East West Sunset - A Darry Curtis Fanfiction

Chapter Thirty-Two

I heard someone screaming next to me, and then my hearing gave out. I felt like I was swimming in honey. I tried to run over to where Darry had fallen, but my knees failed me. I collapsed onto the pavement, feeling someone's hands trying to pull me back to my feet. I couldn't look at Soda or Pony. Soda lunged towards Arnie's throat, his face cut open with rage and fear, but Arnie sidestepped him and laughed.

"Why are you fighting me, grease? For some no-count greaser who lied to you your whole life? You've been on the wrong side for a while now! You are one of us, Sodapop Curtis!" Arnie spat at him. 

My breath stopped short. "You're a liar!" Soda hurled the words at him. But how much did Arnie really know about Soda's true origins?

"I've done my research, too, Diana Jean." Arnie's small eyes now gloated in the forefront of my vision as he spoke directly to me. "I know your grandmother somewhat personally; my father is good friends with her husband. He knew she had a daughter named Kathleen Jean. He knew Kathleen was disowned for marrying a dirty hood rat not unlike this scum you've been hanging out with lately. You see, my father was poised to marry her and inherit her father's big company, but this Greaser ruined his plan. He married my mother instead, an heiress to a less profitable empire. He never forgot that Greaser, who cost him that chance."

Arnie stopped for a second, his mouth and jaw working furiously, his eyes glowing with hate. "So then, one night, he saw that same greasy piece of shit grubbing about the Jeans' house begging for money. He had a greasy little baby with him who he said was his son. My father told him to get lost, but the Greaser wouldn't listen. My father knew he was no good. He shot him, and that's the last he ever saw him alive." 

My heart seemed to stop completely, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I was certain this had to be a nightmare; none of this could really be happening.

"Yesterday, I talked to old Mrs. Jean myself because I wanted to know the whole story. Well, as soon as she explained it to me it all made sense. That Greaser was friends with that old Curtis man, and how they conveniently had children exactly the same age, down to the same day. She knew the baby that Greaser had with him the night he was killed had been left somewhere. I connected the dots- he had left his son with an old friend, and that son-" He swiveled to face Soda. "That's you."

Soda shook his head in horror; tears were streaming down his face. "You're wrong," he growled. "I'm not- I'm not-"

"You are!" Arnie spat. "So do you still care about that hood who lied to you and called you his brother?"

I couldn't imagine what Soda was feeling at that moment, but I knew the pain was probably devastating. "Soda, don't listen to him! Darry cares about you."

"Is it true?" he asked me desperately.

I couldn't find it within myself to tell him no. Maybe it was my own selfish desire for my brother to come home. Maybe it was my shocked state causing me to keep silent. Maybe I knew, deep in my heart, that Darry was gone and couldn't tell the truth himself. Whatever the reason, I regretted my silence.

Something in Soda's eyes died right in front of me. He pushed past Arnie and ran across the bridge, screaming Darry's name.

So many people were shouting and yelling. My head pounded. A few Greasers were staring over the railing desperately, while a few more were running down to the waters' edge. Some of the Socs looked stricken and stared at their leader disbelievingly before fleeing into the night. The world was spinning crazily around me. I closed my eyes and realized that they were leaking tears faster than they had been before. Arnie surveyed it all with a look of cold, violent satisfaction. Then he, too, disappeared into the darkness like a creature from a horror film.