Later that night, I was sitting in my room loosely sketching a picture of our house. I was trying to do it from memory, but it was harder than I would have thought. It's funny how, when you see something every day, after a while you don't really see it anymore. I was struggling to remember whether there were six or eight panes in the window in my parents' bedroom (Darry was right, it would always be their bedroom, regardless of who was sleeping in it) when there was a knock on my door.
"Yeah, come in." I figured it would be Darry telling me to go to bed. I didn't have to get up early anymore, but he still did, and I don't think he liked going to sleep unless he knew the rest of us were in bed, too. I was wrong, though. It wasn't Darry, it was Ponyboy.
He sat down on my bed and looked at my picture.
"The doorknob's on the right," he said, pointing to the front door in my drawing. "Pretty good, though."
"Thanks. I wish I could draw like you." I swear, Pony had a photographic memory; he was always remembering the tiniest details about stuff none of the rest of us even noticed.
"Eh, I'm not that good, either," he said, which was laughable. His talent for art was undeniable. He looked a little uncomfortable, and I attributed it to the episode earlier in the evening.
"I'm not mad at you, Pony. I know you didn't mean to scare me, before."
"Good, because I didn't. I can see how that would be scary, though, with your hands pinned down. I should have thought… I just forgot. I really am sorry."
"I know. I'm okay. Really."
"I know you don't want to talk about it, but, just… is there anything else like that, that... makes you remember? Something I could do without knowing it? I just… I don't want to repeat that, doing something I didn't even know would scare you."
So many thoughts were running through my mind… so many things Steve had done. It felt like a big list of Don'ts: Don't pin me against the wall. Don't force your tongue into my mouth. Don't punch me in the stomach, or hold a knife to my throat, or touch my body in places you have no right or permission to be touching. Don't bite me, for Christ's sake, and scare and shame me down to the very core of my being. Please, don't do any of these things, my mind was screaming. Most of all: Don't hurt me. Please, don't.
But I knew that the person sitting on the bed next to me never would do those things. He never would, knowingly, hurt me, or scare me in that way. So the list of things I never wanted anyone to ever do to me again stayed inside my head.
"It's complicated, Pony. Some things... I don't even know will make me remember until they happen. I knew what you were going to do to me – you were right, you've been doing that to me since – well, forever. And… I knew you wouldn't hurt me. Just… my brain took over."
"You sure can scream," he said, thoughtfully. That made me smile, for some reason.
"I guess so," I laughed.
"I wish I could have been home, that night, I just wish…"
"It's nobody's fault, Pony. It just happened."
"It's Steve's fault," he corrected me. "And I don't care if he was drunk, or on drugs, or whatever, I'll never forgive him for what he did to you. I mean it. It's just...completely unforgivable."
Strangely enough, the thought of forgiving him had never even entered my mind until Pony said it, just then. I had been putting so much energy into the fear and the shame and the struggling to get past it all, that it had never occurred to me that forgiveness would even be an option. I certainly didn't see it happening any time in the near future, but it seemed, in the grand scheme of things, that that might eventually be necessary in order to ever really move past it.
"Scout, if Ben ever tries anything with you…"
"Pony!"
"I'm serious. I mean, he's a guy, and guys just…"
"He wouldn't. God. He never would."
"I hope not. I'm just saying. Just, don't ever let him convince you to do something you don't want to do."
"I can't believe you're even saying that."
"Look, just because I'm not girl-crazy doesn't mean I don't know what goes on in guy's heads, okay?"
"Ben is nothing like Steve, Pony. He wouldn't hurt me."
"He'd better not. Because what Steve did pretty much makes me want to kill him. And the fact that it's still scaring and hurting you, so long after… I hate it. I wish we could just take you to a doctor and make you okay again, but I know it's not that easy."
"I don't know, Pone. All I know is... I'm just tired of being scared and mixed up all the time."
"Well, I can't say that I know how you feel, because I don't, but I really hope that you can stop being scared. We're not gonna let anything happen to you. Hopefully switching rooms will help."
"Yeah… Are you really okay with that? Darry being in Mom and Dad's room? I feel like everybody only agreed because of me."
