stood in the empty living room and whispered,
âIm sorry, mom, dad. I tried.â
Other people disappeared too.
Steve and Ace followed Soda to Texas.
Marcia and Beverly went to college in California.
Chet, Brill, and Trip went off to play football in Kansas.
The Soc crowds scattered to universities and business schools and cities bigger than Tulsa could ever dream of being.
Little by little, the town emptied of the people who once filled it.
But three people didnât leave.
Not because they didnât want to.
Because Tulsa still had its hands around their hearts.
She stayed for a different reason.
She even packed a suitcase.
But the night before she was supposed to go, she drove past the old park where everything had started.
The benches were still there.
And she remembered a boy with quiet eyes telling her that "things were rough all over."
She couldnât leave that behind.
She worked at a diner downtown and started taking classes at the community college.
People whispered sometimes.
The Soc princess working at a diner.
But Cherry didnât mind.
Grief had a way of rearranging what mattered.
Across town, Paul Holden was packing a suitcase.
Football scholarships came with expectations, and the college in Texas expected him by August.
He folded shirts with slow hands.
On the dresser beside him sat a photograph from senior year football: him and Darry Curtis shoulder to shoulder in their uniforms.
They had been friends once.
Before everything got ugly.
Paul turned the picture face down.
He didnât know if Darry would ever forgive him.
Hellâhe didnât know if he deserved it.
Everyone thought heâd leave for college football somewhere far away.
But after the rumble, after watching Darry walk away from the fight with blood on his knuckles and something broken in his eyes, Paul couldnât do it.
Tulsa suddenly felt⌠unfinished.
He got a job working construction.
Same kind of work Darry used to do.
Sometimes he wondered if that was the point.
And then there was Two-Bit Matthews.
The loudest laugh in the gang.
The boy who used to make everyone forget things were bad.
But after Johnny and Dallas died, something quiet settled inside him.
Two-Bit didnât leave Tulsa because he didnât know how.
The world outside the city felt too big.
Too empty without the boys who used to stand beside him.
Drinking too much sometimes.
Then, they all met again.
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It happened in the most ordinary place possible.
Cherry was wiping down the counter when the door opened.
Two-Bit stood in the doorway.
âUh,â he said awkwardly. âYou got coffee?â
Neither of them spoke for a while.
Finally Two-Bit muttered,
âNever thought Iâd see a Soc working in a diner.â
Cherry poured his coffee.
âNever thought Iâd see a greaser ordering one.â
For the first time in years, something almost like a smile touched his face.
The second time they met, Paul was there too.
He walked in covered in dust from work, sat in a booth, and nearly choked when he saw Two-Bit sitting at the counter.
âYouâve got to be kidding me,â Paul said.
For a moment the old anger flickered.
Paul slid into the booth.
Cherry brought him coffee.
And somehow the three of them ended up talking.
Because grief was the one thing they all understood.
They never talked about Johnny.
But sometimes Cherry would mention sunsets, and Two-Bit would go quiet.
They never talked about Dallas either.
But when someone mentioned New York once, Two-Bit stared at the floor for a long time.
And Bobâs name hung in the air like a bruise.
But sometimes when they were sitting together after the diner closed, they all thought about the same boy with the Mustang and the laugh that used to fill a room.
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Old hangouts disappeared.
Cherry became the manager.
Paul eventually started his own construction crew.
Two-Bit found steady work fixing thingsâcars, appliances, anything mechanical.
Sometimes theyâd sit outside the diner late at night, watching cars pass under the streetlights.
âFunny,â Two-Bit said once.
âWhat is?â Cherry asked.
âWe used to think Tulsa was the whole world.â
âNow itâs just where we started.â
They still visited sometimes.
Some things were too personal.
But Tulsa remembered them all.
And so did the people who stayed.
One night years later, they stood outside the diner again.
The wind smelled like summer.
Cherry looked down the empty street.
âDo you ever wish youâd left?â she asked quietly.
Two-Bit kicked a pebble across the pavement.
Cherry raised an eyebrow.
âSomeone had to remember them.â
For a moment none of them spoke.
Then Cherry smiled softly.
And the three of them stood there under the Tulsa streetlightsâolder, sadder, but still standing.
Because sometimes growing up didnât mean leaving.
Sometimes it meant staying.
And learning how to live with the ghosts.
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author's note: genuinely cried writing this for the past couple of days. its so sad and bittersweet to see them go, but I know its time for them to move on. seeing the show grow has been a gift, and im so glad to have discovered it when it was still new. this show and group of people have been a gift, and im glad we got to see them in action all together.
