I was just another nurse, and he was just another one of my patients. Sure, his injuries were among the most serious ones I'd cared for in her five years of nursing, but dealing with them was simply part of my job, nothing more.

One of the first things I learned about this job was that you couldn't get too attached to any of the patients, especially the ones in critical condition. If you did that, you were going to be in for a pitfall. There were no exceptions.

So why did I find herself drifting towards room 326 so often?

I tried to convince him to talk to me, or to at least acknowledge my presence in some way. It was his silence that scared me the most- Generally, most greasers who came in here would constantly swear so loudly you could hear them from across the hall.

This annoyed a lot of my colleagues, but I never really minded. Especially when they were hurt bad, it showed they would be alright, eventually. It was proof that they'd all leave the hospital alive and kicking. That was what mattered most.

Johnny Cade was different. He was too different, in more ways than just his wide-eyed silence. When he wasn't hurting so badly that he'd need another dose of painkillers, he was staring at the ceiling as if he could somehow see through it, to another dimension which no one else could see. I was always wondering what in the world he was thinking about so deeply.

For one whole day, he didn't say a word to anyone. If the doctor came in to ask a direct question, he'd answer with a nod or a shake of his head. I could see in his eyes how badly it hurt, even with the drugs they put him on. But he never complained, not once.

Only in his drugged sleep. If it wasn't for the fact that he'd let some words slip from his mouth unnoticed when he was pretty much unconscious, I wouldn't have known what his voice sounded like. And even so, it was only a few mumbled names that she couldn't completely make out. One of the names sounded something like "Ponyboy", but I was sure I'd heard that one wrong, at the very least.

I kept revisiting the small room he stayed in, even when there were other places I needed to be, more "important" people I needed to tend to, as my coworkers kept reminding her.

He's just as important as any of the big-shots, I thought. You can tell he's not your average greaser.

For such a quiet guy, he seemed to have plenty of friends. Another patient a few doors away--Dallas Winston, I remembered-- was as different from the shy, quiet Johnny as night was to day. He kept trying to threaten all the nurses enough so that one of them would eventually cave and let him up to go visit Johnny.

And then there were the two boys who were the first visitors Johnny had. I was cleaning the already close-to-sparkling table by his bedside when I heard them arrive. The other nurses were refusing them entry, saying stuff like, "He's too weak", "He's in critical condition", or "No visitors allowed".

I kept out of the argument, knowing I'd be on the side of the boys if I joined, and also that disagreeing with the other nurses would not help my already-tarnished reputation a single bit. I felt immensely guilty for not helping out, but my coworkers had a point: Johnny really was too weak for visitors. It wouldn't help his condition.

On the other hand, I was worried that he really didn't have much time left. He seemed to get worse, not better, as the hours went by, and that was never a good sign. If he really were to... pass on, he deserved to have as much time with the people who cared about him as he wanted. As much time as they wanted.

Dr. Mackenzie had arrived at the scene, ready to smooth out any rough spots with professional grace. I admired him for more than his skill as a doctor, though. He was a really great person inside, too.

Unlike many doctors I knew who cared about their patients only because it was their job and they had to, Dr. Mackenzie thought that every patient who came through the hospital doors was worth the same. He cared about them on a personal level, not just a professional one.

"Let them go in," I heard him say, "He's been asking for them. It can't hurt now."

So those were the boys whose names' he'd been saying in his sleep. I was strangely interested in seeing the faces behind the names.

They came in on the balls of their feet, looking uncomfortable and out of place. I walked over to the windows just to have something to do, and an innocent reason to stay in the room.

As I pulled down the shades, I heard the boy with the rust-coloured sideburns say, "Hey, Johnnykid."

I smiled at the nickname, and was pleasantly surprised when he opened his eyes and said immediately in a rough but quiet voice, "Hey, y'all." He even half-succeeded in smiling a bit.

"So he can talk after all," I couldn't help but comment.

The first guy turned around, looking faintly surprised to see me there. That look was quickly replaced with a scowl, which I was expecting. I was a nurse- assumed to be part of the group which didn't let them come in at first.

"They treatin' you okay, kid?" he said, turning back to Johnny.

He mumbled something too quietly for me to hear. It was straining him to say even a few words, I could tell.

While the tall guy and Johnny exchanged a few more words, the younger boy with the reddish-brown hair suddenly twisted around to look at me, as if wondering why I was still standing there and watching them.

