I Know You Know My Name
I know you know my name. I have heard you say it a million times. I have heard you say it with admiration - like I'm a good big brother. I have heard you say it when you're scared and need me. I have heard you say it when you're happy, during good times.
Soda. Sodapop.
I have heard you say it with a thousand different emotions. I have heard you say it so many times that I can even hear you say it now, when no sound comes out from your mouth, when you stare up at that ceiling.
I really know you know my name, Pony.
You said it the first time when you were one and I was four. You said Soda, before you could say Darry. And I remember it, 'cause I was so proud of you that day. Proud of me too, 'cause I was the one sitting in front of you on the carpet, teaching you.
"Say Soda," I told you, staring at you, and you looked back at me with those big green eyes, all serious, and your hand gripped around the little red toy car you had been given on your birthday.
"Say S-o-d-a," I tried again.
And then you did.
Soda.
I taught you to say Darry too, but that was later and not as special. There was something special about hearing my own name from my kid brother. I think I already knew how you would see me as you grew up, and I promised myself to never let you down.
I taught you a lot of things. I taught you how to drag a chair over the kitchen floor, to climb up on the counter to reach the cookies in the jar. I might have blamed you when Mom found out the cookies were missing, but Pony, I was only a kid too.
And Mom was not really mad anyway. She never was. Not at you.
I taught you to keep real quiet when we played hide-and-seek. You didn't want to hide alone, so I always hid with you, and we put our fingers over our mouths, to know to keep quiet. We used to hide so well not even Two-Bit could find us. At least until I got bored, sitting hunched somewhere. So we lost the game, and it was my fault. But you never even blamed me.
I taught you to ride a bike. You got my old one, and I got Darry's that summer. Darry didn't get a new one, but he said he didn't want one anyway, and he sat on the porch, watching us. I think you were six years old, or maybe seven, and you had lost both of your front teeth.
"It's too hard," you said, but I told you to just keep your balance. And you whined a lot and you fell and got this wound on your knee, but as soon as Mom put a band-aid on it, you were up in the saddle again.
I think you still have the scar.
God, I hate your scars, kiddo.
Please say my name.
This story will probably be short, with short chapters and random updates. I think. My prio will be On a Long Road so this won't affect the updates on that one.
Please review!
I don't own The Outsiders.
