Sorry for the long break. I can't believe the whole summer went by and I didn't even update. I'm sorry. I hope you all are still reading. The reviews have been great, thank you all very much.

Also, sorry for the inconsistencies between the book and my story. But after all, it's my creation, so I changed a few minuscule details to fit what I wanted to happen.

A long chapter (I hope you'll still read), but important.



Johnny lay on the navy blue twin bed in his room and threw a basketball up in the air towards the ceiling, letting gravity take its course almost until the ball was centimeters away from his nose, only to quickly save himself by catching the ball with his fingertips. He found himself wishing that the ball was a 500 pound weight that would fall on him and shatter him into pieces. That's how he felt at the moment, anyways.

He was gay. And he was in love with his lifelong best friend, who completely rejected him just days ago and then basically ditched him when he started showing the teeniest bit of emotion by shedding one stupid tear. He replayed that day in his head.

"You okay, man?" Pony had asked after Soda told him about the date with the two hot girls.

Johnny shook his sunken head while a tear dropped down his cheek. "No." There was a few seconds of silence, but it felt like years. In a moment, the whole atmosphere had changed from just sad to sad and extremely awkward. Johnny sniffed as he looked up at his friend. Pony was just standing there with his eyebrows raised, looking completely perplexed. "Um, are you okay?" Johnny interrogated while wiping the tear from his cheek. For a split second, Pony looked like he was about to say something, but then he just took off running. Across the court, out of the fenced area, up the street until he was out of sight. Johnny called out a few times to him, but to no avail.

Pony hadn't answered Johnny's phone calls, talked to him, or even acknowledged him since that day. And now he would have to force himself to go on a date with a girl he already knew he would have no interest in while hiding any and all affection for the one he truly wanted to be with.

"Life sucks," Johnny mumbled to himself. He threw the basketball up again, watching it float up, hang in the air for a split second, and then start to come down.

"Johnny, your little friend Pony's here!" his foster mom Julia called up to him from downstairs. Johnny froze. All at the same time, his heart leapt, his stomach turned over, and his ears and cheeks felt like they were on fire and turned bright red. And then, boom. Something hit him right in the head, making him slip off the bed onto the hard floor.

"Oof," he grunted. He sat on the ground and rubbed his head, remembering about a second ago he had thrown the basketball up. He slammed his fist on the ground in anger and then quickly stood up. Pony was waiting.

He dashed down the stairs, almost embarrassingly slipping on the way down. "Hi," he said to Pony, still a little out-of-sorts from the blow to the head.

Pony was looking at the ground, too ashamed and embarrassed to even acknowledge Johnny. "Sodasentmetocomegetyoubecauseit'stimeforthemovie," he mumbled hurriedly as one huge word. He then started to turn away from the doorway to start walking.

"Wait, what?" Johnny asked confusedly, too upset at the snubbing to even try to decipher the embarrassed boy's long string of words.

"Soda. Sent. Me. To. Come. Get. You. Because. It's. Time. For. The. Movie," he angrily snapped without even turning around and started walking again. It struck a bad chord in Johnny's heart. Pony had never talked like that to him before. This was even worse than getting ignored.

"Julia, I'm going to a movie," he called over his shoulder, shut the door behind him, and ran out to catch up with Ponyboy.

They walked in silence down the sidewalk for a while. Pony obviously did not want to be anywhere near Johnny, walking extremely fast so that Johnny, even with his million mile long legs, had to almost jog to keep up with him. It was clearly not the time, but Johnny could not help but fantasize about them walking together hand in hand instead of Ponyboy up ahead with him awkwardly trailing behind.

Johnny finally was able to keep a steady pace with Pony after a few minutes of walking. Staring at the ground, he feebly attempted to get any answers at all out of his walking companion. "Is… is there a reason as to why you're… um, well… ignoring me?" He stole a look at Pony's face out of the corner of his eye and then continued to stare at the ground.

Pony kept walking as if Johnny were completely invisible and he hadn't even heard him ask a question at all. Johnny shut up the rest of the way and didn't even bother trying to keep up with Pony, following no less than 10 feet behind him.

Johnny knew that Pony was being a real jerk. He knew that his best friend was completely ignoring him when all he did was say his real feelings. But he couldn't help but stare at his friend's back and fantasize about them being together. He wished so badly that Pony was the one he was going to the movies with tonight, and thought about them sitting outdoors in the grass under the stars, Pony's arm around him while he rested his head on his love's chest. Johnny breathed a sigh of longing, wondering how long he could live with just fantasizing and not doing.

If Johnny had been nervous before they had reached the drive-in theater, now his nervousness developed into a gargantuan monster. How was he supposed to treat this girl? What was he supposed to say? Johnny had never had a girlfriend (or a boyfriend, for that matter) before. How was he going to handle Ponyboy flirting with the girl he was with? He definitely did not want to treat the girl he was set up with like Ponyboy was treating him. He wouldn't wish this terrible hole-in-the-heart feeling on anyone.

And then when the two girls were actually in sight, the monster of nervousness developed into four monsters capable of taking over the universe. They were pretty, Johnny could still acknowledge that, but he didn't think any more of it. One had long, dark brown hair that was in loose curls a little down past her shoulders, big, grayish-blue eyes, a little pixie nose, and a petite frame. The other had straight, medium-length sandy blonde hair, cute little squinty green eyes, and was very… well, "well-endowed," which, to Johnny's annoyance, immediately caught the interest of Ponyboy.

