The ending is here! Thanks for sticking with me. For those who don't want this to be the ending, I will be uploading an alternative ending shortly that follows from the events of this chapter.

Chapter 9 - Ending

A year goes by. Two. Three. Ponyboy sees Soda become a dad again, and again. Three beautiful kids. Two-Bit gets married to his old lady, as much as the two fight. They even have a kid together. Steve was in the army, living in North Carolina and married with a kid on the way. His college friends were getting masters degrees, dream jobs, traveling, getting engaged.

But Ponyboy stayed the same. His life was obsession, food, weight, calories. Anxiety and depression. It hurt that the world was passing him by. But it also reinforced his desire to lose weight: it was all that he had left. It was the only thing he was good at anymore. He could be a fat loser or he could see what would happen if he lost as much weight as any human could.

He worked part time. He took a few classes at the community college, even becoming editor of the college newspaper for a few months after someone stepped down, and regularly received praise from professors for his writing. But each time he seemed to get somewhere, he stepped away, and back into his own personal drama, his inner turmoil. His plan was still to become a writer, to obtain a college degree. But it was like his brain wouldn't let him.

When he was 23 and 123 pounds, he made it known that he wanted to get out of the guardianship agreement he had with Darry.

"I don't think so," Darry said as he busied himself with cleaning dishes. He paused and looked Ponyboy over. "You're still underweight and aren't making the best decisions."

"Fine," he said with a sigh, expecting this exact reaction from his brother but feeling annoyed nonetheless. "Darry, can I move back to Norman? I want to go back to school."

"No. Absolutely not."

"I have enough money saved up for tuition and books."

"There are schools right here in Tulsa," Darry replied without looking up from the sink and dirty dishes.

"I don't want to go to Oral Robert's. I'm allowed to have goals and a life, Darry."

Darry sighed, placed the clean plate on the dryer rack, and turned around. "Ponyboy, I really don't think you're well enough to live away from us."

"Darry, I'm almost at a healthy weight. I've come a long way. I just want to be happy again. I don't think I can ever weigh as much as I used to before… everything happened."

Darry paused to think before frowning. "I don't think it's a good idea, Pone."

Darry relented. After 7 months, 10 pounds gained, and a promise to continue with weekly therapy and monthly medical appointments, Darry allowed Ponyboy to move to Norman, Oklahoma to continue working toward his English degree.

Everyone was proud of Ponyboy for the progress he had made. Steve, Two-Bit, Soda, Darry, and all their kids and their wives were present for a small goodbye party. For the first time in a while, Ponyboy felt proud of himself.

When the night ended, he went into the bathroom to shower and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He was startled at what he saw. Chub. His face was fat, a double chin obvious. He could see the outline of a potbelly from his t-shirt and in horror, he slowly raised his shirt up to reveal even more chub. He wanted nothing more than to escape from his own body, to jump out of his own skin.

He binged that night. He had stashes of food piled away specifically for this occasion, and he devoured it all. Cookies, snack cakes, chips, Soda, crackers, pretzels. The relief was great when he threw it all up, and he finally felt at peace if just for a moment. He looked at himself in the mirror when he was through. Bloodshot eyes, rotting teeth. His teeth were getting so bad. He smiled at himself sarcastically, a gruesome toothy grin. In a way, he liked knowing that he was destroying himself.

—-

His plan was to lose the extra weight when he got to Norman. He was heavier than he'd been in years and the weight was uncomfortable for him, making him feel hot, unhealthy, and heavy. Despite being just a single pound above underweight, he was unhealthy. Other people? They looked fine at his BMI. He needed to be careful, though. Spare tires around waists weren't healthy and his had to go. Just 10 pounds, and he would look okay.

Quickly, professors in the English department began to take notice of Ponyboy's talent, and he was offered a position as an undergraduate assistant in the English department. He was speechless, dumbfounded when offered the position. Completely unqualified, he believed, he faked his way through it, wanting so badly to be good enough. Besides his brothers and losing weight, writing was the only thing he still cared about.

Most of the other students were a few years younger than him by now, which made him feel awkward. They only respect him because of his age and experience, he thought. He wasn't particularly worthy of admiration. Nonetheless, Ponyboy tried to take advantage of the opportunities that suddenly seemed to be available to him.

