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Sodapop knew he was dumb, and he had convinced himself he was okay with that. His brothers put such importance on education—it was one of the only things they seemed to agree upon these days—but booksmarts had never held the same weight for Soda.
It became apparent, as it always did when comparing himself to his brothers, one January evening. Darry was out with some Soc-y football buddies home from college and Pony was off with Johnny and Two at the movies. But Soda was stuck at home, staring down his winter break assignment that sat mocking him under the yellow light of their kitchen.
Darry had no assignments between his college semesters, and Pony had finished his homework the first day of winter break. As much as Soda adored Ponyboy, the kid was too brainy for his own good when he actually used his head. Soda had brushed him off every time Pony had pestered him to start his assignments so he wouldn’t get worked up about them last minute like he always did. The kid was 13 years old and already starting to sound like their parents. But one of them was enjoying popcorn at the new Michael Caine movie and one of them had been forbidden to go out to the rodeo with his best friend until he had at least made headway on his assignment, so maybe the kid had a point.
His mother sat across the small linoleum table from him, patiently watching as he struggled to work out equations in his head. It was a familiar routine for the two of them. Soda hunched over his homework, vibrating from the pent-up frustration and unspent energy, while his mom sat vigil, waiting to temper his vexations and offer her help.
Soda rubbed at his forehead and the pencil in his hand began tapping rapidly back and forth. He needed to move. He couldn’t sit still staring at this sheet of paper with more blank space and unanswered questions than pencil markings. He slammed his hands down, making the ceramic salt and pepper shakers rattle.
“I can’t do this. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”
“I know, baby,” his mother said gently. She leaned down and picked his pencil up off the floor from where it had flown out of Soda’s grasp. “I’m here to help, but you have to try.” She put the pencil in front of him and patted his hand.
“I am trying, Ma,” he pleaded, feeling tears of discouragement spring to his eyes. Pony was right; he always put off these assignments because he didn’t want to face the fact that he was incompetent. But procrastination had never been a cure to failure, and Soda was having a hard time accepting that. “Maybe I should just drop out. Go full time at the DX.”
There. He’d said it.
The thought had been dancing around in his head since he had turned sixteen three months prior, but, like the assignment ridiculing him from the table, Soda had put it off. Deep down, Soda knew his parents would never go for it. He knew where his brothers had gotten their love of learning. But couldn’t they see he was struggling? He was never going to college, he liked his job at the gas station—it was the only time he could relate to the sense of fulfillment Pony got from finishing another story or when Darry’s team won a game. So why prolong the inevitable?
Realizing his mother hadn’t responded, Soda tentatively glanced up from under his greased bangs.
She blinked away her surprise as she caught Soda’s eye, and gave him a sympathetic but no nonsense glare. She said, “Over my dead body.”
A week later their family car had idled on the tracks and was flattened with his parents inside.
As the oldest, it was natural Darry had inherited the most. Their father’s work truck, a home and bills, two grieving teenage boys, an unfrosted chocolate cake in the icebox, and a haunted look after coming back from identifying their parents in the morgue. Pony had adopted the disposition of a ghost; making no sound, eating no food, haunting the halls of their once happy home, wraithlike in an old quilt sewn by their mother. And Soda, well, he got his wish; he earned the title “dropout” and never went back to school again.
Soda might consider himself dumb. But he learned quickly that a lot could change in a week. It was a lesson that stuck with him more easily than anything he learned in school.
So why was it still such a shock, eight months later, to see how little Ponyboy resembled himself in the seven days since Darry had driven him from their home with a smack to the face?
He looks bad, was Soda’s first thought upon stepping through the hospital waiting room double doors and seeing his brother. He looks different.
Sitting there in someone else’s clothes, soot marring every inch of visible skin, and hair choppy and poorly bleached. But although they were hollow and ringed with dark circles, Pony’s eyes were still that same green color he insisted was more gray. They still met Soda’s with a familiar adoration and began filling with tears, just as Soda’s did.
Ponyboy stood frozen in place with his hay colored hair and overly large flannel hanging off his shockingly thin frame. He looks like a dang scarecrow, Soda thought.
In an instant they were colliding. Without thinking, Soda swung his little brother in a circle, like he used to as a little kid, when Pony was just a baby. It was like the vibrant colors and innocent happiness of childhood were back for just an instant as Soda held his brother. Pony was his baby, had been since the day he was born, and Soda had spent six nights grieving him. Six sleepless nights filled with tears, six sunsets that lacked beauty without Ponyboy there to admire them.
Soda barely heard Darry catching up to them, his footsteps hesitating as he neared his embracing brothers.
What happened to you? Soda thought. What happened to my baby brother when I wasn’t there? Soda choked on the words, tried desperately to force them out. He had to know. He had to know. But he had never been good with words the way Ponyboy was.
All that came out when he finally pulled back to see his baby brother’s beautiful face was “Oh, Ponyboy, your hair…your tuff tuff hair.” He carded his fingers through Pony’s short locks, feeling how dry the usually silky strands were. A desperate laugh escaped his lips, turning into a full on sob as Ponyboy caught sight of Darry and was suddenly engulfed in their oldest brother’s arms. Darry clung to Pony like a drowning man. He and Soda had both been drowning this week, struggling to stay afloat when they were entirely out of their depth.
As Soda approached his brothers, he could see the tears leaking down Darry’s cheeks, could hear the murmured apologies from both his brothers, could feel the love radiating off each of them.
