A Place Deep Within
Ninth chapter - Need to breathe
October 24 - evening
Darry literally kicks me out of the house. He's tired of my expression.
"Ever since Pone..." He hesitates, not sure what words to use, then quickly decides for two, "... ran away, all you've done is work or sit home and worry. Go out and have some fun."
Like you have done different, I think while Steve takes the opportunity to grab my shoulder and force me through the front door to his car on the curb.
"Get in," he commands, and I surrender, open up the passanger door and throw myself down on the worn seat. I'm exhausted, and I realize I need time to breathe. To be me. Hopefully, I can catch up within myself this Wednesday night at the drive in. Steve hear his name, his head snaps up. Darry stands on the porch.
"Don't bring him back until midnight!" he shouts, and Steve saluts him.
"Sure, boss!" I wonder when they made this up. It feels like they have gone behind my back, and I don't know if I should be angry, or thankful. Right now I'm both.
Steve's quiet while driving, eventually parks beside a familiar jalopy at the Dingo, and I open my window to lean out to knock on the opposit one.
"Two-Bit!"
He sits in the backseat, his arm thrown over some blonde's shoulders, his lips all over her. When he hear me, he turn his head and grins.
"Well, look at that! Finally out of the house, Soda?" He's drunk, his girl giggles.
"I told ya," Steve says to me and takes his keys. "Come on."
We leave the car and the air is dark. Chill. Clear. I feel free and guilty. Something's wrong with my brother, and I'm here, trying to enjoy myself. What kind of brother does that? My whole body, soul, screams at me to move, to don't care, and I shake my head, trying to get rid of the thought that this is okay. But Steve sees more than I thought he would.
"Don't," he sputters. "You can think about him all day tomorrow if you'd like, but not tonight." His grip on my arm is firm, and I don't protest when he drags me between cars and crowds. I recognize faces, and sometime during the evening I start to talk and laugh and everything feels so normal, so fine, and I think that when I gets home, I must thank Darry for this. Steve eyes me now and then, and everytime he sees more and more relieved. I guess their plan worked. I'm out, I'm here, I'm the usual Sodapop.
Suddenly Evie is here too, she waves at me and puts her arm around Steve's waist. I leave them alone for a moment, drinking my Coke on the hood of a car, decline a smoke and take deep drags of life instead. Sometimes life is beautiful.
Until someone taps my arm.
"Soda? Sodapop?"
I recognize her, but first I can't place her. She looks different. When I knew her, she had dark hair, now its bleached and longer. Her lips are red, curled around a cigarette, and I know she didn't smoked then. But it was a long time ago, she's the girl before the girl before Sandy. We were never that serious, but I should remember her name. And then it comes.
"Darlene?"
She smiles. "That's me. How you been, Sodapop?" She leans her head, blinking with blue eyes.
"I'm fine," I tell her, and realize its true. For the night I am. I discover I lean forward while we talk, my mouth close to her ear, and she giggles at the right spots. The painful pit in my heart that belongs to Sandy feels smaller, not that I'm in love with this girl, I could never love her, but it feels good to at least feel something different than neglected and hurt. Maybe I can forget Sandy, some day.
"So," she says after a time that feels like half an hour, like this was what she has been waiting for to speak up. "Whats the thing with your brother?" She takes up her cigarette pack, offers me one that I shake my head no to.
"Which one?" I straighten up a bit, not sure where this will go.
"The little one." She waves with her lighter, gesture an inch below her own height.
"Ponyboy? What about him?"
I don't want to talk about Pony. Not tonight, not with her. Her expression has changed, she looks thrilled, and it hits me, she's not flirty, she digs for gossip. That was the reason we never came to a point were we did more than kiss that while ago. How could I forget?
"He's a bit strange, ain't he? Since he killed that Soc-"
"He didn't killed anyone," I snap, and she seems to catch herself.
"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean that. But you have to admit he's weird Soda. I know he's your kid brother and all, can't you tell me what's wrong with him?"
"Nothin's wrong," I say irritated, jump down from the car to walk away from her, but she takes my hand.
"I didn't mean to upset you," she tells me. "But everyone knows its something. People talks, Soda."
"Then they should shut up," I say. "You don't even know him."
"I'm goin' in the same school as he," she informs me. "I know he's only been back like a week, but-"
"There's no buts. Pony's fine." And what can she know? She's two years older than my brother, I doubt they have classes together. I snatch my hand back from her grip.
"All right," she says, but I can hear she doesn't believe me. I take a few steps, she doesn't follow. And I hate myself for it, but I turn around, anxious to know. I have to know.
"Talks how? What'd they say?"
She has pity in her eyes now, and I wonder what I ever saw in her back then, why I held her hand and kissed her behind the school building. She's definately not Sandy. Her eyes moves away from me, her cheeks a bit red. Apparently I didn't react like she thought I would.
"You know what, I don't think they say anything," she avoids me. "Um, I have to go." She turns around, stumbling on high heels between an arguing couple, looking back at me before she disappears. And I suddenly know Steve's been hiding things from me.
