A/N: I deeply apologize that it has been such a long time since I've written or updated anything. I just recently started school again and there's a lot to juggle at the moment. I have not given up on WAIT! YOU CAN SEE ME?! I'm just taking a short break. New chapters should be up soon. A special thanks to anyone who was followed or favorited me. It really means a lot. With my story Boredom and Braces? I'm writing at least one more chapter so that should be posted soon. The Outsiders is one of my favorite books and I felt that I should write a fanfiction about it because a lot of people consider me to have very similar qualities to Ponyboy. I felt like conforming to social norms is a prevalent theme throughout the book and I thought it would be liberating for a character to leave those social standards and conform only to the expectations set in place for themselves so that's sort of how this story came to be. Thanks again and please review! It means so much and makes me so happy when people review and tell me how I'm doing with my writing ability. :)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in The Outsiders.

"Ponyboy, are you sure about this?" Darry asked, his eyes crinkling skeptically. I nodded after a prolonged moment, staring ahead and not meeting his gaze. "If I don't like it, I can just grow it back out again. It's not a big deal," I stated, reassuring myself more than him. He shrugged noncommittally, finished with his concerned pestering. What was I doing? The thought had crossed my mind previously, but never this loud, never this hard to ignore.
"C'mon, don't do this to yourself. You've already made up your mind, there's no point in doubting yourself now," I muttered soundlessly under my breath. Darry looked up and met my green-gray eyes with his blue-green ones. They no longer looked cold to me. They still weren't quite as warm as Soda's, but we'd come a long a way. It's funny how certain things bring you closer to those around you.
Certain things. Johnny, Dally. That certain pain that rippled through my spine at the mere mention of either of their names. I hadn't come to terms with the reality of their deaths, nor would I ever. At some points I could pretend that they were simply on vacation out in the country. They were escaping their home lives and picking up their broken pieces together. Of course, naturally there was the knowledge that they would never come back. The country side they were vacationing in was a permanent affair, and I was the one shattered. Life was cruel like that, cruelty came with being a greaser, and being a greaser was what got us into this mess in the first place. That's why I needed to change.
"Ponyboy Curtis," a voice called, loud and clear. I stood up on shaky legs and followed the barber over to the large leather chair. I sat down and let him drape a large pinstriped cape over my shoulders. Nerves wracked my body as he turned to face me. "So what are we doing here today?" He asked, snapping the cape behind my neck. I took a deep, quivering breath and managed to tell him how I wanted him to cut my hair.
'There,' I thought to myself with a feeling of both satisfaction and complete and utter horror. 'There's no going back now.' The barber pulled out a comb and gently started combing my hair out. I'd showered earlier that day and washed all the grease out. He gripped a pair of sharp scissors from a hook near the mirror and positioned them near the top of my neck. The cold of the blades sent shivers down my spine. I held my breath and bit my lower lip. Slowly, he began cutting.
The memories happened instantly and with a frightening amount of force. The same thing had happened in the months following their deaths, but I thought it had ended, that maybe my mind had built some sort of immunity to the special torture they possessed. Apparently I thought wrong.
Johnny, the first day we met and instantly took a liking to each other. He didn't treat me like a kid even if he was two years older. The days he would walk up with a fresh bruise over his dark eyes, trying to partially cover it up with his grease soaked bangs and how much it bothered me. The time we saw Gone with the Wind together and he remembered at I wanted to read the book. Countless football games in the lot played on the same team. The way we would gang up on whoever it was we were frightening because we worked better together than we did alone. Most recently Bob's dead body bleeding on the pavement, sleeping next to him on the cold stone floor of the church trying to keep warm. Watching the sun rise that one golden morning. His lifeless body on the hospital bed after he spoke his final words. Stay gold Ponyboy... stay gold. Nothing gold can stay. Nothing gold can stay.
Dally, his pale eyes reflecting his hatred back on the world. His tough, bitter nature earned from his time in New York. He had no family, except for us, except for Johnny and they took him away to. The cold look he got on his face whenever socs were involved. There were days I would draw his face to calm him down, to keep from killing someone out of pure anger. He'd never looked at sunset the way Johnny and I did. No Johnny was his sunset, the ray of orange in his otherwise black existence. The way his body crumpled under that street light just after his mind had done the same.
I wanted to cry but I kept the tears back. They wouldn't want me to cry. Strength was something they both valued when you thought about it. Reddish-brown clumps of hair littered the ground and the cape. It looked as though Darry had tried reading a magazine but was more content with watching me. A hollow pain settled into my lower back as the barber moved in front of me and cut my bangs slightly above my eye brows. It was shorter than I'd ever had it before, even shorter than Johnny cut it in church. Even then I still greased it back, but that was about to change to.
I met Darry's impending gaze and he gave me a sideways smile. I took another deep breath and stared at the floor, watching more clippings gather. Finally, the barber dried my hair, ran a comb through it, took the cape off, and turned me to the mirror.
I looked completely different. For as long as I could remember my hair had always been long, straight, and greased back from my forehead. It was my pride, the main thing that identified me as a greaser, which was something I no longer felt I could be. I wasn't completely sure where that left me, but I was sure it was better than the pain I was facing before. Though I felt like I'd lost a part of myself, I felt like I'd gained a deeper understanding of myself at the same time.
Timidly I reached a hand up and ruffled the top layer of my hair. It was so incredibly short compared to how it was before. I couldn't say I wasn't surprised at just how drastically different it was. "What do you think?" The barber asked, brushing a stray clump of hair from the chair. "I like it, thank you," I replied quietly, transfixed on my reflection. Carefully I jumped out of the chair and walked over to Darry. He stood and wrapped me in a brotherly hug, leaving one arm around my shoulder when he paid the barber.
"So do you really like it?" Darry questioned as we got in the car. I shrugged. "It's certainly different, that's for sure. I don't know. Nine months ago I would have cringed at the idea of cutting my hair so short, now I've done it willingly," I answered. He nodded. "You've had to mature faster than I would have liked in the past few months," he said. I nodded sadly, thinking if Johnny and Dally again. "But you'll always be my little brother no matter how old you get!" Darry yelled unexpectedly, grabbing me in a headlock and rubbing my head. I laughed loudly, releasing the left over tension I had bottled up inside. Darry let me go, flashing one of his rare grins. "What do you say we go home little brother?" He asked, starting the engine. "Sounds good to me," I stated, still smiling.