Chapter 11: The Broken Crown

Tulsa, 1956

Mama hollers out my name when the screen door whops shut like a clap of thunder from behind me when I race into the house, tossing my ripped up backpack and jacket onto the couch and ignoring the rest of the storm when they go crashing back on the ground.

I find Pony where exactly where I'd expected: bellied up to the kitchen table scribbling his doodles on whatever paper he could get his hands on. Morning Kindergarten ends at lunchtime, so he's probably been at it hours by now.

I toss them crayons onto the table and put my elbows on the padding of the placemats, holding up my chin in my palms, trying to match Pony's face when it lights up at the sight of them.

His smile goes toothy as soon as he sees that this time I got him red, yellow and blue, which means he's got all the colors anyone actually uses since I swiped a purple and green one for him on Monday.

"Hot diggity dog!" Pony calls out, that's a saying he learned from me, which I think I got from Dad. I don't really know what it means, but it sure is fun to say. He scoops up those wax sticks in his hands, brings them real close to his face and looks at them hard like they're made of gold. I was sure to get the ones with the fine points this time so they'll last longer and be easier to draw with a least for a while. "Gee, thanks, Sodapop."

I clap the table with my palm and Mama yells at me again to be careful when the sound bounces off the walls and down the hall like a pinball machine. "Whatcha drawin' today, little bro?"

"It's a surprise." He says with his eyes still super glued to that ridgy slab of cardboard he's drawing on. I open the fridge and grab the chocolate milk carton. It's almost about empty. If we split it, we could each have a couple of gulps, not much more. Darry won't be home until after practice, so at least we don't got to split it three ways.

"You can have the rest, I saved it for ya." He says. I laugh cause he's ain't even looked up at me to see what I grabbed, I guess my routine ain't surprising anybody anymore.

"Thanks, Pone." I say, happy, because while I would've been glad to share with him, a couple sips don't really do me no good coming back all hot and hungry from the walk home and a day of getting scorned in the classroom.

Mama rushes in from outside then, a pile of laundry she's just taken off the line rolled up into her arms, as she pushes the fridge door closed for me with a bare toe.

"Don't be leavin' that open, Sodapop. It wastes money." I imagine the fridge gobbling up Dad's pocket change, the door its mouth and the two magnets on the freezer above the eyes, and I laugh a little, wondering if maybe Pony could draw me up something funny like that that I can pin on our wall.

"Sorry, Mama." I say, crushing up the carton and then tossing it in the trash so she'll see I've at least remembered one of her house rules this time around.

She starts ferociously folding Darry's new collar shirt for his football banquet coming up this Friday, then works her way onto one of Pony's worn out white t-shirts. Darry's getting real big real fast, and so when I get one of the shirts he's outgrown, it's still pretty clean and crisp. But poor little Pony, when he gets those hand-me-downs from me, they've usually got all kinds of stains and rips all on them. Maybe when I get my growth spurt, I'll be able to turn them around quicker and keep them nicer for him. Pony doesn't seem to mind though, he's always thinking about other stuff anyways.

"Soda, put these in your drawers, will ya?" Mama hands me a square stack of folded shirts and underwear, "I have to be at the laundromat in half an hour."

I grab them from her, thinking about how she goes from doing our laundry here at home to everyone else's in town and I wonder if she gets bored of it, it sure don't look too much like fun. Mama likes to dance, I wonder why she doesn't do that like those fancy people on TV. I'm sure she likes dancing more than she likes doing laundry.

When I come back out, she's already gone, so I can't ask her myself.

"Ta-da." Pony says softly from the table, and when I turn to look, that little old sorry slab of cardboard has come to life, the ridges I saw before stand tall and pointed like mountains, he's taped the two ends together and my little brother's gone on and created a king's crown.

"Son of a bitch, Pony, that's neat!" I say, both of us bracing for Mama's yell, but the sound of faucet sounds our safety. I come in closer to get a good look at it, always real impressed with how Pony can imagine up just about anything and put right on that paper. He's drawn on blue and green and red gems that go all the way around, and the whole thing's colored yellow like it's actually gold. It looks real nice, sturdy too since he chose to use the back of the empty Corn Flakes box instead of newspaper this time. "King Ponyboy, I like the sound of that." I clap him on his shoulder, figuring I could probably be a pretty good jester if he needed one.

