AUTHOR'S NOTE--Yep, this is the end. Is anyone still reading this? Wow,
there's a lot of people I want to thank. I'll start off with those who
ever reviewed, a big thank you to: Sammie, SodasGurl, TimeTravller,
CuteCarly, BSBnACcHiCk, Starstruck, Bega, Karlei Shaynner,
twobitsgreaserbabi, Grr (baah), newyorkbabe, Rhea Silvia and fyremoon. I
also want to give a huge thank-you to SodasGurl, whom I never meant to made
cry but thank you for giving such flattering praise, and fyremoon, whom I
took her e-mail and review to heart and did purchase the book she
recommended. Your reviews were quite amazing because I never knew I could
strike such emotion from this story.
Yeah, this is the last chapter; I do have an epilogue in mind so just tell me in the review if you want one. I've been working on this since August, and I'm amazed at all the reviews I've gotten and quite grateful for them. I'll shut up, and I hope you like how it ends. Here it is, Chapter Fourteen.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
DARRY
Those days that Kat was gone was a living hell. No one was ever the same again. We rarely saw Two-Bit, and never at all saw Anya anymore. After the death of the girl, Ponyboy locked himself in his room. Soda didn't particularly notice, because he walked around in a daze, jaw slack, eyes blurry, never entirely there. He wasn't ever there. He was with Anya when she sat on the steps of the Mathews house and inhaled a rare smoke, or he was with Steve driving away from everything.
I felt like the seams were coming apart. And I began to slip in this unknown oblivion that had consumed our gang viciously, one by one. Its jaws with the sharp teeth devoured Johnny and Dally whole, then led poor Anya, and then the whole ship went down. We were just mere passengers aboard a sinking Titanic. We could switch seats, attempt to barter lifeboats, or even keep playing with the rest of the orchestral band, but we were all going to die anyway. Even though our bodies functioned and we walked around aimlessly, we were all dead.
I think I finally realized the situation when I missed a day of work without calling in. I didn't know I'd missed the entire day, I just sat down in this thrift store chair that was in a corner of my room and stared at the peeling wallpaper of my room. Kat used to sleep in my room, tucked in tight with her beautiful little daughter that I'd come to acknowledge as my own. Her hands used to touch these walls. Her hands used to touch my face lovingly. And now it was gone.
Things got a little more confusing when the cops stopped by. I probably would've offered them coffee or something, but no one was taking care of the house anymore. Shirts lay strewn about, unwashed dishes piling in the sink. It looked like a tornado had hit us. Little did anyone know that a tornado had hit us; it was called reality.
As expected, the cops had stopped by to ask about Steve, if we'd seen him, blah blah blah. Apparently, Anya had given them a very convincing story, as well as the Randles and the Mathews. The cops wanted to ask Soda, but he just spent hours in the bathroom, excessively bathing or greasing his hair. He didn't go to his job, so I'd called in the DX saying he was taking maternal leave. I don't think anyone but Diane his boss would've found that funny. If Soda wasn't in the bathroom, he was sitting on the couch, where he'd stare blankly as he watched "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", which he did every day from 4-6 before heading back to the bathroom to either bathe or grease or whatever. And the cops couldn't budge the door that led to Ponyboy's room.
I have no idea why I was letting our house slip into this oblivion we'd created within ourselves. It was just that everything had hit us so quickly and unexpectedly, that many times we'd have to sit down and re- evaluate what had happened, having it play in our minds like old films. One night, I went to sleep crying, crying about Kat and crying about how I'd failed at being my brothers' guardians. I let Ponyboy lock himself in his room, and let Soda walk around with his face to the ground.
It was mid-tears that the phone rang for the first time since everything had happened. Everyone had avoided ringing our door or even calling us. Two-Bit had only stopped by once, and that was to tell me he was getting drafted into the Vietnam war. I asked about Anya, and Two-Bit's eyes shifted over to where Soda was sitting, eyes firmly placed on Marilyn Monroe dancing away. I think I saw him glance over when I mentioned Anya, and then he sadly turned his head to watch Jane Russell sing. Two-Bit shrugged, said she'd never stayed in the house long enough to find out. She was always out, either tagging along with Mrs. Mathews to help wait tables, or to the movies where she'd sit on the bench outside the movie theatre. She'd once been seen at the Dingo with Bryon Douglas. Two-Bit had no word on whether they were dating or not. I think Soda took that the hardest, because he immediately dashed into the bathroom to take a bath even before the credits had rolled.
Sorry, got a bit sidetracked there. Anyway, Kat called. I think she recognized the sadness in my voice, because she energetically said, "Hey baby."
"Kat," I mumbled. "You're back."
"You better believe it. Miss me?"
"Of course." There was a long silence. I composed myself; I ripped the T- shirt I was wearing to reveal the big shiny S, because I'm Superman. Then I asked, "Can I see you?"
"I wish you could," Kat sniffed, "but it's too late. Cloud's asleep, and.and there's just too much going on right now I need to figure out. I just wanted to hear your voice again."
