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“Hey, birthday boy,” Soda shouted from the bathroom, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth, “can you grab the phone?”
Darry groaned. He hated answering the phone. Half the time, it was just some Socs from school calling the house with death threats and slurs he’d never even heard before. The other half, it was one of the guys asking for a favor, and sue him, but Darry did not want to be dishing out favors on his birthday. He took a deep breath before picking up the phone, praying it was some telemarketer.
“Curtis residence, this is Darrel.” His voice was polite enough, if a little annoyed. He rested his forehead against the wall as he waited for a response from the other line.
“Darrel, this is Peggy at Saint John’s Hospital.” That made his head perk up. This couldn’t be good. Who was it for? He knew Dally was still in the cooler for hotwiring a car last week, so probably not him. Steve was just at the house ten minutes ago, and they would've called Two-Bit's mom. Maybe Johnny’s folks finally went too hard on him, or some Socs got him in the Lot. He really hoped it wasn’t Johnny, but logically, he knew it must be because-
“It’s your parents.”
Those three words made Darry’s blood run cold. His breath caught in his chest as he tried to listen to her next words. Something about an accident. A train. The car. She said they died immediately. No pain. No suffering. He wasn’t sure how much she said or when the receiver slipped from his hand, or when he quit breathing normally. Everything happened so fast and so slow, and he couldn’t keep up.
The world seemed to spin around him, and time stood still. He felt himself fall into the wall behind him. His eyes landed on the army green curtains across the room. Air was barely reaching his lungs, but he couldn’t do anything about it except take the short, gasping breaths as they came. His fingers were tingling, and his knees felt weak
Train. Car. Dead.
It could’ve been a few minutes or days that Darry stood there, back against the wall, barely breathing. The ringing in his ears was deafening. His brain was moving too fast for any thoughts to land. He didn’t look away from the wall when Soda stepped out of the bathroom in nothing but his boxers and a towel around his shoulders.
“Woah, hey, Darry, what’s wrong?” He rushed over, dropping the towel as soon as he saw the receiver dangling just above the hardwood and the way Darry’s shoulders shook with shallow breaths. It took a lot to get his brother in a state like this. “Was it Paul again? I swear I’ll kill him, you know I will.”
Darry didn’t say anything. Didn’t tear his eyes away from the curtains. He couldn’t. It hit him that he was going to have to break the news to Soda. He couldn’t. He couldn’t do that to his brother.
“Seriously, Dar, what did they say to you? I’ve never seen you this mixed up. Talk to me.”
“Soda,” Darry’s voice was softer and shakier than Soda’d ever heard it, and it broke a little at the end. It freaked him out something bad. Darry never talked like that. “‘S Mama and Daddy. Hospital called. They were in a wreck an’ they-” he shook his head, unable to finish his sentence.
“They what?”
Darry didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. His throat felt like he was being strangled from the inside out, so instead he gave Soda a look. A look that just said you know. He watched as a look of understanding and grief crossed Soda’s face, and he wished to never see that look on his brother's face again.
“Shit. They-” Soda’s face fell and he stumbled over to the couch. No sooner had his back hit the cushion than his head fell to his hands. He didn’t cry, not then, just ripped at his hair and rocked a little bit. They just sat there, on opposite sides of the living room, swallowed up in grief. Neither of them knew what this would mean for them. How they would go on. How they would tell Ponyboy. If Darry thought telling Soda was the worst thing he’d ever had to do, telling Ponyboy might just put him in the grave right alongside their parents.
Darry dragged a hand down his face, as if to wipe away anything he was still feeling. He realized how much stronger he needed to be if he was going to be there for Ponyboy. Soda could handle seeing his older brother in the state he was in, but Ponyboy couldn’t. Especially if Soda was in the same state. He needed someone to be strong for him, and if there was one thing Darrel Shaynne Curtis Jr. was good at, it was being strong.
He put on a tough face as he paced back and forth in front of the coffee table. He thought long and hard about what he’d say to Ponyboy. It was awful, having your world turned on its head like this. It was worse to have to be the one to turn your brothers’ worlds on their heads, too. There is no nice way to tell someone their parents died. Not one Darry could come up with anyway.
“Hey, guys, have you seen- woah, what’s going on?” Ponyboy said on his way down the hall. The sight before him must’ve looked pretty bad. Soda was still sitting on the sofa, shaking with his head in his hands, pulling at his hair. Darry was pacing back and forth like a lion on the hunt. His eyes were cold and emotionless, his jaw was so tense it was a surprise none of his teeth fell out from the pressure. Soda looked up through his fingers when Ponyboy walked through the doorway.
“Pony, sit.” The way Darry’s tone pierced through whatever weird energy existed in the room made Ponyboy acutely aware of how serious this situation must’ve been. He listened without a second thought, sitting close to Soda on the couch.
No one said anything for a long minute. Now that they were sitting there face-to-face, Darry didn’t think he could break this news to Ponyboy. He had to, though, or Soda’d have to, and he couldn’t do that to Soda. He was thinking so hard, but his mouth wouldn’t open. All he could do was walk around the coffee table and take the last open seat on the couch next to Ponyboy.
