Chapter Text
“Ponyboy.”
Johnny was leaning over my legs in front of the fire, trying to keep warm. I was already looking at the back of his head and just hummed.
“Do you think…” his quiet voice trailed off.
“Think what?” I asked when he didn’t continue or turn around.
“I don’t know,” he said dismissively. “I guess I’ve just been thinking. About church, before we stopped going.”
I furrowed my eyebrows at that. “What about it?”
“Well…” I could feel him nervously start to tug at the knee of my jeans. “About hell, I guess.”
I blinked at that. It wasn’t like they really talked about hell too much at church, at least not when I went, with Johnny or otherwise. Sometimes, sure, but I guess I’d never really thought too much about it.
“Why?” I asked.
Johnny got real quiet again and sat up. My legs got cold without him laying on them.
“Do you think we’ll go?”
“What? To hell?” I said, like Johnny was stupid or crazy. I felt like he must’ve been, until I looked at his face.
He looked real close to crying, and his mouth was shaking.
“I killed a kid, Pony,” he all but whispered. “And you ain’t really done nothing like that, but… but what we’re doing here ain’t exactly right, hiding from the cops and… and everything else.”
“Well, sure…” I mumbled, but I didn’t know what to say.
I hadn’t really thought of hell like that before. Greasers did stuff that was against the law all the time, and I never figured anyone we knew would go to hell. Not even Dally.
I wanted Johnny to lean back on my legs again, to take the cold out of them, but the thought only made it slowly seep into my belly.
“Lay back down, Johnny,” I said softly anyway. “Just lay back down.”
“I can’t, Ponyboy.”
I realized I’d stopped looking at him, and as I turned back to see his face, I could only see the back of his head again, laid against the white of his hospital bed.
“I can’t, Ponyboy,” he said again, his voice weak and strangled and desperate. “I don’t wanna die, Ponyboy. It ain’t enough. Sixteen years ain’t enough.”
On and on he repeated that. “I don’t wanna die, Ponyboy. It ain’t enough. It ain’t enough.” And his voice got tighter and tighter as he started to sob and then quieter and quieter as he started to die. And I felt it in my throat and behind my eyes and in my chest, that I wanted to cry. I wanted to pet his hair like I did when he laid across my legs in that old church, so maybe he might stop sobbing and dying. But nothing came out of me and none of me could move, so I just stood, wanting to cry and move and scream until I felt like I would explode, until the lights went dark and I couldn’t see Johnny or even hear his voice, getting tighter and quieter as he begged me, and then I realized I was in my bedroom, staring up at the ceiling and crying.
I sat up. It was dark, and I was by myself. I wiped at my face as I sobbed real quiet and forced myself to calm down.
I hadn’t thought about Johnny like that in a long time, and I needed a cigarette, so I got out of bed and started down the hall.
I stopped for a minute outside Soda’s door, but I knew he had work tomorrow and didn’t want to bother him. Instead, I found my cigarettes in the living room and took them out to the porch.
When I stepped out the front door, it occurred to me that I was only in pajama pants and an undershirt. It was cold, and though we were on the other side of winter and it was getting warmer every day, it reminded me of that night from over a year ago. The night I’d woken up in the lot next to Johnny, not knowing what time it was, and ran up these steps, scared of the earful I was about to get from Darry.
I didn’t know what time it was now, either. I hadn’t checked before stepping outside, but the sun hadn’t started coming up early yet, and it was still dark. I imagined it was later than it had been that night, but it felt the same to me just then. I had the feeling that if I went down to the lot right now, I would find Johnny there, curled up under newspapers and trying to sleep.
It’d been a long time since I’d last felt like I could turn around and find him. I could’ve run to the lot, in that moment. I really could’ve. But he wouldn’t have been there, so instead I sat on the porch steps, shivering, and lit a cigarette.
I must’ve been right about the time, because as soon as I took my first drag, the door swung open again, and Darry came out and sat next to me on the steps.
“What’re you doing up so early, kid?” he asked, and I figured he must have gotten up for work and not found me in bed when he checked.
