The next time I came to, the upper half of my body was in more pain then ever before. It was even hard to open my eyes. And I could feel something heavy on my left arm. A cast. Below the middle of my back however, I couldn't feel a thing. I could feel that there was a tube up my nose and a needle in one of my hands. There was also somebody else in the room, I could tell cause I had that feeling you get when somebody's watching you.

"I think he's coming too." A familar voice said. It was Darry! I wanted to cry his name, say I was sorry for the night I came home late and ran out when he hit me. I slowly found the strength to open my eyes. Sure enough, Darry was sitting on one side of me, Sodapop on the other. They were both looking at me, and both looked like they had been crying. Soda still had some tears coming down his face. I hardly ever saw either one of them cry, seeing it just made the pain worse.

"Pony!" Soda cried and hugged me. He tried to be gentle but he couldn't help himself. "Sorry." He said as I winced, but I didn't care, I hugged him back the best I could with the cast on my arm. He let go after a few minutes, once he did I looked over at Darry.

"Darry," I was able to get out. As soon as I did, Darry started crying again. He hugged me tightly.

"Ponyboy, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." He said sounding like a little kid.

"No, no. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come home late, and shouldn't put you guys trough that...now this." I said to them. Seeing them like this, made me realize how much the two of them really did love me. With mom and dad gone, we're all each other has. Maybe this wasn't the best wish.

"How bad am I?" I couldn't help but ask. Darry and Soda looked over at one another. Like they were silently trying to choose who should break it to me.

"Well you're not in the best of shape, buddy." Soda finally said.

"You got some pretty bad burns on your back and shoulders, you got hit with those floorboards pretty hard, the firefighter who got you out had to get one off your arm, which is why you have a cast." Darry explained to me the best I could.

"Guess my hair doesn't look so bad now." I said remembering how I cut and bleached it. I was hoping to lighten the mood. All I could get was for Soda to crack a tiny smile. Darry took a deep breath.

"There's more, Pony..." He said, his voice sounding serious. "Can you feel anything below the middle of your back?"

"No." I admitted.

"Well, yeah. The doctor said you might be paralzyed from the waist down. You won't be able to walk when you get out of here." He said, breaking it to me. So I ended up like Johnny, I was crippled. It was a pretty big shock when it happened to him. But now it was happening to me, and it was a whole different feeling. I wanted to cry, but I didn't wanna make Soda and Darry feel any worse.

"How's Johnny and Dallas?" I aksed trying to change subjects.

"Johnny's ok, he just got a few burns and breathed in a lot of smoke. Darry hurt his arm trying to help the firefighter get you out, but he's gonna be ok, they both will be." Soda told me.

"Guess I won't be though." I said. I thought of something. Johnny didn't make it, and when he died, he wasn't ready to. Was that gonna happen to me? Thinking about it now, I didn't wanna die. I was only 14, that's younger than Johnny. If 16 years isn't long enough 14 sure as hell isn't. I wasn't ready, and now I was scared. I couldn't help but cry now.

"No, Pony. Don't cry." Darry told me.

"I can't help it...I'm scared." I said.

"It's gonna be ok, Pony." Soda said trying to convince me. But I could tell he was trying to convince himself too. I started to calm down a little bit, I was in so much pain it hurt to cry anyway.

"Want us to leave you alone for a little bit?" Darry asked.

"Sure." I answered.

"We'll go talk to the doctor, see if he'll give you any more pain killers." Soda said, they both got up and slowly left, shutting the door behind them. As they did, I could tell that this was all a big mistake. I didn't want Johnny to die, but I hated seeing Soda and Darry like this. I didn't really know what I wanted anymore.

Poor Ponyboy. I was able to have time to write this morning, summer's busy :p. But hopefully I'll finish this soon since it's a short summer (Porbably around 10-15 chapters) So please keep reading and reviewing, and stay gold!