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Johnny’s parents kicked him out again last week, with all the snow that we've had as of late Darry doesn't want him out there. he could get super sick, and I prefer if Johnny didn’t get hyperthermia you know?
He’s just mainly been sleeping on the couch. I feel bad but we don’t have anywhere else for him to sleep.
He's more anxious than normal, he hasn't talked about what happened at his folk's house so I'm guessing whatever it was really shook him up.
God I really wish I could punch his parents in the face, they're always screaming at him or hitting him it pisses me right off. Johnnys never done anything to deserve that in his life!
I swear Darry was about to go to Johnny's house and beat the shit out of his parents when Johnny showed up last week.
It was around 10:30 I was finishing up a book I had been reading for the past bit, when I heard frantic loud knocks coming from our front door.
I looked out of my room just in time to see Darry open the door only for Johnny to be standing on our porch, beaten and soaked.
He had a gnarly black eye and was holding his arm that was bleeding like a stuck pig, he was holding back loud sobs.
“Jesus Christ Johnny! What happened?!” Darry ushered Johnny inside so he wouldn’t freeze. Johnny tried to respond to Darry and explain but just broke into loud sobs nearly the moment the door closed, I’m going to admit I did just stand there for a minute. I panicked, I didn't know what I was supposed to do.
At this point, Johnny had slumpt on the floor back to the door just sobbing out his heart covering his face.
“Pony! Don’t just stand there go get a towel he's soaked!” That's the one time I appreciated Darry shouting at me, it made me move istead of stand frozen and I did exactly what I was told. When I came back with a light yellow towel Darry had gotten Johnny to calm down slightly, he was still crying but he wasn’t loudly sobbing so it was a start. I wrapped Johnny with the towel and brought him over to the couch and sat him down.
“Johnny, what happened? Were you jumped again?” I asked in a worried but quiet tone. Johnny just shook his head ‘no’ while sniffling.
I thought about just holding my tongue about what I was about to ask him but I stupidly asked anyway. Even though both me and Darry knew the answer.
“Was” I mumbled while speaking “was it one of your parents again?”
Johnny just looked up at me with the most destroyed look in his eyes and started to cry again, and he cried hard.
Johnny just sobbed and sobbed. He grabbed onto me as if he was going to die if he let go.
I think he finally just broke after all the years of shit his parents put him through.
“Hey Johnny, come here let me see your arm.” Darry said sitting next to us on the couch. Johnny slipped his wet jacket off his injured arm, revealing a giant red bleeding wound.
“Jesus Christ” managed to slip out of Darry's mouth, Johnnys always showed up with injuries before, bruises, small cuts, you name it he's had it. But his folks never beat him to the point of a wound of that size before. I don’t even know if I can guess what happened honestly, Darry tried to be careful well cleaning up the wound but it was hard with how large it was. Johnny kept squirming every time the alcohol touched the wound, I just tried to hold him in hopes it’d make him feel better. I'm not very good at comforting people if you couldn’t tell.
“You gotta try to stay still, Johnny cake.” I mumbled trying to comfort him well rubbing his back,
“I’m sorry it just hurts real bad” Johnny sniffled hiding his face in my shoulder.
I looked down at Johnny's arm to look at the wound to see if Darry was done yet, but something else caught my eye. There were small cuts on his forearm, some looked older than the others. The cuts were located all near his wrists. I pointed towards them and before I could ask Johnny where they came from he quickly turned his arm over when he saw my hand go near the cuts. I decided to drop it for a bit he was probably overwhelmed enough as is.
But it did sit on my mind for awhile.
Darry finally finished cleaning Johnny’s wound and covered it with a bandage.
“Alright there we go, stay right here I'm going to get you some ice for your eye.” He got up from the couch and patted Johnny on the back then walked to the kitchen.
“You need anything, Johnny?”
He just shook his head ‘no’ in response. Darry came back with a plastic baggy with ice and gave it to Johnny, he sat up put his jacket back on put the ice on his blackeye and shrunk into the couch.
“You gonna stay here for the night Johnny?” Darry asked, well it was more of a statement disguised as a question.
Johnny mumbled back a “Yes please” and Darry nodded in response.
“I’ll grab you a pillow and blanket, bud”
“Thanks, Darry.”
After Darry set up the couch for Johnny I decided to head to bed to give him some space. I couldn't sleep much, all I could think about was Johnny and how much I wish I was able to teach his folks a lesson. I know I can’t, his dad's a lot bigger than me. He could toss me like a bean bag, and I’d get in a bunch of trouble for hitting a woman, even though she beat Johnny black and blue half the time.
