More Dallas and Sylvia because I’m oddly fascinated by their relationship.
I think Dally comes to see Sylvia the night before he leaves for Windrixville, and he gives her his ring back.
Well, Sylvia doesn’t know it’s the night before he leaves for Windrixville. But she sure as shit knows it’s the night before something. Everyone knows about the dead Soc in the park and how Johnny Cade and the Curtis kid are on the run for it. And everyone knows that even if Dally wasn’t at the scene of the crime, he’s gotta be the one who helped them skip town. The fuzz sure think so, they hauled him in right away. So when she wakes up the next morning and he’s gone, it don’t take a genius to figure out that he must be headed to wherever he stashed those two.
Not that he told her nothin’. She tried to get answers outta him, but all she got was, “none of your fuckin’ business. Nosy broad….” But she knows him well enough to hear the words he’d die before saying out loud. You’re better off not knowin. You’re my girl and this is my way of protectin you.
Sure enough, she gets hauled into the station the next day to get interrogated about him, and she can be honest when she says she knows nothing.
She even plays it up a little. “You think that greasy hood tells me anything? I hope y’all find him. I hope y’all drag him back here and lock him up for the rest of his no good life.”
She makes sure not to wear his ring when she’s hauled in. The ring he always takes back when they break up, only to put it right back on her finger after their makeup sex.
But this wasn’t exactly makeup sex they had. She knows their makeup sex. This was something different, something more like maybe-the-last-time-I’m-ever-gonna-see-you sex. She knows that kind too. They’ve had it more often than the name would suggest.
Because this ain’t the first time they both thought maybe they’d never see each other again cuz Dally would get killed or locked up for good. In a way, that makes it even a harder blow when this time it turns out to be true. If it were more of a surprise, it might have hurt less.
She shows up to the small funeral his gang puts together for him and Johnny, and Steve pounces on her when he lays eyes on the ring. He starts yellin’ at her that she’s got no right to it, and she yells back that he gave it to her, and it’s a shouting match of which one of them handles grief worse. Darry yells at them both to shut the hell up, Two-Bit cracks a weak joke about this is just the sorta thing Dal woulda wanted at his funeral, and Ponyboy’s just standing there sorta swayin on his feet, looking like he ain’t all there and a strong breeze would knock him over.
Finally Evie and Soda both calm Steve down and tell him to let her have the ring, that he gave it to her and the gang has all the rest of his stuff anyway.
Because she’s Sylvia, she makes a crack that she’s just gonna pawn it. Because it was Dallas, she never does.
