Disclaimer: No I don't own it morons, obviously if I'm writing on FAN FICTION!
A/N: This chapter is written in the POV of Ponyboy. Okay this is defiantly one of my favorite chapters I've written in awhile. Personally I'm very proud of it. But I would love to know what you, my loyal readers think!!! So review for me! I accept flamers, and I love constructive criticism. This is for the people who had to go to school this week, maybe it will make you feel better!!!
Chapter Three: There's A First Time For Everything
"Soda, you're kidding. Please tell me this is a sick joke of yours." I backed into the corner of the kitchen shaking my head. I refused to believe what he was trying to tell me.
He stood there in his uniform; he would have looked mighty hansom if it didn't make him look like a clone. "Pone, why would I lie to you about something like that?" Soda's eyes were brimming with tears.
I couldn't understand why he would want to do this. Didn't he realize this was tearing apart our family more than it had been when Mom and Dad died. We needed him. He was the only one keeping me sane since what happened with Johnny and Dally. He was my life line, he understood me.
But for the first time in my life I hated Sodapop Patrick Curtis. I hated him, I hated the President, I hated fighting, and most of all I hated Steve Randel. It was him who dragged him into this mess anyways.
My throat closed tightly, and my eyes were stinging. The hate that I have never felt before, not even for a Soc, bubbled inside me and for a second I thought I would punch him in the face.
Darry walked in from a long day at work, putting his car keys on the coffee table.
"Darry! Darry, tell Soda he can't enlist. Tell him he has to stay." I was pleading with him, as tears were escaping eyes. My grip on the dining room chair turned my knuckles white.
"Tell him to stay." I repeated quieter. But Darry just gave me a look of sympathy.
"If this is what he wants to do, then we have no say in this Ponyboy." He answered looking from Soda to me, then back to Soda.
He didn't even make a move to apologize for destroying any hope I had for being a normal kid again. "I hate you Sodapop Curtis." I said in all seriousness, before I ran out of the house, the screen door falling off the hinges in the process.
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The wind was whipping my reddish hair around my face, and the cold December air froze the tears on my cheeks. I collapsed to the ground that I knew so well from the past two years. In front of me were the graves of Dallas Winston and Johnny Cade, I was sobbing and my chest hurt from all the running.
I fumbled with my cigarette pack that was folded in my shirt sleeve; the craving for a cancer stick grew stronger as my hands shook. I lit up and my body was warmed from the smoke in my lungs.
"Soda's leaving us. He's enlisting in the army; he and Steve are being shipped off to Vietnam for the war." I choked out the words and blew a perfect smoke ring.
"What if he doesn't come back? What if I never get to say goodbye." My lips were quivering and I traced the words on Johnny's grave.
Stay Gold.
"I'm trying Johnny, I'm trying so hard. But things just seem to be getting worse. I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. He's the only one I can talk to since you, since you……left. He can't leave me, it's just not fair!" I was having a breakdown; I was loosing control, and I was blowing my cool. I had built myself up over the past two years to the point of not being able to feel anything, just to have it torn down by my selfish brother.
My head ached so bad that if I didn't know better I would have thought I was hung over. So to ease the pain I laid my head on the cold marble of the tombstone. Darkness fell fast and I fell asleep beside my best friend's body just like the old days in the vacant lot.
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When I got home late the next day, Darry was sitting in his usual spot waiting for me to come home, reading the local newspaper.
I went straight to my room. After the scene I had caused the night before I wasn't looking forward to any social situations with Darry or Soda.
The house was quiet, no games of poker, no Mickey Mouse, no arm wrestling, no radio, it was noticeably empty, like something very vital had left it. That's when I suddenly realized that Sodapop had gone off to war early that morning. My sweet, understanding, happy go lucky, brother had been sent off to the jungles of another country to kill millions of innocent men, women, and children.
I picked up the phone and dialed a familiar number.
"Hello?" A quiet voice answered on the other side.
"Hey M&M, can you put Cathy on? Tell her it's important." I was playing with the ends of my bed sheet unraveling the strings one by one.
"Okay hold on." There was silence until her voice broke through.
"Ponyboy, what's the matter." She sounded worried.
"It's Soda, he's gone. He's gone off to war." My voice cracked.
"Oh Ponyboy………" I could hear her sniffling on the other end.
A/N: I hope you liked it as much as I did!!!! Please review it means the world to me!!! And I also put Cathy and M&M in for those of you who read That Was Then, This Is Now. I showed how M&M's voice had changed from being calm and trusting, to timid and quiet.