Chapter One: The Move – POV: Soda.
Today is the worst day of my life, my brothers getting married and we are moving to Kansas. Out of all the places in the world to move we're moving there. Pony and I hate it but Darry's happy.
Being seventeen and having to move sucks. I have to leave everyone I like. The only good part is I get to move away from the Socs. God, I love that. But I am going to miss the greasers. When we told them we are moving the got so disappointed, some even said we we're betraying them.
Darry's girlfriend, Nala, is 23 and beautiful. Darry is very lucky to have her. They met sometime last year. In two days we will be in Kansas in a new house, a new school, and uncharted territory. I told Pony that I will have his back in the new place but I really don't know if I want to be a babysitter all the time.
"Sodapop," I hear Darry call from the hall. "Are you all packed?"
I sit on the floor in my empty room staring that the naked wall. I don't respond to his question.
"Theirs someone here to see you!" He says again. Who could that be?
I get up off the floor and walk to the door and swing it open, letting it hit the wall behind it. I walk past Darry and into the living room. Their sitting on the one chair left in the room is the one person I never hoped to see again.
"Well, hello their Soda!" Sandy smiles. She stands up and walks over to hug me.
"Hello," I say not wanting to sound interested in her reasoning for being there.
"You're probably wondering why I am here," her smile drops.
"Not Rea-" I decided not to lie. "Yeah kind of."
"I was back to see my family and I thought you might want to see little Jane Avrey." She turns around and pulls something out of a carriage. A little baby girl with dark hair and blue eyes looks up at me. She is about a year old and just a beautiful as her mother. I stair at Jane for a few minutes then she makes a sound breaking the silent's.
I look up at Sandy who is still staring at me.
"What?" I say sternly.
"I miss your smile," She says. I drop the smile.
"She looks like you," I tell her as I turn away.
"Yeah she does. She's all that left of my memories of Spade,"
Spade, I hated hearing that name. He knocked her up and she turned away from me when all I wanted to do was love her.
"I see him around every once and a while, we never talk anymore." Spade used to be one of my best friends but after Sandy got pregnant we stopped talking.
"Well, I hear your moving," She was always good at changing the subject.
"Yeah, Darry's getting married."
"Yeah to, uh, Nala Curshis right?" Sandy's ex-best friends older sister.
"Yep, and we are moving to Kansas." The expression on her face changes.
"Wow, so far away." She frowns.
"Yeah I know." A clump of hair falls in front of Sandy's face. I move it and she smiles like she used to do all the time.
"I'm coming back. I got kicked out of my grandmother's house. I'm moving in with Luke Khuthz." My stomach started to hurt and I got a really bad feeling.
"The Luke Khuthz? The one that was accused of killing his girlfriend two years ago?" I remember him.
"That was just a big misunderstanding, Luke is a kind hearted man. He's taking me and Jane Avery in when he isn't even the father. He loves us very much." The pain in my stomach gets worst.
"You don't say? He doesn't seem like a very good guy." My head starts to hurt.
"Well, I think he is a very good man. Like I said he is taking us in when he doesn't even have anything to do with her," She puts Jane back into the carriage and covers her up. "And with that I am leaving."
She starts walking to the door and I go to follow.
"Wait Sandy, Please," I feel someone grab my hand stopping me in my tracks. I turn around to see Pony holding my arm.
"Let her go, man." He pulls me back. I hear the door slam shut behind me and I fall to the ground and burst into uncontrollable tears. I feel Pony's strong arms wrap around me.
I try to stop crying but my body tells me this is good. The pain of seeing Sandy go is a reoccurring emotion. Sandy is the love of my life and I never thought I would see her again non-the-less have to say goodbye again.
I finally brought my self to stop crying and stand up. I turn around and see Darry standing in the door way laughing.
"Do you find this funny?" I asked trying to keep from hitting him.
"Actually, I do. Every time that girl comes around trying to play the sympathy card you fall for it, and she always leaves you in tears." He smirks as if he won a game.
"Shut up." Pony stands up behind me.
"Get ready to go we are leaving in 20 minutes." Darry turns and walks out the door. I look back at Pony and he turns around. I walk out of the living room and into my room.
Seeing Sandy again was hard but I had to forget about her. We will be far away and that will be the end of seeing her. I lie down against the wall and fall asleep.
"Soda, lets go!" I wake up to the sound of Darry pounding on the door. I stand up and snap back to reality. I open the door to Nala staring back at me.
"What do you want?" I can't help but to smile at the scared look on her face.
"Just a reminder, Tasha is very shy. You better be nice to her." I forgot that Nala's little sister, Tasha, is going to live with us. I saw a picture of her on Nala's phone, and I have to say she is pretty cute.
"I will, don't worry. Now lets get out of here before I change my mind about being ready to leave." I shut my bedroom door and stand still for a while.
"You okay?" Nala asks.
"Not really, I grew up in this house. Its sad that we have to leave."
"I'm sorry that you have to move to. I have to live in Kansas for work though."
"Yeah I understand, lets go," I walk away leaving Nala standing motionless.
We all pile in Nala's green piece of crap car. The first 5 hours Pony and I slept and Darry drove while Nala kept him awake. Then Nala took over driving and Pony kept her awake while Darry slept and I staired out the window for 3 ½ hours.
