What happened was this. Pony and Dally had come to visit me in the hospital and I just passed out. I was in so much pain. I never knew there could be pain like this. They were giving me stuff for it, drugs and stuff but it didn't work that great. It's third degree burns, and that's the worst kind of pain. It aches and throbs and stings and does everything all at once, and nothing stops it. I couldn't really take it, and Pony was all shaken up about the rumble and Dally was being cool like always, but kind of funny, too. Kind of like he was holding it together but that he wouldn't for much longer.

Laying there, feeling like I was dying, I thought how useless all that fighting was. I used to think it mattered, rumbles and stuff, that it made some kind of difference. But then I saw that it didn't. It was no good. I tried to tell them but they were all kind of wrapped up in their own thing, I don't know. So was I. I felt the pain going through me like steel bars or something. And I thought I knew about pain. But getting hit, even getting beat up like that time in the lot, it didn't compare to this.

So I passed out, and they left. Dally took off, robbed some convenience store with that empty gun of his. Pony kind of wandered home, all bloody and bruised from the rumble and kind of sick, too. He goes home and tells Darry and Soda and Steve that I died. He thought I died. He told them Dally had lost it and was gonna blow. But Darry knew Pony was all out of it and everything and he didn't really believe him. So he calls the hospital and they tell him I didn't die, I just passed out, and that it wasn't good but whatever. It wasn't good. Then Dally calls with the cops after him and everything and he says, "Johnny's dead," and Darry tells him that I wasn't.

So about a week or two later Pony comes back and visits. I wasn't really feeling much better, maybe a little.

"Johnny," he says, like he can't believe I'm even alive.

"Hey," I say, my voice all weak. It was cause of the smoke inhalation. It burned my vocal chords or something.

"I thought…I thought you were dead," he says, and I don't know what to say, really. What do you say to that?

"Well, you were out of it that night," I say, and he nods, and kind of laughs a little.

"Yeah, I was. I was like, almost crazy that night. But listen, things are getting better at home. Me and Darry and Soda, we're cool now," he says, and I nod.

"How's Dally?" I say, looking out the window. It's sunny, and I thought of how I wouldn't be able to do all this shit anymore, like playing football and running and walking and being normal.

"Okay, I guess. He's in the slammer again,"

So things had mostly worked out. Pony got to stay with his brothers and things are going better for him. Dally's okay. He can handle the slammer. I had to go to court for running away and for killing the soc, but it was manslaughter. I really wasn't that worried. I'd be in a wheelchair. Were they gonna put me in some jail or juvenile detention center in a wheelchair?

I was kind of getting a little better. The pain wasn't so bad. I was getting bored. Nothing to do in here but think. And what I was thinking about was what would happen when I got out of here. I'd have to go and stay at my house with my parents. I wouldn't be able to take off like I used to. And they wouldn't be able to take care of me or nothing. My parents were…I don't know. They just sucked. They couldn't stand having a kid before, now how'd they like to have one that's crippled?