PONY'S POV
I was right when I said that Soda would get through the situation with Sandy. He went over to her place a couple of days after she told him and talked things over. Unfortunately, they broke up. I thought that was a wise decision on his part. I liked Sandy and all but I think that if she went behind Soda's back and slept with someone else once, she could do it again. Soda couldn't bare to go through that again.
Eventually, Soda had to explain what was going on to Darry. At first Darry was furious but thought that Soda was being pretty responsible about the whole thing. I think he was too. It took a lot for him to leave Sandy. I think he still loved her but deep down, he knew she would hurt him again.
One night I was sitting in my room trying to think of what I was going to say at that assembly thing when Anya walked in.
"Dinner's almost ready" she said, "what are you doing?"
"I'm trying to think of something to say at this assembly thing I have to go to next week" I said.
"What assembly thing?"
"Oh, it's this thing that the school is having. Mrs. Rose said that it was an "intercourse educational assembly" but I think it's just a way to scare kids into not doing it" I said.
"And Mrs. Rose asked you to speak?"
"Yeah, like give a testimony or something. She said she wanted me to ask people from the support group. I was thinking about asking Maddie" I said.
"That would be a good idea" said Anya.
"You'll be there, right?"
"Is it during the school day?"
"Yeah."
"Then I have no choice. I hate how they make us go to these stupid things if we don't need to hear it. Are you taking Davanee with you?" asked Anya.
"Yeah. She loves to see people and I think people love to see her" I said, writing down a new idea about what I was going to say.
"Maybe she'll grow up to be a performer or something" said Anya.
"Maybe."
"Well, I better go check on dinner before it burns and I burn the house down" said Anya.
I laughed and said "ok."
About 10 minutes later I finished up what I was going to say and joined everybody else out in the living room. Davanee was playing with her toys in her play pin while Two-Bit was sitting in front of the TV, watching an old episode of Mickey.
"Is that all you ever watch?" I asked.
"Yeah" said Two-Bit, his eyes glued to the TV. I was lucky I even got a yeah out of him. Usually, if you tried to talk to him during Mickey, he would just nod or ignore you entirely.
"Dinner's ready" announced Anya. Two-Bit reluctantly pulled himself away from the TV long enough to fix himself a plate of food. Once he was done, he took his plate and sat back down in front of the TV. Since Darry and Soda weren't home that night for dinner, we could eat wherever we wanted. Anya and I sat on the couch and tried to watch TV but it was impossible to see around Two-Bit.
"Two-Bit move" I said.
"No" said Two-Bit.
"Come on" I said.
"No, I don't want to" said Two-Bit. He sounded like a stubborn 2 year old when he said that. But then again, the thing I was about to do was pretty childish too. I took a pillow from the couch and threw it at the back of Two-Bit's head. He threw the pillow back at me, missed, and hit the lamp that was next to the couch. The lamp fell, the shade came off, and the bulb broke.
"Nice one genius, you broke it" I said, trying to fix it.
"I did not. All you have to do is replace the bulb" said Two-Bit.
"That's gonna be pretty hard to do since we don't have any bulbs to replace it with" I said, putting the shade back on the lamp. It was a little crooked but it was ok, just as long as someone didn't try to turn it on.
Just as I had finished fixing the lamp, Soda and Steve came home.
"Where's the mail?" asked Soda, taking off his shoes.
"It's on the kitchen table" said Anya.
Soda flipped through the mail hastily, throwing the bills and junk aside.
"It's just junk and bills" I said.
Soda threw the mail back on the table and joined Two-Bit and Steve on the floor in front of the TV.
After dinner was over, I gave Davanee a bath. I think there was more water on the floor then in the tub.
When I was getting Davanee ready for bed in her nursery, Soda came in.
"You know, Dallas stopped by work today" said Soda.
"What happened?"
"We got in a fight. But things worked out in the end" said Soda.
"That's good. You guys have known each other since you were kids. That's good that something like this hasn't totally destroyed your friendship" I said, laying Davanee down in her crib.
"Not totally. I mean, it's different but it's not totally gone. He explained to me what happened that night. He said that they both got drunk and got a little carried away" said Soda.
"Story of my life" I said.
Soda sort of smiled and walked out of the room, his hands in his pockets.
The next day was Monday. I never really liked Mondays but since I didn't have to go to school during the day, I guess they weren't so bad. I talked to Maddie that day.
"I don't know" said Maddie, bouncing Dillon on her hip.
"Come on, why don't you want to do it?" I asked.
"I don't like speaking in front of people. I'm not a very good public speaker" said Maddie.
"Neither am I but I'm still doing it" I said.
Maddie thought about it for a moment before finally saying "I guess I'll do it."
About a week later, both Maddie and I found ourselves waiting in the wings of the stage in the auditorium at school. I was starting to get nervous. It's funny because I wasn't nervous until about an hour before I had to speak.
Mrs. Rose did most of the talking, giving out statistics and all that. I knew that statistics wouldn't affect these kids. They don't care. I sat there and listened to Mrs. Rose. She sounded like she was a doctor or something. I listened to her a little while longer until she called me to the stage.
At first I just stood there, my mouth wide open, with every eye in the room on me.
They looked at me like I was crazy or something.
"Hi" I began. I figured hi was a pretty good place to start. "Umm, my name is Ponyboy Curtis." I could hear some snickers coming from the crowd when I said my name. It was ok though, I was use to it.
"This is my daughter Davanee. I know what you guys must be thinking. Trust me, I've been there before. You could be thinking this is so stupid. What's wrong with doing it just once? It's not like I'm going to die from it. I don't need to hear this. Nothing is going to happen to me. I use to think the same thing that is until one night at a party. You see, what happened was we both got drunk and nine months later I find myself getting up at 3 in the morning because she needs to be changed, or she's hungry, or she's sick. You think that just one night won't do anything. Nothing can happen from a one night stand. You're wrong. Sure, it'll seem like it's all fun and games at that moment but 9 months from then or when your doctor tells you you've got some disease you can't get rid of, it won't seem like fun and games. I'm not trying to be mean to you or anything, it's just the way things are. I wish it were different. I wish we didn't have to live with our mistakes but we do." The audience just stared at me as if they weren't paying attention. I continued to talk a little more about different thing pertaining to the subject matter. Then it was Maddie's turn. She said basically the same things I did but I guess you can't hear that kind of stuff enough.
Two-Bit picked me up from school
"How'd it go?" he asked.
"Pretty good" I said, "better than what I expected."
"Why, did you think it would go bad?"
"Sorta" I said.
The rest of the car ride was pretty quiet. Before we went home, we stopped by the DX.
"So it went well?" asked Soda.
"Yeah. What time do you get off?"
"About an hour" said Soda, "you wanna just wait and come home with us?"
"Yeah. I think Two-Bit said he had some other stuff to do today" I said.
"Two-Bit has stuff to do other than just sitting around? That's a shock" said Steve.
"Yeah, I know" I said. We waited for an hour for Soda and Steve to get off work. I let Davanee play with some of her toys while we waited. While we were waiting, Anya stopped by. She always stopped by the DX after school.
"How was your day?" I asked, sitting up on the counter with Davanee in my lap.
"Pretty good" said Anya, joining me on the counter.
"What was so good about it?"
"Well, for one thing I got to see you at school today" she said, smiling, "one of the reasons why I don't like school is because I don't get to see you."
"Maybe that'll change when Davanee starts going to daycare" I said.
"Yeah but that seems like such a long time for now. I don't know if I can wait that long" she said.
"I can always leave Davanee at home by herself. That's a good idea."
"I was just kidding. I can wait" said Anya.