I had been in love with him, but I never told him, and now this. What could I have said? You can't just go up to someone you've hardly ever spoken to and tell them you love them, you'd get that incredulous stare. You'd get that questioning. But I did love him. I loved what I saw. His black hair greased so heavily, and it would gleam in the sun. His big dark eyes filled with anxiety and fear. Fear of what? I could only guess. This city, this neighborhood, the socs that gave him that scar on his cheek, his father who beat him. I could only guess. I loved everything I saw. The worn out jean jacket with the collar flipped up and his head tilted down, and those eyes.
Now he was gone. I'd heard all the rumors, all the rumors run to ground. He killed that soc. The soc was going to kill him and Ponyboy, they were drowning Ponyboy. Dallas had got them that hide-out way out in Windrixville. And the church burned down but they'd started that fire, Ponyboy and Johnny had. They smoked liked fiends, like chimneys.
He was lying in that hospital bed dying, that's what everybody said. I heard the whispers around town, at the diners and the drive-in movies and the drag strips and the rodeos. Heads leaned toward each other and whispers, and some people called him that quiet kid or the kid with the black hair or the kid that hung out with Dallas Winston.
Johnny Cade. What if I went and visited him at the hospital? I was just some girl in a few of his classes, just a girl that had spoken to him only once or twice, but I had wanted to talk to him more. I had wanted to see our fingers entwined, his fingers with the nails all bitten down and ragged. I liked to hear his soft and quiet voice, deeper than you'd think it would be, kind of scratchy maybe from all the cigarettes he smoked. I'd seen him smoking, the way he would cup his hand over the match or lighter in the wind, the long drags he would take and he'd close his eyes and exhale the long stream of smoke.
There was no reason for me to go and visit him. He wouldn't even know who I was, probably. What would be the point? But I feared that what they were saying was true, that he broke his back and he had third degree burns and that he was going to die. I still loved him. I wanted to see him. I was afraid he was going to die.
I snuck off to the hospital, taking cabs and buses to that part of town, creeping along the sidewalk, thinking everyone who passed by me knew my intentions. I saw people looking at me with mild disapproval. I averted my eyes. I saw huge city buses lumber past me. I saw maids and business men on their lunch break hurry by me.
They let me see him because I said I was his sister. I knew what to say to get what I wanted. I knew when the truth wouldn't do. I stood outside the room and felt my heart beating, felt my hands sweating. I was afraid of seeing him and what he'd say. I was afraid of the questions in his eyes. I was afraid of his injuries and seeing him dying. I thought back to the last time I had seen him hanging out by the vacant lot, the way the wind whipped the edges of his hair. The way the wind carried the smoke of his cigarette away.
I stepped inside the room. He was lying on the bed, eyes closed, I.V. pole standing erect as a soldier by the head of the bed, huge bags of glistening fluids dripping from those bags into his veins. There was oxygen tubing in his nose. He looked pale, much paler than I'd ever seen him. There were dark circles under his eyes.
I crept closer. I could smell those hospital smells of alcohol and Lysol and something, something like medicine and death and dust, it made me crinkle my nose. Johnny lay perfectly still, his chest rising and falling with his shallow breaths. I wouldn't wake him up. Maybe he couldn't wake up. Maybe he was in a coma or something.
I wanted him to be okay, but looking at all this hospital stuff and looking at him, so sick and so still, it didn't seem like he would be okay. It didn't seem like he could wake up. I had loved him, I did. I would stare at him when he wasn't looking, I would listen to his voice with my eyes closed. I dreamed of going on a date with him, hanging out with him, kissing him late at night under a full moon. I dreamed of these things and now none of it would ever come to pass.
"Johnny," I said, my voice quiet and tearful. I touched his hand where it wasn't burned, and he didn't even stir.