He giggles shy like, because Pony doesn't do what he does for attention, even if I'm sure this museum-worthy work. He shakes his head at me, "Nah, Soda, it's for you." He holds it out for me to take. I sure wasn't expecting that, so it takes me a moment to think of what to say back.

"C'mon, try it on." Pony reaches it out again, looking all kinds of excited. I smile back, and take it, carefully placing it on top of my head, making sure to mind the duct tape job.

I pose for him, hands crossed over my chest and chin pointed up and out all proud, trying to look regal like the king in Pony's Humpty Dumpty picture book.

"Thanks, Pone."

"Well Lord help me, I didn't know I was living among royalty." Mama comes in, flattening down the collar of her green uniform dress as she's on her way out. I straighten up my posture again and start to point at the two of them, yelling orders, to which Mama replies 'yes, your Majesty' and 'of course, your Majesty'. Pony can't quit laughing at us, Mama can be pretty funny sometimes.

As soon as Pony's caught his breath, he gathers up his crayons and scissors and retreats back to his room, probably to check out the pictures in his newest library book. Mom gives me a quick kiss on the cheek and heads out the door saying something about leftovers, and I'm left alone in the kitchen with a crown on my head.

I take it off as soon as they're both gone, and place it on the table, wondering why Pony thought I'd ever be someone to wear a crown. Dad would be a real nice king, and Darry's got all the smarts and seriousness that you read about kings having in stories. Course, everyone calls Dad Superman and everyone always says Darry's just like Dad, so maybe they're superheroes. I think I'd rather be a hero than a king, too.

I stare at the jewels Pony took the time to draw out real pretty for me. I'm sure glad to have a little brother like him.

But I ain't no king, that's for sure. Kings don't swipe crayons from sweet old blind as a bat Mrs. O'Brien in art class.

I look at the crown again. It don't feel too natural on my head, anyways.

I thread my arm through the center and bring it to my room, setting it on top of our dresser so Pony doesn't feel like I ain't glad to have it, but I don't think I'll wear it again.

Tulsa, October 1976

"Hi." Deb's the first thing I see when I crack open our front door. She stands so quickly that the chair scrapes like nails on a chalkboard across the hardwood floor. She takes an immediate step towards me, but pauses in my brief silence like it's a warning, "So...?"

I pull the door shut as quietly as possible behind me and nod, "Everything's okay still. We just figured we'd take shifts stayin' there with him. Grace wanted to tonight, I'll go by in the morning and Pony will come in the afternoon."

"That's good." She nods back, looking past me at the door to suss it out in her head as if she wasn't expecting it to be that simple. I don't think any of us did. Then she points to the roast beef and cheddar sandwich on the table, my favorite. "I made you a snack, you must be starving." We never did get to eating those hotdogs and now the mounted clock above the dining room table chimes eleven.

"Thanks, sweetie, but I'm not hungry." I know I can say it without her taking it as a sly remark about her cooking, even though she'd be the first to say her head's always been in the sciences and never the homemaking. But Deb makes a mean roast beef sandwich.

"You need to eat, trust me." Her hand runs up my forearm and she brushes a delicate finger from under my eyelid and that's the only way I figure I'm producing tears. Her touch somehow brings down the wall, and the exhaustion whooshes in relentlessly, a shaky exhale blows the cover of my collectedness. "Come sit."

"You okay?" I ask, scared to really, as I think of where we'd be if Deb hadn't kept him going with her own two hands in the back of the station wagon.

She looks weathered and worn then and shakes her head, "I've never had to do that on someone that I know." I assume she's talking about the compressions.

I lean in, taking the hand she's got set on the table and bringing it up to kiss her, a poor repayment for all she's done for us today, but with Deb, it'll do. "Deb... I don't even know what to say..."

But she knows where I'm going, and shuts it down quick, "Oh, shh. He's okay." But she says it a little too much like it's a question as her eyes search mine..

"He's okay." I repeat, but I can feel the the lava starting to bubble up, and I throw my hands over my face to try and catch it all, to turn it into an implosion instead of an explosion that's bound to be messy.

"I actually let myself believe everything was okay." I say at last when I can safely pull my hands away from my face. "Deb, you even told me he wasn't okay but I just kept on pretending."

"He put on a real good show. Fooled me too there for a bit." She's quick to dry her own tears with the edge of her thumb, crying isn't exactly something either of us are so quick to embrace. "This isn't your fault."

"This is the second time I've done this today." I say in reference to my blubbering.

Her smile, while melancholic this round, comes in right on time as usual, "I'm glad."

