I heard Darry's voice before I saw him. I had heard him jogging down the hall. His heavy footsteps were unmistakable as it was - even more so when he was in a hurry. "How's Pony doin'?" he asked, probably before he even stepped into the room.
"Still out cold," I sighed, not turning around. It had been about thirty minutes since I had called Darry and there hadn't been any change in Pony. He still laid in bed and was letting me stroke his hair as he slept. He groaned a few times and made some incoherent mumbles in his sleep.
"Hello, Darry," the nurse said politely, standing up and shaking his hand.
"Hello," he said but he was distracted by Ponyboy. He could only focus on his sick form as he lay there. He knelt down next to the bed and I moved away slightly so that he could see his brother. "I should've noticed that he was feelin' sick, huh, Two?"
"Nah," I said, waving my hand to push aside what he thought. I should've noticed it, too. We all should've. But he was keeping things from everybody and that made it very difficult. "He's been keepin' lots from us, Dare."
"Like what?" he asked, rubbing Pony's cheek with his thumb lightly. He stood up straight and turned back to me. I nodded towards the nurse, telling him that she would explain. I had to wake the kid up so he could go home.
The nurse explained to Darry what she had explained to me. I slid my arm behind Ponyboy's back and pulled him up into a sitting position so that I could shake him gently, trying to coax him awake without needing much force. He stirred and moaned lightly, trying to bury his face into something. It happened to be my shoulder that he hid his face in. I smiled down at him even though he wasn't looking at me. Darry caught a glimpse of it while the nurse talked and I could tell he forced the smile I saw on his face. He probably wasn't very happy about hearing that his baby brother was having constant panic attacks that he kept hidden from the rest of us. "C'mon, kiddo," I whispered, turning my attention back to waking up my friend. "You gotta get up, little man."
"Where's Darry?" he mumbled, still half-asleep. He didn't make any effort to lift his body up on his own. I was still keeping him sitting up.
"He's here, Pone. Ready to go home?" I asked, knowing he probably wanted Sodapop and his bed so he could sleep. He would rarely sleep without Sodapop there with him. He was probably scared of the nightmares.
"Mhmmmm," he sighed sleepily, nudging his face further into my shoulder. I could tell that it was taking nearly all of his energy to stay awake.
"You gonna throw up, kiddo?" I asked when I saw his face contort in pain. He only nodded as his face grew paler. I pulled him out of bed and to the trash can where he emptied his stomach violently. The nurse and Darry were both beside us in an instant, having saw us rushing to the trash can. I could feel his heated skin against my own and I worried that his fever was getting worse. But there was something off about him. I could tell that something was wrong. I just didn't know what it was yet.
Darry started talking to Ponyboy in a soft voice, trying to ease him. "It'll all be over soon, honey," he was saying. "I know it hurts but it'll be over soon. Then we can go home and you can sleep this off. It's okay, baby. Deep breaths, deep breaths."
***Ponyboy's POV***
No, Darry, it isn't okay, I thought bitterly as I spit up the rest of the bile in my stomach. I knew what was going to happen and I was having conflicted feelings on it. I saw him following me. He was at every track practice. He was there when I got to school and when I left school. He was stalking me and my every movement. He was always there whenever I left the house and that scared me to death. I didn't want to leave but I knew I would have to. I wasn't made for the real world. The men who first took me changed me so I could only survive in the basement with constant abuse. It wasn't the life I was born to live but it was the life these men gave me. I was stuck with it whether I wanted it or not. Frankly, I didn't want it. I wanted to be able to have my brothers and my friends and live my life the way I was meant to live it. I wanted to be a normal kid. Teenager, I suppose, since I was fourteen years old. I was meant to live the life of Darry and Sodapop's kid brother. Ever since I was ripped away from my family I was a mere shadow of the boy I used to be.
This man would either demand me to get into the car or he would force me to get in the car. No matter what I decided to do, he'd get his way in the end. I could willingly get in the car for him or I could turn and run. He'd chase me. He'd track me down. There would be nowhere I could hide. Not to mention the fact that I couldn't outrun a car. There was also a possibility that he would just take me and force me into the car before stealing me away. Whatever he decided to do, I knew I should probably go along with it the easy way instead of putting myself through more pain. There was no use in trying when I knew I was going to fail. The question was if I wanted to fail or not.
