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It hits him in the morning, while doing the dishes.
It’s been a full two weeks since the rumble and the hospital and it hasn’t gotten any easier. Each day, he wakes up and remembers that they’re gone all over again. And he hadn’t liked Dally exactly, but towards the end, he was starting to see that he was an okay guy. And maybe he hadn’t liked Dally exactly, but that didn’t mean that he deserved to die, but there hadn’t been anything left for him after Johnny had died and maybe Johnny wouldn’t have died if Pony hadn’t been so stupid in the first place.
Soda is right beside him, stacking the dishes he’s already washed, drying them, putting them away. He’s talking on and on about something, but Pony hasn’t been paying any attention at all. Darry is outside, mowing the grass. He’s always working, even when he doesn’t have work. There’s always something that’s gotta be done, he says.
It hits right in the gut like a sucker punch, only worse. The glass he’s washing slips from his hands.
He doesn’t even hear it shatter when it hits the floor.
Instead, Pony stares at the wall and rocks back on his heels and feels empty inside. There’s a gaping cavern inside of him and there has been for some time. It’s a wonder he only realized it now, but it must have been the shock of it all. Or maybe it’s ‘cause his brain didn’t let him think of it till now.
Brains are funny like that sometimes.
It feels like someone took a spoon and carved out all his insides, leaving behind nothing but empty space. He rests a hand over his stomach, fingers gripping the material of his shirt, as he tries to catch his breath.
He’s hollow and there isn’t anything that can fill him up again
“Hey.” Soda is at his side immediately, grabbing him by the shoulders, trying to get his attention. Trying because Pony feels like his mind is a million miles away.
He’s still in that hospital, watching Johnny take his last breath. He’s still watching Dally get shot down.
“Hey. Pony, what’s wrong? What’s wrong?” His hand is on his face, cupping his cheek, turning his face, making him look at him. “Do you need Darry? I’ll call Darry…”
“No!” Pony gasps. He twists his head away so he can look at the floor instead of at Soda. He doesn’t want to look anyone in the eyes right now. He doesn’t know why. He can’t bear it. “I’m fine. Don’t call Darry.”
He’s not fine and he knows Soda doesn’t buy it for a second, but they’re all grieving Johnny and Dally and Darry especially has enough on his plate. He doesn’t want to trouble him anymore.
“You gotta talk to me. Please. I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”
He doesn’t want to talk. There’s no words that can do justice to what he’s been feeling all these weeks, but Soda has a way about him and it’s either talk or Soda will get Darry.
“It’s my fault,” he whispers. It’s so obvious when he thinks about it. He’s been thinking about it a whole lot actually, but now is the time it decided to stick.
None of it would have started in the first place if he hadn’t fallen asleep in the lot with Johnny. If he had just paid a little more attention and thought a little harder, remembered that he’d had two big brothers waiting back home who he was worrying out of their minds by his staying out late. If he hadn’t run when Darry hit him and if he hadn’t dragged Johnny along with him, they wouldn’t have gotten caught up with those Socs and Johnny wouldn’t have had to kill somebody. If they hadn’t gone to Dally for help. If they hadn’t holed up inside that church.
So many ifs and any one of them could have changed the end result. Or maybe they wouldn’t have.
That’s the most maddening part about this.
Maybe Johnny and Dally were always doomed to die like that. That’s even more maddening to think about. They hadn’t done anything to deserve to die. They were just two boys who life had dealt a shitty hand to.
So he thinks… maybe if he thinks hard enough he can find the thread that unravels it all. The if that would have changed everything.
“No. No, it’s not. Don’t you dare start thinking like that, you hear me?” Soda is talking at him, but it’s all just words. They don’t really hit home. Pony isn’t sure he really believes them, but he lets Soda hold him because right now he needs to be held. “Nothing you did is what killed them.”
Soda doesn’t judge him- he never judges him when he cries or tells him he needs to be more of a man for it- when he cries into his shoulder and clings to him desperately like his life depends on it.
