"Pomp and Circumstance" rings through Darry's head as he poses for what feels like the hundredth picture. Over the heads of Mr. and Mrs. Holden, Paul's parents, he sees Soda and Pony wrestling under a tree. They're in their Sunday best, and Darry knows his mom's gonna be sore if she catches them with even one grass stain. They're bored, and he doesn't blame them. Darry's mouth hurts from smiling so much. He graduated at the top of his class, and was named Scholar-Athelete of the Year for the City of Tulsa. Darry thought his dad was gonna burst with pride. "Not just a scholar, not just an athelete, but both! Not just both, but the best at both!" Darry had to beg his dad to stop after a while, it had gotten real embarrassing.
Texas A&M is waiting. Darry is trying to be excited and not as nervous, but he can't help it. He's seen the total costs when his mom and dad sit down to add up everything, including dorm fees, books and a meal hall pass; the kinds of things that aren't included in what they called a "full scholarship". He isn't quite sure they can afford to move him down there, and afford for him to stay once he gets there. Darry keeps trying to get the truth out of them, and they keep stuffing the papers back in a folder marked DARRY-COLLEGE and telling him they'll work something out.
Darry has to believe they're telling the truth, because he can't imagine having to stay in Tulsa. Not after everything that has happened. Melissa returned to school just in time for final exams, and it brought everything rushing back...everything Darry had convinced himself he'd buried so deep down that even his subconscious might never find it. She never tried to talk to him and he had nothing to say to her, but if you looked real closely, you could see a haze of disappointment and hurt surrounding the two that never quite went away.
Darry counts on getting to College Station in the fall. He counts on being able to start over, where he's not the boy with both Soc and greaser friends. Where he's not the town celebrity or punchline, depending on how he played that week. Where his girlfriend hadn't accidentally gotten pregnant, and then purposefully killed the baby and almost herself. He can't be that boy anymore. He won't. He has to get out. Move on.
The construction job his dad was going to set him up with when he thought he wasn't going to college is still available, and Darry plans to ask if he can work double-shifts all summer long to help with the money they're going to need. He thinks about the money constantly. Honestly, where are they going to come up with that kind of dough? Soda says he thinks he heard mom and dad talking about a bank loan, a second mortgage or something, and what little Darry knows about these things, he knows it's a lot to ask. On the other hand, he will ask, because staying in Tulsa sometimes seems like the absolute worst thing he can imagine.
His mother says, "Don't be so eager to escape your past, Darry." She says things like, "It's better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." Darry isn't so sure about that one. He thinks the loss of Melissa, and the loss of his baby is more loss than he can stand at this point.
No, he can't stay. He won't. Come hell or high water, he'll make it out of Tulsa.
END
Author's Note: The point of ending the story on the note that it did (Darry's absolute need to get to college), is to set up the magnitude of heartbreak it must have been to eventually hear that he couldn't go, the strength of character he showed to hold off a year and work so that he could afford to, and the amazing sacrifice he made to give it all up to take care of his brothers once his parents died, as shown later in the book The Outsiders.
A few people mentioned that it seemed unrealistic that Darry would get himself into the mess of getting a girl pregnant in high school. I attempted to make it known in the story that they had used condoms every time and she still got pregnant, hence everyone's heightened desperation and frustration. Condoms are, after all, only 80 percent effective. This may still not assuage some people who think that Darry wouldn't even take the risk at all and thereby not sleep with a girl before marriage. I don't believe Darry is a virgin in the book and I assume that he probably got some in high school when he was Boy of the Year and all that. grins
Uh, that's all...
Thanks to those of you that read and reviewed, specifically Tessie26, Julie, Meg, Tonyboy and Sodapop's#1gurl who were constant and loyal to me through the end, no matter how depressing I made the journey.