Snapshot // Sodapop and Dallas

Chapter 22

Three weeks and five days have passed since Austin arrived. Ponyboy and Johnny are going back to school today. Two-bit decided he needed the day off. It's the first day of classes so I'm not entirely sure how he could possibly need the day off, but it doesn't surprise me at all. I was going to eat with Austin, we had actually grown pretty close. We were the only other girls we knew. I was decently good friends with Jenny from the diner. But she was just a friend that I had a work. And that typically was just 5-10 on Wednesday Thursday and Friday mornings. It was a Monday so I has the day off. 

"Where you wanna eat snapshot?" Austin asked. She started calling me that when she found out I was a photographer. I had done a few shoots with her. She was so strikingly gorgeous it was easy to take good pictures of her. 

"I'm fine with anything. There is a real nice sandwich shop down on 8th street," I said. She nodded in agreement and we began walking that way.

"You ever gonna say it out loud?" She asked after about a minute of silence mixed with out footsteps. 

"Say what?" I questioned.

"Never mind," she mumbled and the silence returned. We made our way there and ordered our sandwiches and waters. We talked about her hair. She said she needed a haircut and I told her it looked fine the way it was. She argued so we finally agreed to go by the salon on the way home. Austin got her moms charm. She struck up a conversation with out waiter and with the lady cutting her hair so easily. I smiled because Sodapop would have done the same thing. they are just easy to love. Their smiles and bright welcoming eyes made you feel like you had known them your whole life. It was honestly intriguing. I could never do that. I was nervous as all get out around people I didn't know. But when I first came to Tulsa, Sodapop found me and I found him. It was incredible how I could spend a few hours talking to this boy and feel like I had known him since I was a child. Austin had the same charm. It was a gift. 

"You ready?" Austin asked with her freshly cut hair bouncing in loose waves. I nodded and we walked to the Curtis house. 

"You've been quieter the last couple weeks," she said.

"You've only known me a couple weeks. How do you know I'm not always like this?" I asked.

"Because I can tell your always thinking. Always at war inside that head of yours." She stopped and I did too. I looked at her and she looked less like Sodapop now than she ever had. She looked too serious. Sodapop was rarely serious. 

"Do you love my brother?" She asked. I hesitated and was afraid to answer. I looked down at my feet. "You see the problem, don't you?" She asked.

I just stared at her. Not knowing really what I should say because I didn't have a valid answer for either question. 

"You should have said yes. You should have shouted to the world how insanely in love you are with Sodapop Curtis. But that's not what popped into your head when I asked that question, is it?" She looked at me and I shook my head. I felt so much guilt arising in my body that it physically hurt, I didn't want this. I didn't want to feel this way. 

"Instead you thought 'which brother?' she finished. This time I brought my eyes to hers. She was right. I hadn't said it out loud but that didn't make it any less true. I wish it did but it didn't. Thats why she asked me earlier if I was ever going to say it out loud. The secret that had been eating me alive for far too long. 

"Which one do you love, Hendrix?" She asked. And for the first time I didn't lie to her, or myself.

"Both."