That was something I’d recently noticed him doing, checking. I didn’t know how long he’d been doing it, but I’d noticed in the last couple months that he looked in on both me and Soda when he got up for work in the morning. I thought he probably did it before he went to bed, too, but I was always asleep before then. I just had trouble staying that way, lately.
“Did ya have a nightmare?” Darry continued on when I didn’t answer.
“No,” I said, and that was true. At least, I thought it was. It wasn’t like the dream I used to wake up screaming from. It was mostly just things that really happened. “Just couldn’t sleep.”
Darry just looked at me a moment.
“You know…” he started hesitantly. “Soda wouldn’t mind sharing a bed with you, again. It ain’t been so long since he stopped.”
I waved him off and took another drag of my cigarette. I knew Soda wouldn’t care, he’d told me as much himself when I suggested he move back into his room a couple months ago. But the truth is that I minded. I wasn’t too far off from being 16, and that was too old to need my big brother sharing a bed with me.
“I’m fine, Darry, really. It ain’t nothin’ like that,” I assured him. He didn’t look too convinced, but he left it alone.
“Darry, can I ask you a question?” I said after a long silence.
“Sure.”
“You think it’s hard to get sent to hell?”
He blinked at me, like I was stupid or crazy. I felt like both.
“What are you thinking about something like that for?”
“Dunno,” I shrugged and turned my head, so that he couldn’t see how I was starting to cry again. I rested my arms over my knees so that they hung over the steps, acting as if the thought had just occurred to me. “I… I remember Johnny asking me about it. Back in Windrixville.”
“Ponyboy,” he started with exasperation, then stopped. He was better at that, not yelling at me when he knew it would start a fight or upset me too much. I think he noticed I was shaking, so his voice was nicer when he continued. “Are you cold?”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice and shoulders shaking.
I was still facing away from him as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and rubbed his hand up and down my bare arms. He had his jacket on, and it helped warm me up.
“I don’t know, baby,” he said, responding to my question. “I ain’t really gone to church much since… since Mom and Dad stopped taking us.”
I liked that he said that instead of “since Mom and Dad died.” I don’t know why, but I didn’t like thinking of it like that. Like they were looking down and not liking what we were doing without them.
I tried to calm myself down before finally looking over at Darry. I thought he might be waiting for me to, and I was right. He was looking at me, and as I turned, he just closed his eyes and sighed.
“I guess I always figured as long as you’re sorry ‘bout anything you do wrong, God’d know,” Darry said calmly.
“Well, I know plenty of people who do stuff’s wrong without being sorry,” I said. “Two-Bit ain’t never been sorry anytime he stole something.”
Darry laughed at that. I hadn’t meant him to, but I guessed Two-Bit was just the kind of guy you couldn’t help but laugh about.
“God’d try to send Two-Bit to hell and by the end of it, Two-Bit’d have him smiling and waving ‘im right through the pearly gates,” Darry chuckled. “And he’d probably swipe something off Him as he walked by, too.”
That did make me laugh, the thought of Two-Bit wisecracking God and making Him laugh. I thought that might be blasphemous, but it was funny anyway, so I kept laughing with Darry until he patted my shoulder and stood up.
“C’mon, kid. Way too cold out here for you dressed like that, and I gotta get to work.”
Darry pulled open the screen door and held it open for me to walk through before him. I took one last, long puff of my cigarette and blew it out as a snuffed the butt on the step. Then I walked inside, and Darry followed, petting the back of my head for a moment before going into the living room to lace up his boots. I started down the hallway for my bedroom, hoping to get a bit more sleep or at least lay there for a bit pretending I would.
“You still going out tonight with… what’s her name? Cathy?” Darry asked before I made it to my door.
Oh. Somehow I’d almost forgotten I was supposed to meet Cathy after her shift at the hospital tonight. We’d been hanging out after school for a couple weeks now. I’d met her only a few months ago, at a school dance. She’d recently moved back to town after a few years of living a way’s away with her aunt, and she’d gone with my friend, Mark’s, brother then.
A fight had broken out at the dance, and the night itself was overall sort of crazy, but I’d driven with Cathy to meet her date at the hospital, because he’d ridden in the ambulance with Mark when he’d gotten hurt. She was nice to talk to, and we’d got along good, but it was clear she liked Bryon, her date, so I hadn’t really though much of it at the time.