I remember him grabbing at Pony's hand all disoriented, then, "He woke up in the hospital, just for a moment, and thought he was right back in Vietnam. He started panicking, he almost threw himself out again right then and there." I shake my head, unable to stomach the fact that there are things my little brother has seen that I'll never be able to fathom. And because of that, how could I ever be an agent for change? I can't mend the things that I don't understand. "He's got so much inside him still, Deb, and I don't know how to fix those kinds of things."

"So we take it one day at a time. As much as you want to, Honey, you won't fix this by the end of the week. Don't go putting the world back on your shoulders, now, we just got it off of there where it don't belong."

I laugh, because as much as people joke about me carrying the world on my shoulders, I don't see how they'd ever think that about me of all people. Even the smallest of things weigh me down when others seem to stay afloat.

"The kids?" I ask after a moment of contemplation.

"Marley's been fussing a little, but Steve brought some formula and diapers from Soda's house. He forgot bottles, though, but we still have some of Maddie's old ones." Thank God she laughs, "Jackie and Maddie have been out for a couple of hours now... Junior keeps asking to talk to you."

I find my head shaking again thinking about that poor kid, "I'll talk to him in the morning before I go back."

Deb's brow goes up, only her left one, which is a sure sign that she doesn't like what I've said. She's got that expression that always has a strange ability to incite reconsideration in me."No, you'll talk to him tonight."

I frown at her, about to indulge in a rebuttal but I've got no defense other than the fact that I don't even know where I'd start trying to talk to him tonight.

"You're going to go in and tell him it's not his fault, just like I'm telling you it isn't your fault." Her fingers tap the table, suddenly impatient. "I swear, you two are one and the same sometimes."

She pushes the sandwich towards me, "But eat first."

As soon as the sandwich is consumed (her best cooking to date), she leads me over to Junior's bedroom, the light from his nightstand glowing from under the crack under the door even though we're hours past bedtime.

I go to wipe my face again of the tears, but Deb catches my wrists before I can. "Don't." She says, "It's good for him to see this side of you sometimes. Hell, it's good for me too."

Though I don't quite know what that means, I obey, because Deb's the lighthouse to my stormy ship right now. What she says goes.

"Hey, Sport." I knock a little, pushing the door open. Junior's sitting under the covers, the sheets pulled up to his chin as he stares at the empty wall opposite of him. He turns towards me as I enter.

"Daddy?" He sits up immediately when our eyes meet, his expression all kinds of lost and confused, even all these hours later I'm instantly thankful Deb didn't let me allow him to sit in this mess all night.

"You've had quite a day today, haven't you?" I shuffle over to him slowly, maybe even hesitantly, then sit next to him on his single bed, the springs crunch below me, meant for bodies much smaller and lighter than mine. "How're you feeling?"

He thinks on it for a moment, even puts his finger to his chin like a philosopher, like Pony. "Mama gave me a hot bath when we got home, and so now I'm not so cold."

He's can be so very literal, my little man, maybe that's how Deb means we're one and the same.

"You did real good, today, kiddo. I know it was a scary day, but you did real good."

His eyes look past me at the door behind, and I suddenly hear Deb's reassuring whisper, "Go ahead." I turn to see her subtly standing behind the crack in the door, watching our whole encounter. I use my eyes to ward her off, and she starts to retreat back out of the light of the bedroom, but only after one last, "Just tell him what you told me."

I hear the door click closed, though I'm convinced she's probably got her ear pressed against the wood to hear us still.

Junior finds me again in his sea of disorientation and pulls his knees into his chest like he needs protective armor, "Did I mess up today?'

I don't know what to do with that unexpected blow, so my passionate "What?" comes out before I can substitute something better, something more precise.

Tears start to well up in Junior's eyes, and whether it's fear or guilt, I know we're headed down a path too dark for four year olds.

He wipes the tears away quickly, too, like he thinks they shouldn't be there, "We haven't gotten to see Uncle Soda and Aunt Gracie in a long time, and we finally got to see them today... and then I played in the river. Did I mess it all up?"

He looks like he's trying to make sense of his own thinking too, so at least that makes two of us.

"Darrel Curtis Junior," I say with a sharper tone so he'll listen real good. "Your Uncle Soda was... sick for a little while, that's why we didn't see him. And we thought he was better, and well... we were wrong. You did do anything wrong. You did good today."

He still doesn't look convinced, "Is Uncle Soda... bad?"

The kid is killing me with these as he's rerouted our conversation completely.

