A/N: This is my first time formatting a fanfic like this, so I'd appreciate some feedback. Also, I do not own The Outsiders.
Darry,
I miss you and Sodapop a lot — you know that. College is great, and whatever. I can tell you ll of that later. Just so you don't worry Darry, I'm fine. But I just want to say something. Thank you. Thank you for pushing me forward, for yelling at me when my grades dropped, for doing everything in your range of possibility to get me to where I am today. After Johnny and Dally left us — I thought I would go the same way Dally did — I thought I would break. He was tougher than I was, and if he couldn't take it, I didn't think I could either.
But you essentially forced me to keep living. And I'll owe that to you for the rest of my life. You and Sodapop. You gave me a reason to keep living. To wake up every morning and not question my own existence. I know that sounds cliché. I know you're disgusted by my soppiness. But Darry, really, it's true.
Everybody has a breaking point. Dally's was when Johnny died. Yours was when you thought I had left the same way. Sodapop's was when he lost Sandy and me in the same week. Mine — my breaking point is when I feel like the world is ending. And I feel like I don't deserve to live. And I know what you are going to tell me. Because you've told me this before. You've told me that I deserve to live, I need to live, and more than living, I need to thrive. And right before I left on that plane, you told me you were proud. You didn't tell me why.
You'll never tell me why. Because I know why. Because I lived your dream, Darry, that's why. Your dream, to go to college, and be somebody, someday. That's why you were so hard on me. I see it now. I understand what Soda and Dally, and even Johnny have been telling me all of these years. The only reason that you were hard on me — and don't you dare blame it on yourself — is this. You wanted me to be everything that you couldn't be. Because you saw yourself in me.
Everybody wonders, oh you don't look like Darry, you don't look like Sodapop. Maybe. That might just be true. But I know, and you know, and Soda knows, and that's all that matters — you have a reason. There was reason behind the madness. You didn't need for me to be perfect. I thought so. Maybe that's a surprise to you. Maybe it isn't. I don't know what you're thinking Darry, but all I know is that you never wanted me to be perfect. Love. Caring. Protection. Those were the reasons you acted the way you did.
And I don't want you to regret the way that you acted for one moment. Not ever. Because it was all of that — that made me who I am today. Look at me. You see the struggle. The pain. The unpleasant experiences that made me. That made me strong.
The other thing that I never have thanked you for — I feel so ungrateful now— is for not going anywhere yourself. You could've gone to college, gotten a job. But you didn't. Because you cared. You didn't want me to be stuck in a boys' home, away from you and the gang. You understood what was going through my head, and I think that's because I reminded you of yourself. Because all of my teachers tell me the same things they told you.
I love you, Darry, and don't stress out too much. Tell the gang I'm fine but I miss Two-Bit's random remarks, and Steve's random insults, and well, I guess that's all that's left of the gang. Tell Sodapop I miss chocolate cake — he'd be proud.
Love,
Ponyboy