Now Mark was in jail, Cathy and Bryon had broken up, and the only person Cathy really knew in town that she could talk to was her younger brother, who wasn’t doing so good for other reasons, and me. So we’d gotten real close, I guess.
“Yeah,” I called back, trying not to wake Soda. “To both.”
“You want me or Soda to drop you off or pick you up? You’re going out late, right?”
I couldn’t think of anything lamer than getting dropped off or picked up from a date by my big brother.
“I’ll be alright.”
“Okay. Well, not sure I’ll see you before you leave, I might not be home ‘til late.” Darry appeared at the end of the hall, shoes all laced up. “Just don’t be out too late, you hear? Curfew’s midnight.”
“Yes, sir.” I nodded obediently, smiling as Darry rolled his eyes.
Darry stood there just a moment too long, staring at me.
“Thanks for talking to me this morning,” he said finally. “It was nice, seeing you before I have to go to work.”
I just blinked at him, unsure what to say. It was unusual for Darry to say something like that.
“Sure,” I said slowly. “It was nice talking to you, too.”
And it was, even if he hadn’t really answered my question. I was starting to feel like I could go back to sleep again, and I thought I probably wouldn’t have if he hadn’t sat with me a bit.
“Well, I’m glad,” he said, turning around. “I’ll see you tonight, Ponyboy.”
“See you tonight,” I said, and headed back to my room as I heard him shut the door.
I left my own door open, and even though I laid down right away, I couldn’t manage to fall asleep until I heard Soda get up and start moving around the house.
I didn’t have any more dreams, at least not like the one that woke me up that morning, but I had a vague sense of Windrixville and the lot down the street and Johnny sitting next to me, talking about nothing in particular. Every time I became too aware of the fact that I was laying in my bedroom, I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, and I swore I could hear Johnny saying something to me again.
“You still sleeping in here, Pony?”
I peeled my eyes open and found Soda standing in my doorway.
“What are you doing home?” I said, sitting up and scrubbing the sleep from my face.
“I been off work a couple hours now,” he said, slightly dumbfounded. “I was wondering where you were at. Did you really spend all day in bed? It’s almost dinner, now.”
“Oh,” I said dumbly. “I didn’t realize.”
“Are you feeling alright?” Soda asked, walking into the room and putting a hand against my forehead. “You don’t feel hot.”
“I feel fine,” I said, pulling away from his hand. “I was just tired, I guess.”
“Okay…” Soda seemed unconvinced. “You still have that date in a bit, don’t you? Do you want dinner before you go?”
To be honest, I wasn’t all that hungry, even though I hadn’t eaten much that day. I still got like that, sometimes, even though it’d been a pretty long time since Johnny and Dally died.
“No, we’re gonna go to the drive in, I think, after I pick her up from work. I’ll just get popcorn or something,” I said, getting out of bed.
I started to look through my clothes to lay out something to wear before I had a shower.
“Okay.” Soda yawned and stretched as he walked out of my room. “Well, I’m gonna make something for me and Darry, I guess.”
I took my shower, and when I got out, I could smell whatever Soda had cooked up and hear that Darry was home. He must’ve got done early.
“Hey, Ponyboy,” he greeted me from the kitchen as I walked out. He looked dog tired, but he smiled at me.
“Hey, Darry.” I was scrubbing a towel furiously through my hair. I had to be at the hospital at seven to get Cathy. It was already past five now, and I was hoping to get my hair dry enough to put grease in it before I left. “Work okay?”
“It was work.” He shrugged it off. “Soda told me you slept all day. You feelin’ alright?”
I sent a glare to Soda sitting at the table. “Did he also tell ya he already checked me over and I’m fine?”
“He did,” Darry said, but when I turned back, he was still looking at me like I was about to keel over.
“Oh, would you quit that,” I said, annoyed. “It was just sleep.”
Darry’s worry didn’t bother me as much as it used to, now that I knew what it was, but sometimes he would get on about the smallest things. It annoyed the hell out of me, because it made me feel like a little damn kid.