I’m pretty sure everyone in the gang wishes they could give the Cades a dose of their own medicine, Dally especially. He's gotten pretty close, once Johnny's mom was throwing him around like a rag doll on the front lawn. She was drunk off her ass like normal, but she still had the damn bottle in her hand. She was screamin’ about Johnny ‘leaving the house a mess’ or something like that. She had a wicked grip on his arm Johnny was trying to get her to let go by squirming around, he hit her hand lightly trying to rip it off his arm.
She absolutely lost it when he did that, I don’t even know what she was screaming anymore she sounded like a wild animal. She raised the bottle overhead and went to strike him her first swing missed, partly because of Johnny moving out of the way and partly because of how drunk she was.
She went to hit him again but before she could Johnny got out of her grip, and he ran towards us. And so did Mrs. Cade. She kept swinging regardless of how close Johnny was. Dally moved closer to her to tell her to fuck off but before a word left his mouth she smacked him dead square in the face.
He just stared at Mrs Cade for a moment.
“FUCkin’ move out the way” she was slurring all her words “LeT ME at Joan-”
*SMACK*
Mrs Cade was on the ground, out cold. Dallas punched in the face harder than he's ever hit anyone, you could see a black eye forming already and her nose was bleeding.
Dally looked ready to keep going and beat her her till she couldn’t move ever again but he held back, he knew how much trouble he’d get in for beating up an unconicus mother. Even if she was a useless drunk and trying to beat her kid.
When she was drunk Johnnys mom was always calling Johnny by different name, Johnny just said it was his aunts name that he was named after. He says the used to be close but the got into a fight one day and they hate eachother now, I don’t fully beilve him it doesnt make much sense to me but if thats what hes saying ill go along with it.
I fell alseep eventually, but I wasn’t asleep for long. I woke up at around 2 or 3 in the morning, I walked out of my room. I just figured it was soda coming home from Steves but what when I left my bedroom I didn’t see the front door open or any tracks from Soda’s shoes. I walked over towards the bathroom.
It was just Johnny, he had been getting a towel. He was wearing this weird short cut tank top thing.
“Hey Johnny” I said rubbing my eyes. “Whatca doing?”
But Johnny looked terrified, he kinda just froze and stared.
“Johnny? You alright?”
He just stammered and seemed to tear up, but he just painced and ran into the bathroom and closed the door. I was so confused, I didn’t understand why he ran away.
I decided to just get a drink and go back to bed, I figured I just spooked him right? He must just still be shocked from whatever happened to him.
I opended the fridge and poured a glass of orange juice, as I drank it I expected it to hear the shower starting but I heard the door opening instead.
I turned to see Johnny standing in front of me with tears in his eyes but a detiermed look on his face.
“You good, Johnny?”
“Pony, I gotta tell you something” he sniffled.
“Yeah what is it?” I was kinda of worried, I didn’t know what he was going to say.
“ I don’t know how how to explain it to you that’d it make sense,” he sat down and was trying to make eye contact. “I’m not, well not isnt the right word…”
“Are you staling?” I asked.
“No! It’s just hard to explain, I um. I just don’t want this to change how you think of me”
“I’m sure it won’t change anything, Johnny”
“You promise?”
“I promise”
“Ok, ok” he took a deep breath in “I wasn’t born a guy”
He looked at me with fear in his eyes.
“What do you mean, are you a girl?”
“No, well yes but no. biologically i’m a girl but I don’t feel like one. I’m a boy thats what I feel.” he held his breath. “Thats why my parents kicked me out, I tried telling them but they wouldn’t believe me, they thought I was going crazy or possessed”
I just looked at him and let him finish talking.
“And my mom got drunk and got really pissed because, she saw me wearing this” he pointed towards his top.
“A tanktop?” I asked “she beat you over a tanktop?”
“It’s not a tank top, its a compressor type thing. It makes my chest look flat”
I nodded, that made sense to me.
“She was already mad that I won’t grow out my hair, but seeing that just made her lose it” he started to tear up, he wiped his eyes trying to not cry again. “I don’t even want to think about what she said to me”
I stayed slight for a moment before saying
“You’re still a boy to me Johnny, regardless of what you were. You’re still my best friend”
I reached over and held Johnnys hand, he let the tears fall from his eyes and pulled me into a hug.
“Thank you Pony, thank you so much. You and Dally are the only ones who understand, thank you”