Chapter 12

I can hear his words, in that soft southern drawl, in my head: Listen, Sarah: this is yours….No matter what, or where, or how, this rock is yours now. No matter what it's ever been, now it's me telling you that you were here, and that I was here, and that I'm glad we had a chance to become friends.

My father has to carry me out of the cemetery. After seeing the inscription on the rock, I'd stumbled back to Grandpa's grave site and collapsed to my knees, sobbing, and I couldn't stop. It was him. He was there, and I was there, and now he was gone.

But finally, finally, I understood what my story had been about.

It hadn't been about saving Johnny, or stopping Dally from getting killed. It hadn't even been about changing anything in Ponyboy's story. What I had wanted most in the world, and it was so obvious now, was to talk to my grandpa, to get to know him better. To tell him I was sorry I'd taken him for granted. And he'd given that to me. No, he'd given that to us, because the story had been as much for him as it had been for me. My grandpa had given us the chance to have our adventure together.

My family chalks my breakdown up to exhaustion and the stress of the trip. They have no idea how completely I am finally able to mourn, and how good it feels to know that person I am missing is truly the one we just buried, not just someone I created in a dream.

I tap my pen against my notebook as the runway disappears from beneath us. I'd been up until two in the morning, starting with the only sentence I'd written down back in the hospital waiting room days earlier and scribbling down the rest of our story from there. I turn back to the first page to read through it again on the flight: "I squinted against the bright sunlight as I walked out of the movie theatre. My brother, Ponyboy, and I had gone to see a Paul Newman movie."

I'm four chapters in when my eyes begin to droop. Three hours of sleep just isn't doing it for me. I close the notebook, lean my head against the window, and close my eyes.

#

"I mean, what's he like? I feel like I know Soda from the way you talk about him; tell me about Darry. Is he wild and reckless like Soda? Dreamy, like you?"

"He's…he's not like Sodapop at all and he sure ain't like me. He's hard as a rock and-"

"Oh, I think he's a lot like you," I interrupted. "I mean, he likes to give me a hard time and stuff, and that's like your favorite thing in the world."

Ponyboy turned around and rolled his eyes. "Really? What're you doin' here, anyway? This is my little sister, Sarah," he told Cherry before turning back to me. "I thought you were supposed to be home with Mrs. Arben."

I picked up a rock, tossed it in the air, and caught it. "She fell asleep, so I snuck out. Come on, don't look at me like that. Darry'll never know."

Cherry smiled. "I'll certainly never tell." She leaned closer to me. "So, Sarah, what're you like?"

Before I could answer, Ponyboy cut in. "She's kind of like the maid. She cooks, she cleans—basically whatever I tell her to do—and she plays with baby dolls."

"Obviously he's lying," I said as we started walking. "I haven't played with baby dolls since I was eight. Ponyboy, on the other hand…."

I arched to the side when he tried to give me a playful jab me in the ribs.

Cherry laughed. "It's nice to see brothers and sisters who get along. Y'all are funny."

Ponyboy slowed down. "Could you excuse us for a minute, Cherry? I need to talk to Sarah." He dropped back from the others so he was next to me and lowered his voice. "Alright, here's the deal: One, Darry will find out about this, he ain't stupid. Two, you stand back and stay out of it when that Mustang shows up. And three." Ponyboy caught the rock I'd tossed in the air, jogged forward a few steps, turned, and tossed it back to me with a wink and a grin. "Took you long enough to get back here."

"Yeah, sorry about that." I smiled and rubbed my thumb across the silky smooth white surface of the rock before dropping it into my pocket. "I had a funeral to go to."