Ponyboy…

I sighed, staring at the paper and waiting for words to come to me. It's never easy to write for me, but now was especially hard. I was writing to my best friend, telling him I was dying. Well, I didn't know I was dying, but I had an idea. The doctor was coming toward me with this real serious look on his face, and besides I was fighting to keep my eyes open. I didn't have much time left and we both knew it. The doc reached me and hung his head, and I waited for him to say it. By the looks of it I'd be gone before he even got the words out of his mouth. "Mr. Cade… I have some unfortunate news." I'm sure you do, I though. I decided to hurry him up.

"How much longer?" The look he gave me made me wanna laugh, and I wished Two-bit and Pony would be there to see it. He looked completely shocked, like maybe he didn't expect someone like me to understand what was happening. He adjusted his glasses and looked at me again.

"Excuse me?"

"That's what you're here to tell me, isn't it? That I'm dying? Well, I wanna know how much longer I have to live." He sighed, but nodded and told me.

"I suppose you deserve that. There's no way to be sure, but I'd say you only have a few days left. I'm sorry." Like hell you are. I watched him leave and wondered how many people a day he'd said the same thing to. He didn't care, but right then neither did I. Now that I knew how long I had I wanted even more to finish my letter to Pony. I thought about all the things I wanted to say, about the poem and about the kids' parents who'd come to see me, about Dally and about everything the doctor had just told me.

When I was done I had a pretty good list of things I wanted to tell him, but I still hoped it'd be enough. I had this nagging feeling that it never would be, no matter how long it was. I almost wanted to write that too. If I was never gonna talk to him again after this letter I figured I might as well. Somehow, for the first time in my life as I chose my words and put the pen to the paper…

I wasn't scared.

I finished and carefully put the letter in the back of the copy of Gone With The Wind that I would never get to finish, and handed it to the nurse. I felt the feeling go away and I was glad. If there was anything I didn't want it was to leave without saying enough.

I was ready.