Chapter Text
Cherry and I stayed up on that roof till almost midnight. We talked about everything under the sun. She told me something that made a lot of sense to me: The idea of having a plan set out perfectly for her whole life. A timeline to follow so that everything lined up just right, and it all worked out in the end. It sounded good enough, but she explained that it was like standing in a hallway with no doors except one at the end. It started to feel a lot like a prison.
That got me on about Darry and college again, about feeling like it was all crashing down on me. In the dark, I could feel Cherry looking at me.
“Do you want to go to school, Ponyboy?” she asked me when I was through explaining.
I stared at a star that seemed especially bright tonight. I didn’t even know anymore. On one hand, going to school felt like losing Dallas and Johnny. It felt like tearing out part of me and leaving it on the ground to be trampled. It felt like jumping right off the edge of a big old cliff.
But on the other hand…I wanted it more than anything. I felt like there was a phoenix rising up in my chest, and I could feel the scorch of its wings beating against my rib cage. It felt good. It felt real. It felt like I was ready to leave, if I could just take that first step.
But I couldn’t. Because I’d been a damn fool, too scared of a few pieces of paper to do the one thing that could’ve gotten me out.
“Yeah,” I told Cherry. “I guess I do. But I missed the deadline for the application, and besides, I bet Darry wouldn’t be able to pay for it—”
We’d been lying down, but Cherry sat up at that. “Ponyboy!” she said, and her voice sounded like it was bubbling over with joy. “I know the girls in the admissions office. I’ll talk to them. You’re a good writer—I’ll get you a scholarship application too. Ponyboy—” She must’ve seen that I wanted to argue, because she grabbed my hand and made me look at her. I saw her eyes were shining, like she’d finally found something she could fix. “We can do it,” she said softly. “We can.”
I felt all the air rush out of my lungs. When it came back, I felt like I was coming back to life.
There were things we had to figure out, of course. I didn’t tell Darrel anything at all until it was settled with the girls in the admissions office, and I knew I’d be able to pay. It was close to the fall then, and I’d been near exploding with having a secret like that.
Darry’s eyes went shiny with tears when I told him, and he swooped me up in a hug. “You’re going to school,” he said. “You’re going to school.”
I hung on tight, feeling everything disappear and come back at the same time.
It got cooler. The leaves started turning orange and yellow like a sunset. Scholarship news came in. It was good—Not enough to cover everything, but enough that we could manage. I saw Darrel smile bigger and prouder and less exhausted than I’d seen in a while.
Cherry and I went to see a movie just before classes started. We sat near the back, with our arms touching on the armrest. Cherry hadn’t changed her mind about wanting to be with me since we talked on the roof. For now, we’d be friends and nothing else. That was alright with me. It was enough to just be close to her, heads tipped together, smelling the sweet soap she used. “I’m glad I get to see you,” I told her.
She smiled back at me. “I’m glad too.”
We didn’t say anything else before the movie started. There’d been so many words strung out over that summer, but it was finally autumn and I was letting the old parts of me slough off like a second skin, leaving me raw and newborn again. I felt like I was a whole lot of everything and nothing at the same time.
The movie started playing, and I settled into my seat.