Disclaimer: I do not own The Outsiders or the base photo of my cover.
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I'm dying. Twenty-five years old and I'm dying. Johnny said sixteen years wasn't long enough, but I'm wondering if any amount ever is.
But, then, maybe it has to do with each person individually. Seventeen years was enough for Dallas. It really was. And twenty-five had come to sound like enough to me. It wouldn't if I hadn't seen it coming. I had been dying for almost a year now. Slowly wilting away. With every stomach bug or strep throat, I got weaker. With every visit to the free clinic so Darry wouldn't see the bill and worry, they wanted to check for alternative reasons for my freakishly weak immune system. But I denied, especially when they listed the possibilities. I was a freak. I was infected, sick, vile. I didn't need to see it written out on an official document.
So I did what I had to do. I kept going to school, to college where I had earned a full scholarship, even on the days when I doubted my strength to even get out of bed. I used to like to take a jog in the morning and afternoon just to keep in shape and think, but now, ironically, I've stopped because I'm not in good shape and it's all I can think about.
It ate at me day and night. I felt it coursing through every fiber of my being. I had first sworn to myself that I would tell Darry if it got any worse, but after staring at the phone for half an hour, every time I got ready to talk, I finally gave up. There was no telling Darry. It was no use, anyways. I was dying and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
As days started feeling longer and even the simplest of tasks left me winded, I found myself bedridden. By the time I was sick enough to admit I needed to call 911, I was unable to get to the phone. I kept passing out. From over exertion. From hunger. From dehydration. I wasn't sick. I was dying... I was dying...
I found myself finally by the phone, having dragged myself across the floor inch by inch between spells of unconsciousness, over a span of what could've been either minutes or days for all I knew. I was disoriented and confused. I felt like I was hallucinating. I felt like I was falling. I felt like I was dying.
The three numbers I had to dial echoed emptily in my mind, but Darry's voice was the one that reverberated through the phone that felt tremendously heavy in my hand, about as much as the word 'tremendously' did in my mind.
I mumbled nonsense that made sense until it came out of my mouth. "Ponyboy?" He asked, sounding surprised. "Are you drunk?" I almost let out a laugh. An airy corpse of one escaped my lungs. Is that what I'm supposed to be doing? Going to wild parties and staying up all night getting drunk or high or nailing some too-easy dame? Instead, I was living like an old man, saying I didn't care for that kind of life but not really sure, since I have never lived it.
"I'm not a virgin, though," I choked out into the phone and starting to cry weakly. I'd always told myself rape didn't count, and that's what it had been all those years ago. The one and only time. It was pathetic.
"Asshole," I stated decidedly. "It was some asshole when I was fourteen and drunk, but I'm not drunk now, Darry, Darry, Darry I'm dying," I rambled off, still bawling. I heard his voice as he scrambled to find the right words and take charge in a way that, for the first time since my parents died, didn't feel like it applied to me. It didn't feel like he was even talking to me, never mind ordering me to do something. I told him I loved him and set down the phone, not really hearing his frantic words of not wanting me to hang up.
I unplugged the phone cord. I stared at the wall and floor and table leg in front of my face. I had pushed evidence of the phone out of sight with my last ounce of strength. Now, all that was left was darkness. First it was my eyes, then my ears. Silence.
My tongue was dry and sticky in my mouth and I felt a cold sweat that the cool floor helped. The rest of my body followed quickly. I don't know if an ambulance came before or after my heart stopped beating, but I was dead then and there with a weary look on my face, sweat slicked skin, unresponsive body, tears dried on my face, and bags under my eyes, just like the night it happened. Ever since then, I'd been dying. It was about time I was put out of my misery.
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