Stay Gold, Ponyboy

It had been four years since the deaths of Johnny and Dallas. Ponyboy tried to make a life for himself, with Cherry and his brothers. He tried to go to school. Then a boy killed Sodapop in broad daylight on September 12. It had been a year to date; since then, Two-Bit had moved away to flee the grieving of his best friend and Darry spent most of his waking hours at work, or drunk. Ponyboy was alone. He'd spent the first few months grieving, the next angry. After that, he turned to stone; a body with a purpose and no feelings attached. He had found Sodapop's murderer, but his revenge plan wasn't just for his brother. He was going to kill this boy for Johnny and Dallas.
Now he stood above the boy, pistol to his temple. He mustn't have been any older than Johnny had been, with the same droopy hair and puppy eyes. To anyone else this boy would look small and innocent, undeserving of the fate pressed against his skull; but Ponyboys interior was cold, and he saw the boy for his murder.
Ponyboy's breathing was steady as he stood above the shivering body and thought back to that night. It has been chilly; Sodapop's leather jacket hung lazily around his body. Boys from the other side of town had approached them, but they seemed harmless. That was until this one pulled a gun on the two. Sodapop yelled at Ponyboy to run as he pushed him out of the way of fire and pulled out his own gun. Two bullets had hit Sodapop in the chest before he got one in the boy's leg. The boys last bullet lodged into Sodapop's skull, and he was dead. Ponyboy found his brother's body with Darry the next morning.
He wore his Sodapop's jacket now, the two bullet holes as a reminder of why he was there.
The boy trembled beneath him. For a split second Ponyboy thought back to the man Johnny had killed accidentally. He thought back to Dallas, gunned down in the streets by his own volition. He thought back to Johnny, sitting and dying in his hospital bed, whispering his dying breaths. Death was so sudden. A man breathed, he lived, and then he did not, just like this boy would.
All of these emotional thoughts came to an unfeeling Ponyboy far too fast. He steadied himself and thought of Johnny's words to him; "Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold..." His words, a reference to the poem they once memorized.
He thought of that poem now, as a single tear traced its way down his face.
He pulled the trigger.

"Nothing gold can stay."