Ponyboy entered the small room with a sense of unease. The lavender walls seemed to mock him. He took a seat where the woman gestured, a small couch settled on one wall, facing two large chairs. Pillows were strategically placed on either end, as if inviting one to relax, stay awhile. He took a seat in the middle of the couch, his face giving away nothing. He didn't know what he was supposed to say or where to begin. "Ponyboy, I'm Dr. Kendrick. Should we start with why you think you're here today?"

Ponyboy shrugged; wow, could he act any more like a moody teenager? "I guess my brother Darry thought I should talk to you."

She nodded. "That's true, your brother Darrel made the call, but what made you come in?" Ponyboy noticed the clipboard settled on her lap, pen poised to write down the evidence that he was going crazy.

Ponyboy thought for a moment and decided that 'Darry would pound me' didn't sound like a good answer. "I guess I need some help."

"Ponyboy, I'm going to ask you a few questions before we get into this, okay? Have you or do you think of harming yourself or others?" That was a loaded question. Ponyboy didn't think about suicide, but he did want to kick the socs heads in after what they did to Johnny; it was, after all, their fault.

"No."

"I have some news that concerns me, which was relayed to me through your brother. Your friend passed away from the aftereffects of a fire?"

Ponyboy clenched his jaw and looked away. It still hurt to think about what happened to Johnny, even after the years that had passed. Yet she said it so easily that Ponyboy nearly lashed out. But he only nodded.

"You said that you wished it was you that had died in the fire, is that true Ponyboy?" Ponyboy couldn't read her and it unnerved him. She looked like a soc, or at least someone who wouldn't appreciate that he was a greaser. Why did she want to help him anyway? What was she getting out of it? Oh yeah, money.

"I guess I said that. Johnny didn't deserve that." Ponyboy felt the pangs of guilt rise in him once again. He had let that go at one point, but here it was staring him in the face. This was going great so far.

"And you think you do?" She asked him. He had taken one of the pillows and placed it on his lap, fingering one of the tassels. "You think you deserved to die Ponyboy?"

"I dunno. I guess. It was my idea." Pony told her. Great, now she was getting him to talk. At this point he wasn't sure he wanted to tell her everything, but here he was anyway.

"What was your idea?" She scratched some notes across the pad of paper, waiting for him to answer.

Ponyboy thought back to that night. Darry had pushed him, shoved him in the chest, and he had fled the house. Tears stinging his eyes, he turned to the one person he knew would understand. He thought of meeting Johnny in the lot, convincing him to run away from everything, and eventually meeting up with the socs in the park. Neither one of his brothers had come after him and it hurt that they just didn't care, especially Soda. It was his fault Johnny had killed the soc. It was his fault they fled to Windrixville. It was his fault they were at that church and the fire started. It was his fault Johnny got trapped and he couldn't save him. Everything was his doing. Everything….

Ponyboy felt himself losing control. He had been in this office for about ten minutes and already he was starting to crack. He felt hot tears trying to escape and quickly brushed them away. "I was the one who said we should leave. I was the one who started it all."

"Started what? Where were you wanting to go?"

"We went to this place called Windrixville. It was just some teenage crap." He didn't dare say what happened between him and Darry. No one knew about that besides the gang. And Darry hadn't laid a hand on him since. "I told him I wanted to run away, just get away. Maybe from being a greaser, I dunno. Just escape."

"He agreed to go with you?'

"Well, yeah." Ponyboy had never thought about it like that. Johnny would never have said no. Was that Pony's fault or maybe Johnny wanted to get away just as badly as he did, he just needed a reason. "But he was my best friend. He would never let me go alone."

"He could have stopped you." She said this gently, just a lick of sarcasm in her voice, but it still bothered Pony.

Ponyboy shook his head. "Johnny's parents weren't the nicest people in the world. He nearly lived in my house. But it was bad for him. Maybe I knew that. Maybe I used that to my own advantage."

"What events led up to the fire?" She asked, changing tactics.

Surely she had seen the paper. It was on the front page and involved greasers being 'heroes' instead of 'hooligans' so it caught a lot of attention. But if she had, she didn't mention it.

"Johnny and I ran into some Soc—guys." He corrected himself. Greasers was a word adults understood, socs not always, and he didn't necessarily want to make that distinction in case it got him in trouble. "They were up for a fight. I was planning on going back home, but they wouldn't back off. There were more of them than us. They got me to a fountain and forced my head under. I couldn't breathe. Johnny stabbed one of the guys and he died." Ponyboy paused, remembering the fear on Johnny's face, the sick feeling he got in his own stomach. "But he saved my life. So we left, went to Windrixville. We didn't want to get into any trouble and we were there for nearly a week. But another friend of ours showed up with a letter from my brother, Sodapop. We grabbed some food and by the time we got back, the whole church was on fire. We ran in because there were some kids that got into the church. They were all fine, but Johnny died from it. He never made it out of the hospital." Ponyboy felt breathless. His heart was racing and his eyes were once again blurring. "I did."

"That was a very brave thing you did." She mentioned.

"Hell of a lot of good it did." Ponyboy felt the tears burn hot in his eyes, fall down his cheeks and land on his shirt. He nearly spat the next words at her. "My best friend lost his life and I'm sitting here because I can't handle mine! That's why it should have been me! That's why I should have died, because he would live so much better than me!"