Apologies for the super long wait in anything from me. These past four months have been so busy for me with school and everything. But I'm back and ready to give you at least a little something!

WHAT MAKES A MAN

PART I

He's not a man; just a boy.

That's all he's ever been—all I've ever wanted him to be. A simple, hard-headed boy. Never a cold, taunted, wrecked man.

But that boy became a man, whether I was there to witness it or not. And it's in that time where I think Soda lost it.

I think that's where he lost how to be a human being.


Something about Soda coming home makes me nervous.

I'm not too sure what it is that makes my stomach drop as Darry pulls up to the airport. Maybe it's excitement; maybe it's dread; maybe it's sorrow.


None of us wanted to go to Vietnam. It was just a luck of the draw; whoever the goddamn government was feeling to send away at that particular moment. Every day, we'd sit and wait for the mail truck to pass by the driveway before dashing out and grabbing whatever papers were in the box, and on a cold New Years morning in 1969, Soda was the first to get his letter.

For months, we waited for someone, anyone to get a letter. Steve cursed under his breath when he would find his mailbox empty. Two-Bit shrugged and muttered something about how it would be his time when it was his time. Darry nearly punched holes in the walls every morning for six months when all the Air Force letters were coming day after day, directed to Soda and not him.

The day Soda left, I watched Darry cry all the way home. I saw Darry take down the century-old drawing Soda had drawn him and stuck in his room when he was seven. I saw him take all of his clothes and throw them in the basement, sobs wrecking his body to a withering piece of flesh and bone.

And I prayed Soda would come home to restore what was lost that day. I prayed he would come home to save us all from the grief and destruction we would come to bring upon ourselves. Each one of us would nearly take a full bottle of pills, a shot gun held to a temple, or a knife held to our wrists or throats in the coming five years.

We all had a breaking point. I could only hope Soda didn't find his too soon.


Darry's hand clamping down on my knee brings me back. Back to the car, back to the winter snow glistening off of the cars before me, and back to Darry's question he's been asking me all day: "You sure you can do this?"

I nod, swallowing the lump in my chest. It only sinks to my stomach, though, and threatens to make itself known in vomit. "I'm sure."

Those lovely green eyes stare back at me, and I can't help but wonder why I had to fall for the brown-eyed drop out when I could've fallen for what was right in front of me. "Ponyboy would kill to be in your place right now."

"I know," The image of the youngest Curtis hissing and clawing Darry in an attempt of pleading and begging wraps around my mind. "But you did the right thing by not bringing him here today."

Darry's eyes break from mine. A storm of doubt swirls behind the black sea of his pupil. His hand squeezes my knee once more before he's climbing out into the snowy wonderland, coming around to my side, and opening my door. I step out, feeling the chilly breeze hit my face with astounding speed, and can already tell how numb my body is going to be with each step I take.

I let Darry lead and force myself not to run as he looks back at me and says, "He'll be ecstatic to see you, Sandy."

I can only hope I have the same feeling when I find him through a crowd. If I find him at all.