I smiled slightly, and left the room to give them some privacy. It was really all I could give them at this point.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. My thoughts kept going back to "the boy with the burns and the broken back", as a couple nurses referred to him as. A slight commotion had broken out when his mother arrived at the hospital- apparently, he refused to see her. I could see why... the woman sure didn't look like the kind and loving type.

And so, my knowledge of this particular patient began to mount up. The more I knew about him, the more sorry I felt for him. Before I was even consciously aware of it, I'd grown attached to him.

XXX

Nobody noticed me on the third floor that night. I was off the clock, and wearing normal clothes, not the white nurses' uniform. To anyone not looking closely, I was just another visitor.

This late trip to the hospital had surprised even me. There was no reason why I was back here mere hours after leaving work today, except that I needed to know how Johnny Cade was doing. I had a strange gut-feeling that something was going to happen tonight... and I needed to prove myself wrong.

For about fifteen minutes or so, I just sat in a chair nearest to room 326, listening to the faint beeping of the machines in the rooms around me. I had almost convinced myself that I was being silly, and that nothing was going to happen, when two boys appeared, one running in my direction at a sprint, the other staggering along behind him. They were both covered in cuts and bruises, and the younger one looked about to pass out.

I stood up, alarmed. It was only when they came quite close to me when I recognised their faces: One of them had visited Johnny earlier today, and the other was Dallas Winston. How did he get out of the hospital? And what had happened to them?

But I guess I knew the answer. A fight. Rumbles, they called them. I wasn't totally oblivious to what the kids did with their spare time these days. It was just that he hadn't really seemed the type... but of course, he was a greaser too.

I felt a pang of pity, for not just Johnny or his friend, but for the whole East side of Tulsa- The side my parents had forbidden me from visiting as a kid, the side of the city which was dramatically different from the place I grew up in.

They rushed towards Johnny's room, and were stopped by a doctor who I wasn't too familiar with.

"I'm sorry, boys, but he's dying."

I sucked in a shocked breath. The rest of their words blurred together, but that wasn't important. It couldn't be happening already, could it?

The doctor eventually did let them in the room, and walked away. He looked... tired. Of what, I wasn't sure.

The entire third floor was silent. There weren't many people here in the hallways at this hour in the first place, but those who were here all stared towards the room in which the two greasers now watched their friend die.

Through the half-closed door, muffled voices could be heard. They went on for only a few sentences, before I heard loud thumps followed immediately by Dallas slamming the door open the remaining way, and sprinting out of there like the devil was after him.

And that meant... Johnny was dead. Almost every hospital staff knew his story, knew that he was a greaser who turned into a hero. We all read the news.

Nobody thought to stop Dallas from leaving. Everywhere I looked, people simply looked shocked, shocked that a hood could care so much about anyone. But I wasn't too worried. He'd survive it. I don't know how they did it, but these kids always did. They were tough...

But at the same time, were they really all that different? Did they not have a breaking point?

At the moment, those were purely rhetorical questions. Now, not so much.

XXX

I chewed my pencil until splinters of wood broke free and the lead was partly exposed, but I still couldn't put what I wanted to say into words. I'd never been much of a writer. It was simple enough of a message, but how could I make them sound sympathetic, but not overly so; meaningful, but not preachy?

Putting my half- mutilated pencil hesitantly to the paper, I started to write. It started off careful, formal, but my script got messier as the note progressed. By the time the entire page was filled, it became to the point where I myself could barely make out the words.

I sighed, crumbling the paper in one swift stroke. Closing my eyes, I focused on what I really wanted to say. When I opened them again, the room seemed brighter, clearer somehow. On a clean piece of paper, I carefully wrote down three short sentences using tiny lettering.

You've still got plenty of people who care. They're all rooting for you. Don't give up, Ponyboy.

That was it.

I sighed, taking out some scissors and cutting the note so that the edges closely hugged the border of the words. I stared at the book in my lap for a second longer, then taped my little message to a back corner of Johnny's letter. It was only faintly noticeable, but it was there.

I proceeded to slip the connected notes into a random page of the book, like it was before. The only reason I'd noticed it in the first place was because the piece of paper had fallen out a while after the original owner had passed on.

Everything was ready. Now the only thing left was to give the book to Ponyboy Curtis. I hoped my message would help, even if just a little. To show him that not everyone in the world was against him. There were people- strangers, even- who would look at boys like him and hope for the best.

He may not find my hidden note for a while, I thought calmly, but he will. Eventually.

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