Sodapop was already seventeen that summer, but I was still a few months away from being sixteen. I guess some people would say that's too young for some of the things that happened, but that wouldn't change the fact that they happened.
Like the first time I told Soda I loved him.
He took me riding, like he did a lot of the time. Usually Soda would give me a boost because I was real short and it was hard for me to get on the horse, even though she always stood still and waiting for me.
But this time when he placed his hands on my waist to lift me up I told him, "No, I can do it."
I backed up and kind of ran and jumped so I could grab the saddle horn and pull myself up. I could hear Soda laughing and when I had gotten myself properly in the saddle I looked over and saw him practically doubled over.
"Oh, Brookie," he said, swinging himself into the saddle just behind me. Soda's arms came around me to take the reins and he leaned down to kiss the top of my head. "I just love you."
He hadn't meant to say it, but I think it's better that way. I think you mean it more when it just slips out because it's the truth and not something you planned.
I knew he was surprised, because I felt him tense up around me and he didn't tell the horse to go.
So I put my hands on top of his on the reins and told him, "I love you, too."
My back was to Soda so I couldn't see his smile, but I could practically feel it when he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me into him.
Or like the night in my bed.
"I don't really know what we do here," I told Soda. I was whispering like we could get caught even though we were the only ones home. We had been kissing on the couch, but I was the one who had suggested that we go to my bedroom.
"Well, I don't either." We were both sitting cross-legged on my bed facing each other. The lights were off, but the moon was full and it lit up my room pretty good.
"Really?" I asked. I sounded a lot more surprised than I meant to. Soda was so handsome, I just figured at some point before me he had. Lucky for me Soda just laughed it off nervously.
"I told you there was no way Sandy's baby coulda mine." Soda took my hand. He was right, he did tell me that. I just thought he meant he hadn't slept with Sandy, not that he hadn't with anybody.
"Well, I think laying down probably helps some." My voice sounded shaky and Soda's hands were shaky but he wrapped his arm behind my back and laid me down so that he was above me.
"I think it does," he said. Soda kissed me for a while, and I didn't stop him when his hands slipped under my blouse. In fact, I sat up so he could slip it over my head. It was stupid, but all I could think was that I was happy I was wearing the newest bra I had, a pink one.
I didn't know I was holding my breath until Soda reached out and touched me softly just above the top of my bra.
"You really are beautiful, Brooklyn." Soda hardly called me by my full name. He usually called me Brookie.
I blushed and Soda laughed a little, moving his hand across my chest.
"You don't just blush in your face," he said, tracing the line of the blush. I laughed too, because I was kind of nervous and I didn't even know that about myself.
"Are you scared?" I asked Soda, and I didn't mean to. But he found both of my hands to hold and looked me in the eye.
"Yeah, a little. But I still want to. If you don't, it's okay." I knew he meant it, but it had been my idea. So, yeah, I wanted to.
"No, I do!" I said and blushed again.
"Okay," Soda laughed. "You can take my shirt off, too." So I did.
We continued on that way, taking turns taking off each other's clothes until there was nothing left to take off.
Soda was still propped above me and he smoothed my hair away from my face.
"It might hurt. I mean, people say it's s'posed to." He looked worried. "I don't want to hurt you."
"It's okay," I told him. "I'll tell you if I need you to stop."
And it did hurt at first, more than I thought, and Soda wiped the tears off my face with his thumbs. It got better from there, though, and after we were both so sleepy. I was laying curled around Soda with my head on his chest and I could barely keep my eyes open.
"You have to get up," I told him. "You have to go home or Darry'll kill you."
Soda laughed, and even that sounded tired. "Your New York accent comes out when you're tired. Reminds me of when I met you."
I remembered what Soda was talking about. We moved to Oklahoma a little after Dally got jailed in New York, when he was 10 and I was almost 8. The only reason I met Karen was because Dally had become friends with Two-Bit and the rest of the gang.
Soda was right, we did have New York accents back then. They changed after a few years in Tulsa, but the first words Sodapop Curtis had ever said to me were, "Man, y'all talk weird!" His hair was a lighter shade of blonde then, almost like Dally's, and he was missing three of his front teeth, two on top and one on the bottom. He had been 9 years old.
A few weeks after that night, my cousin Grace turned up in Tulsa. She did that pretty regularly, actually. I really liked my Aunt Rachel and Uncle Jim and they were real good to Grace and their other kids, but Grace was what my dad like to call 'spunky'.
"She's just real spunky," Dad would say. "And it better not rub off on you." When he said spunky, he was saying nicely that he didn't approve of the way she acted. If you wanted to see a girl who was every awful thing the Socs called us, you could just look at Angela or my cousin Grace. That didn't mean they weren't good people, because they were, but they were wild.
Grace was a little bit older than me and last time she'd come around, her hair was all cut off shorter than a boy's for whatever reason. But this time it was long and silky like it had been before, and it was a lot of different shades of blonde.
"Hi, baby cousin," she said, walking up to me with a cigarette in her mouth that I knew was not tobacco.
"Should you be smoking that in public?" I asked. You could smell how sweet it was, how obviously not tobacco it was. I was sitting on one of the abandoned car seats in the vacant lot, French braiding Karen's hair while Evie was talking away about 'some broad' she caught making eyes at Steve.
Grace just rolled her eyes. "Well, I can't smoke it in your house 'cause you're afraid your daddy will ground ya."
"Just be careful with it. And don't eat all my food. You remember where the key is hidden?" I knew she would be heading towards my house. She had her torn up backpack she brought with her when she decided to run away from home, so I knew she hadn't been by yet.
"Sure do!" Grace came and went like the wind, so I knew she wouldn't be here longer than a few days. Honestly, she was like a girl version of Dally, except she really didn't have anything to be mad at and that made the fact that she was mad all the worse. I looked over to the boys and even though they were playing football with Tim and Curly and some of their outfit, I saw Two-Bit looking after Grace. He had broken up with Kathy a few weeks ago.
"Don't even think about it, Two-Bit," I called over to him. "Grace is allergic to latex." I knew he would understand where I was going with that.
"That's a damned shame!" he said before turning to Soda. "You best hope it ain't a family allergy."
I felt my eyes go wide and my face get hot, but Soda just punched Two-Bit in the shoulder before giving me a wink.