"Well Ponyboy…." I trailed off. I wasn't sure how to begin.
"Listen, Cherry, if you don't' want to tell me, that's okay. I understand. I'll just be leaving. Darry's gonna be worried sick as it is because I'm late for a dinner I won't eat anyway…" He turned to leave and started walking.
"Ponyboy wait!" I yelled a little too loudly.
"What is it Cherry?" I told you if you're not ready to talk that I understand. It's because I'm a greaser."
"No, it's not that," I pleaded. "It's just I don't know how to start. You're the only one I can tell. Nobody knows about my past. Not even Bob knew. You're the only person who will ever be able to understand what I've been through. So please, just stay long enough for me to begin. I'll probably only be able to start tonight, but if you sit by me at lunch for the next couple of days, I'll tell you the rest then."
"I don't know….Won't your Soc friends get mad if I'm sitting with you?" he asked hesitantly.
"I don't hang out with them. Any of them. They only treated me nicely because I was dating Bob. Now that he's gone…" My voice died off. It was too hard for me to continue. But the look in Pony's eyes said that he understood.
"Okay. But can you start soon? I really don't want Darry to worry," he replied. His eyes pleaded with me. I could read every single emotion that he felt. He didn't have to speak a word. It was like reading a book.
"Here it goes. When I was born, my parents had already had one child. She was 4 when Shawn and I were born. Two weeks later, Alex died of pneumonia. She had really week lungs and the pneumonia was just too much. My parents were devastated. They tried to have another child, but they couldn't," I said in sort of a rush. It was hard for me, and I took a deep breath.
"Is Shawn your twin?" Ponyboy asked in that short amount of time that I took a breath.
"Well, he was. That's the next part. When we were two, my father was overseas. He's in the military. I don't remember where he was, but I do remember that he was overseas. My aunt had brought my cousins over for lunch after church one Sunday. Jacob, who is my age, Shawn, and Christopher, who is older than Jacob by 14 years, were playing chase in the cul-de-sac. Our neighborhood was really safe. We weren't a very rich neighborhood, but we had a security guard and a gate to keep unwanted visitors out along with a neighborhood watch system in which all of the people in the neighborhood were apart of.
"Apparently, a prank call, totally unrelated to what was going on that day, called the lady who was on duty that afternoon. They told her that all of her family that lived in New York had been killed that day with the exception of her youngest son and his wife and one of her other children's daughter. It turned out to be a wrong number, but the news caused her to have a heart attack. The security guard escorted her to the hospital, but the gate was left open.
"Ten minutes later, a drunk driver came barreling down the 25 MPH road. Christopher noticed somebody going down the road way to fast and grabbed me and Jacob. He yelled for Shawn to follow us, but Shawn didn't listen to anybody except for my dad."
I had to take a long steadying breath here. This was always the hardest part. I couldn't stand to remember it, let alone speak it out loud.
"Maybe we should pick up here tomorrow, Cherry. By the look on your face and the pain in your eyes, the next part is really difficult for you. So let's just finish tomorrow," Ponyboy said, looking me straight in the eyes.
"Thanks Ponyboy." I knew just from that that he really truly cared for me. That care and understanding meant more to me then than anything else in the world.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Cherry," Ponyboy added. Just then, Darry drove up in his truck and honked his horn. I waved and walked inside as the Curtis brothers drove off.