Stay Gold {The Outsiders}

Epilogue

     I kept my promise to Johnny; I didn't forget him.
     The gang and I continued on with our lives, but we all knew we had lost part of our family. We only mentioned him a few times, and it was usually when we were recalling old memories.
     AJ and Dally got together. They married when AJ was 21 and Dally was 22. Within a year, they were blessed with beautiful twins; a girl, Alex Rose Winston, and a boy, Johnny Dallas Winston. Surprisingly, they were really good with the kids. Dally spoiled them both, but he was extremely protective of them too.
     Ponyboy grew like a weed. Or a horse, as AJ liked to say. She also loved to call him Horseman instead of Ponyboy. It annoyed him to no end, but we got a good laugh out of it.
     He met a really nice girl. Grace McCarthy was her name. She was like a female version of Pony. They got married shortly after they graduated from college. A few years later, they had a little boy, Sodapop Darry Curtis, after our brothers.
     Sodapop fell for a fellow greaser, and a friend of mine, Jemina Cole. He decided to pass on the family tradition of an odd name, so when Jemina had a boy two years after they were married, he was named Pepsicola Patrick Curtis.
     Darry actually found someone, too. Mind you, I had to set him up with a few women to find the right one, but she came along eventually. Lily McLeo was her name. She worked at the Dingo with me and AJ. They never got married, but they did have a little girl; Madolyn Matilda Curtis.
     Steve and Evie ended up staying together. They never married, nor did they have any children, but they spent enough time with the gang's kids that they decided that they didn't need any of their own.
     Two-Bit never really grew up. He and Kathy never broke up, but they didn't marry either. But they had four children, all of them like stair steps. The first was Kathryn Annabelle Mathews or Katie-Anne as we called her. The second was Michael John Mathews, but he was always called him Mickey after Two-Bit's never ending obsession with Mickey Mouse. The third was Texas Alexander Mathews, but he was always referred to as Tex. The fourth and final one was Juliette Gwendolyn Mathews but she was nicknames Jules.
     Last but not least, me.
     I never truly got over Johnny's death and I meant what I said at the hospital; I liked him a lot. More than a lot. I loved him, but I didn't get the chance to tell him.
     I always told myself that I would only marry for love, and I never found anyone that I loved the way that I loved Johnny. So I never married. But I did adopt two young children.
     They were both boys. I was told that the younger one, William, had come from an abusive family and the older one, James had been abandoned by his mother and was taken from his drunkard of a father.
     They reminded me so much of Johnny and Dallas. Every little thing they did; the way James seemed to always protect William, the way William looked up to James as if he were a hero.
     I felt as if it were my chance to start over. Maybe I could prevent a boy from being hardened by society. Maybe I could stop a boy from being both eternally scarred and scared. I could make sure that those two boys never felt the pain that Johnny and Dallas did.
     So that was what I did. I raised them, cared for them and loved them as if they were my own. I knew the gang understood. Especially Dally. So they took care of them, too. Just as I took care of their children.
     Maybe we didn't get our fairy tale ending. Maybe we didn't all make it to the end of the story. But we will always remember the time we spent together, as a family, and that was good enough.
     We loved, we lost, and more importantly, we remembered to always stay gold.