PoV Johnny
I never thought, "Oh, hey, I'm queer." I never had a sudden, stop me in my tracks moment where I realized that I was attracted to other guys. I never had a moment where I was deep in thought about some other queers I knew of, and realized that I was gay. No, I knew from the very start. It was never a new thing to me. I never noticed how sexy a girl looked; I just noticed that, yeah, she's pretty. I've known since I was very young that I was gay.
The first crush I ever had was Dally. It's kind of weird, I know, but he was always there to defend me against my parents. But I soon figured out that, while he is a great guy, he's hard to get to know. I got to know him, and I didn't really see much there for a relationship. I told him I was gay, and he seemed okay with that.
I also realized that he was really a wall. He blocked my parents when he was there, but he never hugged me or told me that it was going to be okay. I felt so alone when I realized that. Sure, Dally had my best intentions at heart, but he doesn't really know how to comfort people. He just became a really good friend.
My second crush was a guy in my school, named Bill. He was nice and friendly, but I didn't talk to him. It was only a passing fade, though. He turned into a jerk when we moved on to the high school.
My last crush was Ponyboy. He had only just turned twelve when I began to have a crush on him, but he was thirteen when I fell head over heels in love with him. My crush started when he and I were playing family at his house. Darry, Soda and Mr. Curtis were at work and Mrs. Curtis was shopping. Pony was making me dinner and he had stuck a pencil in his hair. The pencil wound his hair into a tight curl, and it stayed like that when we took the pencil out. It looked cute, so we curled the rest of his hair with his mother's plastic curlers. After about an hour of running around in those, we took them out. His hair looked really nice, all curled up, but he looked funny, too.
When we were putting the curlers back, Pony noticed a box that Mrs. Curtis must have gotten out of the attic. It had an old dress in it, which looked too small for Mrs. Curtis to wear now, but just right for Ponyboy. I made him put it on. He laughed as he stripped down to his undies, and as he put it on. It looked really nice on him. The chest piece was definitely made for a girl with little to no chest, so it worked. The chest was tight, coming together in the back with a zipper. It was a light pink colour, with lighter pink designs in swirls all along the chest and stomach. The dress puffed out at the hips in frills of a darker pink. Pony grabbed his mother's make-up bag and put a ridiculous shade of pink lipstick on. He then ran to the closet and got out a suit jacket and put it on me.
"You be the daddy and I'll be the mommy!" Pony said happily.
I smiled at him, just feeling happy to be around him.
Pony gasped. "The chicken's gonna burn!" Pony ran out of the room and towards the kitchen. His foot caught on the rim of the dress and he went down. There was a silence. Then Pony started to laugh. Tears streamed down his face, but he was laughing. I kneeled next to him and helped him up. Pony just kept laughing.
Pony's parents came home and found us dressed up like this, but instead of being mad, like my parents would have been, they laughed along with us and pretended to be the grandparents. It felt nice to be in a family situation like that, even if Ponyboy and I were just being kids.
Two years later, I walked over to the Curtis house to see if Pony wanted to hang out with me, or help me blow off some steam, and I found out that the Curtis parents had died in a car crash. Ponyboy was trying not to cry, but he smiled when I walked in. Not an everyday smile, but a special Ponyboy smile. He knew that I came over late at night when my parents were being jerks.
His smile sent a shiver up my spine and a warm feeling flooding my chest. I know, it sounds cliché, but it's how it happened. I sat with Ponyboy, Soda and Darry as they talked about the funeral they had to go to in the morning. I sat there, too stunned to say anything. Ponyboy was desperately trying to not cry. I took his hand in mine and gave it a squeeze.
Darry and Soda went to start making dinner, and Ponyboy turned to me. "Thank you," he said, as if I had done something big and tremendous. "Thank you."
"For what?" I asked quietly.
"Being here." Pony leaned forward and hugged me, wrapping his thin arms around my shoulder.
I put my arms around his waist and held him tightly. "It's okay to cry," I whispered into his hair. "It's always okay to cry."
And he did. Ponyboy cried into my neck until he couldn't cry any more, as if his heart had had it fill of sadness for the day. When he stopped crying, he looked at me and smiled. A genuine Ponyboy smile that sent my tummy aflutter.
It was that night that Pony had his first forgotten nightmare.
The next few weeks were hard, but they got through.
Over the next year, Pony and I had gotten closer as friends, and I knew that I would never be happy with anyone else. So, one night, I confessed my feelings for him, which must have scared him so much. He was only thirteen, and there I was, almost three years older than him, confessing my undying love for him. Pony smiled and said he needed to think.
I thought I'd lost my best friend that day.
It was a week until Ponyboy talked to me again. I was sat alone in the lot, which I didn't do often anymore, after what the Soc with the rings did to me. I was just looking up at the clouds and smoking, when I felt someone watching me. I turned my head to the side and saw Ponyboy walking towards me, his hands tucked into his jeans pocket. He was shivering from head to foot, his only protection from the harsh wind a pathetic old sweater. He lied next to me and looked up at the clouds.
"That one looks like a rabbit," he said, pointing up at the clouds.
I turned my head back to them. "I think it looks like a hare."
"What's the difference, really?"
"I dunno."
There was a silence. My stomach was in knots larger than my fist.
I felt something warm touch my cheek. I took me a minute to realize that it was Ponyboy. He had kissed me.
"I love you, too, Johnny," he said quietly. He took my hand and rested his head on my shoulder. I looked at him, tears collecting in my eyes. I was so happy. I smiled, slowly at first, but I smiled none the less. "It's okay to cry, Johnny. It's always okay to cry."