A/N: Wow! Thanks to all of you sooo much! I NEVER expected to get this many reviews...well, I did kinda ask for 'em didn't I. But Still! Thank you all very much, I'll personally respond to your reviews probably in the next chapter, but you don't even know how nice that makes me feel! That really made my day, thanks again, and here's the next Chapter for you!

Disclaimer: Sorry, I don't own The Outsiders or the characters, but I do own the ones that you've never heard of, because I made them up!

Summary: Ponyboy asks a girl to help him train for track try-outs. But as their friendship forms he'll have to witness a lot of things that he never even imagined was real. The Drama ensues.

Ages: Ponyboy, 14 Jimmie Lee, 15

Runnin' Barefoot

Chapter: Four

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It didn't really matter that I had just received the beating of a lifetime. It just meant I was one step closer to being a better track runner.

"Darry, it's fine, geez!" I complained. As soon as he saw me walk through the door he made me put a hot rag on my eye, and an ice pack on my jaw. That's Darry for you: tough as nails, but he could turn into a caring mother and a professional nurse in two seconds. Soda looked at me and had a grin half the size of Texas on his face.

"Boy, Pony, someone really gave it to ya, huh?"

"Come on Darry, let the kid wear 'em. Bruises never hurt no one." Two-Bit piped up with a beer in his hand. " 'Sides, it makes him look tough. 'Specially that one on his eye. I bet that one hurt like hell, didn't it, Ponyboy?" He laughed.

"You bet your life it did." I grumbled. That guy was extremely heavy handed. My tooth was still loose from that blow to my jaw. But, I can take a good beating. I'm not sure if that's an advantage or a disadvantage, but it was a fact.

"I don't care how tough it looks. Yer gonna keep it on there 'till that swellin' goes down, you got that Pony?" He said, walking through the living room and putting on a shirt. "We're prob'ly gonna have to pull that tooth too..." He trailed. Sitting down next to Sodapop on the sofa. I knew he probably didn't want to, but we sure couldn't afford a trip to the dentist.

"Who'd you get into it with anyway, Pony? You never told us." Soda asked. He looked at me and there was a gleam in his eye. I wasn't sure what it was at first, but then all at once, I knew what it was. He was proud of me. Both him and Darry were. I got the living daylights beaten out of me, and I had taken it like it was nothing. I was still taking it like a pro. A swollen eye and a messed up bottom jaw don't really start to hurt until well after you get them, but I didn't show that I was in pain. At least not that much. I was happy that they were proud of me, but I wasn't happy that I had to be pounded for it. So it was a kind of bittersweet thing, I guess.

"Just some soc." I lied. "His girlfriend couldn't get her locker open, so I did it for her. And he just came up swingin' at me." Well, it wasn't a total lie. I wasn't sure if Johnny was Jemima's boyfriend or not. But it was pretty obvious to me now that she and her friends were in a very tight-nit group. Like me and the gang. Just then something caught my attention. Johnny. His name was Johnny.

But he couldn't have been any more opposite than Johnny. Johnny was small and quiet. That Johnny was about as big as Steve, and his voice boomed from all the way down the hall. Johnny was shy. That Johnny...well, I'm not too sure if he was shy or not, but I didn't think so from how I met him. Johnny was sensitive and didn't really get into scraps unless there was no avoiding it. From what I could tell, this Johnny picked fights from whoever decided to mess with his friends. Johnny would fight for anyone of us too, but still...after knowing Johnny for so long, that name didn't really seem to suit anyone but him. It was like he made a whole definition for the name Johnathon, and then the other Johnny came up and defied it in less than a minute. I dunno, maybe it was just the way that I thought about it. I didn't really know Johnny.

Maybe he was just like Johnny. Maybe they had a gang exactly like ours, only in some other alternate universe sort of way. Maybe Johnny was Johnny. Maybe around his other friends he was shy and quiet, and he had an abusive alcoholic father who beat him every time he saw him. Maybe he had a deadbeat mom who couldn't even stand the thought of him and kicked him out of the house every other night, but didn't show it around others because he had to keep up the illusion that he was ruff and tuff. Maybe he came to Jemima to talk to her, like Johnny did me. And maybe he felt that he had no other reason to live except for his friends. Maybe on the inside he was just a tired little puppy in the middle of the street who had been kicked too many times, and didn't have any love in his life except for the kind that his friends gave to him.

Maybe Ray was Dallas. Tall and lean, and heartless. Maybe he was just as cold and hateful as Dally was. Maybe he had been thrown into the clink when he was 10 just like Dallas. Maybe all of the hatred and racism that was beaten into him and his friends and family had driven him to become cold and mean. Maybe now he hated everything and everyone because he didn't know how else to get rid of all his anger. Maybe he took his rage out on himself and the world, and fought everyone that even looked at him the wrong way. Maybe he was just a cruel thug that was headed nowhere and was going there fast. Just like Dally...

"Ponyboy?" I heard Two-Bit say. I mean, I heard him, but I didn't listen. I was too caught up in my thoughts now. It was like he was far away; his voice seemed distant. I could hear him, but I couldn't, you know?