He wrote research papers on social issues, religion, politics, environmentalism, media, social justice, art, current events. One particular paper on adolescent grief won him many praises, and especially made his brothers brim with pride.

He was doing so well, yet he still hated what he saw in the mirror. He lost the extra 10 pounds he came to Norman with quickly through reducing his intake and increasing his physical activity. Not an extreme amount, just enough to maintain his usual weight of 123 pounds - comfortably underweight. His studies, his job in the English department, new friends: they all made losing weight seem less important.

He became too busy to obsess over his weight, to lose more, to get to his goal of zero. There were too many social events and parties and dates that involved food.

He had a girlfriend. A young woman who worked as an administrative assistant in the English department named Aimee. For years, anorexia nervosa had robbed him of sexual desire and now that life was going well and he was just a bit underweight, he started to get some of it back. He fell in love with the short-haired brunette and divulged everything to her. Johnny and Dally, the church fire and the kids, being almost drowned to death, the relentless harassment and abuse he received because of it all. She knew about his anorexia.

He told her things he never even admitted to himself. At Christmas, a grinning Ponyboy introduced her to his brothers.

It was a miracle. Ponyboy was finally cured! He had a girlfriend and a job and a future. He was still too skinny, but he was eating and wasn't on the path to more weight loss. We're so proud of you, he was told by his brothers, teachers, and friends.

A year later. A year filled with love, and loathing, learning, writing, friends, some heartache but he was still with Aimee. Weight loss and weight gain. At this point, he had enough college credits to start considering graduate school. He had goals. He was considering schools in California and Texas, but his heart was in Norman, Oklahoma. He'd fallen in love with the school and the people. And besides, he wasn't good enough for the great schools. He just wasn't. At one time, he may have been good enough but over the years, his health and the tragedies in his life had taken their toll on his ability to learn and process new information, on the creative process itself.

In fact, he kind of felt bad for Norman, Oklahoma. Putting up with him, pitying him. He didn't know why he tried to write, anyway. He really should give it up and stop embarrassing himself.

If he couldn't be good at writing, he'd at least be good at losing weight: something he had proved to be great at in the past. Not that this beer belly he wore was any indication, however.

It started off small. He just wouldn't eat unless he was at a social function, or with his girlfriend. Then he started to cut back there, too. He was canceling plans so that he could run, and then canceling plans so that he could binge and purge. Somewhere along the way, his relationship with Aimee started to crumble, and then it started to implode. They'd broken up once, twice, three times. She called his brothers sobbing, saying that he had stopped eating and had become skeletal.

He felt 19 again. Starve, starve, run. Starve, starve, run. Binge purge. Lather, rinse, repeat. His brothers, two hours away in Tulsa, were mortified. After making all kinds of threats as his guardian, Darry eventually got him in to see a doctor who advised him to go to the emergency room immediately. He refused. He wouldn't go into Darry's car, and walked the 6.5 miles back to his dorm. I'll start eating and gaining weight, Darry. But I won't ever go to the hospital. It will just make things worse.

He promised to gain 5 pounds in the next week. It's just stress, one hiccup. Don't make me give everything up just because I'm not perfect, Darry!

He started seeing a professor 5 years older than him called Vera. Very territorial, very smart, very cunning. Quite attractive, especially for him, considering what a mess he'd made of his appearance. She'd had her eyes on him for a while, before he got skeletal again, and now that he was finally available, she jumped at her chance.

"It's my oldest brother, Darry. He's so controlling. That's why I can't eat," he lied. "I need to get away from him."

It was ludicrous that an individual as smart and capable as Ponyboy had a guardian, Vera thought. No wonder why the poor guy was such a mess.

"Stay away from him! He'd be doing so much better if you'd leave him alone," the curly haired redhead yelled at Darry when he came back the next week to make sure his brother was doing okay and eating like he promised to. "You did this to him!"

Darry was speechless at first. Then finally, when he got with the program, he retorted. "I don't know what he's told you, but I suggest you stay out of this because you have no idea what's going on."

A scene was made between Darry, Aimee, Vera, and Ponyboy. Screams, accusations, threats. Eventually, school security had to get involved and told Darry to get off school property. When Darry informed the officers that he was Ponyboy's legal guardian, they told him he'd have to take their discussion off of school property. "Don't make me call the cops," Darry threatened Ponyboy.

