Ketchup.
I stare at the almost-empty bottle I'm holding, the one I found as I was cleaning the icebox and pulled out without thinking. The condensation's running slowly down the sides of the cool glass, dripping onto both the floor and my bare feet, but it's the last thing on my mind.
Darry had always hated ketchup, and I never understood why. I mean, he loved tomatoes - when our mom used to grow tomato plants in the backyard, Darry would eat them straight off the vine - but he always said that ketchup was the worst thing that could ever happen to a tomato. It was too sweet, he said, and didn't taste at all like a fresh-picked tomato. He always piled up tomato slices on his hamburgers rather than pouring ketchup on them. Crazy, but if that's the way he wanted to live, I remember thinking as I doused my own burger with the thick, red liquid, then so be it. Soda, who seemed to enjoy any condiment on any food item, always poked fun at him, saying our big brother was "too good to eat anything that wasn't fresh off the plant" and that's why he wouldn't eat ketchup. Darry would always roll his eyes and tell him to shut up before he got a knuckle sandwich to go with his ketchup. And we would laugh, Soda and I, thinking it'd always be the same.
What a stupid thing to think.
I don't even realize the bottle's left my hand until I see it sailing through the air, smashing against the far wall, hear the awful shattering sound as it splinters into a hundred pieces, ketchup spraying every direction, red liquid spraying everywhere just like-
blood.
No. Please, no - my eyes snap shut as my knees give and I drop to the ground, hands covering my ears instinctively as I hear screams (Mine? Darry's?) of pure terror, reliving the entire thing, reliving every horrifying second of it. I can taste the acidity of bile as the image of Darry, coughing up blood, blood splashing across his shirt, onto his hands, adding to the deep red, sopping wet patches already all over his clothes, his skin, the pavement, lingers in my mind. I bite the sleeve of my shirt in an attempt to keep quiet, grinding my teeth so hard I feel the material rip, but an inhuman scream tears from my throat anyway.
Hands tug at me, pulling my fingers away from where they've found their way to my hair, clutching at it in a desperate attempt to hold onto something, pulling my arm away from my face, forcing me to unclench my jaw and let go of my sleeve, which is torn and mangled. Soda - of course it's Soda, it's always Soda - reaches for my chin, forcing me to look at him. He's dressed for the funeral - Dad's black dress shirt just doesn't look right on him - and his eyes are wide, fearful. I miss the way they used to look: lively, dancing, reckless. Lately they just look defeated. Defeated and scared. They travel to the smashed bottle across the room, then back to me. "Did you get hurt?"
He knows better than to ask if I'm "okay," because he already knows the answer to that. For some unexplainable reason, I let out a hysterical laugh as I shake my head, and all of a sudden I can't stop laughing, even though there's absolutely nothing even slightly humorous about the situation. Am I going crazy? I wonder if Soda's thinking the same thing, but when I look at him, he just looks...broken. And suddenly, it sobers me up. It's like a punch in the gut, all the wind being ripped from my lungs, and my breath hitches as black dots cloud my vision. Soda stretches his hand towards me, but I'm already grabbing his arm, my grip vice-like as I try to clear my head, catch my breath. "...I'll clean it, Soda."
"I'm not worried about that!" He almost snaps it, confused, and he's looking at me as if I'd just grown a third eye. Maybe he does think I'm crazy after all. "I'm worried about you, are you alright?"
There it is. There's the question we both know better than to ask the other, and suddenly I'm laughing again. But I'm not laughing, I'm crying. Right? My chest is tight and my eyes burn as if I'm crying, but no tears fall. I can't stop the laughter that erupts from my mouth, sounding more like sobs, breathless and uneven, and I don't know what's wrong with me. I should be crying right now - why aren't I crying?
And then, suddenly, I am. Huge, choking sobs that rack my whole frame, tears rolling down my face like they'll never stop, and I don't remember when Soda wrapped his arms around me - all I know is they're there now, and if they weren't holding me up, I'd have fallen on the floor. My chest aches, my throat's sore, and I wonder dazedly how I can have any tears left after all the crying I've done this past week.
A flash of red catches my eye from across the room, the mess still splattered on the wall, still dripping on the floor, on the counter, and I squeeze my eyes shut, pressing my face into Soda's shoulder. Red, red like -
No. I let out a shaky breath and look back over to the broken bottle. Red. Not - not like blood. Not like blood.
Ketchup.
Been awhile since I posted anything, huh? B-) - It's a smiley face with sunglasses lol
I saw a fanfic that had the description or title "It's the little things" or something like that - I tried to find the story to credit the author bc that line is how this got started, but I couldn't. Apologies.
Ketchup. Don't ask, I'm just as confused as you are.