"So what if we did? We want to help you. There's nothing bad about that. You're our baby sister."
I had never heard Pony call me that before, and I grinned. Darry and Soda called me baby all the time, to the point that I didn't even notice anymore, but never Pony.
"Baby sister?"
"You are," he said. "I mean, I guess I feel protective of you in a way that's different from Darry or Soda, because you're younger."
I supposed that made sense, in a way, though being the youngest meant that I had nobody of whom to feel protective in that way. It did explain why Darry was so protective of all of us, though, and why Soda was way more protective of me and Pony than he was of Darry, - as if he needed any protecting in the first place.
"I hate seeing you hurt. I mean, it actually makes me feel physically sick."
"I don't like seeing any of you guys get hurt, either. That fight scared the life out of me. I know that if anything happens to Darry, I'll end up in a foster home."
"So will I."
"I know. Do you worry about it?"
"Sometimes. Seems sometimes like we've got enough things to worry about that we could worry ourselves right into the grave."
"I know. Funny, huh? Most kids our age think their parents having a fight or having a pimple or getting grounded is the end of the world."
"Yeah, I guess our world view is a little different," Pony agreed.
"I'm glad I don't have to go through it all alone," I admitted.
"Me too... We may not be perfect, but at least we have each other."
"Yeah." I couldn't argue with that one.
"Scout?" Darry was suddenly outside my door.
"Yeah, come in." He opened the door and looked surprised to see Pony sitting there with me. Darry was far more accustomed to the eleven years of constant bickering that Pony and I had shared than the mutual understanding that we had more recently discovered for each other.
"Everything okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, everything's cool," Pony answered. "Let me guess, you want us to get to bed, right?"
"That would be nice," he said. "Some of us do have to work in the morning."
"Soda asleep?' Pony asked.
"Yup. Been in bed for an hour. Try not to wake him up, okay? I don't think he's sleeping all that well."
"Okay. Night, Scout." Pony ducked under Darry's arm that held him propped up against the doorway and headed down to his room.
"What were you two talking about, anyway?" Darry asked.
"Just… stuff. He felt bad about what happened outside."
"I figured he would. You set him straight?"
"Yeah," I laughed. He came over and sat on the edge of my bed.
"You think you'll be okay tonight? After all that?"
"I hope so."
"Well, you know you can come get me, right? I won't be mad."
"I know."
He looked at me like he was trying to decide whether or not to believe my answer. He suddenly looked so much like my Dad I almost wanted to cry. I had to look down.
"Hey, Dar?"
"Yeah?"
"You said before that you had to tell the lawyers tomorrow about going to court… for the accident?"
"Yeah."
"I want to, okay? I want to do it."
"Are you sure? You don't have to, and I mean that. I don't want you to be making a decision based on an unknown amount of money that we may or may not even get. You already have far more than enough stress."
"I won't worry about it, okay? I mean it - I really want to do it. You were right, our accident never even should have happened. People died and everything… me and Soda could have died, even."
"Thank God you didn't."
"So... will you tell them I'll do it?"
"Okay. But… no stressing about it. It's not supposed to be a stressful thing. None of us did anything wrong; all you have to do is tell the truth about the green light."
"Okay."
"Alright, you sleep tight, okay? I'll let you sleep in the morning, so I'll see you after work."
"Okay… Darry?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for including me and Pony in the family discussion. It means a lot."
He smiled at me.
"Yeah, I know. You were right about you two needing to be included. Our family is four, not two. So, you're welcome. Night Scout."
"Night, Darry."
………………………………….
I slept until almost noon the next day, finally shuffling into the living room in my pajamas to find Pony and Soda watching TV.
"Ah, Sleeping Beauty lives," Soda said, pulling me down on the couch next to him. "You were pretty tired, huh?"
I had been, and I hadn't felt so well rested in as long as I could remember. Sleeping in the morning, knowing that Soda and Pony were both in the house had allowed me to sleep with an ease I hadn't felt in months.
"Just in time for lunch," Pony said, getting up and heading toward the kitchen. "Scout, you're mustard, right?"