"Hey, my name is Peter," Ponyboy excitedly said to the blonde, sticking out his hand. Having been embarrassed of his eccentric name ever since he started dating girls, he lied to every girl he met, saying his real name was Peter but all his guy friends called him Ponyboy. Johnny found this increasingly annoying, but delighted in seeing him cutely get flustered in embarrassment whenever he called him by his real name in front of girls.

The blonde took his hand, shook it lightly and said, "Hey Peter, nice to meet you. I'm Lindsey." She shifted her weight to her other leg and shyly started to rub her arm, all the while smiling at him flirtatiously. Johnny decided that he didn't mind her that much because she seemed to be a nice girl, but still had a jealous hatred of her for being Pony's date.

Suddenly, Johnny remembered that he had a "date" he was supposed to be attending to. He turned to face the brunette and followed almost exactly what Ponyboy did. But Johnny soon learned that the brunette was completely different from the blonde.

"Johnny," she simply said after he had introduced himself, and grabbed his one hand with both of hers. She looked into his eyes for what seemed like minutes, squinting as if she could see into the very depths of his soul. Finally, after it seemed like she found what she was looking for in Johnny's eyes, she said, "Nice to meet you."

Johnny just stood there, confusedly staring at her, but was, in some strange way, intrigued. He'd never seen a girl act like that before.

"Her name's Layna," Lindsey stated, making the fact that she was annoyed known by rolling her eyes and smiling at Ponyboy. "Let's go, Peter." She interlaced her arm with his and strutted off towards the movie screen. Johnny decided that he no longer liked her at all.

Layna and Johnny awkwardly stood there for a long time, watching the two walk off. After Johnny realized that Layna was most likely not going to initiate the conversation, he feebly tried, looking up at her. "So… do you wanna go find a place to sit?"

"Yeah," she replied, and confidently beamed at him. The woman of few words, he thought. But somehow still so interesting, even to me.

Johnny made a hasty beeline for where Ponyboy and Lindsey were sitting, trying and failing to be nonchalant, as Layna silently trailed behind him. Disappointedly finding that there was only a spot about ten feet behind the two, Johnny laid out the blanket Layna had brought for them and sadly plopped on the ground, creeping himself out by secretly wishing that he was Lindsey. Layna quietly sat next to him and started studying his face.

Feeling a little awkward that Layna was just staring at him and not saying anything, Johnny looked over at her and forced a happy face, hoping that she would stop. But she didn't. She just amusedly smiled back and continued staring when he looked away.

"So, Layna," he said after a few more awkward moments of sitting, staring, and silence. It was a completely foreign notion that he couldn't even focus on what Pony and Lindsey were doing. "That's an interesting name. Is there a story behind it?"

"Yep," Layna stated, and finally stopped staring at Johnny to lean back on her hands and face forward, looking up as if she were reminiscing to herself. He was about to ask what the story was after more moments of silence was when she finally started to speak. "My mom liked the name Kayla. My dad liked the name Lana. So they put the names in a blender and out came the name Layna."

Johnny realized that this was the first time Layna had said more than three words and that he should take the opportunity to continue on the conversation. "Hm, interesting. What's your middle name?" he asked.

"Grace."

"Geez, that hardly lives up to your first name."

She smiled slickly at him. "Oh, so you don't like my middle name? And what's your middle name?"

Johnny blushed; first over the question he had been asked, second that Layna quite possibly had actually been trying to flirt with him. He had been named after his deadbeat father who he wasn't too fond of anymore. And his father's name wasn't that flattering, either. "Morris," he mumbled, and blushed even redder, feeling stupid that he was getting so embarrassed in front of the cool Layna.

"Hmm. Johnny Morris…," she looked to him to reveal to her the rest of his name.

"Cade. John Morris Cade III." He smiled at her.

"Hmm, interesting," she said. Immediately after she finished her statement, the lights around the outdoor theater dimmed to almost black and the screen lit up with previews. Johnny began to ask what she had meant by "interesting," trying to keep the conversation going because he enjoyed talking to her, but she just held her pointer finger up to her lips and shushed him without even looking at him.

Johnny leaned back in the same position Layna was in and engrossed himself in the previews, enjoying Layna's company and completely forgetting about Ponyboy and Lindsey sitting ten feet ahead of him.

Layna watched the movie intensely, never even acknowledging Johnny. They sat the same way, almost like statues, until halfway into the movie, when Layna finally stirred to adjust to a more comfortable position of laying on her stomach. Another thing different about the girl that he was not used to in the slightest; whenever he and the guys went to a movie, it was nonstop talking, joking, burping, eating, pushing. In fact, he couldn't ever remember a movie that he actually paid attention to for more than five minutes.

Then one thought in Johnny's mind led to another. The guys. Ponyboy.

He quickly sat up and peered over the heads of the other people in the field enjoying the movie. For a second, he couldn't find them due to the darkness. Was it that couple on the right with the girl whose head was on the guy's shoulder? No, Johnny could clearly see that she was brunette. He started searching for the noticeable sandy blonde and busty traits that Pony's date possessed in the silhouettes in front of him. He quickly glanced over at Layna. She didn't seem to notice or care.

But then, behind Layna a few yards off on the side of the concession hut, he saw it. His worst fears and the things he dreaded the most come to fruition. His love, Ponyboy Curtis, in plain sight groping and feeling and kissing all over that blonde bimbo that Johnny couldn't even remember the name of. He saw Pony nibble on the girl's neck, and the girl throw her head back and squeal in mock-delight. They were in a tight embrace, body to body, running their hands up and down each other's backs while kissing every inch of skin above their clavicles.

Johnny wasn't really aware of anything after seeing that, but he was pretty sure that his heart dropped to the center of the earth and burned to absolutely nothing at that very moment.