I nodded. No Kat for me. I asked, "How was it?"
"Well, there's not much you can say about seeing your big brother in a casket," Kat replied bluntly. "I promise, I'll see you tomorrow. Kay?"
"OK." I hung up the phone, and then for the first time in days set to cleaning the house up.
The next day, I called in sick to work and trekked to the 7-11 Kat worked at. As I pushed open the door and saw her face, I broke out into the first grin I'd had since all of this had happened. Kat smiled weakly too. Cloud was sitting up on the counter top, playing with the cash register's buttons, fascinated by it. I didn't know how much I missed Cloud either.
"Hey," I whispered, because I was afraid if I spoke any louder she'd crumble. She seemed to barely be keeping it together, but she managed to say wearily, "Hey yourself."
I walked over to her, and wrapped my arms around her waist and kissed her on the neck. She closed her eyes and smiled, "I missed you."
"I missed you too," I whispered back. We didn't say much, but I felt Kat silently shaking, and salt water squeezing out of her jeweled eyes.
"Don't cry, Momma," Cloud pleaded. She began crying to match Kat, and Kat just patted her on the head and wiped a tear from her daughter's eye. This satisfied Cloud and she went back to cashing imaginary items.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Crick's dead," Kat murmured. "He was the only one that actually believed in me. My brother Paul and my dad and my stepfather loved me, but I don't think that after I had Cloud they ever thought I could do anything. It was just Crick and me, because we were both the losers. While my mother.my mother and I have irreconcilable differences."
"What'd she say?"
"Words."
"Besides that?" She wasn't going to budge. "Please?"
"She just said that the social worker was crazy and that I should stop running around with bad boys and to get an actual good job and to put Cloud into adoption because it's what's best for her and about a billion other things to do."
"She thought I was bad?" I asked, smirking a little.
Kat coyly smiled back, "Yep, my big bad Darry."
"You better believe it," I replied. I then kissed her cheek again and wiped away her tears. Hopefully I could wipe away her problems just as easily as her tears. I knew that would never happen. But at the moment, I didn't care, because I was her big bad Darry, and that's all that mattered to me.
I stared at her Cracker Jack ring that I'd given her so long ago, "Someday I'm gonna buy you a real one of these. Not one that you get out of the bottom of a bag. At a real place, where salespeople wait on you hand and foot as you spend hours picking out the right diamond. When I get the money, I swear on my parents' soul I will marry you."
Kat smiled, "Sounds like a plan to me." And we spent the rest of the afternoon together, just the three of us, because in reality we'd be spending the rest of our lives together.
SODA
After watching "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" for the seventeenth time, I could only stare outside our tattered curtains and gaze into the street. It was one of the hottest days of the year, being June and all, and yet I kept the curtains shut, windows locked, toiling in my own personal Hell I'd created for myself. At least I wouldn't be wearing a fucking hat asking "Is that all?" to every person that came to my register bearing candy bars or soft drinks. Never trust Socs bearing candy bars. I should get that plastered on the door.
When Two-Bit stopped by to say he was in the Vietnam war, I think I seriously died. Not died like Pony's girl died, but close. After all this happened, I just died. So I take baths like I always do, hoping to drown in my own sorrow and anguish that I brought onto myself. This isn't my fault. It really isn't.
Anya was out there, and had probably forgotten all about me. That's all that I'd heard when he'd talked about her. She'd moved on to someone who could actually give her the world on a polished silver platter, and take her to honeymoons outside of the state and buy her presents every anniversary they had. She'd moved on to someone brighter and better then me, because deep down I always knew Anya would move on to someone better then me. I just never admitted it to myself, swallowing it down to rot in my stomach acids with a million bad lines taken from romantic movies.
I stood up to take another bath, and contemplated briefly about turning the water up to hot, except realizing that our water wouldn't go beyond a warm temperature. And then I wondered that if I buried my head under it, could I drown before Darry came home? And then it finally struck me, that me, happy go lucky Sodapop, was actually seriously thinking all this. It didn't matter too much to me.
As I prepared the water, I gazed into the mirror. I didn't look recognizable. I looked more like some sort of town hermit cast off to live in the woods, with my stubble and bloodshot eyes. So I took a razor and shaved myself. After surviving my bath, I threw on new clothes for the first time. It was my DX outfit, with my cap and shirt with my name stitched in by Mrs. Mathews, who'd stitched it for me as a favor. And since Darry took the car, I decided to walk to the DX. I don't know why I was leaving the house, because everything only reminded me of Steve or Anya. I inhaled the fresh summer air, having it's muggy atmosphere robe me in safety. I'd forgotten what fresh air smelled like, I'd forgotten what people other then Darry or Two-Bit or the two cops looked like. And I'd hoped I might've even forgotten what love and heartbreak felt like. In that case, no such luck.
