A Boy Named Pony - A Sequel to East West Sunset

Chapter One - Ponyboy

Things have changed in the years since. There was a time I never thought the gang would never be whole again, that I would walk the streets for the rest of my days alone and afraid...

I still have dreams about Johnny sometimes. In them, he's still as young and as innocent, as trusting and as true, as a child of fifteen could ever be; his dark eyes open and soft like ripe blackberries, looking up at me, believing I could be great. He never lived to see the world we've built for him. He never knew how his death undid us all.

And yet, the sun has risen again. It's risen in those years since, and things are getting better. I've filled the hole his death ripped in me, though I've kept him close in my heart. I don't ache every time I think about him anymore. I think instead of those golden afternoons in the old church, when we talked about what it was like to really live. Those days feel as if they are a part of that rosy, sweet-smelling daydream of childhood that I could never have really lived. I don't remember the fire anymore.

But things will never be perfect for me. I realized that my senior year.

"Pony! Would you wake up already?!"

I started awake and almost broke my brother's nose as I jumped up into a sitting position. The world was hazy through my sleep-heavy eyelids. Sodapop clapped my shoulder, his brown eyes uncharacteristically annoyed, and shook his head.

"It's nearly six. Your alarm's been going off for a half an hour already!"

"Sorry," I mumbled, reaching over to slam the button. "Why didn't you wake me earlier?"

"What, you didn't hear the alarm?! It sure woke me up!"

"Geez, I'm sorry, alright!" I whipped off my covers and stood, yawning. The dying moonlight filtered through our bedroom window, illuminating the mess of dirty laundry and creased schoolbooks that littered the floor. I plucked out a clean-looking shirt from the clutter and gave it a rudimentary sniff.

"You're not going to have time for a run and a shower at this point," Soda noted as he burrowed back into his cot.

I pulled on the shirt, deciding it smelled clean, enough for a run, anyway. "It'll be a quick one, but Coach wants me to keep running all of fall to be in shape for the spring season."

"Yeah, yeah, okay, star athlete."

I grinned to myself at the title. Last year, I'd been the best on the cross-country team, winning all of the regional meets. When I'd gotten to state, though, I'd tanked; I'd placed fourteenth out of thirty-five participants. I decided then that I was going to do anything possible to win state this year, because I needed to impress a college scout. Darry worked hard, but there was no way I could go to college without the comfort of an athletic scholarship. Darry's girlfriend, Diana, was attending college at the University of Tulsa, where she had received a few scholarships for her high entrance exam scores and an essay she had written. She'd still had to borrow a lot of money, though, and I didn't want to do the same. There was more money to be had through sports.

"See you later," I called back to Soda as I ducked through the kitchen and out the back door. 

I didn't see Darry's car when I walked around to the front of the house, so I figured he had spent the night at Diana's place. She lived across the street from the DX in a crappy little apartment that she could just barely afford. It didn't really make any sense why she had moved out, but... I sighed. It wasn't like we really had the space for another person in our house, anyway. Nobody wanted to sleep on our lumpy couch, and it would be really uncomfortable for Soda and I if Darry and Diana had shared a room right next to us. They said they never did anything, but I was still way more comfortable being as far away as possible from their nighttime canoodling. Maybe it was for the better that she had moved out after all.