"..I'm truly sorry, boys.."
The cop's words rang through my head that night. My parents..they were dead. Dead. For God's sake, your parents weren't supposed to die, not when I was this young! Not when they were this young. I was barely twenty, they were in their forties.
But they had died. And me, being the oldest, I had to take care of my brothers. College was out of the question, I had to take both my parents' place. I had to pay bills, put food on the table. I'd have to get a better paying job, hell, I may even have to get a second job. Even that probably wouldn't be enough though. Soda had been talking for months about dropping out, could I really ask him to do that? I knew he wanted to, but asking him to..it just seemed so crazy.
He was just a kid. Sixteen years old, and Pony..Pony. Oh my god, poor, poor Ponyboy. Thirteen years old, no parents. He was just a child. A child needs his parents, but the world had seen it fit to get rid of ours, leaving the three of us alone, without a clue what to do, and barely enough money to get through the next month.
On top of that, I had not one, but two funerals to plan, and pay for. How in the almighty universe could I be expected to do this? I'd just lost two of the most important people to me.
My brothers were in the next room, sleeping. I got out of bed, and went to check on them. Peeking through the door, I could see Pony was snuggled in next to Soda, and Soda had both arms around him. My poor baby brothers, the looks on their faces just five hours ago were awful, and I wish to God that I could forget.
Pony had cried for hours, and Soda, trying to be strong for him, eventually lost it as well. I somehow managed to contain myself; til they went to bed.
I didn't know what was gunna happen to us, I didn't know if we'd be split up, with them being so young and all, or if we could live together, me as their guardian. That was the worst part: the not knowing. For now though, all we could do was hope and pray. Hope that the state of Oklahoma wouldn't tear us apart. Pray that even without Mom and Dad, we could still be a family.
Laying back down, I realized one thing that I did know: I have to be strong. For my brothers, and for myself as well.