AN: These are just some small snippets from Sodapop's POV, I'm writing these for a school assignment so please read and review. I will submit two more chapters after this one. :)
Ponyboy is gone. Darry hit him. He didn't mean to, he was just angry and had to release. After that Pony ran and we saw Johnny's and his faces in the paper yesterday with a paragraph describing them as criminals who had killed another kid. I can't believe that Pony would kill anyone but I've got no idea what Johnny would do if he was cornered again after last time. Dally knows where they are too, he won't tell us though because we would make them come back.
All this is killing Darry inside. He feels awful for what he did. He'll never forgive himself if Ponyboy is sent to a home or something. That's not even the worst outcome here but I don't want to think about anything worse.
"Hey Soda," I hear Steve say as he walks through our front door.
"Oh, hi." I am really not interested in much right now.
"Wanna pick up Evie and Sandy and go to the nightly." He's trying to help me think about something else but I don't want to.
"Na, I think I'll just stay here."
"Come on Soda I know you're sad about Pony and Johnny but sitting here worrying won't do nothin'."
"You're tempting, I'll think about it," I'm not even sure if I want to yet.
In the end I don't go, I just sit here doing nothing. Maybe its fear of action or maybe worrying about Pony has left me too exhausted to do anything or maybe it just reflects how empty I feel. This is something new for me, not doing anything. I'm usually hyping myself up in some way or at least waiting to hype myself up. But right now none of that sounds fun to me. It's like looking at food when you're already full. When you're full you just go on living until you're not anymore and suddenly the food looks as good as it did before you got full in the first place. People have really short memories about some things. Only I'm not full on getting hyped. I'm full on being sad which just makes it worse.
Tomorrow however I do go to see the nightly with Sandy, Steve and Evie. Only while outwardly everything's the same inwardly I feel weird.
Sandy knows something's up, "You OK Soda," she whispers halfway through this terribly predictable spy movie.
"Yeah I'm OK," but she knows I'm not.
"Don't worry about Pony, he's a good kid he'll be OK." This is what's bugging me Steve and Sandy keep acting like Pony is just on a holiday and I missing him.
"But he might not be OK, they could take him away or worse."
"Soda, just stop worrying please I hate seeing you like this. You're not acting like you and I hate it." She's right and I don't feel like me either.
"I'm not going to stop worrying but I'm going to go back to being Soda."
When I get home I still feel like crap but at least I feel more like myself and less empty. As I go to sleep I convince myself for the first time in days that everything will always be OK. For now I'm lucky I'm not like Pony, when I lie to myself I believe me.