A/N: All rights go to S. E. Hinton. These are her characters. I just stole them to make up my own little story.

Ponyboy

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Years. Ten since I've seen the lost eyes of an abused puppy dog. Since I've heard a hood's account on his latest robbery. Eight since I said my goodbyes to the movie star handsome face with the laughing shimmering eyes. Since I had tried to awkwardly shake the hand of one who was thought to hate me, but then was pulled into a brotherly hug. Six since I've heard the sarcastic jokes and bad puns of a drunken shoplifter. Since the worried anger of a loved one had made me feel warm. It all comes down to years. Thought to be just numbers indicating the passage of time, but to some they mean so much more.

I'd have to say, though, that there was never a time I had been this close to the brink of death. With all the past twenty-four years of my life whizzing by. I'd always scoffed at those who'd told me it was true. That you do see your life before your eyes the moment you die. Now I know they were right.

I see myself playing football with all those I had loved. The two adults standing on the porch holding affectionate ghostly smiles on their faces. Then there's my tenth birthday and I get those running tennis shoes I'd been dreaming of. The ones I'd been drooling over, sitting in that display case of the Nike shoe store. And the day three years later when a family of five is made three; made real by a simple phone call.

My lungs fill with water as I go back to the park. A soc is dead and two boys are left confused and scared. I feel the warmth of the fire, burning the church, and a sharp sting where a child bites me. The ringing in my head is unbearable as I watch the young teenagers we used to be, battling it out in a childish fight. The helplessness in my heart is true as I see the life snuffed out of my friend, lying in that hospital bed. The chagrin of passing out right after another goes down, roaming unconsciousness while I leave the others to suffer their alertness.

Then we're standing out on the front porch, and I'm making him promise to come back. And Soda smiles that smile and reassures me he'll be back, all limbs attached. I realize now he'd never specified he'd be living. I hug him, and I hug his best friend. They leave and I know nothing's ever going to be right after this. It's confirmed when a year later he is sent back in a black coffin, and Steve is reported MIA.

Feeling the panic of confusion in the middle of a high school party. No one wanting to call cops for fear of being arrested. I'm vaguely aware of strong arms encasing me and being thrown into a truck. I look over and my brother's there, crying just like me, as he drives me to the hospital. The vow I make then and there is kept. I haven't had drugs since.

And after that experience, I leave. I feel the complete bitterness now, the same as then, as I drive away, Two-Bit and Darry impassively meeting my eyes in the rear-view mirror. I haven't gone back since, and will never have the chance. Not after spending the last six years of my life living in the dark haunting basement of a doper. Not after heartlessly wrecking everything in sight, including the hearts of those who once loved me. And definitely not after walking into the blow that would prove to kill me.

As I'm lying in this alleyway, I feel sorry. I've disappointed every person I've ever wanted to please. My blood is pooling and I know I only have a minute left, and I wonder if Steve ever made it back, or if his fate was the same as Soda's. I wonder if Two-Bit ever got that job he'd been searching for, or if he'd still been bumming it around my old place. But the thought that haunts me the most, is my last. And it's of Darry. After all he's done for me, I can give him nothing except a bill for a gravestone.

A/N: Well, what did you think? Terrible, amazing? Frightful, ingenious? Criticism is very welcome. I'm thinking of writing Pony's funeral inDarry's POV. What do you think? Dare I do it? Or leave this piece of work? Review, please.