Don't have much of an authors note to put. lol

Really big thanks to my beta Independence Undervalued who is beta-ing two of my stories. She absolutely rocks, and makes my stories ten times better than they would be.

Love to hear your guys thoughts.
Thanks for reading. :3

I walked straight to the kitchen to check the time prior to getting home. The clock seemed to be mocking me, with the time proclaiming to be a quarter to one. You've got to be kidding me, I thought with annoyance. At least I had time to come up with a story about what happened to my hand.

I went into my room, grabbed my sketch book off the desk, and settled down on the bed. Propping my knees up, I used them to balance the pad while flipping to a fresh sheet of paper. I stared at it a long moment, trying to conjure up what I was going to draw in my mind before trying to get it down on paper. I tossed the pad to the side, remembering I forgot to grab a pencil along with it.

I rummaged around my desk, not having much success in the pencil search. Where the hell were all my pencils? I left my room and walked into Darry's, not quite ready to give up on my pencil shirt. I felt a little weird about going through his stuff, but it's not like was snooping, I was just looking for a pencil.

I got on my hands and knees and peered under the bed, you never know he could have stashed some pencils underneath there. I pulled out the shoe box, wondering why he would keep an old shoe box under his bed.

I held my breath as I opened it, knowing that it wasn't gonna be empty nor were there going to be shoes inside of it. I released my breath, picking up the first picture that was on the top. A lump formed in my throat as I stared at the picture in my hands. I swiped at a tear that had spilled over and quickly dropped the picture back in the box, returning the lid with shaky hands before pushing it back where I found it, tucked beneath my brothers bed.

I quickly scrambled to my feet and went back to my own room. I wasn't ready to see what was in that box. Everything was too fresh, the wounds were still raw. I clutched my chest, expecting the gaping hole to widen and suck me in. Almost half hopeful. I sank down to my knees, trying to swallow around the lump in my throat. I was not going to cry. Crying was weak. I wasn't weak. Not anymore.

Once I was in control again, I went into the bathroom to see how much damage was done to my hand. Not bad, I decided after a few minutes of examining. I stuck it under the cold water, washing the remainder of the dry blood off. Hopefully no glass was stuck in it.

Let's see, 'Darry I was really excited so I was pumping my fist in the air, miscalculated, and hit a brick wall.' Yep, that sounded real plausible.

I finally accessed a pencil and wandered back into my room, picking up the sketch pad from where I tossed it. I closed my bad eye, not wanting to blurriness of it to mess anything up.

The pencil moved across the paper, my hand seeming to have a mind of it's own. Drawing for me was like when someone wrote in a journal. It showcased my personal thoughts and feelings. People seeing my drawing would be the same as someone looking inside of my mind.

I was lost in my drawing when I heard a voice that sounded like it was coming from miles away. It took me a few minutes that the voice was a lot closer.

"Ponyboy!"

It took me a long time to come back from where ever I was. I slowly looked over at Darry.

"Huh?" I asked dumbly.

"Your appointment." He gestured to his wrist, I guessed demonstrating the time.

"Oh, right. Let me just go change real quick."

"Hurry up, would ya?"

I nodded, while grabbing a long sleeved button up shirt from the closet. I decided the pants were fine to wear. Slipping into the bathroom, I slowly pulled off the shirt I had on, also long sleeved. I didn't look down when I slipped my arm through the sleeves and buttoned up the shirt, thankful I got all the buttons in the right hole.

"Let's go," I said walking out of the bathroom, and towards the front door.

"How was your day?" Darry questioned as soon as we were driving.

"Fine," I replied.

"What did you do?" He prompted.

"Nothing."

He gave up, and we drove the rest of the way in silence.

The waiting room of the doctors office wasn't that crowded, but there were a few people. I ignored the glances, picked up a magazine from a nearby table, and flipped through it. It wasn't long before the nurse called my name. She was my regular nurse, so she didn't sound surprised as she pronounced my name or give me a strange look when I walked through the door to the back.

"Hi Pony," She greeted me with a big smile. "Darry." She went on, extending her greeting to him.

"Carol," Darry replied politely.

Carol pushed open one of the closed doors and gestured for us to go in.

"Just hop up on the table, Ponyboy."

I did what I was told and my feet swung in the air my legs not being long enough to reach anything solid, making me feel very small.

"Take off your shirt for me?"

I fidgeted. "There's nothing new to see since last time."

"That's for Dr. Walters to decide."

I sighed defeated and slowly started to unbutton my shirt. Yanking it off, I held it out to Darry, who took it and folded it over his arm.

I stared at the wall white, feeling more exposed than I usually did.

"How'd that happen?" Darry demanded, noticing the cut on my hand.

I shrugged.

Carol came closer to examine it and I flinched away.

"Ponyboy..." Her voice was gentle. "I have to see it."

"It has nothing to do with why I'm here today."

She gave in, gave Darry a sympathetic smile, and told us the Doctor would be in soon before retreating.

I could feel Darry's eyes on me, I ignored him the best I could by focusing on the slow tick coming from the clock hanging on the wall.

It wasn't long before the doctor came in. "How are we feeling?" He asked cheerfully.

I don't know nor care how you're feeling, but I'm feeling pretty crummy, I wanted to say, but of course refrained from saying. Instead I mumbled, "Fine."

"Hmmm...," he said after a couple of minutes of poking and prodding me.

"What's wrong?" Darry asked already alarmed.

"It looks like there might be an infection setting in," he told us, or should I say, told Darry.

"An infection? What does that mean?" Darry demanded.

It was like I wasn't even in the room. I wondered if anyone would notice if I just got up and walked out. I was guessing they would, considering they would have nothing to poke anymore. I didn't want to answer or ask any of these questions so I guess it wasn't so bad being ignored. Better then be acknowledged.

"I don't think it's too serious. I'm going to start him on some antibiotics, but I want him back next week. Overall he seemed to have healed nicely."

A few minutes later I was pulling my shirt back on. Healed nicely. I guess if you saw me before you would have said it healed nicely too. I cringed slightly remember being in the church. Remember when I tripped and my face fell on the piece of tin that was in there and blistered to it in seconds.

I tried to get the memory out of my head, hoping that maybe this would be the time it went and never came back.

I went straight to my room as soon as we got home. I was reading a book when Sodapop walked in, but I didn't bother looking up from it. Not even when he cleared his throat three times.

"Pony?" His voice sounded so pathetically sad I had to look at him.

"Yeah?"

"Wanna go see a movie tonight?" He wanted to be on my territory. Sodapop hated movies. Having to sit still for over an hour just didn't appeal to him.

"Girlfriend's busy?"

"This has nothing to do with her, Pony. I just wanna spend sometime with my brother."

"Bet she was real happy about that," I said with biting sarcasm.

Soda was staring at me like I was a stranger. "I don't know why you have a problem with her. She really likes you, thinks you're really brave."

I had to laugh out loud at that. "She tell you that?"

"Just talk to me, Pone. Why are you being like this?"

"Get out." I wasn't angry, wasn't upset, just tired of pretending. Pretending that his girlfriend wasn't a bitch. Pretending that he actually cared about me.

He looked startled. "What?"

"This is my room now and I want you out." My voice rose with each word and soon enough Darry stuck his head inside the door. "What's going on in here?"

"Nothing," Soda stood up but was still staring at me like I was an alien and he was waiting for his brother to reappear. He finally walked out the door though.

I tried to drown their voices out but I could still hear them talking in low voices.

"Soda, you know not to push him."

"That's not even Ponboy anymore. I mean who is that, Darry? Where'd our kid brother go?"

He went into that fire, I thought, and never came back out.