“Alright, alright,” Darry said, and I knew he was trying to avoid arguing, so I calmed down, too. “Ya leavin’ soon?”
“Yeah,” I said, wandering back into the bathroom to hang up my towel.
“Okay, well, you remember what I said. Midnight.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, sorting out my hair in the mirror.
When I’d done what I could, I went back out and found Darry sitting at the table now with Soda.
“Alright, I’m going,” I said as I walked past.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Soda said, grinning.
Darry was chewing but swallowed quick to add, “Well, I’d hope he’d be smarter than that at least.”
Soda just rolled his eyes, still smiling.
“Just be careful, yeah?” Darry continued.
“Yes, mom,” I said, jokingly.
I found my jacket over the side of the couch, where I’d left it after school yesterday, and pulled it on as I went out the door.
“Good luck!” Soda called as the door shut behind me.
When I got to the hospital, I wasn’t sure which door to wait by. She worked in the cafeteria, and I wasn’t sure if that meant she had a different exit than the normal one, but I figured she’d find me at the front, so I found a bench out front and waited. I was looking at the big front doors and trying not to think about the last time I walked through them.
Sure enough, at 7:10 she walked out those doors and smiled when she saw me waiting for her.
I thought it was nice, seeing her smile. She’d been through a lot the past couple months, and I thought if it was me, I wouldn’t be able to smile much at all.
“Hey, Ponyboy,” she said when we got close enough.
“Hey,” I said, standing up from the bench. We started walking through the parking lot. “I was thinking we could walk to the drive-in, if you ain’t too tired from work. Up to you.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, bumping her shoulder gently into mine. It seemed to me like she wanted to grab my arm, but she was too shy to just do it, and I was too shy to let her. “I was thinking something a little more quiet. Maybe we could go to the park and just sit together and talk for awhile.”
“Sure,” I said, though I was kinda starting to feel hungry, then, to tell the truth. But I figured I could just eat when I got home tonight.
The park was a bit of a ways from the hospital, back in the direction of where I lived, but I didn’t mind walking, and it seemed like she didn’t either.
“So… how was work?” I asked.
I wasn’t really sure what kind of conversation you were supposed to make on a date, seeing as I hadn’t really been on one, even though Cathy and I’d been hanging out awhile.
“Oh, it was alright.” She sighed. “There was this boy there today, and for second I really thought… I really thought it was Bryon, and I’m embarrassed how much I wanted it to be before I realized it wasn’t.”
“Gee,” I said, not really knowing what to say. I thought it was pretty sad, but I didn’t know how to cheer her up.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Ponyboy,” she said suddenly, and she did grab my arm now. It was sorta nice, but with the jacket on, her grabbing me made me a little too warm. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I sure am an idiot, aren’t I? I don’t mean I wanted him instead, or something, I just– Oh, that sounds worse, doesn’t it–”
“It’s alright,” I said, because really I didn’t take any offense to it, and her face was getting red as a tomato. “Really, I get it. It’s just someone important leaving your life so suddenly. You just want a neater ending.”
Her face was frozen for a minute, and then she started smiling at me again, real sweetly.
“That’s it, exactly,” she said. “I like you a lot, Ponyboy, but I… I’ve never really dated, much, and with Bryon it was like… Everything was perfect, and then suddenly he disappears forever, and I can’t reach him no matter how hard I try… Oh, I guess I shouldn’t say this either, but something tells me you understand, yeah?”
“I’ve never really dated before, either,” I said, and she seemed surprised by that. “But I know plenty about losing people, I guess.”
Cathy sucked in a breath. “Ain’t we just a pair.”
That made me laugh a bit, I don’t know why.
“Sure,” I said.
I could see the park coming into view. I didn’t realize until just then, but I hadn’t been to this park after dark since Johnny and I’d come here over a year ago. I don’t know why he was on my mind so much lately, and I tried not to think about it.
We walked along the pathway. There weren’t too many people there, just a few adult couples and one mother who was trying to get her little kid off the jungle gym. We found a bench that was a good distance from everyone and sat down.
Cathy leaned against my side. We didn’t really talk. I think she might’ve been tired from working, and I’d been planning to be watching a movie right now, so we just sat in the quiet. There was a voice in my head that sounded an awful lot like Soda, telling me what it was you ought to do when you’re in a park alone with a girl.