When my boss, Diane, saw me, she smiled and asked how the baby was. I had no idea what she was talking about, but just smiled anyway. Or at least tried to, my muscles were too stiff to even make the slightest movement. So Diane did the smiling for me, and patted me with her chunky arm and told me to start work on the register. I saw the new guy they hired to take over for Steve. I tried hard to look away because if I didn't then I think I'd cry right there. And greasers aren't supposed to know how to cry. We forgot to.
It was then when I think I understood about what Ponyboy was babbling about fate and all. Because at that very moment, Anya Randle walked right back into my life. Or at least, she walked right into the convenience area. God, was she beautiful. Marilyn Monroe and all those other movie stars paled in comparison. Her hair was tousled and uncombed, unlike its usual sleek straightness, but her hair never lost its luster. The wind blew her long dress up to show her mother's old high heels. Her eyes of caramel were just as brilliant, though a little clouded over. She looked around, then side to side, as if she was a celebrity who'd just arrived at a big glitzy awards show.
Her eyes met mine, and she smiled, but it was weak and weary, just like everybody in this town. I said nothing and just looked away. You know the funny thing? I completely forgot why I was mad at her in the first place.
"You're not making this easy." I shrugged. Was I supposed to give her a get-out-of-jail-free card? Apparently, she did so with Steve. Literally.
"It was only a part time job," Anya said. She played with her scarf wrapped around her neck before looking back up at me. "I would've never done it if I'd know it meant so much."
"What do you think I was going to do, just say 'okay, my girlfriend's a stripper'?" I asked. It was the first words I'd spoken since the entire ordeal, with Spike and the club and Steve and the gun and all of it. They were hardly the first words I wanted to say, especially to someone I loved as much as Anya. She just shrugged, and her eyes were misty, sullen.
"It doesn't matter anymore," she said looking away. "You've made your decision. It's over then, right?" She waited for me to confirm the undeniable. We could never just sew a patch in the hole of our jeans and say everything was better, back to Start you go. We would never have honeymoon bliss again. It was like we'd divorced without ever having the joy of being wed.
Anya turned to leave, "I don't even know why I came here."
"What about Douglas?"
Turning slowly, Anya met my worn eyes. She looked like she wasn't quite sure of what to make of my comment. And then she sighed and muttered, "You asshole."
"What about Douglas?" I reiterated.
"What about him?" she asked. Pause. Long pause this time. I hate pauses. But I think this one was supposed to mean something. It wasn't a lack of words, it was the decision of choosing which words to say first. In order.
"I'm--"
"Shut up," she whispered, and then dashed into my arms, like a page ripped from one of those 5 cent romance novels. She collapsed into my arms, and I collapsed to the ground, dragging her with me. We kissed like I don't think we've ever kissed. And then there we were, in each other's arms, on the dirty floor of the little store I worked in.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
"Yeah," I murmured back. "I'm sorry too." And that's when you hit that one point, where words mean nothing, and just staring out as cars drive by and children scream and laugh is all that really matters.
PONYBOY
Since Sarah's died, I've read every book in my room, smoked five packs of cigarettes and died every half hour. I've never once gotten an hour of sleep, because every time I drift off to sleep, I see her face, and she's whispering to me and telling me how happy she is. And it's not like in movies where the dead person is all white and fuzzy. She's clear as the crystal chandeliers that used to hang in her house, and she's beautiful. She's no longer wearing the hospital gown, she's in this beautiful medieval gown, and in her arms is a suit of armor just for me. And she smiles and tells me how happy she is and that she's just waiting for me. And yet they're still nightmares.
It's taking too long though. I don't want to wait for "my time" to come. I want to die now. Please. I used to listen to Johnny speak about killing himself, how bad his life was and he just wanted it to end so he could at least be in some sort of peace. I never really gave too much thought to God and Heaven and all that until Johnny and Dally, and now with the addition of Sarah, died. I'm not sure if I want to believe it or not.
No one understands what I'm going through, because they're all silently yet surely dying as well. Darry's been in a daze, I can hear him murmuring to himself in his room. Sometimes he even has conversations with himself, mostly pretending to talk to Kat although I've heard him talk to Mom and Dad also. I can hear the water running non-stop in the bathroom, and I know its Soda. I can hear "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" playing non-stop in the other room, and I know that's Soda too. I can even quote entire scenes of the movie, because that's all I'm doing these days. I'm listening with my rotting corpse ears. That's all that's left now, is my ears to listen silently to all the turmoil going on in this fading house.
I hate spending all this time wasting away, moaning about how life is too tough and that it should just end. I want to live again, I want to be a real boy. I want Sarah to be with me. I want her to know that I'm not mad at her anymore, that I love her so much that I'm overflowing with it. In my dreams, she says that she still loves me. She says that the afterlife is a pretty nice place. She's even having dinner later with Humphrey Bogart. She always loved his movies.