He just holds him, carding a hand through his hair, and lets him cry.
Maybe Soda is telling the truth, or at least what he thinks is the truth, but it doesn’t change anything.
If he could sink his fingers into his chest and tear out his heart, maybe he would stop feeling this pain. He imagines the suffocating numbness that would follow and wonders if that would be better than this. He doesn’t want to feel this pain anymore, but he doesn’t know how to stop it.
“What’s wrong with him?” Pony realizes belatedly that the mower has stopped outside and now Darry stands at the door, staring at them both in open concern.
Pony hangs onto Soda a little tighter and buries his face into his shoulder. It’s embarrassing to be seen like this. He wishes he could just keep it together.
“He’s still upset,” Soda says. “Says he thinks it’s his fault.”
Darry sucks in a breath. He looks stricken and something about that twists a knife in Pony’s gut. “Pony…”
“I don’t wanna hear it,” he says forcefully. He shakes his head still hanging onto Soda like his life depends on it. He’s getting snot and tears all over Soda’s shoulder. “Whatever you say, it’s not gonna change anything.”
“No, you’re going to listen to me, Pony.” Darry steps forward, using that tone that Pony always knows means something is serious and he’d better shut up and listen, which he does. “You can’t blame yourself for all of this. You’re only gonna drive yourself mad thinking like that. You didn’t kill them.”
“The church fire was because of us,” he says miserably.
“Maybe it was, but you didn’t know those kids were gonna be playing in there. And you definitely didn’t know those beams were going to fall on Johnny. Hell, kid, it could have been…” Here, there’s another sharp inhale and Darry stops talking as what could have been settles over them, hanging heavy and unspoken in the air.
Pony doesn’t need to hear Darry finish that sentence to understand what he means by it.
It could just as easily have been me…
He hasn’t reached the point where he wishes it were him yet, but sometimes he wonders… he wonders if maybe Johnny is happier this way and then he immediately feels awful over it. He doesn’t know how to put that into words. He doesn’t know how his brothers would take it if he could put it into words.
In a way, he sees the sense in Darry’s words. He knows it could have been him those beams fell on. It could have been him whose back was broken, but it wasn’t.
Darry collects himself. “You can’t go worrying about all those what ifs, Ponyboy,” he says gently. “Believe me when I tell you they aren’t going to fix anything. They’re only going to drive you crazy.”
“You should listen to Darry,” Soda says quietly. “He knows what he’s talking about.” He’s still running his fingers through Pony’s hair, but Pony isn’t crying quite so hard anymore. Something in his brother’s words have stuck.
How many what ifs did Darry have to confront when their parents died and he found himself stuck with the custody of two little brothers? Probably more than he can fathom.
It makes his stomach twist with guilt, but it also makes him realize the truth in Soda’s words: Darry knows what he’s talking about. Whatever doubts and what ifs he had to face, he still pushed them all aside for both his sake and Sodapop’s.
Darry looks at the clock and Pony knows it’s time for him to go. He’s got a long day of work ahead of him.
Selfishly, he wishes Darry didn’t have to go to work, that he could stay behind and help Pony work through this. He understands his brother and just how much he’s sacrificed and how much he loves them both a whole lot more now.
“I have to go,” Darry says with reluctance. There’s a weariness in his tone and in the slope of his shoulders, but he ruffles Pony’s hair and smiles like it’s nothing. “You and Soda keep out of trouble, you hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” Soda says immediately and Pony echoes him, nodding his head along with it.
“We’re all feeling a lot of things right now,” Darry says. “But we’re gonna find a way through them. You hear me? As a family.”
Pony nods. He sniffs, but he’s not crying so much anymore or clinging to Soda quite so hard. “I hear you.”
Darry smiles. “Good.” He ruffles Pony’s hair and he swats his hand away. It’s just for show of course. It wouldn’t do for Darry to find out he actually enjoys it when he does that.