Glory, Soda thought, a lot sure could change in a week.
Pony didn't say much after that. It wasn't unusual for him to close in on himself when something shook his foundation. He preferred to work through things in his head, to make sense of the mess. Soda just hoped he’d be able to claw his way out of his own head and talk to them soon about what had transpired. It had taken days of Soda pleading and Darry threatening for Pony to speak after their parents had been killed.
The poor kid had to be exhausted. Soda wondered, not for the first time that week, how much sleep Pony had gotten while he was gone. Pony had begun to crash quickly in the hospital once the excitement of their reunion wore off. Soda tried to keep the reporters entertained to give his brother a break, and by the time they had left, Pony was dead on his feet. He had feigned sleep on the car ride home, a sure way to get carried inside. But Soda knew Darry secretly loved carrying Pony to bed while he still could.
Darry had run a wet rag against Pony’s sleepy face while Soda stripped him of his ruined shirt and pants. Then Darry had pressed a kiss to Ponyboy’s forehead, ruffled Soda’s hair, and gone off to sleep in his bed for the first time since Pony had run out of the house.
Soda lay on his side of the bed, staring at the dark ceiling, listening to Pony’s deep breaths. After the whirlwind of the past few hours, Soda was thankful, for once, for the quiet stillness of the night. The exhaustion of the past week was catching up to him.
People assumed Soda had it easy because of his upbeat nature, that nothing ever truly got to him. But the reality was that was what people needed Soda to be, so that was who he became. When Pony needed a listening ear and comforting words or Darry needed a reminder he was running himself into the ground, it was Sodapop they turned to. It was Sodapop who could brighten anyone’s day, who could put a positive spin on almost anything, who took everything in stride. And it was Sodapop who bottled up his feelings until he felt like he was going to explode.
And that was what Darry needed from him this week. Whether he had meant it or not, Darry had needed Soda to push aside his feelings of resentment of what he had done to Ponyboy, his hurt, his fear. As Ponyboy's absence dragged on and reality of what he had done sank in, Darry had been on the verge of breaking down. How many times had Soda hastily wiped his own eyes and put on a confident facade as his older brother went on another self-loathing spiral? How many times had he forced Darry not to lose hope and reassure him that Ponyboy was alright when Soda himself was seconds from cracking right down the middle? Darry needed him to be the voice of reason for once.
Soda was the optimist, the peacemaker. That was his role and he played it well. He did it for his brothers, because of his brothers. But Soda had hit his breaking point this week, because without Ponyboy, what was the point? If they had never gotten that call from the Oklahoma Osteopathic Hospital saying they had Ponyboy, Soda didn’t know how much more he could have taken.
Soda tried to push away the memory of how cold the bed had felt without his brother next to him. He rolled onto his side, wrapping an arm around Pony’s shoulders. He pulled him in as tightly as he dared, careful of the massive bruise Soda had spied on his back. But if Pony felt any discomfort, he didn’t show it.
Soda adjusted his position so Pony’s bony elbow didn’t poke into him. Pony had always been small and reedy, but glory, was he skinny now. He was almost as thin as he was after their parents had died, in the dark months of grieving when Pony had all but stopped existing. Soda had been so proud of the progress Pony had made. He was secretly ecstatic every time Pony accepted Soda’s offerings of a second slice of cake after dinner or a tall glass of extra chocolatey milk while he did homework at his desk. Anything to get his brother eating again and looking more like his old self. Soda felt his chest ache to see Pony backslide like this.
Soda hoped not only for Johnny’s sake, but for Ponyboy’s, that Johnny would miraculously pull through. Soda didn’t think Pony could take another loss and he might be irrevocably shattered if he lost his best friend after everything.
Soda pulled his brother impossibly closer, as if his proximity would keep all the bad things from happening to Ponyboy ever again. He buried his nose in Pony’s hair, feeling the brittle strands scratch his face.
Ponyboy always smelled of smoke, but it was different now. Like Ponyboy himself, it was close enough to be familiar, but just changed enough to unbalance Soda. The smell of cigarette smoke always clung to Pony, his hair, his clothes, ever since he had taken up the habit. But this was the smell of smoke that came from fire, from destruction and ash.
Under the cigarette smoke would be the smell of hair grease, the ink that so often stained his hands, sweat after track practice on a particularly hot day, and of home—the soap they all shared and the cheap detergent on the years old hand-me-downs Pony wore.
That was all gone, just like Soda feared a piece of Ponyboy was. They should have gone after him that night. Darrel had wanted to, but Soda was set on being the peacemaker. He had held Darry back, admonishing his big brother—we don’t hit each other, Darrel!—and told him to let Ponyboy cool off with Johnny. They would work this out when he got home. Because even when he got lost in his daydreams and lost track of time, Ponyboy always, always came home. And in the end, he had, even if he had had to go through turmoil to get back to his brothers.
Soda relaxed and inhaled the scent of his brother. After all, smoke was still smoke. Ponyboy would still be Ponyboy and Sodapop would still be Sodapop, and nothing would ever change that.
A lot could change in a week. A hell of a lot more could change in eight months. But Soda loved his brothers, and no amount of change could take that away.
Whatever happened, they would survive it together, just like they had everything that had come before. So, Soda allowed himself to relax. With the smell of smoke in his nose and the warmth of his brother’s body pressed to his chest, Soda slept peacefully for the first time in a week.