"I'm mustard, Pony. She's mayonnaise!" Soda laughed, and I had to join in. Someday he would figure it out.
……………………..
Two-Bit came over again in the afternoon and amused us non-stop with his stories about the nurses at the hospital and their "secret feelings" for him. I made pork chops with baked potatoes for dinner, and Darry was in a good mood again when he got home, joking all through supper about the old man whose roof he was working on and how he was trying to recruit Darry as his best friend, even climbing up the ladder to sit on the roof and talk with him while he worked. I could imagine that must have driven Darry nuts; he's not the kind of guy who wants you talking his ear off when he's in the middle of a project.
It was a good day. As much as I mourned for how things had been at the start of the previous summer, things were feeling, well, almost okay. After dinner we all watched TV together, kidding around and just being… us. We laughed at each other and bickered with each other, but there was a feeling present, a sense of us being bound together as a team, a feeling that had been lacking for a while, in my mind, anyway. Then again, maybe I had just been too removed from everything to be able to sense it. I felt included again, rather than being on the outside looking in.
I fell asleep easily, and slept dreamlessly through the night.
…………………
I awoke to rain pounding against my window, looked at my clock and, seeing six-forty five, immediately turned over and went back to sleep, thinking how, since it was raining, Darry would be home. Daylight, and all three brothers were in the house. I slept again, completely devoid of fear.
When I awoke next, my clock read nine-thirty. It was no longer pouring, just drizzling, but I could hear Soda and Darry in the living room and I knew Darry would be in by ten to wake me up. I just lay in bed, awake, listening to them talk, feeling warm and safe, and liking the feeling. Soda was trying to convince Darry to take him back out to Muskogee so he could look at the wreckage of his car and see for himself if it could be salvaged.
"Soda, that car was worth nothing to begin with. Just save up again and buy another wreck. I can't help you out, but maybe you can get Pony to quit smoking … that'll be a couple bucks extra a week."
I'd been right, Soda was Pony's cigarette supplier.
"You don't have to go, Darry, just let me take the truck, I'll drop you off at work."
"Soda, you're on pain medication. You're not taking the truck anywhere."
"Dar, I won't take one. I just want…" The doorbell rang, cutting him off.
I heard the door open and Soda talking, then:
"Thanks, Sam." Our new mailman was quite the overachiever, he actually rang the doorbell and handed over the mail if someone was home, rather than just sticking it through the slot. I heard Soda going through the pile.
"Bill, bill, bill… uh oh."
"What?"
"Guardian of Samantha Curtis. And it's thick."
I felt sick. That's how everything from Social Services was always addressed, with my real name and "guardian of." A thick envelope? What did they want now?
"Give it here." I heard Darry rip it open.
"Oh, shit. No way."
"What? What, Darry? Jesus, what's wrong?" Soda expressed the panic I felt.
"I totally forgot."
"Oh, man..." Soda must have been reading whatever it was. "She's gonna hate us. I didn't even… I forgot, too."
I wanted to bury myself in my bed and never come out, hiding from whatever that letter said, but, in the same way, I needed to know. Whatever it was, it had Darry and Soda upset, and Darry had promised that, from now on, we would face things as a family. I wish that could have prepared myself for the sight of their faces as I stood in the living room door and they turned to face me.
"Oh my God, Scout," Darry said, "I just didn't think... I forgot."
"We're so sorry, baby." Soda looked like he was about to cry. Crap, did we all have a meeting or something with Social Services and they'd forgotten? Would I get taken away just because of that?
I steeled myself for the bad news, whatever it might be. It just seemed like it was always something. It was obvious from Darry and Soda's expressions that they felt horrible about whatever it was, and obvious from the address on the letter that iit involved me.
"What is it? What happened?"
Darry and Soda both looked at me, but neither one spoke.
"Please," I begged, quietly, "Whatever it is, just tell me."
Soda looked down at the papers in his hand and drew in a breath, preparing to deliver whatever the latest batch of bad news contained.
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A/N: That was mean, I know. Sorry. I'll try to update soon. :-) I've had a bunch of new readers lately, starting way back at Epiphany, so I thank you if some of you are recommending my story! I really appreciate it!