Helpless

Darry

(Darry)

The long march to the cemetery

(the coffin so light)

Placing the casket in the ground

(silent as it rested in the plot)

Right next to Mom and Dad's graves

(three down, two to go).

The past few days had been a blur. I'd been on autopilot, same as I was when Mom and Dad died, because Pony and Soda had been too grief-stricken to be much help.

Soda was worse off now-he wouldn't go into his room, he wouldn't eat, and he barely slept. He passed the day wandering around the house, crying at the site of anything that reminded him of our younger brother.

I'd made the funeral arrangements alone, and contacted both the state and the bank to tell them that we'd be filing for bankruptcy. The state didn't even hint at separating Soda and I-they weren't inhuman, although we'd often thought of them as just that. Two-bit and his mother and Cherry and her parents and tons of people had flooded our house with food and money and sympathy cards. I tried to intercept as much as I could, because Soda had started throwing things out before we had a chance to sort through them.

"Who gives a damn if they're sorry!" he'd shouted over and over these past few days. "Being sorry isn't going to bring him back!"

I missed him. I needed him, badly, especially now, as we stood their in the cemetery. The service had been longer than we'd anticipated; almost everyone from Ponyboy's class had come, and most of the school faculty. Socs and Greasers stood side by side in heavy silence.

This is what you wanted, Ponyboy, I thought, my heart aching as I remembered his theme and what he'd asked me to do with it. I'll get it out, kid. I'll get people to read it. But people have already come together for you. You did do something, even if you didn't know it.

We'd asked that only close friends attend this, the burial ceremony. I'd done it more for my brother's sake than my own; Soda cried so hard he could barely walk. Steve kept an arm around him. Two-bit just looked dazed.

But me? I felt nothing. I wasn't going to cry, because Ponyboy had asked me not to, and I wasn't going to break my final promise to him. Deep down I knew that it was better this way; if the cancer had to choose him, it was better that he be out of pain. And I wasn't worried: Mom and Dad would be waiting for him.

I'll still love you, I thought. And you still love me. Nothing's changed.

THINGS would change-Soda would cry every night, his cries the only sound in that now silent house. No running shoes in the livingroom, no homework to check, no setting the third spot at the table for dinner, no more of his laundry to do, no finding him smoking on the back steps or curled in the armchair reading. But there was also no vomiting in the middle of the night, no watching him cry at his reflection, no long drives to the hospital while doctors stuck needles in his arms, no more panic as his lungs stopped functioning, no more pills or tears or pain.

Don't worry about us, I'd told him, and I meant it. I'll be okay. We'll be okay, even if it'll take us awhile. We'll be okay.

Our love still exists.