Thanks for stopping by, it's been a bit, miss all y'all! This is from the perspective of Grace, my eventual wife for Sodapop. This is set after the war, after Soda's been clean for a year, and before the events that take place in Linchpin.
This Woman's Work
He's out again. The dark shadows of his unlit home signals his absence just like your stomach pangs, disappointment hits hard, not like this evening's swift breeze after the afternoon's fallen spring rain. And you're already fueling the fire in your mind, stringing broken, frustrated sentences together of how this is it and you're breaking up with him because you deserve better.
And you both know you deserve better.
With a huff, you march those legs to the back of the house where he keeps his rusty bicycle, the one from his childhood that you convinced him not to trash. You think about where that strength of yours, seeing the beauty in the broken, has gotten you lately.
As you lean over the top of the fence to lift it out from the backyard, you notice the several tiny dots of mud on your calf from your brisk walk to his house once you knew you might be getting off early. The whole twenty minute walk with a quickened pace, excited to surprise him, excited to see him. Now, fuck that.
And of course, the endless, hyperbolic explanations for his absence that flood your mind hits you like a fist to the stomach, which you've felt before because you had an older brother and lived on the wrong side of the tracks. But Soda's hits are never physical, which makes it harder to justify that they're allowed to even hurt at all.
You try not to imagine what he might be getting himself into right at this very moment. Trust isn't something you can fake.
You flee, like you mother did, but you try not to think about it that way because unlike her, you always come back. As much as he leads, you follow, and you hate it. Not your mother. She fled once and never looked back. Suddenly, you can't really be mad at your mother at all anymore when you're standing in such similar shoes.
So you take that screechy old bicycle, the one you had him spray paint bright purple just for you, pull your skirt down just a bit as you mount, though it won't matter once you take to those streets with the speed you usually do. And you love the goosebumps your skin forms once you really get to pedaling, once your thighs burn and your hair flies off your shoulders and trails like your very own flag behind you. You wave it proudly. Loving an addict, sober or not, rarely allows such space to feel free. You never get to be reckless, so flying down those dark alleys, dodging the turned over garbage cans and abandoned junk lends you a whole world of your own, a world that doesn't also get to be his. You refuse to be wrapped around his finger like everyone else.
But would you really be out here doing this if that isn't exactly where he had you?
But then again, can you really be caged in the way you like to think you are if you're the only one holding the keys to your release? Your mom fled. It's not that difficult.
Fuck metaphors, math always made more sense to you.
'These Boots Are Made For Walking' is stuck in your head, it couldn't be more perfect right now. You dig into the pedals with the balls of your feet and go faster, not very lady-like but absolutely bad ass and that's all your trying for.
You follow the moonlight, racing down towards Maple Street where the beams reflect off of those puddles of rainwater that explode beneath you when you send your tires over each and every pothole you can, no matter you drench yourself in the process, you don't want to be pretty because inside you've been feeling anything but.
You're not sure which is causing you more anguish. Your head as you break apart in your mind how painfully exhausting it is to worry over someone, to be treated so poorly, this constant abandonment and undying suspicion of relapse. Relapse feels so much like betrayal. Or maybe it's your heart, which longs for everything else- the way he always touches your thigh when you take your drives to the country, only lets go to switch gears. How he brings you pecan pie on Wednesdays. How his face lights up when he sees you. How he loves you so, so well. Or at least he wants to. Like hurricanes and volcanoes in debate, equal in intensity, it won't ever really make sense when you've got all this history looming over you. It can't make sense, because that's how love works, so infuriatingly dysfunctional. Love does, but maybe sometimes love shouldn't. How strange that when you hear Margie Ann talk about her perfect little marriage with Toby, it sounds nothing like the beautiful letdown of loving Soda. You know it's a unique gift to be loved by him, but the cost can be high.
You start barreling down towards some of the seedier streets, like where the Shepard's gang used to congregate when you were younger, where you're not supposed to be in the day, let alone pushing tomorrow, unless you want trouble. But perhaps you do want trouble. You kind of want something bad to happen, like some sort of self-sabotaging revenge on him, that you needed him when he wasn't there and look what happened. It's deranged and you know it, but right now you can't see straight. It's unfair that you always have to be the one to see straight. As you barrel down that way, you wonder if you're just as self-destructive as he is.
"Why'd you go ridin' so late?" He'll probably ask, clueless.
"Because fuck you, that's why." You'll say, and it'll feel great.
But you tell yourself this ride is for you and you alone. Your heart pounds against the wall of your chest and it's the only thing you can hear right now. Get lost in the cadence, rhythm of your own proof of life. You've always had a loud heartbeat, one that rings in your ears, demanding to be heard. It used to scare you, send you from fear to panic, but you've learned to really listen to it, and take comfort that it's still going and you wonder if you'll ever hear it stop. Just like when you put your hand over his chest when you drift into sleep in each other's arms, you like to cling to the way his beats different than yours, sometimes off rhythm, but always comes back around and shit now you're thinking about him again.
This ride is for you and you alone, you tell yourself.
Headlights pass one street over, and your attention is snatched. You crane your head over in that direction, check if it's his truck, but it's just an old Pontiac Streamliner from the 40s based on the paint job, Soda would say. And because you're thinking about that, you miss that one pothole you knew was there on this road you've memorized, and without firm hands on the handlebars, the dip is just enough to send you flying over the front wheel. Thank God you're small, because that tuck and roll is just coherent enough to spare you a head injury, and now that you're face down on the pavement with bloodied knees and tiny rocks embedded in your chin, all that blood boiling revenge subsides, and all that remains is the hurt. Not the hurt from the fall, everything underneath it. You're hurt. But how do you tell someone who would rather die than hurt you that he hurts you every day?
