#yellowcherry

just found this clip and imagining it’s hh!yellowcherry

the way he sits down in front of her and looks back at her and she leans down to talk to him/see what he wanted?? the way bob puts her sweater down on paul’s shoulders and he just takes it and holds it for her with no hesitation??

•pauls from the west coast and bevs from the east. moved to tulsa around the same time coincidently, both for their parents work and for a free babysitter (paul), not that they cant afford one

•bev moved to tulsa about a month before paul

•SURPRISE but cherry introduced them, not even on purpose. bev was just over at cherrys house at the same time that pauls parents dropped him off so they could go shopping

•they dont like. bond immediately. bevs still a few years younger than paul here and it just aint happening GIVE IT SOME TIME

•they do talk a little bit about being new in tulsa though. just a little as a treat🤏

• listen paul makes his own friends pretty quick once school and football starts heyyyyy darry but he spends a decent amount of time with cherry and her friends. thats why he hangs with them in the musical. its less weird if they became friends when they were all a little younger

•EVENTUALLY after many MANY group hang outs with cherrys friends, him and bev talk about where theyre from and how different tulsa is

•LET BEV BE A CITY GIRL SHE WAS MADE FOR IT. she HATESSSS tulsa so bad. its so boring. one day her and brill are gonna move back to where shes from and theyre gonna become the best versions of themselves trust

•paul also wants to move out of tulsa but he has no desire to move back west. it was supposed to be just him and darry traveling the states but that never happened and he ended up stuck in some tulsa adjacent small city for the rest of his life

•ANYWAYS they both talk about how much they wanna move just AWAY. would stay up late into the night talking about how different their lives mightve been if they hadnt moved

•paul gets to tulsa and is sooo confused about this whole class war thing going on. sure he knew he grew up well off and he played the role of soc well but damn this is a little bit much aint it? he’ll get over it once he gets his heart broken trust

•rip bev you wouldve loved being able to go places and not having to be “polite” and smile. i knowww she was called a bitch bc she never picked up southern manners. rbf bev i love you sm

•oklahomans idk what yalls sweet tea culture is like BUT paul and bev are on opposite ends of the spectrum. bev HATES it and paul LOVES it. dont know how he made it this long without it

Saw this mini jewelry box thrifting and I immediately thought of the YellowCherry mood board that @cherrycolacowboy requested a couple days ago.

But in no time, she’d been stealing his toys and he’d been pulling on her braids. Their parents joked it was like they’d been siblings their whole lives. They looked nothing alike, but everyone knew they were siblings. They had the same eye roll.

Paul was twelve when his sunny life took a turn.

Suddenly, there were more beer bottles around the house. And his dad didn’t want to hang out with him anymore. And Cherry’s mom would disappear into her bedroom or bathroom for hours. Cherry would come up to him and ask him what was going on. He’d never given her an answer.

Sometimes, he’d wake up to hear them fighting. On those nights, Cherry would sneak into his bedroom and hide next to him until it was quiet again.

It was hard to reconcile that the little girl with big brown eyes was the same person as the teenager who would call him at college to tell him all about her new boyfriend or what she was getting up to with her best friend.

Every time he came home, things were worse and worse. Cherry was losing weight. There were dents in the walls where something must have been thrown. There was the sound of crying from a bathroom. She’d been staying at Marcia’s, she told him. Her parents were always out of town. Besides, it’s not like their parents noticed she was gone.

One of those nights, sharing a cigarette in her bedroom, she told him about Bob Sheldon. There was still a fondness in her tone, but it was ridged with something he didn’t like. She told him that he’d been drinking more and more, going after greasers left and right. She confessed that it felt like he was a different person.

He told her she was over reacting. “Everyone your age drinks,” he told her, blowing a cloud of smoke into the air. “You’re being dramatic.”

She hadn’t talked to him much after that.

He saw her talking to that greaser kid at the drive in. She smiled and looked more animated than she had in a long time. Paul felt rage boiling under his skin.

Then Bob died.

And he knew it was because of Cherry. Because she just had to get involved with that greaser kid. She got her boyfriend killed.

At the vigil, he couldn’t take it anymore. They all knew what she did. He was just the only one who would say it out loud. She’d held Bob’s jacket to her chest and looked at him with so much betrayal. There were tears in her eyes as she yelled right back at him.

They hadn’t really fought as kids. Never had screaming matches. Not like this.

when bob dies, paul is so upset and he’s never really been great with his words or showing how he’s really feeling. he just wants to protect cherry and he needs her to understand that that could have been her

the boys she was talking to just killed his friend, HER BOYFRIEND. what’s to say that couldn’t have gotten violent with her, killed her?