“Ponyboy.”
I turned and found her looking up at me, and it seemed like she might have that little voice, too. Her eyes moved quickly down my face and then back up to mine, so I leaned down and started kissing her.
I’d never actually kissed a girl before. It was nice. I thought it would be warmer, somehow.
She brought her pale hands up to my face, and I wasn’t sure what to do with mine, so I did the same. Her long, black hair was falling against my knuckles, and I thought it was surprising how long it was. When she pulled back and I looked at her, her bangs had fallen over her eyes.
Cathy smiled, and her hands dropped down to my shoulders.
“I think I oughta get home, Ponyboy,” she said, yawning through the second half of her sentence. “I’m sorry, this is a real nice time, but it’s been a long day.”
“Yeah,” I breathed.
“Walk me home?”
We left the park, and I walked her to her house. I hadn’t actually been there before, but it was nice enough. I walked her up to the door.
“Thanks for picking me up, Ponyboy, and for walking me home,” she said, leaning on the doorknob. “Sorry it wasn’t much fun.”
“It was plenty fun,” I said, because I didn’t want her to apologize for being tired.
“Hey, you know that dance that’s going on next weekend?” she asked suddenly.
“Sure, I heard about it,” I said.
She stood there looking for a moment, and then she looked like she wanted to laugh.
“Well, would you like to go with me?” she asked.
“Oh, I shoulda asked you that,” I said, dumbly.
She actually did laugh that time. “That’s alright, I don’t really care about that kinda stuff. Boys asking girls and all that.”
I smiled. “Well, then, sure. I’d like to go with you.”
Cathy smiled back. “Good, then you can pick me up Friday at 7.”
She hesitated before leaning up to give me another kiss.
“Night, Ponyboy,” she said, going inside.
“Night,” I mumbled. I’m not even sure she heard me.
When I got back home, Darry and Soda were still up. Soda was watching cartoons on the couch, and Darry was cleaning up in the kitchen.
“Hey, Pony,” Soda said, turning from the TV. “How was your date?”
“It was good,” I said, walking into the kitchen and looking for something to eat.
I moved around Darry, who was putting the dishes away.
“You’re home earlier than I thought you’d be,” he said, closing the cabinet.
“Yeah, she was tired from work.” I decided the easiest thing was just to eat the chocolate cake that was left over in the ice box.
“Y’all didn’t go to the movies?” Soda said as he entered the kitchen, too.
I opened the cake right there on the counter and started picking off small pieces to pop into my mouth. Darry sighed my name but didn’t stop me.
“Nah, we just went to the park and sat together for a bit,” I said.
Soda quirked an eyebrow. “The park?”
“Yeah?” I said. “She just wanted to talk about her day and stuff.”
“Sure,” Soda said knowingly.
My face got hot. “Okay, and we kissed a little.”
Soda smirked teasingly, and I knew he was trying to embarrass me, but I felt something more than embarrassment pooling in my stomach.
“Is that all you did?”
“Oh, would you quit it.” I felt an annoyance I never felt when talking to Sodapop, because that something pooling in my stomach wasn’t making me feel too good.
“Gee, Pony, I don’t mean nothing. I’m just kiddin’ ya,” Soda said, realizing he wasn’t making me laugh with his teasing. “Shoot, you ain’t the kinda kid to do more than kissin’ on the first date.”
I just looked down at the cake I’d been picking at. This conversation was making me feel so stupid, and I didn’t know why. I suddenly didn’t feel hungry anymore.
“It’s alright.” I just wanted to pack the cake up, but I didn’t want Soda to think he was upsetting me, even though he sort of was, so I ate another bite. “Cathy’s not that kinda girl, either, you know.”
It was true, she wasn’t, and it felt important to point that out rather than explain that I didn’t care if he thought I was that kind of kid or not. Because I didn’t know what it was that I cared about if it wasn’t that.
Soda breathed a laugh, and when I looked up he was smiling again.
“Goodness, Ponyboy, you really like this girl, huh?”
I shrugged. “Well, sure.”
