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When I stumbled out into the dark night, still clinging to the walls of the alleyway I escaped from, I had only one thing on my mind: I have to get home.
I was pressing my arm into my side as hard as my body would let me—I would’ve used my hands, but at this point they were so bloody that they kept slipping off the knife wound in my stomach. Those damn Socs. First they try to drown me, then they stick me with a damn switchblade? They’d already snatched away Dally and Johnny. They shouldn’t be able to take even more from us.
And yet, even as I was limping away from the crime scene like a drunken toddler, I knew each and every one of those boys had gotten exactly what they wanted—the satisfaction of watching me bleed. I couldn’t help it. I was exhausted, and they’d gotten me from behind, yanking me into that alleyway like it was something they practiced on the regular. Hell, maybe it was. I wouldn’t know.
I could still feel the blond one’s hands covering my mouth and nose. He’d pushed down so hard that I could only get a breath in when he decided I could. I’d never felt so helpless in my life, not even during that night in the fountain. Then, I could at least fight back—but those Socs took me by surprise. They had power and numbers, and I had no chance of fighting back.
I knew I was only alive because I’d been allowed to live—but I had a feeling that no one in that alleyway had intended for me to make it home outside of a body bag, even if they'd given me some extra time.
The thought made me sick to my stomach.
• ────── ••●•• ────── •
I didn’t know how long it had been by the time I made it back home, but I did know that the moment I made it up the steps of the front porch my legs were about five seconds from giving out. Dammit, I thought. Not out here. I can’t die out here. Not when I’m so close.
I swayed a little as my hand slipped off the doorknob. Damn blood, making everything all slick and slippery—it took me three tries to actually get inside the house.
“Pony—oh my god! Is that blood? What happened to you? Who did this?”
I tried to open my mouth and explain, but my eyes crossed against my will and my body went sideways. I thudded against the ground. Was all that blood coming from me? I didn’t know I could bleed that much. I took in a wheezing breath, gradually losing the will to stay conscious. I’d been putting up one hell of a struggle, but there was a gentle voice somewhere inside my head whispering don’t fight it, go to sleep, and I was just about ready to give in. I heard Darry shouting above me, and was distantly aware of someone slapping my face hard, but by then it was too late. I was already going, going, gone.
Strong, soft arms wrapped around me fully. It was like I was in a cocoon of warmth; I had never felt so safe. Was this how Johnny felt? I wondered. I hoped death was as peaceful for him as it was for me right now. You know that feeling when your foot falls asleep? It was like that, but with every part of my brain and body instead of just one little piece of it. Somewhere deep in the back of my mind, I knew there was something for me to be worried about, but I was too blissfully relaxed to really pay the thought any mind.
• ────── ••●•• ────── •
I was somewhere between asleep and awake for a few hours. I can’t tell you when exactly it was—no one can—but I can tell you that I’d just had some sort of Hail Mary surgery. No one really thought I was gonna make it through the night, but somehow I had. My whole body felt weak. I was laying on a mattress; my first thought was that I was somehow in my bedroom, but everything felt too soft for that. Soda liked his mattresses firm.
I tried to open my eyes, but they were too heavy. Something in my hand twitched. I tried to make it happen again, but it didn’t take long to figure out that the movement was completely out of my control. But my quite literal inability to lift a finger didn’t mean there wasn’t any motion around me. Someone was fussing with a blanket (at least, I think that’s what it was. I couldn’t see), seeming to be smoothing out the wrinkles as it was laid on top of me. A different person with a voice I couldn’t recognize came in every once in a while, then left shortly after. The last time it happened, I felt a small tug on my arm and heard a quiet click beside my ear.
Soon after that, someone familiar started to speak above a harsh, steady beeping sound.
“You’re okay, baby. Everything’s gonna be okay.” I still couldn’t open my eyes, but with the way Darry was squeezing my hand I knew something had to be pretty wrong with me. My side was starting to burn a little—maybe that was it. Soda’s cold hands felt really nice in my hair. One of his wrists had landed on my forehead at some point, making me realize two new things: first, my skin felt a little warmer than it usually did, and second, I was covered in a thin sheen of sweat. That second point certainly explained the microscopic shivers that were rushing through my body like an underwater current.