"No, why would you think that?"

He swallows hard, "Because you didn't want us to see him, and... bad things keep happening when he's around."

I shake my head again, about to tap out and call for Deb so I don't have to do this all on my own but his eyes are daggers into my soul, pleading for me to bring him some peace in a day of only chaos. "Do you think Uncle Soda's bad?"

He thinks again, choosing his words carefully before he finally looks back up with a look of panic. "I don't want to be on the bad guy's team, Daddy."

I try and shake that one off because I know just how much Junior loves his uncle, "But do you think your Uncle Soda's bad?"

He wobbles his head no. The air is suddenly easier to breathe. I don't know what I would've said if he'd said yes.

"Good."

"He helped me out of the water."

"Yeah, he did. 'Cause he loves you a lot, so does your Uncle Pony."

He stares back at me intensely now, as if what I've said offers him no comfort at all. "But do you love him, Daddy?"

I flinch. My boy's got a hell of a sucker punch, as I'm left dazed and pained, back up against the ropes.

I pause longer than I would've liked, but not because the answer is a hard one. "Do you think I don't love Uncle Soda?"

He looks almost scared. Of me or of the question, I'm not sure, but this may be the most frightening things thrown at me today either way.

"He makes you mad, doesn't he? Mrs. Downey told Stanley Baker on Wednesday that it's bad to make people sad, it means you're not a nice person. Uncle Soda makes you sad sometimes, right?"

Speechless, all I can think to do is hold his puffy chipmunk cheeks in my palms. Though this kid's got wisdom beyond his years, he sure hasn't built the stature to match it yet, I'm reminded again just how painfully young he is right now, how I'm sure almost none of the past few months could possibly add up clearly in his mind.

"I'm sorry, Dad." He whispers when enough time has passed and I haven't thought of the right thing to say. Something about him calling me Dad instead of Daddy is all kinds of unsettling in this moment.

"No." Is all I can muster for a second, "You've been chewing on this a long time, haven't you?" He nods. "Junior, sometimes you love someone so much when you see them hurt, it makes you hurt, makes you mad, makes you sad. Your Uncle Soda makes me sad and mad because I don't want him to be sick anymore."

"He's sick?"

It's too much to get into tonight, it's too much for me to bear to even think on and I can tell he does't quite understand why things happened the way they did today, so I gloss over, a conversation for another night. "He's a little sick, but he's going to be okay."

"So you do love him?"

It takes a deep breath to gear up for what's next. "Yeah. More than I know how to say. It's the same for you and your sisters, too, and your mom, and your Uncle Pony. I could never say just how much I love all of you, there aren't enough words in the dictionary to say it. And kiddo, I must not say it enough for you to even have to ask me."

He nods seriously, digesting it, analyzing it because he's my boy, a spitting image sometimes I guess even though I'd never really seen it that way.

"Okay." he decides finally as clarity floats back down around us.

"Okay." I say, leaning in to kiss him on his forehead before turning off the light, "Now get to sleep, I mean it."

Your eyes have become so accustomed to that suffocating darkness that now, it's the light that brings you the most disturbance. Maybe now you thrive in hiding. The brief but harsh explosive orange glows that erupt every few seconds in the close distance and all around you work only to illuminate the horizon and shed brief clarity on your surroundings that exist even in total darkness. Total darkness and destruction don't scare you anymore, in fact, it might be where you're most liberated.

You're on your stomach, crawling as the light shoots off then dies back down. Your fingers claw recklessly at the mud beneath you as you drag your heavy body, your belly tight but your muscles dense, closer to that heap of human lying just ahead. You don't care that whoever it is surely dead, you just have to get to him.

There are shouts around you, cries of pain that you can't quite make out what they're saying, but they seem to be aimed at you directly.

'Figures a fucking baby killer wouldn't have the balls to face his sins' somehow haunts you all the way over here across the ocean in this jungle of tombstones. You feel your youngest brother next to you in that moment, leaping over the barstools to attack your accuser like he did, and that's when you intervened. Just like you did on this battlefield. You're much more capable of horror than you'd even imagined as that second grader playing army at recess, shooting people down with finger guns.