“‘Well, sure,’” Soda copied me, still laughing, and turned to Darry.
I followed his eyes, laughing a bit, too, because Soda could usually always make me laugh.
Darry was looking at me real serious.
“Darry?” I said, completely caught off guard by his expression.
He blinked, and his eyes moved from my face, to Soda, and back.
“Sorry, just caught in thought,” he said, and went back to wiping the table.
I just turned to Soda, who shrugged. Neither of us knew what that was about.
“You do really seem to like this girl, Ponyboy,” he continued suddenly. “You oughta bring her over for dinner sometime.”
“It’s only been one date!” I practically shouted. “We ain’t that far along yet!”
“There go his ears.” Soda pointed at me.
I covered my red ears quick and glared at him. He and Darry both started laughing.
I huffed, taking my hands down to close the cake back up.
“Like I’d ever bring a nice girl like Cathy Carlson over to meet a couple of greasers like you two,” I said, putting the cake back in the icebox.
I wasn’t being serious about the greaser part, and Soda and Darry knew that.
Soda came up behind me and started pulling at my cheeks and ears. “Well, she seems to like this greaser just fine.”
I ducked under his hands and ran out of the kitchen.
“I’m going to bed!” I shouted, running into the bathroom and locking the door.
I brushed my teeth quick, and when I went to open the door again, I did it real slow.
Sodapop was back on the couch watching cartoons, so I figured I was safe.
“Night,” I called, receiving two answers back.
I laid in bed for awhile, unable to sleep. I guess that was why people didn’t sleep all day.
I got up and sat at my desk for a bit, reading some of the book we had to read for class, which made me feel tired, but by the time I laid down again, I felt wide awake.
I was thinking about my date with Cathy, about kissing her in the park and at her front door. It was nice. She was nice. I wondered what she’d wear to the school dance next Friday. She’d probably look real pretty.
I closed my eyes and imagined picking her up from the dance. Her walking down the steps in some pretty dress and me standing there at the bottom smiling, like it was a movie. The dance would probably be fun, I’d liked going to them enough before, even though I’d never taken a date with me.
I imagined slow dancing with Cathy, her leaning against me like she had at the park and looking up at me all sweet-like.
“Ponyboy,” she said, like she did when she was looking up at me on that bench.
No one else was there, just the two of us, pressed chest-to-chest, me looking down and her looking up.
I leaned down, closing my eyes, and kissed her. Her lips were warm and soft, and where her tan hands came up to the sides of my face, I felt goosebumps. I brought my own hands up to the nape of her neck and felt the short black hair their tickling my finger tips.
She pulled back, and I could feel her shallow breath on my face. Something warm was pooling in my stomach.
“Ponyboy.” It was not Cathy’s voice that said this.
I opened my eyes, back in my room. My entire body was on fire, and the warmth in my stomach was making me nauseous.
I looked at the clock next to my bed. 4:02 AM.
It was too early for me to even be up making breakfast, but I needed to get out of that bed.
I went out on the porch again to smoke and cool off, like I had the night before. Darry didn’t come out to sit with me this time. Once it was getting around to the time I thought he’d wake up, I went back in and started making breakfast.
I felt like I could almost forget about that dream by the time I heard Darry opening my door and then Soda’s. Checking again.
I heard him walk to the front door, like he’d find me out on the porch again.
“Hey, Darry,” I called from the kitchen.
“Hey,” Darry said, walking into the kitchen. His eyes were almost round when he saw me. “You’re up awful early again.”
“Got a lotta sleep yesterday,” I said, which was true.
“Yeah…” Darry said, and he was staring at me. Then, he reached over and ruffled my hair. “Just don’t burn my eggs.”
“I know how to make eggs,” I said, pushing him off. “Get offa me and sit down, would ya?”
He went to sit down at the table, and it wasn’t long after that Soda woke up.
“Pony’s making breakfast?” he said like he’d die of shock.
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah, here.”
I gave them both their plates and then got my own. Breakfast passed pretty normal after that, and eventually they both left for work. I had the house to myself then, which, being honest, I wasn’t too happy about.
I didn’t spend the rest of the day sleeping, I’ll tell you that.