He and Two-Bit drinks beers, their girls hovers nearby, talking to each other in low voices. Evie smiles, the blonde girl throws glances at Two-Bit, bows her head to Evie and whispers something. Evie laughs out loud, making Steve look at her, and he discovers me.
"Soda?"
"What the hell, Steve!" I say, snatching his beer from him. He misunderstand.
"I thought you can drive home, you never drink anyway," he mutters.
"What?" I shake my head. "No, I was..." I look around, realizing I don't want this talk in public. "I just wanna talk to ya," I say, and he cocks an eyebrow in Two-Bitstyle.
"What happened to Darlene?"
I don't answer, instead I stick my hand in his jack pocket, fishing up the keys and walks away, sure he'll follow, and he does. We close the doors after us, and I stare out through the wind screen.
"What does people say about Pony in school?"
Steve sighs and leans his head backwards, his hands limp in his knee. "Damn, Soda."
"Skip the bullshit and just tell me," I snap. "I'm not in the mood tonight, Steve."
His jaw is clenched, and I know it's not a good sign. "Steve..."
"It's just rumors, Soda. Gossip. Someone says somethin' and people are stupid enough to believe it."
"I told ya to skip the-"
"The bull, I know." He lift his hands and place them on the steering wheel. "All right. Someone heard him talk to Johnny and now everyone seems to take it for true."
I don't get it, or maybe I just don't want to.
"So? He was his best friend for christ sake. Of course he talks about him."
Steve looks at me, his face solemn.
"Not about, Soda. To."
That almost makes me laugh. Not in a funny way.
"He can't talk to him, he's dead."
I land hard. Oh crap.
I saw him, Soda, he was there!
Who are you talkin to?
No one.
He's not crazy.
He's just a young boy who has gone through a lot the past year.
"Damn it," I moan.
XXX
October 25 - midday
This place isn't mine. It smells weird, old paper, dust and detergent in an odd mix, and it's too quiet to fit me. People doesn't walk here, they sneak behind shelves, no one talks. I go to the front desk, clear my throat and makes the lady behind it look up from the pen and paper she holds in her hands. She looks at me, up and down, frowning a bit.
"I'm lookin' for a book, " I tell her, and she raises her eyebrows behind her big glasses. I shift uneasy, feeling stupid. How do people do this? "A... a book about sick people."
"Sick people?" Her voice reveals her thoughts. I'm a greaser.
"Well... like, in their... heads."
"Fiction or fact?"
"What?"
"Do you want a book which's made up, or a reference book about illnesses?"
I pick what sounds right. "I guess a... reference book."
She leaves her spot and walks me inside the labyrinth of bookcases to the far corner. She gestures at the section, and all I can see is thick books lined up beside each other, shelf after shelf.
"Some special illness?" she asks me, and I feel the sweat in my palms when I clutch my hands to fists.
"Um... if someone doesn't exist but a person... talks to him and sees him... um..."
"Hallucinations?"
Is that the word for it? I try to nod, and apparently, she notice. She starts to search, read the titles, now and then drags out a book and lays it in my outstretched arms.
"Well, I'm not a doctor so I really don't... " she mumbles to herself, then a bit louder, "...but here's one about schizophrenia... here, another one... psychoses..."
The books burns and I feel bile up my throat.
"Actually, I don't want a book." I throw them back to her, force them into her fathom, her face taken aback when she drops one while I turn around and run out from the library, her words cutting into my head, makes it ache. She's wrong. Of course she is. She said it herself, she's no doctor. She doesn't know a thing. And I remember, I don't like books. I never have.
XXX
Ten years earlier - autumn
"Did'ya know there's a place with a lots a lots a lots of books you can borrow for free?" Pony breathes out beside me. I look up from my homework, glad to be distracted from it. "It's called librany."
"Library," Mom corrects him while finishing the dishes.
"Library. And Mom's gonna take me there. You'll come too, Soda?"
I drop my pen and close my school book with a thud. "No. I don't like books."
Pony pouts."I love them."
"You can't even read," I tease him.
"Can too!" He puts up the picture book he got for his birthday some months ago on the table beside me and opens it. His small finger follows the short line. "One... day... when... Baby... Bear... woke... up..."
"Very good, Ponyboy," Mom smiles at him. "Are you ready so we can go? How about you Sodapop?"
"No," I mutters. "I hate books." I glare at the one in front of me, and Mom puts a hand on my shoulder.
"Take a break, Soda. I'll help you with your homework when we gets home again."
Pony snuggles up beside me. "Me too!" Then his eyes pleads. "Please Soda, come!"
"No." I hesitate. "Not today."
"Some other day?"
"Maybe."
But only if I really, really have to.
XXX
October 25 - midday
I bump into someone standing on the pavement, and when I look up, I see the black eye and the madras shirt. He doesn't know me, but I know him. Maybe he's not the right person, but really, I don't care. He stands for all the trouble, for all my fears, and I hate to feel so vulnerable. I can't stand it. His mouth forms around a word I don't even hear.
Just punch, hit, kick. Someone always has to pay, and now it's him.
At least it's not Pony this time.
Beta-readed by bookwormgrl101, thank you so much for your help!
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