Maybe they had a Two-Bit too, who only went to school for kicks. Maybe he was funny, and always had to have the last word...

"What's wrong with 'im?" Two-Bit said again. Sodapop looked up at him, and then over at me. My eyes were downcast, and my eyebrows were furrowed, and I was chewing. He nodded and grinned.

"He's thinkin'." He said. "Happens almost everyday, ever since he was a baby. You'll be talkin' to him, then all of a sudden he quits talkin' and looks out into space like that." Soda slapped his knee. "Boy howdy, if that boy doesn't have an imagination, I don't know who does." Two-Bit looked at me again, with a confused smile.

"Don't worry. He'll snap out of it in a few minutes." Soda said, turning back to the t.v.

Maybe they had a Steve too. Maybe he had some complicated hairstyle. Maybe he dropped out of school too, and knew everything there was to know about cars. Maybe he worked at some old gas station on the other side of town. The side of town we never went to. I think it was about right then when something dawned on me. Something that literally scared the hell out of me. Something that made me question reality in all it's existance.

Maybe Jemima was me.

"Are you sure he's alright?" Two-Bit asked. "Maybe it was that lick to the head he got. You sure it didn't mess him up?"

"Yeah, Two-Bit, I'm sure. Don't worry about it. Just give it 5 minutes. Maybe even less."

Maybe she was the youngest in the group. Maybe she liked to think and write and look at the sunset like I did. Maybe she had an older brother or sister that was unbelievable good looking, that made people stop in the street just to stare at them. Maybe they dropped out of school just like Soda did. And had to make a living on a full-time minimum wage job. Maybe everyone loved them like they did Soda. And maybe she loved them as much as I loved Soda.

Maybe she had another brother or sister who stopped right after their senior year in high school. Maybe they had to work two jobs just to keep her family together. Maybe they treated her like a little kid and she had to be in the house before midnight, and made her get good grades in school and keep out of trouble in the mean time.

Maybe she didn't want to be labeled as someone below average. Like me. Maybe she was just mad at everyone because they looked down on her just because of what color or status she was. Maybe every time she walked down the street people would give her mean looks and and mumble or yell out 'Nigger', or 'Coon'. Just like they mumbled or hollered 'Greaser'. Or 'Hood' to me. Maybe she was the only one out of her gang who actually had a chance of making it out of here, but it seemed impossible the way society was around here. Maybe she was just as good at school as I was, getting A's and B's, but having no one even care because she was the color that she was. Maybe she was just mean because she knew that people would always treat her like dirt just because she couldn't change the way she was, and everyone thought she was the scum of the earth because of it. And maybe her parents died a long time ago, and it made her that much more mean because she lost the ones that loved and cared for her the most.

I started to feel my stomach drop and my heart get heavy. I'm not sure if it was guilt, or just hurt. But I knew that someone actually knew exactly how I felt about everything that was going on in my life. And it was a black girl.

Maybe she knew that she wouldn't get anywhere because of her smarts because no one paid attention to them and just assumed that she was dumb. So she turned to track. She liked to run, so maybe she used that for her advantage, like I did. So that maybe she could have a chance at something that no one else in her life did. To get somewhere.

By then I had finally realized why she was the way she was towards me. I would act the exact same way, if not worse, if some rich socy boy came up to me and asked for my help for something. It would make me jump to conclusions too. I would think he was just trying to use me so that he would be better than me and use it towards his advantage and my demise. Now I knew. And I had ridiculed her for it. I felt lousy. I had yelled at her and put my hands on her for something that I would have done in the same situation. I was a hypocrite, I felt, lousy.

"Hey Ponyboy!" I finally snapped out of my thoughts when I heard Darry yell from the kitchen. I looked up at him, and looked outside. I couldn't believe it had gotten so dark in only a few minutes.

"I've been callin' you for ten minutes, come and get dinner before it gets cold."

Ten minutes? I thought to myself. But I hadn't even been home for 5 minutes...

I got up and went into the kitchen, when I was once again, weirded out. Johnny, Dallas and Steve were there, all getting plates too...but...when did they get here?

"Did yall just get in?" Johnny and Steve looked at each other, then back at me.

"No..." Johnny said slowly. "Pony, we've been here for almost two hours."

"Wha..?" I said, then turned when I heard Two-Bit from the refrigerator.

"I told you." He said, grabbing another beer out of it, and kicking it closed. "That hit messed him up." He chuckled. Soda looked at him and grinned then looked back at me.

"Don't worry about it, Ponyboy. Just get yer food 'fore it gets cold."

I shook it off and grabbed my plate. I sat back down in the living room and started thinking again. I couldn't help it. My mind is the kind that wanders. Mom told me that, about a year before she and dad died.

I had heard that somewhere in the world, there was someone that was exactly like you. I would have NEVER in my life, even imagined that my person would be a black girl. Not ever.

Thanks for reading once again! I think this is my favorite chapter, I hope you like it too! Not a long author's note, but don't forget to review! Lots-o-Love to everyone. Peace!