This is taking too long. I'm tired of sitting at the side of my bed, the only thing keeping me from melting into nothing is this bedpost I'm propping my life against. That's all I have left to support me is this stupid bedpost. I'm tired of hanging on by a thread of dental floss. I want to take scissors and cut it off. Sarah was right. This is the last act. Romeo had to die.
So I stood up. This took quite a bit of energy then I expected, because I hadn't moved since Sarah had died, and I'd forgotten how many days it'd been. Four? Five? I'd lost count. It wouldn't particularly matter. Because all of this would be over. And I could join Sarah and introduce her to Johnny and Dally and we'd all be happy. I could finally be happy.
I made my way past the piles of books and shoved the chair holding the door shut out of my way. I wanted this deeply, passionately. I threw open the door and looked around. From the likes of it, no one was there. Apparently everyone had forgotten about my stay in my room. Maybe they were having sojourns to their rooms as well. I didn't particularly care; I wasn't going to leave a note or anything. It'd take too long, and besides, I didn't need to explain why I was doing this. Everyone should know by now.
I stumbled into the kitchen, nearly tripping on the debris in the way. My fingers flashed to the cabinet, and I took armfuls of bottles filled with pretty little pills. I wasn't quite sure which ones did what, but I know they should all do the trick. Next, I scavenged the refrigerator. We always had a bottle of vodka when Two-Bit would visit. I heard him and Darry talking; he's going off to 'Nam. Guess he wouldn't need the bottle anymore. So I took it for him and added a shot glass before hurrying back into my room, slamming the door on my way.
Clumsily, I fumbled to open up the pill bottles. Damn child locks. Open! I want to get this over with, I don't have all day. My mind was a haze, and I wasn't really spending too much time on the thought that I was going to end my mortal existence. All I thought about was what lay beyond that. The only place where there weren't Socs and greasers. Just people. Dead people, but people nonetheless.
I yanked the cap off and it flew out of my hands. Its contents spilled all over my bedroom floor, laying there helplessly. They were pink pills, large ones, but I think I could swallow 'em easily. My hands shaking feverishly, I pulled off the vodka bottle's cap. Slowly, I poured the vodka into the shotglass, but my hand slipped and it overflowed. Vodka flooded to my floor, and I nearly slipped on it except that I took hold of the bedpost. I chuckled and thanked it. Did it really mattered which way I died?
So I took the vodka glass and began to bring it to my lips, except it slipped from my vodka-covered hands and fell to the ground, exploding into a firework of crystals. Many dug their way into my foot's skin, and I collapsed to the ground, howling in pain. My hand hit the bottles of pills, and they flew out of my way, with the bottle of already-opened pills spilling even more of their contents onto the floor. Angry, I took the vodka bottle and chucked it against the wall. It shattered, and knocked down a leather-bound book. I began to sob unintelligibly. I couldn't even kill myself without screwing it up.
At that point, I began to gather everything up. Fine, I'd kill myself by overdosing on pills. All great people overdose, don't they? I don't care anymore. My hands reached for the book to put it back up, and just then I noticed it was the little book that Sarah had given to me on her deathbed. I'd been so involved in trying to forget about her death I hadn't even read her book. And so I slowly opened it up, and began to read the entries. One went along the lines of, "Spike got drunk again. I'm really getting tired of it, but I worry about him. He has to have some excuse, right?" and another went along the lines of, "Adrienne came up to me in the locker room today. She said that she liked my sweater. I'm not too sure what that means, but I think it's basically a statement that she's going to try to steal Spike from me. She can have him."
I began to smile when my name began appearing. She did speak fondly of me, saying that despite the fact that I looked tough (that pleased me) I was probably the only person who listened, or cared about someone other then just myself. But then my face darkened as I read this entry.
"Today, I was going to kill myself. Frankly, I have no idea why, it just seems like everything's building up and I'm not going anywhere. I brought my father's pocketknife with me to the graveyard. I was going to visit my mother. No, she doesn't have a grave (to me she mine as well be dead) but one of the only things I care to remember about her is that she used to love this elm tree that was planted there. Yes, I'm visiting my mother, the one that ran away with the butler. She doesn't remember my name, or my birthday, or even to send a card on Christmas. How can you live knowing your own mother didn't want you?
"So I put on my best make-up and a nice dress, because when the morticians came and found my body beside the elm tree I wanted to at least salvage the beauty in it. I don't mind blood too much; it's as vital to us as water. But when I got there, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I just kept thinking about how this was my last chance, and I couldn't go back. Then I heard someone screaming. I ran over to see it was Ponyboy, the boy who saved me. Well, guess what? He saved me again, but this time it had nothing to do with thugs with bandanas and broken noses. He saved me from myself and the entire world, and that afternoon I fell in love for the first time. Thank you, Ponyboy."
Tears stained her beautiful ink handwriting. This was all I had left of her. The beautiful cursive, arching and undulating every time her pen would spit out ink onto the bleached white paper. Sarah was going to kill herself that day in the graveyard. I glanced over at the pills, and the shattered vodka bottle, and then the realization of what I was going to do.
