The blinds in my room were turned slightly upward to let in the moonlight. Ever since I moved to my new room, I preferred it that way. I had never really gotten used to the room, even when Casey lived with us. I always felt alone in the bedroom at the end of the hall. I missed the comfort of being right outside of Darry's room. He was strong and offered the kind of protection I didn't feel I could get from my other brothers who were across the hall from me now.
Tonight the light in the room seemed brighter than usual, or maybe it was due to my eyes being wide open for the past hour. Either way, I couldn't lull myself to sleep. My mind raced with question about Soda's heartache. When I wasn't thinking about him, my mind thought about the possibility of having to leave for a school I didn't want to be at. I wished I had been able to talk to Owen tonight. When I called him earlier, there was no answer at his home. I looked forward to seeing him in the morning at school. I also wished I had the time to talk to Soda about Ashford Academy before bed, but his heart was broken enough without me telling him about the possibility of my leaving too. Not to mention Steve and Two-Bit showed up right after dinner to take him out to get his mind off of his troubles. Worst of all, I wished I had my best girl friend to talk to, but sadly life seemed to circle around. Casey was the source of the first problem on my mind.
I tossed over to my side and closed my eyes. Across the hall, I heard a faint whimpering sound. Sodapop, poor guy. I climbed out of my bed and tip toed into his room. Inside, he had his back to the door, so I gently called his name. "Sodapop?" I sat on the edge of his bed.
Soda rolled towards me with a large frown on his face and tried not to cry too loud. "I miss her, Scout."
I frowned with him and tried to find something good to say. "Don't worry Soda. You are a great guy and there will be plenty of other girls." Soda sat up and struggled to control his cries. "Not her. I miss Mom!"
My eyebrows raised and my heart sank. "Me too." I muttered and hugged my brother tightly. Ponyboy stirred next to us. I looked at Soda and whispered. "Let's go to my room so we don't wake Ponyboy up." Soda nodded head in agreement. He climbed out of his bed, and slid on a pair of jeans that had been lying on the floor. He left them unbuttoned as the two of us walked into my room and sat on my bed in front of the slightly open blinds.
"I could really use a few good words from Mom and Dad myself." A memory flashed through my mind. "I completely forgot to tell you and Darry that James bothered me at school today."
"James?" Soda questioned and sniffled back his emotions. "You mean that kid that runs with Shepard's gang."
"Yeah, that one. He came up to me after school today and trapped me by my locker. He was kind of threatening me."
"Did he hurt you?" Sodapop straightened his posture a little and grew slightly concerned.
"No, there were a lot of people around, couple of Owen's friends and then Pony and Two-Bit came in and sent him on his way."
"That doesn't sound so bad."
I frowned a little. "I know it didn't sound like much, but it was eerie feeling. There was just something about the way he smiled at me and told me he'd see me around. It felt like he was threatening me."
"I'll tell you what. He better think twice about laying a hand on you. If I see him around here, he'll be wishing he was back in reformatory school."
"Thanks, So." I leaned my head back against my headboard and let my eyesight wander through the slits of my blinds. Outside, I noticed a dark figure in the gray moonlight. Immediately, my nerves grew tense. I jumped to my feet and backed up into the center of my room. I whispered in fright. "Soda, I think there is someone out there."
Sodapop pivoted on the bed and lifted a few slats to see out the window. Without a word he dropped the slats of the blinds then motioned to me. "Stay here."
"Did you see someone?" I whispered to him, but he ignored me and hustled towards the back door. Not wanting my brother to have to go alone, I followed close behind him. He didn't call me off as our bare feet pattered across the wooden porch floor. Soda raced through the screen door and ran toward the shadowy figure who seemed to be hiding underneath my bedroom window. He grabbed the intruder and pulled the person to the ground. "I'm gonna skin you!" Soda cocked his fist to throw a punch, but he held off as he heard a voice beg for him.
"Sodapop don't! It's me. It's Casey. Please, don't hurt me."
Sodapop lowered his fist and his demeanor shifted to one of concern. His fingers loosened their grip on Casey's bicep, but didn't let go. His eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness. "Casey? What are you doing here?" My brother asked hoping to hear the she had come for him. He helped her up from the ground.
"I didn't come to see you. I wanted to talk to Scout." Casey brushed off her shirt and nervously looked my way.
"We don't have anything to talk about!" I said, defending my brother's pride as best as I could.
"That's not true. You and I have everything to talk about. You are my best friend, and I don't want things to be bad between the two of us. We've been through so much together we are practically family."
I looked at my friend standing next to my brother, totally oblivious to the way he cared about her. Her absence of emotion for Sodapop's feeling made me angry. "We were a family, and you chose to break it up. So there is nothing to talk about." I motioned to my brother. "Come inside Soda, before you catch a cold."
"Wait! Scout you are not being fair. We had a pact. Friends forever, remember? You can't just walk away." Casey began to snivel. "I can't lose you. And I can't go on lying to Sodapop. I don't love him like I thought I did." Casey turned her teary eyes to my brother. "I mean… I did love you, but things have changed. In the beginning things were just so intense. With Scout being in the hospital and the trial and stuff, I really needed someone to show me that they cared about me. Once things got back to normal, I just didn't feel the same way. I tried, but I just couldn't."
Sodapop stared at Casey awhile as if her words were sinking in. Tears welled up in his eyes and his muscles slumped as he backed away from Casey. "I would have loved you forever. Hours ago I would have even begged you to stay, but I can see it aint going to do no good." He backed a few steps away from her.