I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't know if I wanted to go or if I wanted to stay. I really would hate to lose everything I had gained during my time back but I also knew that I wasn't meant for the real world. It was so confusing for me and it was driving me crazy. I wanted to die. That was something I knew I wanted. I didn't want to exist in the world. I wished I was never born. There was so much that was wrong with my life that it was incredible I was still even trying to fight it. I think the only reason I was fighting was for my brothers. We had all lost our parents. They lost me for nine years before that. I didn't want to make them lose me after losing them. I knew that would probably drive Sodapop over the edge. That would leave Darry alone who I know would soon follow. Then there goes the rest of our gang. Like dominoes we'd all fall down. I wasn't worried about that if I was taken. If I was missing, there was no indication on whether I was alive or not. Nobody would risk the chance of me being alive. They wouldn't hurt themselves unless they knew I was dead.
I knew what I deserved. I knew I deserved to be chained up. I deserved to be beaten, raped, and sold. That's all I was good for. I made them a lot of money and I was a quick and easy way for them to get their anger out without ruining their lives. If they were angry about somebody they had come across, they'd take it out on me. Stuff like that. That's all I was good for. I wasn't good for anything else. It didn't matter what I thought was going to happen. It didn't matter what I wanted the outcome to be. What mattered was what I deserved and I reserved the worst I could possibly get.
I had been getting sick a lot easier those past few months. I was overthinking way too much and it was getting to me. I was so scared and so worried. Everything was taking a bad toll on my body. I didn't mean for it to have that bad of an affect on me but it was inevitable. I was always getting sick. Sometimes I would go a few days without eating or sleeping. Sometimes I would push myself too far in track. That wasn't why I was as sick as I was, though. I had woken up with a fever and I was a little dizzy and sick to my stomach but that was a normal, everyday thing. I was as sick as I was because of the Socials. The Socials thought it would be funny to shove some pills down my throat and make me swallow. I was high. I wasn't high enough to overdose or something crazy like that but I was high enough to feel the affects. I knew I wasn't acting like my normal self, and I couldn't stop myself no matter how hard I tried. They cornered me in the janitor's closet going into third period and beat me real bad before they made me take the pills. Gym was right after third period and before lunch. I had a good tolerance from drugs while I was in the basement but I guess things could change because I knew just a few pills wouldn't have made me feel that fuzzy. I couldn't ignore it no matter how hard I tried.
I hated what I was doing to my brothers and the gang by suffering so much. I was waking up late in the night with nightmares when I did decide to sleep and when I didn't decide to sleep I made them even more worried because I would fall asleep so easily. I could be eating dinner and I'd fall asleep in my chair. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night running to empty my stomach. I would wake Soda up with my moving and I would have to convince him that it was just a nightmare. That was believable enough. He never questioned it. I couldn't bring myself to talk about anything of importance. I knew they were getting frustrated. I didn't blame them. They wanted to help me but I couldn't be helped. I didn't want to drag them down with me but they made it impossible not to. I had ruined their lives and no matter how hard I tried to fix it, what was done was done. Everybody was so worried about me and I couldn't stop them. I had lost all the weight I had gained back the first few weeks after I was found. I heard the gang and my brothers talking about it a lot. I looked sick and they were debating on whether or not they should send me to the hospital. What good would a hospital do? It was pointless to me.
Running was the only thing that was keeping me sane. The only reason I haven't had a complete mental breakdown was because I was able to let my emotions out somehow through track. I've learned from the gang that they let their steam out in different ways like a drag race or a fight. I wasn't that type of person. I let my emotions out through running. I ran during school for gym or my free periods. Sometimes I skipped lunch so I could take a few extra laps if the Socials gave me a particularly hard time that day. I skipped lunch a lot. I would run before school if I wasn't physically exhausted. I would take runs during the day. I couldn't make myself stop running even though I knew it was getting unhealthy. I had built up lots of muscles from running. My arms weren't as strong as my legs were but I was still getting muscle from running and pumping my arms as I ran. In track I also did hurdles and I would throw disks so that helped my muscles. We lifted weights in track which helped to make up the lack of muscle I had in my arms. My legs were still incredibly stronger. I enjoyed running. It was fun and my way to keep myself from exploding. I was running from my problems without running away from them completely. It was as if I was running away from something in one room. I could run along the walls all day long with the impression that I was running away from whatever was chasing me but in all reality I was enclosed with it and the second I stopped, it'd get me. That's what running was to me.
Not only did I find comfort in running, but I found comfort in reading and writing. I could get lost in somebody else's story for hours and forget about my own. It was their world when I was reading. Mine doesn't exist. I was a mere spectator. I wasn't a pawn of my own story nor was I the creator. I was only watching. That's how I felt with movies, too. Writing was fun for me because I could create a whole new world without even leaving my bed. I could create a better life for me if I wanted or I could create somebody who could relate to me and my experiences. I could do or be anything I wanted as long as I wrote it on paper or kept it in my mind. I was also a dreamer which helped with my writing.
