Hello! As some of you may know/remember when I first posted my story on here, I was going to write a sequel…well, I actually am! I'm writing parts of it these days, when I have some free time, and since I'm still in the beginning (but I have a plot, don't worry), I wanted to let you know that all suggestions are welcome! If there's something you'd like to see happening, maybe I will be able to put it in the story, so just message me:-)
Now on with the story! Just like the previous chapter…first part is in Sybil's point of view, second part is in Soda's POV!
17 – Letters
"What do you mean you're dying?"
"You heard me, Sybil. I'm sick. I'm dying."
I couldn't hold back tears. "You can't be dying!"
"I am. Tomorrow I'll be dead."
Lewis was staring at me like I were some stranger he had never met before, while telling me the news. "I'll be dead and it's not like you give a damn. No one gives a damn. That's why I'm dying."
"What?" I cried. He was speaking nonsense. "You must be out of your mind to say such things!"
"I can see what you cannot see. Bye."
He walked away and darkness fell over me. I started crying because I couldn't reach him anymore. And then…
"Sybil, wake up! You're going to be late!"
My eyes fluttered open and I looked around: dad was in my bedroom and apparently he had been calling me for a while. "Dad…"
"I called you several times but you wouldn't wake up…are you all right?"
"Yes…just…a nightmare…" I shivered. It had been dreadful. What a stupid dream! Just because I hadn't seen my brother in a while it didn't mean he was dead, or going to be. What I had dreamt didn't make sense, but then again, most dreams never made any sense. But this one had seemed so real…
I ate breakfast in a hurry because I was late for school. Since I had met Soda, school wasn't that important to me anymore. And I was afraid of that. I was afraid I was losing my mind because I had to get very good grades in school if I wanted to go to a good college and become a great lawyer like my dad. I had told Soda that I wanted to be a lawyer and he had said jokingly that when I would be one I could take him out of jail anytime. I didn't like it very much when he joked about jail or serious stuff like that, but maybe that was the only thing he could think of to tell me at the time.
I thought I could stay home that day. I could afford missing one day of school, it wouldn't hurt. But I knew I couldn't skip lessons, dad would kill me if he ever found out. It was Friday though, I could rest the following weekend and see Soda. He had Friday afternoon off, so, after a long and tiring school day, when I had to avoid Seth all the time because he wouldn't leave me alone for one second and also try to get that nightmare off my mind, I reached the Curtis' house and hoped Soda would be there and not off somewhere with Steve. I couldn't really like Steve because he always looked annoyed whenever he saw me.
I had just stepped inside Soda's house when I heard voices coming from upstairs. I didn't want to eavesdrop but they were almost yelling. I didn't know what to do, so I stood there and listened.
"You don't know anything about her!"
"This is not the point!"
"Yes, it is! You can't judge people-"
"I don't want you to end up like last time with Sandy!"
"I won't! This time's different! I…Darry, I love her!"
My heart skipped a few beats.
"You said you loved Sandy, too!"
"I was younger and Sandy was my first love! It was different!"
"Every time is different! You always think you know exactly what you're talking about, but it's not always rainbows and butterflies!"
"So I can never be happy?"
"I don't mean that!"
"You don't know what you're talking about, Darry! You've never been in love!"
Silence. I could tell Soda was sorry he had just uttered those words. It seemed like ages before Darry spoke again.
"I know how to care for someone, Soda, and I care about you. I don't want you to get hurt. That's why I think Sybil's not right for you."
So that was why Darry didn't like me. He was afraid I'd break Soda's heart and he didn't want to see his little brother suffer anymore.
"Whatever." Soda muttered something and I quickly went outside. I pretended I hadn't heard anything when he saw me near my car.
"Sybil! Hey!" he reached me. "School's over?"
"Yes, so I thought I would meet you…"
"You thought great!" he grinned. "Wanna go get a coke somewhere?"
"Sure!" I smiled back and followed him into his car. He looked happy, but I couldn't be happy at the moment. His brother didn't like me and probably Steve, his best buddy, agreed with Darry. I couldn't think about it without feeling horrible. I wasn't going to hurt Soda, but of course they couldn't know. Maybe I needed to talk to them. I was so confused.
When I got home, I found a letter from Lewis. That made me feel better, till I read the last lines. I got my draft letter and I left Tulsa some weeks ago. Sorry if I didn't say anything, but I've never been good at saying goodbye. Hopefully I'll see you again, soon. Lewis.
----------------------------------------------------------"You know we never fight. It was kind of…"
"Awkward."
"Yes, a lot. I don't know how it happened, one moment we were chatting about rubbish and the other one we were screaming at the top of our lungs."
"At least he doesn't give you five bucks to make up for it." Steve scowled. He hated the way his old man yelled at him and then gave him dough so that Steve would forget about all the screaming and the insults.
