A/N: S. E. Hinton owns all rights to the characters of The Outsiders and her other stories, I only own my imagination.

I suppose they never would've read them anyway, but I wrote them all the same. They never paid attention to me, unless Mom was in one of her moods, or Dad was drunk. Then, the hollering and whippings would start. They didn't give a damn about me, though I wished they would. Oh, how I wished they would. They lived for the next drink, the next fight, the next screaming match. They never wanted me. I was the kink in their plans, the one thing that messed their lives up, the one thing that lived in spite of their best efforts.

Maybe tonight I'll give 'em what they want. I thought that every time I sat down to write one of those notes, but I was always too scared to carry the plan out. I'd had so many plans- the rope out back was strong enough, but I was too light for it to be of much use, I couldn't drive, so I couldn't crash the car, the bottle of sleeping pills would take too long, and my knife wouldn't do the job. So, I stayed alive. Besides, without me, the gang wouldn't be the same. Pony wouldn't have a buddy to talk to, Dally wouldn't stick around, it just wouldn't be the same.

I never told anyone about them. I was too scared, to tell the truth. If I said a word about the notes, my plans, or those idle thoughts in the back of my head, I'd have to accept them. I didn't want to accept them; they weren't gonna do anyone a lick of good. So, I stayed quiet. I stayed quiet until that night in the lot, when Pony and I were talkin' about those Socs. It just wasn't fair. He had a family that loved him to pieces, and I had nothing. Nothing can replace a family's love, but I wouldn't know much about that. My parents hated me, and they made sure I knew it.

So, the notes stayed hidden in a little box under my bed. I never thought about where I'd leave them, I just wrote them to keep the feelings away. I couldn't take much more of this, they were tearing me apart, and I knew I had to do something, or I'd explode. That's when I told him. I said "I can't take much more. I'll kill myself or something." I didn't mean to scare him, it just came out, but his face was ghost white when he whispered, "Don't. You can't kill yourself, Johnny." I had to backtrack, there was no way out otherwise. "Well, I won't. But I gotta do something. It seems like there's gotta be someplace without greasers or Socs, with just people. Plain ordinary people."

I shivered hard as he spoke of the country. The magical world he spun, where nothing existed except happiness, light, and warmth, sounded like music to my ears. And I soon fell asleep just listening to him talk. Maybe that's where I'll go. The country. I thought, just before drifting into a dream where nothing existed except heaven.