Of course I couldn't tell him absolutely any of that so I just let him comfort me. I let him tell me it was going to be alright even though I knew it wouldn't be. I let him rub my back because I was too tired to flinch. I was too out of it, too, because of those stupid pills the Socials made me take. I felt more relaxed but I contributed that to the fact that I could barely think clearly. I didn't want to flinch so that wasn't exactly a problem to me but just the fact that I was too confused and tired to flinch worried me. I wondered what they gave me to feel like that. I didn't like it.
I looked up at Two-Bit briefly just to see him staring at me with sad eyes. I looked down quickly, not wanting to see the emotions he held. He was my buddy and worried about me just as much as my brothers did. He did so much for me even though he was just a friend. He was an older friend at that. He was eighteen while I was fourteen. He shouldn't even want to associate with me but he was always trying to get me to do things with him. He was a great buddy. He made me want to laugh a lot though I always kept it to myself. I really did like his comfort. He wasn't as big as Darry but he was still very big and intimidating yet he was nearly as gentle as Sodapop was. Darry was mainly protective. Sodapop was more of the comforting brother. Two-Bit was like a mixture of the two of them. I liked him and his comfort real well. I felt like I could disappear in his arms because they were so strong yet soft at the same time. It was rare to see Two-Bit get soft with me. He tried to act like I was normal. He tried to act like I was just another member of the gang. Of course, he'd get serious if something was really wrong or something like that but for the most part he was his normal self around me. His worries came out when he thought I couldn't hear him.
After kneeling on the floor for a few minutes, the entire moment passed. I lifted my head again and looked up at my oldest brother. My protector. "I'm okay now. Home?" I asked, hoping Darry would take me home. I wanted to lay down and sleep. I was exhausted. I hoped I could sleep off the drug but the sleep I had gotten in the nurse's office didn't make me feel better at all.
"Yeah, little buddy," he said, helping me to my feet yet keeping an arm around my shoulders to keep me standing up somewhat straight. "Let's go home."
The three of us walked out to the parking lot after Darry said goodbye to the nurse and signed me out. Since Two-Bit was eighteen, he signed himself out. None of the ladies in the office said anything about him leaving school. I knew they would normally try to get him to stay in school when he signed himself out because they didn't want him to fail a grade again. He failed his junior year so he was repeating his eleventh grade year while I was in tenth grade. While me and Darry went to the truck, Two-Bit was tracking down Steve and his car. I climbed into the truck and buckled my seat belt before laying my head against the cold window. It felt good on my burning body. Darry had tried to help me into the car but I refused. I knew I needed to stop depending on my brothers. I wouldn't be around much longer. I'd disappear and I would never see them again. That was just a fact of life for me.
"Sorry, Dare," I whispered once we were both comfortable in the car while we waited for our friends to come so we could leave. I turned to look at him when I apologized so he could see I meant it.
"Don't be sorry, kiddo," he said, starting the car as our friends came into view. We watched them get into their car before Darry drove out of the school's parking lot with Two-Bit and Steve behind us. "Why didn't you tell us 'bout your fever? Two said you were runnin' one before track."
"I didn't want to upset you," I admitted quietly, curling up a little bit in my seat. I didn't want them to find out about anything. I didn't want them to worry about me. I wondered what their life would be filled with when they didn't have to watch me over their shoulders to make sure I was okay. I figured their life would get real boring.
"What about your panic attacks in school? Or what about how often the Socs mess with ya?" he asked, glancing at me out of the corner of his eyes. I don't think I was meant to see him look at me but I already saw it. They all were usually looking at me as if they were expecting to see me vanish before their eyes. I guess they weren't wrong for assuming that that would happen. Maybe they could feel it in the air, too. Maybe they felt his eyes prying into our home; following us whenever we did anything.
"I...I..." I started but I couldn't finish. I couldn't answer him. I didn't have an answer to give him. I couldn't say that it was because I was waiting for the man to take me again. I couldn't say that I didn't want to be more stress than I'm worth. I couldn't say that I wanted to see them start to live their lives for them and not for me. There was no right answer to give him so I chose silence. He sighed and I immediately worried that he was angry with me. Even though I knew my brother would never harm me, he was still very big and intimidating. That alone was enough to scare me if he was angry. But I was more concerned with the fact that I upset him, whether it was sadness or anger didn't matter. I hated upsetting anybody. I didn't want to make them angry or sad or worried. I wanted them to be happy. I wasn't worth the problems I caused any of them. I figured he was mad at me because I was keeping so much hidden from him. I wouldn't blame him if he was but I couldn't help but hope he wasn't.