Casey cried out. "Soda! Please don't be like that. Don't be mad at me. You are a great guy, but you are not the right guy for me."
Downtrodden, Sodapop questioned, "And Buck is?"
"No. He's just … well he's just there." Casey raised her chin a little to regain a bit of her pride. "And we haven't done what you are thinking we have done, and I wouldn't do that with him anyway! So quit worrying about me, I'll be fine and you're gonna be fine too." Soda bobbed his head slightly as if to agree with what she had said. Casey shoved her hands into the pockets of her Capri slacks and looked back to me. "Scout, can we please talk, just the two of us? Cause I have never had a friend as good as you, and I do not want to lose you over this."
I looked over to Sodapop who was walking towards me. His eyes struggling not to cry. I stared back towards her. "I don't think so, not tonight. I have a brother to take care of right now, and in my world, family means everything." With my stubborn mind-set I turned and followed my brother back into the house.
Casey cried out one last time before I shut the door. "Yeah? Well my sister means everything to me too." Seeing I wasn't coming back she turned and stormed off towards the alley, and into the darkness.
The porch door snapped shut, and Sodapop and I walked back into my room. I sat on my bed in a slump, and he walked over to lean against my dresser. "I wouldn't have cared if you talked to her." Soda clicked on the lamp. "Truth is, if that was Steve out there breaking up with you, I'd probably still talk to him."
"That's the difference between you and me Soda. Steve is your best friend, and even if I had found him the least bit attractive I still wouldn't have done anything about it, because he is your best friend."
He got lost in thought a moment. "I guess I didn't think about it that way. Why didn't you say all this when we asked you if your would be mad if we got together?"
"Soda! I couldn't even walk to the bathroom by myself. I had other problems besides my brother and best friend being in love." Soda looked to his feet, crossed his arms across his bare chest and shook his head. I waited for the punch line to his thought, but the tears that started to fall from his new cries troubled me. Seeing his tears begin to intensify, I hustled to shut my bedroom door to keep our conversation from waking anyone. I looked back to my brother. "Soda, why are you crying?"
Soda bawled a little harder for a moment then wrestled a few words out. "It's not Casey."
I walked up to my brother and grabbed his chilly, naked forearms. "Honey. What do you mean, it's not Casey?"
Soda's eyes seemed filled with shame. "Evie came into the station today." Soda took a few more deep breaths. "She told us Sandy gave birth to her baby. She's coming back to town with the little guy."
"Soda, it's going to be okay." I said gently, just to comfort him.
"When she got here I wanted her to think I had gotten over her. I wanted her to see me with Casey and wish she hadn't ever did what she did." My brother tried to plug his tears with his forefinger and thumb, but they were relentless. "I aint over Sandy. I aint over her and now I got no one to prove her wrong with."
I hugged my brother and he fell into me. Quietly, he wept into the crook of my neck. "Soda, you know this whole day would have been a lot easier on everyone if you would have just been honest with everyone."
"I know that now." He sniffled a few times then looked to give me advice. "Hey? You oughta talk to Casey next time she comes around. You two are best friends and she loves you a lot more than she loves me."
"I reckon I better. Tonight just wasn't the right time." I sat back onto my bed. Casey's proud demeanor flashed in my mind. "You know she'd be more than happy to strut around on your arm just to make Sandy jealous."
"I know she would." Sodapop said with a half-hearted grin. He turned around and grabbed a few Kleenex from the box on my dresser. He blew his nose twice and then grew quiet. I looked up to my brother and found him staring at the top of my dresser as if he was reading something. The letter from Ashford Academy! I stretched out my arm and my hand lunged for the letter I didn't want my brother to see. Noticing my movement he was swift as he grabbed the wrinkled piece of paper with his far hand and kept it away from me.
"Soda, give that to me." I demanded.
Soda used his free forearm to fend me off as he struggled with the words on the page so that they made sense to him. I tried to circle around my brother to retrieve the letter. He blocked my attempts, then he comprehended what the letter was asking me to do. Sodapop's jaw dropped along with the arm that held the letter from my grasp. I snatched the letter from his hand and backed away from him, onto my bed.
He stared at me in disillusionment. "How long have you had that letter?"
"I just got it." I said, sadly.
"Have you told Darry about it?"
"Darry gave it to me."
"I don't understand? They aren't sending you away, are they?" My brother's lip began to quiver and his endless supply of tears began to fall again.
"Oh Soda." I whined in disapproval. "You weren't supposed to see that letter just yet."
"I don't want you to go!" Soda cried out and crawled onto my bed with me.
His crying was infectious and tears of frustration welled up in my eyes. "Soda, calm down. No one is sending me away. It's just an opportunity, that's all."
"An opportunity for what?" Clearly, Sodapop didn't read the letter well enough.
I scooted over towards the wall giving my brother plenty of room to lie down. He lay down next to me and crossed his arms onto his chest. I stared up at the ceiling and explained to him the opportunities of going to an academy could give me that Tulsa High School couldn't. After I explained everything Soda had ceased his tears and he looked over at me. "When do you have to leave?"
I sighed heavy. "I haven't even decided to go."
"Are you crazy? You have to go!"
"No I don't, and I might not." I barked out of shock that Soda was in support of me attending the Academy.
"Why wouldn't you? This is the kind of thing Mom used to pray would happen for one of us kids."
"I'll give you five reasons." I snapped. "Darry, Sodapop, Ponyboy, Casey and Owen!"
Soda stayed quiet a second then looked over to me. "Those are good reasons, but I'll give you one good reason why you should go."
"What's that? Scout?"
"Yeah."