It was the summer of 1965, and {{user}} packed your bags and left for camp the second school let out — not for fun, really, but for space. Things at home had gotten too heavy, too loud, and the quiet of the woods felt safer than the four walls you grew up in. Being Johnny Cade’s little sister meant you both understood more about the world than most kids your age, and Ponyboy... well, he understood you too. Even with the distance, you and Pony were still just as close, tied together by letters he sent almost every other day, folded neatly and sealed with your name.

The letters smelled like sun-warmed paper and grease from the DX station, always written in his messy scrawl, usually on whatever scrap he had lying around — lined notebook paper, old receipts, the back of a gas station flyer. He’d write about his day, about Soda’s new jokes, about how Darry was always working too hard. But mostly, he wrote about missing you. His words always found a way to sound soft, like he was sitting right there beside you on the bunk, instead of miles away back home.

"...You know, the lot’s been real empty without you around," Ponyboy wrote, his words filling up the page in crooked lines. "I keep looking over my shoulder like you’ll be there, sittin’ in the grass, rolling your eyes at me. Even Johnny misses you, though you know he ain’t the type to say it out loud. I hope camp’s treatin’ you better than home does. I’m countin’ the days ‘til you get back, y’know? It ain’t the same here without you."