he understands why she’s upset with him but he just needs her to understand that he’s trying to protect her

when cherry is born, the holdens bring paul to go see the new baby in the hospital. both sets of the parents are kinda hoping that they’ll grow up to get married and they can take over the business together (even though paul is 4 years older than her and like she was just born, let her live a bit before you plan out her whole life🙄)

but paul sees the newborn baby sleeping in the bassinet and just goes oh that’s my new sister

and neither set of parents are great so paul takes over taking care of cherry the way he’s seen other parents do with kids (never his own parents but he’s seen some of his friends’ parents before and how they act)

and to little 4 year old paul, this makes him her parent. so he begins calling her his baby. he’ll wake up for the day and pack a bag and get ready to walk down the street to the valance house by himself cause, as he tells his parents, “gotta go take care of my baby”

the parents get into the habit of just bringing one over to the other’s house and just leaving the two of them alone while they go out drinking and gambling and “doing business stuff” (it’s actually just partying with their other rich friends but they don’t want the kids to drag them down) (and i mean, if paul wants to call her his baby, then he can take care of her)

paul, who is 4, has absolutely no business being home alone to take care of himself, let alone taking care of a few month old baby but he manages to handle it

and as he gets older and he continues to be left alone with her for hours at a time like 4 or 5 days a week and he begins going to school and then going straight to the valance house instead of his home so that he can watch cherry, he realizes that he is the one raising her, so the nickname of “my baby” just sticks

cherry acts like she hates it when she’s like 2 or 3 and understands the connotation of being a baby but the older she gets, she realizes that paul is pretty much the one who raised her so she lets it slide (doesn’t mean she doesn’t pretend it annoys her though, especially when he does it in front of other people) (darry knew cherry as paul’s baby before he ever knew her name)

tw: period typical homophobia, pauls parents arent that great

it had been their sunday routine since pauls family had moved to tulsa from california. after morning service, theyd head over to either the holden or valance house. their moms would tuck themselves away in the kitchen to whip up a nice supper while the men reclined in front of the television set. paul and sherri would play to their hearts content. once supper was ready, theyd sit to eat and visit until it was time to drive back to church for the evening service. it was a relaxed routine they had all fallen into easy.

this sunday found the families at the holden residence. paul and sherri were sprawled out on pauls bedroom floor while their parents sat down in the parlor. paul had been scratching away at some copy paper trying to draw the perfect elephant, handing all his scrapped attempts to his little cousin for her to color in.

“bubba?”

“hm?”

“can i paint your nails?”

“no, sher. we have to leave in a little bit”

“pleaaseee! i’ll be suuuper fast!”

“promise?”

“yep.”

“mkay”

she squealed and ran into her aunts bathroom, rummaging around in the cabinets and finally returning to pauls room holding a bottle of sparkly blue polish. paul thought his dad would have a fit if he knew she has been fiddling around in his bathroom. he liked things kept just the way he liked it.

sherri plopped down on the floor, grabbing at pauls right hand since it wasnt holding a pencil. truth be told paul doesnt really mind when sherri paints his nails, he kinda likes it even. shed messly painted them a few times when hed have to go stay with his aunt while his mom was away on another one of her trips and hes keep the polish on until he had to go home. his aunt irene would sit him down on the closed toilet lid and gently rub away at the colorful polish until his fingers were dry and there was no trace of sherris work.

“and done! what do you think?” the nail polish was probably covering more skin than nail but the smile on sherris face made paul blind to that little fact. he thought that blue looked pretty cool too so when sherri suggested they should go show their parents what theyd gotten up to, he didnt even question it.

“momma momma look what i did” the little girl ran into the parlor, paul right behind her. “show ‘em bubba”

paul brandished his still wet nails and the room went silent for only a moment before pauls dad stood up from

his chair, stomping the short distance to tower of paul.

“what the hell is that?!”

paul stood frozen, as did everyone else in the room. his daddy was scary when he was angry. he seized paul by his arm shaking him

“cant you hear, boy? i asked you a damn question. wheres your respect”

“its just nail polish. sherri painted them for me” he mumbled, the wooden planks beneath his feet catching more of his words than the man stood before him. paul could already feel his eyes burning.

he heard more than saw his uncle stand up, pulling his wife and daughter out of the room. he could just barely make out his uncle telling sherri “its not our business sweetheart. and no it aint your fault neither” before the front door clicked shut behind them. they were alone now. just him, his daddy, and his momma.

“i want you to go take that junk off now. and dont you ever. ever. even think about pulling this shit again. i aint gonna have no queer for a son.” the tears started to pour out from pauls eyes.

“okay”

“what?”

“yes sir.”

“thats what i thought. mary go help him. and stop your whining. i dont want a sissy either”

pauls mom led him back to the same bathroom that sherri had happily been digging through not even an hour ago. she sat him down on the toilet and began to swipe an acetone soaked rag across his nails. the wet polish becoming sticky and clinging to his skin. paul tried to stop the flow of tears as his mom started to talk about the vacation they were leaving for in a week, only letting a wet sniffle escape here and there.

paul stared up at his momma. she seemed less herself now. she used to float around the house like she was free from the bounds of life, a cloud free to roam the sky. she’d sat on the living room floor painting with paul for hours when he was little, showing him how to swirl the colors together and how to get all the shapes right. theyd dance around the house barefoot, radio turned up as high as it could go. she loved him. she loves him still. he can feel it in the gentle way she holds his hand as she wipes the blue away. he can feel it in the way she flashes him a comforting smile when he winces when the acetone seeps into a cut he didnt even know he had. she loves him. he knows that. but

“why didnt you say anything?”

“what do you mean?”

“whyd you just sit there? whyd didnt you help?”

her eyes widened a little at that. “you know how your dad is. its better to just go with what he says. and its not right for little boys to go around with pretty nails.”

“what do you mean?”

“youll understand one day, baby”