AN: This is my first fan-fiction. I write these all the time but I've never actually posted one before. I hope you enjoy it!
I don't own the Outsiders.
The light of the bathroom makes me squint. I stare in the mirror, tighten my tie around my neck, and pull down the collar of my suit. I chew on a fingernail and stare down at my black dress shoes. They are shiny and perfectly polished.
I don't know if I can do this.
I had chosen Mom's yellow dress with frills that she loved so dearly, and Darry chose Dad's favorite button-down and pants. I remember the day I picked it out. I must've sat there for hours, looking at all of my mother's dresses, trying to figure out which she would want to be buried with.
The house is eerily silent and the only noise I can hear is the rattly air conditioner. It feels like nobody has spoken in forever. I hope it will stay that way, but then Darry calls me from the living room. "Ponyboy, we're leaving in five!" he yells. I don't know how he can sound so unbothered. It's the day of our parents' funeral, for god sakes.
At 13 and ½, both of my parents are gone. It's a very strange feeling. Knowing you won't ever see them again. I take one more glance in the mirror, heave a long sigh, and open the door.
Soda's sitting on the sofa, his hands clenched in a fist, resting his head on them. He's in a black suit and tie. He looks distant. I don't talk to him. He doesn't look like he's in a talking mood.
Darry looks the same, although he is running around the house—running around, I presume, to get away from his thoughts. Because I knew he knew if he stops for one second he will remember. He will remember our parents are actually dead. That it's actually happening.
"Okay. Come on. The service is at 2:00, and I want to talk to some of our relatives beforehand," Darry says to us, picking up his car keys. They jangle in his hands.
Sodapop heaves a sigh and gets up—his eyes are sunken and the dark circles stand out against the pale of his skin. He suddenly looks a lot older. You don't have to live a long time to be old.
We all file out of the house and into Darry's truck like lambs to the slaughter. Though, we aren't going to get slaughtered. But it all feels very final. This will be the last big event my parents will have, and as that thought comes through to me, it suddenly hurts. I cough, stifling my sob. Tears don't fall, but they brim on my eyes like thunderclouds threatening to rain. Sodapop gives me a pat on the back and we exchange a knowing look—his eyes tell me a whole lot more than his words ever could. He feels the same way I do.
Darry talks a mile a minute the whole way to the funeral. I think he's trying to distract himself from the thought that they are really gone, even now, weeks after the accident, but they are. He talks so much that Soda makes him stop his ramblings.
"Darry!" Soda exclaims. Darry freezes mid-sentence, looking over at Soda in the side seat. They share a moment of tension filled silence, and then Soda's eyebrows drop and he stares down at his lap. "Just… please."
That's all he says, but Darry shuts up. I think even Darry gave up at that moment. There was no chance he could get around the facts. It's all too real. You can't lie to yourself about this. No matter how much I want to.
We drive the rest of the way in silence. When we pull up in front of the cemetery, I think reality starts hitting all of us. It's really hitting Darry, though. He's been denying it for so long and now he has to stare it down. We all do.
"I see Aunt Mary," I say out of the blue, but I just want to break the now uncomfortable silence that has fallen like fog over our car.
"Oh, yeah." Sodapop answers, but his voice is monotonous and sounds like it's miles away. I feel like I'm watching myself through a telescope. I think we all feel like that. It feels real but surreal at the same time. I hate that feeling, I really do.
We get out and trudge over to our relatives. I'm hugged by a bunch of flowery aunts and grandmothers and cologne-smelling uncles, but it all smells wet and mildewy to me. The world looks black and white and I can't focus. The sun is shining and I suddenly feel a flash of anger. How could the sun be shining when I've lost everything?
I see old friends of my parents and they all tell me how sorry they are about it. How unfortunate it all was. I don't strike up any conversation. Partly because if I speak I'll probably start crying, but mostly I'm trying to prepare myself for the inevitable - seeing their caskets. I don't want them to bring out the caskets. If they do, they will really be gone. I won't be able to lie to myself anymore. Because I'll know it's true.
But just like I knew they would, they brought out the caskets. Two of them. One for my father and one for my mother. And it really comes to me then that I will never see my mother smile again. I will never be hoisted up onto my father's shoulders again and my mother will never cook in our kitchen again and my father will never throw football in the yard with us ever again. It's all over.
When you lose something or someone dear to you at a young age like that, it's hard not to feel like the world's caving in on you.
That's when I let it go. Hot, fast tears pour down my face and that gets Soda started, too. He breaks down and bawls like a baby. I'm still crying in spite of myself. But Darry, he just stands with his arms crossed. He has this look - this look of desperation, like he's pleading, on his face.