“I just got a call from the hospital,” he took a deep breath and put a hopefully comforting hand on Ponyboy’s leg, “Mama and Daddy, they were in an accident. Somethin’ with a train.”
“Are they okay?” Ponyboy’s voice was barely above a whisper, he sounded so young. He was just a kid, but he was a smart kid, he knew the answer. He knew Darry and Soda wouldn’t be acting like this if they were.
“They,” Darry swallowed hard, “they didn’t make it.”
The air in the room fell still. No one said a word. No one even breathed for a long time. Soda’s shoulders shook, and Darry’s jaw tensed, but Ponyboy was the first to move. He looked unsteady on his feet, but he had to get some air. He couldn’t breathe in the living room. The cold January air filled his lungs as he stumbled out onto the porch, but he still didn’t feel like he could breathe. His hands shook as he pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and tried and failed to light it.
“Here,” a voice said from behind. Ponyboy looked over to see Darry standing there with an emotionless look on his face and an outstretched hand. Ponyboy passed the lighter, and Darry lit his smoke for him. Darry hated that Ponyboy smoked, but he’d never understood it more than in that moment. Darry fell into the cold metal bench under the front window and watched the smoke from his brother’s cigarette blow in the wind. It was just them now. In the dim light from the mostly burnt-out streetlight across the road, Darry could see Ponyboy’s shoulders shaking. Hard, violent shakes. Ponyboy had always been a cryer. He cried when he scraped his knee, and when he got a bad grade on a test, and even sometimes when he listened to music. This was different from that, though. Darry’d never seen him cry this hard, and he didn’t know what to do. Usually, he might go find their Mama, and she’d wrap Pony in one of her big, tight hugs and offer to make him some cocoa, but he couldn’t do that anymore.
Darry stood from the bench and went to lean on the porch railing next to Ponyboy. Freezing tears fell down his face as he turned to look at who’d come to stand next to him. Ponyboy snuffed out the last of his thoroughly smoked weed and threw himself at Darry. Ponyboy never hugged him like this. Darry held him tight, stone-faced as his brother cried into his chest, soaking the thin t-shirt he was wearing. He knew they should go inside. It was cold, and they were both getting wet with snot and tears, but neither of them could move. Darry tried to lead them toward the door, but Ponyboy gripped him tighter and wailed out loud, crumbling to the ground and dragging Darry down with him.
The two of them sat in a pile on the front porch. Ponyboy’s sobs could probably be heard from the other side of the tracks, but he couldn’t stop it if he tried. At some point, Soda joined them on the porch with a roll of toilet paper, which he offered to Darry for Ponyboy to blow his nose into. He was still crying, too, but his tears fell silently. He’d long since given up on trying to wipe them away, instead letting them fall freely as he gripped a snot-filled wad of toilet paper tightly in one hand. Soda didn’t join Darry and Ponyboy on the ground, instead, he leaned over the railing of the porch and stared at the streetlight flickering in the dark.
Eventually, Soda’s tears quit falling, and Ponyboy’s sobs subsided, and they just lingered in silence. They all stayed like that for what felt like half the night, just airing out their grief on the porch, no one saying a word. No one needing to say a word. Being together was enough.
An hour or days could’ve passed like that before they ended up back inside, away from the cold of the January night. They stayed close, as if one of them left the others’ sight, they’d never return. Ponyboy didn’t even close the door when he went to the bathroom. It was hours before any words were spoken. The only sound in the house was the wind whipping against the siding and the clock above the fireplace ticking, a cruel reminder that the world was still moving around them.
“Darry, what are we gonna do?” Soda whispered, his head in Darry’s lap. The fingers that had absently been playing with his hair stilled, and Darry’s muscles stiffened. Darry didn’t have the first idea what they were going to do. That scared him something awful. He was supposed to know everything, or at least be able to figure everything out, but at that moment, he was just a kid wishing for his Mama and Daddy to come home and tell him what to do. He’d never been so helpless before.
“I don’t know, little buddy,” his voice was low and scratchy. He hated feeling vulnerable, he hated admitting it even more. “I really don’t.”
Ponyboy had started snoring softly against Darry’s other side, and there was nothing for Darry to do except keep running his fingers through his other brother’s hair. The heat at the roots was a comforting reminder that they still had each other, the grease at the ends was a cruel reminder that that was all they had. Darry’s heart ached as he thought about their parents, and what this would mean for the three of them, and, selfishly, what this would mean for him. For the first time since he got the call, he let a couple of tears slide down his face. He heard Soda’s breathing even, and he couldn’t bring himself to keep thinking about all that. Tomorrow would be full of worries and figuring things out, but right now, with Soda asleep in his lap and Ponyboy snoring away on his shoulder, Darry knew he had his brothers, and for now, that was enough. He held them close, ignoring the tears still spilling down his face, and let sleep wash over him, too.