Someone pressed a chaste kiss to my temple. I wished I could see who it was, but lifting my eyelids even a millimeter seemed like a herculean task.
Darry put another hand on my shoulder like he’d somehow sensed my consciousness coming back to me. “It’s okay, Ponyboy,” he said, “You’re safe. You’re going to be okay.” On my other side, I heard shuddering gasps slip out of Soda’s chest. I was pretty sure he was crying; I wanted nothing more than to lift my hands and do something about it, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to. Not in whatever condition I was in right now.
But at least I wasn’t dead, right?
“I can’t look at him like this. I can’t take it.” Soda’s voice broke; he was definitely crying. I felt a cold spot in the places where Darry’s hands had been and silently mourned the loss of his touch. Soda needed it more, though—I knew that, so I wasn’t angry.
“He’s gonna be just fine, Pepsi-Cola,” Darry said softly. “You know the doctors wouldn’t have said so unless they were completely sure.”
“It don’t matter. It don’t change that he’s still here—still hurt—an’ we couldn’t do nothin’ to stop it!”
The room fell into silence, save for Soda’s little hiccups as his breathing grew more ragged. Darry started whispering sweet nothings, so quiet that I couldn’t totally make them out, like they were the only things he had left to give. Glory, maybe saying those empty assurances was the only thing he could do. But it shouldn’t be the only thing we could do. I desperately wanted to open my eyes. I couldn’t leave my brothers alone. They needed me.
I tried to do something, anything, but the only result was the steady beep in my ear growing more annoying. Someone (I think it was Darry?) gasped.
“Glory, Soda, look!”
I still couldn’t move a single muscle. That wouldn’t do. I tried harder. The beeping intensified.
“Come on, Ponyboy. You can do it. Just take it slow,” Soda said.
Opening my eyes wasn’t turning out to be as easy as I wanted. Maybe he was right—maybe I was just going too fast. It wasn’t like I’d tried listening to him yet. I huffed in annoyance. Waking up shouldn’t have been this much work!
“I know, baby, I know, but you can do it,” Darry said from the other side of me.
Slowly, far more slowly than I would’ve liked, I cracked my eyes open. The hospital ceiling was bright—I’d long since figured out that I was in a hospital. It’s hard not to figure that out when you can feel a thousand machines hooked up to every inch of your bare skin. Plus, I could hear it every time a doctor or a nurse came in to check on something. Soda’s blurry face came into my field of view.
“Hey Ponyboy.” The relief in his voice was palpable. “How’re you feelin’?”
I tried to talk, but the only thing that came out was a weak whine.
“Shh. You’re okay.” That kind of annoyed me. Why was Darry shushing me if he’d just seen Soda ask me a question? I wanted to tell him as much, but my voice still wasn’t managing to force itself past my lips. I settled on giving him as mean of a look as I could muster and hoping he could pick up on the rest. Darry immediately lifted his hands off my arm; I didn’t even know they were there until that moment.
“I’m sorry, baby. Am I hurting you?” he asked. I shook my head no and gave up on trying to talk, instead choosing to stare up at the ceiling again. Luckily, Soda could understand me a little better.
“I think he just woke up a little cranky, Dar. Nothin’ you did wrong.”
Or maybe he couldn’t. Whatever. It didn’t matter. I’d already gotten over it by that point, and I really was missing the way his hand had held mine earlier.
“‘and,” I managed to wheeze out, my arm pathetically flopping to the right instead of actually reaching for Darry like I’d planned. Thankfully, he seemed to get the message this time and gently clasped my hands between his own. I started to feel real bad all of a sudden. Darry only wanted to help me. Why did I get so mad at him again? It didn’t matter. I knew that I had.
“S’orry,” I whispered. My voice was so weak that it cracked just from that meager usage.
“Don’t be sorry, baby,” Darry responded immediately. He seemed okay. Satisfied, I turned my head to Soda.
“You’re cryin’,” I told him. He quickly wiped his eyes. “We were just worried about you, honeybee. I’m okay now that you’re awake.” I nodded; the talking had hurt my throat. I didn’t want to say any more if I didn’t have to.
