I Know You Know My Name

This is still so unreal. All the days going by, and I still can't do this.

I see how you breathe, I know you're alive. But you're not here, and I don't know how to manage without you.

I don't know how Darry will manage either. I know he can seem strong, I know he looks like he might be holding everything together; cooking dinner and paying bills and taking care of all the responsibilities. Taking care of things. Everything I can't do, he does. But I hear him, Pony. The walls in our house, they're thin, you know. I hear him during the nights. And he ain't strong.

I don't know what will happen to us if you don't come back, and it scares me.

Fourteen years, it ain't enough. Fourteen years, it's all I can think of. I remember everything. I remember Mom coming home with you. I remember your little red toy car and your favorite blanket. All of the ghost stories I told you, all those times we played hide-and-seek at home and football at the vacant lot. How your cheeks flushed red, how you smiled. How you sounded when you laughed.

I know how you want your eggs for breakfast and your chocolate cake. I know you thought mine had too much sugar in the icing. I don't add so much anymore, Pony. I think you would have liked them better now.

I remember every straight A on your report cards, your plans for college. You wanted it so badly. I know you still want it, you can still go. But you have to wake up for that. Open your eyes and see me.

I think of all the times you stood reading magazines at the DX, waiting for my shift to end so we could walk home together. Everything we talked about. How you glanced at me while telling me things, as if asking for my approval. But you always had my approval, you know that.

How we saw you running. Hitting the goal on the track field. Your torn sneakers. Remember how you loved to run? You have always been pretty small but not like this. It's like you whither now. But you'll shape up. You'll be able to run again.

Books. Your own books, library books. Everywhere books and drawings, papers with things you wrote. Do you hear me when I read for you? 'Cause I do, you know. Yeah, you can hear me, I know you do. I just make sure no one else does. When we're alone, I read.

You have done so much and still so little. Fourteen years when you were supposed to have eighty. The smell of cigarettes are gone now, you haven't had one for so long. I know they aren't good for your health, but you smell so different now. Not like you used to.

I remember you swallowing aspirin. God, Pony, I don't want to think about that ...

My head hurts, Soda

Your words echo in my mind every day. I hear you say them, over and over. Even when you can't talk anymore, I hear you say them.

My head hurts, Soda

You always had headaches. Always swallowed those aspirin. I know the can emptied too fast - you took too many - but it was always just a headache. Always.

My head hurts, Soda

The last time you said my name. I lied close to you in bed then, and I asked you what was wrong when you whimpered, and you turned your head, just slightly, eyes closed in the dark. My head hurts, Soda.

I had heard those words so many times before. So many times, that I stopped worrying.

"Take any aspirin?" I asked you.

Yeah, you said. Three.

"Go to sleep," I told you. "You'll feel better in the mornin'." 'Cause you always did. Always.

I'm so sorry, Pony. They say it doesn't matter that we didn't rush you to the hospital. They say it would have been too late anyway. They say the bleeding already had started, the one that shut down your brain, making you alive but not living, sleeping but not asleep. Making you stare up at that ceiling, not able to say my name.

Sometimes I wonder if it was because of that time the Soc tried to drown you. Because of that kick in your head at the rumble. The concussion you had.

Or maybe it is like they say, just a fuckin' tickin' time bomb in your head, that was there for all of your life.

It could have happened at anytime, they said to Darry, solemn faces, white clothes, talking about just another boy, just another kid in their ward. Things like this just happen sometimes. There's nothing we can do.

It can't be you. I know they're wrong. I know.

I sit holding your hand, tighter, staring at your face.

And you open your eyes.

"Pony," I whisper.

But you don't answer. You don't say my name.

.

.

Maybe, just maybe...

you don't know it anymore

Thank you so much for reading and all reviews!

This was the last chapter. Remember I warned you, no happy ending :(