Warning the outsiders and winning Johnny cade

Chapter sixteen

They wheeled my bed sat up into his room. Johnny was a site, bruised all over, black eyes, a broken nose, face still covered with blood. The doctors said he was very weak, the socs broke most of his ribs gave him a concussion and many big black and purple bruises but luckily he'd be okay. I was still just stunned by the whole situation. That's the only word I can use to describe it. Stunned. I took his hand and held it with both of mine. Rubbed his hand because that's the only thing I could've thought of doing. This was all my fault. I was so sorry and I couldn't forgive myself. If only I hadn't yelled at cherry. Johnny eventually woke up.
"I'm sorry"
I said softly a tear rolling down my face.
"I-it's not your fault" he said weakly.
"Really, it isn't, don't blame yourself." He suddenly almost panicked "what happened to you? I'm so sorry I couldn't help, it was disgusting last time I saw they were touching you and I got knocked out"
I told him what happened, I was embarrassed. It was really awkward talking to anyone about it. Even Johnny, well especially Johnny, and usually nothing's like that with him. I tried to half change the subject and said
"It was the worst experience watching you get hurt. I wish I could've helped, it was so excruciating. Johnny why'd they do that? It's sick. I remember every moment. It was traumatizing,"
He started weakly caressing my hair.
"It's okay, we're okay now"
That's all he needed to say.  I fell asleep with my hand in his.

When I woke up it was a commotion. I didn't really know what was happening. There was yelling. People flooded into the room. I heard a monitor going off like crazy. I heard
"What happened he was just stable?"
And
"We're losing him"
Lastly I heard
"Get her out of here!"
Then they wheeled my bed out of his room and back in mine, slammed my door shut, then the nurse ran back to his room. I just sat there thinking this was my fault. That this couldn't be happening. I prayed and prayed he would be okay. This whole situation was bad, horrible. No one came to me with a update, so I was trapped in my own thoughts. Until Ponyboy came in after what felt like forever. I got up. I could walk now I was no longer tired just a little sore.
"Pony is he okay? What happened?"
"We don't know, they won't tell us. We just know that right now at least he's alive."
Sodapop then came in.
"But since they won't tell us we're no help here. You haven't eaten all day and we need to get you cleaned up. C'mon let's go home."
Home. He called it home as in it was my home too. For some reason that made me feel extraordinary. But I agreed with him about going. We couldn't do anything here. Sodapop drove us home in the truck and I went right to take a shower. It felt good to be clean and wash my hair and body. I put on some random dirty clothes and realized I needed clean new clothes not the ones I wore last night, but I kept the ones I put on, on and went out.
Two bit automatically said as soon as I walked through the door.
"Cherry came by to see you."
I looked and there she was.
"Hi, I wanted to talk" she said.
I was kinda confused why she was here. Why didn't she hate me for being a brat to her?
"Hey cherry uh can we go into town and shop for new clothes while we talk? I'll pay and stuff I just feel like I need something new."
"Sure, it's the least I could do."
I don't know how I felt about going out with cherry. I kind of wanted to talk with her. Give her a chance. We got in her sting ray that was parked out front.
"I'm so so so sorry they did that to you and your friend Anne, it's disgusting and randy and Bob deserve to go to jail, usually I just blow off what they do and forgive them because they're my friends, but this? This is terrible. I heard they did that because 'you yelled at me' but it's fine that you did you probably had a good reason and I was being kind of invading on your night, I can't stand to think I'm the reason that happened, I'm so sorry."
"It's okay, it's not your fault they're sick. And I only yelled at you because well,"
I went on to tell her the very long story about what happened in the book and movie and how I got here and how I've been trying to avoid that and that it's okay if she won't believe me because I know it's a crazy story. But she understood. She actually was really understanding and we talked for a long time. Then I realized we've been driving for a long time.
"Hey where are we going?
"I'm taking you to a fancy store on my side of town, it's my treat so I'm gonna give you the best and I'm paying."
I tried to object saying she didn't have to get me anything but she kept on saying it was the least she could do so I settled for
"Wow thank you."
At the store cherry helped me pick out clothes. We talked about all kinds of things and it was a lot of fun. I forgot how fun having a girl friend could be. She got me all kinds of stuff including nice clothes, a nice bag, a hairbrush, girl necessities, makeup,and more. We talked and talked and became pretty good friends. I kept thanking her for the stuff and telling her not to buy it for me that it was too much money but she insisted. We talked about Johnny and she started crying saying sorry and said he was in her prayers. We also talked about randy and Bob. She said all she knew was all the boys from the attack were in custody. We had fun then she dropped me back off at the Curtis' house.