I stuffed the diary into my back pocket and struggled to stand up. Slowly, I made my way for the door, feet surging with pain every time I moved, but I was so numb I didn't notice. Like a reincarnated zombie, I moved to the front door and opened it, stepping out into the real world. I took those steps for Sarah. This story, these hopes and dreams, all of it, is for Sarah.
Yeah, this is the last chapter; I do have an epilogue in mind so just tell me in the review if you want one. I've been working on this since August, and I'm amazed at all the reviews I've gotten and quite grateful for them. I'll shut up, and I hope you like how it ends. Here it is, Chapter Fourteen.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
DARRY
Those days that Kat was gone was a living hell. No one was ever the same again. We rarely saw Two-Bit, and never at all saw Anya anymore. After the death of the girl, Ponyboy locked himself in his room. Soda didn't particularly notice, because he walked around in a daze, jaw slack, eyes blurry, never entirely there. He wasn't ever there. He was with Anya when she sat on the steps of the Mathews house and inhaled a rare smoke, or he was with Steve driving away from everything.
I felt like the seams were coming apart. And I began to slip in this unknown oblivion that had consumed our gang viciously, one by one. Its jaws with the sharp teeth devoured Johnny and Dally whole, then led poor Anya, and then the whole ship went down. We were just mere passengers aboard a sinking Titanic. We could switch seats, attempt to barter lifeboats, or even keep playing with the rest of the orchestral band, but we were all going to die anyway. Even though our bodies functioned and we walked around aimlessly, we were all dead.
I think I finally realized the situation when I missed a day of work without calling in. I didn't know I'd missed the entire day, I just sat down in this thrift store chair that was in a corner of my room and stared at the peeling wallpaper of my room. Kat used to sleep in my room, tucked in tight with her beautiful little daughter that I'd come to acknowledge as my own. Her hands used to touch these walls. Her hands used to touch my face lovingly. And now it was gone.
Things got a little more confusing when the cops stopped by. I probably would've offered them coffee or something, but no one was taking care of the house anymore. Shirts lay strewn about, unwashed dishes piling in the sink. It looked like a tornado had hit us. Little did anyone know that a tornado had hit us; it was called reality.
As expected, the cops had stopped by to ask about Steve, if we'd seen him, blah blah blah. Apparently, Anya had given them a very convincing story, as well as the Randles and the Mathews. The cops wanted to ask Soda, but he just spent hours in the bathroom, excessively bathing or greasing his hair. He didn't go to his job, so I'd called in the DX saying he was taking maternal leave. I don't think anyone but Diane his boss would've found that funny. If Soda wasn't in the bathroom, he was sitting on the couch, where he'd stare blankly as he watched "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", which he did every day from 4-6 before heading back to the bathroom to either bathe or grease or whatever. And the cops couldn't budge the door that led to Ponyboy's room.
I have no idea why I was letting our house slip into this oblivion we'd created within ourselves. It was just that everything had hit us so quickly and unexpectedly, that many times we'd have to sit down and re- evaluate what had happened, having it play in our minds like old films. One night, I went to sleep crying, crying about Kat and crying about how I'd failed at being my brothers' guardians. I let Ponyboy lock himself in his room, and let Soda walk around with his face to the ground.
It was mid-tears that the phone rang for the first time since everything had happened. Everyone had avoided ringing our door or even calling us. Two-Bit had only stopped by once, and that was to tell me he was getting drafted into the Vietnam war. I asked about Anya, and Two-Bit's eyes shifted over to where Soda was sitting, eyes firmly placed on Marilyn Monroe dancing away. I think I saw him glance over when I mentioned Anya, and then he sadly turned his head to watch Jane Russell sing. Two-Bit shrugged, said she'd never stayed in the house long enough to find out. She was always out, either tagging along with Mrs. Mathews to help wait tables, or to the movies where she'd sit on the bench outside the movie theatre. She'd once been seen at the Dingo with Bryon Douglas. Two-Bit had no word on whether they were dating or not. I think Soda took that the hardest, because he immediately dashed into the bathroom to take a bath even before the credits had rolled.
Sorry, got a bit sidetracked there. Anyway, Kat called. I think she recognized the sadness in my voice, because she energetically said, "Hey baby."
"Kat," I mumbled. "You're back."
"You better believe it. Miss me?"
"Of course." There was a long silence. I composed myself; I ripped the T- shirt I was wearing to reveal the big shiny S, because I'm Superman. Then I asked, "Can I see you?"
"I wish you could," Kat sniffed, "but it's too late. Cloud's asleep, and.and there's just too much going on right now I need to figure out. I just wanted to hear your voice again."
I nodded. No Kat for me. I asked, "How was it?"
"Well, there's not much you can say about seeing your big brother in a casket," Kat replied bluntly. "I promise, I'll see you tomorrow. Kay?"
"OK." I hung up the phone, and then for the first time in days set to cleaning the house up.