“You can go back to sleep if you need to,” Darry said to me. I frowned. Even though I was still really tired, I didn’t want to go back to sleep—I didn’t want to make Soda cry again.
“Really, honey, you can. All I needed was for you to wake up, not to stay up. Your body needs rest. You need to heal.”
Now that the guilt sitting heavy in my stomach had dissipated, it was easy for me to close my eyes and slip away again.
• ────── ••●•• ────── •
“The knife went in deeper than I thought,” I said, staring at the stitches in my side. The ones holding my skin together would need to be taken out by a doctor after a while, but Darry told me there were also some on the inside of my body that could dissolve on their own. I thought that was pretty tuff. Soda thought he was gonna throw up.
After waking up the first time, I’d slept for a whole day. One of the nurses told us it was pretty normal, that there had been an infection from the knife that my body was working real hard to fight off. Nothing I wouldn’t be able to handle, especially since by the time I opened my eyes for the first time since I got stabbed yesterday I’d already worked through most of it, but it made sense for me to be mighty tired.
A little while after that encounter, Soda left the hospital room for the first time since he’d gotten here, according to Darry. He wasn’t out for long, though—less than five minutes later, he walked back in with Steve and Two-Bit trailing right behind him.
“Hey, guys.” I waved weakly. All the drugs they’d put me on were making me feel pretty lousy.
“Hey, Ponykid!” Two exclaimed. “How’s that stab wound doin’?” One thing I’d always liked about Two-Bit was how he got straight to the point of any conversation he was in.
“You should see the other guys,” I joked. No one laughed.
“Guys? As in more than one?” I swallowed thickly. That might not have been the brightest thing to say; Steve sounded angry.
“And they got him alone. They must be stupider than we thought if they think we ain’t gonna return the favor.” Two-Bit didn’t look tense, but his dark gray eyes were a lot stormier than usual. I knew that look. It was the same one he’d had when Johnny got jumped last year—even then, it had only made an appearance when he started to cry. I didn’t look that bad off, did I?
“Lay off, you two,” Soda warned, putting his hands over my own to stop their shaking, “Y’all’re scarin’ him.”
I felt my cheeks get warm. Did Soda really have to go and announce it like that? Yeah, I was scared, but I didn’t need Steve and Two-Bit knowing that. I was already laid up in the hospital, for crying out loud—how much more humiliation was I supposed to be subjected to?
“Sorry, Ponyboy,” Two said, his face softening. I nodded meekly. Steve sat down in Soda’s empty seat. “Does it hurt at all?” he asked. I shook my head. The medicine they were giving me was the real good stuff.
“Are y’all gonna call a rumble?” I asked them. I thought about Johnny. Fighting’s no good. I didn’t want to fight anymore. Maybe I’d never wanted to fight in the first place.
“Don’t you worry about that,” Darry told me. “You just focus on healing up as best you can. Let us handle the rest.”
“Glory,” Two said, but he didn’t elaborate when we looked at him. Glory was right, though—this wasn’t something that was supposed to happen. I was supposed to be out in Tulsa right now, not holed up in some chilly hospital room. Hot tears started to fall before I could stop them. I pulled my hands up to wipe them away, but Soda beat me to it.
“It’s okay,” he murmured, holding my face like it was something precious. “I know you were scared. We were too.”
I grabbed at him like a little baby. Darry quickly wrapped his arms around me from the other side of the bed. The contact only made me cry harder.
“We’re gonna keep you safe, Ponykid,” Two promised, taking one of my hands and pressing it to his forehead. “Nothing like this is ever gonna happen to you again. We swear it.”
I shook my head. They couldn’t guarantee anything. Life didn’t work like that.
“We can do it,” Steve said like he’d just read my mind. “Because it’s you.” He took my other hand.
I think that if someone other than Steve had told me that, I wouldn’t have believed them. Two and Soda would say anything to make me feel better in the moment. Darry would never promise something like that in the first place. But in all the years I’d known him, Steve Randle had never once gone back on his word. He didn’t need to swear it aloud—he’d already spoken it. That was enough. That was what I needed to finally let my family’s words win.
“Okay,” I choked out, “You can do it.”
Two-Bit smiled. “Atta boy.”
They were gonna keep me safe.