"We need to know this stuff, Pone," he said, his voice sounding forced as if he was trying to keep back his yelling. Looking back, I know he wasn't angry. He was worried. He was terribly worried. He was lost, too. After all the time that I had been back, he still had no idea how to handle me. He was keeping an eye on Sodapop just fine. Those two rarely argued and neither ever really had a problem with the other. Darry was a great brother and guardian for Sodapop. They grew up together. They knew exactly how the other one was. The same couldn't be said about me. Maybe we all got along but neither of them knew how to handle me, especially Darry. Sodapop could to a certain degree but I was hopeless. Nobody could help me. Darry was always so cautious, like he wasn't sure what to do or say. I could see the debate in his eyes a lot. He debates with himself if he should offer me words of comfort or if he should just hold me and hope for the best. "It's our job ta help ya get better, kiddo, and honestly, you're gettin' worse."
"Sorry," I whispered, sliding down further in my seat. I was hating myself horribly for every single thing I've ever did in my life. I hated myself for not dying in the basement the most. That would've made things so much more simpler. They all knew how to live when I wasn't around. It seemed that me coming back stopped their lives just because I didn't know how to live. It wasn't fair for them. I was a burden.
"Like I said; don't be sorry. Just...can ya try to be more open with us? Any of us?" he asked, his voice sounding desperate.
"I'll try," I mumbled, letting my heavy eyelids close by themselves. I was still awake but I was awful tired.
"How 'bout ya try now? How're ya feelin'?" he asked. I felt his eyes on me even though my own were closed. It wasn't hard to tell when he was staring at me. It made me physically uncomfortable. Not only him, of course. I got like that when anybody was staring at me. Him, Soda, Johnny, the man following us a few cars back.
"Promise me something first?" I asked, not even realizing I was going to say what I was going to say. Of course I knew I was going to say it but I don't think I processed the idea just yet or else I wouldn't have said anything.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Can you promise..." I trailed off, licking my lips to try to get some moisture on them. I hadn't realized how dry they had become so suddenly. "Promise that you won't get mat at me for what I'm gonna say?"
"I promise," he said, his voice genuine. I knew he meant it. Darry never broke a promise. He always kept his word. He always had such an honest tone to his voice when he was talking to me. It was hard not to trust something he, or anybody, said. They all seemed to be extremely honest with me. I suppose they were just trying to get me to open up to them. It wasn't working. It had been many, many months since I had been found. Nothing changed. I was still the scared kid I was when they found me. I was the scared kid that had no idea how to survive.
"I feel like shit," I admitted and immediately tensed at the realization of what I said. Like I said, I hadn't processed that that's what I was going to say. I didn't mean for it to happen but it forced its way out. I swore out loud for probably the first time in my life. Nothing else fit how I felt, though. I said I'd try to be more open and that's what I was doing. I was trying for Darry's sake, not mine. I would have preferred to keep everything to myself but I figured if I told Darry a little bit and made him think I was telling him a lot more than I was, maybe he wouldn't be as worried as he was. I honestly felt like crap. I felt horrible. I felt like I was dying and I wouldn't exactly mind that. I would never say that to my brother, though, so saying I felt like crap was the next best thing. I just felt so sick.
To my surprise and relief, Darry only laughed. "I ain't gonna get mad at ya for cursin'," he said and I felt my body relax completely. I actually smiled a little bit, too, and I didn't force myself to. I guess I felt like my brother was proud of me. I really enjoyed feeling accomplished. I loved when I made them proud. It never lasted long so I tried to cherish the moments. "We all swear. I don't mind if you say a few swear words. Hell, you can throw in a swear word after every word an' I wouldn't care, as long as you're talkin'."
I wanted to cry when he said that because I knew it was only a matter of time before he stopped hearing me talk completely. I'd be gone and he wouldn't be around to hear me speak, cry, yell, swear, nothing. I'd just be gone from his life like I was four years old again. I'd return to not existing to the world outside of my own little personal hell. It was going to happen soon. I could feel it. I could tell by the impatient look in his eyes and the sadistic smile he'd give me when we made eye contact. It was going to happen any day and I wanted to say goodbye but there was no way to do that. I knew I would be gone within a few weeks of being taken away again. I knew my body wouldn't be able to handle it again. I'd die. First the life would drain out of me mentally. Then my body would follow.
I was walking around with a bounty on my head. I had a promise of death and there was no escape. All I could do was bide my time and hope my brothers would be okay when I was gone.