You reach the body just in time for one of the flashes of explosive light from ahead to expose that young but hard and unkind, tortured face, the platinum blonde hair, the bullet holes ripped through a bare chest, shoulder draped in his signature leather jacket and the Saint Christopher medal around his neck that was supposed to be his mocking the gods but you knew all along he wore it as a last desperate attempt at hope in something else. But just as quickly as Dallas Winston's face had surprised you all the way in this foreign jungle far from home, the next explosive beam of light shows little Johnny Cade, eyes just as cold and dead as his predecessor. These two you could handle, because you knew they were gone, you knew they weren't coming back and as much as it hurt to accept it, you had years ago.

But when Johnny's face transforms into your little brother's in the next flash of light in that lifeless heap in the mud all of the way here in this country across the sea, gunfire raining down around you, you hear a jarring, gravely scream boil in your eardrums. You reach for him, tug him in close but his eyes are stone cold frozen staring anywhere but back at you. The screaming stops when you take a breath, that's when you learn that it's yours.

'I can't hold them all Curtis!' Crawford screams out now, too, his words burned in your memory all these years later.

You're on your feet quicker than you're able to conjure the energy, all vengeful and dangerous adrenaline, firing off a single shot into that grenade that didn't do its one fucking job. An eye for an eye has always been your motto, had to be with the way you grew up, and as far as you can gather right now out here, any man decorated with those two red squares on their collar is responsible for what has just been taken from you. The grenade explodes, taking with it the entire forest it seems, yet it still doesn't feel like justice enough. The piper's calling. Just like when you took hold of those dandies in the bar when they started wailing on Pony, you were ready to make them pay…

But as the smoke clears, your sins are revealed, and you took more than you'd meant to. Just like in the bar, you'd almost taken more than you'd meant to.

Here on this engulfed battlefield, you'd eliminated the threat, but you'd also eliminated what was never meant to be touched, and what kind of hero takes more than the villain? An eye for an eye, you can see now how you'd only be blind with this kind of logic.

Ponyboy. Grenade. Lemon Head.

Down by your feet no longer lies the corpse of all the people you've already lost, or the people you've been petrified would go too, now only sits a friendless cardboard crown, the one Pony made for you when you were both small, back when he fought tooth and nail to believe you were perfect when you never were. It sits by your combat boots, half bent from a directionless step backwards, warped from the moisture of the mud, burnt around the edges from the blast, dulled in color, those jewels he drew in crayon almost completely faded.

It's never looked so appropriate to sit atop your head.

Another grenade appears out of thin air in the distancing, conveniently in shooting range, and with aching lungs hell bent in a barbaric scream, you lift your rifle, aim and squeeze, and it all erupts into a white light, a clean slate, and you're thankful to go right along with it as it brings with it complete peace.

There's no place I can sit in here that allows me to be as close to him as I wish for. With the brother's gone home, it feels so very empty with us two as the only occupants. I'm used to him filling up most of whatever room we're in.

Even with all the doctor's confirmations, the ease with which they were able to remove his chest tube, the way he's retained oxygen since they did... a part of me is still afraid he'll drift away in all this space we've got in here. A part of me still feels he should be caged.

He's been dreaming the last couple of hours. He's always been a vocal dreamer, usually it's funny to listen to his nonsensical ramblings, but the way his brow is crinkled makes me think it's different this go.

His brows furrow inward again as he mumbles softly to himself. I place my pointer finger between them and smooth them down, forcing them to relax, but they bunches right back up only to soften on their own in complete peace a second later.

His eyes open suddenly, and he finds me right away, calling my name with contentment when our eyes meet.

"You're okay, Soda, you're in the hospital. You're in Tulsa." I get on my soapbox first, trying to get ahead of whatever demons might be trying to come back into consciousness with him. But he doesn't move, or panic, or look afraid anymore. He just nods.

"Marley?" He says it like he's confirming she even exists.

"She's with Darry and Debbie. She's probably sleeping right about now."

He smiles a little, his voice drunk, "You need sleeping."

I smile a little too, sure that I look like a hot mess if I look even half as bad as I feel. But it still doesn't quite sit right, his calmness, even if I'm grateful for it after today. I hesitate to ask it, but do anyways as I reach for his hand for comfort, "Do you remember what happened, baby?"

He blinks to think, blinks again for clarity, then looks me dead in the eye, "I don't remember anything."

Tulsa, November 1976

I scan the letter one last time, wondering if I should have Darry read over it too before I send it off officially. We agreed to be on the same page with this from now on, every step forward we'd be taking together. It's been nice to have a buddy on this once lonely trail these last two weeks since Soda was released.