"Go ahead. I'll tell them everything," Ponyboy replied with a glare.

"Wow," Darry replied with a frown, shaking his head. He went to Aimee's dorm with her. He picked up the phone, intent on dialing the police. But he stopped. He couldn't. He called Pony's dorm. The resident assistant answered. "I need to speak with Ponyboy Curtis," Darry said. After a few minutes, he heard Pony answer.

"Hello?"

"Ponyboy, when you're in the hospital, dying, again, don't call me. I don't want to hear it. You've crossed a line. I pray you don't die." He hung up the phone.

—-

The next month, Ponyboy hardly ate anything. He was sick to his stomach. All the damage he'd done with his reputation, his body, and most importantly to his brother.

"I've ruined everything," he sobbed to Soda over the phone multiple times in that month.

"Pony, you have not ruined everything. It's going to be okay. I promise. Do you want me to take you to the hospital?"

"No, Soda. It will just make everything worse. Please. Can I come stay with you when the semester is over? I'll go see doctor Morgan and I'll eat."

That was the plan. For Ponyboy to make it through the semester and come home and get treatment from Dr. Morgan. It was disappointing, devastating that Ponyboy was relapsing. But he would be okay. Probably.

Eventually, he stopped talking to Vera and quit his position as an undergraduate assistant. He couldn't do it anymore. He could barely walk. And Vera was getting on his case about eating.

"I'm so fucking scared. I think I'm dying. Please don't tell my brothers," Ponyboy confessed to Aimee.

"You need to go to a hospital, Ponyboy," she said tearfully.

When he reached 93 pounds, he went from starvation to binging and purging multiple times per day. He couldn't help it. He was powerless to it. Each day he would wake up and tell himself he wasn't going to binge and the very first thing he'd do is binge like mad. His weight continued to drop but despite this, he was swelling up like crazy. His abdomen was dissented, feet and hands swollen. He misattributed it to calorie retention but he'd later learn it was actually a sign of organ failure.

He wanted help, and a hospital, and forgiveness and love from his brothers. He actually wanted to be forced to eat. Eating without being the one to have made the decision sounded right.

But he also wanted to keep going. He wanted to be left alone to starve until there was nothing left to starve anymore. It was his destiny.

The semester ended. He wasn't sure what his grades ended up being. He kept forgetting to check. He was "taking a summer class," but not really. Just a reason to keep his dorm room.

On Monday, June 24th the scale read 84 pounds.

The lowest number he'd seen. It still seemed heavy.

He remembered binging on cereal, muffins and orange juice. Thousands of calories worth. He remembered purging. And then everything went black.

The next thing he remembered was waking up on a bed. A hospital bed? Something was on his face, in his nose. He brought his hand to it. Wow, his arm felt so heavy. It was a struggle to lift it.

"Leave it alone, Ponyboy. You need it to help you breathe."

His brother's voice. He couldn't remember which one.

He felt so weak. His body felt cemented to the bed. Everything hurt. He thought of his swollen ankles, feet, stomach. Was that what landed him here? Did he rupture his stomach? He started to remember purging. Did he get everything out? He started to panic.

"Fat," he mumbled. "I have fat on me."

"Huh? No, Ponyboy, you don't have any fat on you," the same voice from before said. It sounded defeated.

Ponyboy instantly felt embarrassed that he said those private, vulnerable thoughts out loud and that someone replied to him.

Exhaustion pulled his eyelids closed. When he opened them seconds or hours later, four faces peered down at him, all wearing varying looks of concern. He tried to speak, but he just couldn't. Why were Soda and Darry crying? Eyelids fall back down again.

—-

"Mmm sorry. I don't know.. what's happened to me ..." Speaking was a struggle. He felt like he just ran a marathon. He cursed himself internally for being so out of shape.

Ponyboy turns his head to his side to see Soda sobbing with Steve's shoulder around him. In turn, Ponyboy started sobbing. Seconds later, a monitor started screeching. Must have been his? Because a dozen or so medical personnel ended up right in his room. Severe anorexia nervosa. Kidney failure. Heart failure. Edema. Pulling and snapping and pricking. His brothers and friends stared in horror at the scene. He tried to speak out, to ask what was wrong but it's getting difficult to breathe, let alone speak. Wait, he can't breathe at all. A mask is placed on his face. He blinks a few times and everything goes black.