You roll over to your back, look up at the stars, and since you made it close to the river, the light pollution is real minimal. How do you forget to look at the stars when they're right there? You wonder if anyone who looks up at these stars has it all figured out. Or if everyone's just hanging on by a thread, like the two of you.
How can you be so broken up when he's been sober a year and a half now? Why do you always jump to suspicion?
Because disappointment hurts so much, you have to.
You're not sure how long it is before you pick yourself out of the bits of gravel and mud and start to drag that ancient bike the 10 blocks back to his yard where you'll toss it messily by the front door right where he'll see it whenever he gets back. This isn't your first angry bike ride, and he'll know what it means when he sees it out.
But as you get right up to his patchy lawn, you hear the music and you know it's him because he's the only one in Tulsa who isn't absolutely sick of 'Suspicious Minds', he even turns it up. You scoff, because it really seals the deal of tonight and he doesn't even know it. He likes the beat, he probably doesn't even know the lyrics.
"Gracie!" He yells out the window, and immediately you hear in his voice that he's all there, and you hate that you still can't seem to trust him, that you probably never will even when he proves himself worthy time and time again.
You throw the bicycle on the sidewalk instead, feeling like a total baby but just not ready to be the adult of the pair yet, and start marching back towards your Daddy's house, the last place you want to be but hello you're trying to make a point here.
"You okay?" He says somewhere behind you, the engine dying down and the creaky door swinging open and then immediately shut. The music continues to blare, so you know he's still been using that portable radio since the one in the truck's still busted.
And in true Soda fashion, he catches right up to you, grabs your hand to spin you in his direction, and you feel the sting in your own heart too when you rip your hand from his to continue on your march. Cause these boots were made for walking, you remember.
"What's up?" He asks so tenderly, and you glance down briefly to see the mud and blood has been soaked up by your knee-highs. "Why'd you go ridin' so late?"
Because fuck you, that's why. But you can't find it in yourself to say it.
"Were you waitin' on me?" So you just let him put it together himself, "Aw baby, I wasn't expectin' you until midnight, I thought that's when you were off tonight."
And it all makes sense, you knew it would, but you're still fizzling that you even had to worry about him in the first place. Or that you worry all of the time, and you feel he doesn't worry enough. You wonder, if in the end you'll worry yourself to death before his recklessness catches up to him.
And that doesn't seem fair.
But at the same time, you'll do anything to keep him going. Any fucking thing. It's sick and you know it, but you're not sure you'd change it, even if you could.
You've been silent long enough that he's caught on and hushed up too, just trailing a few safe yards behind you as you get further and further from the warmth of his house that you really want to be. But you're stubborn. It's not his fault you paid Liz a dollar of your tip money to bus your share of the tables and take care of the dish rack so you'd get off early to surprise him. It's not his fault he didn't know to be back earlier, or that sometimes you're extra sensitive. But your worry, your frustration, your sleepless nights, you figure must be his fault.
Then, he turns the hand-held radio dial up ever so slightly as 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' starts to play. Your heart catches in your damn throat because at the end of the day, it's your heart that rules this race and not your head, you hear it flutter in your chest. And he always says this is the song that reminds him of the two of you.
Your feet stop moving, and you can hear him stop a couple steps later, still allotting you some space to be angry because he knows you well.
You turn around to face him, and let him see the scrapes on your knees, the bruises on your chin and the tear streaks.
"Gracie…" he says, brow furrowing, wanting to reach for you as he sees the result of your fall but knowing you want him to keep his distance.
"Where you been?"
He puts his hands up to pacify, "Reid Gilbertson got a flat and was tryna hitchhike all the way back to Glendale. I stopped and got him a tire from the DX and helped him change it. That's all, I swear."
His own look of hurt doesn't go unnoticed, that you assumed the worst of him again, like everybody does.
You're both quiet because what is it you're supposed to even say here?
He finally goes first. "I'm trying to build your trust, Grace. I ain't trying to trick you." He says, a bit under his breath, a bit deflated.
You nod, "What if weren't not ever where we need to be with that, Soda?" You dare to ask, and you see how his expression shifts to surprise. He's such an optimist, he's probably never even considered you two not working out
"I ain't taking no for an answer. So long as you're willing to be here, we're gonna get there." He bridges the gap, physically and metaphorically.
"I worry, Soda…." You start, but he jumps in.
"Don't worry about me. Worry with me. That's how we get through this. You be you and I'll be me, but we do this together and we don't go making up scary stories in our heads."
He calls you out mercilessly, but all's already forgiven in his statement. He takes your hand, presses the back of it to his lips and starts to tug you back to his place.
And whether or not it's right, you go with him willingly.
Author's Note
Thanks for taking the time to read this one-shot. I know it's not as fun when a story is centered around an OC, but I wanted to get into Grace's mind and give her some credit, given my story Linchpin doesn't really have the space to explore her perspective as she battles being in love with someone like Soda. I know this one's kind of messy, and that their relationship tends to teeter on toxic a lot of the time.
'Wouldn't It Be Nice' is the Beach Boys
'Suspicious Minds' is Elvis Presley (I cheated a bit with this one, shhhh)
'These Boots are Made for Walkin'' is Nancy Sinatra
and the title, 'This Woman's Work' is a reference to a Kate Bush song
Keep your head up everyone!
