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Now don’t get Steve wrong, he loved his best friend. I mean, why wouldn’t he? Sodapop Curtis, sculpted like a Greek God, drunk on life itself, funny, charming, everything people wanted in a young man. He was arguably perfect, maybe that was the reason for the deep pit in Steve’s stomach.
Steve didn’t really notice it when he’d first met Sodapop in second grade. Steve was playing with toy cars on the floor of his second grade classroom when a boy with blonde hair plopped down next to him. Of course Steve wouldn’t waste a perfectly good opportunity to lecture someone on his favorite thing, cars. So that’s exactly what he did. Their friendship bloomed like a flower in spring, that was until winter came, middle school.
Specifically seventh grade, boys started hitting puberty around this time. Sodapop was a cute kid as adults would always say but now he was a “handsome young man”. Every boy has probably been called that by an elderly lady or older man but when people said that to Sodapop, well, they sure as hell meant it.
Girls started flirting with Sodapop, girls rarely looked at Steve that way. It was hard to when his best friend looked like he was the love interest in one of those sappy movies where the nerd falls for the popular boy. So Steve didn’t blame them, he stuck with his cars.
Around ninth grade Sodapop started dating Sandy. Sandy was the first girl Sodapop seemed to be utterly in love with. She was pretty, a greaser, blonde hair, china blue eyes, soft laugh. They were a good match and Steve couldn’t deny it. Steve was happy of course, his best friend just fell in love! Steve knew how much Sodapop really adored that girl. But why couldn’t Steve be the one to fall in love? Why couldn’t a girl who bragged to her friends about Steve come along? Why was it always Sodapop.
Around tenth grade is when Evie came along. Evie was pretty, black hair, green eyes, greaser, tough, tougher than Sandy. Evie was Sandy’s friend, her and Sandy came as a package deal, just like Sodapop and Steve. Sodapop had begged Steve to look Evie’s way and Sandy probably did the same with Evie. They started dating around this time.
Don’t get Steve wrong, he liked Evie, he liked going to the movies with her, liked going to rodeos with her, liked fixing her car or showing her car parts. But sometimes, Steve couldn’t help but feel they were just dating for Sodapop and Sandy’s pleasure. Steve and Evie rarely go out without Sodapop and Sandy. Half the time it felt more like 3rd and 4th wheeling rather than a double date. Steve was sure Evie felt this way too. Steve saw how Evie looked at Sodapop, not like she wanted to date him, more like a “How I wish my boyfriend looked like that…” way.
Then, Sodapop’s parents died. Blunt but only way to put it. Sodapop became the glue in his family and Steve was the shoulder to cry on. Steve had always loved the Curtis parents, he never felt like a ghost in their home like he did in his own. For the first time in a while, Steve didn’t feel so jealous.
Steve and Sodapop started working at the same gas station. Steve part-time because he still had to go to school and just wanted an excuse to be able to tinker with cars. Sodapop full time cause he’d dropped out and even worked the inside building. The DX they worked at got more customers than any gas station in Tulsa. Sure it was mainly teenage girls but Steve was proud of himself. He felt seen, they kept coming back cause he was so good with cars.
Until Steve realized he was wrong. The girls kept coming back cause they liked Sodapop, not cause Steve had his way with cars. Because they liked to stare at Sodpop, picture they had a chance with him. And that, well that only erupted resistance and jealousy in Steve’s soul.
Steve would change the oil on their cars and listen and watch as they giggled and flirted with his best friend, not even saying a thank you to Steve when he’d finish the job. Steve was pissed to say the least. Steve isn’t a cheater, he didn’t necessarily want girls to giggle and flirt with him, he just wanted to be seen. To be appreciated for something, even if that something wasn’t looks. It ain’t easy when your best friend is getting everything and all the attention.
Steve felt like a ghost now, a ghost in his home, a ghost around girls, hell he was starting to feel like a ghost around his whole gang! He felt like Sodapop was the only person to understood and paid any attention to him. And now, now he’s starting to feel like he hates Sodapop.
Sodapop hasn’t done anything, Sodapop is the happiest person Steve has known. But whenever Steve even glances at Sodapop he feels this burning sensation churning deep inside him, that’s gotta be hatred. But why? Sodapop hasn’t done anything except just exist.
Steve started to distance himself from everything, everything except cars. Cars are predictable, understandable, they work as they should and if they don’t they can be fixed, people are none of those things. Steve was a ghost. No one noticed or understood, well, he thought no one noticed or understood.
Ponyboy Curtis, Steve had never liked the kid, thought he was a tag along. The kid didn’t like him either, they merely tolerated each other for Sodapop’s sake.
On some day in summer Steve had somehow ended up in the Sodapop and Ponyboys shared room. The kid got bad nightmares, you didn’t need to know the kid very well to know that so Sodapop and Ponyboy shared a bed. Steve doesn’t quite remember why he was in there but he was and that’s the point.
Ponyboy digs all types of weird stuff and Steve guessed that journaling was probably one of them. Steve didn’t mean to snoop but when a journal is laying open right next to him on the bed, is it really snooping? He opened the journal to some random page in the middle and it must’ve been fate or something.
July 21st 1967
Sometimes I feel like I’m living in one of those haunted houses except I’m the ghost that haunts everyone. I know they love me and stuff but I can’t help but feel like everyone would be an ounce better without me. Like a sudden weight lifted off. I feel like I’m too little yet too much all the time. Never enough but always an unmanageable more than enough. I hate it. I feel jealous, the other guys can be so tough all the time and I just can’t be, whenever I look at them I feel this deep burning sensation churning down in my gut somewhere. I don’t like being jealous, it makes me feel bad cause they didn’t even do anything. I wish I could feel like I fit in here. But I just can’t, I’m not tough or hard as nails as much as I want to be. I don’t wanna be a ghost anymore.
Steve was a little taken aback to say the least. Sure, the kid and him were drastically different with drastically different ‘issues’ but they had a common ground. They were jealous and felt wrong for it. There’s the word Steve feels for Sodapop! Jealous! Not hatred, he could never hate Sodapop.
To Steve, jealousy has always meant hatred. But jealousy doesn’t have to mean hatred, the world just loves to see people eat off of their own insecurities and then project them on others, the weird sociopathic ways of the world.
Steve wishes he didn’t feel like a ghost, wished he wasn’t jealous, but he doesn’t get that awful feeling in his gut anymore, because someone out there understands. It’s sappy but it helped.
Steve became a little nicer to the kid, not crazy over him, never. Steve didn’t resent or push away Sodapop anymore and Steve tried harder with Evie. Steve still felt like a ghost, a ghost in his own community, like a background character in his own life. But maybe, just maybe, there’s other boys out there who try more than hard enough to get noticed and fail, have a deep burning sensation churning in them when they look at someone they adore.
Jealousy isn’t hatred, it doesn’t have to mean resentment, it’s what you make of it. Steve is a little embarrassed it took him so long to figure that out.
Now obviously Steve will never under any circumstances admit this, never tell anyone. He’ll continue to feel like a ghost in his own life until his hands disintegrate from endless tinkering with cars. He’ll feel like a ghost until he becomes one one day. Steve will always be jealous. But he won’t always hate.