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Sodapop’s pretty sure that he’s going to lose his mind long before his busted knee ever gets a chance to heal.
Ponyboy’s patience must have run out for the day. He was fawning over Soda all morning, fetching snacks and chocolate milk whenever Soda asked, but he disappeared half an hour ago when he was supposed to be flipping a record, and never came back. He probably got distracted.
Without Ponyboy, Soda’s on his own. Steve’s visiting his grandparents this weekend. And as for Darry, well, Soda’s barely seen him since the school year started.
So now it’s just him, his bottle of aspirin, and his swollen knee, propped on several pillows. Even his crutches have gone missing ever since Mom caught him painfully hobbling around the yard and promptly confiscated them.
He hears her moving around the kitchen, washing the dishes from lunch. If he called for her, she’d come to check on him. He doesn’t actually need anything—but he could probably get her talking for a few minutes.
By sheer force of will, he keeps his mouth closed and flops backward to stare at the ceiling. He’s going to know every whorl of plaster by the time they let him go back to school. Glory, he’s never been excited about school before.
He doesn’t realize someone came into the room until the mattress sinks under Darry’s weight, deeply enough that it pulls his knee, causing the torn ligament to twinge. In one hand, Darry offers an ice compress. In the other, he holds their beat-up game of Chutes and Ladders. It’s been gathering dust ever since Ponyboy started saying he’s too old to play.
“Mind if I stick around for a while?”
“Suit yourself,” Soda agrees, trying hard to be casual. “I mean, if you want to.”