The next day, I called in sick to work and trekked to the 7-11 Kat worked at. As I pushed open the door and saw her face, I broke out into the first grin I'd had since all of this had happened. Kat smiled weakly too. Cloud was sitting up on the counter top, playing with the cash register's buttons, fascinated by it. I didn't know how much I missed Cloud either.
"Hey," I whispered, because I was afraid if I spoke any louder she'd crumble. She seemed to barely be keeping it together, but she managed to say wearily, "Hey yourself."
I walked over to her, and wrapped my arms around her waist and kissed her on the neck. She closed her eyes and smiled, "I missed you."
"I missed you too," I whispered back. We didn't say much, but I felt Kat silently shaking, and salt water squeezing out of her jeweled eyes.
"Don't cry, Momma," Cloud pleaded. She began crying to match Kat, and Kat just patted her on the head and wiped a tear from her daughter's eye. This satisfied Cloud and she went back to cashing imaginary items.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Crick's dead," Kat murmured. "He was the only one that actually believed in me. My brother Paul and my dad and my stepfather loved me, but I don't think that after I had Cloud they ever thought I could do anything. It was just Crick and me, because we were both the losers. While my mother.my mother and I have irreconcilable differences."
"What'd she say?"
"Words."
"Besides that?" She wasn't going to budge. "Please?"
"She just said that the social worker was crazy and that I should stop running around with bad boys and to get an actual good job and to put Cloud into adoption because it's what's best for her and about a billion other things to do."
"She thought I was bad?" I asked, smirking a little.
Kat coyly smiled back, "Yep, my big bad Darry."
"You better believe it," I replied. I then kissed her cheek again and wiped away her tears. Hopefully I could wipe away her problems just as easily as her tears. I knew that would never happen. But at the moment, I didn't care, because I was her big bad Darry, and that's all that mattered to me.
I stared at her Cracker Jack ring that I'd given her so long ago, "Someday I'm gonna buy you a real one of these. Not one that you get out of the bottom of a bag. At a real place, where salespeople wait on you hand and foot as you spend hours picking out the right diamond. When I get the money, I swear on my parents' soul I will marry you."
Kat smiled, "Sounds like a plan to me." And we spent the rest of the afternoon together, just the three of us, because in reality we'd be spending the rest of our lives together.
SODA
After watching "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" for the seventeenth time, I could only stare outside our tattered curtains and gaze into the street. It was one of the hottest days of the year, being June and all, and yet I kept the curtains shut, windows locked, toiling in my own personal Hell I'd created for myself. At least I wouldn't be wearing a fucking hat asking "Is that all?" to every person that came to my register bearing candy bars or soft drinks. Never trust Socs bearing candy bars. I should get that plastered on the door.
When Two-Bit stopped by to say he was in the Vietnam war, I think I seriously died. Not died like Pony's girl died, but close. After all this happened, I just died. So I take baths like I always do, hoping to drown in my own sorrow and anguish that I brought onto myself. This isn't my fault. It really isn't.
Anya was out there, and had probably forgotten all about me. That's all that I'd heard when he'd talked about her. She'd moved on to someone who could actually give her the world on a polished silver platter, and take her to honeymoons outside of the state and buy her presents every anniversary they had. She'd moved on to someone brighter and better then me, because deep down I always knew Anya would move on to someone better then me. I just never admitted it to myself, swallowing it down to rot in my stomach acids with a million bad lines taken from romantic movies.
I stood up to take another bath, and contemplated briefly about turning the water up to hot, except realizing that our water wouldn't go beyond a warm temperature. And then I wondered that if I buried my head under it, could I drown before Darry came home? And then it finally struck me, that me, happy go lucky Sodapop, was actually seriously thinking all this. It didn't matter too much to me.
As I prepared the water, I gazed into the mirror. I didn't look recognizable. I looked more like some sort of town hermit cast off to live in the woods, with my stubble and bloodshot eyes. So I took a razor and shaved myself. After surviving my bath, I threw on new clothes for the first time. It was my DX outfit, with my cap and shirt with my name stitched in by Mrs. Mathews, who'd stitched it for me as a favor. And since Darry took the car, I decided to walk to the DX. I don't know why I was leaving the house, because everything only reminded me of Steve or Anya. I inhaled the fresh summer air, having it's muggy atmosphere robe me in safety. I'd forgotten what fresh air smelled like, I'd forgotten what people other then Darry or Two-Bit or the two cops looked like. And I'd hoped I might've even forgotten what love and heartbreak felt like. In that case, no such luck.
When my boss, Diane, saw me, she smiled and asked how the baby was. I had no idea what she was talking about, but just smiled anyway. Or at least tried to, my muscles were too stiff to even make the slightest movement. So Diane did the smiling for me, and patted me with her chunky arm and told me to start work on the register. I saw the new guy they hired to take over for Steve. I tried hard to look away because if I didn't then I think I'd cry right there. And greasers aren't supposed to know how to cry. We forgot to.
