"baby, please don't cry"
Candice "Candy Cane" Marshall hasn't seen or talked to any of her friends in a long time. Dallas and Johnny are gone and she's terrified to face the fact that Steve and Sodapop may have met their fates in Vietnam. But when t...
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June twenty-eighth arrived faster than anyone was anticipating. By this point, I was about eleven weeks along. In my first pregnancy, I remained fairly small until the end of my second trimester. But in this one, I felt much bigger and it was getting painfully obvious. Sodapop and I decided not to tell anyone outside of Greg and Claire, as we were both scared to get anyone's hopes up in case I were to have a miscarriage.
The worst part about not telling anyone was that I couldn't tell Cathy the real reason I could no longer fit into my bridesmaid dress, which was a huge bummer. I told her it was just because I'd gained weight-- which technically wasn't a total lie. I told her I'd been stress eating, but then didn't elaborate on why. Cathy was super sweet about the whole thing and we were able to get the dress problem figured out with little issues.
On the day of the wedding, everyone seemed to be running around like crazy, Darry especially. While Cathy was mostly calm and collected-- her usual self-- Darry was freaking out over every little thing about Ponyboy.
"Darry, you need to calm down before you have an aneurysm," I finally told him as he fixed Pony's tie for about the thirtieth time.
"I can't help it, Candy. He's the youngest and the first of us to get married. I'm gonna be the same way with Soda."
"Everyone here knows that's not true, Dar," said Soda as he worked on Ponyboy's hair.
"Anyway, shouldn't you be helping Cathy?"
"Everything's ready on the bride's end. We're just waiting for you to quit harassing the poor kid so we can start."
"I'm not harassing anyone!"
"Darry, seriously," I said. I took his hand and forcefully moved him away from his youngest brother and I shoved him down into a seat. "He's going to be fine. This whole thing is going to go smoothly and you don't need to worry about a thing. We had a dress rehearsal yesterday for a reason so we could tweak out anything we needed to. Everything is gonna go perfectly. And if it doesn't? So what? This is Ponyboy and Cathy. All they care about at the end of the day is getting married with their supportive and loving family behind them, which is what the rest of us are here doing."
Darry let out a deep sigh, seemingly relaxing. "You're right. I'm just so nervous. I've never done this before."
"Well, you get to freak out all over again in a year or so when Sodapop and I have our wedding. I'll bet Steve might let you have a meltdown at his. We're all growing up, man. There'll be plenty more moments where you can turn into a total dad."
Darry's face visibly paled and he looked up at me. "D-dad?"
"What?" I asked. "What are you getting worked up about now?"
"N-nothing," he mumbled. "I'm okay." Darry stood up and he moved over to Ponyboy again. "You ready, little buddy?"
"I ain't so little anymore, Darry," Ponyboy grinned. This was true. Ponyboy was taller than Sodapop now. His tiny little kid self was no more. He was a man now.
