The day went by slowly and it felt as if seven o'clock would never come, I hadn't even thought of what to tell darry, all I knew was that I had to help soda in order to help me, finally when the time came I braced myself knowing what risk I was putting on myself for helping soda
soda came into the living room and almost went out the door but quickly stopped to talk to me "tell darry I went out to get something at DX I'll be back by nine"
"I'll do my best" I said knowing that darry might never fall for such a stupid excuse, soda ran out the door and hopped in the old truck, I watched him drive off and darry came in
"where's he going"
I suddenly turned around and caught up with my thoughts "he uh, he left something at DX" I said
darry looked out through the door "he can at least be more organized" he mumbled then walked back into the kitchen to finish up dinner
it had been a while since Soda had gone out on a date, and every time he did he would inform darry of it, what must it feel like to be darry, wondering if his little brother will make it home at night, sleeping in fear of what might happen to us if he screws up
"dinner's ready" I heard darry yell and snapped out of my thoughts
I came in tiredly feeling kinda drowsy
"you okay ponyboy, you ain't looking to good" he tried to feel my forehead by I quickly sat down
"I'm fine darry, really" I said trying to convince him and myself, it's hard to think that the whole date thing could just really be an excuse for soda to go enroll in the army
"you'd better get some rest after you eat, I don't want you getting sick on me" he said as he sat down beside me
I barely touched my dinner, the thought of lying to darry killed me, and wondering if soda lied to me, I got in bed and slowly fell asleep
"ponyboy two-bit's here" I heard my mom call I ran to the door
"hey, I'll be right out" I said and ran to grab my jacket my mom kissed me and I heard dad tell me to have a nice time, I heard sirens all of the sudden and saw mom and dad lying on stretchers being carried from the car bursting in flames to the ambulance
"no!" I screamed and woke up, I couldn't move, only my eyes, not a muscle it was as if I was paralyzed, I saw my parents soaked in blood at my bedside, they were talking to me but in a different language, I could barely breath and I couldn't scream for help, I was wide awake yet I wished it was all a dream, I laid there helpless and in fear
the next morning I told darry what happened and he rushed me to the doctor, he said it was something called sleep paralysis where you wake up paralyzed and start hallucinating, when we got home darry asked me where soda was and I told him I didn't know, it was the truth, he was late and nobody knew where he had been, later he came in through the door and darry gave him a talk about what had happened
"soda, why didn't ya come home last night?" I asked
"Jessie and I went out to take a walk I guess we got carried away, I knew it felt longer than I'd though" he paused "I'm sorry about what happened yesterday pony, I didn't mean to let all this affect you"
"shoot no more you than anybody, it ain't your fault" I said
soda tried to laugh and I could tell something was bugging him "i promise I'll be here for ya tonight"
"thanks" It got quiet for a while but then I spoke up "how was it"
soda looked up at me confused
"how was the date" I repeated
I saw a tear run down his cheek "fine" he said
I could tell he was lying "what really happened" I said, I had just suddenly realized what just come out of my mouth, I wanted to slap myself for being so stupid
he looked up at me slowly then looked back down "it just didn't work out" he whispered
I could tell how much hurt he was in and I decided it was time to shut my trap
soda started bursting into tears "i don't understand why I'm losing everything so quickly in life" he whispered "nothing's going right for me, my life is jacked up and it seems as if it's only gonna get worse" he said
I stared watching his emotions run wild
"i just doesn't make sense, everything use to run smoothly until johnny and Dallas died, it's as if their death has caused us all this trouble, their death has cost us all we love, all we had, everything we needed to keep the gang going"
I started crying, soda looked at me and hugged me
"don't cry pony" he said trying to comfort me, he put his arm around my shoulder "listen, just because my life is turning to trash, don't give up on yours, I don't have a reason to live, but you have an education you can make big things out of this"
I was still silent
"don't lose hope" he said then helped me up, he walked me into our room and we sat their for a while, crying and winding down, I know how much sandy meant to soda, and her betrayal is what caused all of this, if there was any way to fix all of this it was to reunite soda and sandy so they could talk everything out, and that's just what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna get them to talk to each other one last time