It was then when I think I understood about what Ponyboy was babbling about fate and all. Because at that very moment, Anya Randle walked right back into my life. Or at least, she walked right into the convenience area. God, was she beautiful. Marilyn Monroe and all those other movie stars paled in comparison. Her hair was tousled and uncombed, unlike its usual sleek straightness, but her hair never lost its luster. The wind blew her long dress up to show her mother's old high heels. Her eyes of caramel were just as brilliant, though a little clouded over. She looked around, then side to side, as if she was a celebrity who'd just arrived at a big glitzy awards show.
Her eyes met mine, and she smiled, but it was weak and weary, just like everybody in this town. I said nothing and just looked away. You know the funny thing? I completely forgot why I was mad at her in the first place.
"You're not making this easy." I shrugged. Was I supposed to give her a get-out-of-jail-free card? Apparently, she did so with Steve. Literally.
"It was only a part time job," Anya said. She played with her scarf wrapped around her neck before looking back up at me. "I would've never done it if I'd know it meant so much."
"What do you think I was going to do, just say 'okay, my girlfriend's a stripper'?" I asked. It was the first words I'd spoken since the entire ordeal, with Spike and the club and Steve and the gun and all of it. They were hardly the first words I wanted to say, especially to someone I loved as much as Anya. She just shrugged, and her eyes were misty, sullen.
"It doesn't matter anymore," she said looking away. "You've made your decision. It's over then, right?" She waited for me to confirm the undeniable. We could never just sew a patch in the hole of our jeans and say everything was better, back to Start you go. We would never have honeymoon bliss again. It was like we'd divorced without ever having the joy of being wed.
Anya turned to leave, "I don't even know why I came here."
"What about Douglas?"
Turning slowly, Anya met my worn eyes. She looked like she wasn't quite sure of what to make of my comment. And then she sighed and muttered, "You asshole."
"What about Douglas?" I reiterated.
"What about him?" she asked. Pause. Long pause this time. I hate pauses. But I think this one was supposed to mean something. It wasn't a lack of words, it was the decision of choosing which words to say first. In order.
"I'm--"
"Shut up," she whispered, and then dashed into my arms, like a page ripped from one of those 5 cent romance novels. She collapsed into my arms, and I collapsed to the ground, dragging her with me. We kissed like I don't think we've ever kissed. And then there we were, in each other's arms, on the dirty floor of the little store I worked in.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
"Yeah," I murmured back. "I'm sorry too." And that's when you hit that one point, where words mean nothing, and just staring out as cars drive by and children scream and laugh is all that really matters.
PONYBOY
Since Sarah's died, I've read every book in my room, smoked five packs of cigarettes and died every half hour. I've never once gotten an hour of sleep, because every time I drift off to sleep, I see her face, and she's whispering to me and telling me how happy she is. And it's not like in movies where the dead person is all white and fuzzy. She's clear as the crystal chandeliers that used to hang in her house, and she's beautiful. She's no longer wearing the hospital gown, she's in this beautiful medieval gown, and in her arms is a suit of armor just for me. And she smiles and tells me how happy she is and that she's just waiting for me. And yet they're still nightmares.
It's taking too long though. I don't want to wait for "my time" to come. I want to die now. Please. I used to listen to Johnny speak about killing himself, how bad his life was and he just wanted it to end so he could at least be in some sort of peace. I never really gave too much thought to God and Heaven and all that until Johnny and Dally, and now with the addition of Sarah, died. I'm not sure if I want to believe it or not.
No one understands what I'm going through, because they're all silently yet surely dying as well. Darry's been in a daze, I can hear him murmuring to himself in his room. Sometimes he even has conversations with himself, mostly pretending to talk to Kat although I've heard him talk to Mom and Dad also. I can hear the water running non-stop in the bathroom, and I know its Soda. I can hear "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" playing non-stop in the other room, and I know that's Soda too. I can even quote entire scenes of the movie, because that's all I'm doing these days. I'm listening with my rotting corpse ears. That's all that's left now, is my ears to listen silently to all the turmoil going on in this fading house.
I hate spending all this time wasting away, moaning about how life is too tough and that it should just end. I want to live again, I want to be a real boy. I want Sarah to be with me. I want her to know that I'm not mad at her anymore, that I love her so much that I'm overflowing with it. In my dreams, she says that she still loves me. She says that the afterlife is a pretty nice place. She's even having dinner later with Humphrey Bogart. She always loved his movies.
This is taking too long. I'm tired of sitting at the side of my bed, the only thing keeping me from melting into nothing is this bedpost I'm propping my life against. That's all I have left to support me is this stupid bedpost. I'm tired of hanging on by a thread of dental floss. I want to take scissors and cut it off. Sarah was right. This is the last act. Romeo had to die.