After a while Nala got tired and I took over driving. Everyone in the car was asleep and I had to keep myself awake by singing along to the radio. The first 15 hours when by very slow but the last 7 went by in a blink of an eye. We were all awake and we played would you rather and sang every song we knew on the radio.
When we finally arrived in Kansas city we were all tired and ready to sleep. We pulled up in front of our new house. It was a big white house with blue trim and pink shutters. It looked very much like a girls house.
The doors flew open and out steeped Tasha with golden blond hair and a sundress. She was cute in the picture but beautiful in person. My jaw dropped when she turned around to shut the door. The dress was very low cut in the back. I could see the top of her bathing suit bottoms.
She turned around, smiled, and waved. Pony waved his hand in front of my face snapping me out of the trance I was in.
"Someone's going to be glade we moved," Pony jokes as he gets out of the car. He walks straight up to Tasha and starts talking as if they have known each other for years.
"Hey Tash, This is Pony, Soda, and you already know Darry." Nala introduces us. Tasha smiles at me for a long time and then she looks away.
"Come on I'll show you around," Tasha says grabbing Pony and my hands dragging us inside. "This is the living room,"
The room was small, it had a two blue chairs by the window and no TV. It was cute for the most part but no TV was going to kill me and Pony.
"And over here is the kitchen," We follow her to the next room. It was covered in apples; the wallpaper, the cups, the plates, the place mats, everything was covered in apples.
"Up these stairs are the bedrooms." She starts walking up and turns around when she realized that I wasn't following. She reaches down and grabs my hand and pulls me up the stairs, So much for being shy.
When we got to the top of the stairs Pony slapped me on the back. I stick my tongue out at him. Tasha opens the first door we come to.
"This is Darry and Nala's room," The room was a dark blue and pink. Darry is not going to like that. Tasha closes the door and opens the next one.
"This is your room," she points to Pony as she opens the door. The room is green, Pony's favorite color.
"Perfect!" Pony walks in and plops down on the bed as if he's lived there for years.
"And this is your room," She opens the door opposite of Pony's. It's a dark red room with black trim. The bedding was black and red also. It was perfect for me, red is my favorite color and black makes it manlier. I smile and Tasha lets go of my hand and walks in.
"This is the coolest thing ever," she opens the closet door and moves the picture frame and under the picture is a handle and she slides the door open. And walks in and opens the opposite door. "It's a passage to my room."
"Sweet, I wonder why the builder put that in." I walk over to check the passage out.
"My older brothers loved to share rooms but they didn't like the same things. So when my dad built this house he made two rooms for them but connecting so they can always have each other." She explains.
"Wait, your dad built this house?" I never knew that.
"Yeah, he started when I was six and finished when I was 12. It took him six years to finish it." I walk over into her room. She has old movie posters all over her walls.
"I love your room," I state.
"Why, thank you! When my brothers moved out I moved over here. I had Pony's room but I like this one better." I had to agree with her, it was bigger, there was a window, and it was connected to a whole other room.
"I love it here," Pony pronounces when he walks into the room. "I think we should have moved here along time ago."
"I'm still going to miss home," I think back to Sandy showing up and informing me she is moving back.
"Yeah, but this is home now, and do you really want to be their and chance running into Sandy everyday?" Pony starts reading the posters on the wall.
"I guess, but," I stopped myself before I confessed I was scared about her moving with Luke.
"But what?" Tasha asks.
"Never mind, it doesn't matter anymore," I step back into the room that I will now call home.
"Who is Sandy?" Tasha asks following me back into my room.
"The girl he was in love," Pony explains as I sit on my bed and zone out. After a while I hear the door shut telling me one or both have left. Then I feel someone lay down on the bed beside me snapping me back into reality.
"I'm really sorry about what happened between you and Sandy," Tasha starts talking. I don't say anything, I just lie motionless on the bed with my hands over my chest. After a few moments I feel Tasha's hand slip into mine and she pulls me up.
"Where are we going?" I ask as Tasha pulls me out of my room and down the stairs.
"I want to show you something." We go out the back door and into the trees.
"What exactly are you going to show me out here?" I look around at the surroundings.
"Relax its right through here," She pushes me through some branches and out into the sunlight.
The ground ended and I stopped in my tracks. It was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. The sunlight hit the water below me just right making it look like a sea of diamonds.
"What is this place," I felt Tasha step up behind me.
"This is my paradise. I found it when I was younger and when I showed my dad he told me this was my place and no-one else could come back here without my permission." Tasha steps out in front of me and looks back and smiles.
"That's awesome. What do you do up here?" I ask looking around for a place to sit.
"I'll show you," She smiles again and steps back and pulls off her dress, Reviling her bathing suit. She hands me her sunglasses and runs off the cliff. I jump up and watch her fall into the water. After a while being under she comes up and floats on the top and smiles up at me. "Come on jump in!"
I step back and pull of my jeans and shirt. I stand on the top of the cliff in my boxers looking down at Tasha floating in the water. I take a deep breath and jump. My heart stops when I hit the ice cold water.
"What in the world? Good Lord this is freezing. How can you stand this?" I come up.
"Its not that bad once you get used to it." Tasha smiles moving closer to me.
"Are you kidding I feel like I am in a freezer." I swim over closer to her. "Well I've always been told that if you get close to someone you'll warm up faster." She says turning around.
I reach out for her hand and she pulls herself close to me.