Send To: The National Personnel Records

St. Louis, Missouri

To Whom It May Concern,

My name is Ponyboy Curtis, I am a freelance writer for the New York Times. I have been assigned a 10 year anniversary piece for the holidays on Vietnam War Veterans and their reintroduction into society.

I would like to request access to the records of a specific unit, the 44th infantry division, in the United States Army as the focus of this piece. I am looking for the names of the soldiers in this division, as well as contact information on each of them so I can set up interviews accordingly.

You can call my Tulsa Herald office in Oklahoma with the results and to confirm access.

Thank you for your time and assistance, they are much appreciated.

Ponyboy Curtis

Tulsa Herald, Junior Editor

New York Time, Freelance Writer

Fortunately, the New York Times has so many calls going in and out of their offices that nobody will notice or care if anyone comes calling to check up. It'll be easy to get a confirmation, most people still know and remember me over there. Plus, who knows, maybe I could actually turn this into something publishable, it's been a while since I wrote something I was passionate about, and lately veterans have been at the top of that list.

"I knew I'd find you here." Her voice shatters the silence around me, so much so that when I jump from being startled, I almost knock over that hot cup of coffee next to the typewriter.

"Valerie..." I huff out, checking in with her, her silhouette outlined from the hallway light outside of my office door. The dull lamp on my desk next to me makes it difficult to make out her face or mood, so I'm going in blind. "What time is it?"

"Almost ten." She grinds her foot deeper into the carpet, a clue.

I exhale and shake my head realizing just how dark my office has become and I hadn't bothered to take notice. "I'm sorry, I must've lost track of the time. I meant to call you."

"Whatcha working on?" She walks my way before I can answer, and as the light blasts across her face the closer she gets to my lonely lamp, I can see some smudged mascara under her eyelids, maybe from tears. I wonder if that's because of me, I would hate it if it is. We always seem like we're moments from cutting and running, and yet end up taking a step closer instead. She speaks up again, "'Infantry' and 'Division' should be capitalized here, 'veteran' shouldn't, you know that. You trying to make a statement?"

"Honest mistake."

"You writing a piece? This late?"

I nod, but then shake my head right after, "Not yet, just getting some ideas. Collating data, as they say."

She sighs, completely unconvinced that this has anything to do with data, "Your brother was in the 44th."

"Yeah." I say finally, trying to act like it isn't such a big deal to be scavenging behind Soda's back, trying to dig up the truth he says he can't remember after the fiasco at the parade. The doctors said mild amnesia from oxygen deprivation, maybe permanent, maybe temporary, we'll have to see. Maybe it's better he doesn't ever remember it ever again, he remembers all the important stuff about his family and most of his past, just not the war. Maybe this is the solution we've been seeking, a clean slate. But Darry and I decided we can't just leave well enough alone, not when a downfall's at stake. We need to know what kind of fire we might be playing with, and it sure as hell won't burn as hot as the last one, not on our watch.

"I just need some answers. Lord knows I won't be getting them from Soda."

"He's still saying he's forgotten everything from overseas?" Valerie never seems to trust Soda, even as she's never met him.

I shake my head in frustration, but confirm, "Yes."

"Hm."

"I'm sorry I didn't call, I know I said I'd be over for dinner. It's just... if I can understand what he went through over there, maybe I can help him. I don't think you just forget something like that and..."

"Mhm."

I start back to my typing after a second of figuring I have nothing left to say even as she's pining for me to feel more guilty than I do.

"I want to meet them." She says flippantly. My bones go floppy, if that's even a thing. "Your brothers. I think I'd like to meet them now. We got any Thanksgiving plans?"

When our eyes meet, I see a hint of empathy in hers, something I haven't seen in them before, so I nod, albeit hesitantly. "Soda and Grace are hosting this year."

"Mark me down as your plus one, then." And she turns to leave.

Author's Note:

I know, I know, that was the last dream sequence for a while before I completely overkill that style of writing. But we hadn't heard from a Soda dream yet, and damn there's a lot going on in that poor boy's head that couldn't go unexplored.

'Broken Crown' by Mumford and Sons was an inspiration for this chapter. (I know, I know, Mumford AGAIN? but hey, their CD (I know, I know, CD?!) is in my car so I've been jammin')

Also I read Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley for the first time a few weeks ago, and well, I'm sure that sort of bled into this chapter, too.

This chapter sort of just... happened. Still working through some writer's block and all that, but sometimes the best way out is THROUGH so I figured I'd keep on a-posting.

Thankful for all of you who keep reading :)