Someone to Lean On
Chapter One- Whatever Happened to Ponyboy?
Author's Note: This is my first fanfic story. It was originally a story that I was writing for no reason and it wasn't really supposed to be a fanfic but I changed it a little and I think it's better with Ponyboy being a father. There are a few extra characters in here since it's about Ponyboy's daughter. I hope you like it.
Disclaimer: I don't own S.E. Hinton's "The Outsiders."
I remember the night when Johnny and Dally died. It was awful. I couldn't believe they were gone. Actually, I didn't want to believe they were gone. I spent a lot of time deluding myself that they were just sick and that they'd be better soon. That everything would still be the same. We'd still be able to play football and go to the movies and all the things we used to do. I wanted to believe that it was all a bad dream. But I learned the hard way that if you don't face it soon, it'll hurt more when you finally do. Even after I wrote that essay for Mr. Symes, I still didn't want to know that they were gone. And when I finally did, I spent the whole night crying until Soda and Darry woke up and came to comfort me. I'm over it now. Well, not exactly over it, but I have moved on. The pain of my two close friends being gone has winded down to a dull ache.
Things are different now. Way different. Remember Cherry Valence, that redhead we met at the movies? Guess what? Her name's now Sherri Valence Curtis. After I'd moved on from Johnny and Dally's death, we started going out a couple times. Some people didn't approve of us being together, her being a Soc and me being a Greaser, but it didn't stop us from going out a few times to make out and going to the movies and me popping the question at her birthday party. I swear, my heart was about to pop out of my chest when I waited for her answer. Imagine my joy when she said yes.
I was able to go to college on a track scholarship and I learned how to be a teacher. Who ever said a Greaser can't teach? After I graduated, Cherry and I married. We started talking about having kids and we decided that no child of ours was going to be raised in a place where the terms "Greaser" and "Soc" existed. We didn't want them to see the wrong sights and to learn the wrong things like the gang and I did. Hence, our move to Connecticut where I got a job as a Language Arts teacher at Guinesborro High School. It pays well enough to keep food on the table and a roof over our head and to keep us from Greaser status. Along with my address, my name has changed. The only people who call me Ponyboy now are Cherry and the rest of the gang. Everyone else refers to me by my middle name: Michael. It might seem like I've exchanged my identity, but who wants to go through their adulthood with a name like "Ponyboy?"
Unfortunately, a few years back, Cherry and I learned that we were unable to conceive a child. It hurt a lot to see my wife cry like she had. I promised her that we would find a way to be happy with or without a child. But deep down I also longed for a small face to love and cherish too. That's why we decided to take in a foster kid. Her name is Kendi. She was only eleven when we took her in. We fell in love with her and a year later, we adopted her as one of our own.
Kendi was twelve when we signed the adoption papers. I had already missed a good-sized chunk of her life. Already, she has seen the death of someone she loved. It wasn't a parent, God knows what they were thinking when they gave her up at age two, but someone she looked up to. Kendi's not willing to talk about it, though. "I'm over it, really," she says but it doesn't take a mad scientist to detect the hidden pain in her voice, the sorrow that refuses to speak. Cherry and I have tried to get her to talk to us about it but she denies that there's anything to talk about.
She's fourteen now and is getting ready for high school. Although, I work at a private school, I don't really believe that Kendi would feel comfortable in one so I won't be having her as my student, which works out well for her. She is going to a public high school, Kesata High. Proudly, I can say that the child my wife and I have raised has managed to get into all honors classes. So it sometimes makes me wonder why she dreads school.
When Kendi first came to us, Cherry and I spent a lot of our efforts getting her to talk to us. We wanted to know if anything was bugging her specifically the death of her friend. But after we adopted her, we decided it would be better for her to come to us instead of the other way around. We've left the subject alone for two years and I'm starting to believe that maybe she's telling the truth. Maybe she really is over it.