I'll Catch You || Johnnyboy

Chapter 002

Johnny POV

After he walked away, it felt like all the energy got sucked out of me. I crumpled to the ground and I didn't have the strength to get up. I'd ruined everything. I always manage to do that somehow, don't I? I broke the boy I love most in the whole wide world. We've had fights before but now… now I know for certain I've lost him. All these years and still he doesn't understand how I feel. Doesn't understand how when I look at him, at those beautiful blue eyes, I don't see what most people see. He probably never will, now.

For a little while, I thought about getting up, going back over to that ledge, just jumping. Who would miss me, anyways? Certainly not Ponyboy, not my family either. The gang has long accepted my death, and Dally… well, according to the papers, he won't mind a bit. Not even my parents would notice my absence, they’re probably celebrating my being gone, if they even realized at all.

Ponyboy was my last hope. I thought, I thought maybe if I could come back, maybe he’d feel the same. Maybe he’d be so overjoyed he could forget everything I’d done to him. Maybe he could overlook all my flaws. I guess he’s always been my last hope, the last good thing I was holding onto. If I hadn’t met him, I would’ve jumped off of this cliff years ago. I would be gone.

I wondered what it was like to be dead. Peaceful. Better than this. I’d spent most of my life suicidal, but I’d never really thought about what it’d be like to die. What it’d feel like falling hundreds of feet to the ground knowing I’d never have to feel pain again. Would it feel good? I couldn’t imagine it feeling bad.

But I guess I wasn’t really surprised by Ponyboy’s reaction. It’s always been obvious that I need him more than he ever needed me. He had his brothers, his family, people who loved him, a whole world full of people who would be honored to even meet him. Me? I’ve just got him. Just him. Maybe that’s why I got so attached, because there was no one else to hang onto for dear life as the rest of the world fell out from under me.

And still. I couldn’t bring myself to jump. I heard the pain in his voice just a few moments ago. I had hurt him. And if I ever wanted him back—and I did, more than anything—I couldn’t just leave him again. Even if we didn’t speak, if he didn’t even want to look at me, I had to stay alive for him.

But then there were the Socs.

+++

After I’d been admitted to the hospital, I had begun to recover. The burns were extensive but the beam from the ceiling that had fallen on me had not struck my back as I insisted the gang be told. It fell across my right leg, angled just so that it avoided my left. I shuddered, remembering the pain. I still walk with a limp.

The reason I had forced the nurses to lie to my friends—no, family—was because the day after I woke up, the Socs (friends of the kid I murdered that night in the lot) showed up to my room. Told me that if I didn’t die here in this cold, white hospital bed, they’d finish the job themselves. I didn’t blame them. Bob didn’t deserve to die. But he laid his hands on Pony, and that’s something you don’t do if you know me. The gang thinks of me like a kicked puppy—small, weak, downright pathetic at times. But when someone touches him, or hurts him, something snaps inside of me.

I spit in their faces. Looking back on it, I don’t really know what came over me. I killed their best friend, I could understand their anger. But all I was thinking about was Ponyboy.

I guess they read my mind. One of them shoved my head against the bed and put a knife to my throat, the other getting up in my face, smirking, venom dripping from every word he spoke. “If you come out of this hospital… if I ever have to see your disgusting face again Johnny Cade… I will hunt down that boy you care for so much, that Ponyboy. I will hunt him down and I will slit his throat. You hear me?” That time I said nothing, started shaking. After they left, I told the nurses I had to fake my own death. It was the only way.

(Sorry for the shorter chapter, I promise it gets better soon!)