"I guess so." I sighed. "But Sybil's really important to me, Darry should understand that! Just because Sandy…betrayed me…that don't mean Sybil will…she's so different from Sandy…"
"And yet quite similar, right?" Steve interrupted me.
I thought for a while. "In some ways…how d'you know?"
"I know you, buddy." He laughed. "You're like an open book to me."
"Right." I pretended to punch him, but I stopped because some customer needed him. I watched him work and once he was over with it I waited for him to reach me. "Got a cigarette?" he asked.
"No…you know I don't smoke much."
"Yeah, you're a goody-two-shoes, man." He smirked.
"Don't you ever repeat that!" I threw a dirty towel at him and in response he blew some smoke in my face, making me cough a little.
"Seriously, Soda…why don't you go and visit Sandy?"
"What?" I thought I had gone deaf. "Excuse me?"
"You should see her again to understand if you still love her."
"I don't."
"You can't be that sure until you see her again. She was definitely less boring than Sybil is."
"Sybil ain't boring! She's a good girl, she wouldn't sleep with someone else while she's dating me!"
"By the way…" Steve was finishing his cigarette and looked totally relaxed. "Have you two…"
"No we haven't." I turned my back to him and started tidying up the counter a bit.
Steve gazed at me like I was an alien. "What?"
"We've only been going out for six months, you know."
"So what? You did sleep with Sandy after, like, two months you first started dating!"
"And look what happened then!" I almost yelled. "Besides…I was really horny when I was sixteen…"
"You still are."
"Yeah, but I ain't obsessed with…you know. I don't think about it all day and night long."
"Shoot! I don't recognize you anymore, Soda! You should really sleep with Sybil, then, if the whole thing is lousy, you dump her. If not, you stay with her. It's that simple."
"Don't talk about her like that! I don't want to fight with you, too…Darry was enough. I bet he's still mad at me because I told him he doesn't love and he doesn't know how to. And that was two weeks ago." I wanted to get off the whole sleep-with-Sybil subject. It was making me uncomfortable because I was realizing I really would have liked to sleep with her. I needed to get my mind out of the gutter.
"Whatever, man, just apologize to him."
"Why should I? Ponyboy's quite right about Darry! He's hard and cold and…and I hate him when he's like that." I was over reacting, but I didn't care. I was getting mad thinking about my brother and my best friend judging me and my relationship with Sybil all the time.
Steve didn't say anything. I continued to vent for a while, until I saw Ponyboy in the corner of my eye. He was walking toward Steve and me. "Hey, Pony." I greeted him.
"Hey…" he looked miserable.
"What's the matter?" I rushed to him. "Something bad happened?"
"Not really. Just…I didn't do too good on track training today…"
"And?"
"I saw Cathy with her boyfriend."
Cathy was his crush. "They'll break up eventually and you'll be there to comfort her. You're much better than that other guy, Pony."
"You don't even know him…"
"So? My little brother is better than anyone else!" I grinned and was relieved when I saw he was grinning, too. "If you wait for me, we'll go home together. Another half an hour and I'm off."
"Sure."
Ten minutes later, I was staring at Pony. He was daydreaming. I guessed he was probably thinking of his crush. I wished I was like Pony sometimes. He was the best out of us three brothers, he really was, but he was also the less self-confident, and that was a trouble sometimes.
As we were walking home, I felt the need to ask him something: "Pony?"
"Yeah?"
"What do you think of Sybil?"
He looked at me like he thought that was a weird question:"Well…I like her…she's nice and she's…different from the other girls. I mean, she ain't a Soc but she ain't a greaser either and that makes her special…she seems very sensitive…and we like the same books, I think it's a good thing."
I couldn't understand how that kid's mind worked at times. "I'm gonna go see Sandy." I announced.
"What?"
"I need to see her. I'll go when I have a day off, next week."
"Why?"
"I don't know, guess I'm just nuts. I feel like I have to, like…to move on, you understand what I mean?"
He shook his head. "Can't say I do."
I laughed. "That's okay, you will someday. Now I only need to tell Darry about it. I hope he doesn't get mad."
"He won't, he never gets mad at you."
Pony didn't know about the fight we had had. I couldn't wait to reach our house and break the news to Darry. I wanted to get it off my chest. When we got there, we found our brother sitting at the kitchen table, with his hands in his hair. He looked lost, like he didn't know what was his place, like he was in big trouble and didn't know what to do, or what to think.
"Darry, are you okay?" Ponyboy spoke first.
Darry didn't look at us at first, then, after what seemed like ages, he got up and muttered some words none of us could hear. He looked like he was on the verge of tears but he never cried and I couldn't imagine what could have happened to make him act like that.
I finally noticed he had some piece of paper in front of him. I grabbed it and felt my heart sink. It was a draft letter. Addressed to Curtis, Darrel and Sodapop.