the outsiders imagines

i can't breathe - sodapop

pairing: none

warning: extreme angst

summary: everyone saw him as the happiest boy. inside, he was dying.

---

Sodapop didn't mean to read it. He didn't even like reading, to be completely honest. But if someone's essay is sitting on the kitchen table and you can see that your name is in it multiple times, you can't blame someone for being curious about it.

The top of the essay said "Ponyboy Curtis - Freshman English." Ponyboy was a senior now, so Sodapop didn't know why it was in the kitchen. Ponyboy had been, however, cleaning out his old school files recently and so it wasn't that strange that this essay had ended up here. Soda opened it up with one hand, a piece of chocolate cake in the other, and dove in.

When Sodapop finished reading the page with his name scrawled all over it, he immediately regretted it.

He's got dark-gold hair that he combs back - long and silky and straight - and in the summer the sun bleaches it to a shining wheat-gold. His eyes are dark brown - lively, dancing, recklessly laughing eyes that can be gentle and sympathetic one moment and blazing with anger the next. He has Dad's eyes, but Soda is one of a kind. He can get drunk in a drag race or dancing without ever getting near alcohol. In our neighborhood, it's rare to find a kid who doesn't drink once in a while. But Soda never touches a drop - he doesn't need to. He gets drunk on just plain living. And he understands everybody.

Soda couldn't lie. Reading that about himself, something that Ponyboy had written to describe him - it made him smile. He loved that his brother cared enough about him to dedicate such a paragraph to him in an English assignment. Soda loves Ponyboy, and of course, cares what Ponyboy thinks of him.

So why was he crying?

Sodapop couldn't stop the tears from falling. He sniffled, once, twice, trying to stop himself but he couldn't.

Sodapop Curtis was living a lie.

Is this how people really saw him? A happy-go-lucky guy who loved life to the fullest?

They couldn't be more wrong.

As Sodapop cried, he thought about everything that had happened in the past few years: his parents dying, his girlfriend cheating and leaving, two of his closest friends gone forever. Dropping out of school to help Darry out because he was so dumb, so stupid, and because he didn't have a future anyway. He thought about how many times he'd considered leaving this world behind, leaving the pain behind. He thought about how many times he'd pretended to be happy, for Ponyboy and Darry's sake. I mean, how could he tell anyone how he really felt? He couldn't tell Pony, because Pony was still young. Ponyboy wouldn't get it anyway. He couldn't tell Darry, because Darry was already busy with his job and getting the bills paid and taking care of him and Pony. He couldn't tell Steve, because Steve would laugh and tell him to suck it up and stop being a sissy. Steve didn't like to talk about things like that, about raw emotion and feelings. Besides, Steve's life wasn't that great either, so it wouldn't be right to burden him with the weight of more problems.

As Sodapop sat at the kitchen table, crying over Ponyboy's freshman English assignment, he thought about how lonely, how devastatingly and utterly alone he was in this world.

Sodapop's legs carried him outside, past the end of the street, past the DX, past the trees him and Steve used to hang out by. Sodapop ran and ran and ran, tears still streaming down his cheeks and loud sobs erupting from his mouth. Soda kept going and going, ignoring the fact that his lungs were burning and his mind was begging him to just stop stop stop stop stop and breathe.

When Soda reached the edge of the field and the bank of the river, he stopped. He panted and panted, until he caught his breath and then he screamed. He screamed and screamed and screamed, until his throat was scratchy and until blood was running from his nose and his head spun. He couldn't see anything but all he could focus on was the fact that he couldn't breathe, and that he hadn't taken a real breath since everything went downhill, since his parents died and he quit school and Ponyboy ran away and Dallas and Johnny died and he'd forgotten how to breathe and now he was choking on life and death and everything in between.

Sodapop's head felt like someone had stuffed a million cotton balls into it, but suddenly an idea pushed itself into his mind. He knew what he wanted to do, what he had to do. He picked himself up from off of the ground and forced himself to walk back to downtown Tulsa, where his next task awaited him. He walked and walked, until he reached the building. He marched himself in, and went straight up to the registration counter.

That night, after everything was done and Sodapop was sitting at the dinner table with his brothers, he felt a peaceful calm wash over him. He felt like every worry in the world had been lifted off of his shoulders. He knew that he'd be leaving this goddamn town of pain, all in good time. He knew everything was going to be alright.

"How was your day?" Darry asked him, in between mouthfuls of pasta.

"I got drafted," Sodapop lied.