So I stood up. This took quite a bit of energy then I expected, because I hadn't moved since Sarah had died, and I'd forgotten how many days it'd been. Four? Five? I'd lost count. It wouldn't particularly matter. Because all of this would be over. And I could join Sarah and introduce her to Johnny and Dally and we'd all be happy. I could finally be happy.
I made my way past the piles of books and shoved the chair holding the door shut out of my way. I wanted this deeply, passionately. I threw open the door and looked around. From the likes of it, no one was there. Apparently everyone had forgotten about my stay in my room. Maybe they were having sojourns to their rooms as well. I didn't particularly care; I wasn't going to leave a note or anything. It'd take too long, and besides, I didn't need to explain why I was doing this. Everyone should know by now.
I stumbled into the kitchen, nearly tripping on the debris in the way. My fingers flashed to the cabinet, and I took armfuls of bottles filled with pretty little pills. I wasn't quite sure which ones did what, but I know they should all do the trick. Next, I scavenged the refrigerator. We always had a bottle of vodka when Two-Bit would visit. I heard him and Darry talking; he's going off to 'Nam. Guess he wouldn't need the bottle anymore. So I took it for him and added a shot glass before hurrying back into my room, slamming the door on my way.
Clumsily, I fumbled to open up the pill bottles. Damn child locks. Open! I want to get this over with, I don't have all day. My mind was a haze, and I wasn't really spending too much time on the thought that I was going to end my mortal existence. All I thought about was what lay beyond that. The only place where there weren't Socs and greasers. Just people. Dead people, but people nonetheless.
I yanked the cap off and it flew out of my hands. Its contents spilled all over my bedroom floor, laying there helplessly. They were pink pills, large ones, but I think I could swallow 'em easily. My hands shaking feverishly, I pulled off the vodka bottle's cap. Slowly, I poured the vodka into the shotglass, but my hand slipped and it overflowed. Vodka flooded to my floor, and I nearly slipped on it except that I took hold of the bedpost. I chuckled and thanked it. Did it really mattered which way I died?
So I took the vodka glass and began to bring it to my lips, except it slipped from my vodka-covered hands and fell to the ground, exploding into a firework of crystals. Many dug their way into my foot's skin, and I collapsed to the ground, howling in pain. My hand hit the bottles of pills, and they flew out of my way, with the bottle of already-opened pills spilling even more of their contents onto the floor. Angry, I took the vodka bottle and chucked it against the wall. It shattered, and knocked down a leather-bound book. I began to sob unintelligibly. I couldn't even kill myself without screwing it up.
At that point, I began to gather everything up. Fine, I'd kill myself by overdosing on pills. All great people overdose, don't they? I don't care anymore. My hands reached for the book to put it back up, and just then I noticed it was the little book that Sarah had given to me on her deathbed. I'd been so involved in trying to forget about her death I hadn't even read her book. And so I slowly opened it up, and began to read the entries. One went along the lines of, "Spike got drunk again. I'm really getting tired of it, but I worry about him. He has to have some excuse, right?" and another went along the lines of, "Adrienne came up to me in the locker room today. She said that she liked my sweater. I'm not too sure what that means, but I think it's basically a statement that she's going to try to steal Spike from me. She can have him."
I began to smile when my name began appearing. She did speak fondly of me, saying that despite the fact that I looked tough (that pleased me) I was probably the only person who listened, or cared about someone other then just myself. But then my face darkened as I read this entry.
"Today, I was going to kill myself. Frankly, I have no idea why, it just seems like everything's building up and I'm not going anywhere. I brought my father's pocketknife with me to the graveyard. I was going to visit my mother. No, she doesn't have a grave (to me she mine as well be dead) but one of the only things I care to remember about her is that she used to love this elm tree that was planted there. Yes, I'm visiting my mother, the one that ran away with the butler. She doesn't remember my name, or my birthday, or even to send a card on Christmas. How can you live knowing your own mother didn't want you?
"So I put on my best make-up and a nice dress, because when the morticians came and found my body beside the elm tree I wanted to at least salvage the beauty in it. I don't mind blood too much; it's as vital to us as water. But when I got there, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I just kept thinking about how this was my last chance, and I couldn't go back. Then I heard someone screaming. I ran over to see it was Ponyboy, the boy who saved me. Well, guess what? He saved me again, but this time it had nothing to do with thugs with bandanas and broken noses. He saved me from myself and the entire world, and that afternoon I fell in love for the first time. Thank you, Ponyboy."
Tears stained her beautiful ink handwriting. This was all I had left of her. The beautiful cursive, arching and undulating every time her pen would spit out ink onto the bleached white paper. Sarah was going to kill herself that day in the graveyard. I glanced over at the pills, and the shattered vodka bottle, and then the realization of what I was going to do.
I stuffed the diary into my back pocket and struggled to stand up. Slowly, I made my way for the door, feet surging with pain every time I moved, but I was so numb I didn't notice. Like a reincarnated zombie, I moved to the front door and opened it, stepping out into the real world. I took those steps for Sarah. This story, these hopes and dreams, all of it, is for Sarah.