The End is Only the Beginning

Chapter 5-The Hospital

When I woke up, it took me a minute to realize where I was because I had been moved. I had gone from the couch to Ponyboy's room, I guess Darry moved us when he came home last night. I slowly got up, still feeling drowsy. I checked the alarm clock and it was already nine. I sat up in a panic, thinking that I would be late for school, and I started to shake Ponyboy awake.

"Ponyboy! Wake up, we're late for school! It's already nine!" I go up out of bed and went to grab a set of clothes that I had packed in my bag. I was planning on staying at the Curtis's house for about a week. It had clothes, stuff for my hair, stuff in case I got my period, and bandages. I quickly got ran to the bathroom and started to change. I made sure to cover my wrist with the bandages real well that day. I had just finished changing when Ponyboy got out of bed.

"What are you doing?" He asked groggily. It was then that I remembered what had happened the night before. Sodapop had gotten shot, oh my god how could I forget?

"Oh wait...never mind. Are you going to school today?" I asked, trying to brush a knot out of my hair. If Ponyboy wasn't going to school then I didn't want to go either. II was still in shock over the fact the Soda had gotten shot. Fun loving Sodapop, the one that didn't let anything bother him.

"I don't think so, I think Darry wants me to go to the hospital to see Soda. You should come if you want to," His face was still red from the tears that he cried, his shirt stained from the tears that I cried.

"I will... are you ok?" I wanted to make sure he was ok before anything else, Pony meant so much to me and if he was in pain I wanted to know. My older sister killed herself from the pain she was in,  and if that ever happened to Ponyboy I would kick myself everyday for it. My sisters name was Maria, she was beautiful. She had blonde hair like mine but it was curly and long. She had blue eyes that looked like shining crystals. And she was kind of a hippie. She wore real long skirts, usually had beads in her hair, had tons of bracelets that would cover her whole arm, and always wore a bunch of peace sign necklaces. Her favorite necklace was one that she got from a 13 year old kid, I think his name was M&M.  I didn't dig her clothes all that much but i loved her hair. She used to put beads in my hair like she did with hers. I loved it so much. When she died that was the saddest Ive ever been. I would never get to see her shining eyes anymore, even though the last time her eyes were shining was months before her death. I loved her so much, but she killed herself after her ex-boyfriend left her. I hated her ex, his name was David and he was really abusive. He would his Maria and tell that she was nothing without him. After about a month of it he drove her away from my family and then broke up with her, then she hung herself. He took her shining eyes away, he stole her from me. He took my best friend from me. I never saw her blue eyes again. I would never get lost in that familiar blue sea again because it was gone. She was only 17.

Ponyboy nodded sadly, and I knew he wasn't ok. He just didn't want to tell me for some reason. "Im going to change." He walked into his room and shut the door, when he walked out he was all ready and his hair was all greased up. He was wearing a dark blue shirt, blue jeans, and a jean jacket. He looked so good.

"Ok, ready. You look amazing." He told me and I smiled bigger than you can imagine. He held his hand out and I held onto it. I was blushing more than ever before, this was the first time we held hands and I loved it. I felt safe, like nothing in the world, not even the Socs, could hurt us.

We started to walk to the hospital, and we held hands the whole way. I knew it then that I loved him. He didn't know it, but I did. Maybe he did know, I honestly didn't know what Ponyboy knew anymore. I just knew that I loved him and it was going to stay that way. When we finally arrived at the hospital we saw Steve waiting in the waiting room, and we instantly stopped holding hands. If any of the gang knew that we were holding hands they would never let us live it down. The waiting room was a depressing room that had white walls and gray floors. The chairs were a light blue that was fading. You could see people standing all over the place because of how packed it was. I hated it, there were no pictures on the wall and the only noise you could hear was the soft jazz playing from the speakers above and the murmurs of people talking and praying that their loved ones would be ok.

"There you guys are! Ok come on Soda is over here," Steve said, he started to walk down a hall that looked the same as the waiting room. We finally reached room 107 and when we walked inside I almost screamed.

Seeing Sodapops body on that bed passed out, almost broke me. You could see the bandages on his right arm covering the wound. Ponyboy instantly ran to Soda and starting crying. He hugged Sodas neck and didn't let go. Steve was about to stop him but Darry signaled for him to let it go.

"God no! Soda! You cant die! I need you here with me! You can't die," he started to cry more and more, until he couldn't cry anymore. It hurt me so much to see anyone cry, but Ponyboy it felt like I was being stabbed in the chest with a dirty knife a thousand times.

"D...Darry? Is he gonna be ok," I started to cry, this was so much to take in. I never thought that Sodapop would be the one in the hospital bed dying, I thought it would be Two-Bit or Steve being dumb again. But not Sodapop, he meant so much to all of us. He kept us all together without even knowing it.

Darry looked down at me and his eyes were huge and red. It looked like he had cried all night. He answered me with his voice breaking, "Yeah he will, don't worry." For some reason I didn't believe him.  

Steve got up and announced that he was going to get a coke and everyone but Ponyboy and I wen. For some reason seeing Sodapop like this made me loose my appetite, I guess the same for Ponyboy.

I sat down in a chair by Soda's bed and Ponyboy joined me. He rested his head on my shoulder and I felt a tingle go through my whole body. I don't know why, we have touched multiple times. But every single time I get a weird tingle.

"Are you ok Ponyboy? I know this can be a lot," I asked, as he yawned.

"Yeah I just wish there was something I could do. You know? Soda has always been there for me, and I can't even help him this one time. I feel like a terrible brother," Pony told me. That was the first time I could relate to someone about something like that.

"I know what you mean. When my sister died I thought it was all my fault for so long. I don't know why I just thought she killed herself for something I had done," I said. He was the first person I had ever told about that, and it felt so good to get it off my chest.

"Why do you think he got shot?" I asked, even though Soda liked fights he would never go far enough to get shot.

"I think I heard Darry say something about the fuzz." Pony said, lifting his head from my shoulder.

"Maybe he got caught lifting? That doesn't sound like him though," I spoke slowly as I was starting to get tired.

"Maybe... but your right, it doesn't sound like him,"Ponyboy agreed as he fell asleep on my shoulder, soon after I fell asleep to.

Later we found out that he got shot by the fuzz. I didn't know it then but they were the same people that shot the boy in the lot. They apparently knew that Sodapop knew Johnny. Ever since Bob was murdered, the Socs had it out for us Greasers and thats why they had shot that one boy that night. Sodapop was with that group, he saw that boy die. He saw that boys girl sob, just wanting the boy to be ok. I knew why he had looked so scared and sad that night. He had just seen a buddy of his die, but he had to to keep it all together. Because he was Sodapop... and that was his job. He was there to make sure the rest of the gang was ok. I wanted to cry just thinking about it. He thought he had to be strong for us all. He thought he had to keep the rest of us happy when inside he was slowly falling apart. They were so young, and the only reason why that boy, Johnny, and Dally died was because they were all Greasers. There had to be someplace without Greasers or Socs, with just people. Plain, ordinary people.