I say a few words up front about my mother and father. I talked about how she was the most beautiful woman I ever knew. How my father was the person I looked up to. It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my 13 and ½ years of living. I didn't want to say goodbye to them. Not now, not ever.
Sodapop is too choked up to speak. Some lady hands him a handkerchief and he blows his nose, but the tears still fall steadily down his cheeks. Darry speaks, too, but he's formal. He doesn't cry. He gets through it and that is that. We are all dealing with grief in our own way.
I almost try to lie to myself, tell myself this is all just a dream, but the pain is too raw to be a dream. I can literally reach over and touch their caskets. It's not a bad dream anymore. It's actually happening.
We watch them lower my parents into the ground. That's where they'll stay until the end of time. Six feet under. It's not fair. I remember thinking that it wasn't fair. They were good people. Bad things shouldn't happen to good people. It just isn't fair.
When the service is over, we linger. Darry speaks to old relatives we haven't seen in a good decade. I put a lone sunflower on my mother's grave. Soda and I sit a vigil in front of their graves in silence until Darry tells us we have to get home for their wake.
We drive home in silence. When we get there, Darry gets ready for the wake. Soda lights up a bunch of candles and I tidy the place up, putting sunflowers everywhere. Sunflowers were always Mom's favorite.
I place pictures of them around the house. One picture I have to get from their room, and when I go into that room, it still smells like my father's aftershave and my mother's perfume. Everything was the exact same as they'd left it. A tight ball in my throat suddenly makes it hard to swallow.
I quickly get the picture—it was them on their wedding day. My mother was smiling and my father had her in his arms. My mother's dress was white and perfect, her hair down and the veil flipped back over her head. My father had on a suit and was smiling. They looked like the happiest people on earth.
I hurriedly close their door to get away from the memories. I also want to preserve their room exactly how they had left it. How they had left it. I hate thinking of my parents in the past tense.
I put the photo on the coffee table so people will see it when they come in. Sodapop, who is just standing in the living room looking utterly lost, unbuttons his suit and picks up the wedding photo.
"They were so happy," he says flatly. I don't answer him. He sniffles and puts the photo down. He looks up and shoots me a teary grin. "Go clean yourself up. I'll make the food." he tells me. I nod. I go into the bathroom and wipe my eyes.
Our relatives and family friends come over. They hug me and give me their condolences and tell me how great my parents were. Even the gang got all dressed up. Steve's wearing a formal suit. Dally, Johnny, Two-Bit, all of them came. Dally's always been quite respectful when it comes to my mother. He had told me once, "Your mother. One hell of a lady." My mother always kept him out of trouble.
Johnny and I are standing in the corner of the room. I don't much feel like talking to any of my relatives. At least Soda's enjoying the memories, though. He's laughing with a few of Dad's cousins about an old memory they had with my father.
"It ain't fair." Johnny says, which startles me just a little bit. I stare into my cup of water and then I look over at him. "It ain't fair they had to die. They was good people, an' your mother always was so welcoming and sweet and-"
"Johnny," I say, not looking up at him. "Not right now. Please."
I don't want to hear any more about how great my mother or father was. I don't want to think about the fact that they are dead. Even after the funeral, I'm still trying to deny it.
"Sorry." Johnny mumbles. He scuffs his shoe and we stand leaning up against that wall until the wake is over.
Ms. Mathews gives us a pie. And so does the next door neighbor. And so does Aunt Elizabeth. Well, everybody gives us a pie or a casserole of some sort. At the end of the night, the whole kitchen is filled with glass containers and tinfoil-covered pasta bowls. Darry is grateful. I'm preparing myself for a long month of leftovers.
Soon the house is empty once more, like an empty hole in something that was once whole. I swear I can smell my mother's perfume, just for a moment. Soda retreats to his room and closes the door. Darry sits down at the table to go over more legal papers that he has to sort out in order to maintain custody of us. I sit on the sofa and get lost in my thoughts.
I don't think I said another word that night after that conversation with Johnny.
After the wake and after I think so hard I have a headache, I go straight to bed. I don't want to talk to anybody. I just want to quiet the war in my head by sleeping. But I suppose wars are still happening behind my lids, because I have a dream and wake up screaming.
Sodapop and Darry both skid into my room, bewildered and looking frightened. And, as I glance at both of their scared, young-looking yet still tired faces in the weak moonlight coming through my bedroom window, I realize that it's gone.
Our freedom is gone. This isn't just a dream.
We aren't just kids anymore.